Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 161 to 180 of 1,698
Holding Institution: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  1. Tefillin pair and embroidered pouch brought with a German Jewish refugee

    1. Richard Pfifferling and Ruth Pfifferling Knox family collection
    • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    • irn2965
    • English
    • a: Height: 7.875 inches (20.003 cm) | Width: 7.250 inches (18.415 cm) b: Height: 2.375 inches (6.032 cm) | Width: 2.000 inches (5.08 cm) | Depth: 4.500 inches (11.43 cm) c: Height: 1.250 inches (3.175 cm) | Width: 1.250 inches (3.175 cm) | Depth: 1.750 inches (4.445 cm)

    Set of tefillin and embroided storage pouch brought with Richard Pfifferling when he left Dresden, Germany, for New York in September 1939. Richard received the tefillin, pouch, and other religious items as a gift for his bar mitzvah circa 1927. In 1933, the Nazi regime came to power and enacted laws that persecuted Jews. Richard and his brothers, Otto and Ernst, fled Germany but their parents, Alexander and Auguste, were unable to leave. Richard later served in the US Army during the war. Richard’s parents were deported to Riga, Latvia, in December 1941, and killed in Auschwitz in August 1...

  2. Regina and Samuel Spiegel papers

    1. Regina and Samuel Spiegel collection

    Contains documents related to the postwar experiences of Sam Spiegel and Regina Gutman in Wolfratshausen, Germany, and their immigration to the United States in 1947. Includes a marriage certificate, an identification card issued to Samuel Spiegel enabling him to ride the Stuttgart tram, and an affidavit statement of support issued by Samuel Kreps supporting their immigration efforts.

  3. Silver plaque with an engraved inscription presented to a Jewish woman for charitable work

    1. Bagriansky-Zerner family collection and Edwin Geist collection

    Silver wall plate preserved by Rosian Zerner. It is inscribed to her maternal grandmother Anna Blumenthal Chason by the Ostjudischen Vereins [Eastern Jewish Association] of Free State Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland) in January 1930. Anna, her husband Julius, and three of their four children immigrated to Palestine on October 24, 1935. This was the day after the birth of Anna's first granddaughter Rosian, to her daughter Gerta Bagriansky in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania. After Germany's defeat in World War I (1914-1918), Danzig, previously part of West Prussia, was designated a Free City. It was the...

  4. Handmade white armband inscribed Terezin worn by a female German Jewish inmate

    1. Emma Jonas family collection

    Handmade armband inscribed K.Z.L Terezin worn by Emma Jonas when she was imprisoned in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp from November 1944 to May 1945. Currency was confiscated upon entry and scrip was distributed per a 5-tier rating or received for conscript labor while in camp. Emma was deported from Berlin and imprisoned in Theresienstadt in German occupied Czechoslovakia from November 1944 to May 1945. After Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938, Emma, her husband Martin, and daughter Helga, 13, tried but failed to get visas for the family to leave Berlin. They then got Helga passage on a ...

  5. Handmade white armband embroidered K.Z.L. Terezin and worn by a female German Jewish inmate

    1. Emma Jonas family collection

    Handmade armband embroidered K.Z.L Terezin worn by Emma Jonas when she was imprisoned in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp from November 1944 to May 1945. Currency was confiscated upon entry and scrip was distributed per a 5-tier rating or received for conscript labor while in camp. Emma was deported from Berlin and imprisoned in Theresienstadt in German occupied Czechoslovakia from November 1944 to May 1945. After Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938, Emma, her husband Martin, and daughter Helga, 13, tried but failed to get visas for the family to leave Berlin. They then got Helga passage on ...

  6. Inscribed wooden box with painted lid bought by a Roman Catholic Polish former forced laborer

    1. Zbigniew Antonii Piotrowski collection

    Wooden box with a painted lid, purchased by 14-year-old Zbigniew Piotrowski in November 1944 while waiting for his train to escape forced labor in Breslau, Germany. Zbigniew was a Roman Catholic boy living with his parents, three brothers, and sister, in the port city of Gdynia, Poland, when the German army invaded on September 1, 1939. Shortly after, one of his brothers was abducted off the street for forced labor by the German authorities, and the rest of the family was forcibly transported to the city of Lublin. Zbigniew’s brother was released, and the family relocated to Warsaw, where a...

