You searched for: hiding

Collections Highlight: Selma Schwarzwald and her Bear, "Refugee"

While living under an assumed identity after escaping from the Lvov ghetto, Selma Schwarzwald received a toy bear that she kept with her for many years. Read about Refugee the bear.

Raszka (Roza) Galek Brunswic describes her decision, while posing as a Polish Catholic, to work on a farm in Germany

Roza's family moved to Warsaw in 1934. She had just begun college when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. In 1940, the Germans sealed the Warsaw ghetto, where her parents were shot during a roundup. Roza escaped and went into hiding. From her hiding place she saw the burning of the ghetto in the 1943 uprising. She had false papers stating she was a Polish Catholic (Maria Kowalczyk), and was deported by cattle train to Germany in June 1943. She worked on a farm until liberation in 1945.

Life in Shadows: Hidden Children and the Holocaust

When World War II ended in 1945, six million European Jews were dead, killed in the Holocaust. About 1.5 million of the victims were children.

Jakub Lapides

Young people's diaries bear witness to some of the most heartbreaking experiences of the Holocaust. Learn about the diary and experiences of Jakub Lapides.

Hidden Children: Expressions

Jewish children in hiding during the Holocaust created writing, art, diaries, and more. Read about the surviving documentation of their experiences.

Erika Eckstut

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

Henrietta and Herman Goslinski

In 1942, Henrietta and Herman Goslinski went into hiding to avoid deportation from the Netherlands. Their rescuer could not, however, also take their infant daughter Berty. The Dutch resistance moved Berty frequently; she was eventually moved more than 30 times. During the two-and-a-half years apart, the parents saw Berty only once and received this single photograph of her taken while she was in hiding.

False identity for Kurt I. Lewin

Kurt I. Lewin, who was Jewish, used this card while in hiding in a Ukrainian Greek Catholic monastery in German-occupied Poland (today Ukraine). 

Anne Frank

Hidden Children

Estelle Laughlin

Explore Estelle Laughlin’s biography and learn about her experiences during the Warsaw ghetto uprising.

Norman Salsitz under an assumed identity

Norman Salsitz while under the assumed identity Tadeusz Zaleski. Legnica, Poland, 1945.

Edith Goldman Bielawski

Edith's parents owned a cotton factory in the town of Wegrow [in Poland]. The Goldmans were a religious family, and raised Edith, her brother and three sisters to strictly observe the Sabbath, Jewish holidays and the dietary laws. 1933-39: Edith attended public school, and also studied at the Beis Yakov religious school for girls where she learned Hebrew, the Bible and Jewish history. Her favorite hobby was knitting, and after finishing secondary school she learned the quilt-making trade. In the…

Portrait of three-year-old Estera Horn

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…

Ruth Elisabeth Dahl

Ruth was born into an orthodox Jewish family in Geilenkirchen, a rural German town near the Dutch border. Her father, Isidor, was a respected cattle dealer in the area and her mother, Sophia, took care of the home. Ruth had two older siblings, Edith and Carl. 1933–39: When the Nazis came to power in Germany, life changed in Geilenkirchen. The townspeople supported the new regime and nobody helped their Jewish neighbors. Excluded from public institutions, Ruth attended a private Catholic school. In 1938,…

Klara Mintzberg

Klara grew up in Rzeszow, a Polish city with a population of approximately 30,000. The Mintzbergs were observant Jews. Klara's mother supported the family by running their fabric store. Her father was an ardent Zionist. He dreamed of immigrating to Palestine and encouraged Klara to join a Zionist youth group. 1933-39: After finishing secondary school, Klara was elected to serve on the board of directors of Poland's Ha-No'ar Ha-Ziyoni youth movement; she was the only woman on the board. She studied…

Fred Deutsch describes family's preparations for travel

Fred was born in Czechoslovakia in a town near the Polish border. Fred and his family were forced by the Germans to relocate east to a town bordering Slovakia. At the end of 1942, they escaped from the town and went into hiding. The family hid in bunkers in the forest until the end of the war. They moved every few weeks to avoid detection by the Germans or Slovak authorities. While the family was in hiding, Fred's grandfather made arrangements for Fred to attend school under an assumed name and religion. A…

Gideon Frieder

Explore Gideon Frieder’s biography and learn about his experiences as a child during the Holocaust in Slovakia.

Hans Rudelsheim

Hans was born to a Jewish family in the small Dutch town of Kampen. His father worked as a tailor, and he taught Hans about the tailoring trade. 1933-39: Hans was a skilled tailor, and an accomplished pianist as well. Inquisitive about all subjects, Hans loved to read and to keep abreast of current events. 1940-43: When the Jews in the Dutch provinces were ordered to relocate to Amsterdam in January 1942, the Rudelsheims complied. In early 1943, while in hiding with a Christian family near Leiden, Hans…

Leah Kohl Rapaport

Leah and her four brothers were raised in a religious Jewish family in the city of Lvov. After obtaining her high school diploma, Leah attended university for one year. In 1931 she married Joseph Rapaport, and the couple settled in Warsaw. 1933-39: The Rapaports lived in the suburbs, and Joseph worked as a banker. Their daughter Zofia was born in May 1933. Each year at the Jewish holiday of Passover, they returned to Lvov to visit Leah's parents. Two days after Joseph was mobilized for military duty in…

Helen (Helene Katz Wohlfarth) Waterford describes giving up her daughter to be sheltered

Although originally from Germany, Helen was living in the Netherlands with her husband and young daughter when the Germans invaded in May 1940. Helen and her husband sent their daughter to non-Jewish friends, and went into hiding themselves. They stayed in a variety of places arranged by a friend who was active in the underground. On August 25, 1944, Helen and her husband were arrested. They were sent first to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz, where they were separated. Helen worked in the I. G. Farben…

Lonia Goldman Fishman

Lonia had three sisters and one brother. Her parents owned a cotton factory in the town of Wegrow. The Goldmans were a religious family, strictly observing the Sabbath, the Jewish holidays and the dietary laws. 1933-39: After studying all day at public school, Lonia attended a religious school for girls called Beis Yakov where she studied Hebrew, the Bible and Jewish history. Later, when she was in high school, a private tutor came to the house to teach her Hebrew. Lonia's favorite hobby was knitting.…

Sevek Fishman

Sevek's religious Jewish family owned a haberdashery business in Kaluszyn, a suburb of Warsaw. The oldest of six children (three boys and three girls), Sevek completed high school and was then apprenticed to a tailor. 1933-39: Each Friday, before the Sabbath began, Sevek's mother asked the neighbors if they had enough food for the Sabbath. If they didn't, she brought them a meal. Although Sevek belonged to a non-religious Zionist group, Ha Shomer ha-Tsa'ir, and didn't wear a skullcap like religious Jews,…

Sophie Turner-Zaretsky describes feeling different from other Polish children

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…

Barbara Ledermann Rodbell describes receiving her first set of false papers

In 1933 Barbara's family moved to Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. They became friends of Anne Frank and her family. The Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940. Barbara's boyfriend, Manfred, had underground contacts and she got false papers. Her mother, sister, and father were deported to Westerbork and then to Auschwitz. Barbara survived using her false papers and worked for the resistance. She helped take Jews to hiding places and also hid Jews in an apartment held in her false name.