Archival Descriptions

Advanced query tips

There are several ways to be more specific in your search query:

"Phrase"
Search an exact match of your query, e.g. "Member lists"
+Phrase
Given word has to be in the result, e.g. +Gestapo
-Phrase
Exclude given word from search, e.g. -Gestapo

Use the following syntax to restrict the search to specific fields:

field:"phrase"
For instance, you can find all descriptions that have the phrase "Auschwitz Birkenau" in their titles by searching for title:"Auschwitz Birkenau".

The following fields are currently available:

  • identifier
  • title
  • creator
  • person
  • place
  • subject
  • address
Displaying items 161 to 180 of 26,867
Search result ordering
Country: United States

  1. Charred electrical insulator from Auschwitz found by a Sinti inmate

    Partial charred porcelain electrical insulator from Auschwitz concentration camp acquired postwar by Hans Braun, a German Sinti man who was imprisoned there with his family from March 1943 to May 1944. It was the type used to connect electrical wires to the concrete fence posts around the camp. In early 1940, Hans, a forced laborer, broke a machine at a factory and was accused of sabotage. The Gestapo came after him and he fled Bernau and went into hiding. Hans was arrested twice, but escaped, until March 1943, when he was deported to Auschwitz, where he was reunited with his family in the ...

  2. Returning from a Camping Trip with My Boy Scout Troop, May 1945 Cartoon of a chaotic train station created soon after the war by a former hidden child

    Cartoon created by Simon Jeruchim, 16, in Paris soon after the war ended in May 1945. He drew it for his brother Michel, 8, who was still in Normandy with the Leclerc family that hid him during the war. Simon had joined the Boy Scouts and he wanted to show his brother the mad scene at the Montparnasse railroad station in Paris after the troop returned from a camping trip. Transportation was not yet back to normal in Paris, so trains were often ridiculously overcrowded. Simon lived in hiding in Normandy from June 1942. He returned to Paris to live with family friends, the Bonneaus, once it w...

  3. Münzer family papers

    The Münzer family papers consist of photographs and documents relating to the Holocaust experiences of the Münzer family. The photographs include pre-war photographs of the Münzer family in the Netherlands, Alfred Münzer’s brit milah, Mary Madna performing in an operetta by Fritz Hirsch, the Fritz Hirsch Company performing an operetta, and two colorized portraits of Eva and Liane Münzer. The Red Cross documentation describes the fate of Simche Münzer and Eva Münzer. Simche Münzer died on July 25, 1945 shortly after his liberation from the Ebensee concentration camp. Eva Münzer perished at t...

  4. Stolz and White families papers

    The Stolz and White families papers include biographical material, correspondence, school records, writings, restitution material, and photographs relating to the pre-war, wartime, and post-war experiences of Erika Stolz and her parents, Leon and Rosa, originally of Vienna, Austria. At the beginning of the war Erika was sent on a Kinderstransport to Christian boarding school in England. Leon and Rosa were divorced in Austria before the war. During the war, Leon and his future-wife Hermine fled to Italy and then Shanghai, where they remained until the invasion of the Japanese Imperial Army. ...

  5. Jan Karski

    Jan Karski tells of his capture and torture by the Gestapo when he was a courier for the Polish underground. He also describes his clandestine visit to the Warsaw ghetto and his meeting with Szmul Zygielbojm, six months before Zygelbojm's suicide. See pages 491 - 494 of the English translation of Lanzmann's memoir The Patagonian Hare (March 2012) for a description of his interactions with Karski after filming this interview. FILM ID 3133 -- Camera Rolls #1-5 -- 01:00:33 to 01:32:10 Karski tells of his first missions as a courier for the Polish Government in Exile. [No visual until 01:01:56]...

  6. Karl Kretschmer - Einsatzgruppen

    Karl Kretschmer was Obersturmführer with Einsatzgruppe 4a (Babi Yar) and wrote an infamous letter to his wife and children about the killings. In this hidden camera interview, Kretschmer is very reluctant to talk. Lanzmann asks about Babi Yar and Kretschmer says he wasn't there. He says he doesn't remember what his letter said since he doesn't have them any more. Kretschmer says he was struck by the fact that the Jews put up no resistance at mass shootings. FILM ID 3246 -- Camera Rolls #1-3 -- 01:00:00 to 01:12:37 Lanzmann sits in a hotel room reading some papers, preparing for a secretly t...

