World War 2

  • Iran is often referred to as an axis of evil and this blog is not meant to agree or disagree with that, it is meant to show that it hasn’t always been that way. In a similar fashion it is often believed that the Soviet army were the good guys during WWII, that wasn’t always…

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  • Jehovah Witnesses were one of the groups of people hated by the Nazis and were killed by the hundreds, the numbers are unclear but are estimated to be between 1,000 and 2,500. Nazi authorities denounced Jehovah’s Witnesses for their ties to the United States and derided the apparent revolutionary millennialism of their preaching that a…

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  • A tear rolls down my face because you made me cry, not because you hurt me. A tear rolls down my face because you made me sad, not because you did me wrong A tear rolls down my face and I wonder why, because I don’t know you. A tear rolls down my face although…

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  • Werkdorp (Labor Camp) Wieringermeer was opened in 1934, and was managed by the Jewish Labor Foundation. It could accommodate about 300 residents, who would follow a short (two-year) training course. The Werkdorp , built by the residents themselves – mostly refugees from Germany and Austria – was intended to train its temporary residents in practical…

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  • A Rain of Bombs March 1945, two months before the liberation. Den Haag has by then been occupied by the Germans for nearly five years. It is the tail end of the Hongerwinter, and there is a shortage of almost everything. On March 3, an additional great tragedy strikes the residents of the Bezuidenhout district…

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  • Many still believe that Nazi atrocities were carried out solely by the SS, SS-Totenkopfverbände, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen-SS, and not by regular Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe personnel. However, in recent years, evidence has shown that members of das Heer were also responsible for war crimes—sometimes committing acts even more brutal than those of the SS. Below are…

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  • Rolf Abrahamsohn was not only a witness to the Holocaust he was also witness to the remorselessness of some of his fellow country men. One day a few months after the war Rolf encountered a man who was hitchhiking. Rolf felt sorry for the man because he only had one leg, so he decided to…

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  • The Japanese treatment of prisoners of war during World War II was brutally inhumane. The men shown in the above photograph belong to the Sikh Regiment of the British Indian Army. They are seated in the traditional cross-legged prayer position, likely reciting their final prayers at the moment this photo was taken—a chilling and morbid…

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  • The story of Harrie and Trien Semler-Hendriks “Not a single day was without danger.” The most striking action of the underground resistance movement “De Vrijbuiters” in Maarheeze was the raid on the ration-distribution office in Valkenswaard in April 1944. The group also helped dozens of people in hiding. Yet here, in the border region with…

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  • Pvt. Claude Wilber Derrick was the son of Richard and May Isabel (Shannon) Derrick of Canterbury, New Brunswick. After being killed in action on March 2,1945, in Germany, he was first laid to rest in a temporary cemetery in Bedburg. In keeping with the order that no Canadian fallen remain on German soil, his remains…

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