The story in brief
Six million Jews were murdered step by step, and on paper. A historian buries an archive in milk cans. A Brazilian clerk helps Jews through a door her country tried to shut. A courier sees the killing and carries it to the Allies. A girl writes behind a bookcase, and a father comes home alone and is handed her diary. This is how it happened, and how the world was made to know.
The chapters
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Chapter 1 · 5 min · Free
The Walls
Three men bury ten metal boxes in a Warsaw cellar while the trains run. To know what is inside, go back to the day the war began.
Sources: German decrees for occupied Poland (1939 to 1941); Emanuel Ringelblum’s Oyneg Shabes archive (1940 to 1943)
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Chapter 2 · 5 min · Free
The Doors
A secret order shuts Brazil to Jewish refugees. In Hamburg and in Vichy, two Brazilians help them anyway.
Sources: Brazil’s secret circular 1,127 (1937); Yad Vashem, the files of Aracy de Carvalho and Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas
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Chapter 3 · 5 min
The Decision
Behind the armies come units with one job. In a lakeside villa, murder becomes paperwork. A courier sees it and tells the world, and the world cannot believe him.
Sources: The Einsatzgruppen’s report of 2 October 1941; The minutes of the Wannsee Conference (1942); The Allied declaration of 17 December 1942; Jan Karski, Story of a Secret State (1944)
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Chapter 4 · 5 min
The Secret Annex
A girl turns thirteen and gets a diary. Less than a month later she vanishes into a hidden annex with her family, and writes for two years.
Sources: Anne Frank’s diary (1942 to 1944); The Anne Frank House; Miep Gies, Anne Frank Remembered (1987)
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Chapter 5 · 6 min
Never Again
The camps are reached, a general walks in to bear witness, a father comes home alone, and a lawyer gives the crime its name.
Sources: The Auschwitz Album (1944); Eisenhower to Marshall, 15 April 1945; Het Achterhuis (1947); Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944); The Genocide Convention (1948)
Who’s who
The people you meet. Each one is a hero card you can collect.
- Emanuel RingelblumHistorian · Founder of Oyneg Shabes · Witness
- Aracy de CarvalhoConsulate Clerk · The Angel of Hamburg · Righteous Among the Nations
- Jan KarskiCourier · Eyewitness · Righteous Among the Nations
- Miep GiesOffice Assistant · Helper of the Secret Annex · Keeper of the Diary
- Raphael LemkinLawyer · Coiner of a Word · Father of the Genocide Convention
- Otto FrankFather · Survivor · Publisher of the Diary
What you’ll be able to tell
This story belongs to the journey “The Darkness”. By the end of it, you can tell how the Holocaust happened step by step, and who said no.
Sources
- Emanuel Ringelblum’s archive
- The Einsatzgruppen reports
- The Wannsee minutes
- Jan Karski’s reports
- Anne Frank’s diary
- Eisenhower’s letter of 15 April 1945
- Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe
