History

  • Left without a Father

    The US armed service often get bad press and maybe sometimes that’s warranted. but what is often forgotten nowadays and especially in Europe, we owe these brave men and women a great deal. As a Dutch man I am so aware of the liberty that was bestowed upon me by the sacrifice of so many…

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  • “Three shots! Three lives lost! All I can hear are shots, shots.” This line is the final entry of Renia Spiegel’s diary. It is the final entry but it was not written by her but by her boyfriend. Renia had left her diary with her boyfriend ,Zygmunt Schwarzer,  for safekeeping. You see Renia could not…

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  • Who hasn’t seen Police Academy or any of the sequels? I reckon mots people have. But one of the actors in the movie had such an interesting life that his story would warrant a movie and would probably become a box office success. George Gaynes who played the clueless Commandant Lassard was born George Jongejans…

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  • I have already done a piece on the Milgram experiments, and this will be more of a follow up. The Milgram experiment,was designed to observe the extent to which individuals would perform acts that violated their personal conscience when under orders from an authority figure. Basically they wanted  to investigate whether Germans were particularly obedient…

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  • Your smiley face makes me cry. It makes me cry because I know you were born on June 13,1942 in The Hague , the Netherlands and you were killed June 11,1943 in Sobibor. You were not even given the opportunity to blow one candle on your first birthday cake. I cry but I no longer…

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  • It is strange how you can come across some stories. I was actually doing some research on the fate of the pets of Jews during the Holocaust, when a picture came up of Leo Katzenberger. What drew my attention to the picture was the fact that Leo looked a lot like one of my Uncles…

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  • Today is World Animal Day and what better day to pick to remember some of the forgotten Heroes of WWII. The animals that often played a very important role. Pfc. Rez P. Hester of the Marine Corps Seventh War Dog Platoon on Iwo Jima takes a nap while Butch stands guard. February 1945.(courtesy National Archives)…

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  • Captain(Korvettenkapitän)Werner Lott was commander of U-35 from 15 August 1937 until 29 November 1939.He sank 4 ships and damaged one. You often hear about war crimes committed by the German armed forces, but there were also acts of decency. Around 15.40  on 3 Oct, 1939, the Greek freighter Diamantis, although the ship was neutral it…

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  • On October 3rd 1283, Dafydd ap Gruffydd, prince of Gwynedd in Wales, became the first person to be tried for what later would become high treason against a king, he was also the first nobleman executed by being hanged, drawn and quartered. On Palm Sunday 1282 Dafydd ap Gruffydd attacked Hawarden Castle, in so doing,…

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  • I wish I could write about how Rachel de Groot survived the war and grew up to fulfill her potential, But I can’t, in fact I can’t even say that much about her. Not because there is not much known about her, because there is. The reason why I can’t say too much about Rachel…

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