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Laura was the second of five children born to religious Jewish parents in the industrial city of Lvov. She was often called affectionately by her nickname, Lorka. Coming from an educated family living in a multi-ethnic part of Poland, she grew up speaking Polish, Russian, German and Yiddish. As a young woman, she earned a humanities degree from St. Nicholas University in Lvov. 1933-39: In April 1935 Laura became Mrs. Daniel Schwarzwald. Her husband was a successful lumber exporter, and they lived in a…
Rémy was born in a small French town to Catholic parents. In 1913, after studying law at the University of Paris, he joined the Tallandier publishing house in Paris. During World War I he served in the French army and was wounded five times. He returned to work at Tallandier after the war, and in 1919 he married Germaine Tallandier, the daughter of the owner. They had five children whom they raised as devout Catholics. 1933-39: In 1935 Rémy became the mayor of Avon, a small town about 35 miles southeast…
Both of Charlene's parents were local Jewish community leaders, and the family was active in community life. Charlene's father was a professor of philosophy at the State University of Lvov. World War II began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Charlene's town was in the part of eastern Poland occupied by the Soviet Union under the German-Soviet Pact of August 1939. Under the Soviet occupation, the family remained in its home and Charlene's father continued to teach. The Germans…
Monique's Jewish parents met in Paris. Her father had emigrated there from Russia to study engineering, and her mother had come from Poland as a young child. Monique's father did not have enough money to finish university, so he went to work as an upholsterer. He also shared a small business which sold his hand-tooled leather purses. 1933-39: Monique's mother was 20 when she gave birth to Monique in 1937. Two years later, Parisians were threatened by the possibility of bombing by the Germans, and French…
Ion was born to Jewish parents in a small, ethnically diverse city in east-central Moldavia [in Romania], a region known for its wine. Husi had a sizable and active Jewish population, which organized literary and artistic festivals and ran a local library. Ion's father was a wine maker and his side of the family had owned vineyards for at least three generations. 1933-39: Ion enjoyed helping his father in the family vineyards. He also did volunteer work at his local Jewish library. When he was 17, his…
Judith was the only child born to a Jewish couple who lived in Hatvan, a small town 36 miles northeast of Budapest. Judith's father worked in his brother's business, marketing grains and other agricultural products purchased from local farms. When she was 3, Judith gave her first public recitation of poetry, an interest that she pursued throughout her childhood. 1933-39: Judith's family wasn't religious--they were Hungarians who happened to be Jewish, and their family was well-liked in Hatvan. But in the…
Irmgard was one of three children born to a Jewish family in the famous university city of Goettingen. The city had a small Jewish population, and only one synagogue. Irmgard's father, with his two brothers, owned a linen factory that had been founded by Irmgard's grandfather. Irmgard attended public school in the city. 1933-39: With the onset of the Depression in the 1930s, the family's factory went into decline. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they confiscated the Rosenbergs' factory. Later, the…
Born in the town of Volkovysk when it was part of Russia, David was the son of middle-class Jewish parents. When the family's life was disrupted by World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917, they moved to Borisov and Kiev before finally settling in the Polish city of Bialystok. After completing secondary school in 1925, David studied medicine at Stefan Bathory University in Vilna. 1933-39: After medical school David served one year in the Polish army. Then he practiced obstetrics at a beautiful…
Protestant pastor Martin Niemöller emerged as an opponent of Adolf Hitler and was imprisoned in camps for 7 years. Learn about the complexities surrounding his beliefs.
Book burnings and bans were not exclusive to—and did not end with—the Nazi regime. Learn more about the symbolism of book burnings.
Charles Coughlin, Catholic priest and populist leader, promoted antisemitic and pro-fascist views. In the 1930s, he was one of the most influential public figures in the US.
The Röhm Purge (the “Night of the Long Knives") was the murder of the leadership of the SA (Storm Troopers), the Nazi paramilitary formation led by Ernst Röhm. Learn more.
The Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls were developed as Nazi Party youth groups to indoctrinate children and youth in Nazi ideology and policy.
The Mir ghetto was established in Mir, Poland in 1941. Learn more about life and resistance in the ghetto.
Hilda Rattner (born Hilda Wiener ) was born into a Jewish family in Vienna on June 14, 1904. Not long after her birth, Hilda’s parents realized that she was deaf. Two years later, their fourth child, Richard, was born, and he was also deaf. Vienna in particular had a very vibrant deaf community where Jews and non-Jews mixed freely. Hilda and her brother Richard attended a Jewish school, where they learned to sign, and it was through these associations and activities that Hilda met Isadore Rattner, a…
Robert and his family were Jehovah's Witnesses. The Nazis regarded Jehovah's Witnesses as enemies of the state for their refusal to take an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, or to serve in the German army. Robert's family continued its religious activities despite Nazi persecution. Shortly before Robert's birth, his mother was imprisoned briefly for distributing religious materials. Robert's hip was injured during delivery, leaving him with a disability. When Robert was five years, he was ordered to report…
Fanny was the oldest of three girls born to a Jewish family in the Baltic seaport of Liepaja, a city with a large Jewish community in Latvia. Fanny attended a Jewish primary school there. Her parents owned and operated a shoe store and small shoe factory. 1933-39: As a young girl, Fanny's life revolved around activities with Betar, a Zionist youth movement founded in Riga in 1923. They had a group of about 25 boys and girls. They studied about Palestine and their Jewish heritage. In 1935 Fanny's mother…
One of five children, Claude grew up in a Catholic family in Paris. His father, a physician, owned a prosperous general medicine practice and medical laboratory. Claude's father encouraged him to study medicine and to join his practice, but Claude was more interested in becoming a lawyer. 1933-39: Claude continued his studies, and in 1936 he entered the university to study law. By mid-1939, Germany's threat against France had escalated, and on September 3, 1939, France declared war on Germany. Claude knew…
Claude was one of five children born to Jewish parents in the university city of Heidelberg. His father, a physician specializing in internal medicine, had his practice on the first floor of the apartment building in which the family lived. Claude was an avid swimmer until November 1932, when local Nazi party edicts forbad Jews to use the city pool where he swam. 1933-39: In January 1933, just after Hitler became chancellor of Germany, hoodlums attacked Jewish-owned businesses in Heidelberg. They broke…
At the Berga-Elster subcamp of Buchenwald, prisoners were forced to do dangerous and brutal work in tunnels to support fuel production for the German war effort.
How involved in the Holocaust were German professionals and civil leaders? What were some of the motivations and pressures that led to a wide range of behavior? What indeed was the range of behavior, from complying to perpetrating?Explore t...
