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This is probably my most personal blog. I will not mention the names of the people involved, but I don’t think knowing the names is actually relevant. On June 13, 1991 the partially covered body of 18 year old Jessica R was found near a dump in Bergen op Zoom, in the province of Noord…
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The Drancy concentration camp, located in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, stands as one of the most significant sites in the history of the Holocaust in Western Europe. Functioning primarily as a transit camp between 1941 and 1944, Drancy became the central hub for the deportation of Jews from France to extermination camps, most notably…
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The title of this post is The Iasi Pogrom, but I am starting with a different event, putting the Iasi Pogrom into a more comprehensive context. It is a long read, but it is such an important subject that I feel compelled to be as detailed as possible. Approximately seven months after the Iasi pogrom on…
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One thing about World War II I often wondered about was the transporting of injured troops back to the United States. The photo above shows the first American casualties from the Battle of Normandy arriving in the Eastern U.S. on 29 June 1944, after a 19-hour plane trip from the British Isles. The wounded—a U.S.…
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The title of this post is the words of a then 9-year-old girl, Jiska Pinkhof. In 1940, she wrote in the album of her friend Elly, “Always be a ray of sunshine to everyone you meet. Then you give joy to others, and you yourself are well off.” Wise words for a 9-year-old. Jiska was…
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After someone who is close to you has died, some people will say that you have to get over it. That advise is total nonsense. You don’t get over it. You deal with it and you move on after a certain time, but you don’t get over it. There is no need to do that,…
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On May 8, 1940, the Van Hasselt family were festively dressed—as guests at the wedding of Meijer Nieweg, Missus van Hasselt’s brother. Simon van Hasselt was wearing a white flower for the occasion. Two days later, the Germans invaded the Netherlands. Less than two years later, on April 29, 1942, the van Hasselt family, like…
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When I say “the Jews who fought alongside the Nazis,” it really was a case of the enemy of my enemy—is my friend, or rather they had a common enemy. The photograph above is of Finnish Jewish soldiers on leave during Rosh Hashanah in front of the synagogue in Turku, Finland, in 1943. Finland’s involvement…
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I was going to give this piece the title Confessions of a Young Fan of Hitler, but I decided to stick with the one I am using. Hitler thought that he who had the youth, had the future. Alfons Heck (3 November 1928 – 11 April 2005) was a Hitler Youth member who eventually became a Hitler…
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History of Sorts 