Bergen Belsen
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This broke my heart. On September 14, 1945, an obituary appeared in the Nieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad, a Dutch Jewish weekly newspaper. It was an obituary for several generations of one family: George Sandelowsky (father and father-in-law), who had died on February 25 as a result of the awful conditions in Bergen Belsen concentration camp. aged…
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On April 15, 1945, British forces, including units of the British Second Army and the 11th Armoured Division, entered Bergen-Belsen and liberated the remaining prisoners. The sight that greeted the liberators was horrifying. They found tens of thousands of emaciated and diseased prisoners, along with thousands of unburied corpses strewn throughout the camp. The liberation…
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Mary Weinrib was born on July 16, 1925, in Warsaw, Poland. She was born Mary Mania (Malka) Rubinstein. She grew up in Wierzbnik, a Jewish town that was part of Starachowice, Poland. Her mother was Rose Rubinstein, a dressmaker. Her father, Gershon Rubinstein, was a butcher. The family, which included a younger sister (Ida) and…
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Tonight, the 98th Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, will take place. Unfortunately, many award shows have increasingly become platforms for politics rather than celebrations of the arts, and I fear the Oscars may be no exception. Yet I want to take a moment to look back at the life of a man who…
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In the solemn and haunting grounds of Bergen-Belsen, where the echoes of a dark past resonate, exists an unexpected symbol of hope amidst the memories of suffering and loss: a single rose. This rose, though seemingly insignificant in the vastness of the camp’s history, carries within its delicate petals a story of resilience and defiance…
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Liberation for Bergen-Belsen arrived on 15 April 1945. Major Dick Williams, one of the first British soldiers to enter and liberate the camp said, “It was an evil, filthy place; a hell on Earth.” The British comedian Michael Bentine, who took part in the liberation of the camp, wrote this on his encounter with Bergen-Belsen:“Millions…
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It’s hard to believe that the only time the Olympics were held in the Netherlands, was nearly 100 years ago at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. One of the competing Dutch athletes was Ben Bril. Ben (Barend) Bril was born on 16 July 16 1912, in Amsterdam, the host city for the 1928 Summer Olympics. He…
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Anne and Margot Frank’s final days were marked by extreme suffering, starvation, and disease in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the winter of 1944–1945. Their exact date of death is unknown; however, there is a wide belief that both sisters perished in February or March 1945, just weeks before British forces liberated the camp on…
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As a father of three children, although they are all supposedly adults now, I often have nightmares and worries about them. I lie awake at night when they are out with friends. When they leave the house, there are a million worst-case scenarios that haunt my brain. There is some news you hope as a…
History of Sorts 