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Ruth was four years old when the Germans invaded Poland and occupied Ostrowiec. Her family was forced into a ghetto. Germans took over her father's photography business, although he was allowed to continue working outside the ghetto. Before the ghetto was liquidated, Ruth's parents sent her sister into hiding, and managed to get work at a labor camp outside the ghetto. Ruth also went into hiding, either in nearby woods or within the camp itself. When the camp was liquidated, Ruth's parents were split up.…
Henny was born into an upper-middle-class Jewish family in Kovno, Lithuania. She and her brother attended private schools. In June 1940 the Soviets occupied Lithuania, but little seemed to change until the German invasion in June 1941. The Germans sealed off a ghetto in Kovno in August 1941. Henny and her family were forced to move into the ghetto. Henny married in the ghetto in November 1943; her dowry was a pound of sugar. She survived several roundups during which some of her friends and family were…
Emanuel's father was a cantor who became, soon after Emanuel was born, one of the chief cantors in Budapest. Germany occupied Hungary in March 1944. Systematic deportations of Jews from Hungary to the Auschwitz camp in occupied Poland began in May 1944. Emanuel and his mother were part of the train, organized by Zionist activist Rezso Kasztner, of over 1,600 Hungarian Jews who were to be sent to neutral countries as part of an exchange program. The train arrived at the Bergen-Belsen camp, where the…
The Nazis carried out genocide against Europe’s Jews and persecuted and murdered other groups based on racial theories. Learn about the history of these murderous ideas.
To carry out the mass murder of Europe's Jews, the Nazis established killing centers that used assembly-line methods of murder. Sobibor was among these facilities.
German forces razed the town of Lidice in June 1942 in retaliation for the death of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich. Learn about the assassination and reprisal.
The youngest of three children, Israel Yitzak was born to Jewish parents living 35 miles east of Warsaw in the small, predominantly Jewish town of Kaluszyn. Israel's mother was a housewife, and his father was a merchant who often traveled on business, by horse and wagon, to Warsaw. Israel attended public school and also received religious instruction. 1933-39: When Germany invaded Poland several days ago, many kids Israel's age, afraid of what would happen if the Germans occupied Poland, fled to the USSR,…
At its height, the Warsaw ghetto held over 400,000 people living in horrendous and worsening conditions. Learn about deportations both to and from the ghetto.
An underground courier for the Polish government-in-exile, Jan Karski was one of the first to deliver eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to Allied leaders.
Young people's diaries capture some of the most heartbreaking experiences of the Holocaust. Learn about the diary and experiences of David Sierakowiak.
In an attempt to prevent the German annexation of Austria, Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg called a plebiscite (referendum) on Austrian independence. On March 11, 1938, the Germans pressured Schuschnigg to cancel the plebiscite and resign. This German newsreel footage from March and April 1938 served as propaganda for the Nazi annexation of Austria. It begins with images of pro-Nazi residents in Graz expressing their opposition to Schuschnigg's plebiscite. It also includes footage after…
In the summer of 1945, representatives of the victorious Allied nations—the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union—met in London to discuss the formation of an International Military Tribunal. The questions on the table were daunting: how and where such a court would convene, what the criminal charges would be, and which perpetrators would be put on trial. US President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order designating Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson to be the US…
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.
Adolf Hitler's foreign policy aimed at establishing a European empire for Germany through war. This policy required the rapid expansion of Germany's military capabilities. The Geneva Disarmament Conference, beginning in 1932, sought to avoid another European war by negotiating a reduction in armaments. Hitler repudiated this effort by withdrawing Germany from the conference in October 1933. At the same time, he rejected collective security in international affairs by withdrawing from the League of Nations.…
Fela was liberated at Bergen-Belsen by the British army in 1945. She went to a displaced persons (DP) camp administered by the Americans in Feldafing, near Munich. She married in the DP camp in 1946, and eventually immigrated to the United States.
The Germans established a ghetto in Dokszyce in late 1941. Rachel hid during the liquidation of the ghetto in 1942, and she and her mother escaped to another ghetto. When the second ghetto was about to be liquidated, they escaped again. Rachel and her mother joined a band of partisans in the forest. She helped her mother to cook, and also cleaned weapons. Rachel and her mother tried to leave Europe when the war ended. They eventually arrived in the United States, in 1947.
Germany occupied Hungary in 1944. Alice was deported to Auschwitz in the same year. At one time she was selected for the gas chamber, but survived because of a malfunction. As Allied forces approached the camp, Alice and other inmates were evacuated to the Guben labor camp. Alice, her sister, and another girl escaped during a forced march from the camp but were found and sent on to Bergen-Belsen. Alice's sister was taken to a Red Cross hospital, but Alice never saw her again. After the war, Alice…
In 1942, Hana was confined with other Jews to the Theresienstadt ghetto, where she worked as a nurse. There, amid epidemics and poverty, residents held operas, debates, and poetry readings. In 1944, she was deported to Auschwitz. After a month there, she was sent to Sackisch, a Gross-Rosen subcamp, where she made airplane parts at forced labor. She was liberated in May 1945.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pat was one of thousands of US nurses who served in evacuation hospitals during the liberation of concentration camps in Europe. She cared for camp survivors, many of whom were in critical condition upon liberation.
