travel

  • The biggest group of people who were murdered during the Holocaust were the Jews. An estimated 6 million were killed. The number of 6 million should have really been zero, because none of these people had done anything wrong, They were only killed because they were Jewish or had been Jewish, there was no other…

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  • A picture tells a thousand words, and in this case, they truly do. The drawings and cartoons are made by Emile Franken. I am not sure what happened to Emile. I do know he was born on 15 April 1921 somewhere in the Netherlands and he survived the war. I also know he spent time…

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  • On June 20, 1942, the SS guard at the Auschwitz exit was visibly shaken. In front of him idled the car of Rudolf Höss, commandant of the notorious concentration camp. Inside were four armed SS men. One of them—a second lieutenant, or Untersturmführer—was shouting and cursing furiously. “Wake up, you buggers!” he bellowed in German.…

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  • First-hand accounts from soldiers who participated in D-Day provide a vivid and personal perspective on the events of June 6, 1944. These narratives capture the chaos, bravery, and camaraderie experienced by those who were there. Here are some notable accounts: Omaha Beach: Charles E. “Chuck” Shay Charles Shay, a Native American medic with the 1st…

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  • f you have ever stood on the terraces of Croke Park on a blistering August afternoon, you know that hurling is not just a sport; it is an opera of speed, leather, and ash. Dubbed the fastest field sport on earth, its ancient origins stretch back three millennia, woven tightly into the fabric of Irish…

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  • Pip: History of Sorts is the kind of site that looks at a photograph of a selection ramp and refuses to let you scroll past — dirkdeklein has been doing that work, post after post, this week. Mara: The posts cover a lot of ground: the machinery of the camps themselves, the perpetrators and collaborators…

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  • The Kielce Pogrom

    I know some Polish people will vehemently deny that this ever happened, but it did. It is a shame some people still insist on whitewashing history because it serves no one, and the truth always comes out. We can only stop these crimes from happening again when we learn from the past. It is not…

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  • Amid all the horror stories of the Holocaust, every so often, a positive one emerges. I was sidetracked during my research on the Dutch entertainer Rudi Carrell’s life during World War II when the name of Abraham Bueno de Mesquita came up. Better known as Bueno de Mesquita, he and Rudi Carrell worked together in…

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  • The story of the first McDonald’s restaurant is more than a tale about hamburgers and milkshakes. It is a story about innovation, efficiency, postwar American culture, and the transformation of eating habits across the world. What began as a modest roadside hamburger stand in Southern California eventually became one of the most recognizable business enterprises…

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  • Neuengamme concentration camp was a significant and harrowing part of the Nazi concentration camp system during World War II. Located near Hamburg, Germany, Neuengamme was established December 13, 1938, and initially served as a satellite camp of Sachsenhausen. By 1940, it became an independent main camp (Hauptlager), and it was the largest concentration camp in…

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