History

General history issues, although a lot will be about WW2

  • Last week I had the privilege to interview Ferne Pearlstein and Robert Edwards. Ferne Pearlstein is a prize-winning cinematographer, writer, director, and editor whose work has won numerous awards and been screened and broadcast around the world. Her most recent documentary, The Last Laugh-which she directed, produced, photographed, and edited-had its world premiere at the…

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  • German troops invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. The Nazi regime stayed in power in the Netherlands until May 1945. However, the Allies had already liberated the southern provinces in the autumn of 1944. Despite the occupation, life went ahead as usual for many, at least to some extent. The Nazi occupiers still allowed sporting…

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  • It may be a naive notion, but I believe there are only two types of people in this world: good and bad. Bad people will always do bad and evil things. They may, on occasion, be charitable and do something good, but in the end, they only serve their own interests. On the other hand,…

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  • I have to start with an apology because after reading this blog, next time you watch the Disney classic Bambi, you will see that young little deer in a different light. Felix Salten was a Hungarian-born, Austrian Jewish author. When he was four weeks old, he moved from Pest in Hungary to Vienna in Austria.…

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  • 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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