History
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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,…
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The Holocaust wasn’t something that happened overnight, it was a gradual process. In Germany, it started in 1933, and in the Netherlands, it started shortly after the German occupation n May 1940. Below is a brief timeline of what eventually led to the murder of 75% of all Dutch Jews. 1940 July 1stJews are forbidden…
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I will not pass judgment about the event which involved the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, Enola Gay. Nothing would be easier than to judge in hindsight. I try to stick to the facts as much as possible. These facts actually started in 1937. What is often ignored in the whole debate of the dropping of the…
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In the Middle Ages, beer was the drink of the people. “Ordinary” rain and canal water was not safe to drink. Because the drink had to be heated during the production process, the barley juice contained fewer harmful bacteria than water and was therefore healthier. It is estimated that the average Frisian drank as much…
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It must have been meaningful for the US troops to find some entertainment during World War 2. We know about the USO, who hired big stars to sing or act for the troops, but there were other ways. The American Red Cross rodeo and “Wild West” show staged a rodeo in Foggia Stadium in Southern…
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Originally posted on History of Sorts: I could have picked any name out of millions of victims to write about today. So why did I pick Margot Frank-Cohen? No particular reason other then that she would have been 100 years old today. A few decades ago it would have been utter nonsense to talk about…
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Originally posted on History of Sorts: According to the Joods Monument (Jewish Monument) website, 210 Dutch Jews were murdered on this day 80 years ago, in Auschwitz. I could write pieces on each single one of them, but I decided to stick with only one of the victims, because it symbolises the pure evil of…