Holocaust
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Henriëtte Delia (Jetje) Hamburger was part of the so-called Gruppe Unbekannte Kinde, unknown children, a group of more than fifty children whom the Nazis had failed to identify. She and her brother—were betrayed at their hiding place in Amsterdam. Jetje Hamburger was born on December 24, 1943 in Eindhoven. Her parents were no longer together. Her…
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A few weeks ago, I watched a beautiful short film, What’s Your Number? It’s a story about a Holocaust survivor who comes full circle sharing his life story with an African American child he meets at the park. The survivor and his sister’s lives were saved by the heroic action of an African American soldier during World…
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This is Rachel Soesan—her face is filled with so much life and joy, and why wouldn’t it be when she was 4. Her whole life lay before her. Yet there were some who perceived her as a threat to society. She was born on December 20, 1938 in Amsterdam. She would have been 85 today.…
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On 12 December 1941, five days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, Adolf Hitler made a revealing speech in Berlin to Nazi leaders. “Bezüglich der Judenfrage ist der Führer entschlossen, reinen Tisch zu machen. Er hat den Juden prophezeit, daß, wenn sie noch einmal einen Weltkrieg herbeiführen würden, sie dabei ihre Vernichtung erleben würden.…
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I am actually happy that I could not find any images of Anton de Rosa because I don’t think I could take that. When I say 10 months of life, that is literally what it was. He only lived for 10 months. The picture above is of his birthplace, Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp. Where was…
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“On March 22, 1933, a few weeks after Adolf Hitler had been appointed Reich Chancellor, a concentration camp for political prisoners was set up in Dachau. This camp served as a model for all later concentration camps and as a “school of violence” for the SS men under whose command it stood. In the twelve…
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This post will be about the first Kindertransport, which arrived in the United Kingdom on 2 December 1938. However, I am starting with a speech by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on 30 September 1938. “There are only two things I want to say. First of all, I have received an immense number of letters…
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One of the definitions of hygiene is conditions or practices conducive to maintaining health and preventing disease—specifically through cleanliness. The lack of hygiene was one of the hidden killers during World War II, and indeed any other war, because it wasn’t always possible to keep a minimal level of hygiene. This post has a few…
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I am always surprised why so little is reported about the Holocaust in Luxembourg. In the late 1930s, Luxembourg had a population of approximately 300,000, of which 3.500 were Jews. In addition, more than 1,000 German-Jewish refugees had found shelter in Luxembourg. Nazi Germany occupied Luxembourg in May 1940, with the Luxembourg government fleeing into…
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Although I have literally written hundreds of posts on World War II and the Holocaust, I hadn’t heard about the great bank robbery. The bank robbery at Almelo 1944, is a bank robbery was committed by the Dutch resistance on November 15, in which 46.1 million guilders (value in 2023: €354 million) was taken. It…
History of Sorts 