SHOAH IN TOWNS AND VILLAGES (SHTETLS)






One of the ghetto shacks in Wadowice (near Krakow), Poland, 1941;
The Ghetto in Wadowice (the home town of Pope John Paul II)
was liquidated in July 1943 when approximately 1,600 Jews were sent to Auschwitz.





The arrival of Jews at the Terezin (Theresienstadt) Ghetto, near Prague, 1942.





Jewish inmates at the Terezin camp, 1943.





This note is part of a complete set of so-called "Ghetto Money" issued in summer 1944 for 'use' within the camp Terezin, even though it bought absolutely nothing.



An entire internal banking system was instituted, including a "bank building," in preparation for the June 24, 1944 'inspection' by the International Red Cross of the Terezin camp.

I was a prisoner there then and have written and lectured widely about this "inspection."

Beginning in June, we were suddenly issued varying amounts of this Ghetto money in payment for the slave labor work we performed. There were store fronts established within the camp which offered nothing. They displayed some of the clothing which had been confiscated from arriving prisoners. But they sold nothing. One "food stuffs" ("Lebensmittel") store did allow us to purchase mustard with this money, but none I knew bothered to buy that. We had no food where such a spice could be used.

After the end of WW2, American soldiers found this "Ghetto Money" extremely attractive and purchased it from surviving prisoners for cigarettes or soap. That is how several of these bills arrived in the Free World and now appear in collections.

Charlotte Guthmann Opfermann




A Jewish child in the Terezin Ghetto, 1942;
A total of around 15,000 children under the age of 15 passed through Terezin,
of these around 100 came back.

(This picture and its caption, as above, come from Martin Gilbert's book "The Holocaust - The Jewish Tragedy".
Professor Gabriele Silten claims, however, that this picture is of a Gypsy girl being put on a train to be deported to "the East" from the Westerbork concentration camp in the Netherlands.)





The eastbound deportation of 995 Jewish inhabitants of the German town of Würtzburg on April 25, 1942.
They would be transfered to the transit camps in Trawniki and Izbica and eventually to the death camp in Belzec in Nazi occupied Poland.






Wilno (Vilna)/Vilnius, Poland (now Lithuania),
Ghetto, Julian Klaczko Street, 1941.





Wilno (Vilna)/Vilnius, Lithuania,
Jews being marched to Ponary for immediate execution, 1942/1943
(drawing by Fajwel Segal).
Ponary/Poneriai was the area of wooded hills on the outskirts of Wilno/Vilnius,
where in 1941-1944 60,000 to 70,000 Jews from Wilno were executed by the Germans
and the collaborating Lithuanian units.





Ponary near Wilno (Vilna)/Vilnius, Lithuania,
Jewish victims of execution before the mass burial, 1943.





Lvov, Poland (now Ukraine), Ghetto established in late 1941 with 106,000 people.





The Lvov Ghetto, Spring of 1942.





Kaunas/Kovno, Lithuania. Jews inside the Ninth Fort,
immediately after their arrival there and prior to their execution.





Kaunas/Kovno, Lithuania. The Ninth Fort,
where tens of thousands (more than 40,000) Jews from Kovno
and elsewhere in Europe were murdered between 1941 and 1944.





Kaunas/Kovno, Lithuania. The completely destroyed Ghetto, 1944
In July 1944, the Germans blew up and burned down this Ghetto
in search of Jews in hiding there.





Tormenting the Jews, Minsk Mazowiecki, Nazi occupied Poland, 1942.



German soldiers tormenting Jews, Olkusz, southern Poland, July 31, 1940.





Jews of Bialystok herded by German soldiers for deportation in the "action",
Bialystok, eastern Poland, August 16, 1943.
(Picture secretly taken by a Pole from a rooftop; courtesy Ada Holzman.)





Shortly before deporting the 7,000 Jews of Lukow, Poland,
to their death in Treblinka, 1943.



Transport of Jews bound for Treblinka, Siedlce, Poland, August 22, 1942.



Germans herding the Jews of Miedzyrzec, Poland,
prior to deporting them to the death camp in Majdanek, May 1943.



Germans deporting Jewish women and children of Miedzyrzec, Poland,
to the death camp in Majdanek, May 1943.



Deportation of Jews from Plonsk, a town 50 miles northwest of Warsaw, Poland, 1942
Jews carry some meagre personal belongings and are escorted by Jewish policemen.



Deportation of Jews from Drohobycz, south-eastern Poland, 1942.
(Mr. L. Biedka noticed that this picture most probably shows not Drohobycz,
but Przemysl, in front of the Temple Synagogue)



The Tempel Synagogue in Przemysl, after 1890.
Burned by the Germans in September 1939, and demolished by them in 1942.



Refugees crossing the bridge over the San River in Przemysl
on their way back from the Soviet occupied Polish territory, September 1939.



Scenes from Lublin Ghetto, Poland, 1940-1941.




Scenes from Lublin Ghetto, Poland, 1940-1941.




Scenes from Lublin Ghetto, Poland, 1940-1941.




Scenes from Lublin Ghetto, Poland, 1940-1941.




Jews from Lublin ghetto being hustled to the trains
to be deported to Sobibor death camp, Poland, 1942.



The last journey of Jews from Lublin, Poland, 1942.




Krakow Jews forced to move to the Ghetto in the southern suburb of Podgorze.



Krakow Jews marched to the Ghetto.



Krakow Jews deported to the Ghetto.



German soldiers check the ID of a Jew in the Krakow Ghetto.



Krakow, Poland.



A transport of Jews on their way to Auschwitz death camp.



Jewish women being led through the woods to the gassing van.



Jews ordered on to the balcony of their courtyard
before being taken away for execution.






THE SLAUGHTER





Lithuanians beat Jews to death under German eyes.
Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, late June 1941.



A young Jewish mother and her two children sit among a large group of Jews
from Lubny (Ukraine) herded for mass execution on October 16, 1941.



Ivangorod, Ukraine, 1942.



A Latvian guard strikes the Jews during a roundup in Riga, Latvia, summer 1941.





Jewish women forced to undress before their execution
on the Skede Beach in Libau (Liepaja), Latvia, 15-16 December, 1941.

The execution of Jewish women on the Skede Beach in Libau (Liepaja),
Latvia, 15-16 December, 1941.



Jewish women and children forced to undress
before their execution in a ravine, Mizocs, Volhynia, Ukraine.



Two Germans finish off the women in a ravine
after the initial shooting, Mizocs, Volhynia, Ukraine.



An execution of Jews in Nazi occupied Ukraine.



A member of Einsatzgruppe D prepares to shoot a Ukrainian Jew
kneeling on the edge of a mass grave filled with the bodies of previous victims.
German soldiers of the Waffen-SS and the Reich Labor Service look on.



The mass execution site in the Babi Yar ravine, near Kiev, Ukraine.



A sole survivor among corpses in a freight railcar
transporting Jews from Iassi to Calarasi, Rumania, summer 1941.






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Last update: June 21, 2003

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