United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

01/22/2021

War Refugee Board

“We have talked. We have sympathized. We have expressed our horror. The time to act is long past due.”
—John Pehle, Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, January 15, 1944

The establishment of the War Refugee Board marked the first time the US government adopted a policy of trying to rescue victims of Nazi persecution.

Learn more:

On January 22, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced a new policy to rescue and provide relief for Jews and other groups persecuted by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. The War Refug...

01/21/2021

Nazi Camps

When we think of Nazi camps, our thoughts often begin and end with Auschwitz. However, the camp system set up by Nazi Germany and its collaborators was a far-reaching network of concentration camps, killing centers, forced labor sites, and other places of detention that spanned much of Europe.

The Nazi state and its allies established more than 44,000 incarceration sites between 1933 and 1945, according to ongoing Museum research. Eighty years since the Holocaust began, scholars are still working to untangle the Nazi camp system.

Nazi Germany and its allies established over 44,000 concentration camps and incarceration sites during the Holocaust. Read about the Nazi camp system.

01/21/2021

Nazi Camps

When we think of Nazi camps, our thoughts often begin and end with Auschwitz. However, the camp system set up by Nazi Germany and its collaborators was a far-reaching network of concentration camps, killing centers, forced labor sites, and other places of detention that spanned much of Europe.

The Nazi state and its allies established more than 44,000 incarceration sites between 1933 and 1945, according to ongoing Museum research. Eighty years since the Holocaust began, scholars are still working to untangle the Nazi camp system.

Nazi Germany and its allies established over 44,000 concentration camps and incarceration sites during the Holocaust. Read about the Nazi camp system.

01/20/2021

Wannsee Conference and the "Final Solution"

In January 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what the Nazi regime called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."

This phrase was a Nazi euphemism that meant the systematic killing of millions of Jewish men, women, and children. At the Wannsee Conference, participants discussed the fate of various categories of Jews, including those who were married to non-Jews, were over 65, or were defined as “mixed-race” (Mischling). According to notes from the meeting, they agreed on "evacuating the Jews to the East," where many would “be eliminated by natural causes.”

Not one of the men present at the meeting objected to their final plan: the systematic and deliberate annihilation of European Jews.

On January 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they call...

01/19/2021

Voices from the Lodz Ghetto

“I saw two wagons full of little children drive past the open gate. Many of the children were dressed in their holiday best, the little girls with colored ribbons in their hair. In spite of the soldiers in their midst, the children were shrieking at the top of their lungs. They were calling out for their mothers.” —Sara Plagier, age 16

In January 1942, Nazi authorities began deportations of Jews from the Łódź ghetto to the Chełmno killing center. Between January 1942 and July 1944, approximately 77,000 Jews from the Łódź ghetto were killed at Chełmno.

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01/19/2021

Helen Keller

Did you know that Helen Keller's writings were burned in the infamous Nazi book burnings?

When Helen learned that her work, "How I Became a Socialist," was on the list of “un-German” writings that the Nazi regime intended to destroy, she penned an open letter “to the student body of Germany.” It ran in the New York Times on May 10, 1933.

“History has taught you nothing if you think you can kill ideas,” she warned. “Tyrants have tried to do that often before, and the ideas have risen up in their might and destroyed them. You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels, and will continue to quicken other minds.”

Helen is pictured here seated and reading Braille in September 1907.

In 1933, Nazi students at more than 30 German universities pillaged libraries in search of books they considered to be "un-German." Among the literary and political writings they consigned to th...

01/18/2021

Why Holocaust Analogies Are Dangerous

Holocaust analogies seem to be everywhere these days. While they may demonize, demean, and intimidate their targets, there is a cost for all of us.

Careless Holocaust analogies may demonize, demean, and intimidate their targets. But there is a cost for all of us.

01/18/2021

In many ghettos throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, music was a form of spiritual and cultural resistance. In Kovno, Michael Leo Hofmekler (right) conducted an orchestra of 35 musicians including Boris Stupel (left, playing the violin). Performances were held bi-weekly, and a total of 80 concerts were given during the ghetto's history.

Despite being for some a source of solace and a reminder of happier times, musical performances in the ghetto were not without controversy. “Some said that the ghetto is not the place for making concerts, that this is not the place for musical presentations and celebrations. We do not have the right, and we must not forget what we have gone through,” wrote the authors of a real-time history of the Kovno Jewish police in 1942-43. “But on the other hand [...], it is important that one in the ghetto have a few hours a week in which it is possible to forget a little, to rest a little from the daily nightmare, and to rise a little above the unremitting grayness into a finer world…”

Boris was the only member of his large family to survive the Holocaust. Michael and his brother, Robert, survived, but two other siblings and their parents died.

