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Gallery

From the Museum’s Collection

Charles Stein Interview

Holocaust survivor Charles Stein fled Nazi-occupied Austria in 1938 and eventually arrived in the United States. In 1941, a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was drafted into the US Army. He returned to Europe and took part in the invasion of Normandy in 1944. US Holocaust Memorial Museum
J. Milnor Roberts Interview

Born in Pittsburgh in 1918, J. Milnor Roberts was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry reserve service in May 1940 and joined the 101st Airborne Division in June 1943. He landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day with the 16th Infantry and helped liberate Paris on August 25, 1944. US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Werner Kleeman Document

Werner Kleeman was arrested shortly after Kristallnacht and taken to Dachau, where he remained as a prisoner for a few months before he was released. He left Germany and arrived in New York in December 1939. He was a member of the 4th Infantry Division and took part in the landing at Normandy on D-Day. In 2010, he donated a collection to the Museum that includes an original copy of the G-5 (civil affairs) diary of the 4th Infantry Division. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of Werner Kleeman
Henry Plitt Interview

Major Henry G. Plitt, an American Jew, was born in New York in 1918. A member of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army, he was among the first to parachute into Normandy on D-Day. US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Maria Madi Diary

Maria Madi was born in 1898 in Budapest and lived there during World War II. In her diary, she wrote in English of the war’s impact on her city and country as well as the plight of Hungarian Jews, especially after the German occupation began in March 1944. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of Stephen Walton
Leo Bretholz Interview

Leo Bretholz was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1921. He was in Limoges, France, when he heard news of the Allied landing on D-Day. US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Ingrid Neuhaus Diary

Ingrid Neuhaus was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1921. Seeking refuge from Nazi racial laws, in February 1939, she left for England, where she lived throughout World War II and kept this diary. US Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, gift of Myra Kovary and Vally Kovary
Simon Jeruchim Painting

Simon Jeruchim was born in Paris in 1929 to Samuel and Sonia (née Szpiro), Jewish émigrés from Poland. In July 1942, Simon’s parents were able to find hiding places for him and his siblings, but they were arrested and deported to Auschwitz before they could themselves go into hiding. Simon spent almost two years in Normandy. There, a schoolmaster gave him a gift consisting of watercolors and a sketchpad. Simon used them to depict various aspects of his life in Normandy. He painted “Memory of June 6, 1944,” after learning of the Allied invasion via shortwave radio. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Simon Jeruchim
Colette Cahen d’Anvers Memoir

Colette Cahen d’Anvers was born to a prominent French Jewish family. She was sent to Drancy in 1943 and performed forced labor at Lévitan, a furniture warehouse in Paris that was used to sort household goods stolen from Jews. She and her fellow prisoners found ways to sabotage this work and damaged and destroyed items before they were sent to Germany. She describes learning about the invasion of Normandy by listening to BBC broadcasts. US Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, gift of Christian de Monbrison
George Salton Interview

George Salton was born Lucjan Salzman in Tyczyn, Poland, in 1928. In 1941, he was put in the ghetto in Rzeszów. From there, he was transferred to a series of camps. He learned of the D-Day invasion while he was a prisoner at a camp near Urbès in Alsace, France. US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Ernest Kovary Letter page 1

Ernest Kovary was born to a Jewish family in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, in 1919. With his parents and brother Tom, he was able to escape to the United States in 1940. Ernest and Tom both enlisted in the US Army. US Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, gift of Myra Kovary and Vally Kovary
Ernest Kovary Letter page 2

On page two of his letter, Ernest Kovary described for his parents his first encounter with Jewish survivors after the Allied invasion of Normandy. US Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, gift of Myra Kovary and Vally Kovary
Manfred Gans Collection

In 1938, Manfred Gans left his parents' home in Germany for the United Kingdom. After World War II began, he was interred as an enemy alien. He volunteered to serve in an elite British unit made up of German native speakers and later took part in the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944.