Auschwitz
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Life is only a sequence of events and accidents, often determined when and where you are born. When I was 15, as a young man in the 1980s in the Netherlands, my main interest was girls and trying to get beer. When Elie Wiesel was 15 and a young man in Romania (or then Hungary)…
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When you look at the photograph above, you may be forgiven for thinking that it is an image of a class of children doing arts and crafts at school. They are children doing arts and crafts, but it is not in a school (at least not a regular school) it is a group of children…
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Oswald Kaduk was born on 26 August 1906. I think a line from an Iron Maiden song applies to him, “All the evil seem to live forever.” He died on 31 May 1997. He was a German SS member and served as Rapportführer at Auschwitz. He was on trial during the second Auschwitz trial. Kaduk…
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This post will contain little text. Instead, it has drawings by those who lived through the Holocaust. Above is “Arrival into the Auschwitz Camp.” Just behind the backs of the prisoners and to their left is the guard tower at the main entrance to the camp. (Illustration by Władysław Siwek) Next we see the entrance…
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There are no photographs of the two babies—just death certificates. Elisabeth Jeanne Petzal was born with her twin brother Robert Harry on 10 August 1943 at Camp Westerbork. They were children of Werner Petzal and Fanny Betsy Oppenheim. Both were murdered at Auschwitz on 18 October 1944. They were just a year old when they…
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People sometimes ask me if I am Jewish and are surprised when I say I am not. There are even a few who complain to me for writing about the Holocaust as a non-Jewish person. Although the Jews were the largest sect of victims during the Holocaust, the Nazis also specifically targeted other groups. I…
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On this day in 1919, Primo Levi was born. He was an Italian-Jewish chemist, partisan, writer, and Holocaust survivor. He has written many books and essays. He died on 11 April 1987 from injuries sustained in a fall from a third-story apartment landing. His death was initially ruled a suicide, but after some careful consideration,…
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Levie Peper was a son of Abraham Peper and Margaretha Rood. He was born in Amsterdam on 24 June 1874, and he earned his money as a hawker. On 30 March 1905, he married Johanna (Naatje) Vos in Amsterdam, who was born there on 22 April 1871 to her parents Joseph Vos and Marianna Aron…
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(Updated May 13, 2024) I have written about Settela before. She was also known as Anna Maria Steinbach. One of the reasons I want to highlight the sad story of Settela is because there is a chance she may be related to me, be it via marriage or one of my cousins. Yet, there is…
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A small boy named Jacques Maurice Duizend was just a baby—a toddler. His last name is also a number, Thousand. That is the number of years the failed Austrian artist had envisaged his ‘Reich’ to last. To achieve that two-year-old children like Jacques Maurice Duizend had to be murdered. Jacques Maurice Duizend was born in…
History of Sorts 