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GHETTOS
A JEWISH HIDEOUT
A JEWISH HIDEOUT, renovation of the ground floor of an art gallery in the town of Butrimonys, Lithuania has revealed the existence of an unusual cellar that was apparently a Jewish hideout during the Holocaust. Daina Nemeikštienė, the owner of the gallery, “Dainos galerija”, is moving forward with the renovation, which means that what remains of the cellar will be cemented over, at least for now. Could someday this hideout offer an opportunity for respecting, valuing, studying, preserving and highlighting Litvak and Lithuanian heritage? For now, it illustrates the challenges in honoring even the most heroic aspects of the Holocaust.
A JEWISH MAN EMERGES
A JEWISH MAN EMERGES from his hiding place below the floor of a bunker prepared for the Warsaw ghetto uprising. 1943 April 19 - 1943 May 16. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
A JEWISH TRANSPORT
A JEWISH TRANSPORT leaves the Ghetto by Bedrich Fritta 1942/43, ink, pen and brush, wash.
A MAN CARRIES AWAY
A MAN CARRIES AWAY the bodies of dead Jews in 1943 in the Warsaw ghetto, where people began to die of hunger in the streets. © AFP, Archive
A PAINTING OF THE KOVNO GHETTO
A PAINTING OF THE KOVNO GHETTO in Lithuania, 1942, by Esther Lurie. Courtesy of ORT/Art and the Holocaust
A PHOTOGRAPH OF JEWISH CHILDREN
A PAINTING OF THE KOVNO GHETTO in Lithuania, 1942, by Esther Lurie. Courtesy of ORT/Art and the Holocaust
A SKETCH BY JACOB LIFSCHITZ
A SKETCH BY JACOB LIFSCHITZ titled “At a ghetto school.” The artist perished in the Holocaust. Yad Vashem Photo Archive, Jerusalem. 3380/720.
A STARVING CHILD
A STARVING CHILD lying on the sidewalk in the Warsaw ghetto, Poland
A starving family
A STARVING WOMAN
A STARVING WOMAN lying on a ghetto street, Warsaw, Poland, September 19, 1941
A watercolour titled Mr. Scheuer Visits His Wife
A WATERCOLOR TITLED MR. SCHEUER VISITS HIS WIFE, painted by Charlotte Buresova in the Theresienstadt ghetto during World War II Sean Gallup/Getty Images
A young man and an elderly woman
A YOUNG MAN AND AN ELDERLY WOMAN stand in the doorway of a shop in the Warsaw ghetto. The sign reads: "We accept new coupons and buy old watches." Photo: Georg Willy (1911 - 2005) Poland under German Occupation - Warszawa (Warsaw), 1941 (WW2) Willy Georg was a German soldier and photographer who took pictures in the Warsaw ghetto. Born in Muenster, Germany, Georg served as a radio operator in the German army during World War II. In the summer of 1941 when his unit was stationed in Warsaw, Georg was issued a pass by one of his officers and instructed to enter the enclosed ghetto and bring back photos of what he saw. Georg shot four rolls of film and began to shoot a fifth when he was stopped by a detachment of German police. Failing to check his pockets for finished rolls of film, the police confiscated only the film in his camera before escorting him out of the ghetto. Georg developed the four rolls of film himself at a lab in Warsaw and sent them home to his wife in Muenster. He kept the existence of these photographs to himself for the next fifty years. In the late 1980s or early 90s, Georg met Rafael Scharf, a Polish Jew from London working in the field of Polish-Jewish studies, and gave him his Warsaw ghetto photographs. Scharf then published a selection of these photographs in his "In the Warsaw Ghetto: Summer 1941," Aperture, 1993
Alone on the street
ALONE ON THE STREET, an emaciated child eating on the pavement.
An ink drawing titled Festival Prayer
AN INK DRAWING TITLED FESTIVAL PRAYER, by Theresienstadt ghetto resident Felix Bloch Sean Gallup/Getty Images
ARMBAND SELLER AT WORK
ARMBAND SELLER AT WORK. An armband seller making a transaction in the street. Two elderly men on the left trying to sell pieces of rope – almost anything could be a subject of trade to earn money for food.
Assembly Point
'ASSEMBLY POINT' by Rozenfeld, photo: Ringelblum Archive / Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw
BEDRICH FRITTA, BEDROOM IN A FORMER SHOP
BEDRICH FRITTA, BEDROOM IN A FORMER SHOP (1942-1944. © Thomas Fritta-Haas, long-term loan to the Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe
BEDŘICH FRITTA, BUILDING BARRACKS
BEING CHASED IN LVIV
BEING CHASED IN LVIV, Jewish woman chased by men and youth during the Lviv pogroms, July 1941.
BIALA PODLASKA GHETTO
BIALA PODLASKA GHETTO, during the German occupation, crimes against prisoners of war and civilians were committed here. On 26 September 1942, the Gestapo liquidated the Biala Podlaska ghetto. On the eve of the ‘Aktion,’ the ghetto was surrounded, and the ghetto inhabitants were herded to the New Market Square. Except for some Jews who were sent as a forced labour detail to the Malzszewicze Duze airfield, all the Jews who were rounded up were deported to Miedzyrzec Podlaski, where they entered the ghetto there. The registration cards for 1,200 Jews transferred from Biala Podlaska to the Miedzyrzec Podlaski ghetto on 26 September 1942, can be found in the records of the International Tracing Service. Jews in Biala Podlaska who did not obey orders and were caught in hiding places were shot immediately. The Gestapo also shot all the patients and the two nurses in the Jewish hospital. In total, the Gestapo, assisted by the Gendarmerie and local collaborators, shot approximately 100 Jews in the town, burying the bodies in the Jewish cemetery. The Germans searched for those Jews in hiding for several days and on 28 September 1942, the mayor of Biala Podlaska prohibited the local population from entering the ‘former Jewish quarter,’ and threatened that looting would be punished with the death penalty. On the following day, another announcement by the mayor instructed local inhabitants to intercept Jews and hand them over to the Gendarmerie. The Jews deported from Biala Podlaska were held in the Miedzyrzec Podlaski ghetto for several days. On 6 October 1942, additional Jews from labor camps in the vicinity were assembled at the Biala Podlaska railway station. Their train made a stop at Miedzyrzec Podlaski and picked up the Jews who had been deported earlier from Biala Podlaska. In all some 4,800 Jews were deported to the Treblinka death camp, where they perished. Some of the Jewish labor camps in and around Biala Podlaska continued to function for several more months. One group of Jewish workers that had remained in Biala Podlaska was employed by the Gestapo to clear out property from the former ghetto area. They also had to demolish the synagogue and other Jewish religious buildings. The Wehrmacht camp was liquidated during mid-December 1942 and the Jews remaining were either sent to other camps or liquidated. On 26 July 1944, Soviet troops entered the town of Biala Podlaska, and out of the 7,000 Jews who lived in the town, in 1939, only about 300 managed to survive the German occupation.
BIALYSTOK GHETTO
BIALYSTOK GHETTO, deportation from BIALYSTOK. In August 1943, the Germans mounted an operation to destroy the Bialystok ghetto. German forces and local police auxiliaries surrounded the ghetto and began to round up Jews systematically for deportation to the Treblinka killing center. Approximately 7,600 Jews were held in a central transit camp View This Term in the Glossary in the city before deportation to Treblinka. Those deemed fit to work were sent to the Majdanek camp. In Majdanek, after another screening for ability to work, they were transported to the Poniatowa, Blizyn, or Auschwitz camps. Those deemed too weak to work were murdered at Majdanek. More than 1,000 Jewish children were sent first to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Bohemia, and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were killed. During the August 1943 deportations, when all hope for survival within the ghetto was abandoned, the Bialystok ghetto underground staged an uprising against the Germans. In an unsuccessful attempt to break out of the ghetto and join partisans in the nearby forests, armed Jews attacked German forces near the ghetto fence along Smolna Street. The fighting in the northeastern section of the ghetto lasted for five days; hundreds of Jews died in this battle. Seventy-one Jewish fighters were killed after being discovered in a bunker and captured by the Germans. More than a hundred Jews managed to escape from the ghetto and join partisan groups in the Bialystok area. The Soviet army drove the Germans out of Bialystok in July 1944.
BRASLAV GHETTO
BRASLAV GHETTO, Market Day in prewar Łokacze. During Chanukah in December 1941 the Jews of Jod were the first in the Braslav area to be murdered as a community. They had been told that they were to be transferred to the ghetto in Szarkaiszcina. They packed and prepared food and on December 19 they were taken to the pre-prepared pits, ordered to undress and shot. Five hundred people died that day, though a few escaped and hid with farmers nearby. The killings were was conducted by Gendarmarie-Meister Brodtruck, SS soldiers, together with police from Braslav Police under Jashinski who returned to the town drunk and full of loot.
BRODNICA
BRODNICA, there weren't many Jewish people living in Brodnica before/during WW2. Most had moved away prior to then. Most of the killings by the Germans were against Poles of the town.