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.
Frank F. Hamburger, Jr., of Columbus, Georgia, was with the 65th Infantry Division.
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 Sobibor. Tomasz escaped during the Sobibor uprising. He went into hiding and worked as a courier in the Polish underground.
In Frankfurt, Ruth's family faced intensifying anti-Jewish measures; her father's business was taken over and Ruth's Jewish school was closed. In April 1943, Ruth and her family were deported to Auschwitz. Ruth was selected for forced labor and assigned to work on road repairs. She also worked in the "Kanada" unit, sorting possessions brought into the camp. In November 1944, Ruth was transferred to the Ravensbrueck camp system, in Germany. She was liberated in May 1945, during a death march from the…
An anti-Jewish sign posted on a street in Bavaria reads "Jews are not wanted here." Julien Bryan took this photograph while visiting Germany in 1937. Back in the United States, Bryan regularly gave lectures with accompanying motion pictures to convey the looming dangers he foresaw in Europe. During one of these presentations in 1938, he said: "And then a sign like this. Along the Rhine you see these signs against the Jew everywhere, … all through central and southern Germany, saying simply and…
Photograph showing Helene Reik's family members and friends gathered in March 1941 in Brazil. After her deportation to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, Helene yearned to record what was happening to her. This photograph was sent to Helene, who used it as paper for her diary in Theresienstadt. Helene’s makeshift diary offers wistful memories of her husband and parents who died before the war, loving thoughts of her family who had left Europe in 1939, and a firsthand account of the illness…
Photograph showing Kurt, Helene Reik's son, and his wife, while on vacation in April/May 1938 in Kupari, Croatia. After her deportation to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, Helene yearned to record what was happening to her. This photograph was sent to Helene, who used it as paper for her diary in Theresienstadt. Helene’s makeshift diary offers wistful memories of her husband and parents who died before the war, loving thoughts of her family who had left Europe in 1939, and a firsthand…
Photograph showing Kurt, Helene Reik's son, holding his baby Margarida, in Rio de Janeiro in 1940. After her deportation to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, Helene yearned to record what was happening to her. This photograph was sent to Helene, who used it as paper for her diary in Theresienstadt. Helene’s makeshift diary offers wistful memories of her husband and parents who died before the war, loving thoughts of her family who had left Europe in 1939, and a firsthand account of the…
Miles Lerman was a Holocaust survivor, partisan fighter in the forests of Poland, international leader in the cause of Holocaust remembrance, and a "founding father" of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Miles Lerman was a Holocaust survivor, partisan fighter in the forests of German-occupied Poland, international leader in the cause of Holocaust remembrance, and a "founding father" of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
In 1942, Hana was confined with other Jews to the Theresienstadt ghetto, where she worked as a nurse. There, amid epidemics and poverty, residents held operas, debates, and poetry readings. In 1944, she was deported to Auschwitz. After a month there, she was sent to Sackisch, a Gross-Rosen subcamp, where she made airplane parts at forced labor. She was liberated in May 1945.
Children's diaries bear witness to some of the most heartbreaking events of the Holocaust. Learn about the diary and experiences of Jutta Szmirgeld.
The SS was the elite guard of the Nazi regime and became a virtual state within a state in Nazi Germany. Learn about its role in carrying out Nazi policies.
After rising to power, the Nazis eliminated freedom of the press in Germany. Learn more about how they established control over the press and manipulated it.
Nazi propaganda had a key role in the persecution of Jews. Learn more about how Hitler and the Nazi Party used propaganda to facilitate war and genocide.
The liberation of concentration camps toward the end of the Holocaust revealed unspeakable conditions. Learn about liberators and what they confronted.
Despite the Nazi Party's ideology of keeping women in the home, their roles expanded beyond wives and mothers.
Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg led an extensive rescue effort during the Nazi era. His work with the War Refugee Board saved thousands of Hungarian Jews.
Hermann Ludwig Maas, a Protestant pastor in Heidelberg, Germany, was a rescuer and clergyman who stood in solidarity with the Jewish community.
After WWII, many Holocaust survivors, unable to return to their homes, lived in displaced persons camps in Germany, Austria, and Italy. Learn about the experiences of Jewish DPs.
At the Wannsee conference of January 1942, Nazi Party and German government officials gathered to coordinate implementation of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”
When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, hundreds of thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish refugees fled the advancing German army. Learn about their experiences.
After rising to power in January 1933, the Nazis began the process of moving Germany from a democracy to a dictatorship. Learn more.
Learn more about Nazi mobile killing squads (Einsatzgruppen) killing activities in the Soviet Union during World War II.
The first major Nazi camp was liberated by Allied troops in July, 1944. Learn more about liberation of camps towards the end of World War II.
Explore a timeline of key events in the history of Nazi Germany during 1938.
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