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View the interactive image by Megan Kelly

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virtual exhibit

Voices of the Holocaust

The Rise of Nazism and Antisemitism

Acts of Cruelty and Genocide

Acts of Bravery and Kindness

Liberation and the Lasting Impact of the Holocaust

List of exhibit resources

Background exhibits

Background exhibits provide important reference information and bring context to the testimonials provided

Background exhibits

Background exhibits provide important reference information and bring context to the testimonials provided

Each exhibit section features essential questions for reflection

The rise of nazism and antisemitism

Voices of the Holocaust

What is antisemitism?

the success of nazi propaganda

While in her early 20s, Edith Reiss, from Bolton, England, visited Nazi Germany in 1937 and again in 1939. In testimony for USC Shoah Foundation recorded in 1998, she recalls witnessing antisemitic violence on the streets of Göttingen, Germany, and being told not to get involved. Years later, as a nurse in the British Army during World War II, Reiss aided survivors of the Dachau concentration camp after it was liberated.

Kurt Klein, who emigrated from Walldorf, Germany, to the United States in 1937, recalls how Nazi policies and propaganda affected his life at school.

Alfred Wolf, a Holocaust survivor from Eberbach, Germany, remembers the changes he noticed in Germany after the election of Adolf Hitler. Like many Jewish Germans, Wolf's parents had been active in civic life during the Weimar Republic. In this testimony from USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive, Wolf remembers knowing something was different this time.

Ellen Kerry Davis, a Jewish woman originally from Hoof, Germany, describes how her family's friendships were impacted by Nazi rule.

Vera Gissing and her sister were born to a Jewish family in Czechoslovakia. In 1938, German troops occupied her town. To protect their children, Vera's parents sent them on the Kindertransport, a rescue mission that brought thousands of Jewish refugee children to Great Britain to stay with foster families. In her testimony recorded for USC Shoah Foundation, Gissing recalls how her family prepared her for the journey.

What role did antisemitism and propaganda play in the successful rise of the Nazi regime?How can personal prejudice and bias impact the lives of others?

acts of crueltyand genocide

Voices of the Holocaust

Timelineofnazi abuses

auschwitz:the killing evolution

Barbara Fischman Traub, a secular Jewish woman, grew up with Jewish and non-Jewish friends in Sighet, Hungary. In an excerpt from a 1995 testimony recorded for USC Shoah Foundation, Fischman Traub recalls the reactions of her neighbors as she and her family were marched through town to the ghetto.

In May 1939, 937 passengers boarded the M.S. St. Louis in Hamburg, Germany, bound for Cuba. Most of the passengers were Jewish refugees, including Sol Messinger and his parents. Despite the fact that all passengers held official papers issued by a Cuban official, only 28 passengers were allowed to disembark. Sol Messinger recounts his experiences on the ship in this 1996 testimony from USC Shoah Foundation.

Jan Karski, a diplomat and member of the Polish resistance during World War II, was smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto to witness conditions firsthand. Afterwards, he tried to convince politicians, including U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, to take actions to save Jews from Nazi terror. In this testimony for USC Shoah Foundation, he recounts what he saw in the ghetto and his meeting with the U.S. President.

As a young girl, Barbara Turkeltaub witnessed a Nazi massacre just yards from a convent where she was hidden by Catholic nuns. She described how she stumbled upon the killing squad and what she saw in this testimony recorded for USC Shoah Foundation in 1996.

Holocaust survivor Jack Arnel describes what he saw as a 12-year-old when the Nazis occupied Vilna, Lithuania, in 1941. In this testimony for USC Shoah Foundation recorded in 1996, he explains that what he witnessed in those first hours changed him forever.

What happened when the Nazis entered Czernowitz? Moshe Shamir, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, recounts how his family was told to gather their belongings and forced to march to a ghetto.

As a teenager, Zvi Michaeli and his family were among 4,000 Jews rounded up by Germans in Eishyshok, Lithuania. The population was massacred in a pit by gunshot. In this graphic testimony, Zvi mournfully recalls the what happened when he realized he was alive and that his family was not.

How can power influence the treatment of others?What circumstances make the difference between bystanders and leaders in difficult situations?Where does responsibility for injustice fall when examining perpetrators, collaborators, and bystanders?

acts of bravery and kindness

Voices of the Holocaust

A tribute to the righteous among the nations

jewish resistance movements

In testimony recorded for USC Shoah Foundation, Marion Prichard describes her experience with a Dutch Nazi policeman while hiding a Jewish family. Marion Pritchard was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1920. Pritchard was studying to be a social worker in Amsterdam when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands. Despite the risks, she began working with the Dutch resistance. In December 1942, Pritchard was approached by a family friend and asked to find a hiding place for a Jewish family, including two children and a baby.

