IN SPITE OF IT ALL: Julius Paltiel - A Norwegian Jew in Auschwitz

Henry Foner (Heinz Lichtwitz)

Curator: Haviva Peled-Carmeli, Deputy Curators: Michael Tal, Sara Shor

The Yad Vashem Synagogue catalogue - The artifacts displayed in the Yad Vashem Synagogue are a few of the thousands of items preserved in Yad Vashem's collections that tell the story of the Jewish people – a panoramic mosaic of memories depicting the fate of individuals, families and communities during the Holocaust.  The artifacts in our collections tell stories interwoven with flashes of fear, despair and loss, but also moments of determination, pity, hope, courage and love.  These stories evoke empathy with the fate of the victims, and place the Jewish individual at the heart of the narrative that unfolds in the Holocaust History Museum.  The significance of these artifacts is hoin ned by their integration the vast, complex fabric that shapes collective memory from countless fragments of personal recollection.  The display area and the space currently used as the Synagogue combine to depict the lost Jewish life in the face of its continuity today.  These artifacts bear mute testimony to the history and legacy of individuals and communities during the Holocaust that we seek to commemorate and to impart to future generations.

Lipman Kunstadt | Edited by Sarah Rosen and Dalia Ofer

I decided to stop writing the diary and to destroy the pages… I eventually overcame the despair and listened to the counterargument…a miracle may occur and your fragmentary writings will be the only remaining memory of Transnistria. (Lipman Kunstadt, August 26, 1942)

Diary from Hell in Transnistria is a painfully vivid and intricate account of life in the Dzhurin ghetto in Transnistria, written by Lipman Kunstadt, who was deported there from Radauţi, Romania, with his wife, his children, his mother, and his sister on October 14, 1941. Kunstadt, who was well-educated and a journalist, was appointed secretary of the Jewish council in the Dzhurin ghetto, where he had access to a great deal of information about its inner workings. He began writing his diary in Yiddish on April 11, 1942, at great risk, sparing no criticism against the ghetto leadership. 

Edited by: Eliyana R. Adler and Natalia Aleksiun

The Nazi persecution and murder of the Jews of Europe led to the atomization of the social relationships of the victims. Families were ripped apart. Entire communities were ghettoized and isolated from the outside world. The forced removal of the Jews from the midst of the non-Jewish population facilitated the crimes committed against them, significantly limited the assistance they could rely on, and restricted the number of witnesses to their persecution and murder. However, despite the devastation, disruption, and loss brought by the Holocaust, prewar patterns and lationships continued to shape decisions and actions by Jews and non-Jews both during and after the war. Even in extremis, they often relied on established networks of support that had been forged in very different circumstances. Jewish victims as well as bystanders and perpetrators relied on the already familiar cohort of relatives, neighbors, peers, and colleagues to support and assist them during this time. Just as these networks brought people with various backgrounds together, Entanglements of War compiles a broad range of interdisciplinary perspectives to reveal invaluable findings about the relationships, choices, and actions that shaped these complex connections, and their impact on Jewish lives during the Holocaust and its immediate aftermath.