the Netherlands

  • Hitler expected very little resistance from the Dutch because he saw them as kindred spirits and fellow aryans. When he decided to invade the Netherlands he expected a similar reception as he got in Austria, but he was wrong. Although the invasion only took 3 days the Germans suffered heavy losses. As in the other…

    Read more →

  • It is a question I often ask myself “Would I do it, would I risk my life and the life of my Family to safe others? ” Honestly I don’t know. Risking my own life is one thing, but risking the lives of my Family is a different ballgame all together. And yet that is…

    Read more →

  • The more I do these WWII stories the more I realize how littIe I  actually know.. It was by chance I came across the name Gabrielle Weidner. Today when I tried to open a page on her it came up blank, just like my brain.I never heard of her or her brother Jean nor had…

    Read more →

  • Entertaining the Troops.

    After months of fighting fierce battles this must have been the most adorable way ever how the US troops were entertained. Dutch children entertain U.S. soldiers. U.S. soldiers taken for a morning walk through the grounds of moated Hoensbroek Castle in Holland some of the 145 young Dutch children living there under the care of…

    Read more →

  • As part of the Nazis’ plan to make the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin a showcase of their ideological and racial superiority, Josef Goebbels, the regime’s propaganda chief, excluded Jews, leftists and purveyors of “degenerate” art from an Art Olympiad organized to coincide with the games. In response, a group of Dutch artists and intellectuals…

    Read more →

  • Every once in a while you encounter a story which puts you in conflict with yourself. You wonder “can I really tell the story?” For me this is one of those stories. I am not going to use the word ‘Hate’ because that would be too harsh of a description, but I do really, really,really…

    Read more →

  • On 23 January 1920, the government of the Netherlands refused to extradite the former Kaiser of Germany, Wilhelm II. His aggressive foreign policy and support for Austro-Hungary in 1914 led to the first world war. After the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, he was charged with “a supreme offence against international morality…

    Read more →

  • In the Netherlands, the only pre-war group that immediately started resistance against the German occupation was the communist party. During the first two war years, it was by far the biggest resistance organization, much bigger than all other organizations put together. A major act of resistance was the organisation of the February strike in 1941, in protest against anti-Jewish measures. (Leaflet…

    Read more →

  • One of my new year’s resolution was to start honoring more heroes and raise more awareness of what these real heroes have done for our freedom. No actors,musicians,athletes, or reality tv stars but real heroes who sacrificed themselves for the betterment of others. Lieutenant Colonel Robert George Cole (March 19, 1915 – September 18, 1944) was an American soldier who…

    Read more →

  • On January 12, 1942 at 13:30 Jan Campert died in the Neuengamme concentration camp of pleurisy. Most people will never have heard of this man,  he was born on August 15 1902 in Spijkenisse a town near Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He was a journalist, theater critic and writer who lived in Amsterdam.During the German occupation of the…

    Read more →