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15 Holocaust Sites, Museums and Memorials to Visit

Explore the harrowing events and effects of the holocaust through these important sites, museums and memorials around the world..

Harry Sherrin

21 sep 2021.

Between 1942 and 1945, the Nazis embarked upon the so-called ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’, a systematic program of extermination. In concentration camps across Europe, 6 million Jewish people were killed – around 78% of all Jews in occupied Europe.

The Holocaust was the most widespread and industrialised act of genocide the world has ever seen.

Today, that devastating moment in modern history is remembered in sites, museums and memorials across the globe. Here are 15 of the most significant, where visitors can learn more about the history of the Holocaust.

1. Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem in Jerusalem is a museum and a memorial of the Holocaust, in which over six million Jews, and at least five million from other ethnic groups, were murdered in an act of genocide perpetrated by the German National Socialist Party under Adolph Hitler .

Through exhibits including photographs, victims’ accounts, art installations and information panels, Yad Vashem offers a moving – and harrowing – account of the events of the Holocaust.

2. Anne Frank’s House

Anne Frank’s house was the site where German Jewish teenager and Holocaust victim Anne Frank , her family, the van Pels family and later a man called Fritz Pfeffer went into hiding from the Nazis during World War II. Tragically, the group’s whereabouts were betrayed to the Nazis and they were arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps. Anne Frank died in Bergen-Belsen in March 1945, but her diary was later discovered by her father and published to worldwide acclaim.

Anne Frank’s House is now a museum allowing visitors to see the moving bookcase, walk through the cramped secret annex and gain a true appreciation of the hardship this group endured in their fight for survival. The museum has collected and exhibits many original letters, photos and objects belonging to the Frank family as well as to the van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer. Anne Frank’s original diary is also on display.

3. United States Holocaust Museum

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC is dedicated to commemorating the Holocaust. Combining eyewitness testimony, displayed in films and documents, with over 900 artefacts including one of the railcars used to transport prisoners, the Holocaust Museum tells the story of this world event.

The museum also looks at the issue of genocide as a whole, displaying exhibitions about other atrocities around the world. On average, a tour of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum takes between 2 and 3 hours.

4. Auschwitz Concentration Camp

Auschwitz Birkenau was a concentration camp founded by the Nazis near the town of Oświęcim or ‘Auschwitz’ in Poland . It became the largest and most infamous camp of them all, central to Hitler’s campaign to exterminate the Jews. By the time Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet forces on 27 January 1945, the camp had claimed 1.3 million lives, the vast majority of whom were Jewish.

Auschwitz Museum is based at the original concentration camp site and offers visitors the chance to pass through the camp’s infamous arches bearing the chilling slogan of “Arbeit macht frei” or “Work will set you free”. Inside, visitors can tour Auschwitz Birkenau individually or in group tours.

5. The Holocaust Memorial - Berlin

The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin is an installation commemorating the genocide of the Jewish people perpetrated under Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. The Memorial is a monument to the six million European Jews who died in the Holocaust.

Made up of a vast dark granite maze and a subterranean information centre which has details about the victims, the memorial is a moving site.

6. Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was used by the Nazis between 1936 and 1945. Its primary function was for the imprisonment and execution – or extermination – of Jews and political dissidents, including many Dutch freedom fighters, Russian prisoners of war and even some political leaders from invaded countries.

Estimates put the number of Sachsenhausen casualties at between 30,000 and 35,000, many of whom were shot, hung or exterminated in a specially built room in its infirmary. Much of Sachsenhausen was destroyed during and after its liberation by Soviet and Polish troops on 22 April 1945, but was rebuilt as part of the project to turn it into a memorial and museum.

7. Warsaw Ghetto

The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the Nazis to forcibly house the city’s Jewish population, with up to 400,000 people confined here from October 1940. In 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising took place, a dramatic rebellion which occurred when the Nazis attempted to liquidate the ghetto and one which saw it razed to the ground.

Very little of the Warsaw Ghetto survives today. There are fragments of the original ghetto wall and several memorials including the Mila 18 monument where the uprising headquarters were located and an inscription where insurgent leader Mordechaj Anielewicz and the last of the uprising fighters perished. There is also the Warsaw Ghetto Fighters Monument and a monument at Umschlagplatz , the site from where Jews were transported to the death camps .

8. Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz

The Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz was the site of the infamous Wannsee Conference in which the Nazis planned how to carry out the “Final Solution”, the plan to murder the Jewish population of Eastern Europe.

Today, the site provides a moving memorial to the Holocaust as well as an in-depth history of the rise of the Nazi party, the growth of anti-Semitism and the atrocities committed against the Jews.

9. Dachau Concentration Camp

Dachau Concentration Camp was one of the first of many concentration camps set up by the Nazis to imprison and murder certain groups as part of their campaign of genocide.

Today, Dachau houses a memorial to those who suffered and perished under the Nazis. Visitors can tour the grounds and the remains of the camp and audio guides are available as are guided tours. There are several exhibitions detailing the history of the camp as well as a documentary shown at various times.

10. Jewish Museum - Berlin

The Jewish Museum in Berlin in Germany chronicles the history of German Jews over the course of two millennia. Housed in an incredibly modern building, the Berlin Jewish Museum displays historical objects, documents, photographs, multimedia presentations and even computer games relating to different periods of Jewish history and culture.

The exhibitions are arranged chronologically and cover various themes such as the living conditions of German Jews over the centuries, the role of Jewish women, tradition and change and the meaning of emancipation. The museum also looks at the issue of persecution, in particular during the Nazi era and the Holocaust, offering an insight into both the overall historical context and the lives of individual victims of the atrocities.

11. Theresienstadt Concentration Camp

Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in Terezin in the Czech Republic was a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. Theresienstadt was originally an 18th-century stronghold known as Terezin Fortress. It was taken over during the Nazi occupation of the then Czechoslovakia in World War Two. Some 30,000 prisoners died at the camp, despite Nazi attempts to portray it as a humane institution.

Today, Theresienstadt Concentration Camp is open to the public and includes a museum as well as the possibility of visiting the former ghetto.

12. Krakow Ghetto Wall

Krakow Ghetto Wall is a stark reminder of the Krakow Ghetto, established by German Nazi forces in March 1941 as part of their campaign to persecute the Jews. Much of the Jewish population had already been conscripted to carry out forced labour since 1939, when the Nazis occupied Poland. In 1942, Krakow Ghetto was closed and all of its inhabitants were sent to concentration camps.

Some inhabitants of Krakow Ghetto were saved during the War by Oskar Schindler, whose famous Schindler’s List was made into a film by Hollywood director, Stephen Spielberg. Now, the Ghetto Wall, flanked by a former ghetto home, is the last remaining wall of those which once bordered Krakow Ghetto. The Ghetto Wall bears a plaque commemorating Krakow Ghetto.

13. Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Mauthausen Concentration Camp or ’KZ Mauthausen’ was a vast Nazi concentration camp in northern Austria. First established in 1938, Mauthausen Concentration Camp was built through the slave labour of prisoners from another such camp, Dachau. Over 119,000 of the almost 200,000 prisoners at Mauthausen Concentration Camp had died there by the time it was liberated by American forces on 5 May 1945.

Today, Mauthausen Concentration Camp is open to the public, who can see the original camp and the terrible conditions to which prisoners were subjected. There is a visitor centre and many memorials to the different national, ethnic and religious groups who suffered at Mauthausen.

14. Burgkloster

The Burgkloster (Castle Monastery) in Lubeck is considered to be one of the most important medieval monasteries in Germany. Established in 1229, the Burgkloster served as a monastery until the Protestant Reformation, after which it was used as a poorhouse until the 19th century. Under the Third Reich, the Burgkloster was used as a Nazi prison, bearing witness to terrible atrocities, particularly against Jews and those who formed the resistance movement.

Today, the Burgkloster is a museum of Lubeck’s history. Visitors can tour the building as well as viewing exhibits on the history of Lubeck’s Jewish community and about Lubeck’s time as an important member of the Hanseatic League. This was a medieval trade block which controlled much of the North Sea and Baltic Sea.

15. Tolerence Center

The Tolerence Center is one branch of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum. A permanent exhibit operates at the Tolerance Center featuring the historical cultural and artistic heritage of the Litvaks, the Jewish community in Lithuania.

The displays include unique relics of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius and Jewish folk and professional art. The non-permanent exhibits, thematic events and projects are oriented toward themes including the cultural education of society, social dissemination of culture, unique cultural heritage and fundamental human rights.

Famous Holocaust Sites You can Visit Around The World

In this guide, we provide you with information on some of the most well-known sites of the Holocaust which you can visit today including:

• Auschwitz 1,2 and 3
• Anne Frank’s House

The Holocaust Memorial Berlin

• Schindler’s Factory

Warsaw Ghetto

The Holocaust is one of the most unfathomable events in human history. Many say that it can never truly be appreciated or understood until you see some of these sites for yourself. It is also important to further educate yourself on the atrocious which were allowed to happen during this time, and what better way to visit the places where they took place.

