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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum A memorial to the Holocaust, USHMM inspires people to confront hatred and promote human dignity.

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Operating as usual

03/17/2023
Artifacts Unpacked: The Necklace

Erika Taubner and her parents buried their most treasured possessions in the basement of their apartment building in Budapest, including this four-leaf clover necklace.

N**i Germany had recently occupied Hungary, and the Taubners did not want their belongings to be confiscated.

Learn about the fate of the Taubner family and the lucky charm.

Rivka Fryd (second from left) was a teenager at the time of the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. Under the G...
03/16/2023

Rivka Fryd (second from left) was a teenager at the time of the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. Under the German occupation, Rivka and her family were subjected to numerous antisemitic restrictions, including a requirement that they wear white armbands with the Star of David (seen here) identifying them as Jews.

In the spring of 1941, the Fryd family were confined in the Lublin ghetto. Rivka’s sister, Yocheved, and father, Abraham, eventually escaped the ghetto and went into hiding. But Rivka and her mother, Channa, stayed behind, thinking they would be safer there.

Beginning on March 16, 1942, German authorities liquidated the Lublin ghetto. Over the course of a month, they rounded up ghetto residents and sent them to Belzec killing center, where the vast majority were murdered in gas chambers using carbon monoxide gas. This marked the start of systematic killing under the auspices of Operation Reinhard—the N**i plan to murder the Jews of the General Government in German-occupied Poland.

Rivka was deported with her mother in one of the first transports to Belzec. By mid-April 1942, at least 25,000 Jews from the Lublin ghetto had been killed. Most had been sent to Belzec, but others had been shot in the ghetto.

Rivka’s father and sister survived the Holocaust.

Photo: USHMM, courtesy of Yocheved Fryd Flumenker

Life changed forever for Marta Peková and her family when N**i Germany invaded the Czech lands and occupied their hometo...
03/15/2023
Czechoslovakia

Life changed forever for Marta Peková and her family when N**i Germany invaded the Czech lands and occupied their hometown of Prague in 1939.

Marta, her husband, Karel, and their young daughter, Alena, pictured here together circa 1939–1940, quickly realized they were trapped in N**i-controlled Prague with no means or opportunity to emigrate. Along with the rest of the Jewish community in Prague, the family was subjected to numerous antisemitic laws and policies. They were forced to vacate their apartment and move in with another Jewish family, where living conditions were difficult.

There was an evening curfew at 8 p.m. for Jews and many restrictions on where Jews could go within the city. Marta remembered bringing Alena to a Jewish cemetery to play because it was one of the only places Jews were still allowed to go.

In December 1941, Karel was forcibly relocated to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Less than two weeks later, Marta and Alena were also sent there. Marta recalled boarding the train in Prague and having to walk the last few kilometers to the ghetto with Alena and the other women and children.

After several weeks, Marta and Karel found each other. Conditions in the ghetto were challenging—Marta and Karel were required to carry out forced labor assignments and had to live separately. Marta remembered meeting up with her husband after a long day of work, each of them bringing a small piece of food and combining them to make “dinner.”

The family remained in Theresienstadt until they were liberated in May 1945.

While Marta, Karel, and Alena survived, the rest of Marta's family, including her parents and siblings, did not.

Photo: USHMM, courtesy of Marta Mautnerova Pekova

Featured Content

Albert Einstein—a vocal critic of the N**is—was born on this day in 1879.Einstein, who was both Jewish and a pacifist, w...
03/14/2023

Albert Einstein—a vocal critic of the N**is—was born on this day in 1879.

Einstein, who was both Jewish and a pacifist, was an early target of Germany’s N**i regime. Just weeks after Hi**er came to power in January 1933, N**i German authorities raided Einstein's home. Einstein went on to renounce his German citizenship and settle in New Jersey, becoming an American citizen in 1940.

Photo: Library of Congress

“From the window of my pharmacy, I saw all the roundups that took place ... It was very sad—it was an unbelievable occur...
03/13/2023

“From the window of my pharmacy, I saw all the roundups that took place ... It was very sad—it was an unbelievable occurrence. One can’t describe in words what I saw there.”

