History
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Although I have literally written hundreds of posts on World War II and the Holocaust, I hadn’t heard about the great bank robbery. The bank robbery at Almelo 1944, is a bank robbery was committed by the Dutch resistance on November 15, in which 46.1 million guilders (value in 2023: €354 million) was taken. It…
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The fact that so many were murdered during the Holocaust is hard to fathom, and it is often compounded by personal stories. None so sad as that of Heinz Felix Geiringer. It is not clear if he died just before the end of the war in Europe or shortly after the end. Several databases list…
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The title, Last Letters—The Final Thoughts, doesn’t reflect entirely their reality. The letters that were sent or received were often checked and edited by the Nazis, especially the letters in the camps. The Red Cross distributed the posts. The words in the letters may not have always been the final thoughts, but they may have been…
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Jenny-Wanda Barkmann was known as “The Beautiful Spectre” and “Mad Jenny,” but neither nickname was accurate. Although she may have been beautiful or pleasing to the eyes (although not in my opinion), but this was just a thin veneer to cover her evilness, and she wasn’t mad—because I believe—she knew exactly what she was doing.…
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Philip Mechanicus was born, three days before Adolph Hitler, in Amsterdam on 17 April 1889 to a Jewish family. After he left school, he started to work for the social-democratic daily newspaper Het Volk in the shipping and records department. He worked his way up to become a journalist. After finishing his military service, he worked in…
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There is no bond stronger than that between a mother and child. The photograph above appears to be of a mother showing off her beautiful newborn cosily wrapped in a blanket and the smiling, doting mother. However, there is more to this photo. It really is a double miracle—giving birth is a miracle itself is…
History of Sorts 