World War 2
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All the children in the above photograph could easily still be alive. They would be in their 80s and 90s now. They were seen as an enemy of the state. I can’t say this for certain but given the fact that 75% of all Dutch Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, it is safe to…
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The image above is from Episode 6 of Masters of the Air. In this scene, captured USAAF airmen are marched through the burning streets of a bombed German town. A furious mob of civilians, spurred on by a local party official, overpowers the guards and attacks the Terrorflieger (“terror flyers”). Most of the airmen are…
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Sometimes, you come across stories and are amazed that they are not widely known. We all have heard about Oskar Schindler because of Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List.” Still, Otto Weidt’s story is probably just as amazing. It is a story that is close to me because I am half blind and will likely become utterly…
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People often think that the Nazis came up with the concept of the concentration camps. In fact, it was the British, who invented concentration camps, which were first established in South Africa by the Brits during the Boer Wars in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During World War II, the Nazis weren’t the…
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On the morning of August 4, 1944, Otto Frank was helping Peter van Pels with his language lessons, while Edith Frank remained in her room. That same morning, police officers arrived at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam. They proceeded to the first-floor office, where the helpers of those in hiding were working. The officers questioned Victor…
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It was Billy Joel’s 74th birthday on 9 May, and I was thinking about writing a piece about his musical history, going back to the times when he joined a band called “Echoes,” at age 16 to the times when he joined the bands “The Hassles” and “Atilla.” Then I came across a story which…
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Bugs Bunny, one of the most iconic and enduring characters in American animation, made his official debut on July 27, 1940 Warner Bros. cartoon A Wild Hare. Directed by Tex Avery and produced by Leon Schlesinger, A Wild Hare marked a significant turning point in cartoon history, not only introducing a fully formed version of…
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When you look at the picture you might think that it is an innocent portrayal , of a street somewhere in the Netherlands. A typical Dutch scene. Someone cycling, two bikes parked against a sign. What could be hateful here? It is actually the sign itself that has a message of hate. It says “Jews…
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The Roma Holocaust, also known as the Porajmos (meaning “the Devouring” in Romani) or the Samudaripen (“Mass Killing”), refers to the systematic persecution and extermination of Roma people by Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II. This genocide, part of the broader Holocaust, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Roma…