BRODY GHETTO
BRODY GHETTO, Jews in Brody detained by German Nazis and awaiting deportation, ca. 1942–1943. The Jewish community of Brody perished in the Holocaust. A great number of Brody Jews were murdered in the autumn of 1942. A group of 250 Brody Jewish intellectuals were shot near the Jewish cemetery in Brody (where the Holocaust monument stands now). Some of the surviving Brody Jews were imprisoned in the family camp of Pyanytsia (Pianica) in the forests near Lviv. All of the remaining Brody Jews were moved into the ghetto created in the town on January 1, 1943 (or December 1942). Another 3,000 Jews from neighboring areas of Zolochiv, Lopatyn and Busk were subsequently added to Brody's ghetto. Horrible work conditions induced some young people to run away and join the Soviet army. The ghetto's poor hygiene and hunger were intolerable. Disease and famine took hundreds of Jewish lives. All 9,000 Jews of Brody ghetto were subsequently murdered on May 1, 1943. On September 19, 1942, around 2,500 Jews of Brody were deported to the extermination camp of Bełżec (today a little town on the Polish-Ukrainian border). On November 2, 3,000 more Jews were sent from Brody to Bełżec extermination camp. Many Brody Jews were exterminated in Majdanek concentration camp near Lublin (a city in the south east corner of Poland). Several hundred Brody Jews returned to the city after the war, most having hidden with the partisans in the forest, some few survivors of concentration camps (as was Jacob Jakubovics) or those who may have fled or been deported to Soviet territory.
Chaim Rumkowski Speech
CHAIM RUMKOWSKI SPEECH - Give Me Your Children. Dawid Sierakowiak recorded in his diary that at 4 o'clock, on September 4, 1942, Chaim Rumkowski, the Chairman of the Jewish Council of Elders, and Warszawski, the head of many factories, spoke at 13 Lutomierska. They said: ' Sacrificing the children and the elderly is necessary, since nothing can be done to prevent it. What follows is the most infamous speech Chaim Rumkowski ever made: Give Me Your Children. A grievous blow has struck the ghetto. They are asking us to give up the best we possess - the children and the elderly. I was unworthy of having a child of my own, so I gave the best years of my life to children. I've lived and breathed with children. I never imagined I would be forced to deliver this sacrifice to the altar with my own hands. In my old age I must stretch out my hands and beg: Brothers and sisters, hand them over to me! Fathers and mothers, give me your children!
(Horrible, terrifying wailing among the assembled crowd) I had a suspicion something was about to befall us. I anticipated 'something' and was always like a watchman on guard to prevent it. But I was unsuccessful because I did not know what was threatening us. I did not know the nature of the danger, The taking of the sick from the hospitals caught me completely by surprise. And I give you the best proof there is of this: I had my own nearest and dearest among them, and I could do nothing for them. I thought that that would be the end of it, that after that they'd leave us in peace, the peace for which I long so much, for which I've always worked, which has been my goal. But something else, it turned out , was destined for us. Such is the fate of the Jews: always more suffering and always worse suffering, especially in times of war. Yesterday afternoon, they gave me the order to send more than 20,000 Jews out of the ghetto, and if not - 'We will do it!' So, the question became: 'Should we take it upon ourselves, do it ourselves, or leave it for others to do?' Well we - that is,l and my closest associates - thought first not about 'How many will perish?' but 'How many is it possible to save?' And we reached the conclusion that, however hard it would be for us, we should take the implementation of this order into our own hands. I must perform this difficult and bloody operation - I must cut off limbs in order to save the body itself! - I must take children because, if not, others may be taken as well, God forbid. (Horrible wailing) I have no thought of consoling you today. Nor do I wish to calm you. I must lay bare your full anguish and pain. I come to you like a bandit, to take from you what you treasure most in your hearts! i have tried using every possible means, to get the order revoked. I tried - when that proved to be impossible - to soften the order. Just yesterday I ordered a list of children aged nine - I wanted, at least, to save this one age group, the nine -to ten-year olds. But I was not granted this concession. On only one point did I succeed, in saving the ten-year olds and up. Let this be a consolation in our profound grief. There are, in the ghetto, many patients who can expect to live only a few days more, maybe a few weeks. I don't know if the idea is diabolical or not, but I must say it: 'Give me the sick. In their place, we can save the healthy.' I know how dear the sick are to any family, and particularly to Jews. However, when cruel demands are made, one has to weigh and measure: who shall, can and may be saved? And common sense dictates that the saved must be those who can be saved and those who have a chance of being rescued, not those who cannot be saved in any case. We live in the ghetto, mind you. We live with so much restriction that we do not have enough even for the healthy, let alone for the sick. Each of us feeds the sick at the expense of our own health: we give our bread to the sick. We give them our meagre ration of sugar, our little piece of meat. And what's the result? Not enough to cure the sick, and we ourselves become ill. Of course, such sacrifices are the most beautiful and noble. But there are times when one has to choose: sacrifice the sick, who haven't the slightest chance of recovery and who also may make others ill, or rescue the healthy.
I could not deliberate over this problem for long: I had to resolve it in favour of the healthy. In this spirit , I gave the appropriate instructions to the doctors, and they will be expected to deliver all incurable patients, so that the healthy, who want and are able to live, will be saved in their place. (Horrible weeping) I understand you, mothers; I see your tears, all right. I also feel what you feel in your hearts, you fathers who will have to go to work the morning after your children have been taken from you, when just yesterday you were playing with your dear little ones. All this I know and feel. Since four o'clock yesterday, when I first found out about the order, I have been utterly broken. I share your pain. I suffer because of your anguish, and I don't know how I'll survive this- where I'll find the strength to do so. I must tell you a secret: they requested 24,000 victims, 3,000 a day for eight days. I succeeded in reducing the number to 20,000, but only on the condition that these would be children below the age of ten. Children ten and older are safe. Since the children and the aged together equal only some 13,000 souls, the gap will have to be filled with the sick. I can barely speak. I am exhausted; I only want to tell you what I am asking of you: Help me carry out this action! I am trembling. I am afraid that others, God forbid, will do it themselves. A broken Jew stands before you. Do not envy me. This is the most difficult of all the orders I've ever had to carry out at any time. I reach out to you with my broken, trembling hands and I beg: Give into my hands the victims, and a population of a hundred thousand Jews can be preserved. So they promise me: if we deliver our victims by ourselves, there will be peace.... (Shouts: 'We all will go!' Mr Chairman, an only child should not be taken; children should be taken from families with several children!')
These are empty phrases! I don't have the strength to argue with you! If the authorities were to arrive, none of you would shout. I understand what it means to tear off a part of the body. Yesterday I begged on my knees, but it didn't work. From small villages with Jewish populations of seven to eight thousand, barely a thousand arrived here. So which is better? What do you want: that eighty to ninety thousand Jews remain, or God forbid, that the whole population be annihilated? You may judge as you please; my duty is to preserve the Jews who remain. I do not speak to hotheads. I speak to your reason and conscience. I have done and will continue doing everything possible to keep arms from appearing in the streets and blood from being shed. The order could not be undone; it could only be reduced. One needs the heart of a bandit to ask from you what I am asking. But put yourself in my place, think logically, and you'll reach the conclusion that I cannot proceed any other way. The part that can be saved is much larger than the part that must be given away.
(Horrible, terrifying wailing among the assembled crowd) I had a suspicion something was about to befall us. I anticipated 'something' and was always like a watchman on guard to prevent it. But I was unsuccessful because I did not know what was threatening us. I did not know the nature of the danger, The taking of the sick from the hospitals caught me completely by surprise. And I give you the best proof there is of this: I had my own nearest and dearest among them, and I could do nothing for them. I thought that that would be the end of it, that after that they'd leave us in peace, the peace for which I long so much, for which I've always worked, which has been my goal. But something else, it turned out , was destined for us. Such is the fate of the Jews: always more suffering and always worse suffering, especially in times of war. Yesterday afternoon, they gave me the order to send more than 20,000 Jews out of the ghetto, and if not - 'We will do it!' So, the question became: 'Should we take it upon ourselves, do it ourselves, or leave it for others to do?' Well we - that is,l and my closest associates - thought first not about 'How many will perish?' but 'How many is it possible to save?' And we reached the conclusion that, however hard it would be for us, we should take the implementation of this order into our own hands. I must perform this difficult and bloody operation - I must cut off limbs in order to save the body itself! - I must take children because, if not, others may be taken as well, God forbid. (Horrible wailing) I have no thought of consoling you today. Nor do I wish to calm you. I must lay bare your full anguish and pain. I come to you like a bandit, to take from you what you treasure most in your hearts! i have tried using every possible means, to get the order revoked. I tried - when that proved to be impossible - to soften the order. Just yesterday I ordered a list of children aged nine - I wanted, at least, to save this one age group, the nine -to ten-year olds. But I was not granted this concession. On only one point did I succeed, in saving the ten-year olds and up. Let this be a consolation in our profound grief. There are, in the ghetto, many patients who can expect to live only a few days more, maybe a few weeks. I don't know if the idea is diabolical or not, but I must say it: 'Give me the sick. In their place, we can save the healthy.' I know how dear the sick are to any family, and particularly to Jews. However, when cruel demands are made, one has to weigh and measure: who shall, can and may be saved? And common sense dictates that the saved must be those who can be saved and those who have a chance of being rescued, not those who cannot be saved in any case. We live in the ghetto, mind you. We live with so much restriction that we do not have enough even for the healthy, let alone for the sick. Each of us feeds the sick at the expense of our own health: we give our bread to the sick. We give them our meagre ration of sugar, our little piece of meat. And what's the result? Not enough to cure the sick, and we ourselves become ill. Of course, such sacrifices are the most beautiful and noble. But there are times when one has to choose: sacrifice the sick, who haven't the slightest chance of recovery and who also may make others ill, or rescue the healthy.
