The Yad Vashem collections form the world's most extensive archival repository on the subject of the Holocaust. At a time when the survivor generation is dwindling, Yad Vashem seeks to keep the memory of the Shoah alive by giving voice to the many and varied items in its collections. There is a story behind every photograph, every work of art, every letter, every object: the story of an individual, a family, a community. We invite you to explore Yad Vashem's collections and discover the wealth of personal stories they tell.
Duet in the Vilna Ghetto: Yehiel and Zlata Burgin
Yehiel Burgin was born in 1914 in New Wilejka, close to Vilna, to Nehemia and Hinda-Feiga (née Falkovich). Nehemia was a tailor by profession, and the family was traditional, with a leaning towards socialist ideas. When Yehiel was six years old, his mother passed away. In 1920, the family moved to Vilna, where they lived under very difficult conditions. Yehiel went to a religious school, and then to a school run by the Association to Disseminate Enlightenment, where he joined the drama circle. After he completed his studies, Yehiel helped support his family working in different jobs, while advancing...
Read More...
Architecture of Murder. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Blueprints
The Auschwitz complex was not built overnight. This was a major construction project that lasted years and was never completed. A number of organizations and companies were involved in the building process, as well as thousands of workers, both German and foreign. What started as a single camp with 22 buildings in 1940 became a complex of 3 main camps and 40 sub-camps.
Read More...
Hannah Szenes: Zionist, Paratrooper and Poet
"On the morning of 17 June 1944, a man in civilian garb knocked on the door… He had a warrant for my arrest… They interrogated me... They asked about the children, especially about Hannah. The investigator asked me where Hannah was, and smiling, I answered that she was in an agricultural settlement near Haifa. He shook his head and said: 'She is here, in the next room.' The door opened. I was dumbstruck. Aniko [Hannah] was standing in the doorway, held by four men. Her disheveled hair did not conceal the blue contusions above her eyes. She escaped their grip...
Read More...
Escaping Deportation from Rivesaltes: the Story of the Krieser Sisters
When the bombing of Belgium began in 1940, Perla and Solomon Krieser of Antwerp and their two daughters, 16-year-old Hilda and 12-year-old Hannah fled across the border to France. They were caught together with many other refugees, and sent to the Rivesaltes camp in France.
Read More...
Yechiel's Struggle Group in the Vilna Ghetto
Yechiel (Ilya) Scheinboim was born in 1914 in Odessa, Ukraine. He was brought up by his grandmother in Kowel, Poland (today Ukraine), following the death of his mother. He studied at the Tarbut school and joined the Hechalutz Hatzair youth movement and the Hachsharah (pioneer training) kibbutz Klosowo. He studied to become an electrician at the Polytechnic School in Lwow and then enlisted in the Polish Army. During his army service, he was active in Hechalutz Hatzair and was penalized for this multiple times with imprisonment.
Read More...
Pierre Wolkowicz's Violin and Last Letter
Pierre Wolkowicz lived with his mother, Berthe and his father, Max in Paris, France. During the infamous Vel d'Hiv round-up of 16-17 July 1942, Max was summarily taken to the concentration camps of Pithiviers and Drancy, and then deported to Auschwitz. Pierre and his mother were incarcerated in the Velodrome d'Hiver (Winter Stadium) for five horrific days and were then sent on to Pithiviers. The fifteen-year-old Pierre was eventually forcibly separated from his mother, and Berthe was taken to Drancy. Pierre was sent there shortly afterwards, and on...
Read More...
Aerial Photographs of Auschwitz
Aerial photographs of Auschwitz taken by the Allied Air Forces during World War II were first exposed in 1978 by Dino Brugioni and Robert Poirer, two aerial photo-analysts who worked for the CIA. Using historical research material, they re-analyzed aerial photographs housed in the Defense Intelligence Agency Archives in Washington. Yad Vashem was able to acquire copies of some of these photographs in 1980 with Elie Wiesel’s help, and when former US President Carter visited Israel in that same year, he brought copies of the original film reels.
Read More...
Shabtai Bleicher, a Theater Actor in the Vilna Ghetto, 1906-1944
Shabtai Bleicher, an actor in the State Yiddish Theater in Vilna in 1940-41, was one of the initiators of the ghetto theater and a prominent actor there. As part of the activities instigated by the Judenrat in the ghetto, Bleicher wrote the life stories of his fellow theater professionals, who had been murdered during the first year of German occupation. Bleicher penned twenty biographies of artists who had been murdered in Ponary, as well as the biography of an actor who had succumbed to typhus in the ghetto. In September 1943, during the liquidation of the ghetto, Bleicher was sent with many...
