Forgotten History.

“Reached the age of 9 years” may seem like a very matter of fact and brutal title , but the brutal honesty is many of the 1.5 million children murdered during the Holocaust did not even reach that age. Reached the age of 9 years should never be said of any child as the age of death. Reached the age of 9 years should never be said of any child, as the age of death because of murder. But reached…

In the years 535 and 536, several remarkable aberrations in world climate took place. They were the most severe and protracted short-term episodes of cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 2 Millennia. Including bizarrely low-temperatures, with snow fall during the summer months in some locations; widespread crop-failures and famine; greatly decreased levels of sunlight; and also causing…

The photograph above is of Gezina de Leeuwe-de Jong with her four children. I presume the photo was taken by her husband and the father of the children, Louis de Leeuw. I reckon that’s why he is not in the picture. He was a son of Barend de Leeuwe and Sientje van Minden. He married Gezina de Jong from Assen on 2 October 1935 in Rotterdam, a daughter of Bernhard de Jong en Rachel de Levie. Louis…

Billy Fiske: The American Who Died for Britain On 17 August 1940, as the Battle of Britain raged above southern England, Pilot Officer William Meade Lindsley “Billy” Fiske III died in a hospital in Chichester. He was just 29 years old. An American citizen serving in the Royal Air Force, Fiske had been badly burned when his Hawker Hurricane was hit by German fire during combat the previous day.…

Eva was born on 1 January 1924, in Oleszyce, Poland, a small community where over half of the people were Jews. She had seven siblings, and she was the oldest. Her father, was a wealthy merchant and head of the Oleszyce Jewish community. He had an international business that distributed religious articles, including Torahs and tefillin to France, Belgium, England, the US and other countries…

In the great annals of American history, there are certain dates that echo across the decades: July 4, 1776; December 7, 1941; July 20, 1969. And then, of course, January 26, 1998 — the day President Bill Clinton stood before the nation, wagged his finger at the camera, and gave us the immortal line: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” The words were so emphatic,…

In the spring of 1919, as the Irish War of Independence was beginning to spread across the island, an extraordinary and largely anomalous episode in revolutionary history unfolded in the mid-west of Ireland. For two weeks, from 14 to 27 April, Limerick was effectively governed not by the British authorities or the newly established Dáil Éireann, but by a self-organized council of workers. Dubbed…

Now, I don’t want to sound like an old fogey or make the mistake my parents made by dismissing my music taste. There has always been a generational divide in musical taste, but no one can deny that the current popular music lacks quality compared to the music from days of yore. Without even listening to the music, looking at the lyrics says enough. Harry Styles, “Meet Me In The Hallway” “Two,…

The photo above is the gate at Buchenwald Concentration Camp. The phrase on the gate says “Jedem Das Seine” which is the literal German translation of the Latin phrase suum cuique, meaning “to each his own” or “to each what he deserves.” Buchenwald was a concentration camp established on Ettersberg Hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the…

(Originally posted on December 28, 2018) For the size of the country it is astonishing how many football greats come from the Netherlands. Names like Johann Cruijff, Johan Neeskens, Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Arjen Robben to name but a few, but the name Sjaak Swart certainly belongs in that list. Sjaak (Sjakie) Swart was pivotal to the successes of Ajax in  1971 to 1973  the 2 consecutive…

It is a lesser-known, or perhaps lesser-acknowledged, fact that the entire Wehrmacht, including the Navy and Luftwaffe, was involved in the Holocaust. It wasn’t only the SS. The Luftwaffe was directly involved through bombardments and indirectly through experiments carried out on their behalf. The aerial bombardment of the village of Vorizia by the Luftwaffe is a lesser-known but tragic event…

I know this blog may not sit comfortably with everyone, but I believe it’s important to look at the Holocaust from every possible angle if we are to understand its full story. What follows is a glimpse into that story, seen through the words of a man who once stood guard at Auschwitz. The letter, donated to us by someone who wished to remain anonymous, was written by Stefan Dilmetz, an SS…

“The Queen Remembered” Eight years ago today, the world dimmed a little when we lost the incomparable Aretha Franklin—a voice that defined an era and a soul that lifted countless hearts. On this solemn anniversary, we once again celebrate not just her extraordinary talent, but the lasting legacy she left behind. A Voice Like No Other Aretha’s voice—a powerful tapestry woven with gospel fire,…

August 16 is not a good day in Music History. On August 16,1938, legendary Blues musician Robert Johnson died at the age of 27. Making him of the first member of the elusive club of 27. Johnson’s death was not reported publicly. Almost 30 years later, Gayle Dean Wardlow, a Mississippi-based musicologist researching Johnson’s life, found Johnson’s death certificate, which listed only the date and…

Josef Jakobs (30 June 1898 – 15 August 1941) was a German spy and the last person to be executed at the Tower of London. Captured shortly after parachuting into Britain during the Second World War, he was convicted of espionage under the Treachery Act 1940 and sentenced to death. Because he had broken his ankle during his parachute landing and was unable to stand, he was executed by a military…

The Omagh bombing, which took place on August 15, 1998, stands as the deadliest single atrocity of the decades-long sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. Just four months after the historic signing of the Good Friday Agreement, a car bomb exploded in the busy centre of Omagh, County Tyrone, in an attack carried out by dissident republicans determined to derail the fragile…

A Spontaneous Act of Impulse On August 15, 1936, during the Summer Olympics in Berlin, officials, athletes, and spectators witnessed an unusual and unforgettable moment. At the men’s 1500-metre freestyle swimming final, a 43-year-old American tourist named Carla de Vries from Norwalk, California, made her way close to Hitler’s box. Clad in a red hat, she had been repeatedly blocked by Hitler’s…