Geleen

  • I came across this document which made me glad on one hand, but on the other hand it was also disturbing. But before I go into the details I have to give some background information first. The south of the Netherlands was mostly liberated by October 1944. At that time the Netherlands was made up…

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  • Friendly fire or amicicide is an attack by a military force on friendly or neutral troops while attempting to attack the enemy. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while engaging an enemy, long range ranging errors or inaccuracy. I hate the term ‘friendly’ fire because the end result is still death and destruction…

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  • (updated on March 29, 2024) There are very few regrets I have—but I do regret that I did not buy tickets on January 5, 1995, for Rory Gallagher in my hometown of Geleen, in the Netherlands. The concert was in de Hanenhof, which would not be the world’s best venue, but it could hold a…

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  • Not Just Numbers

    The approximate number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust by nation . Poland 3,000.000; Ukraine 900,000;Hungary 450,000; Russia 352,000;Romania 300;000;BaltIc countries 228,000;Germany/Austria 210,000;the Netherlands 105,000;France 92,000;Slovakia 75,000; Greece 54,000;Belgium 40,000;Yugoslavia 26,000;Bulgaria 14,000 ;Italy 8,000,Luxembourg 1,000;Norway 900. Total 5,907,900. These numbers are just estimates. I believe the number is actually higher, because not all suicides are…

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  • May 10, 2020 is Mother’s Day in most countries, with only a few exceptions like the UK and Ireland who had it on March 22. May 10 1943 is the date when one Jewish Mother and Grandmother was killed at Westerbork, aged 83. Her name was  Jeanette Meyer-Cahn, wife and  widow of Daniel Meyer. Daniel…

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  • I remember as a kid , my neighbor and I made our own bows and arrows, We used it to target practice on a spare door we had in the storage rooms in the basement of our apartment block. We bought the materials for these ‘weapons’  in a shop in the center of our town,Geleen,…

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  • Law abiding citizen

    I don’t know what it is but the last few days I have discovered several accounts of victims of the Holocaust which are very near to me. Not so much that I was related to these people or that I knew them, but I knew the locality and the addresses where they lived. In fact…

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  • The title of this blog is an address. It will mean very little to most people. It is not the address of someone famous or some well known shop or even museum. It is basically a very insignificant address in the greater scheme of things. But in a microcosm it has such great relevance and…

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  • In the southeast province of the Netherlands is Limburg. It used to be a rural area with mainly farming as employment opportunities. However, in the late 19th and early 20th century, something nicknamed “black gold” was discovered in the southern part of the province. This ‘black gold’ was coal. The Dutch government exploited the discovery…

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  • October 5th,1942, was one of the darkest if not the darkest days of WWII for my hometown of Geleen, at the time it was a small mining town in the south east of the Netherlands, in the province of Limburg. Shortly after 21.30 the alarms sounded,warning the population of an imminent attack. The bombing  did…

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