Berlin

  • Tiergartenstraße 4

    Tiergartenstraße 4, may look like an ordinary German address. But is an address which is synonymous to unspeakable evil. It was the address of a villa in  the Tiergarten or Zoo district in central Berlin. But more then that it was the headquarters of the Nazi “euthanasia” program ,the mass murder of disabled people and

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  • It would be so easy for ordinary citizens to turn a blind eye to the Holocaust, and indeed many did. I do not judge these people, because faced with a similar situation I don’t know how I would react. Anyone critical of the Nazi regime could face a prison sentence or worse, death. And it

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  • Some people think that all Germans subscribed to the Nazi regime’s policies and that there was no resistance. But that is not the case, there were many who did resist the Nazi’s warped ideology. And they often paid dearly for it. Otto and Elise Hampel were 2 ordinary people. Otto Hampel  was born 21 June

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  • The Olympic Games are the biggest sporting events in the world. But more then a sporting event is is also a political event filled with propaganda. This was never more clear then in 1936 during the Berlin Olympic Games. On July 26,1935,German sports commissioner Hans von Tschammer und Osten advised that no Jews would represent

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  • Around this time of year, many 17-year-old kids are getting ready for school exams. Although they may think it is unfair that they have to sit for hours and hours to do their exams(I know I thought it was unfair), they don’t actually realize how lucky they are. Education, although a basic human right, is

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  • Of all stories relating to spies and collaborators during WWII this most be one of the most intriguing ones. When I first read about Violette Morris and saw the date she died,26 April 1944, I assumed she was killed for being a member of the French resistance. Why I thought that I don’t know. Born

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  • Often the psyche of people is that they see what they want  to see. They see a headline or a picture and they will have made up their minds. There is no further need for more details on the background story, they have enough to work with and make up their own story. For example

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  • All deaths during the Holocaust were awful but the death of Henriette Gottlieb is particularly poignant. Some sources say she died on January 2 1942, other sources say she died in 1943. One thing that is fairly certain is that she died in the Lodz Ghetto. Henriette Gottlieb should have been known as one of

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  • Execution was not enough

    Many opponents of the Nazi regime found their untimely death in Plotzensee prison. Those executed were German resistance fighter, but also Polish and French forced laborers, and many others. A great number were executed by guillotine but on September 3 the guillotine was damaged beyond repair after an RAF raid. From then one the methods of executions

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  • Mack the Knife is one of my favourite Jazz songs,  I love the Bobby Darin and Louis Armstrong versions equally. It just doesn’t get cooler than that song, sung by these two performers, although Sammy Davis Jr, also did a pretty cool rendition. Even though I have admired this song for decades. it is only

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