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Before World War II, Warsaw was a major center of Jewish life and culture in Poland. Browse articles describing the German invasion, the Warsaw ghetto, deportations, and resistance.
Abraham was the oldest of five children born to a Jewish family in the central Polish town of Rozwadow, where his father was a produce wholesaler. Abraham attended secondary school in the nearby town of Rzeszow and then went on to complete an undergraduate degree at the University of Cracow. 1933-39: Abraham was accepted to law school, despite quotas restricting the number of Jews allowed to enter, and in 1937 he set up a practice in Rozwadow. Two years later, on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland.…
Sylvia's Jewish-born parents had converted to Christianity as young adults, and Sylvia was raised in the Christian tradition. Mr. Winawer was a successful lawyer and the family lived in an apartment in the center of Warsaw. Sylvia's mother collected art. 1933-39: Sylvia attended a private school run by the Lutheran Church, and she loved her school and classmates. When she was 9, her parents brought her the most wonderful "present"--a new sister! Two years later life changed when the Germans invaded Poland…
During World War II, members of Jewish youth movements in Poland embraced leadership roles in ghetto resistance and partisan fighting organizations. Learn more.
Facing overwhelming odds, Jews throughout occupied Europe attempted armed resistance against the Germans and their Axis partners.
Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Dora Oltulski.
Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Brenda Senders.
Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Bernard Druskin.
Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Joseph Greenblatt.
Mordecai Gebirtig, born in 1877 in Krakow, Poland, was a Yiddish folk poet and songwriter. He wrote "Undzer shtetl brent!" in 1936, following a pogrom in the Polish town of Przytyk. During the war, the song became popular in the Krakow ghetto and inspired young people to take up arms against the Nazis. It was sung in many ghettos and camps, and translated into Polish and several other languages. Gebirtig was killed in June 1942 during a roundup for deportation from the Krakow ghetto. Today, "Undzer…
From July 1941-May 1944, the SS camp at Trawniki had several purposes. It is best known as the training site for auxiliary police guards used in Nazi killing centers. Learn more.
With help from allies and collaborators, German authorities deported Jews from across Europe to killing centers. The vast majority were gassed almost immediately after their arrival in the killing centers.
Under the protection of the Bielski partisan group, founded by brothers Tuvia, Asael, and Zus, over 1,200 Jews survived after fleeing into forests in western Belarus.
Explore a timeline of key events in the history of the Sobibor killing center in the General Government, the German-administered territory of occupied Poland.
Learn about the Holocaust, the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.
The Chelmno killing center was the first stationary facility where poison gas was used for mass murder of Jews. Killing operations began there in December 1941.
The Order Police (Ordnungspolizei, Orpo) were Nazi Germany’s uniformed police forces. They became perpetrators of horrific crimes and played a significant role in the Holocaust.
Explore a timeline of key events during the history of the Treblinka killing center in German-occupied Poland.
Read a detailed timeline of the Holocaust and World War II. Learn about key dates and events from 1933-45 as Nazi antisemitic policies became more radical.
The Danish resistance movement, assisted by many ordinary citizens, coordinated the flight of some 7,200 Jews to safety in nearby neutral Sweden. Learn more about rescue in Denmark.
October 15, 1941. On this date, Heinrich Himmler tasks SS Gen. Odilo Globocnik with implementing "Operation Reinhard."
Shlomo was one of seven children born in Lodz to the Reich family. The Reichs were a religious Jewish family, and Shlomo's Hasidic father wore earlocks and a traditional fur hat. After public school every day, Shlomo attended the Ostrovtze Yeshiva, a rabbinical academy where he studied Jewish holy texts. Shlomo's father owned a shoelace factory. 1933-39: The Germans invaded Lodz in September 1939 and began to institute anti-Jewish measures. Jews were not allowed to use public transportation, to leave the…
Rozia was born to a Jewish family in the town of Kolbuszowa. Her family lived outside of town, near her uncles. The Susskinds owned a flour mill and a lumber mill. Their home was one of the few in the area with electricity, which was generated at their mills. Rozia had an older sister, Hanka, and an older brother, Yanek. 1933-39: In the early 1930s, the Susskinds' mills burned down. Hanka moved to Cracow to study in the university and married, and Yanek was working in Kolbuszowa's Jewish bank. The…
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.
