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Mina, born Mina Friedman, was the youngest of four daughters born to a Jewish family in the Lithuanian town of Jonava. At the age of 18, Mina married Osser Beker, a lumber dealer. The couple settled in Jonava where Mina worked as a seamstress. The Bekers had two sons and two daughters, but their oldest son died in a childhood accident. 1933-39: Mina's son Abe attended a Jewish religious school in Jonava. But since Mina had received an extensive Jewish education, she decided to teach her daughters at home.…
Doriane Kurz’s parents, Klara and Emil Meilech Kurz, settled in Vienna, where her father ran a thriving branch of the family's multinational optical frames business. 1933-39: Doriane was born in Vienna just two years before the Germans annexed Austria in March 1938. Her family fled to the Netherlands soon after the annexation. The Kurz family moved to the town of Maastricht where a branch of the Kurz Brothers' optical frames business was located. Doriane attended nursery school in Maastricht, but the…
An only child, Wolfgang was born in Berlin to Jewish parents. His father was the foreign representative for a sewing notions company. The family lived in a comfortable apartment in the southwestern district of the city. Wolfgang attended secondary school there and hoped to become an electrical engineer. 1933-39: When the Nazis came to power, Wolfgang's father fled Germany because he was a socialist and was afraid he'd be arrested. Wolfgang's mother was very ill, so his grandmother took care of him until…
Franz was raised in a town in eastern Germany. The son of Jewish parents, he earned a law degree from Breslau University and a doctorate of jurisprudence from Geneva University in Switzerland. At the age of 35 he married Ilse Luise Citroen, a woman of Dutch-Jewish ancestry. The couple settled in Berlin where Franz had a successful law practice. The Ledermanns had two daughters. 1933-39: The Nazis came to power in January 1933. Ilse's Dutch relatives encouraged the Ledermanns to immigrate to the…
Ilse was one of four children born to a Dutch-Jewish father and a German-Jewish mother. In 1924 she married Franz Ledermann, a successful lawyer who was 15 years her senior. The couple made their home in Berlin, where they raised two daughters, Barbara and Susanne. 1933-39: The Nazis came to power in January 1933. While the Ledermanns were vacationing in Holland that summer, Ilse's Dutch cousin advised her not to return to Germany. Franz was reluctant to remain in Holland without a job, but when the Nazis…
Gert was born to a Jewish family settled in northeast Berlin, known as one of the city's "red" (largely communist) districts. They lived in a large tenement building. Gert's parents were from the eastern part of Germany, which had been ceded to Poland in 1919. His father, proud of his Iron Cross, Second Class, earned in World War I, was active in an association of Jewish veterans. 1933-39: After Hitler came to power, a neighbor told Gert's mother that they couldn't greet each other on the street…
Ezra was born to a Jewish family in the Bavarian city of Wurzburg. In the summer of 1929, his father, a third-generation rabbi, accepted a position as a district rabbi, guiding 12 congregations in Upper Silesia. In primary school, Ezra, who showed a keen interest in chemistry, was often harassed by his schoolmates for being Jewish. 1933-39: Because of his "Nordic" features, Ezra was able to frequent places where Jews couldn't go. In 1938, one year after he entered a Jewish secondary school in Berlin, the…
Bernburg was the fifth of six centralized killing centers established by German authorities within the context of the Nazi “euthanasia,” or T4, program.
In January 1944, FDR established the War Refugee Board which was charged with “immediate rescue and relief of the Jews of Europe and other victims of enemy persecution.”
Although constrained by powerful isolationist sentiment in the United States, President Roosevelt was determined to help democratic Great Britain continue the war against Nazi Germany. Even as he promised to keep the United States neutral in the European war, Roosevelt ordered the expansion of military construction and pledged--as shown in this footage--that the United States would serve as the "great arsenal of democracy." In March 1941, Congress approved Lend-Lease aid for Britain. Britain ultimately…
Henry received a Doctor of Law (J.D.) degree from the University of Berlin in 1937. Sponsored by the rabbi of the Baltimore Hebrew congregation, Henry immigrated to the United States in the same year. In 1945, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) assigned him to prepare pre-trial briefs for the International Military Tribunal held in Nuremberg, Germany. He interrogated a number of witnesses and defendants. After the war, he held various diplomatic posts.
