World War 2
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On the night of 9/10 November 1938, the Nazis unleashed a series of pogroms against the Jewish population in Germany and recently occupied and annexed territories. It should have been clear to the rest of the world what the Nazis were really about. Telegram from Sir G Ogilvie Forbes regarding the damage dealt to Jewish…
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This story has torn my heart open. I can’t tell you too much about Johannes van der Hoek all I can tell you is that he was born on 6 November 1942, in Westerbork. He must have been placed on a transport to Auschwitz, straight after his birth because, he was murdered there on 9…
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I was struggling to find a title for this piece. I was thinking of using words like testimonies or confessions, but neither of those words reflect the reality in my opinion. Testimony is too soft because it lessens the effect of the severity of the actions of the perpetrators. On the other hand. testimony in…
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The Nazis weren’t the only ones using concentration camps, the Japanese Imperial army had them too, although not to the extent as the Nazi camps, and they were not meant for mass extermination. However, the treatment of the prisoners was still brutal and evil. One of the camps was the Lampersari Prison camp. Lampersari was…
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The picture above is a wedding picture of Betje van Bergen-de Levie and her husband Philip Hartog van Bergen. I wish I could tell you that they celebrated many anniversaries. But they didn’t even get a chance to celebrate the 1st major anniversary which is celebrated in the Netherlands, the Twelve and a half year…
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Nel Hissink aka Cornelia van den Brink-Kossen On October 27, 1943, two Dutch resistance women—Nel Hissink, and Truus van Lier were executed in Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg, Reina Geerlings, was executed less than a month later, on November 24, 1943. All three women were shot. This was done in secret as it was not customary to shoot women.…
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Rita and Sandor Joachim Krammer met their death on 26 October 1942, Nazis murdered them at Auschwitz. Rita was born on 5 January 1935 in Groningen, the Netherlands. Her little brother, Sander Joachim, was born on 15 March 1937. Their mother, Regina Krammer-Gunsberger. was born in Deutschkreuz in Austria, and their father, Jacob Krammer, in…
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On 25 October 1944, Fake Krist, a fanatic employee of the German Sicherheitsdienst, was shot dead by the Haarlem resistance, in the Netherlands Initially, the attack was attributed to Hannie Schaft’s resistance group, but later it turned out that a police squad with members from Halfweg, resistance group had liquidated Fake Krist. To this end,…
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We are less than a month away from the Fifa Worldcup. The selection of Qatar as the host nation is, to use an understatement, controversial. But I hope it will do some good. I was wondering though about the history of Dutch football and especially the World War II years, the national competition didn’t halt.…
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The birth of a baby is a joyous occasion, even in war time. I don’t know if it is a specific Jewish tradition, but I know it is a Dutch one, that the birth of a child is announced in the newspapers. As did Harry’s parents, Willy and Rose, when he was born on October…