Probably the most famous site is Auschwitz near Krakow, Poland . Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration camps and multiple extermination camps; this may come as a surprise as many believe Auschwitz to be a singular camp.

In reality, “Auschwitz” was split into Auschwitz I, which was the building mainly holding political prisoners, and Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was a combination of a concentration camp and an extermination camp which held predominantly Jews, as well as homosexuals and gypsies.

A visit to Auschwitz can put things into perceptive. The sheer scale of the camp will act as a reminder as to how real and how terrible the Holocaust was. The long train track upon arrival and the outline of the building can bring on shivers. You can go on guided tours of Auschwitz, which are both harrowing and informative.

If you do decide to go with an organised tour, you will have with you an expert guide or survivor, all the information and personal uncovered stories you need to further your understanding of the atrocities that took place there – along with transport between the different parts of the camp as they are actually relatively far away from each other.

Parts of Auschwitz, such as a number of the infamous gas chambers, were destroyed by the Nazis upon learning they had lost the war. Other parts remain intact, such as the dormitories known as barracks and the wooden shelves where people slept and thousands of prisoners were held in small spaces. Other features include the clock towers, the trains, train track and prison cells.

Auschwitz is notorious for the long train track that leads into the site:

At Auschwitz Majdanek, a separate site, much less has been destroyed and supposedly, it can be functioning and operating ‘within a day.’ Visitors can see gas chambers, barracks, crematoriums and a huge mountain of ashes – all located within suburban Kravow (the site is overlooking flats and residential homes).

Auschwitz also features exhibitions which honour famous Jewish people as well as ones which display the actual inmate’s possessions, hair and millions of shoes – there is even a cabinet dedicated to prosthetic limbs taken from prisoners upon arrival in the camp.

Anne Frank’s House

In the heart of Amsterdam, Holland is Anne Frank’s house and her family lived in hiding during World War II to avoid persecution. Living with them there was a family called the van Pels and later, a man called Fritz Pfeffer joined the two families.

Anne Frank is famous for keeping a diary during her time in hiding, documenting her thoughts and feelings, which were at times surprisingly and endearingly optimistic.

Tragically, the group’s whereabouts were told to the Nazis and this betrayal resulted in their transfer to concentration camps. This sort of betrayal was very common in Nazi-occupied areas and unfortunately led to the death of so many Jews and other persecuted groups. Anne died in Belsen in 1945, just days after she found her sister Margo had died of disease, but her diary was discovered and published by her father, Otto, who survived the Holocaust.

Her house is now a museum which is hugely popular. Visitors are able to see the moving bookcase which they lived behind, walk through the cramped secret annex and see the conditions they lived in simply to survive. The museum has collected various objects and photographs which belonged to the Frank and van Pels family and the original of Anne Frank’s diary is on display to see.

The Holocaust Memorial, also known as the Memorial to the Murdered Jews, situated in Berlin is dedicated to commemorating the genocide of the Jewish people as directed by the Nazi Party.

It is presented with thousands of concrete slabs, over 6 feet high and positioned like dominos at different levels, to give perspective, turbulence and uncertainty. It is a place of contemplation, remembrance and also warning.

Schindler’s Factory

You can visit the site of Oskar Schindler’s factory where he employed Jews, offering them protection from the Nazi Party’s hunt. Schindler was a German Businessman living in Krakow, Poland.

This was not a hiding situation, the Nazis actually knew that he was employing Jews, but he had a good relationship with the SS and claimed he needed them because they cost less and their labour was “necessary for the German war effort”. As a result, thousands upon thousands of Jews which worked in his factory avoided being transported to extermination camps.

His former-factory has been turned into a museum open to the public. The museum is dedicated to educating people on the wartime experiences in Krakow under the five-year Nazi occupation during World War II.

In addition, parts of the museum are dedicated to Schindler and the workers he housed. The rest of the museum shows pre-war Krakow, the turn of the German invasion in 1939, Krakow under Nazi occupation. It also details everyday life of locals, family life as well as the resistance movement and it ends with the Soviet capture of the city.

In the Holy Land of Jerusalem, you will find Yad Vashem which translates to ‘the hand of God.’ It is a huge and very impressive museum which is a living tribute and memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, who did not receive a burial.

Yad Vashem aims to keep the conversation going. The exhibits feature photographic accounts written and spoken by victims, remains from survivors, art installations and information panels.

There is a side dedicated to children of the Holocaust which is complete darkness – highlighting that as children, we do not see things clearly.

The site is modern and shows very impressive architecture and creativity. There is also a very historical aspect to the centre, which is highly educational.

Warsaw in Poland was home to the largest and deadliest Nazi-cultivated Ghettos in Europe. Ghettos were segregated areas where Jewish people were forced to live when under Nazi occupation.  At its highest capacity, the Warsaw Ghetto housed an estimated 380,000 people, which works out to about 8 people per room.

Today, you can visit the site which is commemorated by “The Footbridge of Memory”, which was the bridge which linked the two smaller Ghettos together at the time.

Pictures of the victims are displayed on the buildings for you to see as you walk down the streets.

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Holocaust Matters is an interactive educational tool for anyone interested in the Holocaust including schools and those with a professional or personal research interest. It is run by the family of Holocaust survivor Dr Ernst Israel Bornstein to showcase excerpts of his memoir ‘The Long Night’ which tells of his miraculous survival from seven Nazi labour and death camps during World War II.

Users can explore and learn from the historical topics and universal themes within the book.

As well as being a historical source Ernst’s survival story has thrown up sensational new perspectives on the Holocaust and how history is remembered or forgotten to this day.

Without the words as his legacy his story would be lost.

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Although Ernst was never an inmate at the notorious Auschwitz camp he relays his fear of being sent there. His parents and two younger sisters perished at Auschwitz. The camp’s deadly reputation was well-known amongst inmates of other camps. Nearly one million Jews were murdered at Auschwitz along with tens of thousands of Poles, Roma and people of other nationalities.

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Zawiercie in southern Poland, was Ernst Bornstein’s hometown. On the eve of the WWII there were 7,000 Jews in Zawiercie – about a quarter of its residents. They made their living primarily from trade, crafts, the clothing industry and the metal industry. The city had a traditional “cheder” (religious primary school), a Talmud Torah, and a school and kindergarten.

Grünheide forced labour camp

Ernst was dragged from his family home on 25th March 1941 and sent to Grünheide camp in modern-day Sieroniowice, Poland. Nothing is thought to remain of the camp apart from a hidden memorial.

Markstädt was one of the largest Schmelt forced labor camps for Jews. Located 22 kilometers southeast of Wrocław (Breslau), it was established for Alfried Krupp’s artillery factory the “Bertha-Werk”.

Fünfteichen was the largest subcamp in the Gross Rosen system. Most of the prisoners worked for the Krupp Factory, manufacturing 75mm and 150mm cannons as well as torpedo launchers. Prisoner beatings by SS men were a daily occurrence. Many prisoners could not stand the conditions prevailing in camp and committed suicide.

Gross Rosen concentration camp was located in modern-day Rogoznica in Poland. At its peak activity in 1944, the Gross Rosen complex had up to 100 subcamps located in eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, and on the territory of occupied Poland. The population of all Gross Rosen camps at that time accounted for 11% of the total number of inmates incarcerated in the Nazi concentration camp system. There is now a museum on the site.

Flossenbürg Camp

Flossenbürg was a Nazi German concentration camp built in May 1938. Until its liberation in April 1945, more than 96,000 prisoners passed through the camp, around 30,000 of whom died there.

Leonberg Camp

From spring 1944 to April 1945 there was an outpost of the Natzweiler concentration camp run by the “SS” in Leonberg. Prisoners from 24 European countries, mainly from Poland, the USSR, France, Hungary, the Balkans and Germany were held captive in the shacks working almost exclusively for the Messerschmitt AG company making wings for the ME 262 jetfighter.

In mid-1944, the SS established the Mühldorf camp complex in Bavaria as a satellite system of the Dachau concentration camp to provide labour for an underground installation for the production of the Me-262 jet fighter.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Why the jews.

The Nazis persecuted many groups, but they aimed to kill all Jewish people.

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The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators. The Holocaust was an evolving process that took place throughout Europe between 1933 and 1945.

Antisemitism was at the foundation of the Holocaust. Antisemitism, the hatred of or prejudice against Jews, was a basic tenet of Nazi ideology. This prejudice was also widespread throughout Europe.

Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews evolved and became increasingly more radical between 1933 and 1945. This radicalization culminated in the mass murder of six million Jews.

During World War II, Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews using deadly living conditions, brutal mistreatment, mass shootings and gassings, and specially designed killing centers.

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The Holocaust (1933–1945) was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators. 1 In addition to perpetrating the Holocaust, Nazi Germany also persecuted and murdered millions of other victims .  

