• Kapos

    I just want to make it crystal clear at the start that this blog is not meant to judge, nor is it meant for anyone else to use as a tool to pass judgment. The honest truth is that if I had been in that situation, I could easily have been a Kapo myself. Kapos…

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  • Nico Peeters was born on 12 April 1893 in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and lived in The Hague. He grew up with his brothers and sister in a family with deaf parents. He was an entrepreneur and resistance member. Nico owned a cigar factory with his brother Ben. The Peeters family was idealistic and active in the resistance.…

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  • This is a Substack from my good friend Grant Gochin. On June 11, the Government of Lithuania used Holocaust Museum LA’s reopening to claim “Lithuania’s place” in Holocaust memory. The museum had been warned, in writing, about exactly this. It welcomed Lithuania anyway. The reopening deserves praise. After a major expansion, the survivor-founded institution opened…

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  • Born in England in 1946, serial killer Harold Shipman attended Leeds School of Medicine and began working as a physician in 1970. Between then and his arrest in 1998, he killed at least 100 and possibly as many as 260 of his patients, injecting them with lethal doses of painkillers. He was  jailed for life,…

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  • Pope Pius XII is often referred to as “Hitler’s Pope,” but the Catholic Church’s connections with fascist regimes began before his papacy. It was his predecessor, Pope Pius XI, who actively sought ties with fascist leaders. On June 16, 1936, he met with Anton Mussert, the leader of the Dutch Nazi party. The 20th century…

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  • This Is…

    This is Margot Jany, eight-years-old when she was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau. This is Ernest Frydman, age nine from Paris, France deported and murdered in Auschwitz on August 1942. This is Mina and Joseph Kiszelewski, murdered in the gas chamber on August 26, 1942, at ages nine and six. This is Bernard Gutman, age eight, from…

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  • Music soothes the savage beast, that is what Shony Alex Braun must have thought when he played for the SS. Shony’s story may seem like he had it relatively easy life, playing for the SS. However, I believe that could not be further from the truth. It wouldn’t take much for the SS to suddenly…

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  • I have to be honest but “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” would not be one of my favourite Rock songs. However it is a classic Rock song nonetheless. A friend once asked me if I knew the song “In the Garden of Eden” . He had heard it in the 1986 film “Manhunter” I corrected him and told him…

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  • Mordechai Santilhano was a Dutch-Jewish performing artist. He was born on 11 January 1905. He was murdered in or near Auschwitz on 12 October 1944. He used the artist name Max Santiel or simply Oom Max-Uncle Max. I could say quite a lot about him, but I have decided to leave his own words to…

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