Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 81 to 100 of 1,814
Country: United States
  1. Armband with a royal coat of arms issued to a Danish resistance member

    1. Knud Dyby collection

    Blue, red, and white armband with a medallion issued to Knud Dyby, a member of the Danish underground resistance, on May 4 or 5, 1945. The armbands, which appeared abruptly throughout Denmark, were issued by the Danish Freedom Council, Denmark's unofficial government-in-exile in England from July 1944 to May 1945. The armbands were meant to identify resistance members as legitimate combatants, rather than guerilla forces, to ensure they were protected under Geneva Convention rules defining combatants and how they should be treated by military forces. Denmark was occupied by Germany on April...

  2. Arthur Szyk drawing

    1. Joseph and Alexandra Braciejowski collection

    Drawing of satirical subject matter relating to Second World War created in the United States.

  3. Asynchronous motor placed on a workbench used to conceal a Jewish family’s hiding place

    1. Stefan Petri collection

    AEG electric motor placed on a workbench that concealed one of the hiding places Stefan Petri built in his home in Wawer, Poland. Stefan, his wife, Janina, and their son, Marian, were Polish Catholics. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and began subjugating the Polish people. Uncertain of what might occur, Stefan built a basement hiding place concealed by a cabinet. In mid-1942, the Germans deported 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka killing center. Stefan learned that his Jewish dentist and friend, Dr. Szapiro, his wife Ela, and their adult sons, Jerzy and Marek ha...

  4. ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary) lapel badge owned by a Jewish member of the French resistance

    1. Yvonne Rothschild Redgis and Gertrude Fraenkel (Fränkel) family collection

    ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary) ground support staff lapel pin owned by Yvonne Klug Redgis, a French resistance member who was imprisoned in France and in Auschwitz concentration camp from 1943-1945. ATA was a multinational civilian organization of volunteer pilots that ferried British warplanes from factories to the frontlines. The pin bears the motto Unique et Ubique and features an eagle and intertwined British and French flags. France surrendered to and was occupied by Nazi Germany in June 1940. Yvonne was arrested by the Gestapo for her resistance work on September 1, 1943, in the Rivier...

  5. Atarah with a gold metallic thread floral pattern owned by a prewar German Jewish emigre to the US

    1. Arthur Cohn and Leo Nast collection

    Metallic embroidered atarah, or neckband, owned by Dr. Leo Nast, a chemical engineer who left Hamburg, Germany, for the United States in July 1934. The atarah would be attached to the interior top center of the tallit, a prayer shawl worn by Jewish males during morning prayers, to be nearest the head when the shawl is draped over it. Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933. Leo had long opposed the politics of Hitler and the Nazi Party and Leo and his wife Bertha decided to leave Germany. Their immigration was sponsored by the Catalin Corporation, a plastics company that employed...

  6. Aussenstelle Dahlwitz-Hoppegarten records (MfS IX/11)

    Selected records from the record group MfS IX/11 compiled by the former East German Security Service "Stasi." Materials of mixed provenance, primarily papers generated by the German Security Police and SD between 1933 and 1945. Included are routine, periodic reports of local Gestapo surveillance of suspect political, religious, or fraternal groups; records of police documents such as circular letters, memos of telephone conversations, daily reports, situation reports; and reports from or about the "Ausland" such as Austria, Yugoslavia, and the occupied Eastern territories.

  7. Autopsies, human skin discussed at Nuremberg Trial

    War Crimes Trials, Nuremberg, Germany, January 11, 1946. Thomas J. Dodd continues reading Dr. Franz Blaha's signed affidavit which tells of the Gestapo forcing him to work in the autopsy room. Dr. Blaha performed 7000 autopsies during his stay. He filled many requests for human skin that was cured in the sun and used for making saddles, gloves, and ladies' handbags. In his testimony, Dr. Blaha identifies Wilhelm Frick and Alfred Rosenberg, whom he saw touring the Dachau camp.

