World War 2
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While Jewish identity was traditionally defined by religious beliefs and cultural heritage, the Nazi regime considered Jewishness a racial characteristic, making conversion to Christianity irrelevant in terms of escaping persecution. Many Jews sought refuge in Catholicism, hoping that baptism would provide protection from Nazi oppression. However, in most cases, conversion did not shield them from…
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Johnny & Jones refers to the Amsterdam-based jazz duo consisting of Nol (Arnold Siméon) van Wesel (Johnny) (August 3, 1918 – April 15, 1945) and Max (Salomon Meyer) Kannewasser (Jones) (September 24, 1916 – March 20, 1945). Van Wesel and Kannewasser first met while working at the De Bijenkorf department store. In 1934, they were…
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Nowadays, people often complain when a train is running late, me included, by the way. However, recently, I have changed my way of thinking about that. Throughout Europe during World War II, the military used the railways to accommodate an industrialized scale of murder. It could only work if the trains ran on time. The…
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(Repost from May 10 2024) Last Wednesday I was a guest on the ‘Creativity and Technology Solutions for Business and Life Show,’ presented by Joe Dans on WTBQ Radio. WTBQ is an independent radio station broadcasting from Warwick, New York. The last locally-owned radio station in Orange County, New York, WTBQ broadcasts on 1110 AM…
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The Nazis implemented a series of discriminatory laws and regulations aimed at isolating and persecuting Jews. In many cases, Jews were forced to relinquish their pets as part of broader property confiscation. Pets were considered part of personal property, and when Jewish people were displaced, arrested, or deported, they were often forced to leave their…
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A vital element of the Holocaust’s industrial-scale genocide was the efficient logistics system that transported millions of people to their deaths in concentration and extermination camps. The Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German national railway company, played a central role in this process. By providing the means of transportation for the deportation of Jews and other victims,…
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The Holocaust didn’t start with killing, it started with dehumanizing Jews and other “undesirables.” Convince the population that those deemed by the Nazi regime as inferior were just that—inferior. Throughout the war they humiliated Jews, just killing wasn’t good enough they had to be mocked and ridiculed also, for they were considered to be subhuman…
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Project A119 was the designated name by the US Air Force to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon. The project was called “A Study of Lunar Research Flights” aka ” Project A119 and was developed by the U.S. Air Force in the late 1950s. The aim was to intimidate the Soviet Union, who at…
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The closing months of the Second World War witnessed a dramatic culmination of the Nazi regime’s repression against internal dissent. Among the many Germans who opposed Adolf Hitler’s tyranny from within were Alfred Delp, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, and Johannes Popitz — three men of distinct backgrounds whose resistance activities ultimately led to their execution on…
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Prisoners in Auschwitz were given a number, which was tattooed on their arm. Marking people with a number makes it easier to treat them as objects rather than human beings. However, not everyone got a number, and there were occasions when they ran out of ink. More people were killed in Auschwitz than the combined…
History of Sorts 