Survival
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I am a great believer in balance. It is good to have a balanced view of life. I have written quite a bit on how the Dutch failed their Jewish-fellow citizens, and the Dutch complacency might be considered a crime. However, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes you need to take a step back and take…
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I came across Gershon Willinger’s name on the Joods Monument website. It is his 80 birthday today, When I saw his name and his birthday, I also saw that the date and the place of his death were not known. I figured this was going to be an awful tragic and depressing story. I decided…
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The best way to describe this story is a microcosm of the Holocaust history. But before I go into the story, I have to explain the wider background, to put it into context. Although I am fully Dutch, I was seen as a child of a mixed marriage, The Netherlands is a small country, however,…
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Millions were murdered during the Holocaust, and each of these victims represents a tragic and sad story. However, although very few, there were some positive Holocaust stories, but even with the positivity, there was an underlying negative story, because it tells of their disrupted lives. Hans Leo (Henry in later life) Abraham and his sister…
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Westerbork was liberated on April 12, 1945, by Canadian forces. At the time there were still 876 inmates there. Something which isn’t widely known is that this liberation nearly was a destruction. The Canadians thought the camp was a Germany military base. They had plans for shelling Weseterbork. This was published in de Telegraaf on…
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Although he was born as Alexander Zwaap, for most of his life he would be known as Lex van Delden. He was a truly remarkable man, despite hardships he never gave up. He was born in Amsterdam on September 10, 1919, as the only child of Wolf Zwaap, a school-teacher, and his wife Sara Olivier-Zwaap,…
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When you look at some bizarre connections in History, you cannot escape the fact that life sometimes has a ironic way of weaving a tapestry of coincidences. One of Hitler’s favourite movies was the Walt Disney classic “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” released in 1937. One of the main animators of the movie was…
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I have often wondered how the Sonderkommandos coped with their work. Sonderkommandos were forced labour units made up of Nazi death camp prisoners. usually Jews.They were forced to help with the disposal of gas chamber victims among other duties. Sometimes even removing family members. It is not like they had a choice, it was either work…
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Anyone who has seen the movie ‘Alive’ will be aware of this story. Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was a chartered flight carrying 45 people, including a rugby union team, their friends, family and associates, that crashed in the Andes on Friday the 13th October 1972, in an incident known as the Andes flight disaster…
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For me it is unfathomable to even imagine what the victims of the Holocaust had to endure. I don’t think I would have the strength to persevere and yet there were those who did. They did not give up hope and just kept going. Below are just some pictures of those who despite everything looked…
History of Sorts 
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