  8. Award certificate issued postwar with 6 medals to a Dutch resistance leader

    1. Felix and Flory Van Beek collection

    Certificate for a set of 6 medals issued to Piet Brandsen by Stichting 1940-1945 for his bravery and resistance activities during the German occupation of the Netherlands from May 1940-May 1945. Stichting 1940-1945 was a foundation created during the war to provide aid to resistance members and their families. After Netherlands was invaded by Germany in May 1940, Piet and his wife Dina, devout Christians, joined the resistance. Piet helped many Jewish people go into hiding, in his own home and with other resistance members. He also provided false identities and food coupons. He was arrested...

  9. Azriel L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Azriel L., who was born in Klaipėda, Lithuania in 1923, and raised in Skaudvilė, the oldest of four sons. He recounts his family's affluence; his father's Zionism; attending cheder, public school, yeshiva, then a Hebrew gymnasium in Tauragė; the family moving to Kaunas; Soviet occupation; remaining in Kaunas when his family returned to Skaudvilė; clandestinely participating in a Zionist youth group; visiting Vilnius; German invasion; Lithuanian violence against Jews; receiving a letter from his parents (he never saw them again); ghettoization; forced labor at the ...

  10. Baal T'Fillah or The Practical Prayer, 4th edition Prayer book for Passover days 1 and 2 owned by a British soldier and German Jewish emigre

    1. Norman A. Miller family collection

    The Baal t'fillah oder Der practische Vorbeter is one of five books from the personal collection of Sebald Müller that were confiscated by the Nazi regime and added to Julius Streicher's Library of Judaica in the 1930s. After the war, the books were placed in the collection of the Stadt-Bibliothek Nuremberg [Nuremberg City Library], which returned them to Sebald’s son, Norman Miller (previously Norbert Müller) in 2011. On November 9, 1938, during Kristallnacht in Nuremberg, Germany, the apartment Sebald shared with his wife, Laura, their children, Norbert and Suse, and mother-in-law, Clara ...

  11. Back to camp Print 12 from a set of reproduced sketches by a French artist and concentration camp prisoner

    Print reproduction of a sketch, from a set of fifteen, depicting exhausted prisoners being marched uphill while guards hit or shoot them as they return to Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in France, and published in 1946. The sketches were originally created in secret in the camp by Henri Gayot and the published set includes an introduction by Roger LaPorte: both members of the French resistance and prisoners in Natzweiler. Both men were marked “Nacht and Nebel”, individuals presenting a threat to German security that had been abducted in the middle of the night and were meant to be “...

  12. Back to work Print 7 from a set of reproduced sketches by a French artist and concentration camp prisoner

    Print reproduction of a sketch, from a set of fifteen, depicting prisoners carrying exhausted, injured, or dead prisoners so that the same number of men are present at the end of the day as at the beginning at Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in France, and published in 1946. A few of the prisoners are identified with NN (Nacht und Nebel [night and fog]) on their uniforms. The sketches were originally created in secret in the camp by Henri Gayot and the published set includes an introduction by Roger LaPorte: both members of the French resistance and prisoners in Natzweiler. Both men ...

  13. Bagriansky-Zerner family collection

    1. Bagriansky-Zerner family collection and Edwin Geist collection

    The collection consists of immigration and personal identification documents, photographs, writings, correspondence and related materials that document the experiences of Paul and Gerta (nee Chason) Bagriansky, their daughter, Rosian Bagriansky Zerner, and their extended family. Included is information about their pre-war life in Lithuania, their life under Soviet and German occupation, including internment in the Kaunas ghetto and their escape from it, the hiding of Rosian with various Lithuanian acquaintances for the duration of the war, Paul Bagriansky’s experiences as a partisan during ...

  14. Baksztanska and Sierpinski families papers

    The Baksztanska and Sierpinski families papers include biographical material and photographs relating to the pre-war and wartime experiences of Wiera Baksztanska, Stanisław Sierpinski, and their families in Poland and Russia. The collection includes false identity papers and documents Wiera obtained while living in the Warsaw ghetto and in hiding as well as correspondence and writings relating to Stanisław’s work as a physician in the Polish underground. Biographical material includes a false identity card (Kennkarte) for Wiera under the name of Zofia Weronika Wojtuńska, certificates statin...