Holocaust survivor Vera Laska was a teenager going to an all girls school in Kosice, Czechoslovakia when the Nazis invaded. In this excerpt from her testimony recorded for USC Shoah Foundation, she recounts how she became involved in the resistance and the choices she made as her activities increased. Laska was eventually caught with false papers, arrested, and imprisoned at several concentration camps, including Auschwitz.

Holocaust survivor Esther Bem and her family, Jewish refugees from the former Yugoslavia, were taken in by peasants in Northern Italy during the Holocaust. In testimony recorded in 1995 for USC Shoah Foundation, she describes the kindness, sacrifice, and courage of the people that protected her.

Anna Heilman and her family were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Majdanek concentration camp, where her parents were killed. Later, she and her sister were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau where they were part of a group that smuggled gunpowder into the camp. In her testimony recorded for USC Shoah Foundation, she recounts how the gunpowder was used in a revolt, and the Nazis' efforts to find those responsible.

Rena Finder, a Holocaust survivor rescued by Oskar Schindler, describes her memories of Schindler and his efforts to take care of her and the other Jews who worked at his factory.

How can acts of kindness also be acts of bravery?How can the actions or sacrifices of a few change the outcome for many?Who is responsible for justice when persecution becomes an accepted norm?

Medical ethics: experimentation and the holocaust

liberation and the lasting impact of the holocaust

10 Stages of Genocide:What you can do to stop it

Voices of the Holocaust

Leon Bass was a member of the U.S. 183 Engineer Combat Battalion during World War II. As a black soldier in a segregated army, Bass faced discrimination inside and outside the military. 20-year-old Bass was one of the first U.S. soldiers to enter the Buchenwald concentration camp. In this excerpt of testimony recorded for USC Shoah Foundation, he describes what he saw and how it impacted him.

Antisemitism did not end with the liberation of the concentration camps at the end of World War II. In this except from a 1997 testimony recorded for USC Shoah Foundation, Howard Cwick, an American soldier, recalls a confrontation with a US Army sergeant over antisemitic slurs directed toward a recently liberated concentration camp survivor.

Romana Farrington was born to Jewish parents who arranged for her to be raised by a Polish Catholic family during the Holocaust. In her 1996 testimony, she recounts her shock when she found out that her birth parents were Jewish, and discusses how her experiences impact the way she thinks about her identity today.

Isaac Levy was a Rabbi who volunteered to join the British army as a chaplain during World War II. While in Berlin after the war, he offered to help survivors by posting letters for them to their friends and families around the world. In this testimony recorded for USC Shoah Foundation, he describes the consequences of his actions.

Vera Gissing, a Jewish girl from Czechoslovakia, survived the Holocaust in England as part of the Kinderstransport, a rescue mission to save Jewish children. In this excerpt from her 1996 testimony recorded for USC Shoah Foundation, she reflects on the importance of her non-Jewish friend to her and her parents through the war.

In July 1944, Soviet soldiers entered the Majdanek concentration camp in Eastern Poland. Majdanek was the first of the camps to be freed of Nazi control. Bernhard Storch, then a soldier in the Red Army, recounts what he saw in this 1996 testimony for USC Shoah Foundation. After liberation, the Soviets brought in journalists to witness the Nazi atrocities that were committed there.

Why is it important to study the Holocaust in present day?How does genocide continue to take place despite the lessons of history?What can people do in the present to prevent genocide, human rights violations, and acts of cruelty?

Resource list

Voices of the Holocaust

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Antisemitism." Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitism

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Nazi Propaganda." Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propaganda

"Auschwitz 1940-1945 . The Killing Evolution." Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State , Public Broadcasting Service, 2004, www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/killing/.

NOVA Online. "Results of Death-Camp Experiments: Should They Be Used?" Holocaust on Trial , Public Broadcasting Service, Nov. 2000, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/holocaust/experiintro2.html

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Jewish Resistance." Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jewish-resistance

"Themes." I Am My Brother's Keeper: A Tribute to the Righteous Among the Nations, Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, 2020, www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/righteous/themes.asp.

Stanton, Gregory H. "10 Stages of Genocide." Genocide Watch, 2016, genocidewatch.net/genocide-2/8-stages-of-genocide/.

NOVA Online. "Timeline of Nazi Abuses." Holocaust on Trial , Public Broadcasting Service, Oct. 2000, www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/holocaust/timeline.html.