I could not deliberate over this problem for long: I had to resolve it in favour of the healthy. In this spirit , I gave the appropriate instructions to the doctors, and they will be expected to deliver all incurable patients, so that the healthy, who want and are able to live, will be saved in their place. (Horrible weeping) I understand you, mothers; I see your tears, all right. I also feel what you feel in your hearts, you fathers who will have to go to work the morning after your children have been taken from you, when just yesterday you were playing with your dear little ones. All this I know and feel. Since four o'clock yesterday, when I first found out about the order, I have been utterly broken. I share your pain. I suffer because of your anguish, and I don't know how I'll survive this- where I'll find the strength to do so. I must tell you a secret: they requested 24,000 victims, 3,000 a day for eight days. I succeeded in reducing the number to 20,000, but only on the condition that these would be children below the age of ten. Children ten and older are safe. Since the children and the aged together equal only some 13,000 souls, the gap will have to be filled with the sick. I can barely speak. I am exhausted; I only want to tell you what I am asking of you: Help me carry out this action! I am trembling. I am afraid that others, God forbid, will do it themselves. A broken Jew stands before you. Do not envy me. This is the most difficult of all the orders I've ever had to carry out at any time. I reach out to you with my broken, trembling hands and I beg: Give into my hands the victims, and a population of a hundred thousand Jews can be preserved. So they promise me: if we deliver our victims by ourselves, there will be peace.... (Shouts: 'We all will go!' Mr Chairman, an only child should not be taken; children should be taken from families with several children!')
These are empty phrases! I don't have the strength to argue with you! If the authorities were to arrive, none of you would shout. I understand what it means to tear off a part of the body. Yesterday I begged on my knees, but it didn't work. From small villages with Jewish populations of seven to eight thousand, barely a thousand arrived here. So which is better? What do you want: that eighty to ninety thousand Jews remain, or God forbid, that the whole population be annihilated? You may judge as you please; my duty is to preserve the Jews who remain. I do not speak to hotheads. I speak to your reason and conscience. I have done and will continue doing everything possible to keep arms from appearing in the streets and blood from being shed. The order could not be undone; it could only be reduced. One needs the heart of a bandit to ask from you what I am asking. But put yourself in my place, think logically, and you'll reach the conclusion that I cannot proceed any other way. The part that can be saved is much larger than the part that must be given away.
GHETTO LITZMANNSTADT
GHETTO LITZMANNSTADT. Children rounded up for deportation to the Kulmhof extermination camp.
Ghetto street market
GHETTO STREET MARKET, residents of the ghetto shopping in a vegetable street market.
GHETTO STREET
GHETTO STREET, in December 1941, a ghetto was established in the area, in which the Jewish laborers and their families were concentrated. The Jews of Nowogródek, and its surroundings were murdered in a number of killing operations, from July 1941 until May 1943. Nowogrodek was liberated by the Red Army on July 8-9, 1944.
Halina Olomucki
HALINA OLOMUCKI (1921-2007), Self-portrait (?), Germany, 1945.
HELP FROM
HELP FROM a passer-by. A passer-by giving money to two children.
HENRYK ROSS 1
HENRYK ROSS 1 photo of Lodz Ghetto police with woman behind barbed wire at the ghetto, 1942. (Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
HENRYK ROSS' 2
HENRYK ROSS 2 photo of Lodz Ghetto men alongside a building eating from pails, c. 1940-1944. (Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
HENRYK ROSS 3
HENRYK ROSS 3 photo of Lodz Ghetto men hauling a cart for bread distribution in 1942. (Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
HIDDEN CHILDREN
HIDDEN CHILDREN, some Jewish children survived the Holocaust because they were protected by people and institutions of other faiths. Children quickly learned to master the prayers and rituals of their "adopted" religion in order to keep their Jewish identity hidden from even their closest friends. This photograph shows two hidden Jewish children, Beatrix Westheimer and her cousin Henri Hurwitz, with Catholic priest Adelin Vaes, on the occasion of Beatrix's First Communion. Ottignies, Belgium, May 1943. Beatrice Muchman.
HIDING PLACE
HIDING PLACE: People in hiding in the occupied Netherlands.
Historic Photos of a Little-Known Outdoor Jewish Ghetto 1
HISTORIC PHOTOS of a Little-Known Outdoor Jewish Ghetto 1
HUNGER IN LODZ GHETTO
HUNGER IN LODZ GHETTO: Autobiographical charcoal drawing by David Friedman of despairing and hungry Jews in the Łódź Ghetto
In the city center
IN THE CITY CENTER of Kutno in the morning.
INSIDE THE WARSAW GHETTO
INSIDE THE WARSAW GHETTO Summer 1941
JAN HARTMANN TRANSPORTING MATRASSES ON A HEARSE 1944.jpg
JAN HARTMANN: TRANSPORTING MATRESSES ON A HEARSE, 1944; Terezín Memorial, © Eva, Véronique, Cyril, Peri and Philip Hartman.
JAVOROV GHETTO
JAVOROV GHETTO, after the war, the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission reported that more than 4900 people, most of them Jews, had been killed in Yavoriv, in addition to those sent to Bełżec. Only about 20 of the town's Jews were thought to have survived.
JEW EMERGING
JEW EMERGING, Vilna, Poland, A Jew emerging from a malina at 6 Strashen Street.
JEWISH CHILDREN INSIDE
JEWISH CHILDREN INSIDE the Łódź Ghetto, 1940
JEWISH CHILDREN LIVING IN A GHETTO IN SZYDLOVIEC POLAND
JEWISH CHILDREN LIVING IN A GHETTO IN SZYDLOVIEC, POLAND, December 20, 1940.
On the outbreak of World War II there were about 7,200 Jews in Szydlowiec. On Sept. 23, 1942, 10,000 Jews from Szydlowiec and its vicinity were deported to the *Treblinka death camp. On Nov. 10, 1942, the Germans established four new ghettos in the region (at *Sandomierz, Szydlowiec, *Radomsko, and Vjazd). The Jews were encouraged to leave their hiding places in the forests, being promised security in these ghettos. Thousands of Jews, not seeing any possibility of surviving in the forests during the winter, responded to the German appeal. About 5,000 Jews were concentrated in the ghetto of Szydlowiec. The Jewish community was liquidated when the remaining 5,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka. After the war the Jewish community of Szydlowiec was not reconstituted.
On the outbreak of World War II there were about 7,200 Jews in Szydlowiec. On Sept. 23, 1942, 10,000 Jews from Szydlowiec and its vicinity were deported to the *Treblinka death camp. On Nov. 10, 1942, the Germans established four new ghettos in the region (at *Sandomierz, Szydlowiec, *Radomsko, and Vjazd). The Jews were encouraged to leave their hiding places in the forests, being promised security in these ghettos. Thousands of Jews, not seeing any possibility of surviving in the forests during the winter, responded to the German appeal. About 5,000 Jews were concentrated in the ghetto of Szydlowiec. The Jewish community was liquidated when the remaining 5,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka. After the war the Jewish community of Szydlowiec was not reconstituted.
JEWISH COUNCIL
JEWISH COUNCIL, Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski delivers a speech at a meeting of Lodz ghetto officials.
JEWISH FIGHTERS
JEWISH FIGHTERS captured by Nazi SS troops in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Keystone / Getty Images
Keystone / Getty Images
Jewish men being transported
JEWISH MEN BEING TRANSPORTED for labor from the Warsaw Ghetto, 1941. (Credit: Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)
JEWISH POLICE ESCORT
JEWISH POLICE ESCORT a group of Jews who have been rounded-up for deportation in the Lodz ghetto.
JEWISH POLICE IN THE KAUNAS GHETTO
JEWISH POLICE IN THE KAUNAS GHETTO, the ghetto was a established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas during the Holocaust. At its peak, the ghetto held 29,000 people, most of whom were later sent to concentration and extermination camps or were shot at the Ninth Fort. Following a model developed in German-occupied Poland, German officials established the Kovno ghetto to provide forced labor for the German military. Jews were employed primarily as forced laborers at various sites outside the ghetto, especially in the construction of a military airbase in Aleksotas. The Jewish council (Aeltestenrat or Council of Elders), headed by Dr. Elchanan Elkes, also created workshops inside the ghetto for those women, children, and elderly who could not participate in the labor brigades. Eventually, these workshops employed almost 6,500 people. The council hoped the Germans would not kill Jews who were producing for and supporting the German war effort. In its first few months of existence, the ghetto had two parts. These parts were called the "small" and "large" ghettos, and they were separated by Paneriu Street. Each ghetto was enclosed by barbed wire and closely guarded. Both were overcrowded, with each person allocated less than ten square feet of living space. The Germans continually reduced the size of the ghetto, forcing its Jews to relocate several times. On October 4, 1941, the Germans liquidated the small ghetto and killed almost all of its inhabitants at Fort IX. Later that same month, the Germans staged what became known as the "Great Action." Occupation officials selected close to 10,000 ghetto inhabitants they deemed "unfit" for forced labor. Half of these were children. On October 29, 1941, Einsatzgruppen View This Term in the Glossary units shot most of these individuals at Fort IX. The death toll on that one day was 9,200 Jews. In the autumn of 1943, the SS assumed control of the ghetto and converted it into the Kauen concentration camp. The Jewish council's role was drastically curtailed. The Nazis dispersed more than 3,500 Jews to subcamps where strict discipline governed all aspects of daily life. On October 26, 1943, the SS deported more than 2,700 people from the main camp. The SS sent those deemed fit to work to labor camps in Estonia, and deported children and the elderly to Auschwitz. Few survived.
