France
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This is a story which must have been repeated many times in Nazi Germany, German men married to Jewish women and the anxiety and fear they must have gone through, However there is also a uniqueness to the Machemer’s family situation. And in a bizarre way this is also directly connected to me. Helmut Machemer…
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They gave their today for our tomorrow. Our tomorrow was sacred to them. They gave their today for our tomorrow. Sacrificing their own lives for those they would never meet. They gave their today for our tomorrow. A tomorrow that we should cherish even more. They gave their today for our tomorrow. Their bravery should…
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Claire Monis (1922–1967) lived a life that wove together art, defiance, and endurance. A French singer and actress from a Jewish family, she was both a member of the French Resistance and a survivor of Auschwitz, where she was forced to perform in the Women’s Orchestra. Her story illustrates how music could serve as both…
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Just before Christmas 2011, I lost sight in my right eye. The retina had become detached, but after two operations, the sight could not be saved, in fact, my eye shrunk dramatically, and I now have a glass shell with an eye painted on it in front of the remainder of my eye. In November…
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The English rock band, The Kinks once sang, “He is a dedicated follower of fashion” and I can assure you, I am not that. However, there are people working in the fashion industry, be it as designers, manufacturers or models, who often do not know the history of the brands they represent. On the other…
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History is sometimes remembered through great battles, political revolutions and the rise and fall of empires. But sometimes a single moment quietly marks the end of an era. On the morning of 10 September 1977, a 28-year-old Tunisian man named Hamida Djandoubi was led from his cell in Marseille’s Baumettes Prison. Just hours earlier, he…
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It should come as little surprise that away from the carnage of the Western Front, soldiers sought solace in whatever pleasures they could find. Amid the chaos of the First World War, the harsh realities of trench warfare often fueled desires as primal as the will to survive. During the bloodiest phases of the war,…
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Not every Dutch Jewish person who died during the Second World War was a victim of the Holocaust. Some Jewish Dutchmen died as combatants while serving alongside Allied forces and fighting against Nazi Germany. Their deaths occurred on the battlefield, rather than as a result of Nazi persecution and extermination policies. On 19 August 1944,the…
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On July 29, 1942, Transport #12 (designated by French records as Convoi 12) departed from the Le Bourget-Drancy railway hub just outside Paris. Bound for the extermination network of Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland, the sealed train carried 1,001 Jewish men, women, and children. When World War II came to an end in 1945, only five…
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