The Holocaust - World War II Beginning in late 1941, the Germans began mass transports from the ghettoes in Poland to the concentration camps, starting with those people viewed as the least useful: the sick, old and weak and the very young. The first mass gassings began at the camp of Belzec, near Lublin, on March 17, 1942. Five more mass killing centers were built at camps in occupied Poland, including Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and the largest of all, Auschwitz-Birkenau. From 1942 to 1945, Jews were deported to the camps from all over Europe, including German-controlled territory as well as those countries allied with Germany. The heaviest deportations took place during the summer and fall of 1942, when more than 300,000 people were deported from the Warsaw ghetto alone. Though the Nazis tried to keep operation of camps secret, the scale of the killing made this virtually impossible.
Papua New Guinea Patrol Reports | Collection | Digital Collections | UC San Diego Library Reports from government patrols are a major source of primary information on Papua New Guinea’s colonial-era history. Patrol officers and other officials wrote detailed documents reporting on all aspects of the work carried out by the patrols. The reports give first-hand accounts on many topics, from first contact with remote Highland villages, to census counts, tax collection, health care, justice, labor recruiting, plantations, missionaries, anthropological descriptions, tribal warfare, languages, and more. The reports are organized by Districts which generally correspond to the boundaries of Papua New Guinea’s Provinces in 1975.
Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain was a struggle between the German Luftwaffe (commanded by Hermaan Göring) and the British Royal Air force (headed by Sir Hugh Dowding’s Fighter Command) which raged over Britain between July and October 1940. The battle, which was the first major military campaign in history to be fought entirely in the air, was the result of a German plan to win air superiority over Southern Britain and the English Channel by destroying the British air force and aircraft industry. Hitler saw victory in the battle as a prelude to the invasion of Britain (codenamed Operation Sealion). In May 1940, German forces had overrun Belgium, the Netherlands and northern France using Blitzkrieg (‘Lightening War’) tactics. The Luftwaffe’s first disadvantage was that it was neither trained nor equipped for the long range operations which became part of the battle. The climax of the battle came on 15 September, a day in which the Luftwaffe lost 56 planes and the RAF 28.
These Photos From Auschwitz Are the Only Surviving Visual Evidence of Victims' Last Moments | HistoryBuff | The Future of History The Auschwitz Album, as it is referred to, is the only surviving visual account of the great atrocities that occurred at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Donated to Yad Vashem by Lilly Jacob-Zelmanovic Meier, the photos were taken in May or June 1944 by either Ernst Hofmann or Bernhard Walter, two SS men whose task was to take ID photos and fingerprints of the inmates. Early summer 1944 was the apex of the deportation of Hungarian Jewry. View several of the heartbreaking photos below. Since the railroad car has no convenient steps, the old Jews have to be assisted in disembarking. The Jews who just arrived are taking care of their property as they are under the assumption they will be needing it. Two of Lili Jacob's siblings - Sril (Israel) and Zelig. The line of Jewish men on the left is advancing toward a SS man, In the background, the selection of the Jewish women is taking place. These Jewish men have just entered Birkenau as prisoners. Clothes confiscated from the arriving Jews.
Touching Stories From Both Survivors and Saviors of German Concentration Camps - History Daily Apr 152016 Throughout the winter and spring of 1945, as Allied forces recaptured German territories from both the east and the west, the Nazis’ horrifying secret began to unfold before their very eyes — millions of people had been imprisoned and killed in Nazi concentration camps. These are the stories of the liberators and the survivors — when the day of freedom finally arrived. Photo: Keystone-france/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images Photo: Pinterest Photo: Pinterest Photo: RT.com Photo: Wikimedia Commons Photo: Pinterest Photo: Eric Schwab/AFP/Getty Images Photo: Wikimedia Commons Photo: New York Daily News
After VE Day: The war without an end In the summer of 1945, a train carrying refugees pulled out of a station in what’s now Slovakia, heading for Germany. Its passengers were German speakers being expelled from the country – in the wake of the Second World War, Czechoslovakians no longer wanted such people living in their midst. When the train passed through the town of Přerov in Moravia it was brought to a halt. The head of the local militia, a man named Karol Pazúr, forced everyone to disembark, claiming he wanted to carry out a search for former Nazis hiding among the passengers. When they stepped down from the train, Pazúr and his men lined them up and shot them all. The dead included 71 men, 120 women and 74 children. The slaughter at Přerov was just one example of the many mass killings perpetrated all over Czechoslovakia in the wake of the war. Perhaps the most notable fact about the Přerov massacre is that its protagonist was one of the very few Czechs ever to be arrested for such crimes. Ethnic violence Civil war
Joseph Goebbels’ 105-year-old secretary: ‘No one believes me now, but I knew nothing’ | World news ‘It was rare for us to see him in the mornings,” says Brunhilde Pomsel, her eyes closed and chin in her hand as she recalls her former boss. “He’d walk up the steps from his little palace near the Brandenburg Gate, on to which his huge propaganda ministry was attached. He’d trip up the steps like a little duke, through his library into his beautiful office on Unter den Linden.” She smiles at the image, noting how elegant the furniture was, the carefree atmosphere where she sat in an ante-chamber off Joseph Goebbels’ office with five other secretaries, how his nails were always neatly manicured. “We always knew once he had arrived, but we didn’t normally see him until he left his office, coming through a door that led directly into our room, so we could ask him any questions we had, or let him know who had called. So what is the motivation for effectively breaking her silence only now, as probably the last living survivor from the Nazi leadership’s inner circle?