JEWISH SLAVE LABOR
JEWISH SLAVE LABOR, Jews clearing rubble from a street in Mogilev, Chronos. Many of Mogilev’s Jews left the city with the start of Operation Barbarossa on June 22nd, 1941. The city was occupied by the Germans on July 26th after about two weeks of the Red Army and civic militia resistance. It was gradually surrounded and bombarded to ruins. According to the ChGK report, (the Soviet Extraordinary Commission), some 10,000 residents were killed defending the city among whom were an estimated 2000 Jews. After the appointment of a Jewish council (similar to a Judenrat) in August 1941, the Germans conducted a census which showed a significant decrease in the number of Jews in the city. The census registered 6,437 Jews, among whom were 2,090 children under 15. We can assume that the actual number of Jews in the city was higher and that some either avoided registration or registered under an assumed identity. At the same time the Jews were required to wear a yellow badge of shame. On August 13th, the Jews were ordered to move to the ghetto which was set up next to the Jewish cemetery at the order of the German military command signed by the Belarusian mayor. The ghetto area was too small to accommodate the Mogilev Jews, let alone the Jews from the adjacent towns and villages who were also evicted from their homes and placed in the Mogilev ghetto. On September 25th, the city mayor ordered the Jews to move to a new ghetto on the other side of the Dubrovenka river. The Jews were to relocate within five days under the oversight of the Jewish council and a separating fence was to be set up by the Jews themselves.
KOLOMYJA GHETTO
KOLOMYJA GHETTO 2, a market square in Kolomyja. In 1941, there were over 60.000 Jews in Kolomyja which had become the central transit and extermination point for the Jewish population of that district. At the end of the war, only 200 Jews had survived, and it is from a small number of those survivors that we are able to piece together the calendar of events during the Nazi occupation. We are able to identify the main Nazi protagonists, the method of systematic murder of men, women and children, and the transportations to the 'Death Camp' at Belzec.
KRAKOW
KRAKOW, a German official supervises a deportation action in the Krakow ghetto. Jews, assembled in a courtyard with their bundles, await further instructions.
KRAKOW GHETTO
KRAKOW GHETTO, in May 1940, the Germans began to expel Jews from Krakow to the neighboring countryside. By March 1941, the SS and police had expelled more than 55,000 Jews, including refugees from the German-annexed District Wartheland; about 15,000 Jews remained in Krakow. In early March 1941, the Germans ordered the establishment of a ghetto, to be situated in Podgorze, a southern suburb of Krakow, rather than in Kazimierz, the traditional Jewish quarter of the city. By March 21, 1941, the Germans had concentrated the remaining Jews of Krakow and thousands of Jews from other towns in the ghetto. Between 15,000 and 20,000 Jews lived within the Krakow ghetto boundaries. They were enclosed by barbed-wire fences and, in places, by newly built stone walls, some shaped to resemble tombstones. Streetcars traveled through the ghetto but made no stops within its boundary. In March 1942, the Germans arrested 50 intellectuals in the ghetto and deported them to Auschwitz concentration camp, where the camp authorities registered all of them as prisoners on March 24. The Germans established several factories inside the Krakow ghetto, among them the Optima and the Madritsch textile factories, where they deployed Jews at forced labor. Several hundred Jews were also employed in factories and forced-labor projects outside the ghetto. Among the businesses utilizing Jewish forced laborers was the firm German Enamelware Factory (Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik), owned by Oskar Schindler, located in Podgorze, and later moved to Plaszow. In June 1941, Krakow SS and Police Leader Scherner authorized the establishment of two forced-labor camps for Jews on the Jerozolimska Street in the Plaszow suburb of Krakow, one for men and one for women. By February 1943, the SS had established seven other forced-labor camps in Plaszow. Inside or adjacent to the camps were several textile factories: the SS deployed Jews with the Siemens firm and in a brickworks factory and a stone quarry. The Germans deployed Jewish forced laborers on construction projects as well, building or repairing bridges, rail track, and an indoor sports complex. By February 1943, the Jerozolimska Street camp housed approximately 2,000 Jewish men and women. Operatives of Operation Reinhard, within the framework of which the SS and police planned to murder the Jewish residents of the General Government, View This Term in the Glossary arrived in Krakow in spring 1942. The Germans claimed to be deporting some 1,500 Krakow Jews to the forced-labor camp in Plaszow; in reality the transport was directed to the Belzec killing center. On June 1 and 6, 1942, the German SS and police deported up to 7,000 Jews via Plaszow, where the camp authorities assisted in the murder of approximately 1,000, to Belzec. On October 28, 1942, the Germans deported nearly half of the remaining Jews in the ghetto, approximately 6,000, to Belzec. During the deportation operations, Plac Zgody and the Optima factory were the major assembly points. During the operation the SS and police shot approximately 600 Jews, half of them children, in the ghetto. The SS and police planned the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto for mid-March 1943, in accordance with the Himmler's order in October 1942 to complete the murder of the Jews residing in the General Government, incarcerating those few whose labor was still required in forced-labor camps. On March 13-14, 1943, the SS and police carried out the operation, shooting some 2,000 Jews in the ghetto. The SS transferred another 2,000 Jews—those capable of work and the surviving members of the Jewish Council and the Jewish police force (Ordnungsdienst)—to the Plaszow forced-labor camp. The rest of the Jews, approximately 3,000, were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center in two transports, arriving on March 13 and March 16. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the camp authorities selected 549 persons from the two transports (499 men and 50 women) to be registered as prisoners. They murdered the others, approximately 2,450 people, in the gas chambers. After the revolts of Jewish prisoners in the Warsaw ghetto (April-May 1943), Treblinka (August 1943), the Bialystok ghetto (August 1943), and Sobibor (October 1943), the SS guards and their Trawniki-trained auxiliaries murdered virtually all of the remaining prisoners in the Plaszow forced-labor camp between September and December 1943 in several mass shooting operations. The number of Jews murdered by the SS in these shootings is unknown; it may have been up to 9,000. SS and police officials deported the survivors to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In January 1944, the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office took over the Plaszow forced-labor camp and converted it into a concentration camp. The SS filled the now virtually empty camp with incarcerated Jewish forced laborers from various smaller forced-labor camps in Krakow and Radom Districts and, later in the spring, with Jews deported from Hungary. Among the Jews brought to Plaszow at this time were those forced laborers living near and deployed at Oskar Schindler's German Enamelware Factory. Since Plaszow also served as a transit camp View This Term in the Glossary for the movement of Jewish prisoners from surviving forced labor camps in Poland to camps further west, exact data on the number of Jews whom the SS incarcerated and killed there is not available. In September 1944, there were still 2,200 Jews in Plaszow. The SS evacuated at least 1,500 of them to Gross-Rosen concentration camp on October 15. As of the beginning of 1945, 636 prisoners remained at Plaszow; on January 14, 1945, two days after the Soviet offensive pushed the Germans out of their positions on the west bank of the Vistula River, the SS evacuated these last prisoners on foot to Auschwitz. A Jewish resistance movement existed in the Krakow ghetto from the time the ghetto was established in 1941. Its leaders focused underground operations initially on supporting education and welfare organizations. In anticipation of the deportation operations that the SS carried out at the end of October 1942, some leaders in the more radical wing of the underground, two existing resistance groups, the Zionist-oriented Bnei Akiva, led by Laban Leibowicz, Shimon Draenger, and Dolek Liebeskind, and the Socialist Ha-Shomer ha-Za'ir group, led by Heshek Bauminger and Benjamin Halbrajch, merged into one organization, the Jewish Fighting Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa; ŻOB). Independent of the ŻOB in Warsaw, this merged group prepared to fight the Germans. Ultimately the ŻOB decided not to fight within the limited confines of the ghetto, but instead to use the ghetto as a base from which to attack targets throughout the city of Krakow. The most important ŻOB attack took place in cooperation with Communist partisans on December 23, 1942, at the Cyganeria cafe, in the center of Krakow, which was frequented by German officers. The ŻOB killed 12 Germans in this attack. Krakow ghetto fighters also attempted to join partisan groups active in the Krakow region. In successive skirmishes with the Germans, the Jewish underground fighters suffered heavy losses. In the fall of 1944 the remnants of the resistance escaped from Poland, crossing into neighboring Slovakia and then into Hungary, where they joined with Jewish resistance groups in Budapest. Krakow remained the administrative seat of the General Government until the Germans evacuated the city on January 17, 1945. Soviet forces entered Krakow two days later, on January 18, 1945. After the war, some 4,282 Jews resurfaced in Krakow. By early 1946, Polish Jews returning from the Soviet Union swelled the Jewish population of the city to approximately 10,000. Pogroms in August 1945 and throughout 1946 as well as number of murders of individual Jews led to the emigration of many of the surviving Krakow Jews. By the early 1990s, only a few hundred Jews remained.
KROSNO, POLAND
KROSNO, POLAND, German photographers force Jews to pull the beard of the other Jew. The couple on the right side is that of Rabbi Shmuel Fuhrer on the left and Nussbaum on the right. We could not identify the couple on the left side. All Jews involved display their arm bands. The event took place in the center of town.
Leo Haas Ghetto
LEO HAAS Ghetto
Leo Haas Prisoners
LEO HAAS Prisoners Roll call. Note the fallen prisoners. Drawing by Leo Haas (date unknown).
Leo Haas Public Health
LEO HAAS Public Health. In September 1942, Leo Haas was deported to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto, north of Prague. As an artist, Haas was assigned to the Technical Department to illustrate propaganda material, which enabled him to secretly make a series of pictures showing what life in Theresienstadt was really like. He risked his life making these works, hiding the prints in walls and with the other inhabitants of Theresienstadt. After the war, Haas returned to Terezin, and retrieved some 400 of his drawings. This etching shows the unbearable conditions endured in the infirmary emphasised by the man in the foreground who has been reduced to skin-and-bones figure and who is forced to use a bedpan while divided from his fellow inmates by only a screen. This powerful and haunting image is one of ten in the Ben Uri Collection printed after the war using the original plate.
