the Netherlands
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Maastricht is one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands and one of the first settlements. It was also the first city to be liberated in World War 2. On 13 and 14 September 1944 it was the first Dutch city to be liberated by Allied forces of the US Old Hickory Division.. These are…
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Terwijl ik gisteren luisterde naar het lied 15 Miljoen Mensen van Fluitsma & Van Tijn, kwam ik op het idee om er een alternatieve tekst van te maken. Een soort muzikale waarschuwing aan de Nederlandse regering: wat er mis kan gaan als je je laat meeslepen door extreme politieke ideologieën, of ze nu van rechts…
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I sincerely believe that some people are just born evil. If it hadn’t been for the war, their evil ways—would probably have been displayed in other ways. Dr. Ernst Knorr was born Heiligenbeil, Germany on October 13, 1899. He died in Scheveningen, the Netherlands on 7 July 1945. He was an SS officer in the…
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The remark is associated with Lieutenant-General Frederick “Boy” Browning, deputy commander of the First Allied Airborne Army, during the planning of Operation Market Garden in September 1944. Browning is widely reported to have expressed his reservations to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery with the words: “But, sir, I think we might be going a bridge too…
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In the past, I had written a few posts about Kasteel (castle) Hoensbroek in the Netherlands and its young inhabitants. However, the photographs are so heartwarming that I thought it would be nice to do one more post. The photos were taken on 2 March 1945. Dutch children entertained GIs in the famous castle. The…
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When you look at the photograph above, you may be forgiven for thinking it shows a class of children doing arts and crafts at school. They are children doing arts and crafts, but it is not in a school (at least not a regular school) it is a group of children in the Westerbork Transit…
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I was going to write an article about Ursula Gerson, who was murdered in Auschwitz on September 6, 1944, at the age of 8. But then I saw there were more Dutch Jewish children and Jewish refugees, who fled Germany and Austria with their parents, who were murdered that day. Duifje Gans was murdered in…
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The Benelux is often described as one of the earliest experiments in European integration. Today, the name is familiar: Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg cooperating economically and politically as neighbouring states. Yet the origins of the Benelux lie not in the prosperous post-war Europe we know today, but in the uncertainty and devastation of the…
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“Dolle Dinsdag” or “Mad Tuesday,” which occurred on September 5, 1944, was a pivotal and chaotic day in the Netherlands during World War II. The day is remembered for the widespread belief among the Dutch population that liberation from Nazi occupation was imminent, leading to scenes of jubilation, panic, and disarray. This essay delves into…
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I was reminiscing on TV shows I watched as a kid in the Netherlands. One of my favourite shows was a series called “Q&Q”. It was about 2 teenage detectives. The boys named Aristides Quarles and Wilbur Quant accidentally snap a photo of a dead body in the woods. After finding the place where the…
