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Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish businessman assigned as a diplomat to Sweden's embassy in Budapest, led one of the most extensive and successful rescue efforts during the Holocaust. Supported by the American War Refugee Board (WRB) and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Wallenberg protected tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews, issuing documents testifying that the Jews were under the protection of neutral Sweden. Diplomats from other neutral countries also participated in the rescue effort. Carl…
Quotation from Martin Niemöller on display in the Permanent Exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Niemöller was a Lutheran minister and early Nazi supporter who was later imprisoned in the camp system for opposing Hitler's regime. First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a Socialist.Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a Trade Unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-Because I was…
The word antisemitism means prejudice against or hatred of Jews. Sometimes called "the longest hatred," it has persisted in many forms for over 2,000 years. Learn more.
Difficult debates took place within ghettos about whether and how to resist under the most adverse conditions. Read a rare account from the Lokacze ghetto.
Cultural and educational activities, clandestine documentation and religious observances. Learn more about these and other types of spiritual resistance in ghettos in Nazi-occupied areas.
Learn more about the end of Nazi tyranny in Europe and the liberation of camps and other sites of Nazi crimes. This article includes dates of liberation of some of the camps.
In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces killed as many as 8,000 Bosniaks from Srebrenica. It was the largest massacre in Europe since the Holocaust.
As part of the IG Farben conglomerate, which strongly supported the Third Reich, the Bayer company was complicit in the crimes of Nazi Germany. Learn more.
Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Charles Bedzow.
Holocaust survivor Frank Liebermann has a conversation with his teddy bear. Germany, 1933–35. On Frank Liebermann’s first day of school in Gleiwitz, Germany, in 1935, he reported to one of the few small classrooms set aside for Jews. After school, he rushed home to avoid antisemitic attacks. In 1936, it got worse. Anti-Jewish laws now banned Frank from playgrounds and swimming pools. The family decided it was time to leave and applied for US visas. They were lucky. In October 1938, the…
Benjamin Kedar (born Villiam Krausz) sits with a doll and a teddy bear shortly before his family went into hiding. Villiam's parents married in Prague and settled in Nitra, Slovakia. They worked as physicians. They had a daughter, Helen, in 1934, and Villiam in 1938. In 1942 the family relocated to a nearby village until September 1944. At that point, they went into hiding with Slovak peasants to avoid deportation to Auschwitz. Villiam, his sister, and his parents survived the…
August 3, 1943. On this date, Kurt I. Lewin was issued a forged ID card for "Roman-Paul Mytka." He used that identity to survive the war.
April 4, 1945. On this date, US troops liberated Ohrdruf, a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp.
A digital representation of the United States 1st Infantry Division's flag. The US 1st Infantry Division (the "Big Red One" division) was formed in 1917 and fought in World War I. During World War II, they were involved in the Allied invasions of North Africa and Italy, as well as D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge. Additionally, the division captured the city of Aachen and liberated Zwodau and Falkenau an der Eger, two subcamps of Flossenbürg. The 1st Infantry Division was recognized as a liberating…
A digital representation of the United States 2nd Infantry Division's flag. The US 2nd Infantry Division (the "Indianhead" division) was created in 1917 and fought in World War I. During World War II, they were involved in D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge. They also captured the cities of Leipzig and Hadamar. Additionally, the division overran Leipzig-Schönefeld, a subcamp of Buchenwald, and liberated prisoners at the Spergau/Zöschen camp. The 2nd Infantry Division was recognized as a liberating unit…
As part of the Holocaust, the Germans murdered about 90% of Jews in Lithuania. Read more about the tragic experience of Lithuanian Jews during World War II.
German physicians conducted inhumane experiments on prisoners in the camps during the Holocaust. Learn more about Nazi medical experiments during WW2.
Martin Weiss and his family were deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Explore Marty’s biography and his description of arrival in Auschwitz.
The Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service, SD) was a Nazi intelligence agency. Ideologically radical and part of the SS, it was a key perpetrator of the Holocaust.
John Demjanjuk, initially convicted as “Ivan the Terrible,” was tried for war crimes committed as a collaborator of the Nazi regime during the Holocaust.
In March 1942, the Hodonin camp was classified as a camp for Roma. It was a transfer station during deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Learn about the camp and its history.
The 1936 Olympics in Berlin under Adolf Hitler's Nazi dictatorship were more than just a worldwide sporting event, they were also a show of Nazi propaganda.
