Major Crimes and True Crime

Execution by guillotine of Sister Maria Restituta Kafka for refusing to remove the crucifix by nazis Execution by guillotine of Sister Maria Restituta Kafka strongly criticizes Nazi regime  Maria Restituta Kafka working as a nurse at the municipal hospital in the Lainz Hospital. she met members of the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity and joined their community at the age of 20 and was given the religious name of Maria Restituta. During World War 1, Kafka serve as a nurse in the hospital. she was called 'Sister Resolute'. after the Anschluss in which Germany annexed Austria. Kafka strongly criticize the Nazi government and against the implementing the Nuremberg Laws. The Nazi authorities demanded that the crosses to be removed, but she refused. she was arrested by the Gestapo, the Nazi Secret police for hanging the crucifixes, and  also of having writing a poem mocking Hitler. she was sentenced to death by the guillotine for conspiracy to commit treason. She was beheaded...

Eva Mozes remembers waking up in Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27, 1945. "It was quiet," Eva recalls. "It was very eerie to have such a quiet morning. We thought maybe this would be the day that we would be free." That afternoon, Soviet troops arrived, liberating the remaining prisoners. In footage taken after the camp's liberation, Eva and her twin sister, Miriam, can be seen walking hand in hand out of Auschwitz. Eva and Miriam were born in a small village in Romania in 1934. When the twins were just six years old, their town was annexed by Hungary, and when they were 10, it was occupied by Nazi Germany. Hungarian and German authorities sent Eva, Miriam, their parents, and their two older sisters to a ghetto in the nearby town of Szilágysomlyó (Simleu Silvaniei) in 1944. From there, they were then deported to Auschwitz. Upon their arrival, Eva and Miriam were separated from their family and selected by SS doctor Josef Mengele for his notorious experimentation ...

In the fall of 1944, ten-year-old Thomas Buergenthal found himself all alone in Auschwitz, destined for the gas chamber. Thomas had already survived the Kielce ghetto and a forced labor camp by the time German authorities deported him and his parents to Auschwitz in August 1944. Typically, children were taken on arrival and murdered in the gas chambers, but, because there was no selection when Thomas and his family arrived there, he managed to survive. His mother was taken to the women's section of the camp, but Thomas and his father remained together. However, Thomas remained in grave danger. The SS guards regularly selected prisoners to be murdered in the gas chambers and as a child Thomas stood out. While he had survived a number of selections by hiding, this time, Thomas had been caught. "They saw me as a child, and they motioned me to go one way, and my father go the other way," Thomas remembered. "And that's the last I saw of ... my father." Thomas and...

Agi Geva’s mother made her promise never to remove the tattoo inked on her arm at Auschwitz-Birkenau. “This is proof of us being there,” she told her daughter. “The letter A and the number.” At age 14, Agi was registered as a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and was forcibly tattooed with her prisoner number. For Agi, the pain of receiving the tattoo was surpassed by the pain of being stripped of her identity. “They kept on telling us, "You have no names from today. You are just numbers." Agi, her mother, and sister survived four camps, forced labor, and a death march before they were liberated by American troops in April 1945. During the Holocaust, Auschwitz was the only camp where prisoner numbers were tattooed. After liberation, Auschwitz survivors were able to shed the uniforms, but the tattoos remained. #HolocaustSurvivor #HolocaustRemembranceDay #HolocaustMemorialDay

“In Auschwitz, I never cried, and people around me never cried.” Irene Weiss was just a teenager when she learned to turn off her feelings in order to survive. When a Nazi officer selected Irene to perform forced labor at Auschwitz-Birkenau, it gave her a chance to survive that was denied to her mother and younger siblings, who were murdered upon arrival. She was assigned to a unit responsible for sorting through the stolen personal belongings of Jews. The storage barracks where she worked were next to one of Auschwitz's gas chambers. Irene often saw the faces of those unknowingly headed toward their deaths. Sometimes they would stop and talk to her. Other times, she heard their screams. “When we worked night shifts … this place was close enough to the train platform that you could hear in the night the whistle of the train and then you would hear the humming noise of large crowds. You could hear people in the distance. Within a few minutes or so the large column of young women, mo...