"Victim and Survivor Voices." Facing History and Ourselves, USC Shoah Foundation, www.facinghistory.org/topics/holocaust/victim-and-survivor-voices?f%5B0%5D=multi_field_resource_type%3A620.

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Voices of the Holocaust Virtual Exhibit by Janelle Schnacker on Genially

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virtual exhibit Voices of the Holocaust The Rise of Nazism and Antisemitism Acts of Cruelty and Genocide Acts of Bravery and Kindness Liberation and the Lasting Impact of the Holocaust List of exhibit resources Background exhibits Background exhibits provide important reference information and bring context to the testimonials provided Background exhibits Background exhibits provide important reference information and bring context to the testimonials provided Each exhibit section features essential questions for reflection The rise of nazism and antisemitism Voices of the Holocaust What is antisemitism?

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About the Righteous

Attitudes towards the Jews during the Holocaust mostly ranged from indifference to hostility. The mainstream watched as their former neighbors were rounded up and killed; some collaborated with the perpetrators; many benefited from the expropriation of the Jews property. More...

The Righteous Database

Rescue stories, photos, information about the Righteous Among the Nations. More...

I Am My Brother's Keeper - A Tribute to the Righteous Among the Nations

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About the Righteous Attitudes towards the Jews during the Holocaust mostly ranged from indifference to hostility. The mainstream watched as their former neighbors were rounded up and killed; some collaborated with the perpetrators; many benefited from the expropriation of the Jews property. More... The Righteous Database Rescue stories, photos, information about the Righteous Among the Nations.

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Introduction

This article will examine how the courageous actions of the Righteous Among the Nations can be highlighted when teaching and commemorating the Holocaust.

By introducing examples of some of the Righteous Among the Nations, the teacher can introduce historical content, and religious and moral values, while personalizing events of the Holocaust. This important historical lesson can be taught through various disciplines such as history, religion, civics, and literature.

In Holocaust-related research and literature, the word "Righteous" is the term used for those who saved Jewish lives during the period of the Holocaust, while risking their own lives and those of their families (rescuers). The Yad Vashem Law, enacted in 1953, entrusted Yad Vashem with documenting the history of the Jewish people during the Holocaust period, preserving the memory and story of each of the six million victims, imparting the legacy of the Holocaust for generations to come through its archives, library, school, museums, and recognition of the Righteous Among the Nations. Since 1963, a commission headed by an Israeli Supreme Court Justice has been charged with the duty of awarding the title "Righteous Among the Nations."

The historical account of the Holocaust would not be complete without the amazing stories of the Righteous Among the Nations. Righteous can serve as role models for future generations and as examples of acts of great humanity carried out in the most dire and difficult circumstances. The Righteous came from very different social backgrounds - most were ordinary people, and all acted without ulterior motives such as monetary gain or recognition. They could have turned away, but they chose to act on behalf of their fellow man. What dilemmas did they face?

"Rescuers, like non-rescuers, worried both before and during the war about feeding, sheltering, and protecting themselves and their families. What distinguished rescuers was not their lack of concern with self, external approval, or achievement, but rather their capacity for extensive relationships - their stronger sense of attachment to others and their feeling of responsibility for the welfare of others, including those outside their immediate familial or communal circles. While some tried to resist the burdens imposed by such attachments, their sense of personal obligation did not allow them to do so. The help they extended to Jews was rarely the result of a perception of Jews as particularly worthy, but was the result of a reflection of their characteristic ways of determining moral values and actions. For some rescuers, helping Jews was a matter of heightened empathy for people in pain. For others, it was due to internalized norms of social groups to whom they were strongly attached. And for a small minority, it was a question of loyalty to overriding autonomous principles rooted in justice or caring." 1

Below we have outlined some examples from very diverse backgrounds and countries of those honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, so students can understand what prompted and motivated them to help. Teachers may opt to use examples in the classroom as a way to demonstrate how some individuals, the tiny minority, chose to risk their lives on behalf of Jews during the Holocaust.

Dr. Feng-Shan Ho, Consul-General of China in Vienna, 1938-40

Feng-Shan Ho had probably never met or seen a Jew before he arrived in Vienna to serve as the Chinese Consul-General from 1938-1940. After Austria's annexation to Nazi Germany in March, 1938, the 185,000 Jews there were subjected to a severe reign of terror, which resulted in intense pressure to leave the country. In order to do so, the Nazis required that Jews have entry visas or boat tickets to another country.

Unlike his fellow diplomats, Ho issued visas to Shanghai to all requesting them, even to those wishing to travel elsewhere but needing a visa to leave.

Why was Feng-Shan Ho willing to help the Jews of Austria when most others would not?