Education for Death: The Making of Nazi--Walt Disney's 1943 Propaganda Film Shows How Fascists Are Made During World War II, Walt Disney entered into a contract with the US government to develop 32 animated shorts. Nearly bankrupted by Fantasia (1940), Disney needed to refill its coffers, and making American propaganda films didn’t seem like a bad way to do it. On numerous occasions, Donald Duck was called upon to deliver moral messages to domestic audiences (see The Spirit of ’43 and Der Fuehrer’s Face). But that wasn’t the case with Education for Death: The Making of Nazi, a film shown in U.S. movie theaters in 1943. Based on a book written by Gregor Ziemer, this animated short used a different lineup of characters to show how the Nazi party turned innocent youth into Hitler’s corrupted children. You will find Education for Death permanently listed in the Animation section of our collection of Free Movies Online. Follow Open Culture on Facebook, Twitter and Flipboard and share intelligent media with your friends. Related Content:
These rebellious teens resisted the Nazis by beating up Hitler Youth, and some paid with their… On July 17, 1943, the Düsseldorf-Grafenberg branch of the Nazi party reported to the Gestapo on the growth of a new menace. Certain “youngsters,” party members warned, “aged between 12 and 17, hang around into the late evening, with musical instruments and young females. Since this riff-raff is to a large extent outside the Hitler Youth and adopts a hostile attitude toward the organization, they represent a danger to other young people.” The briefing concerned the so-called Edelweiss Pirates, a collection of adolescent groups engaged in rebellious assembly and behavior throughout the western industrial cities of the Reich. Members were largely working class and brought up in the Hitler Youth during the 1930s. Specific chapters of the Pirates took on names of their own. We march by banks of Ruhr and RhineAnd smash the Hitler youth in twainOur song is freedom, love, and life,We’re pirates of the Edelweiss. Soon enough, though, the Gestapo caught up with them.
Holocaust Movies for Middle School and High School The Holocaust was one of the worst times in history and is a tough subject to teach. Here is a list of Holocaust movies for middle school and high school that are PG-13 or under. I am a major supporter of teaching history through movies. Nothing can bring history to life like the big screen. I also don’t think it’s very wise to show a fourth grader Schindler’s List. Side note: I purposefully left Pearl Harbor and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas out of this list, just because I felt for this post, both were really unrealistic without offering much in return. Holocaust Movies for Middle School and High School The Courageous Heart Of Irena Sendler Irena Sendler, a small Polish Catholic social worker, rescued 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. This classic Hallmark Hall of Fame film strays away from violence, sexual content, and profanity without downplaying anything. Island On Bird Street Run, Boy, Run Hidden In Silence Anne Frank: The Whole Story The Hiding Place
Ghosts of Time: 39 Incredible Then & Now WWII Pictures This haunting collection of images takes us on a journey across the years, combining historical photographs with their modern-day settings. You can follow Adam Surrey’s work on Facebook: Ghosts of Time Life In A Destroyed City: Watch the Citizens Of Berlin in July 1945 On May 2, 1945, the City of Berlin fell to Red (Soviet) Army after 16 days of terrible battle. Adolf Hitler would not surrender, so the fighting was taken to the streets of Berlin itself. But on April 30 Hitler committed suicide, and the German forces surrendered. Even so, the Soviet troops did not spare the people of Berlin. After the Red Army finished its rampage the Soviets began to restore order. The Soviets tried to feed and reorganize the city, but even so, starvation and homelessness was a big problem. The Russians were surprised when they came to Berlin.
What would you have done?: Terrible choices people had to make during WW2 How could Japanese airmen “volunteer” to become Kamikaze pilots? Why did the SS believe the Nazi state’s racist values? For nearly 20 years I have tried to answer questions such as these by meeting hundreds of people from the Second World War. I was interested in what motivated the perpetrators, but I also encountered victims confronted with awful choices. I travelled across the world; met rapists, murderers and cannibals; talked to heroic soldiers, survivors of atrocities and a man who shot children. I used some of this material in a number of TV series that I wrote and produced (including Nazis: a Warning from History and Auschwitz: the Nazis and the Final Solution), but a great deal of material has never been published. I was struck by how relevant the testimonies are today. It was vital to treat the oral testimonies we gathered with an element of scepticism. Then there’s the question of how much we can expect human beings to recall. Chose life or death for Jewish children