Germany
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My mother was born on December 10, 1935, and passed away on January 26, 1996, at the age of 60. It felt far too young, but I took solace in the fact that she lived a full life, witnessing all her children grow up and settle into their lives. Sigmund Cohen, born on the same…
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On November 12, 1938, the Nazi regime issued the Decree on the Elimination of Jews from Economic Life, marking another chilling step in its systematic campaign of persecution against Jewish people. This Decree sought to segregate Jews entirely from the German economy, forbidding them from owning businesses, selling goods and services, or engaging in trade.…
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When you see a photograph of a Wehrmacht officer in the context of the Holocaust, it’s natural to assume he was complicit in the atrocities of that time. Yet, in the case of Lieutenant Albert Battel, that assumption couldn’t be more wrong. Battel defied expectations and risked his life to oppose Nazi crimes—revealing an extraordinary…
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Bergen-Belsen was a Nazi Concentration Camp located near the town of Bergen in Lower Saxony, Germany. Initially established in 1940 as a prisoner-of-war camp, it was later converted into a concentration camp. Early Years (1940-1943): Initially served as a POW camp primarily for French and Belgian soldiers. Later, Soviet prisoners were also held here, many…
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The year 2024 will be a busy year sports-wise. We’ll have the UEFA Euro 2024 starting on June 14, and just over a month later on July 26—the Paris Olympic Games will start. That’s why I wanted to remember Jewish athletes murdered during the Holocaust. However, I have done several blogs on that already, and…
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The hate of the Nazis for all who were not Aryan was so great that even in the last months of the war, they still set up a new concentration camp. The camp, near the city of Ludwigslust, was a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp. The SS had established Wöbbelin in early February 1945…
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Hitler had a vision for an empire that would last a thousand years. It only lasted 12, but in those 12 years, he and his Nazi party did more damage than any empire before. On 30 January 1933, Von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor. “It is like a dream. The Wilhelmstraße is ours,” Joseph Goebbels, the…
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(courtesy of John Davis) This is an excerpt from John Davis’ book, Rainy Street Stories. It tells the story of a survivor he met at Flossenburg, who had survived Auschwitz, Ravensbruch, and finally, Flossenburg. Z-1557While vacationing many years ago, my wife Jane and I decided to visit Flossenburg, West Germany. This charming little town is…
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The beautiful beast and the hyena of Auschwitz were just some names used for Irma Grese. She was born to Berta Grese and Alfred Grese, both dairy workers, on 7 October 1923. Irma was the third of five children (three girls and two boys). In 1936, her mother died by suicide after drinking hydrochloric acid…
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The letter above is dated 18 December 1943. However, it is in direct connection with a program that started eight years earlier. On 12 December 1935, the Lebensborn program began as a campaign to encourage so-called “racially valuable” Germans to have more children. Lebensborn initially focused on giving financial assistance to members of the SS…
