World War 2

  • A Letter to Margot Frank

    This is a fictional letter, but it is a letter I envisage I may have written to Margot, if I had been a friend or schoolmate. Dear Margot, I hope this letter finds you well, though I understand the circumstances surrounding us are far from what any of us could call “well.” It is strange…

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  • Brundibár- A Holocaust Opera.

    On June 23, 1944, a delegation comprising two representatives from the International Red Cross and one from the Danish Red Cross conducted an inspection of Theresienstadt, accompanied by SS First Lieutenant Karl Rahm, the camp commandant, and one of his deputies. During the visit, the delegations were treated to an opera by Jewish composer Hans…

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  • The Doctors Resistance

    I have written quite extensively about the failure of the Dutch to protect their Jewish neighbors and even resist the Nazi occupiers in general. However, on February 24, 1941, the Dutch communist party called for a nationwide strike to protest against the treatment of Jews as well as the forced labor in Germany. The Communist…

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  • There are some in Germany and other countries—who portray all of those involved in the 20 July plot as heroes. I believe this is a misinterpretation. Firstly, they are not heroes because they did not succeed, and secondly, there were quite a few of them who had no issues with the Nazi policies but had…

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  • Forget me not

    The picture is of a page in a poetry album which belonged to a friend of Hedi Metzger. The text is in German and it says. “Forget me not, trust in G-d. Speaking is silver, and silence is gold. This from your memories, Hedi Metzger, Amsterdam 19-4-1939.” Less than 2.5 years later she would be…

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  • The Löb siblings

    In the 1920s, it was not uncommon in the Catholic south of the Netherlands for one or two children in a family to join a monastery or convent. However, having six out of eight children devote themselves to religious life was extraordinarily rare. What makes the Löb siblings’ story even more remarkable is that their…

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  • Hate is mankind’s worst disease and it seems to be incurable. I am only limiting this to the 1933-1945 era but I could easily have dozens of pages of pictures of all era’s  going up to today. Nazis singing to encourage a boycott of Jewish shops , 1933 A German woman facing public humiliation because…

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  • The Experiments of Unit 731

    ++++++CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES++++++++++ We have all heard about the experiments conducted by the Nazis during World War II, but relatively little is known about the experiments by the Japanese Imperial Army. More specifically Unit 731. The unit, also is known as, “Detachment 731” and the “Kamo Detachment.” was a covert biological and chemical warfare research…

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  • The SS Ransom Demand

    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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  • I was going to do a piece on Nora Italiaander. She would have celebrated her 86th birthday today, but she was murdered on June 4,1943 in Sobibor. She was just aged 2. The picture above is of her death notification issued on the 11th of June 1947, 4 years after her death. But like Nora…

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