us-005578-irn90408-irn6895
type: RecordSet
archival history: The book was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1992 by Moses Silberberg.
biographical history: Moses Silberberg was born ca. June 12, 1912, in Konskie, Russia (now Poland) to Berek and Matla Goldberg Silberberg. Berek, a grocer, was born in 1889, in Wolbrom, Russia (Poland), to Shlomo and Chaia Silberberg. Matla was born in 1891, in Konskie, to Jacob and Chava Goldberg. Moses’s family lived in an apartment above the grocery store owned by his father. Moses attended a local Jewish day school and helped his parents at the store. The family was very observant and practiced Hasidic Judaism. When he was about ten, Moses went to live with his paternal grandparents in Wolbrom, so his grandfather, a rabbi, could help him prepare for his bar mitzvah. When Moses returned to Konskie, he studied at the local yeshiva until he graduated. Moses’s grandmother Chava Goldberg died. In 1937, there was a Polish boycott of Jewish businesses, though many of the Silberberg’s Polish customers continued to shop at the store. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. A week later, a group of German soldiers broke into the Silberberg's store and robbed it. On the 15th, soldiers returned and padlocked the store. Later that night, Moses and his parents snuck in and took food and supplies back to their apartment. The next day, more soldiers came to empty out the store. Anything they did not want, they threw into the street for Polish people to take. Soldiers began rounding up Jewish men and taking them to a nearby factory. Moses and his father Berek hid in a small room in their apartment, which was hidden behind furniture. Soldiers came looking for them, but Matla said they were away, fighting in the war. The men in the factory were given no food or water and were taken away each night. In early October, the soldiers burned down the 500 year old synagogue near Moses’s apartment. Not long after, four Germans were killed by Polish soldiers, who falsely accused Jews as the perpetrators. As retribution, German soldiers selected a group of seventy Jews, including Moses’s grandfather Jacob …
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Book: 38 leaves (printed one side only, on cardstock) ; illustrations, 115 b&w photographs ; 31 x 38 cm. Text in Yiddish, Hebrew, English, German On t.p.: Under the auspices of the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in the British Zone. Published by"Our Voic", Bergen-Belsen, December 1946. This book was rebound in cardboard, incorporating original paper covers; mailing label affixed to back cover.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
date: 1946 December
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: yid
has or had some members with language: deu
has or had some members with language: heb
has or had some members with language: eng
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn6895
is or was included in: us-005578-irn90408
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Book of photographs, Our Destruction in Pictures, acquired by Moses Silberberg, a survivor of four German concentration camps, while living in Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp after the war. The photographs were collected, annotated, and published by the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in the British Zone in Bergen-Belsen DP camp in December 1946. The images show scenes of atrocities committed against Jews during the Holocaust, including mass murder, humiliations, such as cutting the hair of religious Jews, forced labor, hangings, and deportations from Germany and Poland, with multiple scenes from Bedzin and Łódź ghettos. From the preface:"When words are too weak and too poor to convey the destruction and extermination of Jewish life, may these pictures, found by accident on arrested S.S. soldiers, speak for themselves of the bestiality which will forever bring shame on human kind"
title: Our Destruction in Pictures Hurbanenu bi-temunot Unsere Verwüstungen in Bildern Photobook