Systematic killing of Germans with disabilities

The Holocaust and Genocide

The word genocide did not exist prior to 1944. The term was coined by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphel Lemkin, who sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic mass murder during the Holocaust, including the destruction of European Jews.

Bombing of Warsaw

German troops invaded Poland in September 1939. The city of Warsaw suffered heavy air attacks and artillery shelling, causing massive destruction.

Minsk - Maps

German authorities established a ghetto in Minsk in July 1941, shortly after German forces occupied the city. About 80,000 Jews were initially crowded into the ghetto, with 24,000 more people deported there later that year. In August 1941, the Germans began mass killing operations against the residents of the ghetto.

Oral Histories: Acts of Comfort and Courage

Survivors' oral histories have the power to inspire and connect you to the power and perspective of Holocaust history. These four excerpts describe seemingly small acts and small items that provided comfort and in some cases helped people survive....

Images of Sobibor from deputy camp commandant Johann Niemann's album

View rare photographs of the Sobibor killing center, including never-before-seen images of the site, barracks buildings, workshops, and SS and Ukrainian guards.

Hans Vogel's Diary

Diaries reveal some of the most intimate, heart-wrenching accounts of the Holocaust. They record in real time the feelings of loss, fear, and, sometimes, hope of those facing extraordinary peril. Hans Vogel kept a diary journaling his family's fli...

Recipes recorded in a forced-labor camp

The documentation of treasured recipes evokes memories of happier times and bears witness to the will to create under the most dire of circumstances. In some cases, this type of documentation was even a way to preserve a past that the Nazis and th...

Family cookbook: Saved and returned

Klári Fenyves created a family cookbook, written in Hungarian. After the family was forced to leave their apartment before deportation, the family’s cook, Maris, saved this treasured cookbook and some of Klári Fenyves’ artwork. She returned the artw...

Cookbook created in the Ravensbrück camp

Cookbooks were created and recipes recorded under the most dire of circumstances--in hiding or secretly in camps and ghettos by people who were starving or suffering from malnutrition. This page comes from a cookbook Eva Oswalt created while impri...

Selma Engel diary and testimony excerpts

Explore Selma Engel's testimony and diary pages about her experiences during the Holocaust. 

Pages from Stanislava Roztropowicz's Diary

Diaries reveal some of the most intimate, heart-wrenching accounts of the Holocaust. They record in real time the feelings of loss, fear, and, sometimes, hope of those facing extraordinary peril. Stanislava Roztropowicz kept a diary from 1943-1944...

Helene Reik's diary

Diaries reveal some of the most intimate, heart-wrenching accounts of the Holocaust. They record in real time the feelings of loss, fear, and, sometimes, hope of those facing extraordinary peril. Written on postcard...

Children's artwork created at Weir Courtney

After the war, Alice Goldberger cared for 24 refugee children at Lingfield House on the Weir Courtney Estate in England. She attempted to create a typical childhood for this group of young survivors of the Holocaust. Artwork created by the children...

Ben Ferencz and the Einsatzgruppen Case

Kripo warrant badge

Official identification tag (warrant badge) used by the State Criminal Police (Kriminalpolizei or Kripo), after Heinrich Himmler centralized the police forces in the 1930s. These badges were generally suspended from a chain and included the individual officer's number on the reverse.

The German Order Police in Poland

German Order Policemen perpetrated many aspects of the Holocaust. During World War II, they were deployed to areas of Europe occupied by Nazi Germany. In Poland, the Order Police engaged in the Nazi regime's persecution of Jews and Poles.  

Hitler Youth

View artifacts and photographs and listen to testimony excerpts about the Hitler Youth. 

Liberation of Mauthausen camp and subcamps

Photographs and film footage illustrating the liberation of Mauthausen and two of its subcamps, Gusen and Ebensee. 

Forced labor in the Mauthausen camp system

Photographs and testimony describing forced labor in the Mauthausen camp system. 

Julien Bryan: Photographs and Film

Explore images and film by US filmmaker and photographer Julien Bryan, including documentation of Warsaw following the German invasion of Poland.

Ponary

The German army occupied Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania, on June 24, 1941. The following month, German Einsatzgruppen and their Lithuanian auxiliaries murdered thousands of Jewish residents of Vilna at a killing site in the Ponary (Paneriai) Forest, southwest of Vilna. By the end of 1941, Einsatzgruppen had killed about 40,000 Jews in Ponary. By July 1944, perhaps as many as 75,000 people had been killed at the site, the vast majority of them Jews. These photographs and narratives shed light on the Vilna…

Vilna - Maps

Killing sites

Abraham Malnik, Steven Springfield, and Rochelle Slivka describe killing sites at Fort IX, Rumbula, and Ponary. 

Geography of the Holocaust

The Holocaust (1933–1945) was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators. The Holocaust era began in January 1933 when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. It ended in May 1945, when the Allied Powers defeated Nazi Germany in World War II.  The Holocaust was a German initiative that took place throughout German- and Axis-controlled Europe. It affected nearly all of Europe’s Jewish…