The National WWII Museum is saddened to learn of the passing of Colonel Gail S. Halvorsen (USAF, Ret.), who died February 16, 2022, at the age of 101.

The Museum lost a beloved member of our volunteer family on July 18, 2020 with the passing of Mrs. Jeannine Burk. Jeannine earned over 357 volunteer hours at the Museum beginning in July 2018. Although Jeannine was a relatively new addition to our volunteer corps, she was an integral member and seemed to have always been a part of the Museum family.

Every day, the Sonderkommando was forced to operate the gas chambers and crematoria as more and more train cars full of European Jews arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau. 

The Oyneg Shabes Archive, created by historian Emanuel Ringelblum and other Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, meticulously documented their lives, suffering, and resistance during the Holocaust, ensuring their stories would survive even as they faced annihilation by the Nazis.

Operation FORTITUDE involved a group of double agents feeding disinformation to the Germans but the group was an odd collection of criminals, playboys, party girls, and a woman obsessed with her dog.