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The term genocide refers to violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the existence of the group. Learn about the origin of the term.
Jews were the primary targets for mass murder by the Nazis and their collaborators. Nazi policies also led to the brutalization and persecution of millions of others.
Cover of booklet titled "What Shall Be Done with the War Criminals?" Published by the United States Armed Forces Institute, this was one of a series of 42 pamphlets created by the U.S. War Department under the series title "G.I. Roundtable." From 1943-1945, these pamphlets were created to "increase the effectiveness of the soldiers and officers and fighters during the war and as citizens after the war." Many of the pamphlets addressed the possibilities of a postwar world.
Persecution of Jews and other targeted groups was already government policy in Germany once the Nazis were in power in 1933. But following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, war provided the opportunity and motivation for more ext...
The leaders of Nazi Germany, a modern, educated society, aimed to destroy millions of men, women, and children because of their Jewish identity. Understanding this process may help us to better understand the condit...
The study of the Holocaust raises questions about how the world can recognize and respond to indications that a country is at risk for genocide or mass atrocity. While each genocide is unique, in most places where genocide occurs, there are common...
Sophie was born Selma Schwarzwald to parents Daniel and Laura in the industrial city of Lvov, two years before Germany invaded Poland. Daniel was a successful businessman who exported timber and Laura had studied economics. The Germans occupied Lvov in 1941. After her father's disappearance on her fifth birthday in 1941, Sophie and her mother procured false names and papers and moved to a small town called Busko-Zdroj. They became practicing Catholics to hide their identities. Sophie gradually forgot that…
Learn about some aspects that are similar and some that are different in the history of racial antisemitism in Germany and racism in the United States.
Holocaust denial is any attempt to negate the established facts of the Nazi genocide of European Jews. Explore the articles in this series to learn about Holocaust denial and its origins.
Nicholas Winton organized a rescue operation that brought hundreds of children, mostly Jewish, to safety in Great Britain before WWII. Listen to his accounts.
Explore Erika Eckstut's biography and learn about the difficulties and dangers she faced in the Czernowitz ghetto.
Difficult debates took place within ghettos about whether and how to resist under the most adverse conditions. Read a rare account from the Lokacze ghetto.
March 14, 1938. On this date, Helen Baker documented what she witnessed when Germany annexed Austria. Helen and her husband Ross Baker were Americans living in Vienna.
The Nazi regime’s Nuremberg Race Laws of September 1935 made Jews legally different from their non-Jewish neighbors. The laws were the foundation for future antisemitic measures .
In the 1980s and 1990s, historian Peter Black worked for the US Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations, as part of a team tracking and prosecuting suspected war criminals. Black later served as the Senior Historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
After WWII and the fall of the Nazi regime, Holocaust survivors faced the daunting task of rebuilding their lives. Listen to Thomas Buergenthal's story.
Explore the story of over 2,000 Polish Jewish refugees who fled east to escape war-torn Europe. They sought safety in such distant places as China and Japan.
In 1936, John Woodruff was one of 18 African Americans on the US Olympic team competing in Berlin. He won the gold medal for the men's 800-meter race. In this clip he describes his feelings upon winning the medal. Interview date: May 15, 1996
Explore definitions, connotations, and evolving considerations when using the term bystanders in the range of behaviors and motivations during the Holocaust.
Excerpts from Elie Wiesel's addresses during US Holocaust Memorial Museum Days of Remembrance commemorations in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004.
Nazi efforts to control forms of communication through censorship and propaganda included control of publications, art, theater, music, movies, and radio.
Historical events should be analyzed in their appropriate historical context. Learn how to assess the identify the quality, reliability, and integrity of a source.
In Nazi Germany, the Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment spread ideology. It controlled the media and theater. Joseph Goebbels was its director. Learn more.
How did the United States respond to the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Germany? What did the US government know about the Nazi persecution of Jews and the “Final Solution”? Learn more
In 1939, as Chaim's tour in the Polish army was nearing its scheduled end, Germany invaded Poland. The Germans captured Chaim and sent him to Germany for forced labor. As a Jewish prisoner of war, Chaim later was returned to Poland. Ultimately, he was deported to the Sobibor camp, where the rest of his family died. In the 1943 Sobibor uprising, Chaim killed a guard. He escaped with his girlfriend, Selma, whom he later married. A farmer hid them until liberation by Soviet forces in June 1944.
Explore Gideon Frieder’s biography and learn about his experiences as a child during the Holocaust in Slovakia.
Read a summary extract from Eliezer Breslin’s testimony on escaping from the Mir ghetto, given during the WWII war crimes investigation into Semion Serafinowicz.
The Diary of Anne Frank is often the first exposure readers have to the history of the Holocaust. Learn about Anne's diary, including excerpts and images.
Recommended resources, topics, context, rationale, and critical thinking questions if you have limited time to teach about the Holocaust.
March 11-13, 1938. On this date, German troops invaded and incorporated Austria into the German Reich. This event is known as the Anschluss.
