The most disturbing aspect of the Holocaust is the numbers of people being killed. No one of us can even begin to imagine the horror.

Many knew their fate before they got killed. They were put on transports on journeys that sometimes would take days. Journeys under unfathomable inhumane conditions, many would already die during the journeys. The ones who survived the journey only survived to be killed immediately after they arrived at any of the death camps. Or otherwise to be slowly worked to death or killed as part of experiments. Eventually some of those who survived to be liberated, still died because of the weakened state their bodies were in, and even getting proper food would cause such a shock to the system that it killed them.

On June 23 1943 1018 Jews were transported from Drancy, near Paris. to Auschwitz. Of those 1018,518 were killed immediately in…

+++Contains some sexual references++++++

Don’t worry I haven’t suddenly gone pornographic in my blogs, but in this Political Correct era I thought it better to warn people upfront that this blog may contain some sexual references, because God forbid imagine if I offended anyone.

During World War II venereal disease(or STD’S/STI’s) was a serious problem for the US Army and Navy. In some hospitals one out of eight service men had been infected with  some form of venereal disease. Two of the worst venereal diseases known to the Medical Department during the Second World War were gonorrhea and syphilis. As a consequence  the majority of treatment and awareness programs had great emphasis on these two infections in particular.

However it wasn’t only in the awareness programs, there was also a preemptive element to this. Many American women,mainly those involved in prostitution but also other women, were detained and subjected to…

I remember as a kid , my neighbor and I made our own bows and arrows, We used it to target practice on a spare door we had in the storage rooms in the basement of our apartment block.

We bought the materials for these ‘weapons’  in a shop in the center of our town,Geleen, in the Netherlands. It was a DIY shop, called Hubo, located on Annastraat 24.

Also later in life when I needed something DIY related I would frequent the establishment and would purchase what I required.

I can’t remember how often I went in there, it would not have been an awful lot because when it comes to DIY I am pretty much double left handed. But I would have been in there at least a few dozen times, and would have passed by the shop on a daily basis.

Never did I realize the fate…

The Holocaust is often best described in the simplicity of the art and words of the children who were the victims. Below are some poems and drawings from children of the Holocaust.

The picture above is a painting by a child interred in Terezin camp during the Holocaust. She dreamed of seeing butterflies again.

At Terezín

When a new child comes
Everything seems strange to him.
What, on the ground I have to lie?
Eat black potatoes? No! Not I!
I’ve got to stay? It’s dirty here!
The floor- why, look, it’s dirt, I fear!
And I’m supposed to sleep on it?
I’ll get all dirty!

Here the sound of shouting, cries,
And oh, so many flies.
Everyone knows flies carry disease.
Oooh, something bit me! Wasn’t that a bedbug?
Here in Terezín, life is hell
and when I’ll go home again, I can’t yet tell.

“Teddy” 1943

Ella Liebermann…

One of the most effective weapons during WWII, and indeed nearly every war, was propaganda.

Where the Nazis mostly used their propaganda to incite fear and hate, the allies and especially the Brits sometimes adopted a different approach. They’d often used humour and satire in order to ridicule the Nazis and their beloved leader Hitler.

in August 1939  Toby O’Brien, an Anglo-Irish journalist  and publicist for the British Council at the time, wrote the song  “Hitler Has Only Got One Ball” Initially it was called  “Göring has only got one ball”, referring to Göring’s groin injury he suffered during the Beer Hall Putsch, the song also implied that Hitler had two small ones. In nearly all later versions, the positions were reversed.

The song was sung to the tune of “Colonel Bogey March” unfortunately I could not find any good versions of the song, but below are  the lyrics of…

I know the title is not PC, but it reflects the reality because these women were sexy. They would give any man a run for their money. They were not to be messed with and they were lethal. Either as part of the resistance or armed forces they were a force to be reckoned with.

Honoring the women who fought and often gave their lives so that we now all enjoy our freedom.

The picture above is of Simone Segouin, also known by her nom de guerre Nicole Minet. When this photo was taken she was 18 years old. The girl had killed two Germans in the Paris fighting two days previously and also had assisted in capturing 25 German prisoners of war during the fall of Chartres. In 1944, at the height of the Nazi occupation of France, she joined the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (Free-shooters and Partisans, or FTP) –…

If someone told you that you could kill an innocent man and there would be no repercussions or any form of punishment, would you do it?

Any normal person would answer “no” of course.But not Alfred-Ingemar Berndt, he decided to kill a man simply for the reason that he could.

Berndt was a German journalist, writer and was very close to  Joseph Goebbels. Alfred Berndt  wrote an eyewitness account of the 1940 German invasion of the Low Countries and France,  the book he wrote was titled “Tanks Break Through!”

In 1935 Goebbels recruited Berndt as official head of the Reich Press Office in the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. In April 1936, Berndt was appointed head of the press department of the Propaganda Ministry (Division IV).

Berndt is also believed to have been the creator of the “Desert Fox” myth attached to the German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, when…