Holocaust
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There were very few Dutch who defied the Nazi occupiers; this is not to judge because I was never in that situation, and I wouldn’t know what I would have done. However, it is a fact that there were only a few who offered Resistance. Hannie Schaft was one of those few. Born Jannetje Johanna…
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I will not be silenced, no matter how often people try to silence me. I will not be silenced despite the threats. I will not be silenced although a small voice in my head sometimes says, “just give up”, but there is a louder voice screaming “No you fool, you have to keep going. You…
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Some people say that Kristallnacht marks the start of the Holocaust. I don’t really subscribe to that point of view. In my opinion, the Holocaust started on 19 August 1934. That was the date when 88.1% of the German population gave Hitler Carte blanche to do whatever he wanted via a referendum, merging the posts…
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We all know who Eva Braun was, yet so little is known about her family. I’ve always been intrigued by the fact that Eva’s parents—Eva, who was just 17 when she first met Adolf Hitler—didn’t seem to object to her involvement with a man whose intentions were clearly malevolent. Some might argue that Eva herself…
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I am Dutch, and I always will be proud to be Dutch, but there are some things in my country’s history that really trouble me, even to the extent that it nearly sickens me. The Dutch bureaucracy is well known to be very efficient, which can be very beneficial, but it can also be destructive…
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Long before the first trains left for the concentration camps, the Jews in Germany were isolated not by putting them in ghettos but instead by removing them from every aspect of social life. On 29 November 1938, the Jews were forbidden to keep carrier pigeons, aka homing or postal pigeons, as ordered by The Reich…
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Dutch Christmas is slightly different from other Christmas celebrations. On the 5th of December, the Dutch celebrate “Sinterklaas” Saint Nicholas, although it is the same figure as Santa Claus or Father Christmas. There are subtle differences in the “configuration” Sinterklaas doesn’t come from Lapland but from Spain and arrives on a steamboat and a white…
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“A child is born with no state of mind,blind to the ways of mankind” I would never have imagined I would use the words of a 1980’s hip hop song in a blog relating to WWII. The words are from the 1982 Hip Hop hit “the Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. But…
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It should never be forgotten that it was Germans who voted for Adolf Hitler. No matter how you twist and turn it, there is no escaping that fact. However, National Socialism and Fascism were not just German political ideologies—they were international. Most of Europe and even the USA subscribed to a level of National Socialism…
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I am a parent and my job like any other parent’s job on the globe is to keep my children safe from harm or at least reduce the risk of harm in whatever way possible. That is an extremely difficult job in normal circumstances.During the Holocaust this was often impossible. I can understand that parents…
History of Sorts 