Major Crimes and True Crime

When so many other Germans remained silent, the members of the White Rose risked their lives to speak out against the Nazi regime. Composed of mostly university students, including brother and sister Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friend, Christoph Probst, the White Rose wrote pleading messages and distributed them to thousands of Germans. They begged their fellow citizens to rise up against the Nazis and their persecution of Jews. “The Jews, too, are human beings,” they wrote. On February 22, 1943, the Scholls and Christoph were tried for the crime of treason, convicted, and beheaded in a matter of hours. While their voices went unheard then, today—more than 80 years later—the group serves as a symbol of righteous rebellion.  Photo: George J. Wittenstein (akg-images.co.uk) #Holocaust #History #OTD #OnThisDay

Klaus Barbie had no regrets about sending thousands to their deaths. He personally tortured members of the French resistance and was responsible for the deportation of thousands of Jews from German-occupied France.  As head of a local office of the Gestapo, the Nazis' political police force, Barbie made a name for himself as the "Butcher of Lyon."  In 1944, he learned that 44 Jewish children were being sheltered in a nearby village. He had the children arrested and sent them to Auschwitz. None survived. Years after the war, and after escaping to South America, Barbie was captured and tried for crimes against humanity. Despite his conviction in 1987, Barbie remained a devoted Nazi, stating: “I am proud to have been a commanding officer of the best military outfit in the Third Reich, and if I had to be born a thousand times again, I would be a thousand times what I’ve been.” Photo: Wikimedia #Holocaust #History

Did you know that some Jews supported Mussolini before the Holocaust? Italian Jew Ettore Abenaim—pictured on the right—was a member of the Italian Blackshirts. This armed group attacked political opponents of Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, such as Communist and Catholic organizations. Unlike Nazism, early Italian fascism was not overtly antisemitic. This photo was taken in 1936 in Pisa. By November 1938, Mussolini's government passed anti-Jewish race laws and excluded them from the National Fascist Party and other areas of Italian life. After the Nazis took over Italy in 1943, Ettore was deported to Auschwitz, where he died.  In total, the Nazis deported over 8,000 Jews from Italian territory, mostly sending them to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Only about 1,000 returned after the Holocaust. Photo: USHMM, courtesy of Emmanuele Pacifici

Julie Keefer’s constant cries put her family in danger. In the end, this may have saved her life. After escaping the Lwów ghetto, Julie, her sister, Tola, and their family hid from the Nazis in a forest hideout for several months. Over time, the girls’ crying put the Jewish family at risk. Their grandfather made the painful decision to place two-year-old Julie and baby Tola with a friend. Soon after they were removed, the Germans discovered the hiding place in the woods and murdered everyone inside. Julie’s grandfather, who was away visiting the girls, was the only survivor. Julie never saw her parents again. During the chaos of the war, Julie and Tola were separated, and Tola was sent to a Catholic orphanage. After the Holocaust, Julie and her grandfather desperately searched for Tola but they were unable to locate the baby. Julie never lost hope of finding her sister. Despite all that she lost, Julie chose to share her story with visitors at our Museum. “For many, many years I did no...

A sign on the shoe factory bulletin board prompted Harry Harrison and his wife, Dot, a Christian couple, to take in a little Jewish girl fleeing Nazi Germany.  When Esther Starobin arrived by boat in England, she was just two years old. Her desperate parents had agreed to send their youngest child to live with strangers in the hopes of saving her. What began as a good deed blossomed into bonds that lasted a lifetime. Over eight years, Esther came to see the Harrisons and their son, Alan, as a second family. “That was really the happiest time of my childhood," she remembered. Esther later learned that her parents had been murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. Alan and Esther are still close today. Photos: Esther, Esther's family, Esther's foster family Credit: USHMM, Esther Rosenfeld Starobin #Holocaust #History #Survivor #NationalFosterCareMonth

This photo was taken secretly inside the Ravensbrück concentration camp. A group of prisoners documented the medical experimentations that German doctors were performing on them. Joanna Szydłowska traded her bread to another prisoner for a camera. She was one of 74 Polish women subjected to cruel experiments, including unnecessary surgeries.  Doctors cut open some women's legs and intentionally infected them to try to simulate battlefield wounds. Some of the women were given no medication when they became desperately ill. Ravensbrück was liberated on this day in 1945 after most prisoners had been evacuated from the camp. Some of the experimentation victims testified at trials after the war. The photos they took were part of the evidence. Continue reading  #OTD #OnThisDayinHistory #Holocaust