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Mannschafts-Stammlager (Stalag) IX B
ArticleIn 1939, the Nazis established the Mannschafts-Stammlager (Stalag) IX B camp in Germany. Learn more about the camp’s history, prisoners, and liberation.
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Mordecai Pinchas Szabasson
ID CardMordecai, known in Yiddish as Motl, was born to a religious Jewish family with six children. His hometown of Kozienice, located near a birch forest, had an important lumber industry. After graduating from secondary school, Mordecai entered the lumber business. His small, successful company bought and sold lumber. 1933-39: A few months after the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, Mordecai's father was warned to leave because, as a prominent member of the community, it was likely that the Germans…
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Israel Milkow
ID CardIsrael was born to a religious Jewish family living in the town of Slonim. He was called Yisroel by his Yiddish-speaking parents. Israel's father, Lazar Milkow, was a baker who supported his family on a meager income. 1937-39: Israel's grandparents and many of his mother's relatives lived in a nearby village called Kaslovchina. Each summer one of the Milkow boys was invited to stay in Kaslovchina with their Uncle Herschel who worked as a farmer and horse trader. In September 1939 Slonim became part of the…
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Abraham Roman Ellenbogen
ID CardAbraham 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.…
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Moshe Galek
ID CardMoshe was one of eight children born to Jewish parents in Sochocin, a predominantly Catholic village near Warsaw. Moshe was a self-made man, having founded a successful pearl-button factory in the village. While in his thirties, he married Fela Perznianko, the daughter of a prominent attorney from nearby Zakroczym. He brought his new wife to Sochocin, where they raised four daughters. 1933-39: In 1936 the Galeks moved to Warsaw, attracted by the city's cultural life. When Germany invaded Poland on…
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Albert Gani
ID CardAlbert and his family lived in Preveza, a town with a Jewish population of 300 that was located on the Ionian seashore. Albert's father had a small textile shop. The Ganis were of Romaniot descent, Jews whose ancestors had lived in Greece and the Balkans for more than a thousand years. 1933-39: After graduating from high school, Albert assisted his father in the family textile shop. A quiet and reserved young man, Albert enjoyed spending time at home with his family. Albert loved taking excursions with…
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Betje Jakobs
ID CardBetje and her sister Saartje were born to Jewish parents in the town of Zwolle in the Netherlands' north central province of Overijssel. Betje was known affectionately as "Bep" to her friends. The Jakobs family owned a successful sporting goods store. 1933-39: As a young girl, Betje enjoyed playing the piano, knitting and tennis. At age 16, while still in secondary school, she began to date Maurits Wijnberg, a boy two years her senior, whose family owned Zwolle's Hotel Wijnberg. 1940-42: The Germans…
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Gertrud Teppich
ID CardGertrud, born Gertrud Herz, was one of three children born to a Jewish family in the German capital of Berlin. In her early twenties, Gertrud married Richard Teppich and the couple had two daughters. Richard owned and operated a dry-cleaning business. 1933-39: When Gertrud's husband died in 1931 she stayed on in their Berlin apartment. In 1938, five years after the Nazis came to power, Gertrud's oldest daughter, Ilse, and her family fled to Amsterdam. A year later her youngest daughter was able to leave…
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Rosa Israel Waldhorn
ID CardRosa was one of 14 children born to religious Jewish parents in the village of Yasinya at a time when it was known as Korosmezo and was part of Hungary. During World War I, she married Michael von Hoppen Waldhorn, an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army who was based near Yasinya. During the 1920s they moved to Paris, where they raised three children. 1933-39: The Waldhorn family's life in Paris was very different from their life in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Rosa's husband made a good living, and he…
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Maria Orlicka
ID CardMaria was born to a poor family in the industrial town of Jaworzno, not far from Krakow, in southwestern Poland. Both of Maria's parents worked. Like her parents, Maria was baptized in the Roman Catholic faith. 1933-39: Maria took care of the house when her parents were working. She was 11 years old when the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. German troops reached Jaworzno that same month. Jaworzno was in an area of Poland that became formally annexed to Germany. 1940-44: The Germans arrested…
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Wladyslaw Piotrowski
ID CardWladyslaw was born to Catholic parents in Russian-occupied Poland. He grew up in Plock, a town located in a rural area north of Warsaw. Wladyslaw married in 1918 and he and his wife, Marie, raised four children. 1933-39: Wladyslaw worked as a bookkeeper, and then as an accountant for a local farmers' cooperative. In 1931 he was sent to the town of Wyszogrod to close a failing branch of the farmers cooperative. A year later, he organized a new, successful cooperative in Wyszogrod with local farmers and…
