Mauthausen
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Primum non nocere is the Latin phrase for “First do no harm” It is part of the Hippocratic Oath including the promise “to abstain from doing harm” . The Hippocratic Oath is an oath historically taken by physicians. It is one of the most widely known of Greek medical texts. In its original form, it requires a new physician to…
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On 19 February 1941, the German Grüne Polizei stormed into the Koco ice cream salon in the Van Woustraat. In the fight that ensued, several police officers were wounded. The Nazi authorities did not put up with the attack on their police officers. To end the unrest, they decided to hold a raid the weekend…
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Before delving into the story of Adriana Valkenburg, it’s important to understand the context of prostitution in the Netherlands. While prostitution has historically been tolerated in the country, it was not officially recognized as a legal profession until 1988. In the Netherlands, prostitution is legal and regulated, with sex work recognized as a legitimate profession.…
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The saying goes, “Music can soothe the savage beast,” but what if it is the savage beast that is using the music as a cynical form of evil and torture? In July 1942, Hans Bonarewitz attempted to escape from the Mauthausen concentration camp by trying to hide himself inside a box and was captured on…
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Over the past few days, I’ve been watching the second season of Squid Game. For those unfamiliar with the series, Squid Game is a South Korean thriller where financially desperate individuals are invited to compete in deadly childhood games for a massive cash prize. As the games progress, contestants face moral dilemmas, form alliances, and…
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Simon Wiesenthal was born on December 31, 1908, in Buczacz, a town then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today in western Ukraine). He was the eldest of four children in a Jewish family. His father was a teacher, and Wiesenthal grew up in an environment that valued education and community involvement. He pursued studies in…
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One aspect of the Holocaust which is often forgotten is the other damage caused. What I am referring to is the fatalities caused by a lack of qualified medical staff. I am not sure if there is any data on that, but it stands to reason that aside of the 6 million or more Jews…
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The famous painting above is titled Guernica and was created by Pablo Picasso. He painted it in his Paris home in response to the bombing of Guernica, a town in the Basque Country of northern Spain, on April 26, 1937, by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The Nazis committed atrocities long before the start of…
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When we think of Nazi concentration camps, our minds often conjure images of mass extermination, terror, and starvation. The haunting images of piles of corpses at Bergen-Belsen and the crematoriums of Auschwitz are etched into our collective memory. However, in the final years of the Third Reich’s vast concentration-camp system, the Nazis introduced a disturbing…
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It is difficult to determine which crimes committed during the Holocaust were the most horrific, but the Action T4 program and Action 14f13 stand out as particularly chilling. While not necessarily more appalling than other atrocities of that dark period, these programs are especially alarming because elements of their ideology and methods appear to be…
History of Sorts 