What was the Holocaust? 

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum defines the years of the Holocaust as 1933–1945. The Holocaust era began in January 1933 when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power in Germany. It ended in May 1945, when the Allied Powers defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. The Holocaust is also sometimes referred to as “the Shoah,” the Hebrew word for “catastrophe.”

By the end of the Holocaust, the Nazi German regime and their allies and collaborators had murdered six million European Jews. 

Why did the Nazis target Jews?

The Nazis targeted Jews because the Nazis were radically antisemitic. This means that they were prejudiced against and hated Jews. In fact, antisemitism was a basic tenet of their ideology and at the foundation of their worldview. 

The Nazis falsely accused Jews of causing Germany’s social, economic, political, and cultural problems. In particular, they blamed them for Germany’s defeat in World War I (1914–1918). Some Germans were receptive to these Nazi claims. Anger over the loss of the war and the economic and political crises that followed contributed to increasing antisemitism in German society. The instability of Germany under the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), the fear of communism , and the economic shocks of the Great Depression also made many Germans more open to Nazi ideas, including antisemitism.

However, the Nazis did not invent antisemitism. Antisemitism is an old and widespread prejudice that has taken many forms throughout history. In Europe, it dates back to ancient times. In the Middle Ages (500–1400), prejudices against Jews were primarily based in early Christian belief and thought, particularly the myth that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. Suspicion and discrimination rooted in religious prejudices continued in early modern Europe (1400–1800). At that time, leaders in much of Christian Europe isolated Jews from most aspects of economic, social, and political life. This exclusion contributed to stereotypes of Jews as outsiders. As Europe became more secular, many places lifted most legal restrictions on Jews. This, however, did not mean the end of antisemitism. In addition to religious antisemitism, other types of antisemitism took hold in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. These new forms included economic, nationalist, and racial antisemitism. In the 19th century, antisemites falsely claimed that Jews were responsible for many social and political ills in modern, industrial society. Theories of race, eugenics , and Social Darwinism falsely justified these hatreds. Nazi prejudice against Jews drew upon all of these elements, but especially racial antisemitism . Racial antisemitism is the discriminatory idea that Jews are a separate and inferior race. 

Where did the Holocaust take place?

The Holocaust was a Nazi German initiative that took place throughout German- and Axis-controlled Europe. It affected nearly all of Europe’s Jewish population, which in 1933 numbered 9 million people. 

The Holocaust began in Germany after Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933. Almost immediately, the Nazi German regime (which called itself the Third Reich ) excluded Jews from German economic, political, social, and cultural life. Throughout the 1930s, the regime increasingly pressured Jews to emigrate. 

But the Nazi persecution of Jews spread beyond Germany. Throughout the 1930s, Nazi Germany pursued an aggressive foreign policy . This culminated in World War II, which began in Europe in 1939. Prewar and wartime territorial expansion eventually brought millions more Jewish people under German control. 

Nazi Germany’s territorial expansion began in 1938–1939. During this time, Germany annexed neighboring Austria and the Sudetenland and occupied the Czech lands. On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany began World War II (1939–1945) by attacking Poland . Over the next two years, Germany invaded and occupied much of Europe, including western parts of the Soviet Union . Nazi Germany further extended its control by forming alliances with the governments of Italy , Hungary , Romania , and Bulgaria . It also created puppet states in Slovakia and Croatia. Together these countries made up the European members of the Axis alliance , which also included Japan. 

By 1942—as a result of annexations, invasions, occupations, and alliances—Nazi Germany controlled most of Europe and parts of North Africa. Nazi control brought harsh policies and ultimately mass murder to Jewish civilians across Europe. 

The Nazis and their allies and collaborators murdered six million Jews.

Geography of the Holocaust

How did Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators persecute Jewish people? 

Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators implemented a wide range of anti-Jewish policies and measures. These policies varied from place to place. Thus, not all Jews experienced the Holocaust in the same way. But in all instances, millions of people were persecuted simply because they were identified as Jewish. 

Throughout German-controlled and aligned territories, the persecution of Jews took a variety of forms:

• Legal discrimination in the form of antisemitic laws . These included the Nuremberg Race Laws and numerous other discriminatory laws.
• Various forms of public identification and exclusion. These included antisemitic propaganda , boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses , public humiliation , and obligatory markings (such as the Jewish star badge worn as an armband or on clothing). 
• Organized violence. The most notable example is Kristallnacht . There were also isolated incidents and other pogroms (violent riots).
• Physical Displacement. Perpetrators used forced emigration, resettlement, expulsion, deportation, and ghettoization to physically displace Jewish individuals and communities.
• Internment. Perpetrators interned Jews in overcrowded ghettos , concentration camps , and forced-labor camps, where many died from starvation, disease, and other inhumane conditions.
• Widespread theft and plunder. The confiscation of Jews’ property, personal belongings, and valuables was a key part of the Holocaust. 
• Forced labor . Jews had to perform forced labor in service of the Axis war effort or for the enrichment of Nazi organizations, the military, and/or private businesses. 

Many Jews died as a result of these policies. But before 1941, the systematic mass murder of all Jews was not Nazi policy. Beginning in 1941, however, Nazi leaders decided to implement the mass murder of Europe’s Jews. They referred to this plan as the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” 

What was the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”?

The Nazi “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” (“ Endlösung der Judenfrage ”) was the deliberate and systematic mass murder of European Jews. It was the last stage of the Holocaust and took place from 1941 to 1945. Though many Jews were killed before the "Final Solution" began, the vast majority of Jewish victims were murdered during this period.

Mass Shootings

The Nazi German regime perpetrated mass shootings of civilians on a scale never seen before. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, German units began to carry out mass shootings of local Jews. At first, these units targeted Jewish men of military age. But by August 1941, they had started massacring entire Jewish communities. These massacres were often conducted in broad daylight and in full view and earshot of local residents. 

Mass shooting operations took place in more than 1,500 cities, towns, and villages across eastern Europe. German units tasked with murdering the local Jewish population moved throughout the region committing horrific massacres. Typically, these units would enter a town and round up the Jewish civilians. They would then take the Jewish residents to the outskirts of the town. Next, they would force them to dig a mass grave or take them to mass graves prepared in advance. Finally, German forces and/or local auxiliary units would shoot all of the men, women, and children into these pits. Sometimes, these massacres involved the use of specially designed mobile gas vans. Perpetrators would use these vans to suffocate victims with carbon monoxide exhaust.

Germans also carried out mass shootings at killing sites in occupied eastern Europe. Typically these were located near large cities. These sites included Fort IX in Kovno (Kaunas), the Rumbula and Bikernieki Forests in Riga , and Maly Trostenets near Minsk . At these killing sites, Germans and local collaborators murdered tens of thousands of Jews from the Kovno, Riga, and Minsk ghettos. They also shot tens of thousands of German, Austrian, and Czech Jews at these killing sites. At Maly Trostenets, thousands of victims were also murdered in gas vans.

The German units that perpetrated the mass shootings in eastern Europe included Einsatzgruppen (special task forces of the SS and police), Order Police battalions, and Waffen-SS units. The German military ( Wehrmacht ) provided logistical support and manpower. Some Wehrmacht units also carried out massacres. In many places, local auxiliary units working with the SS and police participated in the mass shootings. These auxiliary units were made up of local civilian, military, and police officials.

As many as 2 million Jews were murdered in mass shootings or gas vans in territories seized from Soviet forces. 

Killing Centers

German authorities, with the help of their allies and collaborators, transported Jews from across Europe to these killing centers. They disguised their intentions by calling the transports to the killing centers “resettlement actions” or “evacuation transports.” In English, they are often referred to as “deportations.” Most of these deportations took place by train. In order to efficiently transport Jews to the killing centers, German authorities used the extensive European railroad system , as well as other means of transportation. In many cases the railcars on the trains were freight cars; in other instances they were passenger cars. 

The conditions on deportation transports were horrific. German and collaborating local authorities forced Jews of all ages into overcrowded railcars. They often had to stand, sometimes for days, until the train reached its destination. The perpetrators deprived them of food, water, bathrooms, heat, and medical care. Jews frequently died en route from the inhumane conditions.

The vast majority of Jews deported to killing centers were gassed almost immediately after their arrival. Some Jews whom German officials believed to be healthy and strong enough were selected for forced labor. 

My mother ran over to me and grabbed me by the shoulders, and she told me "Leibele, I'm not going to see you no more. Take care of your brother."  — Leo Schneiderman  describing arrival at Auschwitz, selection, and separation from his family

At all five killing centers, German officials forced some Jewish prisoners to assist in the killing process. Among other tasks, these prisoners had to sort through victims’ belongings and remove victims’ bodies from the gas chambers. Special units disposed of the millions of corpses through mass burial, in burning pits, or by burning them in large, specially designed crematoria .

Nearly 2.7 million Jewish men, women, and children were murdered at the five killing centers. 