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…
Frederic was born to a Jewish family in Czernowitz (Chernovtsy). His father was head clerk in a lawyer's office and his mother was a pianist. Frederic's parents were active in Czernowitz's sizable Jewish community. In 1930 Frederic began medical studies at the German University in Prague, Czechoslovakia. 1933-39: Frederic left Prague in 1933. He went to France and then Italy to finish his studies and graduated in 1936. He wanted to leave Europe to escape Hitler and tried to do so by applying to the…
Robert was the second of three children born to Jewish parents in the Moravian capital of Brno, where his father ran a shipping company. Between 1909 and 1920 Robert lived with his widowed grandmother, who resided nearby. He completed secondary school in 1922, and then attended an international trade school in Vienna. Robert earned a doctorate in law from Charles University in Prague in 1930. 1933-39: After apprenticing as a lawyer for five years, Robert finally opened his own practice in Brno in January…
Nenad was the youngest of nine children born to Serbian Orthodox landowners in the eastern Croatian part of Yugoslavia. During World War I the Popovic family was evacuated to Vukovar by the Austro-Hungarian army, which was then at war with Serbia. In 1928 Nenad moved to Belgrade, where he attended Belgrade University, graduating with a law degree in 1932. 1933-39: Nenad's specialty was law related to economics and he found a job in the economic research department of the Yugoslav central bank in Belgrade.…
Aranka was the youngest of 10 children born to Jewish parents living in the highlands of Slovakia. While visiting Budapest to attend her sister's marriage, she was introduced to Jeno Muhlrad, a pharmacist. They were married and the couple moved in with Jeno's father and sisters who lived in Ujpest, a suburb of Budapest. Aranka had two children--Eva, born in 1924, and Andras, born six years later. 1933-39: Aranka's husband has leased his own pharmacy in downtown Ujpest so they can finally afford to move…
Both of Charlene's parents were local Jewish community leaders, and the family was active in community life. Charlene's father was a professor of philosophy at the State University of Lvov. World War II began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Charlene's town was in the part of eastern Poland occupied by the Soviet Union under the German-Soviet Pact of August 1939. Under the Soviet occupation, the family remained in its home and Charlene's father continued to teach. The Germans…
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…
Manon's Christian parents lived in Paris. Roger Marliac, her father, originally from a wealthy family, supported his family by selling produce at small marketplaces. Margarit, her mother (called Maguy by her friends), had a university degree in science. The family lived in a large apartment in a fashionable neighborhood near the Eiffel Tower. 1933-39: Manon, the Marliacs' second child, was born in 1937. She was 2 years old when her father was drafted into the French army as the country mobilized for a…
Peter was six years old when his mother enrolled him in a special Hitler boarding school for future Nazi Party officials in 1935. He studied traditional academic subjects, but was constantly exposed to Nazi ideas and prepared for a military life. Peter was also a member of the Hitler Youth. He came to believe in Hitler as the savior of Germany. Peter would later describe his indoctrination as a subtle process. It took two years after the war had ended for Peter to come to terms with the atrocities that the…
Ben was born in a small village in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania in Romania. When he was an infant, his family moved to the United States. Ben attended Harvard University, where he studied criminal law. Ben graduated from Harvard University Law School in 1943. He joined a US anti-aircraft artillery battalion that was training in preparation for an Allied invasion of western Europe. At the end of World War II in Europe, Ben was transferred to the war crimes investigation branch of the US Army. He…
Sophie was born Selma Schwarzwald to parents Daniel and Laura in the industrial city of Lvov, two years before Germany invaded Poland. Daniel was a successful businessman who exported timber and Laura had studied economics. The Germans occupied Lvov in 1941. After her father's disappearance on her fifth birthday in 1941, Sophie and her mother procured false names and papers and moved to a small town called Busko-Zdroj. They became practicing Catholics to hide their identities. Sophie gradually forgot that…
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…
Both of Charlene's parents were local Jewish community leaders, and the family was active in community life. Charlene's father was a professor of philosophy at the State University of Lvov. World War II began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Charlene's town was in the part of eastern Poland occupied by the Soviet Union under the German-Soviet Pact of August 1939. Under the Soviet occupation, the family remained in its home and Charlene's father continued to teach. The Germans…
Fritz was one of three sons born to a Jewish family in the university city of Goettingen, where the Rosenbergs had lived since the 1600s. His father owned a linen factory. Fritz worked as a salesman there, and later he and his brothers inherited the business. In 1913 Fritz married Else Herz. By the early 1920s they had two sons and a daughter. 1933-39: In 1933 the Nazis came to power in Germany. A year later the Rosenbergs' factory was seized and three Nazis came to the family's home. An officer set a gun…
