February 2022

  • (Edited February 28,2023) On this day 46 years ago, 28 February 1977. Soul legend Ray Charles was attacked on stage. Ray Charles was performing at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles for a benefit concert for the community program Project Heavy when an audience member leapt onto the stage with a rope and attempted…

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  • Not every German supported the Nazis or signed up to their ideology. There were quite a few who were appalled by what their nation had become under the leadership of Hitler and his regime. However there were only a handful of people who had the courage to stand up against the Nazis, at risk of…

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  • Nathan Roozelaar& Eva Roozelaar-Hart, who were they? To be honest I know very little about them. All I know that they were both born in Amsterdam. Nathan on March 21,1887 and Eva on July 15,1887. At some stage they must have met because they got married, when I don’t know? I do know that Nathan…

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  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Amadeus, Goya’s Ghosts; Man on he Moon, these are some of my favourite movies. They were all directed by Miloš Forman. For two of them he received an academy award aka Oscar. That on its own is extraordinary, but it is nothing compared to Miloš’s story of his young…

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  • Irena Sendler

    Remembering the victims of the Holocaust is extremely important, now probably more than ever, however it is also important to remember the heroes who saved so many from certain death. Today marks the 111th birthday of Irena Sendler. Sendler was born Irena Krzyżanowska on February 15, 1910, in Otwock, Poland. Her parents were members of…

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  • These are students and teachers of the Jewish Lyceum in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, July 1942. More than 75% of the Dutch Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. There are about 60+ people in this photograph of which most or all were murdered. Most of them are young people. Girls who never again received a Valentine’s card. Boys…

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  • It is just a photo of a soldier with his family. One could easily dismiss this photograph as someone’s memory. A father who loved to smoke, a mother all dressed up and two well-dressed children—a boy and a girl. This photo could have easily been a picture of my grandfather with his family. Like the…

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  • Last Sunday I had the privilege to be invited to another presentation organised by The Ghetto Fighters’ House. The presentation was on Belzec concentration camp. A truly fascinating presentation, below is the information on the recorded session and the YouTube recording. “The Belzec Death Camp was the first of the three Operation Reinhard camps. As…

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  • Café Alcazar Amsterdam

    On 9 February 1941, members of the Dutch Nazi party, NSB, assisted by German soldiers, forced their way into the café-cabaret ‘Alcazar’ on Thorbeckeplein because Jewish artists were still performing there. This led to a brawl in which 23 people were injured. Clara de Vries was a jazz trumpet player. Her performance at Cabaret Alcazar…

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  • A Jewish wedding

    I often wonder why did people get married during World War 2. Especially when you were Jewish, because you had even more uncertainty about your life then the general population. But then I look at the 2 people in the picture, and all I see is pure love. That look is the look of a…

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