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Displaying items 1,681 to 1,698 of 1,698
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Holding Institution: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

  1. Wrist watch with a brown band and engraved initials saved from Vilna ghetto

    1. Tema de Ratafia collection

    Wrist watch with a brown band owned by Tema Ginzburg that originally belonged to her uncle, Benjamin Ginzburg. Before the family was imprisoned in the Jewish ghetto in Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania, he altered it from a pocket watch to a wrist watch to make it easier to keep in the ghetto. During the liquidation of one of two ghettos in October 1941, Benjamin was deported to Estonia, then Stutthof concentration camp, where he was killed. He gave the watch to his brother, Moise, Tema's father, before leaving. Moise wore the watch for a while; he was deported to Chelmno concentration camp and ki...

  2. WWI Iron Cross medal awarded to a German Jewish veteran

    1. Maier Firnbacher family collection

    Iron Cross awarded to Maier Firnbacher for bravery while serving in the German Army during World War I; it was issued in 1934. Maier was a cattle trader in Straubing, Germany, when Hitler came to power in 1933. Jews were forbidden to practice certain professions and in 1936, Maier's trading license was revoked. In 1938, he was forced to sell his farmland at a loss to a non-Jew. He got immigration visas for the United States for himself, his wife, Ida, and their 8 year old son, Manfred, but was arrested during Kristallnacht on November 10. He was released after three weeks in Dachau concentr...

  3. WWI Military Merit Cross 3rd Class with Swords and fitted box awarded to a German Jewish veteran

    1. Maier Firnbacher family collection
    • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    • irn43004
    • English
    • a: Height: 2.375 inches (6.032 cm) | Width: 1.750 inches (4.445 cm) | Depth: 0.250 inches (0.635 cm) b: Height: 0.500 inches (1.27 cm) | Width: 2.375 inches (6.032 cm) | Depth: 3.875 inches (9.843 cm) c: Height: 0.500 inches (1.27 cm) | Width: 2.375 inches (6.032 cm) | Depth: 3.500 inches (8.89 cm)

    Military Merit Cross 3rd Class with Swords and fitted case of issue awarded to Maier Firnbacher in 1916 for bravery while serving in the German Army during World War I. Maier was a cattle trader in Straubing, Germany, when Hitler came to power in 1933. Jews were forbidden to practice certain professions and, in 1936, Maier's trading license was revoked. In 1938, he was forced to sell his farmland at a loss to a non-Jew. He got immigration visas for the United States for himself, his wife, Ida, and their 8 year old son, Manfred, then was arrested during Kristallnacht on November 10. He was r...

  4. WWI Red Cross medal ribbon awarded to German Jewish woman

    1. Hildegard and Moritz Henschel collection

    Rothe Kreuz [For Merit in the Red Cross] medal ribbon awarded to Hildegard Alexander for her service as a nurse in World War I (1914-1918). See 2003.361.8 for the Rothe Kreuz medal she was also awarded. Her husband, Moritz Henschel, had been decorated for his service in the German Army during the war. Moritz was an influential lawyer in Berlin when Hitler came to power in Germany in January 1933. As government persecution of Jews intensified, Moritz and Hildegard sent their daughters Marianne, 15, to Palestine and Lilly, 13, to England in 1939. Moritz was on the board of the Reich Associati...

  5. XXX Corps patch worn by a British soldier and Kindertransport refugee

    1. Norman A. Miller family collection

    British Army XXX Corps patch worn by Norman Miller (previously Norbert Müller), a German Jewish refugee, during his service in the British Army from 1944 to 1947. The XXX Corps was attached to the 21st Army Group and participated in D-Day landings at Normandy and the invasion of Europe, known as Operation Overlord. On November 9, 1938, during Kristallnacht in Nuremberg, Germany, the apartment Norbert shared with his parents, Sebald and Laura, younger sister, Suse, and grandmother, Clara Jüngster, was ransacked by local men with axes. In late August 1939, Norbert, managed to leave Germany fo...

  6. Yearbook AZ 1943 évre

    1. George Pick family collection

    1943 Hungarian Jewish almanac from the National Jewish Girls Orphanage, 5th year, preserved by Gyorgy Pick and his parents Istvan and Margit during the war in Budapest, Hungary. It is a literary anthology of Jewish authors addressing issues such as the history of Hungarian Jewish literature and what can be learned from the current crisis of the Jews. Ten year old Gyorgy and his parents lived in hiding in Budapest, Hungary, from November 1944-January 1945. Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany and adopted similar anti-Jewish laws in the 1930s. Istvan, an engineer, lost his job in May 1939 beca...

  7. Yellow cloth Star of David badge with Juif for Jew worn by a Polish refugee in Paris

    1. Max Feld and Rose Feld-Rosman collection

    Star of David badge worn by 25 year old Raisa Steinberg Feld in Paris, France, from June 1942. Jews in France were required to wear these on their outer clothing at all times after May 1942; badges were often cut from a pre-printed roll. After Paris was occupied by Germany in May 1940, foreign Jews were in danger of arrest and imprisonment. Raisa and her husband, Max, both deaf, were Jewish refugees from Poland and Germany. In May 1941, Max was arrested and, in July 1942, deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Raisa went into hiding with their 1.5 year old daughter, Esther, her ...

  8. Yellow cloth vest with 5 brass buttons owned by a German Jewish businessman in Shanghai

    1. Adelaide and Fritz Kauffmann collection

    Vest that belonged to Fritz Kauffmann, a German Jewish businessman, who lived in Shanghai, China, from 1931-1949. He was active in Jewish community aid efforts before and during World War II. In 1940, because of Nazi politics and the outbreak of war, he resigned from the German firm for which he worked and opened his own import/export business. He was deprived of his German citizenship in 1941 for being Jewish and living abroad. However, as a longtime resident and successful businessman in Shanghai, he was able to surmount wartime difficulties and assist the more recent Jewish refugees who ...