  7. Esther Rosenfeld Starobin family papers

    1. Esther Rosenfeld Starobin family collection

    Consists of family photographs of Rosenfeld family members and correspondence such as postcards, post-war photos of an exhibition relating to the Rosenfeld family in Adelsheim, Germany, and restitution-related paperwork and correspondence written by Edith Kaye, the donor's older sister, regarding their father Adolf Rosenfeld, as well as photocopies of files attesting to a court case brought against him.

  8. Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp scrip, 100 kronen note, acquired by Marietta Gruenbaum

    1. Marietta Gruenbaum collection

    Scrip, valued at 100 kronen, acquired by Marietta Gruenbaum, a Jewish-Czechoslovakian girl who was held in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp. Currency was confiscated from inmates and replaced with scrip, which could only be used in the camp. The scrip was part of an elaborate illusion to make the camp seem normal and appear as though workers were being paid for their labor, but the money had no real monetary value. Before Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in 1939, Marietta lived in Prague with her parents, Karel and Margarete, and her brother, Michael. In October 1941, Karel was arrest...

  9. Trunk used by a former German Jewish concentration camp inmate and aid worker

    1. Alice and John Fink collection

    Wooden trunk used by John and Alice Redlich Fink for travel to the US. Alice was a nurse at the displaced persons camp established in the former Bergen Belsen concentration camp in Germany after the war. Alice left Nazi Germany in 1938 for England to continue her nurse's training. She volunteered with the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad and, in September 1946, left for the Bergen-Belsen dp camp to care for children and young women. Her mother, father, brother, and grandmother were all murdered in Auschwitz. She met and married Hans Finke, a fellow German Jewish relief worker, at the camp...

  10. Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp scrip, 20 kronen note, acquired by Marietta Gruenbaum

    1. Marietta Gruenbaum collection

    Scrip, valued at 20 kronen, acquired by Marietta Gruenbaum, a Jewish-Czechoslovakian girl who was held in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp. Currency was confiscated from inmates and replaced with scrip, which could only be used in the camp. The scrip was part of an elaborate illusion to make the camp seem normal and appear as though workers were being paid for their labor, but the money had no real monetary value. Before Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in 1939, Marietta lived in Prague with her parents, Karel and Margarete, and her brother, Michael. In October 1941, Karel was arreste...

  11. Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp scrip, 50 kronen note, acquired by Marietta Gruenbaum

    1. Marietta Gruenbaum collection

    Scrip, valued at 50 kronen, acquired by Marietta Gruenbaum, a Jewish-Czechoslovakian girl who was held in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp. Currency was confiscated from inmates and replaced with scrip, which could only be used in the camp. The scrip was part of an elaborate illusion to make the camp seem normal and appear as though workers were being paid for their labor, but the money had no real monetary value. Before Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in 1939, Marietta lived in Prague with her parents, Karel and Margarete, and her brother, Michael. In October 1941, Karel was arreste...

  12. Belt for a kittel [ceremonial robe] saved by a Czech Jewish refugee

    1. Frank Meissner family collection

    Long, narrow belt for a kittel, a ceremonial robe worn by a Jewish male, used by Norbert Meissner, who was president of the synagogue in Trest, Czechoslovakia, before and during the Holocaust. He and his wife, Lotte, and son, Leo, were deported to Theresienstadt in 1943. A year later, they were sent to Auschwitz death camp where they perished. The belt was preserved by his son, Frank. Frank, age 16, left Czechoslovakia in October 1939 because of the increasing Nazi persecution of Jews as Czechoslovakia was dismembered by Nazi Germany and its allies. With the encouragement of his family, he ...

  13. Signed print of rabbi saved by German Jewish camp inmate

    1. Hildegard and Moritz Henschel collection
    • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    • irn523073
    • English
    • overall: Height: 21.625 inches (54.928 cm) | Width: 14.750 inches (37.465 cm) pictorial area: Height: 15.000 inches (38.1 cm) | Width: 11.625 inches (29.528 cm)

    Portrait print of Rabbi Guttmann saved by Moritz and Hildegard Henschel from their imprisonment in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp between June 1943 and May 1945. The Rabbi and the artist were prominent citizens of Breslau, which was Moritz's home town. 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 Association of Jews in Germany, created by the Nazi gover...

