History

General history issues, although a lot will be about WW2

  • Every meal could have been her last. After finishing the bland vegetarian dishes placed before her, 25-year-old Margot Wölk and her young female colleagues would burst into tears, “crying like dogs,” grateful simply to still be alive. Hitler was a vegetarian. While the exact timing of his conversion to vegetarianism is unclear, it is known…

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  • Johannes Berens, a young Dutch policeman from Rotterdam, stands out as an emblem of quiet resistance and sacrifice during World War II. Born on January 27, 1924, Johannes was raised in the Netherlands, soon to face brutal occupation by Nazi Germany. His life, like many of his countrymen’s, would be profoundly impacted by the events…

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  • Although the Japanese may have called it an Internment camp, make no mistake about it, Tjideng was nothing other then a concentration camp. Batavia came under Japanese control in 1942, and part of the city, called Camp Tjideng, was used for the internment of European (often Dutch) women and children. The men and older boys were…

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  • Guy Môquet was executed on October 22, 1941., a 17 year young French Communist militant.and resistance fighter. During the German occupation of France during World War II, he was taken hostage by the Nazis and executed by firing squad in retaliation for attacks on Germans by the French Resistance. Môquet went down in history as…

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  • Nowadays, Amsterdam is known around the world for several distinctive features, most notably its famous Red Light District. This area is known for its legalised prostitution and its concentration of sex-related businesses, including sex shops, sex theatres, peep shows, and a sex museum. It also features a cannabis museum and numerous coffee shops where cannabis…

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  • Before I started with the main story. I will first try to explain to the non-Jewish readers, which includes me, what Purim is. The jolly Jewish holiday of Purim is celebrated every year on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Adar (late winter/early spring). Purim began in 2026 on Saturday night, March 2, and…

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  • Before I go into the main story, I’d like you to look at the photograph above. Drancy Transit Camp was an assembly and detention camp for confining Jews for deportation to extermination camps during the World War II German occupation of France. However, as you can see, there is only one uniformed person in the…

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  • The Akikaze Atrocity

    I only came across this story by chance. Not only were the Axis powers cruel to the people of the countries they had invaded, sometimes they were also brutal to the people of their Axis partners. I don’t know if the Germans killed great numbers of Japanese citizen, but the Japanese definitely did not hold…

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  • Although decent people made many sacrifices to fight Fascism and the Nazi regime, it is unfathomable that some of the Nazi laws were being maintained after the war or appear to be making a comeback nowadays, albeit under a different name and context, but the fundamentals are basically the same.  Although the German government established…

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  • One of my favourite cities in Germany is Cologne. known for Eau de Cologne and for its many landmarks like the Cathedral. The Cologne of the 21st Century is a vibrant and multicultural metropolitan city only about 80 km away from Belgium and about 95 Km from the Netherlands. This location and the fact that…

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