History
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The Four Freedoms were goals articulated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Monday, 6 January 1941. In an address known as the Four Freedoms speech (technically the 1941 State of the Union address), he proposed four fundamental freedoms that people “everywhere in the world” ought to enjoy: “In the future days, which we seek…
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The title is Holocaust Tattoos, but it was only in Auschwitz that the new arrivals selected for work would receive a tattoo. As a rule, they were tattooed on their left forearm to display, in dark blue/ black ink, the camp serial number assigned to them. The Nazis recorded more than 400,000 serial numbers at Auschwitz.…
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Hitler had a vision for an empire that would last a thousand years. It only lasted 12, but in those 12 years, he and his Nazi party did more damage than any empire before. On 30 January 1933, Von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor. “It is like a dream. The Wilhelmstraße is ours,” Joseph Goebbels, the…
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I love the Netherlands. I was born and raised there and proud to call myself a Dutchman. Like all other countries in this world, it has pages in history that are not so glorious. I believe that the best way for any country to deal with the darker days of its history is not to…
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“Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,” is a famous line which was used by a character in William Congreve’s 1697 play The Mourning Bride. And sometimes music does soothe the savage beast, but during the Holocaust, some of these ‘beasts’ were so evil that nothing could soothe them. However, music did play an…
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I am a great believer in balance. It is good to have a balanced view of life. I have written quite a bit on how the Dutch failed their Jewish-fellow citizens, and the Dutch complacency might be considered a crime. However, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes you need to take a step back and take…
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The beautiful beast and the hyena of Auschwitz were just some names used for Irma Grese. She was born to Berta Grese and Alfred Grese, both dairy workers, on 7 October 1923. Irma was the third of five children (three girls and two boys). In 1936, her mother died by suicide after drinking hydrochloric acid…
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I wasn’t sure what to call this post. I had considered the title “Mission Impossible” but I did go with “Escape to Victory.” On 8 December 1944, the KP (Knok Ploeg-boxing crew) resistance group in Friesland managed to liberate 51 members of the resistance from the Blokhuispoort, the detention centre in Leeuwarden, without any escalation…
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Originally posted on History of Sorts: After the February Strike of 1941, in Amsterdam,the sculptor and draftsman Cor van Teeseling joined a Resistance group that printed and distributed the illegal Communist newspaper De Waarheid (Lit. The Truth). Six months later, the Germans arrested him. On 10 November 1941, the death sentence was pronounced against him.…
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Originally posted on History of Sorts: It can be argued that the deadliest weapon during WWII was propaganda,below are some examples of WWII propaganda from the allied forces and the axis powers. ? “Propaganda tries to force a doctrine on the whole people… Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea…
History of Sorts 