  14. Star of David badge printed Jude worn by a German Jewish woman

    1. Emma Jonas family collection

    Star of David badge worn by Emma Jonas, circa 1942, in Berlin, Germany, to identify her as a Jew. The Star was carefully cut out and handstitched so the outline shows on the front as required. The Nazi regime decreed on September 1941 that Jews must wear Judenstern at all times to humiliate them and mark them as outcasts from German society. After Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938, Emma, her husband Martin, and daughter Helga, 13, tried but failed to get visas for the family to leave Berlin. They then got Helga passage on a Kindertransport to England on March 2, 1939. Emma and Martin were ...

  15. Concentration camp uniform cap worn by a Polish Jewish inmate

    1. Marek Watnicki collection

    Striped concentration uniform cap worn by Mieczyslaw Watnicki in Auschwitz concentration camp from late 1940 until his liberation in Germany in May 1945. The pants have a red badge with the letter P, indicating that Mieczyslaw was a Polish political prisoner. After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Mieczyslaw lived in Warsaw under a false identity as a non-Jew. He was arrested in late 1940 for falsifying identity papers, but the Gestapo did not discover that he was Jewish. He was sent to Auschwitz as a Polish political prisoner and assigned prisoner number 137605. In late 1944 or ea...

  16. Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp scrip, 10 kronen note, acquired by Marietta Gruenbaum

    1. Marietta Gruenbaum collection

    Scrip, valued at 10 kronen, acquired by Marietta Gruenbaum, a Jewish-Czechoslovakian girl who was held in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp. Currency was confiscated from inmates and replaced with scrip, which could only be used in the camp. The scrip was part of an elaborate illusion to make the camp seem normal and appear as though workers were being paid for their labor, but the money had no real monetary value. Before Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in 1939, Marietta lived in Prague with her parents, Karel and Margarete, and her brother, Michael. In October 1941, Karel was arreste...

  17. Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp scrip, 2 kronen note, acquired by Marietta Gruenbaum

    1. Marietta Gruenbaum collection

    Scrip, valued at 2 kronen, acquired by Marietta Gruenbaum, a Jewish-Czechoslovakian girl who was held in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp. Currency was confiscated from inmates and replaced with scrip, which could only be used in the camp. The scrip was part of an elaborate illusion to make the camp seem normal and appear as though workers were being paid for their labor, but the money had no real monetary value. Before Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in 1939, Marietta lived in Prague with her parents, Karel and Margarete, and her brother, Michael. In October 1941, Karel was arrested...

  18. Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp scrip, 5 kronen note, acquired by Marietta Gruenbaum

    1. Marietta Gruenbaum collection

    Scrip, valued at 5 kronen, acquired by Marietta Gruenbaum, a Jewish-Czechoslovakian girl who was held in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp. Currency was confiscated from inmates and replaced with scrip, which could only be used in the camp. The scrip was part of an elaborate illusion to make the camp seem normal and appear as though workers were being paid for their labor, but the money had no real monetary value. Before Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in 1939, Marietta lived in Prague with her parents, Karel and Margarete, and her brother, Michael. In October 1941, Karel was arrested...

  19. Moonrise in an oasis Watercolor of an oasis with animals made for a German Jewish camp inmate

    1. Hildegard and Moritz Henschel collection
    • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    • irn517369
    • English
    • overall: Height: 11.500 inches (29.21 cm) | Width: 8.000 inches (20.32 cm) pictorial area: Height: 8.125 inches (20.638 cm) | Width: 5.875 inches (14.923 cm)

    Humorous drawing of animals in an oasis inscribed to Hildegard Henschel and given to her husband Moritz in April 1944, when they were prisoners in Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp. 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 Association of Jews in Germany, created by the Nazi government in February 1939 to organize Jewish affairs. The Association was eve...

  20. Łódź (Litzmannstadt) ghetto scrip, 10 mark coin

    1. Marek Watnicki collection

    10 mark Litzmannstadt coin owned by Mieczyslaw Watnicki, although when or how he acquired it is unknown. This type of coin was issued in Łódź Ghetto in German occupied Poland in 1943. Currency was not allowed in the ghetto, and scrip was issued for use only there. After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Mieczyslaw lived in Warsaw under a false identity as a non-Jew. He was arrested in late 1940 for falsifying identity papers, but the Gestapo did not discover that he was Jewish. He was sent to Auschwitz as a Polish political prisoner and assigned prisoner number 137605. In late 1944 ...