Combating Holocaust Denial: Evidence of the Holocaust presented at Nuremberg - Photograph

Evidence from the Holocaust - ID Card/Oral History

Evidence from the Holocaust at the First Nuremberg Trial

Prosecutors before the IMT based the case against 22 leading Nazi officials primarily on thousands of documents written by the Germans themselves. Learn more.

Film Presented as Evidence: "Nazi Concentration Camps"

Browse a compilation of clips from film presented as evidence during the Nuremberg trial. 

Evidence presented at the International Military Tribunal

Photographs, artifacts, and a map presented as evidence at the International Military Tribunal. Nuremberg, Germany, between November 20, 1945, and October 1, 1946.

Film Presented as Evidence: "The Nazi Plan"

Browse a compilation of clips from film presented as evidence during the Nuremberg trial. 

Evidence Tag

Evidence tag from the trial of Klaus Barbie in Lyon, France. This standard police form lists Barbie's infractions as crimes against humanity and complicity, concepts defined at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg decades earlier. The line in which the victims' names would be recorded is left blank. February 25, 1983.

Evidence Tag

Evidence tag from the trial of Klaus Barbie in Lyon, France. This standard police form lists Barbie's infractions as crimes against humanity and complicity, concepts defined at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg decades earlier. The line in which the victims' names would be recorded is left blank. February 25, 1983.

Evidence from the Holocaust - Photograph

Film as evidence

Film evidence is shown during the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Jerusalem, Israel, June 8, 1961.

William Denson describes the nature of the evidence uncovered for postwar trials of concentration camp personnel

William Denson graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1934 and attended Harvard Law School. He returned to West Point to teach law from 1942 until 1945. In January 1945, Denson accepted the position of Judge Advocate General (JAG) in Europe and was assigned to US Third Army headquarters in Germany. He took part in more than 90 trials against Germans who had committed atrocities against downed American pilots. In August 1945, Denson became chief prosecutor for the US government at the…

Vladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed describes the deportation of her mother and brother from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka

Vladka belonged to the Zukunft youth movement of the Bund (the Jewish Socialist party). She was active in the Warsaw ghetto underground as a member of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). In December 1942, she was smuggled out to the Aryan, Polish side of Warsaw to try to obtain arms and to find hiding places for children and adults. She became an active courier for the Jewish underground and for Jews in camps, forests, and other ghettos.

Historian Peter Black describes researching evidence for an OSI case

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.

William (Bill) Zeck describes acquiring evidence for war crimes trials

Before joining the US Army, Zeck—a lawyer—worked for the Board of Economic Warfare. In 1946, he was hired to work on preparations for the Nuremberg trials. In his search for documents pertaining to the I. G. Farben company's involvement in the war, Zeck also met attorney Belle Mayer, his future wife. Both Zeck and Mayer were involved in preparing the indictment in the I. G. Farben trial held at Nuremberg.

Map used as trial evidence

This map of the Treblinka I forced-labor camp was drawn by Holocaust survivor Manfred Kort in 1946. In 1990 Kort donated the map to the United States Holocaust Memorial Musem. In March 1997, at the request of the Office of Special Investigations, the Museum sent the original drawing to Chicago to be used as evidence at the trial of one Bronislaw Hajda. At the conclusion of Hajda's trial on April 10, 1997, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that "a federal judge in Chicago has revoked the naturalized…

The presentation of evidence about defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner

The presentation of evidence about defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner at the International Military Tribunal trial of war criminals at Nuremberg. Germany, January 2, 1946. Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) was Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and later Chief of the Security Police. In this second position, Kaltenbrunner controlled the Gestapo (German Secret State Police), Criminal Police, and Security Service (SD). He was a prime figure in the “Final Solution” in the last years of the war.

Deportation from the Warsaw ghetto

Deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto during the ghetto uprising. The original German caption reads: "To the Umschlagplatz." Warsaw, Poland, May 1943.

Gay Men under the Nazi Regime

The Nazi regime carried out a campaign against male homosexuality and persecuted gay men between 1933 and 1945.

Abraham Lewent describes hiding during a raid in which his mother and sisters were seized for deportation from Warsaw to Treblinka

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.

Abraham Lewent describes deportation to and conditions in Majdanek

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.

Swastika flag rises over Versailles and Paris

The German western campaign into the Low Countries and France shattered Allied lines. Within six weeks, Britain evacuated its forces from the Continent and France requested an armistice with Germany. Paris, the French capital, fell to the Germans on June 14, 1940. In this footage, triumphant German forces raise the swastika flag over Versailles and over the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Versailles, the traditional residence of French kings, was deeply symbolic for the Germans: it was the site of both the…

German soldiers interrogate Jews captured during the Warsaw ghetto uprising

Jews captured by the SS during the Warsaw ghetto uprising are interrogated beside the ghetto wall before being sent to the Umschlagplatz, the assembly point for deportation from the ghetto. The original German caption reads: "Search and Interrogation." Poland, May 1943.

Deportation from the Warsaw ghetto

Deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto during the uprising. The photograph was taken from a building opposite the ghetto by a member of the resistance.  It shows Jews who were captured by the SS during the suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising marching past the St. Zofia hospital, through the intersection of Nowolipie and Zelasna Streets, towards the Umschlagplatz for deportation. Warsaw, Poland, April 20, 1943.

Assembly point in the Warsaw ghetto

An assembly point (the Umschlagplatz) in the Warsaw ghetto for Jews rounded up for deportation. Warsaw, Poland, 1942–43.

Chart of Prisoner Markings

A chart of prisoner markings used in German concentration camps. Dachau, Germany, ca. 1938–1942. Beginning in 1937–1938, the SS created a system of marking prisoners in concentration camps. Sewn onto uniforms, the color-coded badges identified the reason for an individual’s incarceration, with some variation among camps. The Nazis used this chart illustrating prisoner markings in the Dachau concentration camp.  

Prisoners of the Camps

Prisoners of the Camps - Photograph

Lesbians under the Nazi Regime

Beginning in 1933, the Nazi regime harassed and destroyed lesbian communities and networks that had developed during the Weimar Republic.

Paragraph 175 and the Nazi Campaign against Homosexuality

Paragraph 175 was a German statute that criminalized sexual relations between men. The Nazis revised Paragraph 175 in 1935 to make it broader and harsher.

Postwar Refugee Crisis and the Establishment of the State of Israel

During World War II, the Nazis deported between seven and nine million Europeans, mostly to Germany. Within months of Germany's surrender in May 1945, the Allies repatriated to their home countries more than six million displaced persons (DPs; wartime refugees). Between 1.5 million and two million DPs refused repatriation. Most Jewish survivors, who had survived concentration camps or had been in hiding, were unable or unwilling to return to eastern Europe because of postwar antisemitism and the…

Erika Eckstut

Explore Erika Eckstut's biography and learn about the difficulties and dangers she faced in the Czernowitz ghetto.

Deportations to and from the Warsaw Ghetto

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.

Frima L. describes escape from mobile killing unit massacre

While Frima's family was confined to a ghetto, Nazis used her father as an interpreter. He later perished. By pretending not to be Jews, Frima, her mother, and sister escaped a German mobile killing unit massacre. They were later discovered and jailed. Again, her mother devised an escape. Frima's mother and sister were smuggled to Romania, while Frima wandered in search of safekeeping until her mother could arrange to smuggle her out. In Romania, they were reunited and liberated.

US veteran James Rose describes his impressions of Dachau upon liberation

James A. Rose, of Toledo, Ohio, was with the 42nd (Rainbow) Division.