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Gisha Galina Bursztyn

Gisha was raised by Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish parents in the town of Pultusk in central Poland. She married in the late 1890s and moved with her husband, Shmuel David Bursztyn, to the city of Warsaw, where Shmuel owned and operated a bakery on Zamenhofa Street in the city's Jewish section. In 1920 the Bursztyns and their eight children moved to a two-bedroom apartment at 47 Mila Street. 1933-39: By 1939 six of Gisha's children were grown and had left home: her eldest daughters had married, and…

Henia Rzondzinski

Henia was born to parents living in the small predominantly Jewish town of Kaluszyn, 35 miles east of Warsaw. By the early 1930s, hundreds of Jewish workers were employed in the town, some in small craft shops, as tailors and carpenters, and others in larger enterprises, as prayer-shawl weavers and fur coat makers. When Henia was in her twenties, she and her husband, Welwel, moved to Warsaw. 1933-39: When war broke out three months ago, many Jews left Warsaw in a mass exodus towards the east. They were…

Majlech Kisielnicki

The second of three children, Majlech was born to Jewish parents living 35 miles east of Warsaw in the small, predominantly Jewish town of Kaluszyn. Majlech's father owned a wholesale grocery store, a restaurant and a gas station, all of which were located on the heavily traveled main road. Majlech attended public elementary school and also received religious instruction. 1933-39: Majlech and his pals, Mindele, Sara and Adam loved to discuss politics. They'd heard the Polish propaganda claiming that…

Irena Elzbieta Wos

Irena was the second of four children born to religious Roman Catholic parents in Poland's capital of Warsaw. Irena's father owned a successful textile business. When Irena was 10, her family moved to a comfortable apartment near the Royal Castle and the Vistula River. In 1930 Irena entered a private grade school. 1933-39: At 14 Irena began secondary school. She was a good student and wanted to be a doctor. On September 1, 1939, the day she was supposed to begin the new school year, the Germans attacked…

Boleslaw Brodecki

Raised by religious Jewish parents, Boleslaw and his older sister grew up in an apartment complex in a Jewish section of Warsaw. His father worked as an accountant. When Boleslaw was 8 years old, his mother died, and an aunt moved in to help raise him and his sister. Boleslaw loved electronics. When he was 10 years old, he succeeded in building a portable radio. 1933-39: The Germans attacked Warsaw on September 8, 1939. The bombing was relentless. Boleslaw's father wouldn't leave his ill relatives but…

Szlamach Radoszynski

Szlamach was one of six children born to Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish parents. Szlamach's father was a peddler, and the Radoszynski family lived in a modest apartment in Warsaw's Praga section on the east bank of the Vistula River. After completing his schooling at the age of 16, Szlamach apprenticed to become a furrier. 1933-39: During the 1930s Szlamach owned a fur business. Despite the Depression, he was hoping the economy would turn around so that he could make enough money to move into his own…

Lila Lam

Lila was born to a Jewish family in the largely Jewish city of Stanislawow. The Lam family owned an oil field and refinery, and Lila's father, who was trained as a lawyer, helped to manage the business. When it came time for Lila to begin first grade, her parents decided to have her tutored privately at home rather than have her attend an elementary school. 1933-39: The Jewish holidays were always special times. Although Lila's family wasn't religious, the holidays were wonderful opportunities for her…

Dorotka Goldstein

Dorotka was the youngest of three children in a Jewish family. Her father was the director of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in Warsaw and worked for a popular newspaper. An avid Zionist, he had traveled to Palestine. 1933-39: Dorotka's father established a soup kitchen in Warsaw for Jewish refugees who had fled from Germany. In September 1939 Dorotka was supposed to begin first grade when war broke out. Her father escaped to Vilna with other Jewish leaders. People were suffering, but she didn't understand…

Yitzhak Gitterman (left)

Yitzhak Gitterman (left), Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) director in Warsaw, meets with the representative of an Orthodox Jewish organization. Warsaw, Poland, date uncertain.

A captured Jewish resistance fighter

A captured Jewish resistance fighter who was forced out of his hidden bunker by German soldiers during the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Warsaw, Poland, April 19-May 16, 1943.

