History
-
One sign, 2 languages, 5000 bodies. A sign that explains that a number of 5000 bodies are buried there. No individual graves with head stones. No individual places where family members leave small artifacts or flowers. No place to gather around a single grave to say a prayer. Some of those 5000 may have been…
-
Before you read this blog, have a close look at the above picture. It is a picture of an SS soldier, and you have probably seen many pictures like it, but there is something special about this one.On the sleeve on the left arm, at the left bottom, you can see part of a flag,…
-
Although the Red Cross does important work, it often got it wrong in the past, and arguably in the present, when it’s about political positions. They appear to take one side—usually the side that controls the data. One infamous example is the visit by the International Red Cross to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in 1944. The…
-
You will never know how it feels to fall in love and wake up every morning next to the love of your life. You will never know the anxiety of school exams. You will never know that nervousness of a first working day. You will never know how it feels like to have your teenage…
-
Lest we forget, a line that is easily said. Lest we forget, it slides off the tongue—easily but, yet. Lest we forget, it used to be a sentence filled with emotion and elan. Lest we forget is now becoming a referential expression and slogan. Lest we forget, but that is what we are doing. Lest…
-
Auguste van Pels, born September 29, 1900, in Buer, Germany, lived through one of the most tragic periods in history, ultimately losing her life during the Holocaust. Though she might have remained unknown to the world, she is now remembered as one of the residents of the Secret Annex, a small group of Jewish individuals…
-
The Ebensee Concentration Camp was established by the SS to build tunnels for armaments storage near the town of Ebensee, Austria in 1943. It was part of the Mauthausen network. Due to the inhumane working and living conditions, Ebensee was one of the worst Nazi concentration camps because of the death rates of its prisoners.…
-
The image above shows a young child—just a baby. He was born on 20 April 1889. Nothing in this picture would suggest that this infant would one day be responsible for the deaths of millions. That child was Adolf Hitler. There is a question sometimes posed in psychology as a moral thought experiment: if you…
-
This broke my heart. On September 14, 1945, an obituary appeared in the Nieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad, a Dutch Jewish weekly newspaper. It was an obituary for several generations of one family: George Sandelowsky (father and father-in-law), who had died on February 25 as a result of the awful conditions in Bergen Belsen concentration camp. aged…
-
This is a short poignant story but it has so much in it.A story of hope,survival,death, bereavement and most of all a story that tells us that life is a very precious thing. It is also a stark reminder that we have to remain vigilant to ensure that evil doesn’t win. It is the story…
History of Sorts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.