Holocaust
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The photographs in this post are categorized as artefacts. I don‘t really like that description because the definition of an artefact is—an object made by a human being, typically one of cultural or historical interest. These objects may have been made by a human being, but more than that—they were personal belongings. The narrative of…
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The painting above is from 1353, and it shows the citizens of Tournai burying victims of the Black Death, also known as the bubonic plague. However, the black death is now what I mean when I refer to the Medieval Holocaust, but it is directly linked to it. Jews in Europe have been persecuted since…
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Pip: History of Sorts is the kind of site that looks at a photograph of a selection ramp and refuses to let you scroll past — dirkdeklein has been doing that work, post after post, this week. Mara: The posts cover a lot of ground: the machinery of the camps themselves, the perpetrators and collaborators…
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I saw a robin yesterday. The saying goes, “When robins appear, loved ones are near,” alluding to the belief that the robin is a messenger. Not a messenger from the living but from the dead. In that belief, the robin doesn’t bring a sad message—but a message of hope and encouragement. Then I wondered was…
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Primo Levi is one of the most famous Holocaust survivors. He wrote in 1986, “It happened, and thus it can happen again.” For some survivors, this was a reality soon after being liberated. Howard Cwick was an American Jewish soldier who liberated Buchenwald.The shame he and other liberators felt came from not liberating the camp…
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I know some Polish people will vehemently deny that this ever happened, but it did. It is a shame some people still insist on whitewashing history because it serves no one, and the truth always comes out. We can only stop these crimes from happening again when we learn from the past. It is not…
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I could nearly do a whole blog on how inappropriate this evil man’s name Gottlieb—translates to God Love. I doubt that very much. Gottlieb Hering was involved in the T4 program and later on, was the second and last commandant of the Belzec Extermination Camp. After Action T4, Hering was posted briefly to the Sicherheitsdienst…
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The photograph above is of a selection in Auschwitz-Birkenau. It looks horrendous enough when you look at it, but if you analyze it, the horrors become so real. Firstly, it is clear that the line on the left will not see the end of that day. They are doomed to go into the gas chambers.…
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A Pinch Cat Flashlight I worked for Philips from 1987 to 1997. It was a company that took great pride in its history. In 1891, mechanical engineer Gerard Philips (1858–1942) and his father—manufacturer, banker and tobacco and coffee trader—Frederik Philips founded the light bulb factory of the same name in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In 1991,…
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Before I delve into the main story, it is worth providing a brief synopsis of Limburg. Limburg is the southernmost of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands and stands apart from the rest of the country due to its distinctive geography, strong historical connections to Central Europe, and unique cultural identity. Unlike the famously flat,…
History of Sorts 