Lidia Lebowitz: Maps

Lidia Lebowitz was 10 years old when Germany occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944. A month later, Lidia and her parents were evicted from their home. They were among the some 15,000 Jews forced into a ghetto in the town of Sátoraljaújhely. In May an...

Max Rosenblat: Maps

Max Rosenblat was only two months old when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. The Germans occupied Radom and evicted all the Jews from the street where the Rosenblats lived. Max and his parents lived in a shack in a ghetto until August 1942, when the...

Yitzhak (Irving) Balsam: Maps

Yitzhak Balsam was just under 15 years old when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Like other Jewish men in Praszka, he was forced to build roads outside of town. Yitzhak was later deported to several camps, including Auschwitz, and was imp...

Zigmond Adler: Maps

Zigmond Adler was three years old when Germany occupied Belgium in May 1940. Zigmond, whose mother was deceased, went to live with his aunt and uncle after the Germans deported his father. With the help of Catholic friends, Zigmond and his relativ...

Sophie Weisz: Maps

Sophie Weisz was 13 years old when Hungary annexed the region where she lived in Romania in 1940. By mid-1941, Hungary had joined the German forces. Sophie and her Jewish family were forced into the Oradea ghetto in May 1944, and from there deport...

Szlamach Radoszynski: Maps

Szlamach Radoszynski was 27 years old when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. The following year, Szlamach and the rest of the Jews of Warsaw were forced into a ghetto. After the ghetto uprising in 1943, Szlamach was deported to Auschwitz a...

Tonie Frederika Kaufmann Soep: Maps

Moses Rechnitz: Maps

Moses Rechnitz was born to Jewish parents in the Polish town of Bedzin on June 3, 1923. Moses was 16 years old when German troops invaded Poland in September 1939. By 1941, he was a slave laborer on a German railroad construction project outside o...

Moise Gani: Maps

Born to a Jewish family in Preveza, Moise Gani was endangered by the German occupation of Greece. In March 1944, the Nazis deported the Jews of Preveza to Auschwitz. Albert was killed several months later, at the ag...

Meyer (Max) Rodriguez Garcia: Maps

Meyer (Max) Rodriguez Garcia was born to a Jewish family in Amsterdam. Max was nearly 16 years old when Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. He went into hiding in early 1943, but was caught by June and deported to Auschwitz in German-occu...

Ruth Freund Reiser: Maps

Ruth Freund Reiser was born to Jewish parents in Prague, Czechoslovakia. She was 13 years old when Germany occupied Prague in March 1939. Five years later, Ruth was deported from the Theresienstadt ghetto to Auschwitz. She was later deported to th...

Siegfried Wohlfarth: Maps

Siegfried Wohlfarth was raised in a Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany. Siegfried and his wife moved to Amsterdam after the Nazi rise to power in 1933, but Germany occupied the Netherlands seven years later. Siegfried was deported to Auschwitz in...

Rena Gani: Maps

Born to a Jewish family in Preveza, Rena Gani was endangered by the German occupation of Greece. In March 1944, the Nazis deported the Jews of Preveza to Auschwitz. Rena was later sent to the Ravensbrück camp and was liberated during a death march...

Albert Gani: Maps

Born to a Jewish family in Preveza, Albert Gani was endangered by the German occupation of Greece. In March 1944, the Nazis deported the Jews of Preveza to Auschwitz. Albert was killed several months later, at the age...

Rémy Dumoncel: Maps

Remy Dumoncel was born to Catholic parents in Paris, France. In 1935, he became the mayor of Avon, a town southeast of Paris. Germany occupied Avon after defeating France in June 1940. Remy resolved to remain mayor. He became active in a resistanc...

Japanese American Relocation: Photographs

Displaced children in Kloster Indersdorf

Oneg Shabbat archive

The Oneg Shabbat underground archive was the secret archive of the Warsaw ghetto. 

Nazi symbols of hate

A key part of Nazi racist ideology was to define the enemy and identify those who posed a threat to the so-called “Aryan” race. Learn about some of the symbols, terms, and means the Nazis used to communicate their message.

Eugenics

Eugenics, or “racial hygiene” in the German context, was a scientific movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Eugenic theories provided the basis for the Nazi compulsory sterilization program and un...

Pages from scrapbooks documenting the German occupation of Denmark

Jewish communities in North Africa

North African Jews did not constitute a single community before or during World War II but, rather, were a diverse population of roughly 500,000, divided between the present-day countries of the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya...

Camps in North Africa

In Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and French West Africa, French collaborationist Vichy authorities established a network of different types of camps: penal camps, labor camps, and internment camps.  These camps included Jewish and non-Jewish European...

Photographer Yevgeny Khaldei

Photographer and renowned photojournalist Yevgeny Khaldei covered the events of World War II from Moscow to Berlin. Explore some of his images.

Occupation of Poland

The German occupation of Poland was exceptionally brutal. After defeating the Polish army in September 1939, German authorities ruthlessly suppressed the Poles. German policy sought to destroy the Polish nation and culture and exploit the Poles fo...