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Alida Nathans Wijnberg
ID CardAlida was the oldest of eight children. Her parents, religious Jews, owned a textile business in the small town of Vries. As a teenager, Alida helped her family sell textiles to the local farmers, carrying the goods in a suitcase attached to the handlebars of her bicycle. She married Samuel Wijnberg, and the couple had three sons and a daughter. 1933-39: The Wijnbergs owned and lived in a kosher hotel in the town of Zwolle. It was the only kosher hotel in the region, so many Jewish businessmen and cattle…
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Robert T. Odeman
ID CardBorn Martin Hoyer, Robert took Robert T. Odeman as his stage name when he began a professional career as an actor and musician. A classical pianist, Robert gave concerts throughout Europe, but a hand injury tragically ended his concert career. 1933-39: In 1935 Robert opened a cabaret in Hamburg. One year later the Nazis shut it down, charging that it was politically subversive. Robert then moved to Berlin where he developed a close relationship with a male friend who was pressured to denounce Robert to…
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Sylvia Winawer
ID CardSylvia'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…
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Bertha Wolffberg Gottschalk
ID CardBertha was born to Jewish parents in the capital of East Prussia. Her father served on the Koenigsberg city council. In 1887 Bertha married Hugo Gottschalk, and the couple settled in the small town of Schlawe in northern Germany. There, Hugo owned the town's grain mill. The Gottschalks raised their four children in a home near a small stream, ringed by orchards and a large garden. 1933-39: Bertha and her daughter Nanny have moved to Berlin--Hugo passed away in 1934 and they were afraid of the growing…
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Bertha Adler
ID CardBertha was the second of three daughters born to Yiddish-speaking Jewish parents in a village in Czechoslovakia's easternmost province. Soon after Bertha was born, her parents moved the family to Liege, an industrial, largely Catholic city in Belgium that had many immigrants from eastern Europe. 1933-39: Bertha's parents sent her to a local elementary school, where most of her friends were Catholic. At school, Bertha spoke French. At home, she spoke Yiddish. Sometimes her parents spoke Hungarian to each…
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Rudolf Acohen
ID CardRudolf, known as Rudi, and his brother were born in Amsterdam to a Jewish family of Spanish descent. The family lived in a pleasant neighborhood in the southern part of the city. Rudi attended Montessori grade school and high school. 1933-39: For summer vacation in 1935 Rudi's parents rented a house near the beach in Zandvoort, near Amsterdam. There he met a girl, Ina, and they became good friends. In the summer they discovered that they would be attending the same Montessori high school. Rudi and Ina and…
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Hans Rudelsheim
ID CardHans 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…
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Warsaw district handbill announcing penalties for anyone caught assisting Jews
ArtifactOn September 5, 1942, the SS and Police Leader of the Warsaw District issued this announcement threatening the death penalty for anyone who aided Jews who had left the ghetto without authorization. This poster was put up in the wake of the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center in summer 1942. SS officials were well aware that thousands of Jews had fled the ghetto to go into hiding and urged people to turn them in. The poster reminds the city's non-Jewish…
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Cover of Stanislava Roztropowicz's diary
ArtifactStanislava 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,…
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Page from Stanislava Roztropowicz's diary
ArtifactStanislava 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,…
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Back cover of Stanislava Roztropowicz's diary
ArtifactStanislava 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,…
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Children's art: Drawing of people in a garden
ArtifactAlice 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…
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Lea Ofner-Szemere
ID CardLea was born in the city of Sombor in northeastern Yugoslavia. When she was 3 years old, her parents divorced and she moved to Vienna with her mother, who taught English and French to Austrian children. Lea enjoyed living in Vienna as a child. 1933-39: Lea returned to Sombor almost every year to visit her mother's relatives. There, she became reacquainted with her younger half-sister, Julia, and her older half-brother, Francis, and would miss them when she returned to Vienna. In 1938, the Germans annexed…
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Barbara Kertesz Nemeth
ID CardBarbara and her younger sister, Alice, were born to a Jewish family in the town of Hodmezovasarhely in southeastern Hungary. Barbara married Desider Nemeth, a dentist, and the couple settled in the town of Szentes, not far from the city of Szeged. 1933-39: In 1932 Barbara gave birth to a daughter, Maria. She has been busy trying to find a suitable house for them that would double as an office for her husband. Barbara does a lot of volunteer work. She has taken in a young Austrian woman who lives with them…
