Germany
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On 5 March 1933, the Nazi Party won nearly 44 per cent of the vote, which gave them 288 seats in the Reichstag. Hitler formed a coalition with the National Party (8 per cent). The Communist Party won 81 seats. There were 44,685.764 entitled to vote. The voter turnout was 88.74%. The Invalid votes were…
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The picture is a still from a behind-the-scenes shot of the movie God’s Spy. The film was shot in Limerick and is now in the post-production stage. It tells the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church—a movement…
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Mail was allowed to be sent from the concentration camps under strict censorship. It had to be written in the German language and the number of lines was limited. Only simple information about health and daily life was allowed. The Blockführer had to read and sign the mail and then it went to the censorship…
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(courtesy of John Davis) This is an excerpt from John Davis’ book, Rainy Street Stories. It tells the story of a survivor he met at Flossenburg, who had survived Auschwitz, Ravensbruch, and finally, Flossenburg. Z-1557While vacationing many years ago, my wife Jane and I decided to visit Flossenburg, West Germany. This charming little town is…
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Yesterday, a court in Germany convicted 97-year-old Irmgard Furchner and she received a two-year suspended sentence. Most of you will have heard of it. What you possibly didn’t hear is that after the war she married Heinz Furchtsam, a SS officer who also had worked in Stutthof. For reasons unknown to me, he changed his…
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The beautiful beast and the hyena of Auschwitz were just some names used for Irma Grese. She was born to Berta Grese and Alfred Grese, both dairy workers, on 7 October 1923. Irma was the third of five children (three girls and two boys). In 1936, her mother died by suicide after drinking hydrochloric acid…
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The letter above is dated 18 December 1943. However, it is in direct connection with a program that started eight years earlier. On 12 December 1935, the Lebensborn program began as a campaign to encourage so-called “racially valuable” Germans to have more children. Lebensborn initially focused on giving financial assistance to members of the SS…
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For several years I have been on a quest to find answers, initially about the death of my Grandfather, but also about why the Holocaust happened. In the case of my Grandfather, I have found something like an answer or at least something I can live with. However, when it comes to the Holocaust I…
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I watched All Quiet on the Western Front, last night. I thought that November 11 would be the perfect date to watch a World War I movie. It is a very powerful retelling of the story. Although I thoroughly liked the movie, this is not going to be a review of it, suffice to say…
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When I see young people passionately pursuing a topic with a political undertone, I wonder who is really behind it. The Nazis understood that for them to successfully implement their racial ideas and policies, they would have to indoctrinate the youth. Hitler had a powerful viewpoint on education. The only teacher he liked at secondary…
History of Sorts 