US Holocaust Museum Profile picture
Aug 19, 2022 9 tweets 4 min read Read on X
1/9 The Museum is frequently asked how the photographs in our collections survived the Holocaust. This #WorldPhotographyDay, explore how photos were saved in different and sometimes miraculous ways. A thread: Collage of black and white photographs
2/9 Sophie Rakowski kept these photos of her sons, Sam and Israel, in her shoe while imprisoned in forced labor and concentration camps. Sophie and Sam survived. Israel did not. Portrait of Sam RakowskiPortrait of Israel Rakowski
3/9 George Kadish secretly photographed the Kovno (Kaunas) ghetto, sometimes even snapping pictures through the buttonhole of his overcoat. He hid the negatives, which he recovered after the war.📷: George Kadish/Zvi Kadushin A black and white photo of a pair of boots left behind in th
4/9 Niusia Gordon kept this photograph of her parents, Basia and Moshe, while living in hiding under a false identity. They did not survive. Prewar studio portrait of Basia and Moshe Gordon
5/9 Wilhelm and Johanna Schischa saved their daughter Lilli’s life by sending her to England. They mailed photos of themselves in the Opole ghetto to relatives in Vienna before they were killed. Lilli received the photos after the war. Wilhelm and Johanna Schischa pose next to a tree wearing arm
6/9 Magdalena Mermelstein’s Christian neighbors saved her family’s photos, which she recovered after surviving Auschwitz. She was the only member of her immediate family to survive. Portrait of the Mermelstein family
7/9 After the war, survivor Regina Laks was able to recover copies of her family photos that had been sent to friends in Palestine. Her parents, Issac and Pola, were both killed. Portrait of the Laks family
8/9 Photographer Mendel Grossman took thousands of illegal photos in the Łódź ghetto. Most of the approximately 10,000 negatives he hid were retrieved by friends and his sister after the war. Mendel did not survive.📷: Beit Lohamei Haghetaot A man and a child eat soup in the Łódź ghetto
9/9 Rosa Liebermann hid this photo of her son, Alex, in her mouth during selections at Auschwitz and Ravensbrück. Alex did not survive the Holocaust. Close-up portrait of Alex Liebermann

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with US Holocaust Museum

US Holocaust Museum Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @HolocaustMuseum

Jun 20, 2023
1/10 During the Holocaust, European Jews cried out to the world for help, desperate to escape Nazi persecution. Without legal protection, their lives hung in the balance. Some were granted refuge in foreign countries. Most found nowhere to turn. #WorldRefugeeDay The Spanier twins, Ines and...
2/10 When thousands of Polish Jewish refugees arrived in Kobe, Japan, in 1940–41, the small Jewish community there coordinated a massive refugee relief effort. Norbert Swislocki, his pare...
3/10 A group of Polish Jewish children, mainly orphans, found temporary refuge in the Soviet Union. About 1,000 of them were later evacuated to Tehran, Iran. Members of the Teheran chil...
Read 10 tweets
Jun 1, 2023
1/5 Josef Kohout, 24, was young and in love. When he sent a Christmas card to his boyfriend in 1938, he had no idea that it would end up in the hands of the Vienna Gestapo and he would be arrested months later. #PrideMonth Image
2/5 Josef spent six years in prisons and concentration camps. He was one of 5,000–15,000 men sent to concentration camps for allegedly having sexual relations with other men. encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/art…
3/5 In 1972, the book “The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story” about Josef's experiences during the Nazi era was published by Heinz Heger, a pseudonym. Josef was not named to protect him from the ongoing discrimination against gay people during that time. Image
Read 5 tweets
Jan 24, 2022
1/ Making reckless comparisons to the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews, for a political agenda is outrageous and deeply offensive. Those who carelessly invoke Anne Frank, the star badge, and the Nuremberg Trials exploit history and the consequences of hate.
2/ Anne Frank was one of the 1.5 million children who died during the Holocaust. Her diary and tragic story is the first encounter many people have with the Holocaust. encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/art…
3/ Nazi officials used the Jewish badge to mark, segregate, and humiliate Jews as a prelude to deporting them to ghettos and killing centers. The badge was seen as a key element in their plan to persecute and destroy the Jewish population of Europe. encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/art…
Read 5 tweets
Jun 27, 2020
Karl Gorath was just 26 when his jealous lover denounced him as a gay man. He spent years in the concentration camp system until he was liberated from Auschwitz in 1945. But after liberation, he faced another set of difficulties. 1/5 #PrideMonth #Pride2020
West Germany used the Nazi version of Paragraph 175, the law criminalizing homosexuality, for decades after the war. Under that law, Karl was arrested again in the 1950s. 2/5 #PrideMonth #Pride2020
At his trial, Karl realized that he recognized the judge. The judge sentencing him to jail that day was the same man who had sent him to a concentration camp in the 1930s, for the same "crime." 3/5 #PrideMonth #Pride2020
Read 5 tweets
Feb 7, 2020
Josephine Baker was at the peak of her fame in 1939—she had risen from a teenage vaudeville performer in America to the brightest star in Paris. But then, the Nazi regime began its stranglehold on Europe, and with it came the offer that changed her life. #BlackHistoryMonth (1/7)
A French intelligence officer, Jacques Abtey, visited Josephine and asked her to become part of his network. “The Parisians gave me their hearts,” she responded, “and I am ready to give them my life.” (2/7)
She attended events at the Italian and Japanese embassies and parties among Paris’s elite, all the while eavesdropping and looking for connections between people. She even took notes on her arms and hands, risking discovery, to make sure she remembered everything. (3/7)
Read 7 tweets
Jun 14, 2019
Pierre Seel’s mother made this small memento out of a toy and her wedding veil while her son was imprisoned. In 1941, Pierre was arrested, tortured, and sent to a concentration camp in Alsace, France, for being a gay man. 1/5 Image
His six-month imprisonment in the Schirmeck-Vorbrüch camp was one of hunger, hard labor, and brutal beatings. On one occasion, he was forced to watch as the SS used their dogs to kill Jo, his teenage sweetheart. 2/5
For the rest of Pierre’s life, he carried physical and emotional wounds that never healed. After he returned home, the only person in his family who was willing to hear about his time in the camp was his mother. 3/5
Read 5 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(