  7. Mordechai Podchlebnik - Chelmno

    Mordechai (Michael) Podchlebnik recognized the corpses of his wife and children when unloading bodies from a gas van at Chelmno. He was a witness at many postwar trials, including the Eichmann trial. He tells Lanzmann of his escape from Chelmno and how he tried to inform people about Chelmno, but he was not believed at first, until his story was corroborated by another escaped prisoner. FILM ID 3294 -- Camera Rolls #1-7 -- 01:00:16 to 01:32:27 Lanzmann is seated with Podchlebnik at a table surrounded by windows. Off camera is an interpreter, Fanny Apfelbaum. The tape jumps frequently and th...

  8. Hand sewn navy blue skirt with a pleated front made by a German Jewish woman

    Handmade skirt designed and created by Gertrud Koh Isaacsohn, a Jewish dressmaker in prewar Berlin, Germany. This skirt appears to be part of a suit that pairs with a belted jacket (2002.474.2 a&b) created by Gertrud. In 1938, Gertrud and her husband Julius, a coat and suit designer with his own garment making business, had lost their livelihood because of the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazi regime. They sent their daughter Dorit, age 6, to Brussels, Belgium, in early 1939, to stay with Gertrud’s sister Anna Kaufman. Germany invaded Belgium in May 1940, and Gertrud and Julius had Dori...

  9. Pair of tefillin and pouch owned by a Polish Jewish immigrant

    • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    • irn544143
    • English
    • a: Height: 1.500 inches (3.81 cm) | Width: 1.625 inches (4.128 cm) | Depth: 2.250 inches (5.715 cm) b: Height: 1.375 inches (3.493 cm) | Width: 1.375 inches (3.493 cm) | Depth: 1.375 inches (3.493 cm) c: Height: 1.250 inches (3.175 cm) | Width: 1.750 inches (4.445 cm) | Depth: 2.250 inches (5.715 cm) d: Height: 1.375 inches (3.493 cm) | Width: 1.375 inches (3.493 cm) | Depth: 1.375 inches (3.493 cm) e: Height: 9.000 inches (22.86 cm) | Width: 6.250 inches (15.875 cm) | Depth: 0.250 inches (0.635 cm) f: Width: 63.000 inches (160.02 cm) | Depth: 0.250 inches (0.635 cm)

    A pair of tefillin with cardboard covers and pouch, owned by Max Zuckerman, a Polish Jewish immigrant who left Poland in 1923. Tefillin are small boxes containing prayers attached to leather straps and worn by Orthodox Jewish males during morning prayers. One of eleven siblings born in the town of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, Max left to escape growing antisemitism, violent pogroms, and persecution by non-Jewish populations. He immigrated to Brazil where he worked as a peddler until he saved enough money to immigrate to the United States. Max wrote to his family to implore them to leave Poland ...

  10. Assembled shots (Poland and Israel)

    Assembled color negative rolls containing location filming of Poland and Israel for SHOAH. The original color negatives were received in cans labeled "Tu Ne Commetras Pas Le Crime," 1991. The prints were in cans marked "Retirages de Shoah" which roughly translates to "Miscellaneous Reprints of Shoah". FILM ID 3196 -- Bobine 3. Retirages de Shoah (43:16) [Tu ne commetras pas de crime Boite G. Łódź] 00:42 Slate reads 'Cracovie' (Krakow); shots of three war-era photographs: many people walking in the street, carrying their belongings in large sacs; a soldier in uniform stands on a set of troll...

  11. Elsa and Selmar Biener papers

    The Elsa and Selmar Biener papers consists of immigration documents, correspondence, photographs, and financial materials related to the emigration of Elsa and Selmar Biener aboard the MS St. Louis, their disembarkation in England, and their internment on the Isle of Man. The correspondence includes letters and telegrams to / from Selmar and Elsa Biener, their family, and various Jewish aid societies, dated 1929-1968, and undated. The papers also includes receipts for sending registered postal packages, 1940, and a collection of messages written and received by members of the Friedler famil...

  12. Roswell McClelland

    Roswell McClelland was the US Representative to the War Refugee Board (WRB) in Switzerland before serving as a US Ambassador to the Republic of Niger. In this interview with Claude Lanzmann, McClelland recounts his personal experiences, his motivations, and his work with the WRB. The interview was filmed at the home of James MacGregor Byrne and June Byrne in Chevy Chase, MD (friends of Mr. McClelland). FILM ID 3432 -- Camera Rolls #63-68 -- 01:00:30 to 01:28:35 01:00:30 CR63 Claude Lanzmann and Roswell McClelland sit at a round table with notes and binders laid out between them. The wooden ...