What were ghettos and why did German authorities create them during the Holocaust? 

Ghettos were areas of cities or towns where German occupiers forced Jews to live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. German authorities often enclosed these areas by building walls or other barriers. Guards prevented Jews from leaving without permission. Some ghettos existed for years, but others existed only for months, weeks, or even days as holding sites prior to deportation or murder. 

German officials first created ghettos in 1939–1940 in German-occupied Poland. The two largest were located in the occupied Polish cities of Warsaw and Lodz (Łódź). Beginning in June 1941, German officials also established them in newly conquered territories in eastern Europe following the German attack on the Soviet Union. German authorities and their allies and collaborators also established ghettos in other parts of Europe. Notably, in 1944, German and Hungarian authorities created temporary ghettos to centralize and control Jews prior to their deportation from Hungary. 

The Purpose of the Ghettos

German authorities originally established the ghettos to isolate and control the large local Jewish populations in occupied eastern Europe. Initially, they concentrated Jewish residents from within a city and the surrounding area or region. However, beginning in 1941, German officials also deported Jews from other parts of Europe (including Germany) to some of these ghettos. 

Jewish forced labor became a central feature of life in many ghettos. In theory, it was supposed to help pay for the administration of the ghetto as well as support the German war effort. Sometimes, factories and workshops were established nearby in order to exploit the imprisoned Jews for forced labor. The labor was often manual and grueling. 

Life in the Ghettos

Jews in the ghettos sought to maintain a sense of dignity and community. Schools, libraries, communal welfare services, and religious institutions provided some measure of connection among residents. Attempts to document life in the ghettos, such as the Oneg Shabbat archive and clandestine photography, are powerful examples of spiritual resistance . Many ghettos also had underground movements that carried out armed resistance. The most famous of these is the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943.    

Liquidating the Ghettos

Beginning in 1941–1942, Germans and their allies and collaborators murdered ghetto residents en masse and dissolved ghetto administrative structures. They called this process “liquidation.” It was part of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” The majority of Jews in the ghettos were murdered either in mass shootings at nearby killing sites or after deportation to killing centers. Most of the killing centers were deliberately located near the large ghettos of German-occupied Poland or on easily-accessible railway routes. 

Who was responsible for carrying out the Holocaust and the Final Solution?

Many people were responsible for carrying out the Holocaust and the Final Solution. 

At the highest level, Adolf Hitler inspired, ordered, approved, and supported the genocide of Europe’s Jews. However, Hitler did not act alone. Nor did he lay out an exact plan for the implementation of the Final Solution. Other Nazi leaders were the ones who directly coordinated, planned, and implemented the mass murder. Among them were Hermann Göring , Heinrich Himmler , Reinhard Heydrich , and Adolf Eichmann . 

However, millions of Germans and other Europeans participated in the Holocaust. Without their involvement, the genocide of the Jewish people in Europe would not have been possible. Nazi leaders relied upon German institutions and organizations; other Axis powers; local bureaucracies and institutions; and individuals. 

German Institutions, Organizations, and Individuals

As members of these institutions, countless German soldiers , policemen , civil servants , lawyers, judges , businessmen , engineers, and doctors and nurses chose to implement the regime’s policies. Ordinary Germans also participated in the Holocaust in a variety of ways. Some Germans cheered as Jews were beaten or humiliated. Others denounced Jews for disobeying racist laws and regulations. Many Germans bought, took, or looted their Jewish neighbors' belongings and property. These Germans’ participation in the Holocaust was motivated by enthusiasm, careerism, fear, greed, self-interest, antisemitism, and political ideals, among other factors. 

Non-German Governments and Institutions

Nazi Germany did not perpetrate the Holocaust alone. It relied on the help of its allies and collaborators. In this context, “allies” refers to Axis countries officially allied with Nazi Germany. “Collaborators” refers to regimes and organizations that cooperated with German authorities in an official or semi-official capacity. Nazi Germany’s allies and collaborators included:

• The European Axis Powers and other collaborationist regimes (such as Vichy France ). These governments passed their own antisemitic legislation and cooperated with German goals.
• German-backed local bureaucracies, especially local police forces. These organizations helped round up, intern, and deport Jews even in countries not allied with Germany, such as the Netherlands .
• Local auxiliary units made up of military and police officials and civilians. These German-backed units participated in massacres of Jews in eastern Europe (often voluntarily). 

The terms “allies” and “collaborators” can also refer to individuals affiliated with these governments and organizations.

Individuals across Europe 

Throughout Europe, individuals who had no governmental or institutional affiliation and did not directly participate in murdering Jews also contributed to the Holocaust. 

One of the deadliest things that neighbors, acquaintances, colleagues, and even friends could do was denounce Jews to Nazi German authorities. An unknown number chose to do so. They revealed Jews’ hiding places, unmasked false Christian identities, and otherwise identified Jews to Nazi officials. In doing so, they brought about their deaths. These individuals’ motivations were wide-ranging: fear, self-interest, greed, revenge, antisemitism, and political and ideological beliefs.

Individuals also profited from the Holocaust. Non-Jews sometimes moved into Jews’ homes, took over Jewish-owned businesses, and stole Jews’ possessions and valuables. This was part of the widespread theft and plunder that accompanied the genocide. 

Most often individuals contributed to the Holocaust through inaction and indifference to the plight of their Jewish neighbors. Sometimes these individuals are called bystanders . 

Who were the other victims of Nazi persecution and mass murder?

The Holocaust specifically refers to the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews. However, there were also millions of other victims of Nazi persecution and murder . In the 1930s, the regime targeted a variety of alleged domestic enemies within German society. As the Nazis extended their reach during World War II, millions of other Europeans were also subjected to Nazi brutality. 

The Nazis classified Jews as the priority “enemy.” However, they also targeted other groups as threats to the health, unity, and security of the German people. The first group targeted by the Nazi regime consisted of political opponents . These included officials and members of other political parties and trade union activists. Political opponents also included people simply suspected of opposing or criticizing the Nazi regime. Political enemies were the first to be incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps . Jehovah’s Witnesses were also incarcerated in prisons and concentration camps. They were arrested because they refused to swear loyalty to the government or serve in the German military.

The Nazi regime also targeted Germans whose activities were deemed harmful to German society. These included men accused of homosexuality , persons accused of being professional or habitual criminals, and so-called asocials (such as people identified as vagabonds, beggars, prostitutes, pimps, and alcoholics). Tens of thousands of these victims were incarcerated in prisons and concentration camps. The regime also forcibly sterilized and persecuted Afro-Germans . 

People with disabilities were also victimized by the Nazi regime. Before World War II, Germans considered to have supposedly unhealthy hereditary conditions were forcibly sterilized. Once the war began, Nazi policy radicalized. People with disabilities, especially those living in institutions, were considered both a genetic and a financial burden on Germany. These people were targeted for murder in the so-called Euthanasia Program .

The Nazi regime employed extreme measures against groups considered to be racial, civilizational, or ideological enemies. This included Roma (Gypsies) , Poles (especially the Polish intelligentsia and elites), Soviet officials , and Soviet prisoners of war . The Nazis perpetrated mass murder against these groups.

How did the Holocaust end? 

But liberation did not bring closure. Many Holocaust survivors faced ongoing threats of violent antisemitism and displacement as they sought to build new lives. Many had lost family members, while others searched for years to locate missing parents, children, and siblings.

How did some Jews survive the Holocaust? 

Despite Nazi Germany’s efforts to murder all the Jews of Europe, some Jews survived the Holocaust. Survival took a variety of forms. But, in every case, survival was only possible because of an extraordinary confluence of circumstances, choices, help from others (both Jewish and non-Jewish), and sheer luck. 

Survival outside of German-Controlled Europe 

Some Jews survived the Holocaust by escaping German-controlled Europe. Before World War II began, hundreds of thousands of Jews emigrated from Nazi Germany despite significant immigration barriers. Those who immigrated to the United States, Great Britain, and other areas that remained beyond German control were safe from Nazi violence. Even after World War II began, some Jews managed to escape German-controlled Europe. For example, approximately 200,000 Polish Jews fled the German occupation of Poland. These Jews survived the war under harsh conditions after Soviet authorities deported them further east into the interior of the Soviet Union.

Survival in German-Controlled Europe

A smaller number of Jews survived inside German-controlled Europe. They often did so with the help of rescuers. Rescue efforts ranged from the isolated actions of individuals to organized networks, both small and large. Throughout Europe, there were non-Jews who took grave risks to help their Jewish neighbors, friends, and strangers survive. For example, they found hiding places for Jews, procured false papers that offered protective Christian identities, or provided them with food and supplies. Other Jews survived as members of partisan resistance movements . Finally, some Jews managed, against enormous odds, to survive imprisonment in concentration camps, ghettos, and even killing centers. 