  9. Yellow sport short listing concentration camps where the owner was imprisoned

    1. Alice and John Fink collection

    Yellow polo shirt that belonged to Hans Finke, a concentration camp survivor who became an aid worker after the war. The shirt was made for a survivor's reunion Hans attended after the war. Hans, his parents and his sister Ursula lived in Berlin during the rise of the Nazi dictatorship in 1933 with its aggressive anti-Jewish policies. Jews were forced out of their jobs and their businesses were confiscated. In February 1943, Hans, 23, an electrician by trade, was a forced laborer for Siemens when he was hospitalized with appendicitis. On February 29, his parents were rounded up and deported...

  10. Yellow Star of David badge with Jude worn by a young German Jewish boy

    1. Klaus Zwilsky family collection

    Star of David badge issued to 9 year old Klaus Zwilsky in 1941 in Berlin where he lived with his parents, Erich and Ruth. In September 1941, Jews in Germany were ordered to wear a Judenstern [Jewish star] badge on their clothing at all times. In October 1943, the family was forced to live in the Jewish Hospital because Erich was the only remaining pharmacist. Ruth was a forced laborer and then worked in the hospital as a pharmacist. The hospital was liberated by the Soviet Army in April 1945. Erich was appointed Director and the family continued to live in the hospital until, at Ruth's insi...

  11. Yiddish textbook used by a Jewish Polish survivor

    1. Feiga Scheer collection

    Yiddish textbook used by 12 year old Cyla Scheer, after her family left Poland for Paris, France, in April 1946. The war began in September 1939 when Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland. Cyla and her parents Feiga and Froim lived in Zalosce, which was occupied by the Soviets. The family bakery was confiscated. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and entered Zalosce in July. Many Jewish residents were shot and Jewish homes were looted by their Ukrainian neighbors. In October 1942, the remaining Jews were transported to the Zborow ghetto. Feiga, Froim, Cyla, and other famil...

  12. Zbigniew Antonii Piotrowski papers

    1. Zbigniew Antonii Piotrowski collection

    The Zbigniew Antonii Piotrowski papers consist of biographical materials and photographs documenting Zbigniew Piotrowski, his family’s life in Toruń and Gdynia before World War II and in Warsaw during the war, his father’s furniture workshops, his service on the MS Batory after the war, his immigration to the United States, and his service in the US Army Signal Corps in the 1950s. Biographical materials include Zbigniew’s birth certificate and student ID card; his parents’ marriage certificate; Warsaw shelter instructions; a postcard Zbigniew wrote from his hiding place in Trzebinia to his ...

  13. Zimno, panie! It's Cold, Sir!

    1. "Music of the Holocaust" web exhibition

    In Sachsenhausen, a number of upper-class Poles sought to preserve their social advantages by courting favors from the camp command. Kulisiewicz rebukes two such prisoners-"Lulusinski" and the "Count"-in this brief song from 1944. Both "aristocrats" had betrayed members of the Polish Communist underground to the Reich Criminal Police Office, leading to the arrest of several inmates. In turn, other camp elites denounced Kulisiewicz to the authorities for writing and performing his derisive song. He was removed from his barrack in the middle of the night in February, 1945, and interrogated by...

  14. Zipper Conducts Dachau-Lied

    1. Music study collection

    Dr. Zipper conducts the Dachau Song with words by Jura Soyfer at the September 1988 Styrian Autumn Festival in Graz. Playwright Jura Soyfer and composer Herbert Zipper, active in Viennese antifascist cabaret, were arrested by the Gestapo after the German-Austrian Anschluss of 1938. They met again at Dachau, where both toiled as “horses,” hauling cartloads of heavy stone throughout the camp. Soyfer and Zipper wrote Dachau Song [Dachau-Lied] in September 1938 as an ironic response to the motto “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes Freedom) inscribed on the gate at the entrance to the camp. Initiall...

  15. Zvi and Eva Schloss papers

    1. Eva and Zvi Schloss collection

    Consists of postcards and an envelope from the collection of Zvi and Eva Schloss. Includes two postcards, dated 1934-1935, and one envelope, all sent by Meier Schloss [Zvi Schloss's father] while he was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp to his family in Ingolstadt, Germany. Also includes one 1939 French national lottery ticket, one 50 kronen piece of Terezin ghetto scrip, and one 1914 postcard from World War I featuring a map depicting anthropomorphic representations of the belligerent nations.

  16. Zwienicki family papers

    1. Jacob G. Wiener collection

    The papers consist of letters received by the Zwienicki family [donor's family] in Nazi Germany and following the Holocaust.

  17. Zygmunt Jastrzębski postcard

    Zygmunt Jastrzębski wrote the postcard in Buchenwald concentration camp addressed to his sister, Hania Jastrzębska. In the postcard he writes that he is well and asks for news.

  18. Zyzniewski family papers

    1. Zyzniewski family collection

    The Zyzniewski family papers relate the experiences of the Zyzniewski family in Łódź, Poland during World War II. The Zyzniewski family was a Catholic and active in the Polish resistance. The papers contain identification documents for Zygmunt Zyzniewski, Janina Zyzniewski, and their son Wiesław Kazimierz Zyzniewski (later Wesley Zineski). The correspondence was written by Janina and Wesley during their imprisonments in Radogoszcz prison and Auschwitz concentration camp, 1942-1942. The papers also contain photographs and two photograph albums of the Zyzniewski family with unidentified frien...