• Planet Auschwitz

    (Originally posted on November 26, 2017) I was listening to some of  the testimonies of the Eichmann trials yesterday, and I think they actually had a physical effect on me. I woke up this morning feeling a bit sick and for some reason the little toe on my right foot was paralyzed, this has never…

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  • Death Camp Diary

    (Originally posted November 2017) We might have been able to get out of it, but we didn’t want to. Since we’re in it, we’re going. In this case, it’s best to leave things as you find them. We’ve been allowed to take all our luggage—a good sign. Maybe they were right and we’re following the…

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  • On 5 July 1942, Margot Frank received a summons to report for forced labor in Germany. She was among the first Jews in the Netherlands to be called up. Her parents, Otto and Edith, did not want her to go—but refusal often led to arrest. Anticipating such an event, the Franks had already prepared a…

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  • On March 10, 1865, just weeks before the final collapse of the Confederacy, a slave named Amy Span was hanged on a sycamore tree before the courthouse of Darlingon, S.C., for anticipating her liberty a little too exuberantly. Amy Spain’s slave master was  Major Albertus C. Spain, a Mexican-American War veteran who owned a large…

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  • It was  billed as a contest for the heavyweight championship of the world. And yet, by noon on Dec. 2, 1896, with the fight slated to take place that same evening in San Francisco’s Mechanics’ Pavilion, they had the boxers, they had the venue but they didn’t have a referee. It was the problem promoters…

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  • SPAM

    On this day, July 5, 1937, Hormel Foods Corporation, headquartered in Austin, Minnesota, USA, first introduced the product SPAM, a square can of pork, salt, water, sugar, potato starch, and sodium nitrite that rolled off the assembly lines 82 years ago during the late Depression era. Hormel created SPAM to capitalize on the previously unprofitable pork…

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  • Just a Girl

    Just a girl, not a soldier or a politician. Just a girl, the only threat she posed was that one day her smiley face would melt someone’s heart. Just a girl, no hate to be seen in her eyes. Just a girl, the only wish she had was to grow up. Just a girl, just…

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  • Alleen maar een meisje, geen soldaat of politicus Alleen maar een meisje, haar enige bedreiging dat haar glmlachend gezicht een hart zou kunnen laten smelten. Alleen maar een meisje, geen haat waar te nemen in haar ogen. Alleen maar een meisje, haar enige wens was om op te groeien. Alleen maar een meisje, Alleen maar…

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  • I can’t think of any place on Earth that was more evil than Auschwitz—although other camps had perhaps more cruelty, it is the scale of the cruelty, torture and murder that makes Auschwitz pure evil, a literal hell on Earth. The photograph above is of Yisrael and Zelig Jacob, the younger brothers of Lili Jacob.…

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  • The Nazi regime in Germany (1933–1945) is infamous for its industrial-scale atrocities, including genocide, war crimes, and systemic abuses of human rights. Among those complicit in these crimes were not only military officers and politicians but also scientists and physicians who abandoned medical ethics in favor of ideology and power. One such figure was Dr.…

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