KUTNO GHETTO
KUTNO, Krolewska Street, deportation to Kutno Ghetto. German forces started the liquidation of the Kutno ghetto on 19 March 1942. The Underground newspaper of the Warsaw ghetto, ‘Undzer Weg’, reported on 1 May 1942, that the Kutno ghetto had been liquidated on 23 March 1942. A report prepared in April 1942 in the Warsaw ghetto for the Polish government in exile stated that on 26 March 1942, the Jews of the Kutno ghetto were assembled in alphabetical order and loaded onto trucks. The victims were taken from Kutno to the station at Kolo, where they were packed into trucks on a narrow-gauge railway, which took them to the deadly gas-vans in the Chelmno death camp. This mass ‘Aktion’ lasted until April 1942, resulting in the death of some 6,000 Jews from the Kutno ghetto. The elderly and the sick who could not be transported to Chelmno were murdered in the Kutno ghetto itself. Following the liquidation ‘Aktion’ the members of the Jewish Police were shot just outside the ghetto area and 30 Jews from the Lodz ghetto were sent to Kutno, as a so-called ‘Aufraumungstrupp’ (clean-up detachment) which was tasked with sorting the possessions of the deported Jews. They too were mistreated and suffered from starvation and diseases, including cases of typhus.
LIQUIDATION OF THE BIALYSTOK GHETTO
LIQUIDATION OF THE BIALYSTOK GHETTO, on 16 August 1943, 300 fighters of the Anti-Fascist Fighting Organization staged a revolt in the Białystok Ghetto, in what would end up being the second-largest act of armed resistance of Jews against the Nazis. Białystok, a city near the present-day border of Poland and Belarus came under Nazi occupation in June 1941. Within the first few weeks of Nazi Germany’s occupation, the Einsatzgruppen and local police groups rounded up and killed approximately 6,000 Jews, and subsequently forced approximately 50,000 Jews from the city and nearby areas into the city’s ghetto.
LIQUIDATION OF THE CRACOW GHETTO 1943
LIQUIDATION OF THE CRACOW GHETTO 1943, on March 13 to 14, 1943, SS and police carried out the operation, murdering around 2.000 Jews in the ghetto. The SS transferred another 2.000 Jews those capable of work to the Plaszow forced labor camp. The rest of the Jews were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau in two transports, arriving on March 13 and March 16. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the camp authorities selected 549 persons from the two transports to be registered as prisoners. They others, approximately 2.450 people, were murdered in the gas chambers.
LIQUIDATION OF THE SOSNOWIEC GHETTO
LIQUIDATION OF THE SOSNOWIEC GHETTO, Jewish labor at kamionka-strumilova labor camp.
LODZ GHETTO BRIDGE
LODZ GHETTO BRIDGE, the artwork, Lodz Ghetto Bridge, was made by Vincent Brauner, c. 1940 – 1943. The original is 10 3/4 inches x 14 7/8 inches, made with pen and ink, watercolor, and conté on paper adhered to wood. Gift of Elizabeth, Gail, and Sandy Peters. Brauner juxtaposes the crowded, harsh conditions of the Lodz Ghetto with the freedom and unconstrained space of the world outside. The streetcar and civilian with a small wagon travel uninhibited, the luxury of space theirs for the taking. In contrast, the Lodz Ghetto prisoner on the bottom left strains to pull a cart, while a thicket of Jewish prisoners crosses over a bridge that connects parts of the Ghetto while cutting it off from the world outside. While the individual Jews are indistinguishable from one another, the lone soldier standing guard beneath the bridge has his gun, helmet, and uniform coat on clear display.
LODZ GHETTO
LODZ GHETTO, Poland, World War II, 1940-1944. The Nazis forced Jews into over-crowded ghettos from which thousands were deported to the death camps. (Photo by Jewish Chronicle/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
LOMZA GHETTO POLAND
LOMZA GHETTO, POLAND, the market square in Łomża before the two world wars. Conditions in the ghetto were poor, and a prohibition against Jews bringing food into the ghetto was brutally enforced by the Polish auxiliary police. In one instance, the Polish auxiliaries beat to death three Jews smuggling food and their corpses were then strung to the ghetto gates by the Germans. Epidemics of dysentery and typhus broke out in the winter of 1941. All infected died. A communal kitchen was set up serving about a thousand meals a day. There were no Jewish schools. Factories for ammunition, soap, leather, boots, and grease were established; some of them on the initiative of the Judenrat. They made products for the Germans such as shoes, garments and furs. On 1 November 1942, the Ghetto was surrounded by the German gendarmerie and the following morning evacuation was ordered. Most of the Jews, 8,000–10,000 were taken to a transit camp in Zambrów and then to the extermination camp in Auschwitz. The remaining ones, went to the Kiełbasin Sammellagger, south of Grodno, and to Wołkowysk camps as well as to Białystok. Only a few succeeded in escaping. They found refuge with the Catholic Polish families. Dr Hefner of Judenrat took his own life. The last inmates of the Łomża Ghetto stayed in the Zambrow barracks until 14 to 18 January 1943, when they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
LUBLIN GHETTO
LUBLIN GHETTO 1, people walk on a commercial street in the Lublin ghetto near a sign forbidding entry, in Lublin, Poland, ca. 1941-1942. The Lublin Ghetto was a World War II ghetto created by Nazi Germany in the city of Lublin on the territory of General Government in occupied Poland. The ghetto inmates were mostly Polish Jews, although a number of Roma were also brought in.
LUBLIN GHETTO 2
LUBLIN GHETTO 2, in countries across Europe, tens of thousands of ordinary people actively collaborated with German perpetrators of the Holocaust. Many more supported or tolerated the crimes. The Lublin Ghetto was a World War II ghetto created by Nazi Germany in the city of Lublin on the territory of General Government in occupied Poland. The ghetto inmates were mostly Polish Jews, although a number of Roma were also brought in.
LUBLIN GHETTO 3
LUBLIN GHETTO 3, residents of the Lublin ghetto. Poland, 1941-1942. (Source record ID: E9 NW 33/IV)
LVIV GHETTO
LVIV GHETTO, the Lviv Ghetto was one of the largest Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany after the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the city of Lviv was home to more than 110,000 Jews; when the Nazis captured the city in 1941, this number had increased to more than 220,000 Jews. Previously, Jews living in Nazi-occupied western Poland fled eastward into the relative safety of Soviet-occupied Poland, including Lviv. In the second half of 1941, the Germans established the ghetto, which was cleared in June 1943. All residents who had survived previous killings were loaded into livestock wagons and transported to the Belzec and Janowska extermination camps for execution.
LVIV JEWISH COUNCIL
LVIV JEWISH COUNCIL, Execution by hanging of members of the Lvov Ghetto Judenrat.
LVIV POGROM
LVIV POGROM, the Lviv pogroms were the consecutive pogroms and massacres of Jews in June and July 1941 in the city of Lviv in German-occupied Eastern Poland/Western Ukraine. the Lviv Ghetto was one of the largest Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany after the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the city of Lviv was home to more than 110,000 Jews; when the Nazis captured the city in 1941, this number had increased to more than 220,000 Jews. Previously, Jews living in Nazi-occupied western Poland fled eastward into the relative safety of Soviet-occupied Poland, including Lviv. In the second half of 1941, the Germans established the ghetto, which was cleared in June 1943. All residents who had survived previous killings were loaded into livestock wagons and transported to the Belzec and Janowska extermination camps for execution.
Makeshift café
MAKESHIFT CAFÉ: A woman serving hot drinks to customers from a makeshift café in a ghetto street market.
MINSK GHETTO
MINSK GHETTO 1, Jews in the Minsk ghetto, 1941. In late July 1941, the Germans established a ghetto in the northwestern part of Minsk. About 80,000 people, including Jews from nearby towns, were crowded into the Minsk ghetto. Between November 1941 and October 1942, the German government deported nearly 24,000 Jews from Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Minsk. SS and police authorities shot or gassed—in special gas vans—most of them upon arrival in Maly Trostinets, a small village about eight miles to the east. The German occupation authorities housed the others in a separate section of the ghetto in Minsk, segregated from local Belorussian Jews. Little contact was permitted between residents of the two ghettos.
MINSK GHETTO
MINSK GHETTO 2, a camp for Soviet POWs on Shirukuja Street in Minsk. This was initially a camp for Jews, and later became the principal camp for POWs in Minsk (in the Soviet army barracks). POWs were brought here, as well as 300 Jews who worked at clearing the ruins of the ghetto. The place included a punishment camp for Jews charged with looting (according to antisemitic propaganda). In this camp were Jewish POWs from the Soviet Red Army, including Aleksandr Pechersky, (subsequently transferred to the Sobibor camp) and others who were transferred to various camps. Four partisan commanders were smuggled out of the camp: Semyon Gozanko (a Russian, commander of a Jewish partisan unit, the Budionny Battalion) , Tamarkin, Zacher Boyko and Tatiana Boyko.
MINSK GHETTO
MINSK GHETTO 3, tormenting Jews in Minsk. In late July 1941, the Germans established a ghetto in the northwestern part of Minsk. About 80,000 people, including Jews from nearby towns, were crowded into the Minsk ghetto. Between November 1941 and October 1942, the German government deported nearly 24,000 Jews from Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Minsk. SS and police authorities shot or gassed—in special gas vans—most of them upon arrival in Maly Trostinets, a small village about eight miles to the east. The German occupation authorities housed the others in a separate section of the ghetto in Minsk, segregated from local Belorussian Jews. Little contact was permitted between residents of the two ghettos. The German authorities forced Jews to work on labor projects in factories inside the two ghettos, as well as outside the ghettos, especially in the Shiroka Street labor camp and the opera house (where the occupation authorities supervised the sorting and storage of confiscated Jewish private property).