01/18/2021

Susannah Heschel — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Susannah Heschel remembers vividly watching her father, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, leave for Selma, Alabama, in 1965 to march with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 2007, she spoke with us about the inspiring friendship between her father, a Holocaust survivor, and Dr. King.

"I think what was important about Dr. King and my father was that they both held out a vision of what we could become to remind ourselves what is possible for a human being to achieve." #MLKDay

Susannah Heschel is inspired by the lasting friendship between her father, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Martin Luther King. Heschel's own scholarly writings examine the way religious doctrine has been twisted to achieve ideological ends.

01/17/2021

#WeRemember: Auschwitz

Upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, victims went through a selection process to determine who would be sentenced to forced labor and who would be sent directly to the gas chambers.

Cecilie Klein-Pollack recalls how her mother, Rosa, gave her other daughter, Mina, a chance to live by taking Mina’s young son, Dani, into her arms.

While Cecilie and Mina were selected for labor, Rosa and Dani were sent to the gas chambers.

Outside there was smoke and a vile smell in the air. They were later told, "There are your mothers, sisters, and fathers. They are burning them." #WeRemember

01/17/2021

On this day in 1945, Nazi officials ordered that Auschwitz and its subcamps be evacuated before the approaching Soviet army arrived. After striking up a friendship in the camp, Bela Blau and Magda Hellinger were sent on separate death marches—unsure if they would ever see each other again.

Born in Bratislava, Bela and his family were deported in 1942 to Auschwitz, where his wife and young son soon died. Slovakian kindergarten teacher Magda Hellinger arrived in Auschwitz the same year and was assigned a variety of jobs including scrubbing floors, working in a barrack for medical experiments, and later working in an office where she met Bela. He learned of her reputation for helping secure blankets and other small comforts for fellow women prisoners and later remembered, “...I started to like her, because I saw what she’s doing … and naturally I was very much impressed with that.” He visited her several times and the two became close.

When the evacuation order came, Bela and Magda were sent on forced marches. Magda later remembered the SS officers rushing the women, as “they didn't want to be caught by the Russians. And anyone who ... moved down to fix her shoes or bend down for something, they straight away put her to death. And my aim was [to stay in the front]. Because in the back, they were shooting everybody." Before they were separated, Bela told Magda to remember his camp number in order to find him later. To help her remember, he told her, "My number is 65066 and yours 2318. 6+5=11, 6+6=12, 11+12=23, and 6x3=18. Simple as that."

The two successfully reunited in Prague, immigrated to Israel, and finally settled in Australia in 1965.

01/17/2021

Disbelief, anger, and fear. That is how Holocaust survivors responded to the attack on our democracy. America, a beacon of freedom for many, was a home survivors proudly adopted. They are shaken by the blatant glorification of Nazi symbols and displays of hate and antisemitism.

01/16/2021

History of the Swastika

When many of us see a swastika, such as this tattoo at a rally last year, it immediately evokes hatred or prejudice against Jews. Did you know that the Nazis misappropriated the swastika, an ancient symbol, to reinforce “Aryan identity” and nationalist pride?

📸 Reuters/Brian Snyder

The swastika is an ancient symbol that was used for at least 5,000 years before Adolf Hitler decreed it should be the centerpiece of the Nazi flag. Its contemporary disp...

01/15/2021

Irene Weiss

For Holocaust survivors—who came to America with hope for a better future—the desecration of the US Capitol on Wednesday, January 6, and the sight of hateful symbols on display there trigger powerful emotions that recall the trauma and loss of their childhoods.

Irene Weiss's experience and the murder of her family at the hands of the Nazi regime won't ever leave her. She moved to America and rebuilt her life, but now—75 years after surviving Auschwitz—is unsure of what lies ahead. Listen to what Irene has to say.

01/15/2021

The "Final Solution"

This symbol—seen at a Proud Boys rally in Washington, DC, in December 2020—has surfaced among the far-right movement.

It means “six million wasn’t enough,” directly referencing the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazi regime and their collaborators.

Antisemitic symbols seen at many rallies around the country and at the Capitol last week have triggered powerful emotions in Holocaust survivors who recall the trauma and loss they experienced at the hands of Nazi Germany and its collaborators.

“I felt incredulous, sad, angry, and—yes, frightened at these displays of hate," said Holocaust survivor Al Münzer. "And yet, on reflection, these fomenters of hate have been lurking around us all along. …”

Learn about the “Final Solution,” the plan to murder Europe's Jews.

📸 Twitter

The Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish people.