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Pavol Kovac
ID CardAs 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…
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Pesia Szczupakiewicz
ID CardPesia, born Pesia Ander, was one of five children born to a Jewish family in the central Polish village of Nur. In 1929 Pesia married Shlomo Szczupakiewicz and they moved to his home town of Malkinia. A year later their first child, daughter Ida, was born. 1933-39: In September 1939, before the invading Germans reached Malkinia, Pesia fled with her family to the countryside. Exhausted, they returned to their house in Malkinia only a few weeks later. Shlomo then learned that a childhood friend had become a…
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Alice Krakauerova Seelenfriedova
ID CardAlice was the third of six children born to Jewish parents in the small Moravian town of Hodonin, where her father ran a dry goods and clothing store. The family spoke both Czech and German at home, and Alice attended a German-language secondary school. After graduating, she married her teenage sweetheart, Otto Seelenfried, who was a chemical engineer. 1933-39: Alice and Otto moved to the town of Jihlava. In 1934 Otto died from a ruptured appendix, and Alice returned to live with her parents in Hodonin.…
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Josef Deutsch
ID CardJosef was born to Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish parents in the town of Viseu de Sus in Transylvania, a region of Romania that belonged to Hungary until 1918. In 1890 he married Emma Geisler from the nearby town of Bistrita. The couple had four children and after 1910 the family lived at #4 Hid Street in Viseu de Sus. Josef was a merchant who owned a stall in Viseu de Sus's public market. 1933-39: By 1939 two of Josef's grown sons had moved to the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Josef and his wife…
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Chava Lea Deutsch
ID CardChava Lea was born Emma Geisler to Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish parents. The Deutsch family lived in the village of Budacu de Sus in Transylvania, a region of Romania that belonged to Hungary until 1918. She grew up in the town of Bistrita. In 1890 she married Josef Deutsch, a salesman from the town of Viseu de Sus, where the couple moved in 1910. Chava and Josef raised four children. 1933-39: By 1939 two of Chava Lea's grown sons had moved to the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Chava Lea and her…
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Frances Perkins
ArticleFrances Perkins was FDR's secretary of labor. Learn about her role in the rescue of European Jews whose lives were threatened by the Nazi regime.
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The July 20, 1944, Plot to Assassinate Adolf Hitler
ArticleThe July 20, 1944, plot was a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Learn more about the July 20 plot, including some of the motivations of the participants.
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Jan Karski
ArticleAn underground courier for the Polish government-in-exile, Jan Karski was one of the first to deliver eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to Allied leaders.
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German military court trial of French resistance members
FilmFrance signed an armistice with Germany on June 22, 1940, recognizing the right of German authorities to oversee the French administration. Further, German military authorities held jurisdiction over matters of internal security. In this footage, a German military court in Paris tries French citizens charged with resisting measures of the military occupation. Despite harsh military justice, the Germans could not quell opposition in France, and resistance activities would reach a peak during the Allied…
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Books burn as Goebbels speaks
FilmIn their drive to rid the country of all that they deemed "un-German," the Nazis publically burned books in cities across Germany. Here in front of the Opera House in Berlin, a chanting crowd burns books written by Jews and leftist intellectuals. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda and public information, speaks of the intended "reeducation" of Germany.
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Doriane Kurz describes appell (roll call) in Bergen-Belsen
Oral HistoryDoriane's Jewish family fled to Amsterdam in 1940, the same year Germany occupied the Netherlands. Her father died after deportation to Auschwitz. After their mother was seized, Doriane and her brother hid with gentiles. The three were reunited at Bergen-Belsen, where they were deported via Westerbork. They were liberated during the camp's 1945 evacuation, when Doriane was 9. Her mother died of cancer soon after Doriane helped her recover from typhus. Doriane and her brother immigrated to the United States.
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Doriane Kurz recalls Bergen-Belsen prisoners hauling wagons of corpses
Oral HistoryDoriane's Jewish family fled to Amsterdam in 1940, a year that also saw the German occupation of the Netherlands. Her father perished after deportation to Auschwitz. After their mother was seized, Doriane and her brother hid with gentiles. The three were reunited at Bergen-Belsen, where they were deported via Westerbork. They were liberated during the camp's 1945 evacuation. Doriane's mother died of cancer soon after Doriane helped her recover from typhus.