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…

Ben Kamm

Ben Kamm in uniform after the war. Ben escaped from the Warsaw ghetto and joined partisan units to resist the Nazis.  At the end of the war he discovered he was the sole survivor of his entire family.  

Jozef Wilk

Jozef was the youngest of three children born to Roman Catholic parents in the town of Rzeszow in southern Poland. Jozef's father was a career officer in the Polish army. Jozef excelled in sports, and his favorite sport was gymnastics. He also studied the piano. 1933-39: Jozef was 14 when Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. The invasion affected him deeply. Brought up in a patriotic family, he had been taught to love and defend Poland. The Germans were bombing Warsaw, the Polish capital, but…

Ghettos (Abridged Article) - Photograph

Ghettos in occupied Poland - ID Card/Oral History

Flight and Rescue: War and Occupation Oral History Excerpts

Liliana Guzenfiter

An only child of middle-class Jewish parents, Liliana was raised in a mixed neighborhood of Christians and Jews in Poland's capital. Her father ran a jewelry business and was a reserve officer in the Polish army; her mother was a housewife. Liliana dreamed of going to the Sorbonne and becoming Poland's second female district attorney. 1933-39: The worst part of going to school was being harassed and called a "filthy Jew." Liliana petitioned to enter a prestigious Catholic high school where she was…

False identification card photo of Benjamin Miedzyrzecki (Benjamin Meed)

False identification card photo of Benjamin Miedzyrzecki (Benjamin Meed) as a member of the Warsaw ghetto underground. Warsaw, Poland, 1943.

Father Wlodarczyk tries to clean a bombed-out church

Father Wlodarczyk attempts to clean and repair a bombed-out church in the besieged city of Warsaw. Photographed by Julien Bryan, Warsaw, Poland, ca. 1939.

Portrait of Żegota member Andrzej Klimowicz

Wartime portrait of Andrzej Klimowicz, Poland. Andrzej Klimowicz (1918–1996) aided and rescued Jews in Warsaw throughout the duration of the German occupation of Poland. He eventually became a member of the Council for Aid to Jews (codenamed “Żegota”), a clandestine organization that coordinated efforts to save Jews from Nazi persecution and murder. Under the auspices of Żegota, Andrzej played a role in providing Jews in Warsaw with forged identity papers and hiding places outside the walls of the…

German soldiers parade in Pilsudski Square

German soldiers parade in Pilsudski Square. Warsaw, Poland, October 4, 1939.

Jozef Wilk: Maps

Born to Roman Catholic parents in Poland, Jozef Wilk was a teenager when Germany invaded in 1939. Jozef left for Warsaw and joined a special unit of the Polish resistance. During the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising, Joz...

Postcard sent to Ruth Segal (front)

A postcard sent to Ruth Segal (Rys Berkowicz) care of the Jewish Community (JewCom) in Kobe, Japan. Family and friends in German-occupied Warsaw, Poland, sent the postcard on June 20, 1941. It bears stamps both from the Jewish council (Judenrat) in the Warsaw ghetto and from German censors. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]

Germany invades Poland

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, beginning World War II. Quickly overrunning Polish border defenses, German forces advanced towards Warsaw, the Polish capital city. This footage from German newsreels shows German forces in action during the invasion of Poland. Warsaw surrendered on September 28, 1939.

Abraham Blum

Abraham Blum, leader of the Bund (Jewish Socialist party) and member of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). Blum participated in the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Poland, between 1940 and 1943.

Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman

Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman, Zionist youth leader and a founder of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). He fought in the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Place and date uncertain.

The Krochmalna Street Orphanage

Exterior view of the Jewish orphanage run by Janusz Korczak. Established in 1912, the orphanage was located at 92 Krochmalna Street in Warsaw, Poland. Photo taken circa 1935.

Gisha Galina Bursztyn: Maps

Born to Jewish parents in Poland, Gisha Galina Bursztyn moved to the city of Warsaw after she married. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Warsaw fell four weeks later, and a ghetto was set up in November 1940. During a massive roundup i...