Eighty years ago in 1943, Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Polish pharmacist, witnessed the Krakow ghetto’s final liquidation from his pharmacy located within the ghetto walls.

“I saw terrible things ... how the Jews were murdered, the various forms of death.”

During the liquidation, N**i authorities and police murdered many Jews in the ghetto and deported others to the Krakau-Plaszow labor camp and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Tadeusz, a non-Jewish Pole, lived and worked in the Krakow ghetto from its inception in March 1941 until its final liquidation two years later.

Initially, the Germans attempted to remove Tadeusz and offered him one of the confiscated Jewish-owned pharmacies in Krakow, but he refused. He instead chose to live and work alongside the Jews in the ghetto.

Tadeusz’s pharmacy served as a meeting place for ghetto residents, supplied medications to the sick, and helped shelter Jews evading deportation. In the final days of the ghetto, Tadeusz devised special hiding places within the pharmacy for the storage of Torah scrolls, which were retrieved after the war.

“That was not a problem for me nor a question for me, if one is a Jew or non-Jew. Just good and bad people. And that will stay with me like that till death.”

Tadeusz survived the war and was honored by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/krakow-cracow?utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=otd&utm_content=liquidationofkrakowghetto20230313

“We wanted more from life than just to be tolerated,” reflected Holocaust survivor Erwin Deutscher. “Of course later on,...
03/12/2023

“We wanted more from life than just to be tolerated,” reflected Holocaust survivor Erwin Deutscher. “Of course later on, we understood it's even worse than we expected.”

On this day 85 years ago, German troops crossed the Austro-German border unopposed just hours after N**i leaders pressured the Austrian chancellor to resign. Erwin was 15 years old. “Our family definitely, but I would say almost all the Jews were surprised,” remembered Erwin.

As a child, Erwin was largely unaware of Hi**er’s intentions for Austria. Hi**er spent years plotting out an Austro-German union. By March 1938, he succeeded in carrying out the German annexation of Austria—an event known as the Anschluss—without firing a single shot.

Erwin remembered his father, Efraim, had tears in his eyes as their neighbors attempted to console him. “Non-Jewish neighbors came in very friendly and said, ‘But you know, nothing will happen to Jews like you. You're the good Jews,’” recalled Erwin.

Their neighbors were wrong. Soon after, the Deutschers lost their dairy business. Efraim was rounded up along with other Jewish men and forced to march through the city with brooms and hats. As a former officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army, Efraim felt humiliated.

Toward the end of the march, Efraim spotted his neighbor overseeing a group of Jewish women forced to wash windows. He was wearing a N**i SA uniform. “This guy who told him not to worry was then later in a N**i uniform,” said Erwin.

The family immediately made plans to leave. Erwin was able to receive passage to Palestine. His brothers were among a select group of children refugees sent to the United States. After first seeking safety in Italy, Erwin's parents and sister were eventually liberated in September 1943 from the Ferramonti camp.

Photo: USHMM, gift of Naomi Deutscher

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-territorial-aggression-the-anschluss?utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=otd&utm_content=anschluss:erwindeutscher20230312

Ben Ferencz turns 103 today.He was a recent Harvard law graduate when he was tasked with helping to set up the United St...
03/11/2023

Ben Ferencz turns 103 today.

He was a recent Harvard law graduate when he was tasked with helping to set up the United States’ first war crimes branch in Europe. He collected evidence of N**i crimes as the Allies liberated concentration camps.

What he saw forever changed him: “I witnessed a deadly vision I can never forget—the crematoria aglow with the fire of burning flesh, the mounds of emaciated corpses stacked like cordwood waiting to be burned. I had peered into hell.”

Ben was asked to gather proof to be used in the Nuremberg trials, where N**i perpetrators would be held accountable for crimes associated with the Holocaust. There was no prosecutor available when new evidence was uncovered documenting the murder of more than one million Jews by the Einsatzgruppen, perpetrators of mass shooting operations. So, at age 27, with no prior trial experience, Ben prosecuted the case—then known as “the biggest murder trial in history.”