Learn about Fürstengrube subcamp of Auschwitz, including its establishment, administration, prisoner population, and forced labor and conditions in the camp.
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.
Auschwitz was the largest camp established by the Germans. It was a complex of camps, including a concentration camp, killing center, and forced-labor camp.
Today, a body of international criminal law exists to prosecute perpetrators of mass atrocities. Learn about principles and precedents from the Nuremberg Charter and the IMT.
Under the Vichy regime, the Les Milles camp held foreign Jews before emigration or, in most cases, deportation to German concentration camps and killing centers.
In October 1941, Romania, an ally of Nazi Germany, perpetrated mass killings of Jews in Odesa. Learn more about the Holocaust in Odesa and Ukraine.
Tonie's parents came to the Netherlands from Germany in the 1880s, and their six children were born in Amsterdam. As a child, Tonie studied the piano, and she excelled in French. When she married Abraham Soep, a diamond manufacturer, Tonie adopted her husband's observant Jewish practices. Their three children were born in 1919, 1923, and 1924. 1933-39: Tonie's husband served for many years as the president of the Amsterdam Jewish community. The Soeps had a large and comfortable home. Tonie and Abraham…
Rosa was one of 14 children born to religious Jewish parents in the village of Yasinya at a time when it was known as Korosmezo and was part of Hungary. During World War I, she married Michael von Hoppen Waldhorn, an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army who was based near Yasinya. During the 1920s they moved to Paris, where they raised three children. 1933-39: The Waldhorn family's life in Paris was very different from their life in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Rosa's husband made a good living, and he…
Zuzana was the youngest of three children born to Hungarian-speaking Jewish parents in the city of Kosice. She was the baby of the family, and they called her Zuzi. Her father was a tailor whose workshop was in the Gruenbergers' apartment. 1933-39: In November 1938, when Zuzana was 5, Hungarian troops marched into Kosice and made it a part of Hungary. The Hungarians changed the name of the city to Kassa. The Hungarian government was friendly to Nazi Germany and introduced anti-Jewish laws in…
Ossi was the youngest of six children born to Roma ("Gypsies") who traveled in a family wagon. His family was Roman Catholic. Their caravan spent winters in Vienna, Austria's capital, and summers in the Austrian countryside. The Stojkas belonged to a tribe called the Lowara Roma, who made their living as itinerant horse traders. Ossi's ancestors had lived in Austria for more than 200 years. 1933-39: Ossi was 2 years old when Germany annexed Austria in March 1938. The Stojka family wagon was parked for the…
Bertha was born to Jewish parents in the capital of East Prussia. Her father served on the Koenigsberg city council. In 1887 Bertha married Hugo Gottschalk, and the couple settled in the small town of Schlawe in northern Germany. There, Hugo owned the town's grain mill. The Gottschalks raised their four children in a home near a small stream, ringed by orchards and a large garden. 1933-39: Bertha and her daughter Nanny have moved to Berlin--Hugo passed away in 1934 and they were afraid of the growing…
Frederick was born to a Jewish family in the Austrian capital of Vienna. His father died when he was a baby, and he and his mother moved into an apartment with Frederick's widowed grandfather. As a young boy, Frederick attended a Viennese public school. 1933-39: Frederick was a rambunctious child. Once, when his grandfather was baby-sitting, Frederick used a silk lampshade as a "parachute," and jumped from the top of the wardrobe closet. That was the last time Frederick's grandfather would baby-sit.…
Jacob was born to a Jewish family in the Baltic seaport of Liepaja. He owned a clothing store in the city, and also owned some apartments, from which he collected rent. After his wife died, Jacob, who had retired, moved in with his daughter Sarah. 1933-39: Jacob was an avid reader. His favorite newspaper was Liepaja's German language daily, the Libauer Zeitung, which he liked to read in the garden and orchard around his daughter's home. On Sundays, "Grampa" would take his granddaughters Fanny and Jenny…
