The Workers' Society of Friends of Children (Robotnicze Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Dzieci), a socialist organization of childcare, was founded in 1917 in Warsaw by the Polish Socialist Party as the Worker's Department of Children's Education and Care. The association operated in the Kingdom of Poland, engaged in orphans, half orphans, poor and homeless children. It organized clubs, care and education centers, ...

The photographs depict Mordechai (Motek) Weinryb [donor] and his friends during their years of organizing illegal emigration to Palestine and later during his internment in Cyprus. The images consist of studio portraits of the donor and friends as well as one informal group photograph.

Stanislaw Staszek (Shlomo) Aronson is the son of Waldemar Aronson and Helena Kaffeman. He was born in Warsaw, Poland on May 6, 1925. The couple married in 1919 and their older child, daughter Janina Janka was born on May 6, 1921. The Aronson family was a well off Warsaw Jewish family with close ties to the Lodz textile business. All four of Staszek's grandparents were observant Jews, but none of their ...

The collection documents the pre-war, wartime, and post-war experiences of the Slepian family of Warsaw, Poland. Included are documents, photographs, and a photograph album related to the Wasseralfingen displaced persons camp where Nathan Slepian was the director.

For most files, a digital scanned image of the actual documents is available for viewing online or downloading as a .pdf file. Use of the latter is limited by the description in “Conditions Governing Reproduction” (See Conditions, above).

Myra Genn (b. Ziunia Herbst) was born on June 1, 1938, in Trembowla, Poland (now Terebovlia, Ukraine). Her father, Chaim David Herbst, who was born in 1908, was a Zionist activist and educator. Along with Dawid Turkel, he organized a Hebrew language elementary school in Trembowla. Myra's mother, Sabina Sizes Herbst, was born in 1903. Chaim and Sabina married in 1936 and owned a leather goods store ...

Sessions 14, 20, 21 and 27. Witness Zyndel Grynszpan describes October 28, 1938; the Nazis came to his house and arrested his entire family. They were taken to the precinct and forced to sign a certificate for deportation. He and his family were deported to Poland: "The misery was great. We had no food, we had not taken any food since Thursday, we had not wanted to eat German bread anymore and we were ...

Ladder used by Michael Goldmann (later Goldmann-Gilead), Chanan Ansbacher, and Eli Heilman to hide in Konrad and Regina Zimoń’s hayloft in January 1945, in Rybnik, Poland. The men had escaped from a forced march after Auschwitz concentration camp was evacuated. They hid for a week, during which time the Zimoń’s oldest daughter, Stefania, regularly brought them food. In summer 1939, fearing a German ...

Anna Brunn (later Ornstein, b. 1927) was born on January 27, 1927 in Szendrő, Hungary to Wilmos (1883-1944) and Zsofi (née Furth, 1898-1961) Brunn and had two older brothers, Paul (b. 1922) and Endre (b. 1924). Wilmos owned a building materials and hardware store. The family was Orthodox Zionists but spoke Hungarian at home. Anna attended elementary school in a one room Jewish school attached to the ...

Wilhelm Beigel was born on May 18, 1927, in Vilna, Poland, (Vilnius, Lithuania) to Ferdinand, born on June 25, 1899, in Lemberg, Austria (L’viv, Ukraine), and Liza Kowarsky, born on October 20, 1904, in Vilna. Ferdinand was an officer in the Polish Army. Liza’s parents, Zelik (d. 1935) and Musia Kowarsky owned the Hotel Bristol, the largest hotel in Vilna. The Beigel family lived there with 14 extended ...

Seventeen-year-old Frieda Masia resided in Sosnowiec, Poland at the outbreak of WWII. She began working in a Jewish hospital as a nurse after the Nazis occupied Sosnowiec. Masia saw Jews starved, beaten, burned alive, and executed, regardless of age. She belonged to the Jewish underground, and was a leader in the Zionist youth movement. After a particularly bad 'action' against the Jews, Mordechai ...

Abba Kovner lived in disguise in a convent at the beginning of the German occupation in 1941. He was a central figure in the Zionist youth resistance movement in Vilna. He commanded an underground partisan resistance group throughout the war. He describes the way the Germans avoided panic among the Jews. Kovner maintains a poetic approach to Lanzmann's questions throughout the interview. This interview ...