World War 2
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A U.S. military policeman prepares the firing squad for German spies: Corporal Wilhelm Schmidt, 24, Officer-Cadet Guenther Billing, 21, and Sergeant Manfred Pernass, 23, after a court-martial by American authorities in Belgium during the Ardennes offensives. Three Germans were captured wearing American uniforms, armed with American weapons and driving an American jeep during the ill-fated…
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The right to education is one of the most fundamental human rights. In August 1941, the Nazis passed a law to set up schools for Jewish students and teachers only in the Netherlands. The photograph above is of Jewish students of the school on Cliffordstraat, Amsterdam West. A class of 10 students, with teacher Goubitz.The…
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Yesterday, a court in Germany convicted 97-year-old Irmgard Furchner and she received a two-year suspended sentence. Most of you will have heard of it. What you possibly didn’t hear is that after the war she married Heinz Furchtsam, a SS officer who also had worked in Stutthof. For reasons unknown to me, he changed his…
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These are just a few impressions of Christmas during World War II. The above photo is of a Christmas party in a German hospital (Lazarett) on 20 December 1941. Sisters of the Red Cross wanted to surprise the wounded German soldiers on Christmas Eve and diligently practice their Christmas Carol. Dutch soldiers during the mobilization…
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“Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,” is a famous line which was used by a character in William Congreve’s 1697 play The Mourning Bride. And sometimes music does soothe the savage beast, but during the Holocaust, some of these ‘beasts’ were so evil that nothing could soothe them. However, music did play an…
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I am a great believer in balance. It is good to have a balanced view of life. I have written quite a bit on how the Dutch failed their Jewish-fellow citizens, and the Dutch complacency might be considered a crime. However, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes you need to take a step back and take…
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The beautiful beast and the hyena of Auschwitz were just some names used for Irma Grese. She was born to Berta Grese and Alfred Grese, both dairy workers, on 7 October 1923. Irma was the third of five children (three girls and two boys). In 1936, her mother died by suicide after drinking hydrochloric acid…
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The letter above is dated 18 December 1943. However, it is in direct connection with a program that started eight years earlier. On 12 December 1935, the Lebensborn program began as a campaign to encourage so-called “racially valuable” Germans to have more children. Lebensborn initially focused on giving financial assistance to members of the SS…
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I find it increasingly difficult to write about the murdered children of the Holocaust. 1.5 million innocent souls who are now 1.5 million stars in the sky. This post will have the raw data of some children murdered on this day 80 years ago. But just the raw data should send shivers down your spine.…
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I wasn’t sure what to call this post. I had considered the title “Mission Impossible” but I did go with “Escape to Victory.” On 8 December 1944, the KP (Knok Ploeg-boxing crew) resistance group in Friesland managed to liberate 51 members of the resistance from the Blokhuispoort, the detention centre in Leeuwarden, without any escalation…
History of Sorts 