Poster titled “The United Nations Fight For Freedom.” It was one of many posters produced by the Office of War Information, the United States’s official propaganda agency during World War II. Canadian-American commercial artist Steve Broder (1902-1992) designed this work to bolster confidence in the Allied war effort against the Axis Powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan). It depicts the 30 flags of countries that signed the Declaration by the United Nations and declared war on the…
Alice Goldberger (1897-1986) was born in Berlin, Germany. Trained as a youth-work instructor, she ran a shelter for disadvantaged children and their families. When Hitler came to power, Alice, who was Jewish, had to give up her post. She immigrated to England in 1939. When war broke out, Alice was interned on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien. While there, she organized a children's facility.Hearing of Alice's work in the camp, psychoanalyst Anna Freud (daughter of Sigmund Freud) intervened to secure her…
Naftali was one of six children born to a Jewish family in the small Lithuanian village of Karchai. When he was a young boy, a tutor would come to Karchai to teach the Jewish children in the village. Naftali later began public school in Janova and after graduating he went to an agricultural school. In 1929 Naftali moved to Siauliai, where he worked grading beets in a sugar beet factory. 1933-39: In Siauliai, Naftali lived with his sister, Sara, and her family who ran a dairy store. Naftali was a religious…
Laszlo was raised by Hungarian-speaking Jewish parents in the town of Kiskunfelegyhaza in southeastern Hungary. He opened a business selling goose meat, feathers, down and quilts. In 1931 he married Anna Mahrer, from Budapest, and they had a daughter in January 1932. 1933-39: Laszlo and Anna had a second child, a son. They raised their two children in a comfortable home. Kiskunfelegyhaza was located in a rural part of Hungary. In May 1939, the Hungarian government enacted a law that defined Jews as alien…
Safe conduct pass issued to Hans Landesberg in the Djelfa internment camp, releasing him to leave for Algiers. Djelfa, Algeria, January 26, 1943. Hans was born in Vienna, Austria, and went to medical school. After graduating, he left for Paris and joined a battalion of the International Brigade to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He returned to France in February 1939, only to be interned first in Argeles and then in Gurs. Some time after the French surrender to Nazi Germany in June 1940, Hans and other…
At his hidden headquarters in the mountains of Yugoslavia, Marshal Tito (Josip Broz), head of the Yugoslav Communist partisan movement, prepares his forces for battle. Women gather silk parachutes, used to drop supplies by Allied forces, for use as bandages. Partisans train, preparing to fight the Germans. At the height of the partisan war in Yugoslavia in 1943, Tito's partisans engaged some 35 Axis divisions, which otherwise might have been in service on the Italian or eastern fronts.
In the Justice Case of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings, nine officials from the German Ministry of Justice and seven members of the Nazi-era People's and Special Courts were charged with “judicial murder and other atrocities, which they committed by destroying law and justice in Germany, and then utilizing the emptied forms of legal process for the persecution, enslavement and extermination on a large scale.” This footage shows US prosecutor Telford Taylor describing the defendants.
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.
Drexel Sprecher was educated at the University of Wisconsin, the London School of Economics, and at the Harvard School of Law before receiving a position at the US Government's Labor Board in 1938. He enlisted in the American military after the United States declared war on Germany, and was posted to London. After the war, Sprecher served as a prosecutor of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.
Drexel Sprecher was educated at the University of Wisconsin, the London School of Economics, and at the Harvard School of Law before receiving a position at the US Government's Labor Board in 1938. He enlisted in the American military after the United States declared war on Germany, and was posted to London. After the war, Sprecher served as a prosecutor of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.
During the Holocaust, the creation of ghettos was a key step in the Nazi process of ultimately destroying Europe's Jews. Learn about the Vilna ghetto.
Learn more about Aliyah Bet, the clandestine immigration of Jews to Palestine between 1920 and 1948, when Great Britain controlled the area.