Children's diaries bear witness to some of the most heartbreaking events of the Holocaust. Learn about the diary and experiences of Jutta Szmirgeld.
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.
Berlin was home to Germany’s largest Jewish community. It was also the capital of the Third Reich and the center for the planning of the "Final Solution."
Portrait of three-year-old Estera Horn wrapped in a fur coat. Chelm, Poland, ca. 1940. Estera was born in January 1937. Her father was killed soon after the Germans invaded Poland. Estera and her mother, Perla Horn, were forced into the ghetto in Chelm. At the end of 1942, during the liquidation of the ghetto, Perla and Estera escaped from the ghetto. They hid in nearby villages. In late 1943, Perla asked a family in Plawnice to take care of Estera. Perla tried to hide with a group of Jews in the nearby…
Benjamin Meed, member of the resistance in Warsaw and later a leader of the survivor community, was a founder of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
During the Holocaust, some children went into hiding to escape Nazi persecution. They faced constant fear, dilemmas, and danger.
Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Gertrude Boyarski.
Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Charles Bedzow.
Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Tuvia Bielski.
Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Leah Johnson.
Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Benjamin Levin.
One of the milk cans used by Warsaw ghetto historian Emanuel Ringelblum to store and preserve the secret "Oneg Shabbat" ghetto archives.This milk can, identified as no. 2, was unearthed at 58 Nowolipki Street in Warsaw on December 1, 1950.
German forces occupied Riga, Latvia in July 1941. Soon after, they established a ghetto in the city. German Einsatzgruppen and Latvian auxiliaries murdered thousands of Riga's Jews in shootings. Over three days in November and December 1941 alone,...
In 1942, seven-year-old Inge Auerbacher was deported with her parents to the Theresienstadt ghetto. She brought along this doll, named “Marlene” after German actress Marlene Dietrich, which her grandmother had given her. It would remain with Inge throughout her three years of imprisonment in the ghetto.
Henryk Ross testifies during Adolf Eichmann's trial. In addition to official duties as a photographer in the Department of Statistics in the Lodz ghetto, Ross secretly photographed scenes in the ghetto. To Ross' right is chief prosecutor Gideon Hausner, who holds some of Ross' photographs submitted as evidence. Jerusalem, Israel, May 2, 1961.
Stefania Podgorska (right), pictured here with her younger sister Helena (left), helped Jews survive in German-occupied Poland. She supplied food to Jews in the Przemysl ghetto. Following the German destruction of the ghetto in 1943, she saved 13 Jews by hiding them in her attic. Przemysl, Poland, 1944.
Close-up portrait of Miriam Wattenberg (Mary Berg). Because Mary's mother was American, she and her family were sent from the Warsaw ghetto to Vittel in to be held for possible prisoner exchange. Her diary became the first wartime published eyewitness account in English of life in the Warsaw ghetto and the deportation of its inhabitants to be murdered at Treblinka.
Children's diaries bear witness to some of the most heartbreaking experiences of the Holocaust. Learn about the diary and experiences of Rut Berlinska.
In 1941, the Nazis established Janowska camp. It was primarily used as a forced-labor and transit camp.
Jewish children in hiding during the Holocaust created writing, art, diaries, and more. Read about the surviving documentation of their experiences.
The Nazi Ministry of Propaganda exploited motion pictures as a medium to spread antisemitic messages. Learn about one such film, Der ewige Jude.
A member of the German Order Police Battalion 101 stands next to a sign marking the entrance to the Lodz ghetto in German-occupied Poland, 1940–1941. The German text of the sign reads: "Announcement: In accordance with a police order of February 8, 1940, all Germans and Poles are forbidden entry into the ghetto area."
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