Forgotten History.

I have seen so many gruesome images of the Holocaust, but for some reason, the pictures of these smiling and playing children touched me more than any other. I know none of them survived and the only crime they committed was being a child. On the morning of 6 April 1944, members of the Lyon Gestapo who had been tipped off by an informant carried out a raid on the children’s home in Izieu and…

The immediate aftermath of the Second World War in Europe is frequently conceptualized as a period of liberation and profound relief. However, for the small minority of Jewish survivors who attempted to rebuild their lives in Poland, the cessation of hostilities did not guarantee safety. On August 11, 1945, the city of Kraków became the site of the first major postwar anti-Jewish riot in the…

Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914 in Vienna, Austria, is best known for her work as a Hollywood actress during the Golden Age of cinema. However, her contributions to science and technology, particularly her co-invention of a technology that laid the groundwork for WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS, have garnered increasing recognition. Lamarr’s dual identity as both an actress and an…

In the late 1930s, many German Jews tried to flee persecution in Nazi Germany. The Netherlands allowed a few to enter their borders. Jews in the Netherlands were committed to helping these refugees cross the border and arranged shelter. One of them was the Karel Nihom from Winterswijk. Not only did Karel help Jewish refugees, but he was also engaged in espionage for the British intelligence…

On this day in 1973, at a party in an apartment in the Bronx, New York, hip-hop AKA rap was born. Using two turntables and a microphone, Jamaican-born funk and soul DJ Kool Herc mixed two records together – isolating and extending the kick drum beats or “breaks” – while also making rhythmic announcements over the top. The rest was history. DJ Kool Herc, of Jamaican background, is recognized the…

It is strange how things can turn sometimes. I was going to do some research on Eva Braun. When I typed in the name, another name first came up, The name of Eva Brandon. When I looked into her details, I discovered that Eva Brandon was born in Amsterdam, on 26 July 1929. She was murdered Auschwitz, on 9 August 1942. She reached the age of 13 years. But Eva Brandon’s story is part of a much…

I know it is easy to call people like Rudolf Höss and others who worked in Auschwitz monsters, and to en extent I can understand that, I have done so in the past. However when you call them monsters you take the risk of given them an excuse for their acts, because we only expect evil from monsters. These men were human beings, evil human beings but human beings nonetheless. That makes it even…

I am always amazed by the fact that there are still people who desperately want to deny the Holocaust. Although there is so much evident and a lot of it very graphic, they still say it never happened and that the photographic evidence are staged pictures, produced by the allies. The one thing they do forget is the evidence produced by the Nazi’s themselves. The Nazis kept records of nearly…

There are no photographs of the two babies—just death certificates. Elisabeth Jeanne Petzal was born with her twin brother Robert Harry on 10 August 1943 in Camp Westerbork. They were children of Werner Petzal and Fanny Betsy Oppenheim. Both were murdered at Auschwitz on 18 October 1944. They were just a year old when they were murdered. It was eight years later when their deaths were registered.…

On 9 August 1945, a B-29 named Bock’s Car lifted off from Tinian and headed toward the primary target: Kokura Arsenal, a massive collection of war industries adjacent to the city of Kokura. The primary target was the city of Kokura, where the Kokura Arsenal was located, and the secondary target was Nagasaki, where two large Mitsubishi armament plants were located. The weather had been reported…

A truly remarkable story of love and survival. In the late 1930s, Anka Bergman was a lively law student living in the Czechoslovakian capital, Prague. “I wanted company and boyfriends and to enjoy myself. I didn’t know that Hitler was coming, but I filled my time with only cinemas and theatres and concerts and parties,” she says. At a nightclub, Anka met her husband, Bernd Nathan, an…

Coffee: it’s the drink we rely on for energy, the beverage that brings people together, and a ritual embedded in cultures worldwide. But coffee’s story is as rich and deep as the flavors we savor in each cup. Let’s take a journey through the history of coffee—from the ancient hills of Ethiopia to the bustling coffeehouses of the Middle East and finally to the modern cafes that dot every city…

The title of this blog could be from any fictitious novel. A children’s book or even a fairy tale, but it actually describes a bizarre reality which caused so much destruction. The story of Hitler’s naturalization process resembles something of a farce. On April 7 1925 he had given up his Austrian citizenship, it was only on February 1932 he received his German citizenship. This means for 7…

War brings out the best and the worst out of people, that is just a fact. It is easy to acknowledge the good but there is often a struggle acknowledging the bad, even to the extent of trying to completely erase it from history. When it comes to the Holocaust there is no question about it that it was caused by Germany and Austria and their Nazi regimes, however they could never have succeeded…

“The Daffodil Knows” Beneath the frost where silence sleeps,Where time runs thin and memory weeps,A bulb lies still in winter’s grave,Yet dreams of sun and all it gave. I stood alone where you once stood,The air still held your quiet good—No voice, no breath, just earth and stone,And daffodils you might have known. Grief is not loud, it barely speaks,It hides in hours and hollow weeks.But then…

It should be no surprise that I cherish beauty, and to me, none compares to the timeless grace of a woman’s bare form. This is a tribute to the women who carry the earth’s stories in their eyes and the strength of generations in their spirit. Their beauty is not bound by trends or fleeting ideals, but woven into the songs, languages, and traditions that have endured through time. Here, we honor…

The contemporary landscape of the British Isles, characterized by rolling green hills, temperate woodlands, and dense urban centers, offers little immediate hint of a wilder, more megafaunal past. Yet, for hundreds of thousands of years during the Pleistocene epoch—commonly known as the Ice Age—what is now Great Britain was home to some of the largest land mammals to ever walk the Earth. Far from…