The Germans established the Althammer camp in September 1944. It was a subcamp of Auschwitz. Read more about the camp's history and conditions there.
Janusz Korczak ran a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw. He and his staff stayed with the children even as German authorities deported them to their deaths at Treblinka in 1942.
After WWII, many Holocaust survivors, unable to return to their homes, lived in displaced persons camps in Germany, Austria, and Italy. Read about Steiermark District DP camps.
Did King Christian X of Denmark wear a yellow star in support of the Danish Jews? Read more about the historical truth behind the legend.
US immigration and refugee laws and policies evolved in response to World War I, the 1918 influenza pandemic, and World War II and the Holocaust. Learn more.
The Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941. Learn about the Axis invasion and partition, collaboration, and the fate of Jewish people living in Yugoslavia.
The Farhud (pogrom), an outbreak of mob violence against Baghdad Jewry in June 1941, was a turning point in the history of Jews in Iraq. Learn more
Laura was one of five children born to a Jewish family in the southeastern Polish town of Rozwadow. Jews comprised almost two-thirds of the town's population. Laura's father worked as a wholesaler, providing families in the area with grain, potatoes and other produce. Laura attended one of the town's public schools. 1933-39: Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned Poland [as a result of the Nazi-Soviet Pact] in September 1939. Laura's town lay on the demarcation line. On September 24 the Germans reached…
Roza was born to a Jewish family in a predominately Catholic village near Warsaw. Her father owned a prosperous pearl button factory that employed some 100 people. They shared a large home with Roza's grandmother who ran a general store and bakery in the village. Roza and her three sisters attended Polish schools and took Hebrew lessons at the towns' synagogue. 1933-39: Roza's father frequently did business in Warsaw so the family moved there in 1934. They loved the city, and often went to concerts and…
Reidar was the third of four sons born to religious Lutheran parents in a small seafaring and whaling town along the Norwegian coast. Reidar's father was a civil servant. Reidar attended public school and dreamed of becoming a musician. 1933-39: Although Reidar was not interested in politics, he sympathized with his Jewish neighbors who had come as refugees from Germany. In fall 1939 he was saddened when Germany attacked Poland and the USSR attacked Finland. Several days later, his oldest brother passed…
Renate, her twin brother, Rene, and their German-Jewish parents lived in Prague. Shortly before the twins were born, Renate's parents had fled Dresden, Germany, to escape the Nazi government's policies against Jews. Before leaving Germany to live in Czechoslovakia, Renate's father, Herbert, worked in the import-export business. Her mother, Ita, was an accountant. 1933-39: Renate's family lived in a six-story apartment building along the #22 trolley line in Prague. A long, steep flight of stairs led up to…
Rene, his twin sister, Renate, and their German-Jewish parents lived in Prague. Shortly before the twins were born, Rene's parents had fled Dresden, Germany, to escape the Nazi government's policies against Jews. Before leaving Germany to live in Czechoslovakia, Rene's father, Herbert, had worked in the import-export business. His mother, Ita, was an accountant. 1933-39: Rene's family lived in a six-story apartment building along the #22 trolley line in Prague. A long, steep flight of stairs led up to…
Karl was the fourth of six children born to Roman Catholic parents in the village of Wampersdorf in eastern Austria. The Stojkas belonged to a tribe of Roma ("Gypsies") called the Lowara Roma, who made their living as itinerant horse traders. They lived in a traveling family wagon, and spent winters in Austria's capital of Vienna. Karl's ancestors had lived in Austria for more than 200 years. 1933-39: Karl grew up used to freedom, travel and hard work. In March 1938 his family's wagon was parked for the…
Hilda was born in a territory ruled by Germany until 1919. A teacher and a painter, she married Franz Kusserow and moved to western Germany before World War I. There, she gave birth to 11 children and became a Jehovah's Witness. After 1931 the Kusserow home in the small town of Bad Lippspringe was the headquarters of a Jehovah's Witness congregation. 1933-39: The Nazis repeatedly searched Hilda's home because her family remained openly steadfast in their devotion to Jehovah. Hilda continued doing…
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