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Charlene Schiff describes foraging for food in order to survive in forests after escaping from the Horochow ghetto

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…

Hidden child in the Netherlands

Jewish child Hans van den Broeke (born Hans Culp) in hiding in the Netherlands. He is 2 years old in this photograph.

Sam Spiegel

Sam was the eldest of five children born to Jewish parents in Kozienice, a town in east central Poland. His father owned a shoe factory and his mother cared for the children and the home. Kozienice had a thriving Jewish community that made up about half of the town's population. 1933–39: On September 1, 1939, German troops invaded Poland. That morning the Spiegels heard an air raid siren blaring and quickly left their house. Fifteen minutes later a bomb struck the building. Sam was just 17 years old.…

Barbara Ledermann

Barbara was the older of two daughters born to Jewish parents in Germany's capital, Berlin. Barbara's father was a successful lawyer. As soon as Barbara was old enough to walk, he would take her around Berlin to see the sights and tour the city's art museums. Barbara liked to go horseback riding and dreamed of becoming a dancer. 1933-39: After the Nazis came to power in January 1933, it was illegal for Barbara's father to have non-Jewish clients. His law practice quickly folded. Later that year when…

Zofia Rapaport

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…

Helene Herta Katz Wohlfarth

Helene, called Herta, was born to a Russian-Jewish father and a German-Jewish mother in a town on the Main River, near Frankfurt. Her father had immigrated to Germany from Russia in 1890. Her mother had automatically taken on her husband's Russian citizenship when she married. In 1914 Russia and Germany went to war, and Russians living in Germany were considered "enemy aliens." 1933-39: Herta married Siegfried Wohlfarth in 1933 and could change from being "stateless" to taking on his German citizenship.…

Fruma Lieberman Perlmutter

Fruma was one of four children born to a Jewish family in the Polish village of Luczyce. Her parents owned a large farm near the village. In the early 1920s, Fruma married Simcha Perlmutter, a philosophy professor at the university in Lvov, and the couple settled in Horochow. By 1929 the couple had two daughters, Tchiya and Shulamit. 1933-39: In September 1939, as Simcha was arranging for his family to immigrate, Germany invaded Poland. Three weeks later the Soviet Union occupied eastern Poland where…

Erna Schumer Unger

Erna was the second of four daughters. Her religious Jewish parents moved the family to Essen, Germany, in 1905 when Erna was 21. Erna married when she was in her twenties, but the couple had no children and her husband passed away. After living as a widow for some years, Erna remarried to Jacob Unger, a salesman, and together they had two children, Max and Dora. 1933-39: When Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, Jacob went to Amsterdam to explore the possibility of the family settling there.…

Renee Schwalb

Vienna, home to some 175,000 Jews before World War II, was a major center of European Jewry. Vienna was also the intellectual heart of the Palestine resettlement movement. Most of the city's Jews lived in two large districts on the east side of the Danube Canal. Renee's father owned a prosperous men's clothing store in the city. 1933-39: German forces occupied Austria in March 1938. Anti-Jewish measures were quickly imposed. Renee's father was prohibited from doing business and his store was seized. He…

Mosze Fuks

When Mosze was a baby his family moved from the small town of Klimontov to the industrial city of Lodz. The Fuks family owned a grocery store and in the early 30s they started manufacturing silk thread. 1933-39: In September 1939 Germany attacked Poland. Over the radio, appeals were broadcast calling Jewish youths to Warsaw to help defend the city. Mosze and his brother, along with hundreds of others, set out for Warsaw. They walked for three days, but when they got to Warsaw, it was too late--the city…

Genya Rotenberg

Genya and her brother, Nahum, were raised by Jewish parents in Lodz, Poland's second-largest city and an industrial center. Before the war, one-third of Lodz's inhabitants were Jewish. Genya's parents placed emphasis on their children's education. 1933-39: In 1939, when Genya was 9, the Germans occupied Lodz. After that, it was forbidden for "Jews, Gypsies and dogs" to be in public places. Since Jews weren't allowed to go to school, her parents arranged to tutor her secretly at home, but she couldn't keep…

