Holocaust
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Officially known as the Jewish Organization for the Maintenance of Public Order (German: Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst; Polish: Żydowska Służba Porządkowa), Jewish police units were established under Nazi occupation in most East European ghettos. Their creation was closely tied to the establishment of ghettos, which removed Jewish populations from general police jurisdiction and necessitated an alternative system…
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Flossenbürg concentration camp was one of the many Nazi concentration camps established during World War II. Located in Bavaria, Germany, near the Czech border, Flossenbürg was built in May 1938 and primarily functioned as a forced labor camp. Over its seven years of operation, the camp housed thousands of prisoners, many of whom perished due…
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The Arbeidsinzet (labor deployment) is the term for the forced employment of the Netherlands. It is estimated that over half a million Dutch people worked in Germany (and German-occupied territories) during the war. Some went voluntarily, but most were forced against their will. The forced labor deployment of Dutch people in Germany happened in different…
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Just to make it clear this post is not meant as an accusation or finger-pointing. I am forever grateful for what the US, and especially the US Army, did for my country. The outcome of World War II would have been more than likely—completely different—without the intervention of the US. However, this doesn’t mean I…
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I believe that one of the most evil crimes committed by the Nazi regime was the crime of false hope. In Westerbork, the illusion was created that all wasn’t that bad. Everything was arranged to give prisoners the impression that they would be sent to working camps in Eastern Europe. Life there would be heavy,…
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The Drancy concentration camp, located in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, stands as one of the most significant sites in the history of the Holocaust in Western Europe. Functioning primarily as a transit camp between 1941 and 1944, Drancy became the central hub for the deportation of Jews from France to extermination camps, most notably…
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The title of this post is The Iasi Pogrom, but I am starting with a different event, putting the Iasi Pogrom into a more comprehensive context. It is a long read, but it is such an important subject that I feel compelled to be as detailed as possible. Approximately seven months after the Iasi pogrom on…
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The title of this post is the words of a then 9-year-old girl, Jiska Pinkhof. In 1940, she wrote in the album of her friend Elly, “Always be a ray of sunshine to everyone you meet. Then you give joy to others, and you yourself are well off.” Wise words for a 9-year-old. Jiska was…
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On May 8, 1940, the Van Hasselt family were festively dressed—as guests at the wedding of Meijer Nieweg, Missus van Hasselt’s brother. Simon van Hasselt was wearing a white flower for the occasion. Two days later, the Germans invaded the Netherlands. Less than two years later, on April 29, 1942, the van Hasselt family, like…
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When I say “the Jews who fought alongside the Nazis,” it really was a case of the enemy of my enemy—is my friend, or rather they had a common enemy. The photograph above is of Finnish Jewish soldiers on leave during Rosh Hashanah in front of the synagogue in Turku, Finland, in 1943. Finland’s involvement…
History of Sorts 