Playbill

Program for an evening performance sponsored by the Shanghai Jewish Club. The program included the play "The Day of His Return" and a concert of Jewish songs. On April 27, 1943, the day of this performance featuring Warsaw Jewish actress Raya Zomina, fierce fighting continued in the Warsaw ghetto between German troops and Jews who chose to resist Nazi efforts to liquidate the ghetto. Terrifying rumors about the Holocaust reached the Jewish refugees in Shanghai, but they did not receive reliable news or…

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.

Ghettos - Photograph

Szlamach Radoszynski: Maps

Szlamach Radoszynski was 27 years old when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. The following year, Szlamach and the rest of the Jews of Warsaw were forced into a ghetto. After the ghetto uprising in 1943, Szlamach was deported to Auschwitz a...

Postcard sent to Ruth Segal (back)

Family and friends of Ruth Segal (Rys Berkowicz) sent this postcard to her in Kobe, Japan. They sent the postcard from Warsaw, in German-occupied Poland, on June 20, 1941. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]

Backpack belonging to Ruth Berkowitz

This tan backpack was used by Ruth Berkowitz to carry her belongings as she fled from Warsaw via Lithuania and the Soviet Union to Japan. Most of her possessions were confiscated by both the Nazis and the Soviets during her journey. [From the USHMM special exhibition Flight and Rescue.]

False identification card used by Vladka Meed

False identification card which Vladka Meed had used from 1940–42 on the Aryan side of Warsaw, smuggling arms to Jewish fighters and helping Jews escape from the ghetto.

Victim of a German air raid

A ten-year-old Polish girl, Kazimiera Mika, mourns the death of her older sister, who was killed in a field in Warsaw, Poland, during a German air raid. Photographed by US documentary filmmaker, Julien Bryan, on September 13, 1939.

Ghettos in occupied Poland

Nazi Propaganda - Historical Film Footage

Siege

Julien Bryan's documentary about the German invasion and siege of Poland

Photograph from the Stroop Report

Photograph from SS General Juergen Stroop's report showing the Warsaw ghetto after the German suppression of the ghetto uprising. Stroop, commander of German forces that suppressed the Warsaw ghetto uprising, compiled an album of photographs and other materials. This album later came to known as "The Stroop Report." The right of this image from the album shows a column of Jews being transported out of the ghetto for deportation. Warsaw, Poland, April–May, 1943.

Portrait of Żegota member Irena Sendler

Portrait of Irena Sendler in Warsaw, Poland, circa 1939. Irena Sendler (1910–2008) 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.  Irena Sendler (Sendlerowa) was working as a social worker in Warsaw when World War II broke out in 1939. After…

German Invasion of Poland: Jewish Refugees, 1939 - ID Card/Oral History

Irena Sendler describes how she was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo

Irena Sendler (1910–2008) 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.  Irena Sendler (Sendlerowa) was working as a social worker in Warsaw when World War II broke out in 1939. After the Nazis forced Warsaw’s Jews to move into the ghetto…

Stroop Report cover

SS Major General Juergen Stroop, commander of German forces that suppressed the Warsaw ghetto uprising, compiled an album of photographs and other materials. This album, later known as "The Stroop Report," was introduced as evidence at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Here, its cover is marked with an IMT evidence stamp.

Emanuel Ringelblum and the Creation of the Oneg Shabbat Archive

Emanuel Ringelblum was a Warsaw-based historian and social welfare worker before WWII. Learn about the secret archive he would establish in the Warsaw ghetto.

Yitzhak Gitterman

Yitzhak Gitterman was a director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Poland and a member of the underground Jewish Fighting Organization.

Writers and Poets in the Ghettos

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.

Trawniki: Key Dates

Explore a timeline of key events in the history of the Trawniki in German-occupied Poland.

Spiritual Resistance in the Ghettos

Cultural and educational activities, clandestine documentation and religious observances. Learn more about these and other types of spiritual resistance in ghettos in Nazi-occupied areas.

Israel Kanal

Israel Kanal, a member of the Akiva youth movement and a founder of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) in Warsaw. He fought in the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Kutno, Poland, ca. 1939.