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, those Jews who survived were often confronted with the traumatic reality of having lost their entire families and communities. Some were able to go home and chose to rebuild their lives in Europe. Many others were afraid to do so because of postwar violence and antisemitism . In the immediate postwar period, those who could not or would not return home often found themselves living in displaced persons camps . There, many had to wait years before they were able to immigrate to new homes.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the world has struggled to come to terms with the horrors of the genocide, to remember the victims, and to hold perpetrators responsible . These important efforts remain ongoing.

Series: After the Holocaust

The Aftermath of the Holocaust: Effects on Survivors

Displaced Persons

About Life after the Holocaust

Postwar Trials

What is Genocide?

Genocide timeline, series: the holocaust.

"Final Solution": Overview

Forced Labor: An Overview

Mass Shootings of Jews during the Holocaust

Gassing Operations

Deportations to Killing Centers

Killing Centers: An Overview

Switch series, critical thinking questions.

• <p>What can we learn from the massive size and scope of the Holocaust?</p>
• <p>Across Europe, the Nazis found countless willing helpers who collaborated or were complicit in their crimes. What motives and pressures led so many individuals to persecute, to murder, or to abandon their fellow human beings?</p>
• <p>Were there warning signs of what was to come before the Nazis came to power in 1933? Before the start of mass killing in 1941?</p>

In this context, “allies” refers to Axis countries officially allied with Nazi Germany. “Collaborators” refers to regimes and organizations that cooperated with German authorities in an official or semi-official capacity. These German-backed collaborators included some local police forces, bureaucracies, and paramilitary units. The terms “allies” and “collaborators” can also refer to individuals affiliated with these governments and organizations.

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We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. View the list of all donors .

Visiting the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC

Experience this powerful living memorial to the holocaust on the national mall..

What and where is the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum?

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is located on the National Mall , just south of Independence Avenue SW, between 14th Street and Raoul Wallenberg Place SW. Its official address is 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW, Washington, DC 20024. The museum serves as a living memorial to the Holocaust, one of the worst tragedies the world has ever seen. Its purpose is to educate its visitors on the dangers of hatred and the atrocities of genocide, and how society can confront challenges to freedom and human dignity.

Hours & Ticketing

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5:20 p.m. every day of the year except for Yom Kippur and Christmas Day, December 25. Admission to the museum is free, but from March 1 to Aug. 31,  timed tickets (subject to a $1 transaction fee) are needed to enter the museum’s permanent exhibition, which details the story of the Holocaust from 1933-1945. At any other time of the year, you can enter every part of the museum for free. Find out  more info on acquiring tickets to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Best way to get there.

The easiest way to get to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is via Metrorail  or the DC Circulator’s National Mall route . The closest Metro stop is the Smithsonian station on the Orange, Blue and Silver lines, just one block from the museum. The closest Circulator stop is no. 6 on the Mall route, which will take you directly in front of the museum. The facility is accessible to visitors who require mobility assistive devices.

What exhibits are inside the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum?

The centerpiece of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is its permanent exhibition , simply titled The Holocaust . Covering three floors, the exhibit uses artifacts, photographs and film to provide a chronological telling of the tragedy, with each floor covering a different era. Along the way, you will see personal objects that belonged to survivors, as well as hear their eyewitness testimonies.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The museum’s other exhibits, which often rotate, further serve to educate visitors about the perils of discrimination and violence motivated by prejudice.

The learning does not have to stop there. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s website is also full of resources in order to further inform citizens about the damaging effects of prejudice and discriminatory violence, as well as how to confront such behavior and beliefs. The museum frequently hosts film screenings and events , including first-person testimonials from brave survivors of the Holocaust.

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Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, is situated on a 45-acre campus comprising museums, exhibitions, monuments, sculptures, and memorial sites.  Yad Vashem is Ranked by Tripadvisor as one of the Top 25 Museums in the World, and ranked #2 of Things to do in Jerusalem.

You are invited to experience the Holocaust History Museum, discover the Museum of Holocaust Art, view personal diaries and artifacts, be inspired by survivor testimonies and personal stories, hear the stories of the Righteous Among the Nations, and discover the unique memorial sites and monuments throughout the campus.

Entrance to Yad Vashem is free. Advance registration is required via our online reservation system .

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Yad Vashem is open to the general public, free of charge.  All visits to Yad Vashem must be reserved in advance. Guided tours of the Holocaust History Museum and the grounds are available for reservation by individuals, families, groups, organizations and companies, and tourists from Israel and abroad.  The tours are offered in a variety of languages, and must be ordered in advance. Entrance to the Holocaust History Museum is permitted from ages 10 and up. To reserve your visit >>>

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Entrance to the Holocaust History Museum is until one hour before closing.  We recommend allowing 1.5-2 hours for your visit.

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Yad Vashem is situated on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem.  The site can be reached by public and private transportation .  Underground parking is available for private cars, and there is a designated parking area for buses. For accessibility information >>>

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Visitors are invited to peruse the bookstore, which includes a wide range of books and publications, as well as Judaica and mementoes.

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View photographs of the monuments, sculptures and memorial sites on the grounds of Yad Vashem, ranked by TripAdvisor as one of the world's leading museums, and first on the list of Must-Sees in Jerusalem.

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•  Admission  to the grounds of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial is free of charge. The entry cards should be reserved on visit.auschwitz.org . For better understanding the history of Auschwitz we suggest a visit with an guide-educator

• The fees are charged for guided tours. Visitors in groups are required to engage an Auschwitz Memorial guide.  There is also possibility  for individual visitors to join a guided tour . 

• The Museum also organizes  online guided tours   for groups and individual visitors.

• While on the grounds of the Museum, you are required to observe the appropriate solemnity and respect. Before the visit please read " the rules for visiting ".

• Due to overwhelming demand, please book in advance and arrive at the Memorial at least 30 minutes before the start of the tour due to security checks. The main car park and entrance to the Museum is located at  55 Więźniów Oświęcimia Street .

• The grounds and buildings of the Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau camps are open to visitors. The duration of a visit is determined solely by the individual interests and needs of the visitors. As a minimum, however, at least three-and-a-half hours should be reserved.

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11 Places to Commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day in the U.S.

From Boston to Los Angeles, these museums, memorials, and monuments honor victims of the Holocaust.

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On Jan. 27, 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated. Seventy eight years later, the world will once again commemorate that milestone by observing International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, Jan. 27.

This year, the day will be marked with the theme “Home and Belonging,” according to the United Nations , which designated Jan. 27 to commemorate the Holocaust. A memorial ceremony will be held that day in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations headquarters in New York, attended by many, including Holocaust survivors and their families, and veterans.

Beyond the ceremony itself, people all over the United States can commemorate and remember the horrors of the Holocaust at museums and memorials throughout the country. From Washington D.C. to New York, California, Florida, and beyond, opportunities exist to learn about what happened and how it relates to today.

These are 11 locations throughout the country to honor victims the Holocaust.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Washington D.C.

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This Smithsonian museum was chartered by a unanimous Act of Congress in 1980 and serves to memorialize the millions of people who were murdered during the Holocaust. The museum’s permanent exhibit features historical artifacts and personal stories stretched across three floors.

Entry: Tickets are free, but must be reserved in advance online with a $1 transaction fee.

More info here .

The Breman Museum; Atlanta, GA

This museum delves into both the Holocaust as well as Southern Jewish history. The museum’s permanent Holocaust exhibit features photographs, memorabilia, family documents, and videotaped interviews with Atlanta-area survivors.

Entry: Tickets cost $12 for adults, $6 for students, $4 for children 3 to 6 years old, and are free for children younger than 3.

More info here.

Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center; Skokie, IL

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This museum is focused on both the past and the future by detailing the horrors of what happened during the Holocaust and “teaching universal lessons that combat hatred, prejudice, and indifference.” The museum also features a VR exhibit that allows Holocaust survivors to guide visitors around concentration camps.

Entry: Tickets cost $18 for adults, $6 for children 5 to 11 years old, and $8 for students.

Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza; Philadelphia, PA

This memorial is free to visit and features a bronze sculpture given to the city of Philadelphia in 1964. The memorial plaza also includes other reminders of the horrors of the Holocaust, like train tracks from the railroad adjacent to the death camp of Treblinka in Poland embedded in the paving, six pillars in honor of the 6 million jews who were murdered, and an eternal flame to symbolize hope and light.

Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust; New York, NY

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The Battery Park City museum delves into Jewish life before, during, and after the Holocaust. The collection includes an exhibit using 750 original objects , photos, film, and personal stories donated by survivors and their families who settled in New York and nearby.

Entry: Tickets cost $18 for adults, $12 for students, and are free for children 12 and younger. The museum is also free on Thursdays between 4 and 8 p.m.

Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center; Tucson, AZ

This museum, which is housed in the first synagogue built in the Arizona territory, focuses on educating visitors about the Holocaust as well as other genocides. The museum tells the stories of more than 260 Holocaust survivors who later lived in southern Arizona.