Edward was born to a Jewish family in Hamburg. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws prohibited marriage or sexual relations between German non-Jews and Jews. Edward was then in his mid-twenties. Edward was arrested for dating a non-Jewish woman. Classified as a habitual offender, he was later deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, near Berlin. He was forced to perform hard labor in construction projects. Edward had married shortly before his imprisonment, and his wife made arrangements for their…
In the 1980s and 1990s, historian Peter Black worked for the US Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations, as part of a team tracking and prosecuting suspected war criminals. Black later served as the Senior Historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The Germans occupied Kolo in 1939. In 1942 Alan was deported to the Lodz ghetto where he worked in food distribution. He took food each day to Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, chairman of the Jewish council. In 1944 Alan was forced to unload trainloads of coal and munitions in Czestochowa. In 1945 he was sent to the Dora-Mittelbau camp. As the Soviet army advanced, the inmates were transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where British forces liberated them in April.
After studying medicine at Wayne State University in Michigan, Harold joined the army in 1942. He was attached to the 107th Evacuation Hospital. The unit trained in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and then tracked the US First Army after the June 1944 Normandy invasion. Harold was attached to the US Third Army under George S. Patton in December. He went to Buchenwald shortly after the SS guards fled the camp in April 1945.
Jewish people have lived in Germany since the Middle Ages. Learn more about Jewish life, identity, and culture in Germany before the Nazis came to power.
President Barack Obama visited Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany on June 5, 2009. In a speech at the site, he repudiated Holocaust denial. Browse transcript.
First page of a letter from a US soldier describing "the living dead" and conditions his unit encountered in a subcamp of Dachau in April 1945.
Explore Manya Friedmann’s biography and listen to her describe her experiences following the liberation of Auschwitz.
Like other Jews, the Lewents were confined to the Warsaw ghetto. In 1942, as Abraham hid in a crawl space, the Germans seized his mother and sisters in a raid. They perished. He was deployed for forced labor nearby, but escaped to return to his father in the ghetto. In 1943, the two were deported to Majdanek, where Abraham's father died. Abraham later was sent to Skarzysko, Buchenwald, Schlieben, Bisingen, and Dachau. US troops liberated Abraham as the Germans evacuated prisoners.
In 1939, as Chaim's tour in the Polish army was nearing its scheduled end, Germany invaded Poland. The Germans captured Chaim and sent him to Germany for forced labor. As a Jewish prisoner of war, Chaim later was returned to Poland. Ultimately, he was deported to the Sobibor camp, where the rest of his family died. In the 1943 Sobibor uprising, Chaim killed a guard. He escaped with his girlfriend, Selma, whom he later married. A farmer hid them until liberation by Soviet forces in June 1944.
Fred was born in Czechoslovakia in a town near the Polish border. Fred and his family were forced by the Germans to relocate east to a town bordering Slovakia. At the end of 1942, they escaped from the town and went into hiding. The family hid in bunkers in the forest until the end of the war. They moved every few weeks to avoid detection by the Germans or Slovak authorities. While the family was in hiding, Fred's grandfather made arrangements for Fred to attend school under an assumed name and religion. A…
In 1942, Sam was forced into a ghetto in his hometown and assigned to work in a munitions factory. In 1944 he was transported to Auschwitz and then forced to work in a train factory. He survived eight days on a death march after the evacuation of Auschwitz by the Nazis. He was liberated by Soviet units in January 1945. He lived in a displaced persons camp in Germany where worked for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. In 1947, he immigrated to the United States.
Tomasz was born to a Jewish family in Izbica. After the war began in September 1939, the Germans established a ghetto in Izbica. Tomasz's work in a garage initially protected him from roundups in the ghetto. In 1942 he tried to escape to Hungary, using false papers. He was caught but managed to return to Izbica. In April 1943 he and his family were deported to the Sobibor killing center. Tomasz escaped during the Sobibor uprising. He went into hiding and worked as a courier in the Polish underground.
As a boy, Bill attended school in Burgsteinfurt, a German town near the Dutch border. After the Nazis came to power in Germany in January 1933, Bill experienced increasing antisemitism and was once attacked on his way to Hebrew school by a boy who threw a knife at him. In 1936, he and his family left Germany for the Netherlands, where they had relatives and thought they would be safe. However, after Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, antisemitic legislation--including the order to wear the Jewish…
Leopold was a teacher in Krakow, Poland, when World War II began in 1939. While serving in the Polish army, he was captured by Germans. Leopold escaped from a prisoner-of-war transport. Soon after, he met the German industrialist Oskar Schindler. The two became friends. Leopold was forced to live in the Krakow ghetto. He later worked in Schindler's factory in Bruennlitz. He and the other Jews who worked there were treated relatively well and protected from the Nazis. After the war, Leopold moved to the…
Ernest's family owned a factory that made matzah, the unleavened bread eaten during Passover. In February 1939, three months after Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass" pogroms), Ernest and his mother fled to Shanghai, one of few havens for refugees without visas. His father and sister stayed behind in Germany; they perished during the Holocaust. A brother escaped to England. Ernest and his mother found work in Shanghai. In 1947, he came to the United States with his wife, whom he met and married in…
John Dolibois immigrated to the United States in 1931 at the age of 13. After graduating from college, Dolibois joined the 16th Armored Division of the US Army. Due to his German language skills, he became involved in military intelligence. He returned to Europe in this capacity toward the end of World War II. Dolibois interrogated German prisoners of war, including leading Nazis, in preparation for the postwar trials of war criminals. He was later appointed US ambassador to Luxembourg, his birthplace.
George was liberated by the American forces in May 1945. He had spent three years during the war in ten different concentration camps. In 1945 he was in the Woebbelin camp in Germany. After liberation, he spent over two years in various displaced persons camps. George immigrated to the United States in October 1947.
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