01/14/2021

Paranka, by Charlene Schiff

In the midst of the Holocaust, even small acts of kindness could mean the difference between life and death.

After Nazi forces liquidated the ghetto in her hometown, Charlene Schiff (left) spent two years hiding in the woods of German-occupied Poland. She was only 13 and completely alone. Read Charlene's memories about a Polish girl who secretly took care of her during a harsh winter—even at a terrible risk to her own life.

US Holocaust Memorial Museum

01/13/2021

Origins of Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist Terms and Symbols: A Glossary

"All I could do was shake my head in disbelief. The image will haunt me ..." —Al Münzer, Holocaust survivor responding to the events at the US Capitol last week

At public rallies around the country, Americans have increasingly, and more openly, been confronted with symbols and terms drawn directly from Nazi Germany, and now used by neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Click the link below to see what hate looks like and how to identify it when you see it.

The leaders of today's Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist organizations are not Adolf Hitler, and America is not Germany, but, in order to understand their agenda, it is vital to understand the history of these code words, symbols, and ideologies.

01/13/2021

Communities of Hate: Why People Join Extremist Movements

The attack on the US Capitol and our democracy reminds us of the ever-present dangers of hatred and propaganda. Learn how, 75 years after the Holocaust, white supremacist and other hate groups continue to exploit racism, conspiracy theories, and antisemitic lies.

01/13/2021

Personal grievances and financial hardship drove Pauline Kneissler in 1937 to join the Nazi Party, where she felt a sense of belonging. Peer pressure eventually influenced the nurse to kill on behalf of the German government.

When she was asked to participate in a secret program to murder Germans with disabilities, whom the Nazis deemed inferior, Pauline said she had “no reservations.” We're live on Facebook today at 9:30 a.m. ET discussing what drives people to participate in extremist movements.

These documents are from a trial, which found Pauline to be complicit in thousands of murders. She is believed to have directly participated in the murder of several hundred patients under her care. She served three and a half years in prison, then returned to her nursing career.

01/12/2021

What drives a person to turn toward hate and violence? Extremism did not end with the Nazi regime. We're live on Facebook on Wednesday, Jan. 13, at 9:30 a.m. ET discussing how conspiracy theories and grievances continue to motivate people to join hate groups, 75 years after the Holocaust.

📸 Getty

01/11/2021

Hate targeted Arie Kruglanski early. Shortly after he was born, his family was forced into the Łódź ghetto. He survived the Holocaust but carried a feeling that danger was always there. Join Arie, now an expert on extremism and terrorism, live on Facebook on Wednesday, January 13 at 9:30 a.m. ET, to learn how white supremacist and other hate groups exploit racism, conspiracy theories, and antisemitic myths.

01/11/2021

Kristallnacht

The Night of Broken Glass, or Kristallnacht, was a wave of violent attacks against Jews coordinated by the Nazi regime in November 1938. Nazi Party paramilitary groups and Hitler Youth carried out the attacks, but countless ordinary Germans watched and even participated.

On November 9/10, 1938, Nazi leaders unleashed a series of pogroms against the Jewish population in Germany and recently-incorporated territories. This event came to called Kristallnacht (The Night...

01/09/2021

Irene Weiss- Holocaust Survivor Reflects on Auschwitz

In a grainy photograph that depicts a chilling scene at the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center, 13-year-old Irene Weiss is shown in crowd of people during the selection process. Listen as she describes the moment she was separated from her family. #Auschwitz

01/08/2021

Sacred space desecrated with neo-Nazi imagery

For survivors who deeply love this nation and who have gathered for decades in the US Capitol to remember the victims of the Holocaust, seeing the US Capitol desecrated by some displaying neo-Nazi, antisemitic, and white supremacist symbols is especially painful.

Survivors, World War II liberators, and government officials observe Days of Remembrance in Capitol each year.

01/08/2021

Some Were Neighbors

What drives a person to turn toward hate and violence? Tens of thousands of ordinary people actively collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust. Some were neighbors. Some had once been friends.

01/08/2021

German pastor Martin Niemöller is remembered for speaking out against the Nazi regime and spending almost eight years in concentration camps. But he began as a Nazi supporter.

His words continue to resonate today.

01/07/2021

Auschwitz

The largest of its kind, the Auschwitz camp complex was essential to carrying out the Nazi plan for the "Final Solution."

Despite leaving its mark as one of the most infamous camps of the Holocaust, there are still many misconceptions about Auschwitz. Read more:

The Auschwitz camp system, located in German-occupied Poland, was a complex of 3 camps, including a killing center. Learn about the history of Auschwitz.