Entry: Admission is free.

Holocaust Museum LA; Los Angeles, CA

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This West Coast museum, which was founded by survivors in the 1960s, bills itself as the oldest Holocaust museum in the United States. The museum is focused on teaching visitors “to think critically about the lessons of the Holocaust and its social relevance today.”

Entry: Tickets cost $15 for adults and are free for both children 17 and younger as well as teachers and students. The museum also offers free admission all day on Thursdays and from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sundays.

More info here

Kol Israel Holocaust Monument at Zion Memorial Park; Bedford Heights, OH

This memorial, which was dedicated in 1961 and is one of the first constructed in the U.S., features the ashes and artifacts of Jewish people killed by Nazis from three concentration camps buried at its base. The memorial also includes the names of family members who died during the Holocaust along with the names of survivors who have since died engraved on its surrounding walls.

The New England Holocaust Memorial; Boston, MA

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This memorial sits in the heart of Boston just steps from Faneuil Hall and on the city’s historic Freedom Trail. The memorial, which is open 24/7, was initiated by a group of Holocaust survivors living in the Boston area and features six glass towers lit internally with the number six representing the 6 million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust, the names of the six main death camps, a row of memorial candles, and the six years (from 1939 to 1945) the deadly “Final Solution” took place.

Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum; Dallas, TX

This museum was founded in 1984 by Dallas-area Holocaust survivors and features Holocaust survivors’ testimonies, floor maps of Europe during World War II, a restored Nazi-era boxcar, a collection of suitcases with personal items from victims, and more. The museum also has a human rights wing that includes information on the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany.

Entry: Tickets cost $19 for adults and $12 for students.

Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach; Miami Beach, FL

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This memorial, which was finished in 1990, features a black granite wall with thousands of names etched. The memorial also includes a garden of meditation “dedicated to the memory of the beautiful European culture and its six million Jewish souls, now lost,” as well as a stone tunnel where “the haunting voices of Israeli children sing songs from the Holocaust,” and more.

Entry: Admission is free from 10 a.m. to sunset each day with self-guided tours available with a brochure.

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Expert Historian : Martin Winstone

Tour Introduction

In this 8-day tour to Poland, we visit the sites of the former ghettos in Warsaw, Lublin and Krakow alongside four of the concentration and death camps - Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec and Auschwitz-Birkenau - that played such a significant role in this genocide. We look at the struggle of both the Jews and the Poles against their oppressors,visiting the scenes of Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and the memorial to the Warsaw Rising in 1944. You will see the shift from complete physical destruction of ghetto and camp to the actual remnants due to the rapid advance of the Soviets. However, the tour is not limited to the serious and emotive history of the Holocaust, with its clear message for future generations. We also enjoy expert guided tours of the historic cities of Warsaw and Krakow. We sample much of the local culture and visit the world famous salt mine at Wieliczka. Each evening we will dine in a different local restaurant to enjoy a wealth of diverse local cuisine. The topography of the sites we visit involves a fair amount of walking: at Auschwitz/Birkenau you will cover almost 8 miles over the course of the day, but that is necessary to achieve a full appreciation of the subject.

Read reviews of this tour by past travellers

Under Communism, in Poland it was traditional to refer to ‘six million Poles murdered during World War II, a figure that referred to 3 million ethnic Poles and 3 million Polish Jews. Those Polish Jews were murdered in ghettos, forests in the east of the country, or purpose-built death camps set up after the German occupation of Poland. By far the largest of these was Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was the site of over one million deaths, mainly Jews brought here from all over Europe. The smaller, purpose built 'killing' camp of Treblinka, where Warsaw's Jews were taken, was said by its commandant SS-Obersturmfuhrer Franz Stangl to be able to murder over 1000 people per hour at its peak. With the positioning of the Majdanek camp on the outskirts of Lublin, the Germans made no effort to disguise the killings, its gas chambers and crematorium being plainly visible to passers-by. The overarching narrative of the tour is about the shift from Polish Jews to European Jews and the evolution of policy from concentration camps to death camps.

• With  Dr Isabel Wollaston , Prof Alexander Korb or Martin Winstone
• See parts of ghetto walls in Warsaw
• The POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
• Treblinka memorial and museum
• The multi-purpose prisoner of war camp, concentration camp and death camp at Majdanek, on the outskirts of Lublin
• Belzec camp and museum
• Guided tour of the architectural wealth of Krakow's Old Town, and former Jewish quarter in Kazimierz, now a major cultural and heritage site (and which featured heavily in Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List.
• Full day at Auschwitz and Birkenau
• Visit the awesome 700 year old salt mine at Wieliczka

What's Included

• Return flights from London (optional)
• 4 Star Hotels
• Buffet breakfast each morning
• A three-course dinner party on 6 evenings hosted by your expert historian and tour manager
• Two drinks i,e wine or beer at each dinner and a welcome drink on first evening
• Dedicated Tour Manager
• Entrance fees for sites included in itinerary
• Modern, comfortable, air-conditioned coach
• Tour information booklet
• Access to the Cultural Experience app
• Helpful and friendly travel advice
• The company of like-minded travelers

"All in all an incredibly enriching and moving experience, I am so glad I went with The Cultural Experience. With the guides vast expertise brought everything to life. Examining events in chronological order was an amazing way to learn".

"One doesn’t need to be an expert hiker for this tour, but you need a lot of stamina – there is a lot of walking and standing, often for hours, with nowhere to sit down and rest...this was an amazing once in a lifetime experience...I thought I understood the Holocaust, but I had only superficial knowledge. I have learned so much."

Day 1 - Depart

We fly from London to Warsaw before checking-in to our central hotel for two nights. (D)

Day 2 - Warsaw

A busy day exploring the Polish capital on foot to explore the key sites associated with the former ghetto and its subsequent uprising: the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, the Umschlagplatz (a holding area set up by Nazi Germany) and the Warsaw Jewish cemetery, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the world.(B,D)

Day 3 - Treblinka & Lublin

This morning we drive to the extermination camps at Treblinka, where between 700,000 to 900,000 Jews lost their lives. Operational between July 1943 and October 1943, more Jews lost their lives at Treblinka II than at any other death camp, other than Auschwitz. Spend time in the small but informative museum before visiting the memorials to those who lost their lives. We spend the night in Lublin, a city which had a large pre-war Jewish population and which served as the administration centre for Action Reinhardt. (B,D)

Day 4 - Belzec & Majdanek

Our day will begin at the concentration camp of Majdanek, just on the outskirts of Lublin, where approximately 80,000 people from 28 different countries lost their lives. Today it is a well-preserved Nazi concentration and death camp where we find barracks, guard towers, gas chambers, crematoria, museum, “Gates of Hell” memorial and the mausoleum memorial, a gigantic structure which contains the ashes of victims beneath it. Continue to Belzec, the small but lethal death camp, where between 430,000 & 500,000 Jews lost their lives in six-months with as a few as 7 people surviving. Our hotel for the evening is based in Rzeszów. (B,D)

Day 5 - Krakow

This morning we drive to Krakow where we take a change of pace and emphasis with an afternoon orientation tour of Krakow's Old Town and its busy street life. Check-in to our hotel for three nights.(B,D)

Day 6 - Auschwitz and Birkenau

An early start as we are immersed in a comprehensive tour on foot of the concentration and death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. To enter the camp of Auschwitz, one passes under the infamous inscription 'Arbeit Macht Frei' mounted upon its main gate, before visiting the exhibitions in the surviving prison blocks. In the afternoon we visit Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II, the purpose-built camp that had hundreds of barracks and 4 massive gas chambers and functioned as the epicentre of the Holocaust during 1943 and 1944. The day at Auschwitz and Birkenau explores two large camps and will involve a good amount of walking. This evening you are free to find your own restaurant for dinner and perhaps explore Krakow. (B)

Day 7 - Kazimierz and Wieliczka

Before WW2, some 70,000 Jews lived in Krakow, mostly in the suburb of Kazimierz. We explore this tiny area including the Old Synagogue Museum and there will be an opportunity for an optional unaccompanied visit to the museum situated in the former Oscar Schindler's Factory. We visit the awesome 700-year-old salt mine at Wieliczka, its labyrinth of 300km of tunnels revealing chapels, underground lakes and a museum. (B,D)

Day 8 - Home

Transfer to Warsaw airport for your return flight to London. (B)

Recommended Reading List

• Auschwitz : The Nazis & The 'Final Solution'
• Holocaust Landscapes
• Marching into Darkness: The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust in Belarus
• Ordinary Men
• Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity
• Traces of the Holocaust: Journeying In and Out of the Ghettos

Professor Alexander Korb

Alexander Korb was director of the University's Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies between 2012 and 2018. Alexander is an expert of the Holocaust in Central and Southeastern Europe. Moreover, he specializes in the history of genocide, of international relations within wartime Europe, and in a transnational intellectual history of right-wing Europe.

