Holocaust
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The picture is of Dutch SS volunteer Berend Johan Westerveld, nicknamed ‘The Bicycle Repairman’ or ‘The Knight of the Bicycle Pedal’, presumably taken after his arrest.Berend Johan Westerveld was born on August 23, 1905 in Zutphen. His career was characterized by a series of failures. Just before the war he became a bicycle repairer and…
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He is just one of the 6 million. But I believe that remembering all those Jewish fellow citizens, is best done one at a time. They were all human beings like everybody else. The same ambitions, the same emotions. Iwan was born in Iserlohn, Germany, on 31 March 1903. He came from Cologne to The…
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A flower from Poland. is a book written by Louis Rautenbach. “I wrote about the massacre of the Polish people during WWII. The babies and children were kidnapped mostly to be killed, some to be raised by Germans (those with blonde hair and blue eyes, thin lips, etc). Some older children were used for slave…
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Sports are taken very seriously in the Netherlands, and the Dutch are passionate about many sporting events. For a small country, it does well in many sporting disciplines. Equally important are the people reporting or covering sports, especially on the radio. Hartog “Han” Hollander was the first Dutch radio sports journalist. He was Jewish—but changed…
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The NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies is a national and international centre of expertise for interdisciplinary research into the history of world wars, mass violence, and genocides, including their long-term social consequences. In addition, NIOD collects, preserves, and provides access to archives and collections. It is based in the Netherlands. Recently they…
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This is an article written by Eddy Boas, Eddy and his family survived Bergen Belsen. I had the privilege to interview him 2 years ago. In the article he poses a few interesting question in relation to the investigation to who betrayed Anne Frank. “Who really betrayed Anne Frank?The real betrayal – no investigation necessary…
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I watched the movie “My Best Friend Anne Frank” last night, I know about the amount of criticism when it was first released, I don’t really know why though, of course, there was some fictionalisation. However in essence the main story is true. But this is not going to be a movie review. The story…
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A photograph like the one above is nearly as disturbing to me as an image of piles of dead bodies. It is not the image but the knowledge of what happened to most—if not all—of the people in the picture. The majority looking into the camera lens were young, healthy people, still in the prime…
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The number of Jews murdered during the Holocaust is estimated at six million. I have often argued that this number is higher. I have no data to back this up, but if you read the testimony of Hans Levy, you can’t help but wonder. Did they include the number of suicides in that number of…
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These are just some of my favourite World War II movies, in no particular order. Tora Tora ToraThe photo above is a still from the 1970 movie Tora Tora Tora. The 1970 war epic received widespread praise from both critics and film fans for its detailed depiction of the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. Universally considered…
History of Sorts 