Judge Thomas Buergenthal was one of the youngest survivors of the Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. He immigrated to the United States at the age of 17. Judge Buergenthal devoted his life to international and human rights law. He served as chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience; was named the Lobingier Professor of Comparative Law and Jurisprudence at the George Washington University Law School; and served for a decade as the American judge at…
Judge Thomas Buergenthal was one of the youngest survivors of the Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. He immigrated to the United States at the age of 17. Judge Buergenthal devoted his life to international and human rights law. He served as chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience; was named the Lobingier Professor of Comparative Law and Jurisprudence at the George Washington University Law School; and served for a decade as the American judge at…
Judge Thomas Buergenthal was one of the youngest survivors of the Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. He immigrated to the United States at the age of 17. Judge Buergenthal devoted his life to international and human rights law. He served as chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience; was named the Lobingier Professor of Comparative Law and Jurisprudence at the George Washington University Law School; and served for a decade as the American judge at…
The Mir ghetto was established in Mir, Poland in 1941. Learn more about life and resistance in the ghetto.
Iranian diplomat Abdol Hossein Sardari gave critical assistance to Iranian Jews in occupied France (1940-1944) to protect them from Nazi persecution.
After the Holocaust, the IMT charged the first case of “incitement to genocide.” Learn more about the crime and its application in modern genocide law.
In May 1939, the German transatlantic liner St. Louis sailed from Germany to Cuba. Most of the passengers were Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. Learn more about the voyage.
Halle an der Saale was a satellite camp of Buchenwald concentration camp. It was established by the Nazis in Saxony, Germany in 1941.
Listing of the 24 leading Nazi officials indicted at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Learn about the defendants and the charges against them.
Learn about the history of Sighet, birthplace of Elie Wiesel. The Jewish population of Sighet was deported to Auschwitz in May 1944. Most of the deportees were gassed on arrival.
Explore Gideon Frieder’s biography and learn about his experiences as a child during the Holocaust in Slovakia.
Alice Goldberger (1897-1986) was born in Berlin, Germany. Trained as a youth-work instructor, she ran a shelter for disadvantaged children and their families. When Hitler came to power, Alice, who was Jewish, had to give up her post. She immigrated to England in 1939. When war broke out, Alice was interned on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien. While there, she organized a children's facility.Hearing of Alice's work in the camp, psychoanalyst Anna Freud (daughter of Sigmund Freud) intervened to secure her…
Henry Morgenthau Jr had a key role in creating and operating the War Refugee Board, a government agency tasked with rescuing and providing relief for Jews during the Holocaust.
Young people's diaries capture some of the most heartbreaking experiences of the Holocaust. Learn about the diary and experiences of David Sierakowiak.
Ernest's family owned a factory that made matzah, the unleavened bread eaten during Passover. In February 1939, three months after Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass" pogroms), Ernest and his mother fled to Shanghai, one of few havens for refugees without visas. His father and sister stayed behind in Germany; they perished during the Holocaust. A brother escaped to England. Ernest and his mother found work in Shanghai. In 1947, he came to the United States with his wife, whom he met and married in…
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.
Theresia Seibel, born in 1921, was a member of the Sinti froup (Sinti and Roma are two main groups that make up the Romani, or Gypsy, ethnic minority). Theresia joined Germany’s Wuerzburg Stadttheater at age 16, performing as a singer and dancer. In 1941, she defied Gestapo orders to be sterilized and was three months pregnant with twins by the time she was called in for the procedure. She was allowed to continue the pregnancy on the condition that the babies would be given at birth to the clinic…
Children's diaries bear witness to some of the most heartbreaking experiences of the Holocaust. Learn about the diary and experiences of Chaim Kozienicki.
Explore a timeline of key events in the history of the Lublin/Majdanek camp in German-occupied Poland.
Key dates in the history of the SS (Schutzstaffel; Protection Squadrons), charged with the leadership of the “Final Solution,” the murder of European Jews.
The SS (Schutzstaffel) was the elite guard of the Nazi regime and a virtual state within the Third Reich.
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.
During the Holocaust, the creation of ghettos was a key step in the Nazi process of ultimately destroying Europe's Jews. Learn about the Vilna ghetto.
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.
Kindertransport refers to a series of rescue efforts between 1938 and 1940 that brought thousands of refugee children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany.
We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. View the list of all donors.