The last living Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor, Ben has devoted his life to fighting for peace and justice. Learn why his motto is "never give up."

Photos: USHMM, courtesy of Benjamin Ferencz

Jewish Polish historian Emanuel Ringelblum hoped that his carefully curated archive of the Warsaw ghetto would survive t...
03/10/2023

Jewish Polish historian Emanuel Ringelblum hoped that his carefully curated archive of the Warsaw ghetto would survive the Holocaust—even if he didn’t.

"I began to collect material on current events in October 1939” Emanuel explained. “[…] Whatever I heard in the course of the day I wrote down in the evening, and added my observations. In time these daily records made up a good-sized book […], a mirror of that time."

Soon after, Emanuel began to work with a team that expanded after the Warsaw ghetto was sealed in November 1940. Under Emanuel's leadership they formed a secret organized underground operation, documenting life inside the ghetto.

Those involved collected thousands of pages of documents, drawings, ration cards, posters, postcards, photographs, and other materials that reflected the stories of the more than 400,000 Jews imprisoned in the ghetto. The collection, which was hidden in the ground in milk cans and boxes, would come to be known as the Oneg Shabbat archive.

Emanuel’s archive survived the destruction of the ghetto during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and was partially recovered after the war. It is one of the most important collections of documentation about the fate of Polish Jewry during the Holocaust.

However, Emanuel would never know his legacy. In early 1943, he escaped the ghetto and went into hiding with his wife and his son. But in March 1944, German authorities discovered them. N**is took them to a prison and shot them in the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto.

Photo: Yad Vashem

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/emanuel-ringelblum-and-the-creation-of-the-oneg-shabbat-archive?utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=socialmedia&utm_content=ringelblumescapesfromwarsawghetto20230310

"No voice is heard to cry halt to the slaughter, no government speaks to bid the murder of human millions end. But we he...
03/09/2023

"No voice is heard to cry halt to the slaughter, no government speaks to bid the murder of human millions end. But we here tonight have a voice. Let us raise it," actors proclaimed during the finale of the "We Will Never Die" pageant.

When news of N**i genocide against the Jews began circulating in the United States in 1942, many Americans found the information difficult to comprehend. A January 1943 poll showed that only 48 percent of the country believed the Holocaust was happening.

This lack of public response and inaction from the US government frustrated Jewish-American screenwriter Ben Hecht, inspiring him to produce a dramatic pageant to raise awareness of the situation in Europe. 80 years ago, "We Will Never Die," sponsored by the Committee for a Jewish Army, premiered at Madison Square Garden to a sold-out audience.

Following the success of its New York show, the pageant toured across the country, including a stop at California's Hollywood Bowl in July 1943. Pictured here is the Hollywood Bowl show's conductor, Franz Waxman, at a rehearsal for the upcoming performance, flanked by two monumental tablets depicting the Ten Commandments. Waxman himself had fled N**i Germany in 1934.

Some 100,000 Americans saw "We Will Never Die," and more listened to the performance on the radio. Diplomats, congressmen, and even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt attended its shows.

Public pressure began to mount in 1943 for a dedicated American response to N**i atrocities, in part due to the success of "We Will Never Die."

Photo: USHMM, courtesy of John Waxman

03/08/2023
An Heiress Turned Rescuer

She was a multimillionaire at age 11, but as she got older wanted no part of life as a socialite. Living in Vienna as the N**is seized control, American Muriel Gardiner used her money, connections, and quick thinking to save lives. She lied to border agents, smuggled fake papers in her corset, provided safe haven for Jewish friends and strangers, and had her own close call with the Gestapo. Later, from America, Muriel poured her heart and resources into helping Austrian refugees—though her husband got most of the credit. As we commemorate Women’s History Month, learn about Muriel's secret life.

