History

  • Heinrich Bütefisch is not a well-known name in the context of World War II and the Holocaust, yet he was responsible for the deaths of thousands; in addition to that, he also worked for a company that had helped to develop Zyklon B, the gas used to kill millions. The company that produced Zyklon B…

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  • Selection

    The photograph above is of a selection in Auschwitz-Birkenau. It looks horrendous enough when you look at it, but if you analyze it, the horrors become so real. Firstly, it is clear that the line on the left will not show the end of that day. They are doomed to go into the gas chambers.…

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  • Henio Zytomirski was a 9-year-old boy who was gassed at Majdanek Concentration Camp in Poland on November 9, 1942. In 2005, a project called “Letters to Henio” was started in Lubin, Poland. Each year on April 19, Holocaust Remembrance Day in Poland, pupils and citizens of Lublin are asked to send letters addressed to Henio…

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  • In April 2017 I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. It happened only days after my mother in law passed away, and at the same time my sister had a stroke. I was also still recovering from an eye operation, so as you can understand it wasn’t a great time for me. I had a choice…

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  • (Update from the November 2016 blog) One aspect of history I find particularly difficult to grasp is the collaboration of some Jews with the Nazis. On the one hand, I understand that self-preservation is a powerful human instinct—survival at any cost can drive people to make unimaginable choices. Yet, conversely, it’s hard to reconcile how…

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  • I cannot decide which is worse, the crimes of Auke Bert Pattist or his remorselessness. Also, the fact that some people saw him as a hero—depresses me. Auke Bert Pattist was born in 1920. In 1943 he voluntarily entered the Waffen-SS. As an officer, he would be involved in arresting and ill-treating a large number…

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