Bergen Belsen

  • In the past I have been very critical of my fellow Dutch men and women, in relation to the role they played during World War 2. While most opposed the Nazi occupation, they did very little to resist. Of course it is very easy to be critical looking back. In all honesty if I would…

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  • I am a member of several history websites receiving daily notifications about events that happened in history this day. Today, I received a notification of the anniversary of the 1945 death of Anne Frank at Bergen Belsen. I don’t know how they came to that conclusion, because the exact date of Anne and Margot Frank’s…

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  • Annelies Marie Frank aka Anne Frank, born 12 June 1929 – murdered February or March 1945, in Bergen Belsen. She was a German-Dutch teenager of Jewish heritage, kept a diary. One of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust, she gained fame posthumously with the 1947 publication of The Diary of a Young Girl…

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  • Dear Anne, today you would have turned 93, but we all know the history why that didn’t happen. Some of that history is written in the diary you received on your 13th birthday, June 12 1942.So many people have read that diary, your private thoughts laid bare for the world to see. But I am…

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  • It absolutely amazes me that in this day and age, there are still people who deny that the Holocaust ever happened. In fact, there appears to be an increase in Holocaust deniers. Some use the photograph above, of liberated women in Bergen-Belsen as their evidence that the Holocaust was a myth. They say, “If you…

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  • I came across date about the ‘Voormalig Rotterdams kindertehuis’ or Former Rotterdam home for Children. Initially I was a bit confused. I wanted to find out more so I looked in some Rotterdam archives, then I noticed that the actual home was in Arnhem. To make it even more confusing the address was Amsterdamscheweg 1,…

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  • Holocaust Obituary

    This broke my heart. On September 14, 1945 an obituary appeared in the Nieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad, which was 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 as the awful conditions in Bergen Belsen concentration…

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  • My interview with Eddy Boas survivor of Bergen Belsen and author of I am not a victim, I am a survivor.

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  • 5000 bodies

    One sign, 2 languages, 5000 bodies. A sign that explains that a number of 5000 bodies are buried there. No individual graves with head stones. No individual places where family members leave small artifacts or flowers. No place to gather around a single grave to say a prayer. Some of those 5000 may have been…

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  • Bergen Belsen was liberated on April 15,1945. For many it was a true liberation but for others liberation came too late. Even for many of those who were liberated on that day it was still too late. They were either so ill or malnourished that they did not survive,  After liberation nearly 14,000 people died.…

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