• Some people who read my blog regularly, might think this is an odd piece. However, aside from history my other passion is music, and specifically guitar music I do play guitar myself. The history of the guitar is rich and spans several millennia, evolving through different cultures and technological advancements. Here’s an overview of its…

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  • Going Dutch

    “Going Dutch”is a term that indicates that each person participating in a paid activity covers their own expenses, rather than any one person in the group defraying the cost for the entire group. The term stems from restaurant dining etiquette in the Western world, where each person pays for their meal. It is also called…

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  • Limburg is the southernmost province of the Netherlands, sharing its name with the neighbouring Belgian province of Limburg. During the Second World War, it became one of the first parts of the Netherlands to be liberated by Allied forces. By the end of September 1944, the entire province had been liberated, although the fighting continued…

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  • In general, I have some level, albeit low, of sympathy for those who chose to collaborate with the Nazi regime in the Netherlands because maybe they felt it was the only way to survive. However, I have no sympathy for the Nederlandse Landwacht. They were in it for their own greed and hungered for power.…

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  • I have to set this out at the start of this post. None of this has been investigated by me, it has all been done by other journalists. However all of this has been verified by me. All the relevant links are included in the post. It is also noteworthy to mention that I don’t…

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  • On the morning of 27 August 1979, Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, a member of the British royal family and one of the most prominent figures of the twentieth century, was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). The bombing, carried out while Mountbatten was aboard his fishing…

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  • Americans and the Holocaust is an exhibition at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, which opened on 23 April 2018. Before I go into the details of this exhibition, I want to mention one of the few Americans, Eddy Hamel, who was murdered during the Holocaust. Eddy Hamel was the first Jewish player, and…

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  • “Sausalito Summernight” is the title of a 1981 U.S. Top 40 hit by Nederpop band Diesel. It was fourth of four singles issued from the band’s 1980 debut album Watts in a Tank, the final three of which became chart hits. It was the greatest hit from the LP (U.S. #25). The track became a…

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  • “Venus” is a song by Dutch rock band Shocking Blue. It was released as a single in the summer of 1969 and topped the charts in nine countries. Written by Robbie van Leeuwen, it was a hit in the Netherlands. The song has been covered dozens of times by many artists. In 1986, English girl…

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  • 2731 was the inmate number given to this girl. Nothing else is known about her, except that it is very unlikely that she  survived. My heart broke when I saw this picture. A life wiped out only a picture that remains. Not a picture of a young girl dressed in a gown. Or a picture…

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