Otto and Käthe Leichter were active in Vienna’s political scene. As socialists, they were already well-known members of ...
03/07/2023

Otto and Käthe Leichter were active in Vienna’s political scene. As socialists, they were already well-known members of an underground political group when the N**is took control of Austria. But now, the Jewish couple was wanted by the Gestapo. Otto believed the family, including two boys, should flee right away. But Käthe could not bring herself to abandon her elderly mother.

Otto accepted the secret help of an American rescuer, Muriel Gardiner, and escaped to Paris, where his sons eventually followed. Käthe was arrested and later imprisoned at the Ravensbrück concentration camp. She was later murdered.

Watch our Women’s History Watch program on March 8 at 9:30 a.m. ET to learn about risks taken by Muriel Gardiner to help Vienna’s Jews and N**i enemies escape.

Photo: DÖW

One year after this festive Purim portrait was taken, life would change forever for twins Yehudit and Lea Csengeri.Befor...
03/06/2023

One year after this festive Purim portrait was taken, life would change forever for twins Yehudit and Lea Csengeri.

Before the N**is invaded Hungary in March 1944, Yehudit and Lea were surrounded by a religious Jewish family. This photo was likely taken in March 1943 for the holiday of Purim and sent as a postcard to their father, Zvi, who was serving in a Hungarian forced labor battalion.

Purim, which begins tonight, is a lively Jewish holiday that celebrates the survival of fifth-century Jews who were marked for death. Those who celebrate often dress up in costumes and festive clothing.

Two months after the German invasion of Hungary, Yehudit, Lea, and their mother, Rosie, were taken to a transit ghetto. From there, they were deported to Auschwitz. When they arrived, the infamous SS doctor Josef Mengele selected the seven-year-old twins for medical experimentation.

“We had seen that most twins were not coming back together,” Yehudit said in an interview with Haaretz newspaper, “so we held hands.”

Rosie managed to stay close to her daughters during their time in Auschwitz. Once, according to her daughters, she even tried to stop a medical experiment and was punished with a meningitis injection.

The twins credit their mother for their survival in Auschwitz, “We are alive only because of her," Yehudit reflected. "She combed our hair, bathed us in the snow, and sneaked into our barracks to bring us some bread."

Yehudit, Lea, and Rosie were liberated in January 1945 and were later reunited with Zvi. The family immigrated to Israel in 1960.

Photo: USHMM, courtesy of Yehudit Csengeri Barnea

Joseph "Muscha" Müller was born in Bitterfeld, Germany to Sinti parents in 1932. Roma and Sinti, pejoratively called "Gy...
03/05/2023

Joseph "Muscha" Müller was born in Bitterfeld, Germany to Sinti parents in 1932. Roma and Sinti, pejoratively called "Gypsies," had long been discriminated against by other Germans and subjected to harassment. After the N**is came to power in 1933, the new regime targeted Romani people with more extreme persecution.

At one-and-a-half years old in 1933—the same year the N**i Party rose to power—Joseph was adopted by a non-Romani family. As he began school, Joseph was often taunted with insults, targeted for classroom pranks, and beaten for "misbehaving."

When he was 12, Joseph was taken from his classroom by two strangers who said he had "appendicitis" and needed immediate surgery. He protested, but was beaten and forcefully taken into surgery, where he was sterilized.

After his recovery, Joseph's adoptive parents learned he was to be sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, but his father managed to have him smuggled from the hospital and hidden. Joseph survived the remainder of the war by hiding for five months in a garden shed.

Photo: USHMM, courtesy of Joseph Muscha Müller

03/04/2023
Krakow Ghetto

On this day in 1941, German authorities established the Krakow ghetto in German-occupied Poland. Here, Jews are shown moving to the ghetto. Nearly 20,000 Jews were imprisoned behind barbed wire and stone.

Residents would stand in line for hours for food, and sometimes there was nothing to buy. Many were assigned to backbreaking jobs at forced labor camps. Among them was an enamelworks factory owned by Oskar Schindler, who rescued hundreds of Jews.

But most of the Krakow ghetto residents were not so fortunate. In the next two years, almost all of its inhabitants were shot en masse or deported to killing centers.

Video: courtesy of Filmoteka Narodowa

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