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Individuals And Groups Assisting Jews During The Holocaust
During World War II, some individuals and groups helped Jews and others escape the Holocaust conducted by Nazi Germany. The support, or at least absence of active opposition, of the local population was essential to Jews attempting to hide but often lacking in Eastern Europe. Those in hiding depended on the assistance of non-Jews. Having money, social connections with non-Jews, a non-Jewish appearance, perfect command of the local language, determination, and luck played a major role in determining survival. Jews in hiding were hunted down with the assistance of local collaborators and rewards offered for their denunciation. The death penalty was sometimes enforced on people hiding them, especially in eastern Europe, including Poland. Rescuers' motivations varied on a spectrum from altruism to expecting sex or material gain; it was not uncommon for helpers to betray or murder Jews if their money ran out. Jews were hidden or saved by non-Jews throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks in World War II, Tanks and Air warfare of World War II, aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflict in history, causing World War II casualties, the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Allied-occupied Germany, Germany, Allied-occupied Austria, Austria, Occupation of Japan, Japan, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet Union, it dissolved in 1991. During its existence, it was the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country by area, extending across Time in Russia, eleven time zones and sharing Geography of the Soviet Union#Borders and neighbors, borders with twelve countries, and the List of countries and dependencies by population, third-most populous country. An overall successor to the Russian Empire, it was nominally organized as a federal union of Republics of the Soviet Union, national republics, the largest and most populous of which was the Russian SFSR. In practice, Government of the Soviet Union, its government and Economy of the Soviet Union, economy were Soviet-type economic planning, highly centralized. As a one-party state go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is geographically divided among the Swiss Plateau, the Swiss Alps, Alps and the Jura Mountains, Jura; the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, whereas most of the country's Demographics of Switzerland, 9 million people are concentrated on the plateau, which hosts List of cities in Switzerland, its largest cities and economic centres, including Zurich, Geneva, and Lausanne. Switzerland is a federal republic composed of Cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons, with federal authorities based in Bern. It has four main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French, Italian and Romansh language, Romansh. Although most Swiss are German-speaking, national identity is fairly cohesive, being rooted in a common historical background, shared ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ładoś Group
Ładoś Group, Bernese Group ( or ''grupa Ładosia'', ) is a name given to a group of Polish diplomats and Jewish activists who during Second World War elaborated in Switzerland a system of illegal production of Latin American passports aimed at saving European Jews from the Holocaust. It is estimated that thanks to the action about 10,000 people were saved from being sent to German extermination camps. Composition of the group The group consisted of four diplomats from the Polish Legation in Bern, a representative of the RELICO Assistance Committee for the Jewish Victims of the War established by the World Jewish Congress and a representative of Agudat Israel. Five out of six members had Polish citizenship, while half of them were Jewish. The members of the Ładoś Group were: * Aleksander Ładoś (1891–1963), Polish Envoy in Bern in the years 1940–1945 * Abraham Silberschein (1881–1951), advocate, Zionist activist, pre-war deputy to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz
Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz (15 December 1886–1968), code name "Alinka" or "Alicja", was a leading figure in Warsaw’s underground resistance movement throughout the years of German occupation during World War II in Poland, co-founder of Żegota. As the well-connected wife of a former ambassador to Washington, she used her contacts with both the military and political leadership of the Polish Underground to materially influence the underground's policy of aiding Poland's Jewish population during the war. Early on, Krahelska-Filipowicz used her influence to persuade the Government in Exile, including members of the Delegatura and its military counterpart, the AK, of the importance of setting up a central organization to help Poland's Jews, and to back the policy with significant funding. Krahelska-Filipowicz also personally sheltered Jews in her own home early during the German occupation, regardless of the punishment announced by the Nazi German occupants of Poland f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zofia Kossak-Szczucka
