Auschwitz
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Many people may have heard of David Koker or at least know about the remarkable diary he kept during his imprisonment in Camp Vught, a concentration camp in the Netherlands. His writings offer a rare and invaluable insight into daily life in the camp, the resilience of the human spirit, and the looming horror of…
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The photograph above is of an Opel Blitz troops transporter; Opel is one of the companies that provided the Nazi regime with equipment but also with funding. But Opel was not the only company. Funding for the Nazis had already started in the early 1930s. Nineteen representatives of industry, finance, and agriculture signed a petition…
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One thing I could never understand is the death marches. Most of them took place near the end of the war, when they served little strategic purpose. Even from a military standpoint, they made no sense. Then again, many of the Nazis’ actions defied logic. So many of their policies and strategies were driven purely…
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Some individuals are conditioned to commit evil acts, while others appear to be inherently malicious. In February 1944, two Jewish sisters from France, Denise and Micheline Lévy, were preparing to be sent to Auschwitz. They stood in line in the small village of Gemeaux, unaware of the horror awaiting them. Denise and Micheline Lévy were…
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I’m keeping this blog post limited to the essential data since I’ve written about the experiments before. There’s only so much of it I can take A Dark Chapter in Medical History Tremendous advancements in science and medicine mark the history of human civilization. However, some of these developments have come at a horrifying cost.…
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The title of this blog is a line from a song by the hip-hop group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. I chose it because it speaks a simple truth—a child does not know how to be evil. The boy in the picture above is Samuel Siegfried Opdenberg. He was born on February 7, 1940,…
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The Frankfurt Auschwitz trial (1963–1965) was one of the most significant post-war trials of Nazi war criminals in West Germany. It prosecuted former SS officers and personnel involved in the operation of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp during the Holocaust. The trial, held in Frankfurt am Main, was led by Fritz Bauer, a German-Jewish…
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Betje Bierman was the second child of Levie Bierman and Sara Italiaander. She was born in Amsterdam on September 8, 1897, and married there on April 10, 1918, to diamond cutter Abraham Katwijk, the son of Jacob Katwijk and Sara Gobes, who was also born in Amsterdam on May 1, 1894. After Betje and Abraham…
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Initially, I set out to write a blog about Mengele’s experiments on children, especially twins, but I found myself unable to continue. The haunting images of those innocent eyes made it impossible for me to proceed with my research. What makes this all the more disturbing is a point I’ve raised before: Josef Mengele didn’t…
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The Bunalied, or “Song of Buna,” stands as a harrowing testament to the resilience and creativity of individuals subjected to unimaginable suffering during the Holocaust. Composed in the Buna-Monowitz subcamp of Auschwitz in 1942, the song poignantly reflects the daily struggles of prisoners and their unyielding will to retain their humanity amidst inhuman conditions. This…
History of Sorts 