MINSK GHETTO
MINSK GHETTO 4, A Russian Jewish family being sent to the ghetto. Byelorussia. 1941. In late July 1941, the Germans established a ghetto in the northwestern part of Minsk. About 80,000 people, including Jews from nearby towns, were crowded into the Minsk ghetto. Between November 1941 and October 1942, the German government deported nearly 24,000 Jews from Germany, Austria, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Minsk. SS and police authorities shot or gassed—in special gas vans—most of them upon arrival in Maly Trostinets, a small village about eight miles to the east. The German occupation authorities housed the others in a separate section of the ghetto in Minsk, segregated from local Belorussian Jews. Little contact was permitted between residents of the two ghettos.The German authorities forced Jews to work on labor projects in factories inside the two ghettos, as well as outside the ghettos, especially in the Shiroka Street labor camp and the opera house (where the occupation authorities supervised the sorting and storage of confiscated Jewish private property).
MUNKACS GHETTO
MUNKACS GHETTO, a Hungarian gendarme checks a woman entering the Munkács ghetto. In September 1938, following the Munich Conference and its subsequent agreements, the Sudetenland (western regions of Czechoslovakia) was torn away from Czechoslovakia and given to Germany. This led to Poland and Hungary annexing territory from Czechoslovakia, allowing Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus' complete autonomy, although still under Czech sovereignty. In November 1938, following the First Vienna Award, Hungary annexed southwest Subcarpathian Rus', including Munkács and Ungvar. On 10 November 1938, the Hungarian army entered Munkács. The Jews of the town blessed the return of Hungarian rule, but their optimism was soon brought to an end. The Hungarian authorities persecuted the Jews from the beginning of their annexation of the town. Jews fell victim to physical violence, abuse and robbery. The authorities harassed Zionist groups, limited the Jews' economic activities, and recruited many men for forced labor in the Hungarian army. On 19 March 1944, the German army invaded Hungary and four weeks later, the concentration of Jews began. Jews from Munkács were forced into two ghettos, and those from the surrounding areas were assembled at two brick factories on the outskirts of town. On 11 May 1944 the deportations to Auschwitz began, and on 23 May the last deportation train left Munkács.
NAZI CUTTING JEWS BEARD IN STRYJ
NAZI CUTTING JEWS BEARD IN STRYJ, Nazis abuse rabbi Meir'l, the son in law of the rabbi of Głogów.
After these 'Aktions' approximately 5,000 Jews remained in Stryj, including a number of Jews who did not work, who were brought in from Bolechow during early December. Large posters announced that on December 1, 1942, an enclosed ghetto was officially declared in Stryj. The ghetto was located on Berek Joselewicz, Kugnierska, Krawiecka, and Lwow Streets, occupying a smaller area than the previous residential district. The roads leading out of the ghetto were fenced off, and the exits were guarded. Some of those who were employed and had special armbands bearing the letter 'W' were now relocated to camps established near their respective work sites, while their families remained in the ghetto. Inside the ghetto hunger reigned, and many, like the teenager Rena Goldstein, formed small knitting groups or other associations in an attempt to hold the community together.
After these 'Aktions' approximately 5,000 Jews remained in Stryj, including a number of Jews who did not work, who were brought in from Bolechow during early December. Large posters announced that on December 1, 1942, an enclosed ghetto was officially declared in Stryj. The ghetto was located on Berek Joselewicz, Kugnierska, Krawiecka, and Lwow Streets, occupying a smaller area than the previous residential district. The roads leading out of the ghetto were fenced off, and the exits were guarded. Some of those who were employed and had special armbands bearing the letter 'W' were now relocated to camps established near their respective work sites, while their families remained in the ghetto. Inside the ghetto hunger reigned, and many, like the teenager Rena Goldstein, formed small knitting groups or other associations in an attempt to hold the community together.
Nazi collaborator Polish police guard
NAZI COLLABORATOR POLISH POLICE GUARD beating Jewish children
NAZI FORCED LABOR
NAZI FORCED LABOR 1, female foreign workers in Stadelheim work in a factory owned by the AGFA camera company, May 1943, Germany, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of the National Archives, 09047.
NAZI FORCED LABOR
NAZI FORCED LABOR 2, the Nazis exploited the forced labor of "enemies of the state" for economic gain. Labor shortages in the German war economy became critical especially after German defeat in the battle of Stalingrad in 1942-1943. This led to the increased use of prisoners as forced laborers in German industries. Especially in 1943 and 1944, hundreds of camps were established in or near industrial plants.
NEWSPAPER SELLER
NEWSPAPER SELLER, a young boy selling newspapers and armbands from his street stall.
NO SHOES
NO SHOES, and a sad smile in the Warsaw ghetto.
ON THE 16TH OF MARCH 1942
ON THE 16TH OF MARCH 1942 the German security forces commenced with the liquidation of the ghetto in the Podzamcze District of Lublin, simultaneously undertaking a programme of genocide which, in the months to come, was designed to embrace the entire General Government (GG) and was aimed at nothing less than the biological extermination of the Jewish population, coupled with the plunder of Jewish property. It was part of “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question” formulated by the Third Reich.
PARENTS HID ONLY CHILD
PARENTS HID ONLY CHILD,
Lien was one of thousands of Dutch Jewish children hidden from the Nazis by a secret resistance network. In August 1942, a stranger knocked on the door of a house in the Hague, in the Netherlands. An eight-year-old girl was handed over to the safekeeping of the unknown visitor, to be taken to another town. The girl would never see her mother or father again. Lien de Jong was a Jewish child under Nazi occupation and her parents had taken the agonizing decision to try to save her by losing her. The yellow stars were unpicked from her clothes, and she was taken from her home and disappeared into an underground network of resistance families.
Lien was one of thousands of Dutch Jewish children hidden from the Nazis by a secret resistance network. In August 1942, a stranger knocked on the door of a house in the Hague, in the Netherlands. An eight-year-old girl was handed over to the safekeeping of the unknown visitor, to be taken to another town. The girl would never see her mother or father again. Lien de Jong was a Jewish child under Nazi occupation and her parents had taken the agonizing decision to try to save her by losing her. The yellow stars were unpicked from her clothes, and she was taken from her home and disappeared into an underground network of resistance families.
PEOPLE SHADOWS
PEOPLE SHADOWS,” The Black Album 1939-1945, Prague, 1946. Elżbieta Nadel
POLISH HOLE THAT HID 14 JEWS
POLISH HOLE THAT HID 14 JEWS. Story by Michael Viatteau, Jozef Jarosz creeps on March 16, 2016 into an underground hideout in Stankowa, Poland, where he and his family helped Anna Grygiel and 13 other Jews to survive the Holocaust and WWII. / AFP / WOJTEK RADWANSKI (Photo credit should read WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Postcard of the Lódz Ghetto
POSTCARD OF THE LÓDZ GHETTO. A German postcard showing the entrance to the Łódź ghetto in Poland. The sign reads, "Jewish residential area—entry forbidden." Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
PRZEMYSL GHETTO
PRZEMYSL GHETTO 1, Jews forced out of Przemysl across the San River. The Germans entered Przemysl for the first time on 15 September 1939. Repressions and humiliations, aimed at the Jewish population, started almost immediately. Approximately 20,000 Jews lived in the city at that time, including refugees from Western Poland. The Germans started to arrest members of the Jewish intelligentsia: physicians, lawyers, industrialists and merchants, refugees from the West and Jewish political activists. People were removed from their houses by members of an Einsatzkommando of the Sicherhietspolizei (SIPO), or were seized on the streets. They were then driven together to be shot in the woods surrounding the city and buried in communal graves. The first mass executions of Jews took place between 16 and 19 September, at several places in the city outskirts: Lipowica, Pralkowc, Pikulice, Przekopana and near the Jewish cemetery at Slowackiego Street. According to some estimates as many as 600 Jews were killed during this Aktion. Half of them were refugees from Western Poland, only 102 victims were identified and not all execution sites are known. The German units involved in these killings, which was known as Aktion Tannenberg, were Einsatzkommando 1/1 and 1/3 and soldiers from the 1st Mountain Division and members of the Hitler Jugend also took an active part in rounding-up Jews. Bruno Shatyn, recalled these events: Several days after the arrival of the Germans, I was driving along Mickiewicza Street, one of the main thoroughfares in Przemysl, when I saw a ragged line of people running down the middle of the street, all with their hands clasped behind their necks. I pulled over to one side and stopped my truck. Around a hundred people ran past, and as they did I saw that they were Jews. They were half-naked and crying out as they ran, “Juden sind Shweine!” (Jews are swines) Along the line, revolvers in hand, German soldiers were running, young boys about eighteen years old, dressed in dark uniforms, with swastikas on the sleeves, with light blond hair and rosy faces. When someone fell behind or broke pace, they beat the victims with the butts of their revolvers or with whips, or simply kicked them. Poles gathered on the sidewalks, incredulous, some crossing themselves at this monstrous sight. The faces of the old Jews were contorted with pain, and the young boys were crying, but the Germans ran along the street almost joyfully, drunk with power. As I later found out, the soldiers had fallen on the Jewish section that morning and had driven all the men and boys out of their houses with blows and kicks. They made them do calisthenics for several hours in the street and now they were driving them toward the railway station and on, until they crossed the city limits.
