Holocaust
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Caroline Stella Os was born in Rotterdam on 8 October 1940. Her life ended when she was murdered at Westerbork, by the Nazis, on 8 June 1943. She reached the tender age of two years old. How can I write about a girl who only lived for 32 months? What can I write about a…
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I came across an excerpt from the book Wiswassebeesjes by author Dieta Kalk. I can’t think of a proper translation for the word, but that doesn’t really matter. In the book the writer, recalls the removal of the Wallage family from Aprikozenweg 21 in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, a day after seeing the Star of David.…
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I finished watching A Small Light last night. It’s on National Geographic and Disney+. It follows the heroic story of Miep Gies and her husband Jan Giesm and others, who risked their lives to shelter Anne Frank’s family from the Nazis for more than two years during World War II. I highly recommend A Small Light because…
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The worst crime the Nazis committed was the murder of children. An estimated 1.5 million children were murdered by the Nazis. This number is just an estimate, although I have no data to back this up, I believe the number is higher. Not all children who died on the transport are included in this number.…
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Yesterday I had the privilege to interview Madene Shachar, Museum Educator at The Ghetto Fighters Museum. The Ghetto Fighters’ House – Itzhak Katzenelson Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum– known as the “House” – is not only the first Holocaust museum in the world but also the first of its kind to be founded by…
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When I do posts on the Holocaust, I always try to do them with as little emotion as possible. I try to be objective as humanly possible. The reasoning I use to write without emotions is if I didn’t, I think I would get mental problems down the line. However, sometimes, I let my emotions…
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Between 1816 and 1949, the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, was a Dutch colony. Between 1941 and 1945 it was occupied by Japan. On 19 and 20 July 1940, 231 people who were on leave from the Dutch East Indies in the Netherlands were arrested by the Germans. They were called ‘Indian hostages’. It was…
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The Netherlands has produced some of the greatest football players in the world. The Dutch are proud of their footballing history. My hometown of Geleen is where Dutch professional football originated. However, there are some football stars we are not proud of. Gejus van der Meulen was a goalkeeper of HFC and the Dutch national…
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Ruth Maier is often referred to as Norway’s Anne Frank, I don’t agree with that. I think it takes away the value of the words of both women. Their circumstances and lifestyles were completely different. Even the way they were murdered was different. The only thing they had in common was that they were both…
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Even in their preferred choice of mass killing, the Nazis used a poison originally designed to kill insects and other pests, and that is the clearest indication of what they thought of their victims. Zykon B was the brand name for a hydrogen cyanide-based chemical compound initially created as a pesticide and rodenticide in the…
History of Sorts 