Rescue and Resistance

The Netherlands - ID Card/Oral History

Hidden Children: Hardships - Photograph

Zsofi Brunn (back row, center) poses with the orphans under her care

Zsofi Brunn and members of her family were deported from Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau in June 1944. Her husband and mother were killed upon arrival. Zsofi and her daughter Anna were transferred to a labor camp in Czechosovakia. They were eventually liberated by Soviet forces in May 1945. Zsofi and Anna returned to Hungary. They moved to Rakosszentmihaly, near Budapest. There, Anna finished high school, and Zsofi directed a Jewish orphanage. This photo shows Zsofi (back row, center) posing with the…

Lisa Dawidowicz

Lisa was born to a Jewish family in the small city of Ostrog in southeastern Poland. Her parents operated a grocery out of their residence; the front half of the house was a store and the rear half was their home. Ostrog was an important center of Jewish religious learning in Poland, and by 1933 Jews made up almost two-thirds of the city's total population. 1933-39: Lisa's family was religious and they regularly attended services. Lisa studied at a Polish school until the Soviets arrived in September…

Dress worn by a hidden child

A dress worn by hidden child in Baarn, the Netherlands. The dress was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2002 by Vera Waisvisz-Reiss.

Raszka (Roza) Galek

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…

Monique Jackson

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…

Frida Adler

Frida was the eldest of three daughters born to Jewish parents in a village in the easternmost province of Czechoslovakia. When Frida was 2, her parents moved to Liege, Belgium, a largely Catholic industrial city with many immigrants from eastern Europe. Frida attended Belgian public schools and grew up speaking French. 1933-39: In Liege Frida's family lived in an apartment above a cafe and across the street from a Catholic church. Frida had many Catholic girlfriends at school. At home she spoke Yiddish…

Rachela Rottenberg

The younger of two children born to Jewish parents, Rachela grew up in Radom, an industrial town located some 60 miles south of Warsaw. One-quarter of the city's 100,000 prewar population was Jewish. Rachela's father was a Zionist and was active in municipal affairs. Her mother did volunteer work. l933-39: Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. On September 5, with the Germans rapidly advancing, Rachela's family sought temporary safety with relatives in Warsaw. They got separated along the way.…

Laura Litwak

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…

Selma Schwarzwald

Both of Selma's Jewish parents, Daniel Schwarzwald and Laura Litwak, had been raised in the industrial city of Lvov. As many different nationalities lived in Lvov, Selma's mother and father could speak many languages--Polish, Russian, German and Yiddish. In running his successful lumber business, Daniel also occasionally used English. 1933-39: Selma's parents married in April 1935 and she was born two years later. Her father was afraid that there might be a war and wanted to move the family to safety in…

Ezra BenGershom

Ezra was born to a Jewish family in the Bavarian city of Wurzburg. In the summer of 1929, his father, a third-generation rabbi, accepted a position as a district rabbi, guiding 12 congregations in Upper Silesia. In primary school, Ezra, who showed a keen interest in chemistry, was often harassed by his schoolmates for being Jewish. 1933-39: Because of his "Nordic" features, Ezra was able to frequent places where Jews couldn't go. In 1938, one year after he entered a Jewish secondary school in Berlin, the…

Helga Leeser

The older of two sisters, Helga was raised by prosperous, non-religious Jewish parents in the small Catholic town of Duelmen in western Germany. Her family owned a linen factory. Before marrying Helga's much older father in 1927, her mother had been a Dutch citizen. As a child, Helga looked forward to vacations in the Netherlands with its comparatively relaxed atmosphere. 1933-39: At age 6 Helga began attending a Catholic elementary school. Antisemitism wasn't a problem until the night of November 9, 1938…

Felix Krakauer

Felix was one of six children born to Jewish parents in a small Moravian town, where his father ran a dry goods and clothing store. The family spoke Czech and German at home and Felix attended German-language schools. As a youth, he belonged to a Zionist club and liked to ski. He graduated from an international trade school in Vienna before settling down in the Moravian capital of Brno. 1933-39: During the 1930s Felix married a Christian woman from the town of Hodonin. When Felix's father retired in 1938,…