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Alan Zimm describes a hanging in the Dora-Mittelbau camp
Oral HistoryThe Germans occupied Kolo in 1939. In 1942 Alan was deported to the Lodz ghetto where he worked in food distribution. He took food each day to Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, chairman of the Jewish council. In 1944 Alan was forced to unload trainloads of coal and munitions in Czestochowa. In 1945 he was sent to the Dora-Mittelbau camp. As the Soviet army advanced, the inmates were transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where British forces liberated them in April.
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Fela Warschau describes the Feldafing displaced persons camp
Oral HistoryFela was liberated at Bergen-Belsen by the British army in 1945. She went to a displaced persons (DP) camp administered by the Americans in Feldafing, near Munich. She married in the DP camp in 1946, and eventually immigrated to the United States.
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Ernest G. Heppner describes arrival in Shanghai
Oral HistoryErnest'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…
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Nina Kaleska describes the formation of the ghettos in Grodno
Oral HistoryNina and her family were confined in a ghetto after the Germans entered Grodno in 1941. Her parents and then her sister perished after deportation to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Nina survived in the camp for two years. As the Soviet army advanced in 1945, Nina and other inmates from the camp were transferred first to the Ravensbrueck camp in Germany and then to the Retzof-am-Richlin camp. Nina was liberated in May 1945, during a forced march from the camp.
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Irene Weber describes how obtaining a work card could offer protection from deportation
Oral HistorySeparated from her family, Irene was deported from the Sosnowiec ghetto to the Gleiwitz camp in March 1943. After a death march and an attempted escape from a transport out of Gleiwitz, Irene was imprisoned in Prague, then Theresienstadt, where as a political prisoner she was sentenced to death by starvation. For the five months before liberation, she shared a cell with 59 ailing women. Irene was the sole member of her Jewish family to survive the war.
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Doris Greenberg describes conditions in Ravensbrück
Oral HistoryThe Germans invaded Poland in 1939 and established a ghetto in Warsaw in 1940. After her parents were deported, Doris hid with her sister and other relatives. Doris's sister and an uncle were killed, and she learned that her parents had been killed. Her grandmother committed suicide. Doris was smuggled out of the ghetto and lived as a non-Jewish maid and cook, but was ultimately deported to the Ravensbrück camp. Upon arrival there, Doris and her friend Pepi contemplated swallowing poison, but decided…
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Sophie Turner-Zaretsky describes how the teddy bear brings her back to the past
Oral HistorySophie 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…
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Sophie Turner-Zaretsky describes how both she and her bear are survivors
Oral HistorySophie 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…
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Historian Peter Black describes impact of the Braunsteiner Ryan case
Oral HistoryIn 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.
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Lucine Horn describes the German occupation of Lublin
Oral HistoryLucine was born to a Jewish family in Lublin. Her father was a court interpreter and her mother was a dentist. War began with the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Lucine's home was raided by German forces shortly thereafter. Soon after the German occupation of Lublin, Jews there were forced to wear a compulsory badge identifying them as Jews. A ghetto in Lublin was closed off in January 1942. Lucine survived a series of killing campaigns and deportations from the ghetto during March and…
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Lilly Appelbaum Malnik describes the process of registration in Auschwitz
Oral HistoryGermany invaded Belgium in May 1940. After the Germans seized her mother, sister, and brother, Lilly went into hiding. With the help of friends and family, Lilly hid her Jewish identity for two years. But, in 1944, Lilly was denounced by some Belgians and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau via the Mechelen camp. After a death march from Auschwitz, Lilly was liberated at Bergen-Belsen by British forces.
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Tomasz (Toivi) Blatt describes gassing operations in the Sobibor killing center
Oral HistoryTomasz was born to a Jewish family in Izbica. After the war began in September 1939, the Germans established a ghetto in Izbica. Tomasz's work in a garage initially protected him from roundups in the ghetto. In 1942 he tried to escape to Hungary, using false papers. He was caught but managed to return to Izbica. In April 1943 he and his family were deported to Sobibor. Tomasz escaped during the Sobibor uprising. He went into hiding and worked as a courier in the Polish underground.
