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Holocaust survivor Frank Liebermann has a conversation with his teddy bear. Germany, 1933–35. On Frank Liebermann’s first day of school in Gleiwitz, Germany, in 1935, he reported to one of the few small classrooms set aside for Jews. After school, he rushed home to avoid antisemitic attacks. In 1936, it got worse. Anti-Jewish laws now banned Frank from playgrounds and swimming pools. The family decided it was time to leave and applied for US visas. They were lucky. In October 1938, the Liebermanns boarded a ship bound for the United States.
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teddy bears and toys

To many people, teddy bears and toys are precious mementos or symbols of childhood. Some of these photographs capture snapshots of life before the devastation of war and destruction of communities during the Holocaust. Browse these images to learn about the experiences of children and their families during and after the Holocaust. 

Other images capture the use of toys for indoctrinating youth and spreading Nazi ideology. 

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All Content Tagged 'teddy bears and toys'

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 she was Jewish. It was not until after their liberation and move to London that Sophie learned the truth about her past.
Oral History
Sophie Turner-Zaretsky describes how the teddy bear brings her back to the past
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 she was Jewish. It was not until after their liberation and move to London that Sophie learned the truth about her past.
Oral History
Sophie Turner-Zaretsky describes what she would like people to think about when they see her teddy bear
Dr. Sophie Turner-Zaretsky, Space Shuttle Discovery Commander Mark Polansky, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum chief of staff Bill Parsons. They are holding a replica of "Refugee" bear and a photo of a Darfurian child refugee, items taken by Commander Polansky on a December 2006 Space Shuttle mission.
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Sophie Turner-Zaretsky, Mark Polansky, and Bill Parsons with "Refugee" the bear
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 specially constructed hiding space.
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Suse Grunbaum at age one
Teddy bear belonging to Jack Hellman as a child. He carried it with him when he left for England from Germany on a Kindertransport in early 1939.
Artifact
Teddy bear carried by a child on a Kindertransport
Photograph of a young Thomas Buergenthal posing in his toy car as his mother sits alongside. 1936.
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Thomas in his toy car
Benjamin Kedar (born Villiam Krausz) sits with a doll and a teddy bear shortly before his family went into hiding. Villiam's parents married in Prague and settled in Nitra, Slovakia. They worked as physicians. They had a daughter, Helen, in 1934, and Villiam in 1938. In 1942 the family relocated to a nearby village until September 1944. At that point, they went into hiding with Slovak peasants to avoid deportation to Auschwitz. Villiam, his sister, and his parents survived the Holocaust. Other relatives were murdered: his grandfather died in Thersienstadt and his aunt in Auschwitz. 
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Villiam Krausz sits with a doll and a teddy bear shortly before the family went into hiding

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