PRZEMYSL GHETTO
PRZEMYSL GHETTO 2, the Old Synagogue destroyed. The Germans entered Przemysl for the first time on 15 September 1939. Repressions and humiliations, aimed at the Jewish population, started almost immediately. Approximately 20,000 Jews lived in the city at that time, including refugees from Western Poland. The Germans started to arrest members of the Jewish intelligentsia: physicians, lawyers, industrialists and merchants, refugees from the West and Jewish political activists. People were removed from their houses by members of an Einsatzkommando of the Sicherhietspolizei (SIPO), or were seized on the streets. They were then driven together to be shot in the woods surrounding the city and buried in communal graves. The first mass executions of Jews took place between 16 and 19 September, at several places in the city outskirts: Lipowica, Pralkowc, Pikulice, Przekopana and near the Jewish cemetery at Slowackiego Street. According to some estimates as many as 600 Jews were killed during this Aktion. Half of them were refugees from Western Poland, only 102 victims were identified and not all execution sites are known. The German units involved in these killings, which was known as Aktion Tannenberg, were Einsatzkommando 1/1 and 1/3 and soldiers from the 1st Mountain Division and members of the Hitler Jugend also took an active part in rounding-up Jews. Bruno Shatyn, recalled these events: Several days after the arrival of the Germans, I was driving along Mickiewicza Street, one of the main thoroughfares in Przemysl, when I saw a ragged line of people running down the middle of the street, all with their hands clasped behind their necks. I pulled over to one side and stopped my truck. Around a hundred people ran past, and as they did I saw that they were Jews. They were half-naked and crying out as they ran, “Juden sind Shweine!” (Jews are swines) Along the line, revolvers in hand, German soldiers were running, young boys about eighteen years old, dressed in dark uniforms, with swastikas on the sleeves, with light blond hair and rosy faces. When someone fell behind or broke pace, they beat the victims with the butts of their revolvers or with whips, or simply kicked them. Poles gathered on the sidewalks, incredulous, some crossing themselves at this monstrous sight. The faces of the old Jews were contorted with pain, and the young boys were crying, but the Germans ran along the street almost joyfully, drunk with power. As I later found out, the soldiers had fallen on the Jewish section that morning and had driven all the men and boys out of their houses with blows and kicks. They made them do calisthenics for several hours in the street and now they were driving them toward the railway station and on, until they crossed the city limits.
RAVA RUSKA GHETTO
RAVA RUSKA GHETTO 1, Ghetto in Rawa Ruska, 1942-43. Until 1939, 6,000 to 7,000 Jews lived in Rawa. Jews, which accounted for over 50% of the population. It was a typical town of our region. Among the intelligentsia, some assimilated to Polish culture. In 1939, the city was incorporated into the USSR, at that time the population of the city began to increase immediately, and it became a specific center for refugees (especially of Jewish nationality) from the German occupation zone. Probably no one has ever estimated the number of people seeking shelter in Rawa, the fact is that the Soviets quickly realized the "problem" and from the beginning of 1940 they decided to deport the "immigrant" population to Siberia. Those accused of anti-Soviet conspiracy had practically no chance for more lenient treatment. representatives of the capitalist class), for whom the only chance was to cooperate with the Soviet occupier. When the Germans entered Rawa at the end of June 1941, Rawa became the capital of the district in the Galicia District.
PUBLIC EXECUTION
PUBLIC EXECUTION of Michał Kruk in Przemyśl
Rafael Chwoles
RAFAEL CHWOLES was born on April 25, 1913 in Vilnius, the son of Moshe (b. 1888) & Chava - Lea nee Bruskin (b. 1896). Rafael was the older brother of Riwka, in years to come – Lichtenfeld, as well as brother to Zosia - Zovia, in years to come – Leikovich (b. 1918), Elka (b. 1921), Rachel (b. 1926) & Chowa - Lalka (b. 1928). Following WWI the family left the Jewish quarter of Vilnius and moved to the suburbs of the city.
During his youth Rafael studied painting and drawing with the artists: Mojzesz Lejbowski, Zygmunt Packiewicz, Marian Kuesza & Aleksander Szturman. He later took evening classes in painting at the Jewish school for crafts called “Help through work” where he completed his studies in 1934. Following his graduation Chwoles taught painting at schools in Vilnius. Simultaneously with his work as a teacher he joined the group of Writers and painters “Young Vilnius” and on November 1933 exhibited for the first time at the exhibition of the Union’s artists. Following his success, he participated in another group exhibition held in 1935. That year he also exhibited his work at the YIVO (Jewish Scientific Institute) World Congress held in Vilnius. From 1936 he was a member of the managerial board of “Young Vilnius” and he took part in group exhibitions in Genève, Switzerland, Bialystok and Vilnius, Poland. On April 1938 Chwoles had a solo exhibition in his hometown.
In 1940 Chwoles was appointed as the manager of the Fine Arts School in Wilejce (Szkoly Sztuk Plastycznych w Wilejce) at the time – the Soviet Republic of Belarus, now – Belarus. On June 1941 when “Barbarosa Operation” began, Chwoles was in Minsk, Belarus. His pregnant wife Mariana tried to join him but was murdered on the way from Vilnius to Minsk. Chwoles managed to flee deep into the territories of the Soviet Union reaching the city Gorky now - Nizhny Novgorod. He was drafted by the “Red Army” and he had to work in road construction. Chwoles met in Gorky Maria Ponomareva, in years to come – his wife, who gathered a group of artists who had immigrated from the occupied regions to the Soviet Union. Maria organized cultural events and Rafael designed the sets for these performances. That year Chwoles exhibited his work at the cultural center of Krasne – Baki, a town on the shore of the Volga river. Following the success of this exhibition Chwoles traveled to Moskva where his eldest son Alexander was born. In 1945 the Chwoles family returned to Vilnius where Rafael found out that his parents, sister Elka, sister Rachel and sister Chowa had perished in 1942 or 1943 at the Ponary murder site. The sister Riwka & Zovia managed to escape from the ghetto and they survived the war in hiding. Following the war, they both immigrated to Eretz Israel. After the war the main subject that Rafael Chwoles dealt with in his art was the destruction of Jewish Vilnius. In 1951 he was accepted by the Soviet Artists Union. That year his younger son was also born – Milego. Until 1956 the family lived in Vilnius. In 1959 they immigrated to Poland where Chwoles was engaged in painting posters for theaters and cinemas as well as illustrating books. In 1964 he was elected as the chair of the “The Social-Cultural Association of Polish Jews” (Towarzystwo Spoleczno - Kulturalne Zydow w Polsce). In 1969 the family immigrated to Paris. In 1981 Rafael was awarded a medal on behalf of the “Academy of Fine Arts” (Academie des Beaux Arts) and in 1983 he received the Medal of Paris. Rafael Chwoles visited his sister in Israel many times and in 1986 & 1987 he even had an exhibition at “Yad Vashem”. In 1994 he won the “Itzik Manger Yiddish Literature Award”. In 1995 he won the “Yiddish Culture Award” on behalf of the”Beit Shalom Aleichem”. Rafael Chwoles passed away in Paris on March 31, 2002. His work was and still is exhibited in dozens of exhibitions across Europe, Asia and North America.
During his youth Rafael studied painting and drawing with the artists: Mojzesz Lejbowski, Zygmunt Packiewicz, Marian Kuesza & Aleksander Szturman. He later took evening classes in painting at the Jewish school for crafts called “Help through work” where he completed his studies in 1934. Following his graduation Chwoles taught painting at schools in Vilnius. Simultaneously with his work as a teacher he joined the group of Writers and painters “Young Vilnius” and on November 1933 exhibited for the first time at the exhibition of the Union’s artists. Following his success, he participated in another group exhibition held in 1935. That year he also exhibited his work at the YIVO (Jewish Scientific Institute) World Congress held in Vilnius. From 1936 he was a member of the managerial board of “Young Vilnius” and he took part in group exhibitions in Genève, Switzerland, Bialystok and Vilnius, Poland. On April 1938 Chwoles had a solo exhibition in his hometown.
In 1940 Chwoles was appointed as the manager of the Fine Arts School in Wilejce (Szkoly Sztuk Plastycznych w Wilejce) at the time – the Soviet Republic of Belarus, now – Belarus. On June 1941 when “Barbarosa Operation” began, Chwoles was in Minsk, Belarus. His pregnant wife Mariana tried to join him but was murdered on the way from Vilnius to Minsk. Chwoles managed to flee deep into the territories of the Soviet Union reaching the city Gorky now - Nizhny Novgorod. He was drafted by the “Red Army” and he had to work in road construction. Chwoles met in Gorky Maria Ponomareva, in years to come – his wife, who gathered a group of artists who had immigrated from the occupied regions to the Soviet Union. Maria organized cultural events and Rafael designed the sets for these performances. That year Chwoles exhibited his work at the cultural center of Krasne – Baki, a town on the shore of the Volga river. Following the success of this exhibition Chwoles traveled to Moskva where his eldest son Alexander was born. In 1945 the Chwoles family returned to Vilnius where Rafael found out that his parents, sister Elka, sister Rachel and sister Chowa had perished in 1942 or 1943 at the Ponary murder site. The sister Riwka & Zovia managed to escape from the ghetto and they survived the war in hiding. Following the war, they both immigrated to Eretz Israel. After the war the main subject that Rafael Chwoles dealt with in his art was the destruction of Jewish Vilnius. In 1951 he was accepted by the Soviet Artists Union. That year his younger son was also born – Milego. Until 1956 the family lived in Vilnius. In 1959 they immigrated to Poland where Chwoles was engaged in painting posters for theaters and cinemas as well as illustrating books. In 1964 he was elected as the chair of the “The Social-Cultural Association of Polish Jews” (Towarzystwo Spoleczno - Kulturalne Zydow w Polsce). In 1969 the family immigrated to Paris. In 1981 Rafael was awarded a medal on behalf of the “Academy of Fine Arts” (Academie des Beaux Arts) and in 1983 he received the Medal of Paris. Rafael Chwoles visited his sister in Israel many times and in 1986 & 1987 he even had an exhibition at “Yad Vashem”. In 1994 he won the “Itzik Manger Yiddish Literature Award”. In 1995 he won the “Yiddish Culture Award” on behalf of the”Beit Shalom Aleichem”. Rafael Chwoles passed away in Paris on March 31, 2002. His work was and still is exhibited in dozens of exhibitions across Europe, Asia and North America.
