The Second World War, History and Aftermath, 1939-1945 | Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust

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Collection Overview

Title: The Second World War, History and Aftermath, 1939-1945

Predominant Dates:1939 -- 1945

ID: RG-41/

Primary Creator: US Military Administration in Germany

Other Creators: Central Commission for Investigating of German Crimes in Poland (1939 -- 1945)

Extent: 2.0 Boxes

Arrangement: Materials are arranged by subject/creator, then by identifier, as assigned by the processor

Subjects: Aerial Warfare, Second World War, Liberation of Nazi-German concentration camps, Germany, Taking of hostages, Poland

Abstract

This Record Group consists of two sub-collections and one collection of a folder-level. The first sub-collection, RG-41.01 is an oral history narrated by the US military officer who served in the 12th Armored Division, ini its chemical warfare unit. The second sub-collection consists of the numerous aerial photographs, depicting the German territories at the last months of the war and after the war. The folder-level collection, Resistance in Poland, contains documents and evidences of the German crimes in Poland in 1939 -- 1945

Scope and Contents of the Materials

This Record Group comprises two sub-collections and a folder-level collection vaguely correlated to each other. They largely relates to the chronological criterion of the end of the war and with the aftermath of the war.

RG-41.01, Video testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Julien D. Saks

RG-41.02, Photo-documents of the warfare in Germany

RG-41.03, Resistance in Poland

Collection Historical Note

This Record Group consists of three collections. One is the oral history narrated by Julien D. Saks, a Chemical Warfare officer of the 12^th Armored Division, of the US Army. This Division captured the first bridge over the Danube River and later fought in Rhineland, Alsace-Lorraine and in Bavaria. A unit of this Division liberated one of the sub-camp of Dachau concentration camp in April 1945. Another collection consists of numerous aerial photo-shots, which depict the last months of the war in Germany, as well as the aftermath of the Second World War in Europe.

There is also a folder-level collection, Resistance in Poland. It contains a document of its own right, namely an appeal issued by German police and security forces in Zakopane, Poland. This printed announcement contains the list of Polish and Jewish hostages taken into custody by the Gestapo as an act of retaliation against the Polish resistance. The group of Polish resistance fighters destroyed a German military installation in Zakopane. The German issued an ultimatum demanding of the Polish civilian population of Zakopane to give in the executioners of the anti-German act, otherwise the hostages will be killed. Another document of this folder-level collections relates to the Report of the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland.

It may be important to note that the aftermath documented in this collection comes from the perspective of American soldiers.

RG-41.01, Video testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Julien D. Saks

RG-41.01.01, There are ten video files present in the folder labeled “COL. JULIEN SAKS, HOLOCAUST VIDEO TS.” The third file in that folder, a VOB file, can be opened in Windows Media Player

RG-41.01.02, Transcript of the video testimony

RG-41.02, Photo-documents of the warfare in Germany

RG-41.02.01, Aerial shot of soldiers on the ground and anti-tank obstacles

RG-41.02.02, Aerial shot of bombed out German city

RG-41.02.03, Aerial shot of a bombed out marine installation

RG-41.02.04, Aerial shot a railway juncture

RG-41.02.05, Aerial shot of a bombed out territory

RG-41.02.06, Aerial shot of bombed out airfields

RG-41.02.07, Aerial shot of a bombed out industrial complex

RG-41.02.08, Aerial shot of a motorway and roads

RG-41.02.09, Aerial shot of a railway tracks

RG-41.02.10, Aerial shot of a bombed out area

RG-41.02.11, Aerial shot of the Julich area. It is in the district of Dueren in the Ruhr Valley north of the Rhine. Some sort of factory is shown and one can see the bombing aftermath. Date: 16 December 1944

RG-41.02.12, Aerial shot of airplanes and motorways

RG-41.02.13, Aerial shot of airplanes on the ground

RG-41.02.14, Aerial shot of the Dueren area. Date: 16 December 1944

RG-41.02.15, Aerial of the German airfields with war planes

RG-41.02.16, Aerial view of a German town

RG-41.02.17, Aerial shot of German airfields

RG-41.02.18, Aerial view of a small German town and air base

RG-41.02.19, Aerial shot of the Muenster area. Date: 1 January 1945

RG-41.02.20, Aerial view of a castle in winter, Germany

RG-41.02.21, Aerial shot of the Düsseldorf area. Date: 16 December 1944

RG-41.02.22, Aerial view of railway tracks and industrial objects

RG-41.02.23, Aerial view of vineyard

RG-41.02.24, German soldier shooting a machine gun

RG-41.02.25, Cathedral in ruins

RG-41.02.26, Cathedral in ruins, another view

RG-41.02.27, dark photo of house and street

RG-41.02.28, photo of a river and houses

RG-41.02.29, German men being searched by American soldiers

RG-41.02.30, a former camp

RG-41.02.31, a crematorium

RG-41.02.32, two bodies on grass

RG-41.02.33, camp barracks, scene in early spring

RG-41.02.34, barracks behind a fence

RG-41.02.35, Buchenwald camp with signs on the wall. The writing on the wall says, roughly, “Buchenwald incriminates” and “[something] gives the Nazis their answer”

