World War 2

  • This must be one of the most amazing events I came across, but amidst all the killing, torture, deportations and other horrors in Camp Westerbork, they actually found time to set up a football competition. Initiated in the Spring of 1943, the competition had several teams of Jewish inmates and was a welcome distraction. It…

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  • Like lambs to the slaughter they were led.But with one significant difference, lambs were treated more humanely. They were not tortured before death. I recently saw the movie “The Resistance Banker” it has one subtle but yet powerful scene, no words were spoken. A regular passenger train is stopped to facilitate a transport train to…

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  • Excursion to Dachau

    One might be forgiven that the title implies a current school trip to Dachau, but the title refers to another kind of trip to the notorious death camp. The Dutch Nazis, the NSB. did not have the same level of hatred against, Jews,Roma and disabled people as their German counterpart. Himmler was aware of this…

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  • Holocaust in words

    It is said that a picture paints a thousand words , and it does, but that also means that sometimes a picture is just to horrible to look at it, for just a glimpse can evoke a thousand emotions. There are so many images of the Holocaust which are just to gruesome to view, However…

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  • I had planned to do a blog on the horrors of Babi Yar, but I decided against it. Firstly because there is not one word I could write which best describes the depravities committed by the Nazis,both German and Ukrainian. (Notice dated September 28, 1941 in Russian, Ukrainian with German translation ordering all Kievan Jews…

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  • When the world turned color.

    I remember one of my sons , when he was a toddler, asking when the world turned color. I had to laugh at the innocent question, for he thought that prior to color movies and TV, the world had been black and white. To answer his question, well at least from a TV perspective, it…

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  • The killing of innocent lives is despicable enough, but trying to make a profit out of it in the most deceitful way is beyond evil. Giving people hope that somehow they will survive, where there really was no intention of sparing their lives, sickens me to the core. Shortly after the armistice between Italy and…

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  • War often brings out the worst in people. they commit crimes they would usually never even contemplate, but equally war also brings out the best in people performing heroic acts they know can cost their lives. Early 1943 Jews throughout Belgium were rounded up and arrested.People like three members of the Gronowski family(Mother,son and daughter),…

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  • WWII Propaganda-Part 3

    One of the most effective weapons in WWII was propaganda. Although the Nazis did use it the most effective, the allied forces and the other axis nations all used propaganda as an effective tool to further their cause. After all propaganda is really weaponized and politicized PR. Not unlike the use of social media nowadays,…

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  • 16 bodies in Lake Maggiore

    The lakes of Italy are known for its beauty. Although I have been to Italy several times it was usually the Lake Garda area I would visit, every time I was awestruck by its beautiful surroundings. I did see Lake Maggiore once in passing and it also looked majestic. However this majestic beautiful place was…

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