Sewing workshop
SEWING WORKSHOP located at 21 Ogrodowa St., Warsaw ghetto
RAVA RUSKA GHETTO
RAVA RUSKA GHETTO 2, Jewish Quarter. Ghetto in Rawa Ruska, 1942-43. Until 1939, 6,000 to 7,000 Jews lived in Rawa. Jews, which accounted for over 50% of the population. It was a typical town of our region. Among the intelligentsia, some assimilated to Polish culture. In 1939, the city was incorporated into the USSR, at that time the population of the city began to increase immediately, and it became a specific center for refugees (especially of Jewish nationality) from the German occupation zone. Probably no one has ever estimated the number of people seeking shelter in Rawa, the fact is that the Soviets quickly realized the "problem" and from the beginning of 1940 they decided to deport the "immigrant" population to Siberia. Those accused of anti-Soviet conspiracy had practically no chance for more lenient treatment. representatives of the capitalist class), for whom the only chance was to cooperate with the Soviet occupier. When the Germans entered Rawa at the end of June 1941, Rawa became the capital of the district in the Galicia District.
RUINS IN THE AREA OF THE AUGUSTOV JEWISH GHETTO
RUINS IN THE AREA OF THE AUGUSTOV JEWISH GHETTO, ruins in the area of the Augustow Jewish ghetto in the Baraki suburb. On June 22, 1941, the first day of the German invasion of the Soviet Union the Germans once again occupied Augustow. They established a Polish administration and recruited an auxiliary police force. A Jewish survivor from this time, remembered the force as composed of local Poles, who subsequently, all qualified and registered under Nazi racial laws as ethnic Germans. On June 24, 1941, a Waffen-SS commander arrested 70 workers and guests of an Augustow retreat centre and executed 30 of the captives -15 Jews and 15 Russians. Operational units organised by Regierungsrat Hans- Joachim Bohme, commander of the Tilsit State Police, was responsible for the subsequent June and July 1941, murders of the Jews of Augustow. On June 27, 1941, an Einsatzkommando, led by SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Wolfgang Ilges from Tilsit, ordered the arrest of more than 100 communists mostly Jewish residents of Augustow. Several days later the Germans arrested a furrier and several other Jews, probably for defying orders to return to their homes. Whether the captives were executed immediately or were held and murdered on July 3, 1941, together with 175 more victims remains unclear. What is known is that on July 3, 1941, an operational unit led by either Ilges or by Waldemar Macholl, the Grenzkommissar of the Sudauen border police and soldiers from the intelligence branch of the 87th Infantry Regiment murdered 300 to 316 people, including ten women in two mass shooting 'Aktions' in the Augustow Forest. Almost all of the victims were Jews. The largest mass shooting of the Jews in Augustow took place at the same time the ghetto was established. On August 15, 1941, a German unit, most probably from the Tilsit State Police, ordered Jewish men aged between 13 to 60 years old to register for work at a central point in Augustow. Held captive in the synagogue, the 800 to 1,650 men who obeyed the order were executed in small groups of 200 to 300 people in the Szczebrze section of the Augustow Forest, near the village of Klonownica. Most probably on the day of the round-up the Jewish women in Augustow were confined to a ghetto. This was located on a 12-hectare area between Augustow and the Bystry Canals, the ghetto occupied a former settlement of one-room houses built for the workers of the local sawmill. It contained several streets of company-owned houses, all referred to as Barracks' Street. In the period of the ghetto, the streets were numbered from 1 to 13. They were surrounded by a wire fence, topped in some places by barbed wire. The only gate was on the road leading to Lipsk nad Biebrza. The road is now called Street of the Westerplatte Heroes. A detailed list in the Polish post-war documentation of the skilled trades practiced by men in the Augustow ghetto suggests that craftsmen may have been released to the ghetto, as had happened several weeks prior in Szczuczyn, and also in Kreis Grajewo. However, Jewish survivor Nusia Janowski maintained the Germans intended the ghetto population to be wholly female. Charles Levine, another survivor, notes that no men were held back from execution. The only men in the ghetto were those that had not registered for labour or had broken the windows of the synagogue and fled. In August 1941, the Germans consolidated in the ghetto approximately 100 Jews from the other parts of the former Augustow raion, as well as a handful of Jews still resident in Kreis Sudauen. Those transferred to the Augustow ghetto included the Sztabin community, a part of the Lipsk nad Biebrza.community and a smaller number of Jews from Raczki and Dowspuda. The executions and consolidations make it difficult to ascertain the ghetto population in Augustow. Most survivors, however, claim 2,000 Jews resided there. Toyer, the head of the SS in Augustow, and his assistant Klonovsky, who was an ethnic German, were ultimately responsible for the ghetto. It was monitored on a day-to-day basis by the German Gendarmerie and guarded by Polish auxiliaries. Living conditions were poor. Approximately 24 people resided in a single house. Overcrowding gave way to diseases, such as purpura, associated with typhus, and other fever-type epidemics. A hospital and cemetery were established in the ghetto. The male craftsmen worked as tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, watchmakers, and painters. Some men and many more women were conscripted for labor at the sawmill, renamed during the occupation in honor of Hermann Goring. Skilled mechanics and locksmiths worked for the Wehrmacht. Unskilled workers were sent to a labor camp established in Augustow for road repairs or were conscripted for agricultural or harvesting logs. August Bogener, an auxiliary policeman, from January to March 1942, was the supervisor of the Jewish forced labour workers, routinely beat the prisoners with a rubber truncheon, kicked them, and stripped them of any food they were attempting to smuggle into the ghetto. In June 1942, the Germans reduced the size of the Augustow ghetto population by deporting a large number of young women residents to Grajewo. The women were sent for agricultural labour at Milbo, the estate of the Grajewo Kreis-kommissar, located in Milewo.The Augustow ghetto was liquidated on November 2, 1942. A handful of Christian converts were permitted to remain with their families in Augustow. The Gendarmes locked the sick and elderly, which they deemed unable to travel into the ghetto hospital and set it ablaze. The remaining Jews were expelled to a transit camp located north of Grajewo, in Bogusze village, near the train station in Prostken, East Prussia. Approximately 5,000 to 9,000 Jews from other nearby locations, including Milewo, were expelled to the transit camp that same day. On December 15th-16th 1942, the Germans deported between 3,000 to 5,000 Jews from Bogusze to the Treblinka death camp. On January 3, 1943, the remaining 2,000 Jews at Bogusze were sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. On January 7, 1943, at Birkenau, the Germans selected 296 men and 215 women for labour and the remaining 1,489 people were gassed on arrival. In August 1943, the Christian converts excluded from the Bogusze deportation were executed. In April 1944, Waldemar Macholl, then head of the Department IVA-3 of the Bialystok Gestapo, organised a Sonderkommando 1005 unit, personally selecting its 43 workers from a group of Jewish male craftsmen and other inmates at the city prison. The unit began its work on May 15th, 1944, in the Augustow Forest. Closely supervised by Obersturmfuhrer Dick, the Jewish prisoners spent almost three weeks exhuming and burning the corpses there, including 3,000 to 5,000 Jewish, Belorussian and Polish civilians, and former Soviet officials, buried in seven mass graves at Szczebrze. In addition to the handful of survivors from Auschwitz, three Jewish refugees from German-occupied Poland are counted as survivors. Assisted by Pawel Kunda, a local physician, they lived outside the ghetto on false identity papers and they remained in Augustow after the liquidation of the ghetto.
SELLING POSSESSIONS
SELLING POSSESSIONS. An elderly woman trying to trade her scarce possessions in the street. A woman with two children watches her from the window in the background.
SAMUEL BAK
SAMUEL BAK, Warsaw Excavation, 2007. Image Courtesy Pucker Gallery © Samuel Bak
Seeking to leave Germany
SEEKING TO LEAVE GERMANY, German Jews crowd the Palestine Emigration Office in an attempt to leave Germany. Berlin, Germany, 1935. Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz
Sketch by Leo Haas
SKETCH BY LEO HAAS of a blind man in Theresienstadt transit camp, very possibly Hans; something about the mouth and the chin that seems to fit.
SLONIM POLAND GHETTO
SLONIM POLAND GHETTO, the Słonim Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto established in 1941 by the SS in Slonim, Western Belarus during World War II. Prior to 1939, the town was part of the Second Polish Republic. The town was captured in late June 1941 by the Wehrmacht in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa. The Słonim Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto established in 1941 by the SS in Slonim, Western Belarus during World War II. Prior to 1939, the town was part of the Second Polish Republic. The town was captured in late June 1941 by the Wehrmacht in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa.
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