World War 2

  • Luise Löwenfels (was a German nun of Jewish descent who is remembered for her courage and faith during the Nazi era. Her story is one of personal sacrifice, spiritual conviction, and tragic martyrdom. She was born on July 5, 1915, in Eschweiler, Germany, into a Jewish family. Her parents, both of Jewish heritage, raised her

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  • On 3 September 1944, Anne Frank and the seven others living in hiding at the Secret Annex were put on the last transport to Auschwitz, along with over a thousand other Jewish prisoners. One of the cruellest jokes (for lack of a better word) the Nazis played was to pretend these journeys were return trips

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  • Someone asked me recently when I will stop telling Holocaust stories? I replied “there were 11 million victims, once all of their stories are told I’ll stop.” I won’t be able to tell all 11 million personal accounts but this is one of them. Thomas Pfeffer was born on November 22, 1936 in Amsterdam, the

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  • From the 1920s onwards, the Nazi Party targeted German youth as a special audience for its propaganda messages. These messages emphasized that the Party was a movement of youth: dynamic, resilient, forward-looking, and hopeful. Millions of German young people were won over to Nazism in the classroom and through extracurricular activities. In January 1933, the

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  • On September 2, 1945, representatives from the Japanese government and Allied forces assembled aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay to sign the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, which effectively ended World War II. The document was prepared by the U.S. War Department and approved by President Harry S. Truman. Eight short paragraphs formalized the “unconditional surrender to

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  • It is seldom that 3 random words can send shivers down your spine but the words ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ do. Just three ordinary words used many times in daily life and yet they also mean total horror. The literal translation is Work makes free, I know they are often translated as works set you free,

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  • Irish Fascists

    (First published September 2, 2018, and updated March 23, 2024) The position of Ireland during World War II was a bit of a tricky one. A lot of people actually were pro-German, not so much because they agreed with the German policies but more because they were at war with Britain, and there was still

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  • The Slovak Invasion of Poland

    You don’t have to be a history buff to know that 1 September 1939 was the date when the Germans invaded their neighbour, Poland. What often is forgotten is that it wasn’t only the Germans who invaded Poland on that day. The Germans got a  helping hand from the newly formed Republic of Slovakia. And

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  • On the night of August 31, 1939, a German radio station in the small town of Gleiwitz (now Gliwice, Poland) became the stage for one of the most infamous false-flag operations in modern history. Known as the Gleiwitz incident, this orchestrated event was part of a broader Nazi propaganda effort to fabricate a justification for

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  • On 15 November 1943, Himmler ordered that Romani and “part-Romanies” were to be put “on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps.” Between 1933 and 1945, Roma and Sinti in Europe were targets of Nazi persecution. The Nazi regime, building on long-held prejudices, viewed Roma as “a-socials” (outside “normal” society) and as

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