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Max Diamant obtained this identity card from the German health department located in Krakow (Krakau), occupied Poland, in July 1942. This view shows the interior pages, which identify him as a Jew and detail his personal information, such as occupation (dental assistant), birthdate (June 23, 1915), birthplace (Vienna), and current address in Przemysl, Poland.
View of the entrance to the Plaszow camp. Plaszow, Poland, 1943-1944.
SS chief Heinrich Himmler (left) and Hans Frank, head of the Generalgouvernement in occupied Poland. Krakow, Poland, 1943.
Songs, verses, and writings of writers and poets in the ghettos reflect efforts to preserve culture, humanity, and documentation, as well as acts of defiance. Explore examples.
Shimshon and Tova Draenger, members of the underground in the Kraków and Warsaw ghettos and partisans in the Wisnicz Forest. Krakow, Poland, date uncertain.
Mordecai Gebirtig, born in 1877 in Krakow, Poland, was a Yiddish folk poet and songwriter. He wrote "Undzer shtetl brent!" in 1936, following a pogrom in the Polish town of Przytyk. During the war, the song became popular in the Krakow ghetto and inspired young people to take up arms against the Nazis. It was sung in many ghettos and camps, and translated into Polish and several other languages. Gebirtig was killed in June 1942 during a roundup for deportation from the Krakow ghetto. Today, "Undzer…
Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Learn about the administrative units that Germany established after annexing and occupying parts of prewar Poland.
Yiddish folk poet and songwriter Mordecai Gebirtig was born in 1877 in Krakow, Poland. He wrote "Shifrele's Portrait" was written in Krakow in December 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II. Gebirtig's eldest daughter, Shifre, lived in Lvov, and was separated from her family when the Soviets annexed Lvov. In this brief song, Gebirtig, gazing at his daughter's photograph, imagines himself in conversation with her. She assures him that the war will end soon, and that parent and child will be…
While some European Jews survived the Holocaust by hiding or escaping, others were rescued by non-Jews. Learn more about these acts of resistance.
Explore key events in the history of the Belzec killing center in the Nazi camp system. It was constructed for the sole purpose of murdering Jews.
The Płaszów camp was established in 1942 under the authority of the SS and police leaders in Krakow (Cracow). Płaszów was initially a forced-labor camp for Jews, but became a concentration camp in 1944. The largest...
The Germans destroyed symbols of the Polish state. Here, German soldiers stand by the toppled Grunwald monument in Krakow. Poland, 1940.
Learn about the prewar Jewish community of Tarnow, German occupation, deportations and killings of the Jewish population, ghettoization, and resistance.
Miriam Peleg (1913–1996) was a member of the Council for Aid to Jews, codenamed “Żegota.” Żegota was a clandestine rescue organization of Poles and Jews in German-occupied Poland. Supported by the Polish government-in-exile, Żegota coordinated efforts to save Jews from Nazi persecution and murder. It operated from 1942 to 1945. Born Maria Hochberg, Miriam was from a Polish-Jewish family. She grew up in a small town about 70 miles east of Kraków. As early as the summer of 1940, Miriam obtained…
Moses Rechnitz was born to Jewish parents in the Polish town of Bedzin on June 3, 1923. Moses was 16 years old when German troops invaded Poland in September 1939. By 1941, he was a slave laborer on a German railroad construction project outside o...
German police execute a group of Poles at the edge of the Uzbornia Grove just outside of Bochnia. Altogether, 51 residents of Bochnia and the vicinity were shot in reprisal for an assault on a German police station by members of the Polish underground organization "Orzel Bialy" (White Eagle) on 16 December 1939. Bochnia, Krakow, Poland, December 18, 1939.
Members of the German Order Police stand guard over a group of Orthodox Jewish men, 1942. The men have been rounded-up either for forced labor or public humiliation. Krakow, in German-occupied Poland.
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.
Norman Salsitz and Amalie Petranka shortly after they met (under their assumed identities of, respectively, Felicja Milaszewska and Tadeusz Zaleski). Krakow, Poland, March 15, 1945. With the end of World War II and collapse of the Nazi regime, survivors of the Holocaust faced the daunting task of rebuilding their lives. With little in the way of financial resources and few, if any, surviving family members, most eventually emigrated from Europe to start their lives again. Between 1945 and 1952, more than…
Theo Markus Verderber's mother, Gelle, was among the Jews of Polish nationality expelled from Germany in October 1938. Theo and his younger brother were born in Germany, but went with their mother to a refugee camp in the border town of Zbaszyn. Hungry and cold, the refugees were stranded on the border, unwelcome in either Germany or Poland. Theo was ultimately chosen to join a Kindertransport to England, arriving there in February 1939. His mother, sister and youngest brother remained in…
Mordecai Gebirtig, born in 1877 in Krakow, Poland, was a Yiddish folk poet and songwriter. Gebirtig had three daughters, for whom he wrote and performed his poems. The words were set to improvised melodies, and most of his songs resemble entries in a diary. Many of Gebirtig's poems contain themes of eastern European Jewish life in the 1920s and 1930s. The lullaby "Your Kitten is Hungry" dates from the early 1920s. The lyrics, addressed to a hungry child, evoke the themes of hunger and deprivation.
Mordecai Gebirtig, born in 1877 in Krakow, Poland, was a Yiddish folk poet and songwriter. Gebirtig had three daughters, for whom he wrote and performed his poems. The words were set to improvised melodies, and most of his songs resemble entries in a diary. Many of Gebirtig's poems contain themes of eastern European Jewish life in the 1920s and 1930s. The lyrics to "Avreml the Pickpocket" address two social issues, crime and the collapse of family life, arguing that both find their roots in poverty and…
May 20, 1940. On this date, SS authorities established the Auschwitz concentration camp complex.
Facing overwhelming odds, Jews throughout occupied Europe attempted armed resistance against the Germans and their Axis partners.
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