Photo Gallery

• SS Canteen, Auschwitz I
• Isabel guiding the group at Majdanek
• Warsaw Uprising Monument
• Group picture inside Wieliczka Salt Mine
• Auschwitz Train
• Anne & Margot Frank Memorial

Tour Reviews

Take a look at some independent reviews of this tour by previous participants here

Take a look at some of the images taken on our most recent tour

View a diary of our Holocaust tour here

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• HISTORY & CULTURE

Across Europe, a photographer retraces a haunting ‘pathway to genocide.’

Through 22 stories and 130 locations, an immersive project traces the ghosts of the Holocaust across Europe. It tells the stories of those who were there, and the places themselves—some of which risk being lost from memory.

At a glance the photographs would appear to show any run-down backyard scene in Nondescript, Europe. A forest clearing. Damp-stained buildings with glowering, monochrome architecture. Concrete wastegrounds between tower blocks, the gray palate perhaps enlivened with a basketball hoop or a playset.  

Then the camera looks closer. The details: Strange grassed-over mounds between the trees. A once grand house neglected in a way that feels scornful, somehow. Fence creepers not quite obscuring bulletholes. Gritty soil that, at a close peer, isn't soil at all.  

Almost eight decades   on from the German surrender at the end of World War II , living memory of the atrocities of the Holocaust are fading. In the minds of those who weren't there, they are also zoned. Think of the murder of millions by the Nazis and most think of railway lines beneath watchtowers, through gates and behind razorwire fences into places with the most terrifying names in history: Auschwitz, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthausen.

But these killing centres were only one part of the terror experienced by those persecuted across Europe between 1933 and 1945. Now, with first generation survivors of the Nazi genocide diminishing, it is the places themselves that stand in memory to the horrors that happened there—many of which are in danger of being forgotten.

In his book A Wounded Landscape: Bearing Witness to the Holocaust , British photographer Marc Wilson   records the stories of 22 survivors and second generation descendants all over the world—and follows the journey of their oppression through the modern landscapes of Europe.

Over the course of six years Wilson's travels traced ground between Kharkiv in Ukraine in the east, to Gurs in Western France. The journeys followed what he calls a ‘pathway to genocide’ through locations of varying significance—from the sites of mass arrest to internment camps, ghettos, along deportation (and occasionally escape) routes, to sites of large-scale executions, extermination camps and mass graves. He visited 130 locations in all. Against the broader landscape of the Nazi terror machine, it's a fraction.  

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“When I began this work one of the very first pieces of information I came across in my research was that in Europe alone, there are over 40,000 sites where these events took place,” says Wilson.  

Following the trail  

Wilson's motivation for producing a photo project on the Holocaust was twofold. He had a personal connection, with the story of his great-grandfather Aaron Ianco, murdered in Auschwitz in 1943 aged 73, and that of 45 other members of his family lost during the period—to each other "cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces … ash, on the ground. The end.”

That, and also what Wilson terms as “need” to make it—"to talk about a history I felt did not need to be shouted about, but at the same time must not be ignored, forgotten or even worse, denied —all things that are happening more and more as time passes.”

“I started simply. I bought a wall map and as I researched, began to place red dots on the potential locations I could visit.” says Wilson. “[But] what I realized at an early stage was that I needed to tell stories. Stories of individuals that could reflect the millions of other individuals, families, cultures, so deeply affected by the Holocaust.” ( Related: The first official Jewish transport to Auschwitz brought 999 young women. This is their story. )

Wilson's research took him to historians, writers and scholars who could provide insight on the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis and their collaborators—all piecemeal parts in their systematic eradication of people they viewed as inferior. These were Jews, Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, the physically or mentally disabled, but also political non-conformists, Soviet prisoners of war, dissident intellectuals, Communists, suspected Communists, people of colour, and more. This sweeping definition of 'undesirables' would ultimately result in the murder of seventeen million people . Estimates vary, as the atrocities were so widespread, numerous and impulsive. The accounts of those who survived—and the children and relatives of those who did not —were to fill in the map of Wilson's project.

“I never wanted to choose any story for its associated locations. Each was as important as the next,” he says. “I sat for hours listening to the individuals who shared their lives with me. What this meant was that when I was at these locations, very specific visual references were in my mind and would come together. The fragments of buildings that are left, in the trees surrounding those sites, the flowers growing in the grass, the dirt on my shoes.” ( Related: hear the last voices of World War II. )

He adds the project became “not just a history of a location, but of that individual, or individuals, and what had happened to them there. The more people I met, the more layered these locations became.”

To memorialise—or move on?

The nature of the trail meant Wilson would visit not only the locations of grim familiarity such as concentration camps, but others where some of the Holocaust's less widely-known atrocities took place—the number of which, and the numbers involved, become near inconceivable when considered at scale. “I think it is part of our nature to collectively remember large events and in doing so forget the smaller ones,” says Wilson. “The scale of these horrors and the memorialization of sites [such as Auschwitz]—although an incredibly important thing to do—allow people to think not of individuals, but of almost unimaginably large groups of people.”  

Such marginalised locations include the forest outside Rivne, Ukraine where an estimated 23,000 Jewish citizens were rounded up and shot in pre-dug pits; other civilian mass executions in Rumbula, Latvia (25,000 killed); Romania's Iași Pogroms and 'Death Trains'   (13,500 killed.) The Ninth Fort in Kanaus, Lithuania, where 4,273 Jewish children, 2,007 men and 2,920 women were massacred in one day on 29 October 1941 . Lublin, in Nazi-occupied Poland, where in November 1943, 42,000 Jewish labourers were shot in an operation christened Erntefest   (’Harvest Festival’); music was played on loudspeakers in the nearby Majdanek concentration camp to drown out the sounds of the murders. ( Related: Race and ethnicity, explained .)

Then there are the places that speak to a more insidious component in the machine: An internment camp at Gurs, France , where the Vichy government   interred 19,000 ’undesirables’—Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals—4,000 of whom would be deported to Auschwitz. As James Bulgin of London's Imperial War Museum writes in A Wounded Landscape , ‘The uncomfortable reality is that there is scarcely a stretch of the territory of Europe that does not have some sort of relationship, directly or indirectly, to the Nazi genocide.’  

“Different countries have responded in different ways to murders and genocides committed on their lands— both by oppressors and by their own countrymen ,” Marc Wilson says. “As I traveled I found many places that had been memorialized. And many others that had been left untouched—with no marker or sign of the event that had happened at this place, or the lives ended there.”

More intimate sites speak to microcosms of a broader terror. The rooms in Lviv, Ukraine , where two young children named Anna and Arthur were hidden from SS soldiers rounding up Jews for execution. A hole, covered with a detached door, still leads to an escape route to a back staircase.  

“Many places, as in the rooms of Anna and Arthur’s hiding place, simply continued in their primary function—in this case a bedroom. But today for another family, another child,” he adds. “And then many places had been repurposed into, for example, a playground. In Poland I walked through a modern shopping centre, past a McDonalds, very aware I was on the site of a former concentration camp.” ( Read: Dark tourism is on the rise—is it educational, or voyeuristic? )

“It is the reality of time moving forwards but also of the lack of memory, [or] the very conscious decision to brush aside, to not remember, to not mark out—not think about —these events.”  

'Stories of individuals'  

The testimonies of those hidden siblings—Anna and Arthur Rose, children of murdered parents fleeing a Ukraine ghetto in 1942—formed part of Wilson's work. They epitomised the very specific pathways the photographer wanted to re-trace. “Stories of individuals who could then reflect the stories of countless hundred others, a thousand others. A million.”

These are sites where literal life or death decisions were made. But they are also sites of hope, survival, and memory. Marc Wilson

Within the stories of horror captured in A Wounded Landscape are tales of escape, courage, and—however tragically naïve—hope. The recipes whispered bunk-to-bunk by inmates of Auschwitz; the heroism of the Dutch resistance families that hid Harry Mans, then a child of ten, and others on a two-year escape from persecution; the innocent traces left by those too young to understand their circumstances.

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Wilson says he found his photographic voice for the project in what would become its first location—the former children's barracks in the ruins of Rivesaltes internment camp in South East France. In 1942 over a hundred Jewish children from the camp , many separated from their parents, were deported along with 2,000 adults in nine convoys to Auschwitz, where they were killed.  

He describes walking past some wildflowers in the grass surrounding the barracks where inside, he found traces of its former occupants: “The fading paintings on the walls, made by children over 70 years ago, with paint provided by a Swiss Red Cross worker.”  

The poignancy of the pictures—“a tree, a train through the mountains … a ship”— affected Wilson. Returning outside, he photographed one flower, struck with the idea it was one of the children's memories. Later, feeling “huge remorse”, he returned and photographed every one. “I felt I had ignored them, forgotten them, these flowers, these children. I found myself frantically photographing each flower as if the memories of these children depended on it.”  