  13. "Cabinet of the Jewish Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences" from the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine (Fond 190)

    Consists of archive of the Jewish folk culture collected by the Cabinet of the Jewish Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. The collection includes Jewish folk songs, proverbs, aphorisms, fairy tales, musical scores and other folk materials collected by the Cabinet of Jewish Culture and its predecessors institutions (e.g. Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture). Includes also correspondence of Moisey Beregovsky, head of the folklore section and his staff members, with collectors and performers of Jewish folklore, notes from the ethnographic expeditions to collect Jewish folklore un...

  14. Eichmann Trial -- Session 100 -- Cross-examination of the Accused

    The camera fades in on a long shot of the courtroom. Attorney General Gideon Hausner and Assistant State Attorney Gabriel Bach can be seen standing at the prosecution table to the right and the camera zooms into a medium shot of the two men. Assistant to the Attorney General Ya'akov Robinson enters (00:01:46) and talks with Hausner and Bach. The camera cuts to Eichmann entering the booth carrying documents and escorted by three Israeli guards (00:02:25). From another long shot of the courtroom defense counsel Robert Servatius can be seen entering the courtroom (00:03:25). The camera then cu...

  15. Blue and white Zionist flag with a Star of David from the ship Exodus 1947

    Blue and white Zionist flag taken down from the mast of the Exodus 1947 on July 18, 1947, by Mike Weiss, a Jewish American crew member, after the ship was forced into the port in Haifa. Weiss removed the flag before the passengers and crew were forced to disembark. This flag design was later adopted as the Flag of the State of Israel, which was created on May 10, 1948. Weiss had volunteered for the clandestine effort to smuggle Holocaust survivors from Europe to Palestine. He was a boatswain-carpenter on the ship, which was under the command of Haganah, an underground Jewish paramilitary or...

  16. Selected records of the Unitarian Service Committee and the Universalist Service Committee

    Contains selected records of the Unitarian Service Committee and Universalist Service Committee relating to relief efforts and assistance to Jewish and non-Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution before, during and after World War II in a number of countries throughout the world, including France, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, England, Switzerland, and Portugal. The collection includes mainly correspondence, reports, case files, photographs, scrapbooks and memorabilia, posters, and clippings related to the humanitarian work of the Unitarian and Universalist Service Committees, ...

  17. American Friends Service Committee records relating to humanitarian work in North Africa

    The collection documents work done by the Refugee Service and the Displaced Persons Service of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), to provide humanitarian relief to refugees and displaced persons in North Africa. The bulk of the collection consists of the correspondence of AFSC delegates in North Africa with AFSC representatives in Europe and America and with committees and organizations working with the Quakers. The collection further includes reports documenting the Quakers' projects in North African camps, and financial and administrative issues. The reports may contain name l...

  18. Set of tefillin buried for safekeeping while the owner lived in hiding

    • United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    • irn35052
    • English
    • a: Height: 4.000 inches (10.16 cm) | Width: 2.250 inches (5.715 cm) b: Height: 1.875 inches (4.763 cm) | Width: 2.625 inches (6.668 cm)

    Tefillin pair buried for safekeeping by Johanna Baruch Boas while she lived in hiding in Brussels, Belgium, from 1942-1944. They were used by her husband Bernhard who died in Berlin, Germany, in 1932. Tefillin are small boxes that contain prayers that are attached to leather straps and worn by Orthodox Jewish males during morning prayers. Johanna brought the tefillin with her when she fled Nazi Germany for Brussels in March 1939 with her daughter’s family. Germany occupied Belgium in May 1940 and by 1942 there were frequent deportations of Jews to concentration camps. Johanna had a non-Jewi...

  19. Lazowski family papers

    The Lazowski family papers consist of photographs documenting Philip Lazowski’s postwar years in Austria, primarily in the Bad Gastein displaced persons camp; photographs documenting Ruth Lazowski’s postwar years in Italy, primarily in Santa Maria di Leuca and Rome; and the letter Philip Lazowski wrote in 1953 to Miriam Rabinowitz, whom he credited with saving his life during a selection in the Zhetel ghetto, after discovering she lived in Hartford, CT. Philip Lazowski’s photographs depict him with other child Holocaust survivors in Austria from 1945- 1947. One copy print depicts his mother...

  20. Underground archives of the Warsaw Ghetto : Ringelblum Archives Konspiracyjne archiwum getta Warszawskiego : Archiwum Ringelbluma

    Contains some 25,000 pages of more than 6,000 documents relating to the lives of the Jewish population living within the borders of occupied Poland from September 1939 to the end of February 1943. The collection contains questionnaires, reports, journals, diaries, memoirs, journal articles, literary works, letters, notices, copies of official correspondence, protocols of the deliberations of ghetto institutions, identity cards, postal notices, advertisements, medical prescriptions, business stationery, wrapping paper used in the ghetto, outlines of scholarly and artistic works, school and u...