UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM;During the Holocaust, people’s actions—or inaction—led to harmful or even deadly consequences. Far too rarely, their decisions saved lives. Either way, the choices they made mattered.

 

During the Holocaust, people’s actions—or inaction—led to harmful or even deadly consequences. Far too rarely, their decisions saved lives. Either way, the choices they made mattered. Explore our online exhibition, Some Were Neighbors: Choice, Human Behavior, and the Holocaust. Police officers were in a prime position to help Jews—or hurt them. The July 1942 roundup of about 13,000 Parisian Jews would not have been possible without the cooperation of French police. Most of those who had been rounded up were deported and murdered in Auschwitz weeks later. But one officer, Théophile Larue, warned Jewish neighbors and hid two women in his home for a week. He obtained false papers to get them out and escorted them to the train station. See more choices ‌ Teenagers Grew Up Fast While Facing—or Embracing—Antisemitism Explore their choices >> Few Teachers Protected the Vulnerable in Their Care What roles did they play? >> ‌ NEW RECORDING | STAY CONNECTED LIVE Confronting Complicity: Exploring Ordinary Germans’ Roles in the Holocaust Watch this program >> MARCH 1 | STAY CONNECTED LIVE Irena Sendler: Risking Her Life to Save Others Remind me to watch live >> Images: Officer Théophile Larue. Le Comité Français pour Yad Vashem; Hitler Youth are encouraged to humiliate Jews by forcing them to clean city streets in Vienna, March–April 1938. Yad Vashem; Jeanne Daman (center) poses with Jewish children under her care in the Nos Petits kindergarten in Brussels, Belgium, circa 1942. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of Jeanne Daman Scaglione; Jacob Wiener (standing second from right) and his brother Benno (standing at far left) pose in front of their father's bicycle shop in Germany with a group of non-Jewish children from the neighborhood in 1929. One of the other boys in the picture later became a guard at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jacob G. Wiener; Irena Sendler in Warsaw after the Holocaust, circa 1949. Janina Zgrzembska Collection/East News ‌ Donate to Keep Holocaust Memory Alive DONATE Keep Holocaust memory alive to inspire citizens and leaders to confront antisemitism and hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity in a constantly changing world. Visit the Museum Shop to Find Books and Other Items Stay Connected ‌ UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW Washington, DC 20024-2126 Main telephone: 202.488.0400 TTY: 202.488.0406 VIEW IN BROWSER