the Netherlands
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Some of the perpetrators of the Holocaust just went about their business as if it was the most natural thing in the world. In the above photograph, you see a picture of the first German commander of Camp Schoorl SS-Untersturmführer Schmidt visiting Amsterdam as if he was a tourist. He is just one of the…
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The name Erika might have a nice ring to it but like all other Nazi concentration camps, Erika was a place of distress and torture.Erika was a Nazi concentration camp. The camp was situated at the Besthemerberg near Ommen, the Netherlands. The camp was designated mostly for Dutchmen convicted of black market trade or resistance…
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Viewing the photograph above, you can see a few boys having fun. You might ask yourself, “Who are these boys?” or “What game are they playing? I don’t know who these boys are. I know they were cared for by the BjZ or Buitenschoolse Jeugdzorg, a part of the Jewish Council in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.…
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On 16 November 1941, Betje Weijl-van Praag died from what appears to be suicide. The police report does not mention suicide, but the circumstances indicate that probably was what happened. “Notification is given by telephone that something has probably happened to the resident of plot Schuttersweg 88 because she has not been seen all day.…
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These Dutchmen were the most despicable breed of men. They were not driven by any political ideology—but purely by greed. Wim Henneicke was part of a group of bounty hunters called Colonne Henneicke. He betrayed and robbed Jews; between 8,000 and 9,000 Jews were betrayed by the group in 1943. Towards the end of the…
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Not all heroes wear uniforms or capes. Not all resistance fighters use guns. In fact, the bravest ones don’t. Betsie ten Boom was a Hero and resistance fighter. She and her family saw what was happening with their Jewish neighbours and acted. I wish politicians nowadays would follow Betsie’s example and not do the easy…
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Albert Konrad Gemmeker (1907–1982) was a German SS officer who served as the commandant of the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands during World War II. Born on September 27, 1907, in Düsseldorf, Germany, Gemmeker pursued a career in law enforcement, joining the police force in Duisburg in 1933. By 1935, he held an administrative…
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The Holocaust wasn’t only the mass murder of the European Jews and other groups, it was also desecrating places of worships, especially synagogues,. It was showing total contempt and disrespect for holy places. The above picture was taken on September 16,1944. It shows American and Canadian Jewish soldiers clear the synagogue in Maastricht , which…
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I probably could do a whole essay on how Guus van der Wijk and Mina de Vries met, and at some stage I probably will, but for now it suffices to say they were extremely brave people, in fact in my eyes they are heroes. Despite the knowledge that there was a great chance they…
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Statistics often make me uneasy. Stripped of context, they can be twisted to tell a misleading story—and it frequently is. Yet, there are moments when numbers, stark and raw, help us grasp the scale of events too vast for words alone. It is one of those moments. Between July 15, 1942, and September 13, 1944,…
History of Sorts 
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