Pola was born to a Jewish family in a small town [in Poland] about three miles from the German border. Her family had lived there for generations. Pola's father exported geese and other goods to Germany; her mother owned a fabric store. They lived with Pola's grandmother in a large, single-level, gray stucco house. Raczki had a small Jewish community with a Hebrew school that Pola attended. 1933-39: In 1937 Pola began secondary school in the town of Suwalki. She excelled in math, and hoped to study…
Zofia was born to a Jewish family in Warsaw. Zofia's father, a self-made man who had put himself through university, was a successful banker. The Rapaports lived on a street of single-family homes with gardens. Zofia's room was decorated with yellow lacquered furniture. 1933-39: As a young child, Zofia loved to play with her dog, Chapek. Sometimes she got to go shopping with her mother downtown. Each year during the Jewish holiday of Passover her family visited Zofia's grandparents in Lvov. In late August…
Roza was born to a Jewish family in a predominately Catholic village near Warsaw. Her father owned a prosperous pearl button factory that employed some 100 people. They shared a large home with Roza's grandmother who ran a general store and bakery in the village. Roza and her three sisters attended Polish schools and took Hebrew lessons at the towns' synagogue. 1933-39: Roza's father frequently did business in Warsaw so the family moved there in 1934. They loved the city, and often went to concerts and…
Both of Charlene's parents were local Jewish community leaders, and the family was active in community life. Charlene's father was a professor of philosophy at the State University of Lvov. World War II began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Charlene's town was in the part of eastern Poland occupied by the Soviet Union under the German-Soviet Pact of August 1939. Under the Soviet occupation, the family remained in its home and Charlene's father continued to teach. The Germans…
Both of Charlene's parents were local Jewish community leaders, and the family was active in community life. Charlene's father was a professor of philosophy at the State University of Lvov. World War II began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Charlene's town was in the part of eastern Poland occupied by the Soviet Union under the German-Soviet Pact of August 1939. Under the Soviet occupation, the family remained in its home and Charlene's father continued to teach. The Germans…
Both of Charlene's parents were local Jewish community leaders, and the family was active in community life. Charlene's father was a professor of philosophy at the State University of Lvov. World War II began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Charlene's town was in the part of eastern Poland occupied by the Soviet Union under the German-Soviet Pact of August 1939. Under the Soviet occupation, the family remained in its home and Charlene's father continued to teach. The Germans…
Gerd was the eldest of four children. His father, Josef, had left Ukraine in 1913 and opened a bicycle sales and repair shop in Bremen. His mother, Selma, was descended from a distinguished Jewish family and had been a kindergarten teacher and a bookkeeper for a large firm. As a child, Gerd experienced the hardships of the Depression and witnessed the violent street fights between the Nazis and their political opponents, the Communists and Socialists. 1933–39: When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Gerd…
A leading researcher of sex, sexuality, and gender, German Jewish doctor Magnus Hirschfeld was forced to live in exile after the Nazi rise to power.
When WWII began, most Americans wanted the US to stay isolated from the war. From December 1941, the majority rallied in support of intervention to defeat the Axis powers.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was 32nd president of the US. Learn about the domestic and international challenges FDR faced as president during World War II.
The Nazis frequently used propaganda to disguise their political aims and deceive the German and international public. Learn more.
The National Socialist German Worker’s Party, also known as the Nazi Party, was the far-right racist and antisemitic political party led by Adolf Hitler.
Eva was the second daughter of five children born to Jewish parents. Her father dealt in real estate, and the family owned the apartment building in which they lived. The building had an elevator, a luxury for that time. Eva finished high school, and she began working for her father and studying history at a small local university. 1933-39: Nightlife for young people was lively in Lodz, and Eva often went dancing with her boyfriend, Herman. In 1939 they married. Then the Germans invaded. One day, the…
Hans was born to Jewish parents in a town in northwestern Germany. The family moved to Berlin when Hans' father obtained a post there as a history teacher in a secondary school. After graduating from university, Hans married and settled with his wife Margaret in an apartment in Berlin. In 1920 their child Wolfgang was born. Hans worked as foreign representative for a sewing notions company. 1933-39: When the Nazis won the election a few weeks ago, Hans was afraid for people like himself who are active…
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