dirkdeklein
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The Netherlands had been occupied by the Nazis between May 15th 1940,after the Dutch forces surrendered, and May 1945. Although many parts had already been liberated by autumn 1944. The official liberation day was set on May 5,1945. The Netherlands had a population at the time of about 8.8 million. During the 5 years of…
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Originally posted on History of Sorts: The camp of Drancy was a transit camp located not far from Paris. Like many other detention centres throughout France, Drancy was created by the Vichy government of Philippe Pétain in 1941 and was under the control of the French police until July 3, 1943 when Nazi Germany took day-to-day control as part of the major stepping…
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John Miles once sang “Music was my first love and it will be my last”. The beauty with music is that you don’t need words to understand what it says. It evokes emotions so strong that you cannot really describe the effects they have on you. Music has its own language, it is universal and…
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May 4th is the designated day in the Netherlands to remember all those who died in WWII and other conflicts. At 8pm, two minutes of silence will be observed across the country. A few years ago, I saw a picture that really touched me. It was of a pizza delivery boy getting off his bike…
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Originally posted on History of Sorts: If you wouldn’t know the wider context of the picture, you would smile at it and think” a lovely picture of young people in the military enjoying themselves”. And that is exactly what they did , they did enjoy themselves. However this weren’t just some random service men and…
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Who doesn’t know David Bowie? I don’t think there is anyone on the planet who hasn’t heard of David Bowie. Even the younger generations know his music. However there are very few who know about David Bowie’s earliest works. Some might think that ‘Space Oddity may have been his first venture in to the world…
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Originally posted on History of Sorts: Below are the estimated numbers of the Holocaust victims. The keyword is estimated because an exact number is not known. I believe the actual number is higher when you take in consideration the numbers of victims who died on the transports, not all of them will have been recorded.…
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Originally posted on History of Sorts: On May 5,2019 on the 74th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands. One of the heroes who contributed to this liberation passed away aged 103. Like me he was Dutch and like me he had a love for Ireland and we both ended up making this emerald isle…
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Originally posted on History of Sorts: A scary thought crossed my mind this week. What some Social Media outlets are doing nowadays, is basically the digital version of book burning. Regardless how valuable a post might be, or even how inoffensive it is when the moderators don’t like it , it will get banned,or digitally…
History of Sorts 