One of Maria Dworzecka’s earliest and strongest memories was when she was separated from her mother at two and a half years old. “I still have shivers when I think about it,” Maria later testified. Born to Jewish parents in Bialystok in June 1941, Maria was only a few days old when the Germans invaded Soviet-occupied Poland. Her father was killed shortly after the invasion. While Maria and her mother, Bela, were forced into the Białystok ghetto, they later escaped and fled to a nearby town where they lived under false Christian identities. In spring 1944, the German occupiers rounded up and deported non-Jewish Polish civilians at random as a reprisal for anti-German activity in the area. Maria and Bela were walking down the street when her mother was suddenly grabbed by German authorities, as they believed she was a non-Jewish Polish woman. Maria cried out for her mother, but Bela pushed her away, hoping to protect her. All alone, Maria was left to wander the streets. She eventually sa...

Irene Meyer was born in Paderborn, Germany, on July 31, 1925. She was Jewish, the daughter of Henriette and Julius Meyer. She had a little sister, Ellen.  In 1942, Irene and her family were deported to the Terezín camp in Czechoslovakia. They were held there for two years. On October 9, 1944, the family was sent to Auschwitz. Irene’s parents and little sister were sent directly to the gas chamber after they arrived in the camp.  Irene, however, was selected for forced labor in the camp. She was only in Auschwitz for a short time, and soon she was sent to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. Once again, she was there for a short time. She was then sent to the Buchenwald camp, and from Buchenwald, she was sent to Bergen-Belsen.  Irene fell ill with typhus in Bergen-Belsen, but survived long enough to see the camp’s liberation on April 15, 1945. Irene, an orphan at age nineteen, was completely alone after liberation. She was extremely weak from her time in the camps, and neve...

American tank commander George Gross encountered “an outburst of pure, almost hysterical relief” from an abandoned trainload of Jewish prisoners found near Farsleben, Germany, at the end of the war.  #OnThisDay in 1945, two US Army units came across a train carrying 2,500 Jewish prisoners from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Nazi officers guarding the train fled when they saw American vehicles, leaving the passengers locked inside the train.  As American soldiers opened the doors, Gross remembered the prisoners looked like “skeletons.” They had been starved in Bergen-Belsen for months and spent days in the train with inadequate food, water, and sanitation. SS officers were transporting the prisoners from Bergen-Belsen to the Theresienstadt ghetto in occupied Czechoslovakia to prevent the prisoners from being liberated. The officers had orders to blow up the train if it could not reach its destination.  Upon encountering the train, one of George’s fellow soldiers cal...

Even with their lives on the line, these Jews stood up to the Nazis.  Nearly half a million Jews had been trapped inside the Warsaw ghetto since fall 1940, living and dying in terrible conditions. Over the following years, hundreds of thousands were sent to be killed. In the winter of 1943, sensing that the Nazis wanted to deport everyone left in the ghetto, Jewish resistance forces planned to fight back. #OnThisDay in 1943, their armed resistance against the Nazis began. Armed with pistols, homemade grenades, and a few automatic weapons, about 700 ghetto fighters—mostly young adults—held off Nazi forces for 27 days. The Nazis were shocked by the strength of their resistance. Eventually, Nazi forces took back control of the ghetto by burning it down block by block.  By the end of the uprising, more than 7,000 Jews had been killed. Nearly 50,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps and killing centers where most were killed. As the first large Jewish armed uprising during Worl...

After the Nazis killed most of their family, three surviving brothers formed a rescue and resistance group that welcomed Jewish refugees. Escaping to the swampy woods in German-occupied Poland (today Belarus), Tuvia, Asael, and Zus Bielski saved more than 1,200 Jews from the Germans. They not only preserved the lives of those hiding with them but created a community for Jews in the middle of war-torn Europe.  Tuvia was determined to accept and protect all Jews regardless of age or gender. Under his leadership, the community thrived. Workshops employed over 200 people, including tailors, carpenters, and blacksmiths. The partisan leaders also managed a primitive infirmary, a school for the children, and a synagogue. This vibrant Jewish forest community recreated a sense of belonging that the Nazis aimed to destroy.  The partisans also fought against the Germans by disabling trains and blowing up bridges, even as they were hunted by the Nazis and their collaborators. After the wa...

Jack and Sylvia Amar knew they would get married—the only question was when. They had agreed to wait until the Nazis left Greece and their lives returned to normal. But after learning they were slated for deportation, their plans changed. They would get married in the ghetto in Thessaloniki. Though the ceremony wasn’t what they envisioned, Jack and Sylvia hoped their marriage would prevent them from being separated. Their hopes were shattered when they arrived at Auschwitz. Jack was sent with the men, and Sylvia was sent with the women.  The first time Jack and Sylvia saw each other through the camp fence, they both broke down into tears. Miraculously, they both survived. They found each other after the war and eventually started a new life together in the United States. Photo: USHMM, courtesy of Meryl Menashe #Holocaust #History