RG-41.02.36, looking into crematorium

RG-41.02.37, camp barracks, early spring

RG-41.02.38, German town, bombed out street

RG-41.02.39, street on which most buildings are gone

RG-41.02.40, ruins and rubble

RG-41.02.41, people at a liberated camp, mingling

RG-41.02.42, brick wall

RG-41.02.43, grave

RG-41.02.44, remnants of a bombed structure

RG-41.02.45, survivors lying on cots

RG-41.02.46, part of a former camp

RG-41.02.47, inside of camp barracks

RG-41.02.48, dead victims lined up on grass

RG-41.02.49, street in ruins

RG-41.02.50, men laying human remains in a grave

RG-41.02.51, people around a former camp

RG-41.02.52, an Allied soldier with baby on a porch

RG-41.02.53, camp prisoner suspended on barbed wire

RG-41.02.54, dark photo of a ruined building

RG-41.02.55, wooded area with barracks in the background

RG-41.02.56, victims' lower torsos and legs

RG-41.02.57, photo of building in ruins

RG-41.02.58, destroyed building, view of the top

RG-41.02.59, a yard strewn with debris, including cars

RG-41.02.60, kids standing in rubble, bombed buildings behind

RG-41.02.61, people walking around bombed neighborhood

RG-41.02.62, bombed out structure behind trees and shrubs

RG-41.02.63, reconstruction, featuring onlookers and man on pole

RG-41.02.64, people standing and looking at a bombed down house

RG-41.02.65, a ruined house, another angle

RG-41.02.66, Wunstorf aerodrome

RG-41.02.67, Wunsdorf aerodrome, swimming pool

RG-41.02.68, bombed out buildings

RG-41.02.69, people walking past ruined houses

RG-41.02.70, sepia of bombed out buildings

RG-41.02.71, pile of dead bodies

RG-41.02.72, pile of dead bodies near camp barracks

RG-41.02.73, facial expressions of the dead

RG-41.02.74, truck loaded with dead bodies

RG-41.02.75, dead bodies piled against a wall

RG-41.02.76, pile of bones, perhaps

RG-41.02.77, reconstruction of Nazi tortures

RG-41.02.78, postcard depicting German soldiers on the Eastern Front

RG-41.03, Resistance in Poland

RG-41.03.01, Placard listing the names of Polish hostages taken by Gestapo, 1944

RG-41.03.02, German crimes in Poland, materials of the Central Commission investigating of German crimes in Poland, vol. 2, 1947

Subject/Index Terms

Aerial Warfare, Second World War
Liberation of Nazi-German concentration camps, Germany
Taking of hostages, Poland

Box and Folder Listing

Browse by Sub-Collection:

[Sub-Collection RG41.01: RG-41.01, Lieutenant Colonel Julien D. Saks, oral history, video, 1945],
[Sub-Collection 2: RG-41.02, Photo-documents of the warfare in Germany, 1945],
[All]

Sub-Collection RG41.01: RG-41.01, Lieutenant Colonel Julien D. Saks, oral history, video, 1945

Transcript of an oral history video featuring Lieutenant Colonel Julien D. Saks of the 12th army division in which he describes what he saw in 1945 Germany when liberating political prisoner and concentration camps at Dachau near Landsberg, Germany

Subject/Index Terms:: Dachau (Concentration camp); Landsberg (Germany: concentration camp); Liberation from German concentration camps; Armed Forces, US; English, language; Order of Battle Detachment of division intelligence section; Wartime atrocities and mass killing, Second World War; Political prisoners of Nazi German prisons; Jewish political prisoners; Nazi gas chambers; Cremation; Germany (1939--1945); Holocaust, Jewish (1939 -- 1945); Danube (River)

Creators:: Julien D. Saks, former Lieutenant Colonel (1945); 12th American Army Division (1945)

Sub-Collection 2: RG-41.02, Photo-documents of the warfare in Germany, 1945

A variety of mostly aerial photographs of post-war Germany taken by the United States Air Force

Subject/Index Terms:: Aerial Photograph; Germany (1945--1949); Postwar Germany (1945); Concentration camps, German; Documenting the Nazi crimes in concentration camps; Photographs, concentration camps post-liberation; postcards; Bombed buildings, Germany (1945); German air fields, 1945; Concentration Camp Crematorium; Wunstorf Aerodrome; German Railroad and Railways

Creators:: United States Air Force (1945) (1945); United States Army

Document/Artifact of Item-Level RG41.02.04: RG-41.02.04, Aerial shot a railway juncture, 1945

Aerial shot of a railway juncture

Subject/Index Terms:: German Railroad and Railways; Aerial Photograph; Photographs, postwar, 1945 -- 1988; Second World War, 1939 -- 1945; English, language; Germany (1945--1949)

Creators:: United States Aerial Reconnaissance, Germany and Western Front (1945)

Document/Artifact of Item-Level RG41.02.03: RG-41.02.03, Aerial shot of a bombed out marine installation, 1945

Aerial shot of a bombed out marine installation

Subject/Index Terms:: Aerial Photograph; Photographs, postwar, 1945 -- 1988; Bombed buildings, Germany (1945); Second World War, 1939 -- 1945; English, language; Marine Installation, Germany (1945)

Creators:: United States Aerial Reconnaissance, Germany and Western Front (1945)

Document/Artifact of Item-Level RG41.02.02: RG-41.02.02, Aerial shot of bombed out German city, 1945

Aerial shot of bombed out German city

Subject/Index Terms:: Aerial Photograph; Photographs, postwar, 1945 -- 1988; Bombed buildings, Germany (1945); Second World War, 1939 -- 1945; English, language

Creators:: United States Aerial Reconnaissance, Germany and Western Front (1945)

Document/Artifact of Item-Level RG41.02.05: RG-41.02.05, Aerial shot of a bombed out territory, 1945

Aerial shot of bombed out territory

Subject/Index Terms:: Aerial Photograph; Photographs, postwar, 1945 -- 1988; Photographs, bombing; Second World War, 1939 -- 1945; English, language; Germany (1945 -- 1949)

Creators:: United States Aerial Reconnaissance, Germany and Western Front (1945)