Pavol Kovac

As a boy, Pavol lived with his parents in the city of Martin in Slovakia. His father taught at the local agricultural college. The Kovacs, who were non-practicing Jews, were among the few Jewish residents in the town. 1933-39: When Pavol was born, almost nine months before the outbreak of World War II, his parents decided to have "Roman Catholic" listed under the entry for religion in his birth certificate. They took this step to protect him, despite the fact that for generations Jews in their region had…

Sophie Turner-Zaretsky describes how both she and her bear are survivors

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…

Suse Grunbaum at age one

Photograph taken in December 1932 of Suse Grunbaum at age one. Soon after Hitler's 1933 seizure of power in Germany, two-year-old Suse and her parents fled to the Netherlands and settled in the town of Dinxperlo. In 1943, Jews in German-occupied Dinxperlo were ordered to assemble for deportation. Hearing of these plans, the Grünbaums went into hiding, finding refuge with Dutch farmers. The Hartemink family hid Suse and her mother for two years in their barn, first under the floorboards, then in a…

Dress Worn by a Hidden Child

A blue and white child's dress worn by Sabina Kagan while living in hiding with the Roztropowicz family in Radziwillow, Poland, during World War II. Her rescuers used doll's clothing to make this dress. Sabina was just an infant when SS mobile killing squads began rounding up Jews in the Polish village of Radziwillow in 1942. Her parents persuaded a local policeman to hide the family. The policeman, however, soon asked the Kagans to leave but agreed to hide baby Sabina. Her parents were captured and…

Frieda Belinfante

“For three months I was disguised as a man, and very successfully… I passed my mother several times … she never recognized me.” Frieda Belinfante, a half-Jewish lesbian, used this disguise to hide from Nazi authorities. In a later interview she said, “I really looked pretty good.” Her involvement in the resistance movement included planning the destruction of the Amsterdam Population Registry in March 1943, falsifying identity cards, and arranging hiding places for those who were sought by…

Page from the diary of Eugenia Hochberg

A page from the diary of Eugenia Hochberg, written while she was living in hiding in Brody, Poland. The page contains a timeline of important events that happened during the war, such as deaths and deportations of family and friends. Brody, Poland, July 1943–March 1944.

Jewish Aid and Rescue - Artifact/Document

Women during the Holocaust - Artifact/Document

Sophie Turner-Zaretsky describes moving to London after liberation and discovering her Jewish heritage

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…

Martin Spett

Known as Monek, Martin was the elder of two children raised by Jewish parents in the large town of Tarnow. His mother was an American citizen who had been raised in Poland. His father worked at the city's tax office. As a child, Martin liked to collect stamps and catch lizards. His parents wanted him to be a pharmacist, but he wanted to be an artist when he grew up. 1933-39: When the Germans occupied Tarnow in September 1939 after war began, Martin was 10 years old. The soldiers, in beautiful uniforms,…

Raoul Wallenberg and the Rescue of Jews in Budapest - ID Card/Oral History

The Council for Aid to Jews: Żegota

The Council for Aid to Jews (codenamed “Żegota”) was an underground rescue organization of Poles and Jews. It operated in German-occupied Poland from December 4, 1942, to January 1945 and was supported by the Polish government-in-exile. Żegota’s main objective was to coordinate efforts to save Jews from Nazi persecution and murder. Its members worked clandestinely, often risking their own lives and the lives of their families and friends. Żegota supplied tens of thousands of Polish Jews with fake…

Photograph of Robert Coopman

Robert Coopman was born in the Netherlands in September 1940.  This 1941 photograph shows Robert holding a telephone while sitting next to a teddy bear. He and his parents lived in Amsterdam where his father was a salesman and bookkeeper.  In July 1942, fearing for their safety, Robert's parents placed him in hiding with the Viejou family in Naarden.  He was less than two years old. He lived as a member of the household until August 1944, when a neighbor betrayed them. Robert was …

Peter Feigl

Photo of Peter Feigl, a Jewish child hidden in the Protestant village Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. Le Chambon, France, August 9, 1943.

