World War 2
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Charles Aznavour, widely recognized as one of France’s greatest singer-songwriters, led a life that extended far beyond the stage and spotlight. Born Shahnour Vaghinag Aznavourian on May 22, 1924, in Paris to Armenian immigrant parents, Aznavour’s early life was marked by the struggle of displaced peoples and the complexities of identity. While his artistic legacy…
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I have to start with an apology because after reading this blog, next time you watch the Disney classic Bambi, you will see that young little deer in a different light. Felix Salten was a Hungarian-born, Austrian Jewish author. When he was four weeks old, he moved from Pest in Hungary to Vienna in Austria.…
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Most of my life has been occupied with one question: “Why did my Grandfather die?” As far as I am aware and as far as I was told by my family, he was executed by the German occupiers during World War II. It has only been recently I actually found out the actual date he…
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This blog will not contain a lot of text, mainly photographs and art of soldiers who served during World War II, and will contain short descriptions. The photograph above was discovered by Levi Bettwieser, a passionate collector of old film rolls who was lucky enough to stumble upon 31 undeveloped rolls of film full of…
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(First published May 29, 2024) I had a draft for this piece ready in 2018 but deleted it at the time because I thought it would be too controversial and uncomfortable to read. Forward to 2025, I still think it will be deemed as controversial, and I still think it is uncomfortable to read, but…
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Heinrich Bütefisch is not a well-known name in the context of World War II and the Holocaust, yet he was responsible for the deaths of thousands; in addition to that, he also worked for a company that had helped to develop Zyklon B, the gas used to kill millions. The company that produced Zyklon B…
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The photograph above is of a selection in Auschwitz-Birkenau. It looks horrendous enough when you look at it, but if you analyze it, the horrors become so real. Firstly, it is clear that the line on the left will not show the end of that day. They are doomed to go into the gas chambers.…
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Henio Zytomirski was a 9-year-old boy who was gassed at Majdanek Concentration Camp in Poland on November 9, 1942. In 2005, a project called “Letters to Henio” was started in Lubin, Poland. Each year on April 19, Holocaust Remembrance Day in Poland, pupils and citizens of Lublin are asked to send letters addressed to Henio…
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Moffenmeid is a designation for women who had relationships with German soldiers during the occupation of the Netherlands during World War II, or there was suspicion of their doing so. The word mof is a swear word for German—the English equivalent is Kraut. The women in question were sometimes pro-German or prostitutes, but often, they…
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Art can be a powerful medium when expressing emotions or illustrating life as experienced. Artist Bedřich Fritta who was born Fritz Taussig expressed his experiences of the Holocaust via art. Fritta was captured and deported on 4 December 1941 to the Theresienstadt ghetto. His wife and son followed in 1942. Fritta and other illustrators in…
History of Sorts 
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