Read More...
Toy Boat from Pithiviers
At the height of World War II, ten-year-old Jean Pojzman received an unusual gift – a toy boat, inscribed with the words "Jeannot, Pithiviers 1941 1942".
Read More...
Rare Color Footage Depicting Jewish Life in the Shtetl before the Holocaust
David Teitelbaum, from the town of Wielopole in south-eastern Poland, was an amateur photographer. He immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s and became a successful businessman. On a visit to his hometown on the eve of the German occupation, he filmed his family, neighbors and friends. Many of the individuals who appear in this film were murdered during the Holocaust.
Read More...
The Pitel Family
Twenty-six members of the Pitel family of Parczev, Poland, gathered for a photo in 1938. Yerachmiel Yosef (Josef) Pitel moved to Israel shortly after this photo was taken. In 1943 the entire family was murdered in Treblinka. Yerachmiel Yosef was the only survivor.
Read More...
Brooch in the shape of a puppy that Anna Nussbaum received as a parting gift from her father
"One day they packed me a small suitcase with a cardboard name-tag; only one change of clothing was permitted."Anna was born in Vienna in 1929 to Rebeka and Oskar Nussbaum, a younger sister for Klara.The Kristallnacht pogrom and a series of incidents that the family experienced in its wake – Oskar's arrest, the expulsion from school of Klara and Anna and the family's receipt of an eviction notice – led to Oskar and Rebeka's decision to send their elder daughter Klara to Ireland on a Kindertransport.Anna remained with her parents. The three were evicted from their...
Read More...
Aerial Evidence for Schindler’s List
Oskar Schindler’s deeds during the Holocaust period have received considerable coverage, mainly since the release of the film “Schindler’s List” in 1993. There is much original documentation about the man and his activities, such as material about the concentration/labor camp Plaszow, where most of the people he saved were inmates. In the course of his research on the Jews of Krakow, Mr. Yair Shor discovered as part of his research on the Plaszow concentration camp, extraordinary photographic testimony supporting the Schindler story in the US National Archives.
Read More...
Meine Liebe Frau Pels
A black box with dozens of letters – folded, crammed together, sent from a variety of places, pages written in a cramped fashion, some with envelopes and others without. Some letters are handwritten, others are typed, some are long and others are short - but what they all have in common is the opening line: “Meine Liebe Frau Pels, Dear Mrs. Pels”.
Read More...
Child Survivors at the Liberation of Auschwitz – 27 January 1945
On 27 January 2005, 60 years after they were photographed by their liberators, the six survivors living in Israel took part in a ceremony in Poland marking 60 years since the liberation of Auschwitz.
Read More...
German Police Activity in Olkusz, 31/7/1940
One of the photograph collections from the Holocaust period that has aroused great curiosity is the series of pictures depicting German policemen and Jews in the Polish town of Olkusz. The best-known photograph in the series is also displayed in Yad Vashem's Holocaust History Museum, and shows German policemen forcing the local Rabbi to pray for their amusement. The photograph has been the subject of many explanations, most of which describe the Rabbi as standing next to the bodies of his congregants immediately after their murder by the Germans.
Read More...
Album of Passport Photographs of Slovak Jews
One of the ways the Fascist Slovak regime reinforced the Jews' inferior status was the revocation of their State identification papers. In their stead, the "Jewish Center" (UZ) in Bratislava was ordered to issue its own identification documents in 1941. The Jewish Center's stamp is evident on each of the identity card photographs.Looking out at us from the hundreds of photographs displayed here are the faces of Holocaust victims from Slovakia: a testament to the persecution of an entire Jewish community. Each photograph represents a whole world, complete with history and memories....
Read More...
Prewar Hanukkah Menorah owned by the Posner family in Kiel, Germany
During Hanukkah 1931, Rachel Posner, wife of Rabbi Dr. Akiva Posner, took this photo of the family Hanukkah menorah from the window ledge of the family home looking out on to the building across the road decorated with Nazi flags.On the back of the photograph, Rachel Posner wrote in German (translated here):Chanukah 5692
(1932)
"Death to Judah"
So the flag says
"Judah will live forever"
So the light answersThe date of 1932, inscribed on the back, most likely refers to the date the picture was developed.Rabbi Dr. Akiva Posner, Doctor of Philosophy from Halle-Wittenberg...
Read More...(1932)
"Death to Judah"
So the flag says
"Judah will live forever"
So the light answersThe date of 1932, inscribed on the back, most likely refers to the date the picture was developed.Rabbi Dr. Akiva Posner, Doctor of Philosophy from Halle-Wittenberg...
