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Estelle Laughlin

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

Stephen S. Wise with Ignacy Schiper

American Jewish Congress president Stephen S. Wise (center right), with Dr. Ignacy Schiper (far left), a Polish Zionist. Warsaw, Poland, 1936.

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…

Moshe Galek

Moshe 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…

Page from the Stroop Report

A page from SS officer Juergen Stroop's report on the Warsaw ghetto uprising. He wrote: "This is what the former Jewish residential quarter looks like after its destruction." Warsaw, Poland, April-May, 1943.

Janina Prot

Janina's parents had converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the 1920s. When Janina was 4 years old, her parents divorced; Janina left Warsaw and went to live with her father near the Polish town of Radom, while her brother Tomas remained in Warsaw with his mother. Janina, or Jana as she was affectionately known, loved to read. 1933-39: When Jana was 12 she moved back to Warsaw to attend secondary school, and stayed with her mother. A year later, on September 8, 1939, the Germans were bombing Warsaw.…

Benjamin Meed: Oral History Excerpts

Hela Los

One of nine children, Hela grew up in the Polish capital of Warsaw. Her father was an art and antique furniture dealer and had a store on Marszalkowska Street. Every year, from the beginning of the summer break until the Jewish High Holidays in the fall, the Los family vacationed in the town of Miedzeszyn, located a short train ride's distance from Warsaw. 1933-39: Hela and her family were still at their vacation home when the Germans entered Warsaw on September 28, 1939. As soon as it became possible,…

Welwel Rzondzinski

One of six children, Welwel was born to Jewish parents living in the predominantly Jewish town of Kaluszyn, 35 miles east of Warsaw. His parents were religious, and they spoke Yiddish at home. Welwel's father was a bookkeeper for a large landowner. After Welwel's father died, his mother ran a newspaper kiosk in Kaluszyn. Welwel married when he was in his twenties and moved with his wife Henia to Warsaw. 1933-39: When war broke out three months ago, many Jews left Warsaw in a mass exodus towards the east.…

Benjamin Meed: Photographs

Benjamin Meed, Holocaust survivor and leader of the survivor community, was a founder of the U...

Mendel Rozenblit

Mendel was one of six children born to a religious Jewish family. When Mendel was in his early 20s, he married and moved with his wife to her hometown of Wolomin, near Warsaw. One week after the Rozenblits' son, Avraham, was born, Mendel's wife died. Distraught after the death of his young wife and left to care for a baby, Mendel married his sister-in-law Perele. 1933-39: In Wolomin Mendel ran a lumber yard. In 1935 the Rozenblits had a daughter, Tovah. When Avraham and Tovah were school age, they began…

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,…

Itzik Rosenblat

Itzik, also known as Izak, was one of three sons born to Yiddish-speaking Jewish parents. When Itzik was a young child his family moved to the city of Radom. Itzik left school when he was 11 to apprentice as a women's tailor. After he apprenticed with several tailors in Radom and Warsaw, he went back to school and earned a tailor's license. 1933-39: In 1938 Itzik married Taube Fishman, the daughter of his first employer, after a 13-year courtship much opposed by her family. They lived in Radom, where…

German policeman interrogates a Jewish man accused of smuggling

A German policeman interrogates a Jewish man accused of trying to smuggle a loaf of bread into the Warsaw ghetto. Warsaw, Poland, 1942-1943.

Three Jewish partisans

Three Jewish partisans in the Wyszkow Forest near Warsaw. Poland, between 1943–44.

Metal box used to hide contents of the Oneg Shabbat archives

One of the ten metal boxes in which portions of the Ringelblum Oneg Shabbat archives were hidden and buried in the Warsaw ghetto. The boxes are currently in the possession of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.

Metal box that held contents of the Oneg Shabbat archive

One of the ten metal boxes in which portions of the Oneg Shabbat archive were hidden and buried in the Warsaw ghetto. The boxes are currently in the possession of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. This view is of an open box without the lid.  

Close-up portrait of Miriam Wattenberg (Mary Berg)

Close-up portrait of Miriam Wattenberg (Mary Berg). Because Mary's mother was American, she and her family were sent from the Warsaw ghetto to Vittel in to be held for possible prisoner exchange. Her diary became the first wartime published eyewitness account in English of life in the Warsaw ghetto and the deportation of its inhabitants to be murdered at Treblinka.

An emaciated woman selling Star of David armbands

An emaciated woman sells the compulsory Star of David armbands for Jews. In the background are concert posters; almost all are destroyed. Warsaw ghetto, Poland, September 19, 1941. This photograph was taken by Heinrich Joest, a German army sergeant during World War II. On September 19, 1941, he took 140 images of every aspect of life and death in the Warsaw ghetto. 

Juergen Stroop

Juergen Stroop (third from left), SS commander who crushed the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Warsaw, Poland, between April 19 and May 16, 1943.

Frieda Altman Felman

Frieda grew up in a crowded one-room house in Sokolow Podlaski, a small manufacturing center in central Poland. Frieda's father had died when she was two years old, and her mother had then moved back to her hometown of Sokolow Podlaski, where she opened a poultry shop. The Altmans were a Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish family, and Frieda was the youngest of four children. 1933-39: German troops entered Frieda's town on September 20, 1939. She was huddling, frightened, with family and friends in a…

Shaul Himmelfarb

One of nine children, Shaul was raised in a Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish family in Koprzewnica, a small town in southern Poland. He married his teenage sweetheart, Alta Koppff, and opened a grocery store in the front of his mother-in-law's house. The couple had three children. The store's busiest day was Thursday, when farmers and villagers would come to town for market day. 1933-39: On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Soon after, German troops entered Koprzewnica. While fighting between…

Refugee's writings

Yiddish writings of Josef Fiszman, a refugee writer from Warsaw. These are some Inside pages of a Fiszman's journal. The journal was written in Shanghai and is entitled "The Sun Never Shines At Night." [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]

Portrait of Josef Kaplan

Portrait of Josef Kaplan. Kaplan was a youth movement leader. He was also a leader of the Warsaw ghetto underground and Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). He was caught preparing forged documents and was killed. Poland, before September 1942.

Sylvia Winawer

Sylvia'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…