June 2025

  • 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

    Read more →

  • This Is…

    This is Margot Jany, eight-years-old when she was murdered in Auschwitz-Birenk. 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

    Read more →

  • I can never understand people who are ashamed or embarrassed of where they are from or where they were born. You should always be proud of your roots. Even if you live somewhere else you should never lose your pride of your birth place. It is perfectly possible to be proud of the place you

    Read more →

  • To be honest the ‘global’ in the title might be a slight exaggeration but it was a freaky weather event nonetheless in fact the freakiest weather event. Imagine bundling up to get the newspaper on an early morning at 7:30 a.m. with the temperature at a frigid -4 degrees.(−20°C). Just two minutes later as you

    Read more →

  • Harold Shipman-Dr Death

    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,

    Read more →

  • Some people really have lived a life. Charles Herbet Lightoller survived three major dramatice events and lived to tell the tale. Charles Herbert Lightoller (30 March 1874 – 8 December 1952) was the second mate (second officer) on board the RMS Titanic and the most senior officer to survive the Titanic disaster. As an officer in charge

    Read more →

  • This post is a bit of a detour from my usual World War II history blog, but I felt I needed a break from the harrowing stories of the war—especially those surrounding the Holocaust. I spent the longest part of my career working for Philips, between 1987 and 1997. I was part of the FSM

    Read more →

  • 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

    Read more →

  • Today, Father’s Day, I felt compelled to write something about all the Fathers who lived and were murdered during the Holocaust, but there were too many to mention, So I decided to honor them all via a poem. So many were murdered, only a few survived, but they all had something in common, none of

    Read more →

  • Fathers Day

    Father’s day 2015 was the last time I saw my dad. It wasn’t a usual meeting but a quick hello via Skype. With the help of one of my nephews, he had tried to reach me earlier that day, but I had been out to the shop.We did finally connect later that evening, June 21,2015.

    Read more →