History
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Werner Löwenhardt was born in 1907 in Germany into a Jewish family. His early years were marked by the vibrant cultural and intellectual life of pre-war Germany, but this was soon overshadowed by the rise of the Nazi regime. As the Nazis came to power, Jews in Germany faced increasing persecution. Werner Löwenhardt, like many…
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There is this funny riddle, it goes like “What’s Rembrandt’s first name?” Rembrandt of course is his first name, his last name is van Rijn. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn born 15 July 1606 Unlike the riddle, his life wasn’t funny. He suffered many tragedies in his life. He got married on June 22 1634 to…
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What a sense of relief it must have been when the French people found out that the allied troops had finally arrived on June 6 1944. Unfortunately though D-Day wasn’t the end of the war it was only the start of the end and many innocent lives were still lost between that day and the…
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Josephine Baker is mainly remembered for her erotic and provocative dances, vaudeville routines, and appearances in films. However her efforts to fight the tyranny of Fascism have received very little attention. She was born as Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother, Carrie, was adopted in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1886 by Richard…
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I don’t know why I decided to do a blog specifically about the women victims of the Holocaust, but I just felt compelled to do one. I am married to a beautiful wife, and we have a beautiful daughter. I have two older sisters, and of course, like everyone else I also have a mother,…
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(First published in 2019) Ireland remained neutral throughout World War II, but that is not to say there was no contribution from the Irish during the war. Many young Irish men did join the British army and also partook in Operation Overlord, more commonly known as D-Day. However, this blog is not about any of…
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Ruth Westheimer (June 4, 1928 – July 12, 2024), widely known as Dr. Ruth, was an American sex therapist, media personality, and author. The New York Times described her as a “Sorbonne-trained psychologist who became a cultural icon in the 1980s,” noting that she “ushered in a new age of freer, franker talk about sex…
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Before diving into this historical account, I want to share a personal observation. This is not a political statement, but it is impossible to read these events without noticing the stark similarities to our world today, where countries continue to close their borders to refugees fleeing crisis. The MS St. Louis was a German ocean…
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I was struggling with the title but to be honest I can’t think of another way of describing it. An estimated 1.5 to 2 million children were killed during the Holocaust. How many were killed in Auschwitz is not clear but if you consider that for example on October 10,1944 800 gypsy children were gassed,…
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The title is The 4 from Breda, but there are only 3 men pictured. There is a reason for that which I shall explain a bit later. After the Second World War, 241 Germans were tried in the Netherlands for war crimes. Among them, the quartet Willi Lages, Ferdinand aus der Fünten, Franz Fischer and Joseph Kotälla,…
History of Sorts 