Zofia Kossak-Szczucka ( (also Kossak-Szatkowska); 10 August 1889 – 9 April 1968) was a Polish writer and World War II resistance fighter. She co-founded two wartime Polish organizations: Front for the Rebirth of Poland and Żegota, set up to assist Polish Jews to escape the Holocaust. In 1943, she was arrested by the Germans and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, but survived the war. Biography Early life Zofia Kossak was the daughter of Tadeusz Kossak, who was the twin brother of painter Wojciech Kossak, and granddaughter of painter Juliusz Kossak. She married twice. In 1923, following the death of her first husband Stefan Szczucki in Lwiw, she settled in the village of Górki Wielkie in Cieszyn Silesia where in 1925 she married Zygmunt Szatkowski. Activism She was associated with the Czartak literary group, and wrote mainly for the Catholic press. Her best-known work from that period is ''The Blaze'', a memoir of the Russian Revolution of 1917. In 1936, she received the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jan Karski
Jan Karski (born Jan Kozielewski, 24 June 1914 – 13 July 2000) was a Polish soldier, Polish resistance movement in World War II, resistance-fighter, and diplomat during World War II. He is known for having acted as a courier in 1940–1943 to the Polish government-in-exile and to Poland's Allies of World War II, Western Allies about the situation in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), German-occupied Poland. He reported about the state of Poland, its many competing resistance factions, and also about Germany's destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and its operation of extermination camps on Polish soil that were murdering Jews, Poles, and others. Emigrating to the United States after the war, Karski completed a doctorate and taught for decades at Georgetown University in international relations and Polish history. He lived in Washington, D.C., until the end of his life. Karski did not speak publicly about his wartime missions until 1981 when he was invited as a speaker to a confere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Resistance Movement In Auschwitz
The organization of underground resistance movements in Auschwitz concentration camp began in the second half of 1940, shortly after the camp became operational in May that year. In September 1940 Witold Pilecki, a Polish army captain, arrived in the camp. Using the name Tomasz Serafiński (prisoner number 4859), Pilecki had allowed himself to be captured by Germans in a street round up ('' łapanka'') with the goal of having himself sent to Auschwitz to gather information and organize resistance inside. Under Pilecki's direction the Związek Organizacji Wojskowej (Union of Military Organization), ZOW, was formed. Background After the western part of the country was annexed by Nazi Germany during the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland, Oświęcim (Auschwitz) was located administratively in the German Province of Upper Silesia, '' Regierungsbezirk Kattowitz''. Auschwitz was first suggested as the location of a concentration camp for Polish nationals by '' SS-Oberführer'' Arpad W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armia Krajowa
The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the aftermath of the German and Soviet invasions in September 1939. Over the next two years, the Home Army absorbed most of the other Polish partisans and underground forces. Its allegiance was to the Polish government-in-exile in London, and it constituted the armed wing of what came to be known as the Polish Underground State. Estimates of the Home Army's 1944 strength range between 200,000 and 600,000. The latter number made the Home Army not only Poland's largest underground resistance movement but, along with Soviet and Yugoslav partisans, one of Europe's largest World War II underground movements. The Home Army sabotaged German transports bound for the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union, destroying German supplies and tying down subs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witold Pilecki
Witold Pilecki (; 13 May 190125 May 1948), known by the codenames ''Roman Jezierski'', ''Tomasz Serafiński'', ''Druh'' and ''Witold'', was a Polish World War II cavalry officer, intelligence agent, and resistance leader. As a youth, Pilecki joined Polish underground scouting; in the aftermath of World War I, he joined the Polish militia and, later, the Polish Army. He participated in the Polish–Soviet War, which ended in 1921. In 1939, he participated in the unsuccessful defense of Poland against the invasion by Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic, and the Soviet Union. Shortly afterward, he joined the Polish resistance, co-founding the Secret Polish Army resistance movement. In 1940, Pilecki volunteered to allow himself to be captured by the occupying Germans in order to infiltrate the Auschwitz concentration camp. At Auschwitz, he organized a resistance movement that eventually included hundreds of inmates, and he secretly drew up reports detailing German atrocities at t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Żegota
Żegota (, full codename: the "Konrad Żegota Committee"Yad Vashem Shoa Resource CenterZegota/ref>) was the Polish Council to Aid Jews with the Government Delegation for Poland (), an underground Polish resistance organization, and part of the Polish Underground State, active 1942–45 in German-occupied Poland. Żegota was the successor institution to the Provisional Committee to Aid Jews and was established specifically to save Jews. Poland was the only country in German-occupied Europe where such a government-established and -supported underground organization existed. Estimates of the number of Jews that Żegota provided aid to, and eventually saved, range from several thousands to tens of thousands. Operatives of Żegota worked in extreme circumstances – under threat of death by the Nazi forces. Origins The Council to Aid Jews, or ''Żegota'', was the continuation of an earlier aid organization, the Provisional Committee to Aid Jews (), that was founded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
