People and places
The stories of Poland.
Homes, streets and memorial sites.
The people who left something of themselves here.
Alma Rosé
The virtuoso violinist who fought for her friends' lives with a conductor's baton at Auschwitz. With every note her orchestra played in the inferno, she bought another moment of life and hope for 40 women.
Rabbi Yehuda Meir Shapira
One brilliant idea of his succeeded in bringing millions of learners around the globe together around precisely the same page. The young rabbi who invented the "Daf Yomi" and founded the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva changed the world of Torah study forever.
Wilm Hosenfeld
The German officer who began as an ardent admirer of the party but came to his senses when confronted with the horrors in Poland. His Wehrmacht uniform became a shield he used to save Jews, including the 'Pianist.'
Jan and Antonina Żabiński
The animal cages at the Warsaw Zoo became the boldest hiding place of World War II. Right under the Germans' noses, the zoo director and his wife turned it into a refuge for hundreds of Jews
Leopold Socha
The convicted criminal from Lviv who found his true calling deep in the city's sewers. This man from the margins of society risked everything to keep a group of Jews alive for months.
Regina Jonas
Berlin in the 1930s was not ready for a woman to stand on a stage holding a rabbinical ordination certificate. The tragic and inspiring story of the first female rabbi in history, who refused to let convention stop her.
7 place links in this collection
- Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin, 57 Lubartowska St., Lublin, Poland
- Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Camp, Oświęcim, Poland (place of her death)
- Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Camp, Oświęcim, Poland
- Warsaw, Poland (place where Władysław Szpilman was rescued)
- Warsaw Zoo and the zoo director's house ('Villa Under the Mad Star'), Warsaw, Poland
- Grave of Jan and Antonina Żabiński, Powązki Cemetery, Warsaw, Poland
- Tomb of Leopold Socha, Gliwice Central Cemetery, Poland