"I thought it only natural to feel compassion and to want to help. From the standpoint of humanity, that is the way it should be." 2

Feng-Shan Ho defied direct orders and issued innumerable visas to Jews escaping the Nazi occupation of Austria after the Anschluss (the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938). This enabled Jewish refugees to escape from Austria to the United States, Canada, South America, Palestine, the Philippines and Shanghai, China. Many Jews were released from concentration camps due to these Chinese visas. Feng-Shan Ho was awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations for his humanitarian courage in issuing Chinese visas to Jews in Vienna.

He was described as a man with a "compassionate heart." That compassion was most likely the result of his background. Born on September 10, 1901, in rural Yiyang in Hunan Province, China, his name Feng-Shan means "Phoenix on the Mountain." Poor and fatherless by age seven, he and his family were helped by the Norwegian Lutheran Mission. Feng-Shan Ho was educated in their schools and felt a lifelong gratitude.

"He knew he had received many gifts from God. He felt that they were not given to him solely for his own benefit, but to do for others, for his fellow man," said his Pastor, Reverend Charles Kuo. Feng-Shan Ho expressed this in his own words in a poem written to his wife Shauyun on New Year's Day, 1947.

Untitled / Feng-Shan Ho

The gifts Heaven bestows are not by chance
The convictions of heroes not lightly formed.
Today I summon all spirit and strength,
Urging my steed forward ten thousand miles. 3

On 7 August, 2000, Feng-Shan Ho was recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous among the Nations.

Katarzyna Kmita, Poland, 1942-1944

Beno Sznajder was born in 1912 in Lwow. His parents employed Katarzyna Kmita for many years as his nanny. In 1942, after escaping from the local ghetto, Beno Sznajder and his wife Emilia, made their way late at night to Kmita's apartment. Although she shared a one-room apartment with two other women, Kmita welcomed the Sznajders and offered to hide them there. Soon the apartment became less crowded, when Kmita's friends, afraid of discovery, left. In risking her life on behalf of her charges, Kmita was guided by loyalty and humanitarian principles, which overrode considerations of personal safety and economic hardship. The Sznajders stayed in their hiding place until July, 1944, when the area was liberated by the Russians. After the war, they refused to part from Kmita, and she accompanied them when they immigrated to Israel. Kmita lived with the Sznajders in Jerusalem until her death.

On April 4, 1967, Katarzyna Kmita was recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations.

Feng-Shan Ho

Francis Foley, British Vice-Consul in Charge of Visas in Berlin, 1938-39

Francis Foley was a passport officer in the British Embassy in Berlin from 1923 until 1939. He also worked undercover as an MI6 (British secret intelligence service) agent. Jewish officials, who worked with him at the time, estimate that he issued thousands of visas to Jewish refugees between 1938 and 1939, at a time when the British government was anxious to limit immigration, particularly to Palestine. He came from a working-class background and considered himself a Christian.

As a British spy, he was liable to arrest at any time, yet he hid Jews in his home, helped them to get forged passports, ignoring the rules of his superiors.

"What were the motives that stirred him to act like this? We who worked closely with him in those days, and often asked ourselves this question. Before all else, Foley was humane. In those dark days to encounter a human being was no common occurrence. He told us he was acting as a Christian and he wanted to show us how little the Christians who were then in power in Germany had to do with real Christianity." 4

On February 25, 1999, Frank Foley was recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations.

Captain Frank Foley

The Village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France, 1942

Pastor Andre Trocme was the spiritual leader of the Protestant congregation in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in southeastern France. In 1942, he urged his congregation to shelter any Jew who requested help. The village and its outlying areas were quickly filled with hundreds of Jews. Some of them found permanent shelter in the hilly region of Le Chambon, until the liberation of France, and others were given temporary shelter until they were able to escape across the border, mostly to Switzerland.

According to one estimate, some 5,000 Jews passed through Le Chambon and the surrounding villages in the three years during which the village served as a shelter for Jews in southern France. The Vichy authorities demanded that Trocme cease his activities. His response was clear-cut:

"These people came here for help and for shelter. I am their shepherd. A shepherd does not forsake his flock... I do not know what a Jew is. I know only human beings." 5

On January 5, 1971, Pastor Trocme was recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. Magda Trocme was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations on May 14, 1984.

Magda and André Trocmé

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Teaching about the Righteous Among the Nations in the Classroom

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This article will examine how the courageous actions of the Righteous Among the Nations can be highlighted when teaching and commemorating the Holocaust. By introducing examples of some of the Righteous Among the Nations, the teacher can introduce historical content, and religious and moral values, while personalizing events of the Holocaust.

