Auschwitz

  • Although its official name is Gurs Internment Camp, let’s call it what it really was, a concentration camp. It is also probably one, if not the only time, the Nazis sent Jews westward. At first, it served as a camp for Spanish Republicans and German refugees who fled from Nazism. The Gurs Camp was among…

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  • In The End Love Prevailed

    I planned to do this blog about Elisabeth Flesschedrager-Appelboom. She was born in Amsterdam, on 2 February 1921 . Murdered in Auschwitz, 18 January 1945. She reached the age of 23, and was a seamstress. She was married to Philip Flesschedrager, who was born in Amsterdam on 8 July 1920. Murdered in Auschwitz, 26 December…

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  • I could post thousands of photographs of victims every day or share disturbing and graphic images—some so horrific that we instinctively turn away. We avert our eyes because we cannot fathom the depth of the evil displayed before us. It seems impossible to comprehend how any human being could commit such atrocities against another. And…

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  • It is well known that the Nazis made no distinction in age when deporting Jews in the Netherlands. The result was that even venerable elderly people were murdered in Auschwitz and Sobibor, and other camps. Among the victims listed on the Joods Monument(Jewish Monument) site, Klara Borstel-Engelsman is the oldest, at the remarkable age of…

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  • Sex during the Holocaust

    I know this is an awkward subject and some people may have difficulties even reading past the first sentence. However just because it is awkward and  controversial doesn’t mean it is not important. Sex is one of the most primal human instincts and urges it is how we manage to reproduce, but is more then…

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  •   Will this be the last Sun light I see? I did see the sunbeams through the cracks on the train. They shone on the people in the wagon, Some did not move, They were asleep my mother said, but I don’t believe her Will this be the last fresh air I breathe? On the…

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  • No longer will I walk my dog

    No longer will I walk my dog or ride my bike No longer will I read a book or write a card No longer will I do what everyone else my age does. No longer will I be loved or no longer will I love. Not because I am a bad person or because I…

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  • Sjelomo Hamburger

    This is the aspect of the Holocaust I struggle most with. How can anyone look at this child and perceive him to be a threat to the nation. How can they look at his face and decide that he needs to be killed immediately. Sjelomo Hamburger would have celebrated his 80th birthday today. But he…

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  • Christmas in Westerbork

    At first glance when you look at the picture it doesn’t appear to be extraordinary. There is an officer clearly giving a speech. There are a few Christmas trees at the back so it appears to be some sort of Christmas do. The officer is Albert Konrad Gemmeker he was a German SS-Obersturmführer and camp…

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  • Josef Mengele-Angel of Death

    Josef Mengele was born in Günzburg on 16 March 1911, the oldest of three sons of Walburga (née Hupfauer) and Karl Mengele. His two younger brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois. There is an eerie coincidence here, Alois was also the name of the Father of the man he came to admire and serve, Adolf…

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