  15. Bar of soap from Stutthof labor-concentration camp given to a Polish Holocaust survivor

    1. Foterek Sperling collection

    Bar of soap issued to Czeslaw Foterek while imprisoned in Stutthof labor-concentration camp, later given to Helen Sperling (Hinda Kacenelenbogen) by a friend. The soap was used in the concentration camp and the inmates believed that it was made from human fat, although this was not true. Czeslaw Foterek was a Roman Catholic living in Gdynia, Poland. After the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, he was arrested by the Gestapo on September 19, and taken to Stutthof on November 9. There he worked as a slave laborer for the German Equipment Works until his release on March 28, 1945. Hi...

  16. Bar of soap from Stutthof labor-concentration camp given to a Polish Holocaust survivor

    1. Foterek Sperling collection

    Bar of soap issued to Czeslaw Foterek while imprisoned in Stutthof labor-concentration camp, later given to Helen Sperling (Hinda Kacenelenbogen) by a friend. The soap was used in the concentration camp and the inmates believed that it was made from human fat, although this was not true. Czeslaw Foterek was a Roman Catholic living in Gdynia, Poland. After the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, he was arrested by the Gestapo on September 19, and taken to Stutthof on November 9. There he worked as a slave laborer for the German Equipment Works until his release on March 28, 1945. Hi...

  17. Bar of soap owned by an American internee

    1. Leonie Roualet collection

    Bar of soap acquired by Leonie Roualet while she was interned in Vittel internment camp in German-occupied France from September 1942 through September 1944. Leonie was born in New York to Leonie Calmesse and Henry Charles Roualet, French champagne vintners who had immigrated to the United States in the 1890s. In the 1930s, Leonie’s mother returned to France to take care of her ailing brother. While caring for her brother, she too became sick, and in 1939 Leonie traveled to France to take care of her mother and her uncle. In May 1940, Germany invaded France and occupied the northern half of...

  18. Barbie Trial -- Day 10 -- A victim testifies

    15:47 Mrs. Ennat Vitte, a civil party, continues to testify regarding her experience in Ravensbrück 15:48 President Cerdini asks the witness to describe the circumstances under which she lost her eyesight in Ravensbrück, and whether her inability to walk is a consequence of her time there; the witness has difficulty answering the questions posed 15:52 Prosecutor Vuillard asks the witness to confirm a particular threat leveled at her by Barbie 15:54 President Cerdini calls forward the next witness, Mrs. Simone Lagrange née Kadosche, a civil party in the suit against Barbie 15:55 Mrs. Langran...

  19. Barbie Trial -- Day 10 -- Two former members of the Resistance testify

    13:37 President Cerdini calls the session to order; asks that the accused present himself; Barbie refuses to appear; Cerdini calls on the bailiff to compel the accused to appear 13:38 The bailiff reads the names of the witnesses scheduled to give testimony in the session; one witness who was scheduled to appear will not be able to appear in Lyon before June 5, 1987 13:40 Cerdini suspends the session while the bailiff goes to Barbie to compel him to appear 14:04 Cerdini calls the session to order; the bailiff reads Barbie's statement that he refuses to appear 14:07 Cerdini calls witness Irèn...

  20. Barbie Trial -- Day 10 -- Two victims testify

    17:03 President Cerdini resumes the hearing 17:05 Cerdini deposits into the record a magazine article written by Vergès in 1987, presented to the court by the prosecution 17:05 Cerdini calls another witness, Srul Kaplon, to testify, and he presents himself to the court; Mr. Kaplon is a civil party in the suit against Barbie 17:06 On March 23, 1943, the witness was taken by two Gestapo agents to the Hotel Terminus, along with his parents, brother, and sister; there, he was beaten and interrogated by Barbie; he told Barbie that he did not speak German, and Barbie replied that 'all Jews speak ...