Holocaust
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The text of the letters below, are the innocent words of an 11-year-old boy, The contents seem harmless enough, not complex at all, but with childish wisdom. However, put in the context of the time the letters were written, it makes the text devastatingly heartbreaking, with no coming back. Dear Mommy, How are you? I…
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My interview with Jackie Young, a Holocaust survivor: Jackie Young (born Jona Spiegel) was born in December 1941 in Vienna, Austria, but raised by adoptive parents in England. He talks about slowly learning about his own past, which his adoptive parents had kept from him despite his own faint memories and hints mentioned by relatives.…
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Something I had not been aware of, but of course, it makes sense that the Nazis also used trams to transport the Dutch Jews to the concentration camps in the Netherlands. The GVB is the company that runs the trams in Amsterdam and has had that name since 1943. A new film and book titled Verdwenen…
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It is a well-established fact that the Nazis cared more for animals than for their victims. Allegedly Hitler didn’t eat lobsters because he thought it was cruel that they were cooked alive. Himmler said during a speech in 1943. “We Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude towards…
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Aside from the fact that February 28, 1944, was 80 years ago, the date is random, and that is just what all the murders by the Nazi regime were, random acts of violence. Yes, they targeted certain groups, the biggest group being Jewish, within the groups the Nazis were still random in the selection. If…
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I had the privilege today to interview Hans Knoop. Hans Knoop is a Dutch journalist who was best known for the role he played in the unmasking and arrest of the war criminal Pieter Menten.Knoop was born during the Second World War to Jewish parents in hiding. Knoop grew up in Amsterdam. In 1963, Knoop…
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I want to start by saying that I am not Jewish, although I may have some Jewish ancestry. I am still looking into that. However, the Jews from Geleen were my fellow citizens, as were any other one, regardless of race or colour were my fellow citizens. However, the majority of the Jews of Geleen…
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The photograph above is of Anna Maria ‘Settela’ Steinbach. She was a Sinti girl who was murdered in Auschwitz. I have written a few blogs about her in the past. This blog is about the man who took that picture. It is a still from a film called, The Westerbork Film, which was shot by…
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They say that the eyes are the window to your soul. If you looked into the eyes of Herta Ehlert(pictured above) you would see a very dark soul. Herta worked in several concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. She was known for her brutality and involvement in the selection and execution of prisoners. Holocaust…