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Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of #Auschwitz I, Auschwitz I, the main camp (''Stammlager'') in Oświęcim; #Auschwitz II-Birkenau, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, a concentration and extermination camp with gas chambers, #Auschwitz III, Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a Arbeitslager, labour camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben, and List of subcamps of Auschwitz, dozens of subcamps. The camps became a major site of the Nazis' final solution, Final Solution to the Jewish question. After Germany Causes of World War II#Invasion of Poland, initiated World War II by Invasion of Poland, invading Poland in September 1939, the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) converted Auschwitz I, an army barracks, into a prisoner-of-war camp. The initial transpo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazi Concentration Camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (), including subcamp (SS), subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Following the Night of Long Knives, 1934 purge of the Sturmabteilung, SA, the concentration camps were run exclusively by the Schutzstaffel, SS via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Initially, most prisoners were members of the Communist Party of Germany, but as time went on different groups were arrested, including "habitual criminals", "Black triangle (badge), asocials", and Jews. After the beginning of World War II, people from German-occupied Europe were imprisoned in the concentration camps. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps, of whom about Holocaust victims, a million died during their imprisonment. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritz Löhner-Beda
Fritz Löhner-Beda (24 June 1883 – 4 December 1942), born Bedřich Löwy, was an Austrian librettist, lyricist and writer. Once nearly forgotten, many of his songs and tunes remain popular today. He was murdered in Auschwitz III Monowitz concentration camp. Life Löhner-Beda was born Bedřich Löwy in Wildenschwert, Bohemia (present-day Ústí nad Orlicí, Czech Republic) in 1883. In 1888, his family moved to Vienna, and in 1896 changed their surname to the less Jewish surname Löhner. Having passed his Matura exams, he began the study of law at the University of Vienna, where he became a member of the Jewish Kadimah student association. After he had obtained his doctorate, he worked as a lawyer from 1908 onwards. A dedicated football player, he was among the founders of the Hakoah Vienna sports club in 1909. In 1910, Löhner-Beda decided upon a career as an author. He wrote numerous light satires, sketches, poems, and lyrics but also contributed to several newspape ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Man's Search For Meaning
''Man's Search for Meaning'' () is a 1946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and describing his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose to each person's life through one of three ways: the completion of tasks, caring for another person, or finding meaning by facing suffering with dignity. Frankl observed that among the fellow inmates in the concentration camp, those who survived were able to connect with a purpose in life to feel positive about and who then immersed themselves in imagining that purpose in their own way, such as conversing with an (imagined) loved one. According to Frankl, the way a prisoner imagined the future affected his longevity. The book intends to answer the question "How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?" Part One constitutes Frankl's analysis of his experiences in the concentration camps, while Part ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Władysław Bartoszewski
Władysław Bartoszewski (; 19 February 1922 – 24 April 2015) was a Polish politician, social activist, journalist, writer and historian. A former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner, he was a World War II resistance fighter as part of the Polish underground and participated in the Warsaw Uprising. After the war he was persecuted and imprisoned by the communist Polish People's Republic due to his membership in the Home Army (''Armia Krajowa'', AK) and opposition activity. After the collapse of the communist regime, Bartoszewski served twice as the Minister of Foreign Affairs from March through December 1995 and again from 2000 to 2001. He was also an ambassador and a member of the Polish Senate. Bartoszewski was a close ally and friend of Polish anti-Communist activist and later president Lech Wałęsa. Bartoszewski was a chevalier of the Order of the White Eagle, an honorary citizen of Israel, and a member of the International Honorary Council of the European Academ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eddie Jaku
Edward Jaku (born Abraham Salomon Jakubowicz; 14 April 1920 – 12 October 2021) was a survivor of several German concentration camps during World War II, who wrote of his wartime experiences after emigrating to Australia. His memoir, called ''The Happiest Man on Earth'', was published when he was 100 years old. It became an immediate best seller. Eddie had a sister Johanna (Henni) who also survived the Holocaust, and he changed his name to Edward (Eddie) as a tribute to his sister, who called him Eddie as an affectionate nickname. Biography Jaku recounts that as a boy in Leipzig, Germany, he truly believed that he was part of "the most enlightened, the most cultured, the most sophisticated society in the whole world". His outlook changed following the rise of the Nazis, when he was initially expelled from his school for being Jewish. His father organised an alias for him with false ID papers, and he was sent to an engineering college far away from Leipzig for his own safety. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Else Ury
Else Ury (1 November 1877 – 13 January 1943) was a German-Jewish novelist and children's book author. Her best-known character is the blonde doctor's daughter Annemarie Braun, whose life from childhood to old age is told in the ten volumes of the highly successful ''Nesthäkchen'' series. The books, the six-part TV series ''Nesthäkchen'' (1983), based on the first three volumes, as well as the new DVD edition (2005) caught the attention of millions of readers and viewers. During Ury's lifetime ''Nesthäkchen und der Weltkrieg'' (''Nesthäkchen and the World War''), the fourth volume, was the most popular. Else Ury was a member of the German ''Bürgertum'' (middle class). She was pulled between patriotic German citizenship and Jewish cultural heritage. This situation is reflected in her writings, although the ''Nesthäkchen'' books make no references to Judaism. In 1943, Else Ury was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where she was murdered upon her arrival. Life Else U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elie Wiesel
Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates#1980, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored Elie Wiesel bibliography, 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including ''Night (memoir), Night'', which is based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz concentration camp, Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camp, Buchenwald during the Holocaust. As a political activist, Wiesel became a regular speaker on the subject of the Holocaust and remained a strong defender of human rights during his lifetime, advocating for justice in numerous causes around the globe, including that of Refusenik, Soviet Jews and Beta Israel, Ethiopian Jews, Apartheid, South African apartheid, the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, the War in Darfur, the Kurdish independence movement, the Armenian genocide, Argentina's Enforced disappearance#Argentina, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfréd Wetzler
Alfréd Israel Wetzler (10 May 1918 – 8 February 1988), who wrote under the alias Jozef Lánik, was a Slovak Jewish writer. He is known for escaping from Auschwitz concentration camp and co-writing the Vrba-Wetzler Report, which helped halt the deportation of Jews from Hungary, saving up to 200,000 lives. Background Wetzler was born in Nagyszombat, Austria-Hungary (now Trnava, Slovakia). After his birthplace became part of Czechoslovakia, he was a worker in Trnava during the period 1936–1940. He was sent to the Birkenau (Auschwitz II) camp in 1942 and escaped from it with Rudolf Vrba on 10 April 1944. Together with Rudolf Vrba he wrote up the story of his experiences in Slovak as ''Auschwitz, Tomb of Four Million People'', a factual account of the Wetzler–Vrba report and of other witnesses. The document combined the material from the Vrba–Wetzler report and two others, which were submitted together in evidence at the Nuremberg Trials as document no. 022-L, exhibit no. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudolf Vrba
Rudolf Vrba (born Walter Rosenberg; 11 September 1924 – 27 March 2006) was a Slovak-Jewish biochemist who, as a teenager in 1942, was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), German-occupied Poland. He escaped from the camp in April 1944, at the height of the Holocaust, and co-wrote the Vrba-Wetzler report, a detailed report about the mass murder taking place there. The report, distributed by George Mantello in Switzerland, is credited with having halted the mass deportation of Hungary's Jews to Auschwitz in July 1944, saving more than 200,000 lives. After the war, Vrba trained as a biochemist, working mostly in England and Canada. Vrba and his fellow escapee Alfréd Wetzler fled Auschwitz three weeks after German forces Hungary during World War II, invaded Hungary and shortly before the Schutzstaffel, SS began mass deportations of Hungary's Jewish population to the camp. The information the men dictated to Jewish officials when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simone Veil
Simone Veil (; ; 13 July 1927 – 30 June 2017) was a French magistrate, Holocaust survivor, and politician who served as health minister in several governments and was President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, the first woman to hold that office. As health minister, she is best remembered for advancing women's rights in France, in particular for the 1975 law that legalized abortion, today known as the '' Veil Act'' (). From 1998 to 2007, she was a member of the Constitutional Council, France's highest legal authority. A Holocaust survivor of both Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen, she was a firm believer in European integration as a way of guaranteeing peace. She served as president of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah from 2000 to 2007, and then as its honorary president. Among many honours, she was made a British honorary dame in 1998, was elected to the Académie Française in 2008, and in 2012 received the grand cross of the Légion d’honn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edith Stein
Edith Stein (; ; in religion Teresa Benedicta of the Cross; 12 October 1891 – 9 August 1942) was a German philosopher who converted to Catholic Church, Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelites, Discalced Carmelite nun. Edith Stein was murdered in the gas chamber at the concentration camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau on 9 August 1942, and is canonized as a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church; she is also one of six Symbols of Europe#Patron saints, patron saints of Europe. Stein was born into an observant German Jewish family, but had become an agnostic by her teenage years. Moved by the tragedies of World War I, in 1915, she took lessons to become a nursing assistant and worked in an infectious diseases hospital. After completing her doctoral thesis at the University of Freiburg in 1916, she obtained an assistantship to Edmund Husserl there. From reading the life of the reformer of the Carmelites, Teresa of Ávila, Stein was drawn to the Christian faith. She was baptized on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liliana Segre
Liliana Segre (; born 10 September 1930) is an Italian Holocaust survivor, named List of senators for life in Italy, senator for life by President Sergio Mattarella in 2018 for outstanding patriotic merits in the social field. Born in 1930 into a Milanese family of Jewish origins, in 1938 Segre was expelled from her primary school after the promulgation of the Italian Racial Laws. In 1943, she was arrested with her family and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. The only survivor among her relatives, with the end of the World War II in 1945, she returned to Milan. After decades of silence, in the 1990s she started to speak to the public, especially young students, about her experience. Biography Born in Milan into a family of Jewish origins, Segre lived with her father Alberto and her paternal grandparents, Giuseppe Segre and Olga Loevvy. Her mother, Lucia Foligno, died when Liliana was not yet one year old. Her family was secular, and the awareness of being Jewish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
