Nazi Party Labor Day 1934 pin, likely given to Lieutenant Jack Wheelis by Herman Göring during his imprisonment at Nuremberg from 1945-1946. Labor Day (also known as May Day) takes place on May 1 to celebrate laborers and the working classes. In April 1933, after the Nazi party took control of the German government, May 1 was appropriated as the “Day of National Work,” with all celebrations organized ...

Varian Fry (1907-1967) was born in New York City, obtained a degree in classics from Harvard University, and married Eileen Hughes, an editor at Atlantic Monthly. Fry worked as a researcher and editor at several magazines in the early 1930s, traveling to and reporting on Nazi Germany. After Germany invaded France, Fry helped found the Emergency Rescue Committee (ERC) in June 1940. The private American ...

Margarita Shtromaite (Mara, later Lady Margaret Kagan) is the daughter of Jurgis (b. 1894) and Eugenia Shtromas (b. 1901). Margarita was born on July 12, 1924 in Riga, Latvia, and grew up in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania. Her younger brother, Alexandras (Alik), was born on April 14, 1931. Though their father was born in Lithuania, their mother, Eugenia, was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia. After ...

Claude Lanzmann was born in Paris to a Jewish family that immigrated to France from Eastern Europe. He attended the Lycée Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. His family went into hiding during World War II. He joined the French resistance at the age of 18 and fought in the Auvergne. Lanzmann opposed the French war in Algeria and signed a 1960 antiwar petition. From 1952 to 1959 he lived with Simone ...

Dora Szajner (later Factor, 1897-1972) was born in Działoszyn, Russian Empire, to Hillel (?-1924) and Rosa Chaja Isbitska Szajner. Hillel was a Hebrew teacher, calligrapher, folk carver, and a felcher [traditional healer]. Dora had seven siblings, four brothers and three sisters, including Max Moszek (1905-1942), Sarah (later Koopman, 1908-1993), Hela (later Helen Bialogurski), Roza (Rosa), Joseph, ...

Large, two pocket rucksack used by Elek Brust while a forced laborer from 1941 and 1943-1944 in Hungary. He then used it while living in hiding with his family during the German occupation through February 1945. Elek was a manufacturer and prominent member of the Jewish community in Budapest where he lived with his wife Lilly and young daughter Eva. In 1941, Jewish males were required to do forced ...

Khona Padison was born in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania to an Orthodox Jewish couple, Perets and Rakhel Kronik Padison. He had one sister, Kheina-Maia (Hena). His mother Rakhel was born in approximately 1900, in Vilno, Russia (Vilnius, Lithuania), to Itzik and Kheina Kronik. His father Perets was born in 1903, in Ukmerge, Russia (now Lithuania), to Mordekhai and Sara Padison. Perets had one brother, Shmuel. ...

Abraham (Bumek) Gruber was born to Osjasz and Sara Gruber, near or in Drohobycz, Poland (Drohobych, Ukraine). He had three siblings: Ryfka, born 1916, Josef, and Laura, born November 6, 1904. Laura married Jakub Drimmer in 1903 and had two children, Marcel, born May 1, 1904, and Irena (Mila) born July 4, 1936. Bumek was a butcher by trade. During the early 1930s he served in the Polish Army. Bumek ...

Silver-colored finger ring made from a spoon by Leib Krycberg in Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, where he was an inmate from 1942-45. It is engraved with the initials and prisoner numbers, of Leib and Miriam Litman, another prisoner with whom he had fallen in love. He made a duplicate ring for Miriam. In January 1945, both Leib and Miriam were deported from Auschwitz to Mauthausen concentration ...