|
Rudolf Reder
Rudolf Reder a.k.a. Roman Robak (April 4, 1881 – October 6, 1977) was one of only two Holocaust survivors of the Bełżec extermination camp who testified about his experience after the war. He submitted a deposition to the Main Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in January 1946 in Kraków. In terms of the number of Polish Jews who perished in its gas chambers, Bełżec had the third highest death toll among the six Nazi death camps located in occupied Poland, estimated between 500,000 and 600,000 men, women and children. Only Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka had a higher victim count. The postwar testimony of Reder was of special significance, because Chaim Hirszman, who also survived Bełżec, joined the new communist militia in Stalinist Poland tasked with the crushing of Polish underground, torture, makeshift executions, and mass deportation to Siberia of over 50,000 political ''undesirables''. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dębica
Dębica (; yi, דעמביץ ''Dembitz'') is a town in southeastern Poland with 44,692 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is the capital of Dębica County. Since 1999 it has been situated in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it had previously been in the Tarnów Voivodeship (1975–1998). Dębica belongs to the historic province of Lesser Poland, and for centuries it was part of the Sandomierz Voivodeship. Area and location According to the 2006 data, Dębica's area is . Arable land makes 42% of the area of the town, while forests make 19%. Dębica is the seat of the county, and the town covers 4.34% of the county's area. Dębica lies at the border of two geographical regions of Poland - the Carpathian Piedmont in southern districts of the town, and the Sandomierz Basin in its north, along the Wisłoka river. Economy Since the mid-1930s Dębica, despite its size, has been a large industrial hub. A number of companies were then created thanks to governmental industry development prog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Austrian Partition
The Austrian Partition ( pl, zabór austriacki) comprise the former territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth acquired by the Habsburg monarchy during the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. The three partition (politics), partitions were conducted jointly by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Austria-Hungary, Habsburg Austria, resulting in the complete Annexation, elimination of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, Polish Crown. Austria acquired Polish lands during the First Partition of Poland, First Partition of 1772, and Third Partition of Poland in 1795. In the end, the Austrian sector encompassed the second-largest share of the Commonwealth's population after Russia; over 2.65 million people living on 128,900 km2 (49,800 sq mi) of land constituting formerly south-central part of the Republic. History The territories acquired by Austrian Empire (later the Austro-Hungarian Empire) during the First Partition of Poland, First Partition inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerstein Report
The Gerstein Report was written in 1945 by Kurt Gerstein, ''Obersturmführer'' of the ''Waffen-SS'', who served as Head of Technical Disinfection Services of the SS in World War II and in that capacity supplied the hydrogen cyanide-based pesticide Zyklon B from Degesch (''Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung'') to Rudolf Höss in Auschwitz and conducted the negotiations with the owners. On 18 August 1942, along with Rolf Günther and Wilhelm Pfannenstiel, Gerstein witnessed the gassing of some 3,000 Jews in the extermination camp of Belzec in occupied Poland. The report features his eyewitness testimony. It was used as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials. When Gerstein surrendered to the French Commandant in the occupied town of Reutlingen on 22 April 1945, he was sent to the town of Rottweil where he was placed under "honorable captivity" and given accommodation in the Hotel Mohren. There he composed his report, first in French and then in German. Personal details ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Wirth
), Christian the CruelZenter, Christian and Bedürftig, Friedemann (1991). '' Encyclopedia of the Third Reich'' (pg. 1053), New York: Macmillan; , allegiance = , branch = Schutzstaffel , serviceyears = , rank = Sturmbannführer (Major) , servicenumber = NSDAP #420,383 SS #354,464 , unit = SS-Totenkopfverbände , commands = Action T4Inspector of Operation Reinhard camps Bełżec, December 1941 — end of August 1942 , awards = Christian Wirth (; 24 November 1885 – 26 May 1944) was a German SS officer and leading Holocaust perpetrator who was one of the primary architects of the program to exterminate the Jewish people of Poland, known as Operation Reinhard. His nicknames included Christian the Cruel (german: Christian der Grausame), Stuka, and The Wild Christian due to the extremity of his behaviour among the SS and Trawniki guards and to the camp inmates and victims. Wirth worked within the Action T4 program, in which people with disabilities were murdere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurt Gerstein
Kurt Gerstein (11 August 1905 – 25 July 1945) was a German SS officer and head of technical disinfection services of the ''Hygiene-Institut der Waffen-SS'' (Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS). After witnessing mass murders in the Belzec and Treblinka Nazi extermination camps, Gerstein gave a detailed report to Swedish diplomat Göran von Otter, as well as to Swiss diplomats, members of the Roman Catholic Church with contacts to Pope Pius XII, and to the Dutch government-in-exile, in an effort to inform the international community about the Holocaust as it was happening. In 1945, following his surrender, he wrote the ''Gerstein Report'' covering his experience of the Holocaust. He died of an alleged suicide while in French custody. Biography Kurt Gerstein was born in Münster, Westphalia on 11 August 1905, the sixth of seven children in a Prussian middle-class family, described as strongly chauvinistic and "totally compliant to authority". His father, Ludwig, a former Pru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jan Matejko Academy Of Fine Arts
The Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków ( pl, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych im. Jana Matejki w Krakowie, usually abbreviated to ''ASP''), is a public institution of higher education located in the centre of Kraków, Poland. It is the oldest Polish fine art academy, established in 1818 and granted full autonomy in 1873. ASP is a state-run university that offers 5- and 6-year Master's degree programmes. As of 2007, the Academy's faculty comprised 94 professors and assistant professors as well as 147 Ph.D.s. History The Academy of Fine Arts (ASP) was originally a subdivision of the Jagiellonian University's Department of Literature and was initially (1818–1873) called the School of Drawing and Painting (''Szkoła Rysunku i Malarstwa''). Among its original teachers were Polish Neoclassicist Antoni Brodowski, and Franciszek Ksawery Lampi, a world-renowned landscape and portrait artist in Congress Poland whose most notable students there were Wojciech Korneli Stattler (a teacher of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Bau
Joseph Bau ( he, יוסף באו; 13 June 1920 – 24 May 2002) was a Polish-born Israeli artist, philosopher, inventor, animator, comedian, commercial creator, copy-writer, poet, and survivor of the Płaszów concentration camp. Life Bau was trained as a graphic artist at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, Poland. His education was interrupted by World War II and he was transferred to the Płaszów concentration camp in late 1942 from the Kraków Ghetto. Having a talent in gothic lettering, he was employed in the camp for making signs and maps for the Germans. While in Płaszów, Bau created a miniature, the size of his hand, illustrated book with his own poetry. He also forged documents and identity papers for people who managed to escape from the camp. During his imprisonment, Bau fell in love with another inmate, Rebecca Tennenbaum. They were secretly married, despite the prohibition by the Germans, in the women's barracks of Płaszów. This was dramatized ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Institute Of National Remembrance
The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state research institute in charge of education and archives with investigative and lustration powers. The IPN was established by the Polish parliament by the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance of 18 December 1998, which incorporated the earlier Main Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation of 1991. IPN itself had replaced a body on Nazi crimes established in 1945. In 2018, IPN's mission statement was amended by the controversial Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance to include "protecting the reputation of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Nation". The IPN investigates Nazi and Communist crimes committed between 1917 and 1990, documents its findings, and disseminates them to the public ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polish Righteous
The citizens of Poland have the world's highest count of individuals who have been recognized by Yad Vashem of Jerusalem as the Polish Righteous Among the Nations, for saving Jews from extermination during the Holocaust in World War II. There are Polish men and women recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, over a quarter of the recognized by Yad Vashem in total. The list of Righteous is not comprehensive and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Poles concealed and aided hundreds of thousands of their Polish-Jewish neighbors. Many of these initiatives were carried out by individuals, but there also existed organized networks of Polish resistance which were dedicated to aiding Jews – most notably, the ''Żegota'' organization. In German-occupied Poland, the task of rescuing Jews was difficult and dangerous. All household members were subject to capital punishment if a Jew was found concealed in their home or on their property. Activities Before World W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lviv
Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine. It was named in honour of Leo, the eldest son of Daniel, King of Ruthenia. Lviv emerged as the centre of the historical regions of Red Ruthenia and Galicia in the 14th century, superseding Halych, Chełm, Belz and Przemyśl. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia from 1272 to 1349, when it was conquered by King Casimir III the Great of Poland. From 1434, it was the regional capital of the Ruthenian Voivodeship in the Kingdom of Poland. In 1772, after the First Partition of Poland, the city became the capital of the Habsburg Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. In 1918, for a short time, it was the capital of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. Between the wars, the city was the centre of the Lwów Voivodeship in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonderkommando
''Sonderkommandos'' (, ''special unit'') were work units made up of German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed of prisoners, usually Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during the Holocaust. The death-camp ''Sonderkommandos'', who were always inmates, were unrelated to the ''SS-Sonderkommandos'', which were ''ad hoc'' units formed from members of various SS offices between 1938 and 1945. The German term was part of the vague and euphemistic language which the Nazis used to refer to aspects of the Final Solution (e.g., ''Einsatzkommando'', "deployment units"). Death factory workers ''Sonderkommando'' members did not participate directly in killing; that responsibility was reserved for the SS, while the ''Sonderkommandos'' primary duty was disposing of the corpses. In most cases, they were inducted immediately upon arrival at the camp and forced into the position under threat of death. They were not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lwów Ghetto
, location = Lwów, Zamarstynów(German-occupied Poland) , date = 8 November 1941 to June 1943 , incident_type = Imprisonment, mass shootings, forced labor, starvation, forced abortions and sterilization , perpetrators = , participants = , organizations = SS , camp = Belzec extermination camp Janowska concentration camp , ghetto = , victims = 120,000 Polish Jews , survivors = 823 , witnesses = , documentation = , memorials = , notes = The Lwów Ghetto (german: Ghetto Lemberg; pl, getto we Lwowie) was a Nazi ghetto in the city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) in the territory of Nazi-administered General Government in German-occupied Poland. The ghetto, set up in the second half of 1941, was liquidated in June 1943; all its inhabitants who survived prior killings were deported to the Bełżec extermination camp and the Janowska concentration camp. Background Lviv (Polish: Lwów) was a multicultural city j ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