Time and memory

Wilson's interviews included not only those who lived through the Holocaust, but those who lived with those who lived through it—and offer glimpses into how bearing witness to the unimaginable translated into life afterwards. One such was Vivienne Kendall, widow of Kopel Kendall, nee Kandelzucker, (1928-2009) who survived four concentration camps as a teenager; the rest of his family were killed. He later become one of 732 children relocated to Windermere, in the English Lake District, after the war. In A Wounded Landscape   Vivienne recalls Kopel's various anxieties in later life, including his disabling nervousness around authority. On one occasion, when attending a medical assessment, he found himself in a room with doctors dressed in white; Kopel started screaming. “He said it was as if he was back with the Nazis.”

Others speak to the various ways survivors coped with their trauma—from the effusive, to the stoically silent—and highlight how the suffering didn't stop with the surrender. As Hettie Posner remembered of her father Avram Samson (1919-1987), ”Some of them did not talk. They had no counselling … there was nothing for these people. They would just get on with it. I think my dad died as a result of it all, 40 years after liberation. Officially it was angina but unofficially it was stress.” (Related: why Germany surrendered twice at the end of World War II.)

Posner's brother Elvin added of their generation, of children raised by a parent—or in their case two—who lived through the genocide: “I would argue that virtually every child of Holocaust survivors has been damaged in some way.”

Inevitably, due to the project's long-term nature and mostly very elderly subjects, not all of those interviewed for A Wounded Landscape lived to see the project complete— a situation accelerated by COVID-19 .  

Of his project, Wilson says: "The sharing of stories is a hugely important role we can all take. Whether as a photographer or a viewer or reader, we have not just the ability but the responsibility. That we first listen, so we can then tell.”

“These are sites where literal life or death decisions were made.” he adds. “But they are also sites of hope, survival, and memory.”

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Traveling Exhibitions

About Traveling Exhibitions

The Museum’s traveling exhibitions have appeared in 195 US cities and 49 US states and in Canada, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Israel, and Serbia. Presented at a wide variety of venues, these exhibitions bring the history and lessons of the Holocaust beyond the Museum’s walls, reaching audiences from the smallest towns to the largest cities.

Through the American Library Association’s Public Programs Office, the Americans and the Holocaust traveling exhibition will tour 50 public and university libraries through November 2023.

This exhibition examines the role of ordinary people in the Holocaust and the variety of motives and pressures that influenced individual choices to act.

Our exhibitions travel all over the United States and the world. Find an exhibition in your area.

Retired Exhibitions

Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933–1945

State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda

The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936

Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Book Burnings

Life in Shadows: Hidden Children and the Holocaust

Remember the Children: Daniel's Story

Varian Fry: Assignment Rescue 1940–1941

Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race

The Museum exhibitions program is sponsored in part by the Lester Robbins and Sheila Johnson Robbins Traveling and Special Exhibitions Fund established in 1990 and Dr. and Mrs. Sol Center.

This Section

Resources and tips to assist you before, during, and after your visit to the Museum

• Accessibility

How 12 Jews survived the Holocaust hidden by a maid in a Nazi officer’s basement

Irene Gut Opdyke once told an American television interviewer that “courage is a whisper from above.”

Opdyke heard that quiet voice when she decided to hide 12 Jews — one of them a pregnant woman — in the basement of a German army major’s home in Tarnopol, Poland, for nearly two years during World War II.

“I was the right person at the right time to do it,” she told the interviewer.

At the outbreak of the war, Opdyke was 19-year-old Irena Gut, a Polish nursing student whose education abruptly ended when she was sent into forced labor by the Germans.

Her amazing true story of selflessness and ingenuity is portrayed in the film “Irena’s Vow.” The Canadian-Polish production will be a Fathom Event in theaters throughout the United States on April 15 and 16 . The film will also have a weeklong run in New York and Los Angeles starting April 15.

“I knew Irene for 10 years at the end of her life and would listen to her tell her story to various groups. She was like a grandmother to me. I was determined to get this film made. The story is so improbable, yet it is true. She hid Jews for many months right under a Nazi officer’s nose in his own house,” said screenwriter Dan Gordon, who originally created “Irena’s Vow” as a 2009 Broadway play.

The film begins with Gut, excellently played by Canadian actor Sophie Nélisse, volunteering as a nurse in eastern Poland after the German invasion on September 1, 1939. When the area is invaded by the Soviets a few weeks later, Gut returns to her hometown further west in Poland to find that it has been conquered by the Germans, with her parents and four younger sisters gone.

One day, while at church, the local residents are rounded up for forced labor. Gut is assigned to a munitions factory. Exhausted and anemic, Gut collapses at the feet of a high-ranking Nazi officer. When she pleads with him, saying that she is a good worker, he transfers her to a German military barracks in Tarnopol (today Ternopil in Ukraine), where she prepares meals in the kitchen and serves them in the dining room.

Gut is also put in charge of and befriends 11 Jews working in the laundry and tailoring shop downstairs. Her ability to eavesdrop on Nazi officers discussing the war’s progress and their orders for eradicating the Jews proves critically important for these Jews as time goes on.

Gut vowed to save a life if she ever could after witnessing a German soldier brutally murder a baby in front of its mother before killing the mother.

In tune with her “pure faith,” as Gordon described it, Gut prayed for a solution when she learned that the local ghetto was to be imminently liquidated.

“Her faith in God was not dogmatic, but it guided her. She believed that God doesn’t ask you to do what’s impossible. God asks you to do what’s possible,” Gordon said.

The solution comes the next day when Major Eduard Rügemer (Scottish actor Dougray Scott) tells her that he is moving into a villa outside town and making her his housekeeper.

In the ensuing days, as Gut prepares the villa for occupancy, she realizes she could hide her Jewish friends in the cellar. After she smuggles them in, they discover that the villa, built by a Jewish family, has a secret hiding place accessible from the basement.

“My mother recognized that it was a Jewish home because she saw it had a mezuzah on its doorpost. Growing up, she had Jewish friends from school and the neighborhood. Also, her family lived on the town’s main street and they would take in travelers, including Jews,” said Gut’s daughter Jeannie Opdyke Smith.

Against all odds, the quick-thinking young woman keeps the Jews (including a twelfth taken in later) safe despite many close calls. Guided by her Catholic values and optimism, she is also influential in the decision of the pregnant couple, Ida and Lazar Haller, to not abort their baby despite the danger its birth would pose to all.

Not all goes to plan, and Rügemer, having discovered some of the hidden Jews, extorts Gut, making her his sex slave. The self-sacrificing Gut does what is necessary to safeguard her Jewish friends’ lives for many more months, until they can safely escape to the forest and join the partisans as the Russians advance on Tarnopol. Ida Lazar gives birth in the forest in May 1944 to a baby boy she and her husband name Roman.

Gut’s sacrifice is repaid by some of these Jews when at the end of the film she is caught by the Soviets, accused of being a German collaborator, and sent to a concentration camp. Without her friends’ ingenuity, she would have either languished behind the Iron Curtain or been killed.

Smith is working to turn her mother’s story into a limited streaming series, which would allow for a more expanded, detailed account. This would likely include Gut’s having been brutally beaten, gang-raped, and left for dead by Soviet troops while on her way home after the Soviet invasion at the war’s outset.

When asked why this was not included in the film, Gordon said it was in the screenplay but that “it was decided by director [Louise Archambault] not to include it for reasons that are sufficient unto her.”

“Even more, I would like to include so much that came later in my mother’s life. Much of it, like her marrying my father, and reuniting with her sisters and Roman Haller, was bashert ,” said Smith, using the Yiddish word for destiny.

Before the credits for “Irena’s Vow” roll, a few follow-ups are provided. The fact that Gut Opdyke, who died in 2003, was named one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, among other honors, comes as no surprise.

However, the revelation that Rügemer was taken in by the Haller family in Munich after the war and that little Roman called him Zaide (Yiddish for Grandpa), is a bombshell.

“Since my mom didn’t tell the Hallers and the other Jews anything about why Rügemer never exposed them, they had no way of knowing. They would have thought that he was complicit, a partner in keeping them alive,” Smith said.

Even more shocking — at least at first glance — is Rügemer having also been included among the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

“I had real issues with this, but when I talked to the curator at Yad Vashem, he said that the honor was not for the Jews in the basement,” Smith said.

“Toward the end of the war when Hitler was doing his best to exterminate the remaining Jews, Rügemer did what was necessary to keep a group of Jews in his factory from being transported. That was what he was being honored for,” she said.

Smith thinks it was likely his interaction with the Jews hiding in his villa that made him begin to see things differently.

“When Rügemer wasn’t entertaining, he would allow some of them to come upstairs and they would play piano and sing and play games together,” Smith said.

“I think it softened his heart and he realized that these were just human beings and that there they were not the enemy at all,” she said.

The post How 12 Jews survived the Holocaust hidden by a maid in a Nazi officer’s basement appeared first on The Times of Israel .

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