Which organizations and individuals aided and protected Jews from persecution between 1933 and 1945?

Explore this question to learn about the motivations and challenges of those who aided Jews

Joseph von Hoppen Waldhorn

Joseph was the youngest of three children born to immigrant Jewish parents. His Polish-born father was a former officer in the Austro-Hungarian army who had met and married Joseph's Hungarian-born mother during World War I. Joseph was raised in a religious household and grew up speaking French. 1933-39: Joseph's mother says it's better here in Paris than in the poor village where she grew up. Unlike his mother, who speaks broken French, Joseph and his older sisters have grown up speaking French fluently.…

Joseph Muscha Mueller

Joseph was born in Bitterfeld, Germany, to Roma ("Gypsy") parents. For reasons unknown, he was raised in an orphanage for the first one-and-a-half years of his life. At the time of Joseph's birth, some 26,000 "Gypsies"—members of either the Sinti or Roma tribes—lived in Germany. Though most were German citizens, they were often discriminated against by other Germans and subjected to harassment. 1933-39: At age one-and-a-half, Joseph was taken into foster care by a family living in Halle, a city some…

Death Penalty for Aiding Jews

September 5, 1942. On this date, Germans issued this poster announcing the death penalty for anyone found aiding Jews who fled the Warsaw ghetto.

Sophie Turner-Zaretsky describes how she began to work through her experience as a hidden child

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…

Zigmond Adler

Zigmond's parents were Czechoslovakian Jews who had emigrated to Belgium. His mother, Rivka, was a shirtmaker. She had come to Belgium as a young woman to find a steady job, following her older brother, Jermie, who had moved his family to Liege several years earlier. In Liege, Rivka met and married Otto Adler, a businessman. The couple looked forward to raising a family. 1933-39: Zigmond was born to the Adlers in 1936, but his mother died one year later. His father remarried, but the marriage didn't last.…

Cover of Stanislava Roztropowicz's diary

Stanislava Roztropowicz kept a diary from 1943-1944. In it, she describes her family's decision to hide an abandoned Jewish girl, Sabina Heller (Kagan).  Sabina Kagan was an infant when SS mobile killing squads began rounding up Jews in her Polish village of Radziwillow in 1942. Her parents persuaded a local policeman to hide the family. The policeman, however, soon asked the Kagans to leave but agreed to hide baby Sabina. Her parents were captured and killed. Sabina was concealed in a dark basement,…

Page from Stanislava Roztropowicz's diary

Stanislava Roztropowicz kept a diary from 1943-1944. In it, she describes her family's decision to hide an abandoned Jewish girl, Sabina Heller (Kagan).  Sabina Kagan was an infant when SS mobile killing squads began rounding up Jews in her Polish village of Radziwillow in 1942. Her parents persuaded a local policeman to hide the family. The policeman, however, soon asked the Kagans to leave but agreed to hide baby Sabina. Her parents were captured and killed. Sabina was concealed in a dark basement,…

Back cover of Stanislava Roztropowicz's diary

Stanislava Roztropowicz kept a diary from 1943-1944. In it, she describes her family's decision to hide an abandoned Jewish girl, Sabina Heller (Kagan).  Sabina Kagan was an infant when SS mobile killing squads began rounding up Jews in her Polish village of Radziwillow in 1942. Her parents persuaded a local policeman to hide the family. The policeman, however, soon asked the Kagans to leave but agreed to hide baby Sabina. Her parents were captured and killed. Sabina was concealed in a dark basement,…

Selma Engel diary entry about arrival in Sobibor

Diaries reveal some of the most intimate, heart-wrenching accounts of the Holocaust. They record in real time the feelings of loss, fear, and, sometimes, hope of those facing extraordinary peril.  Selma Wijnberg and Chaim Engel met and fell in love in the Sobibor killing center. After the young couple made a daring escape during the camp uprising and fled into hiding, Selma began a diary to record their experiences. The diary was written in 1943-1944 while Selma was in hiding in German-occupied Poland.…