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When one of the cycling world's biggest races, the Giro d'Italia, got underway in Belfast, more was being revealed about the daring activities of one of its former winners in wartime Italy.

"He had everything to lose. His story is one of the most dramatic examples during World War Two of an Italian willing to risk his own life to save the lives of strangers."

Film director Oren Jacoby is describing Gino Bartali, one of the leading cyclists of his era - a three-time winner of the Giro d'Italia, who also notched up two Tour de France victories, 10 years apart, before and after the war.

During his lifetime, Bartali didn't talk about his wartime activities.

It was only after his death in 2000 that details began to emerge, and Jacoby fills in some remaining gaps in a Storyville documentary film about Italy's secret heroes, due to be premiered this year.

Bartali, a villager from a poor Tuscan family, was reaching the peak of his career as the war approached.

He won his first Giro d'Italia in 1936, retaining the title in 1937. Then - to Italy's delight - he won the 1938 Tour de France. It was a moment the country's fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, had been looking forward to eagerly.

"Mussolini believed that if an Italian rider triumphed in the Tour it would show that Italians too belonged to the master race," says Bartali's son Andrea in Jacoby's film.

"It was a matter of national pride and fascist prestige that my father won the 1938 Tour, so he was under real pressure."

Bartali was invited to dedicate his win to Mussolini, but refused. It was a grave insult to il duce and a big risk to take.

In the middle of that year's Tour, Mussolini had published a Manifesto on Race, which led later to Jews being stripped of citizenship or any position in government or the professions.

Italy remained, however, a country in which Jews could take refuge, until it surrendered to the allies in 1943. The German army then occupied northern and central parts of the country and immediately started rounding up Jews and sending them to concentration camps.

At this point Bartali, a devout Catholic, was asked by the Cardinal of Florence, Archbishop Elia Dalla Costa, to join a secret network offering protection and safe passsage to Jews and other endangered people.

His role in the network was uniquely suited to his talents - he became a courier. On the face of it he was undertaking the long training rides for which he was renowned, but in reality he was carrying photographs and counterfeit identity documents to and from a secret printing press.

All were hidden in the frame and handlebars of his bicycle.

"We've seen documentation that he travelled thousands of kilometres across Italy, travelling the roads between cities as far apart as Florence, Lucca, Genoa, Assisi, and the Vatican in Rome," says Jacoby.

By taking on this role, he put himself at huge risk. At one point he was arrested and questioned by the head of the Fascist secret police in Florence, where he lived.

For a period he went into hiding, living incognito in the town of Citta Di Castello in Umbria.

In addition to this, Bartali hid his Jewish friend Giacomo Goldenberg, and Goldenberg's family.

"He hid us in spite of knowing that the Germans were killing everybody who was hiding Jews," Goldenberg's son, Giorgio, says in Jacoby's film.

"He was risking not only his life but also his family. Gino Bartali saved my life and the life of my family. That's clear because if he hadn't hidden us, we had nowhere to go."

Approximately 80% of Italian and refugee Jews living in Italy before World War Two survived, partly thanks to the efforts of Italian sympathisers.

It's taken a lot of detective work, by a number of people, to piece Bartali's story together over the last 14 years.

Andrea Bartali says that eventually little by little his father told him about his actions during the war but made him promise not to tell anyone at that time.

"When I asked my father why I couldn't tell anyone, he said, 'You must do good, but you must not talk about it. If you talk about it you're taking advantage of others misfortunes' for your own gain.'"

According to Jacoby, Bartali's reticence is a "defining characteristic" of many of the Italians who were willing to risk their lives in World War Two.

"He didn't want to be acknowledged for what he had done: few of those he helped ever knew his name or what role he had played in their rescue," says Jacoby.

Last September he was posthumously awarded with the honour Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial and education centre in Jerusalem.

"When Bartali was stopped and searched, he specifically asked that his bicycle not be touched since the different parts were very carefully calibrated to achieve maximum speed," the citation points out.

Andrea Bartali says his father refused to view his actions as heroic.

"When people were telling him, 'Gino, you're a hero', he would reply: 'No, no - I want to be remembered for my sporting achievements. Real heroes are others, those who have suffered in their soul, in their heart, in their spirit, in their mind, for their loved ones. Those are the real heroes. I'm just a cyclist.'"

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Gino Bartali: The cyclist who saved Jews in wartime Italy

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When one of the cycling world's biggest races, the Giro d'Italia, got underway in Belfast, more was being revealed about the daring activities of one of its former winners in wartime Italy. "He had everything to lose.