Germany
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So many people think that the Holocaust only lasted as along as WWII. But they could not be further away from the truth. It could be argued that the foundation of the Holocaust goes back to 1879, when Wilhelm Marr becomes the first proponent of racial anti-Semitism, blaming Jews for the failure of the German…
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The girl in the playpen is Renee Sara Gottschalk, born in the Central Refugee Camp Westerbork on 21 June 1941. The two girls in the dark dresses are the daughters of chief physician F. Spanier. The lady on the right is Rosa Strauss; Renee Sara’s mother. Her father was Erich Gottschalk. Renee and her mother…
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It is stories like Gideon’s that make me want to give up doing blogs on the Holocaust, but paradoxically, it also encourages me to continue with it. The reason why I want to stop is apparent. Every time when I see a picture of a beautiful innocent infant, knowing that child was murdered by an…
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The Jehovah Witnesses are often forgotten as Holocaust victims. An estimated 1,000 German Jehovah’s Witnesses died or were murdered in concentration camps and prisons during the Nazi era, as did 400 Witnesses from other countries, including about 90 Austrians and 130 Dutch Jehovah Witnesses. On 29 May 1940, the Vereeniging of Bible researchers (The name…
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Before I go into the story of the men, who were put on slave labour by the Nazi regime, I will have to explain what ‘Limburg’ is .Limburg is a province in the southeast of the Netherlands and the northeast of Belgium. I was born and grew up in the Dutch side of Limburg. The…
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Without a shadow of a doubt, the star of the 1936 Olympic Games was Jesse Owens. But there was another medal winner who became more infamous than famous. He came 3rd behind in the Men’s 100 metres sprint behind Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe and third place in the Men’s 200 metres sprint behind Jesse…
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It is hard, if not impossible, to define what the most evil crime was during the Holocaust. It is not like there is a gradient scale you can apply. Without a doubt though the murder of children was among the most heinous of acts. One especially comes to mind. On 20 April 1945, on the…
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••••••••••WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES•••••••••• I have often argued that it would be unfair to brush all Germans with the same brush because some Germans did resist the Nazi regime. However, there is no denying that many were ignorant about what was happening to their neighbours who were either Jewish, Gay, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Disabled or Roma/Sinti,…
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I have long given up on trying to understand the logic behind some of the Nazis actions. For example the mass murder of Doctors, the Nazis themselves could have used them for their own medical needs. Simon Blitz was born on June 28, 1907 in the Watergraafsmeer( The Watergraafsmeer is a polder in the Netherlands.…
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On May 10, 1945, probably knowing that he was close to being captured, by swallowing a capsule of potassium cyanide at the Mürwik naval base in Flensburg-Mürwik, Richard Glücks ended his own life. Although the lack of official records or photos gave rise to speculation about his ultimate fate. There are many biographies about this…
History of Sorts 