Nieuws uit Amsterdam, Drieëntwintig liquidaties tijdens bezetting:

“Tijdens de Duitse bezetting heeft het Amsterdamse verzet 23 mensen geliquideerd en nog eens 4 personen gedood tijdens schietpartijen, zo blijkt uit een recent onderzoek. Als vergelding hebben de Duitsers tientallen mensen gefusilleerd. Het verzet was in Amsterdam overigens minder gewelddadig dan in Rotterdam. “

“Our house is in an old quarry, and when we bought it five or so years ago, the previous owner told us that there was a tunnel built by the germans during WW2. He said it was big enough to drive into, and that his father had buried the entrance during redevelopments, but not before filling it with stuff that lying around the property (?). He showed me the rough location, and I’ve marked it on this little map with a red dot….

(…)

And that’s where the quest began…..”

(via)

“Amsterdam, Amstelveenseweg (bij de achteruitgang van het Vondelpark). Pleegzuster waagt zich in het vuur om een gewonde verzetsman te helpen. (07-05-1945)”

Beeldbank WO2:

“Alle afbeeldingen van de Tweede Wereldoorlog van de Nederlandse oorlogs- en verzetsmusea, herinneringscentra en het Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (NIOD) zijn bijeen gebracht in deze databank. Iedereen kan beelden inzien en bestellen.”

“As many older Israelis evidently remember, the then-new nation was afflicted by a perverse pop-culture craze in the early ’60s, at a time when nearly half the population consisted of Holocaust survivors, nationalist sentiment ran high and moral codes were extremely puritanical. Yet the newsstands in the Tel Aviv bus station sold racks of semi-pornographic pulp novels known as “Stalags,” whose utterly implausible, Penthouse Forum-meets-Marquis de Sade plots ventured into the most forbidden terrain imaginable. Stalags all followed essentially the same formula: An American or British World War II pilot (generally not Jewish) is shot down behind enemy lines, where he is imprisoned, tortured and raped by an entire phalanx of sadistic, voluptuous female SS officers. His body violated but his spirit unbroken, the plucky Yank or Brit escapes in the end to rape and murder his captors.”

Zie verder FilmForum.

Peter Schiff, vriendje van Anne Frank in Het Achterhuis.

NRC, Foto Anne Franks vriendje openbaar:

“De ‘Peter’ uit het dagboek van Anne Frank, de jongen in het Achterhuis op wie ze heimelijk verliefd was, heeft eindelijk een gezicht gekregen. Ruim 62 jaar nadat Peter Schiff, net als Anne, in een concentratiekamp vroegtijdig aan zijn einde kwam, heeft een jeugdvriend een foto van hem vrijgegeven.”

The Observer, First picture of the boy who won heart of Anne Frank.

Hans Teeuwen en Pieter Bouwman in De Grebbeberg (YouTube)

Фотоальбомы немецких солдат. (Photo albums of German soldiers.)

MeFi, Photo albums of German soldiers:

“Photo albums of German soldiers. Fully scanned photos from the personal albums of German soldiers from the Second World War and the years preceding it.”

“But there is another, more subtle, linguistic trap which both Germans and non-Germans can easily fall into — and which is far worse a faux pas than a mere slip of the article. Mention that you’ve found the “Endlösung” (“final solution”) to a problem you’ve been grappling with, or that you’ve made a “Selektion” (“selection”) from a number of possible alternatives, and you will quickly find yourself the target of disapproving stares.

The reason is simple — the aforementioned words are so tainted by their use by the Nazis that they are now completely taboo. To modern German ears, “Endlösung” will forever be associated with Hitler’s genocidal “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” while “Selektion” is now verbum non grata due to its use to refer to the death camp practice of “selecting” inmates to be executed.”

Eitz, Thorsten, Stötzel, Georg – Wörterbuch der “Vergangenheitsbewältigung”

“A few days ago an anniversary for the blockade of St. Petersburg city during the World War 2. For more than two years the city was in the tight circle of German troops. The front line was already in the suburbs and the downtown was bombed constantly. People suffered from the hunger and illnesses. Tens of thousands died. For those who survived it’s a great day, and those guys dressed in WW2 uniforms dedicate this show for them, the heroes of the blocked city.”

Timewatch’ Omaha Beach in CGI. (YouTube – via)

Timewatch:

“One of the most fun parts of filming is for the computer graphics (CGI) sequences. Timewatch has its own team dedicated to CGI (Neil Wilson, Steve Flynn and Colin Thornton) who have come out to Normandy with a car laden with Rangers’ uniforms and fake plastic guns.”

“In 1941, the British Secret Service asked the game’s British licensee John Waddington Ltd. to add secret extras to some sets, which had become standard elements of the aid packages that the Red Cross delivered to allied prisoners of war. Along with the usual dog, top hat and and thimble, the sets had a metal file, compass, and silk maps of safe houses (silk, because it folds into small spaces and unfolds silently). Even better, real French, German and Italian currency was hidden underneath the game’s fake money. Departing allied soldiers and pilots were told that if they were captured they should look out for the special editions, identified by a red dot in the Free Parking space. Any sets remaining in the U.K. were destroyed after the war. Of the 35,000 prisoners of war who escaped German prison camps by the end of the war, “more than a few of those certainly owe their breakout to the classic board game,” says Mr. McMahon.”

Afbeelding uit de Groag-collection. (Beit Theresienstadt)

Norman Lebrecht, Tales of the recording angel:

“She has just released an album of songs from the Terezin concentration camp, both the formal Lieder that were put on to fool Red Cross visitors, and the consoling lullabies that a nurse, Ilse Weber, wrote for the children she sang to sleep until she and they were shipped to Auschwitz. Although raised among Swedish nobility on the diplomatic circuit and feted these days from Salzburg to Gstaad, Anne-Sofie von Otter is rooted in the chronicle of genocide, and all because of a man called Gerstein.

Her tragic tale begins on a train, as so many war stories do. Anne-Sofie’s father, Baron Göran von Otter, was a Swedish diplomat in wartime Germany, adjutant to the ambassador. On the night of 20-21 August 1942, travelling from Warsaw to Berlin, he became an involuntary witness to the Holocaust.

Standing in the corridor because he could not get a sleeper, the diplomat saw an SS officer glancing in his direction. When the train stopped at a station, both men got off for fresh air. On the pitch-dark platform, the SS man asked for a light for his cigarette. Von Otter produced a pack of matches with a Swedish crest. ‘I must talk to you,’ said Kurt Gerstein.”

Opnames zijn op website van Von Otter te beluisteren.

Claus von Stauffenberg à la scientology Hollywood. Arme Carice van Houten.

Valkyrie – Trailer. (Trailer in HD. – Wikipedia)

The Pupin Physics Laboratories at Columbia.

New York Times: Why They Called It the Manhattan Project:

“In “The Manhattan Project” (Black Dog & Leventhal), published last month, Dr. Norris writes about the Manhattan Project’s Manhattan locations. He says the borough had at least 10 sites, all but one still standing. They include warehouses that held uranium, laboratories that split the atom, and the project’s first headquarters — a skyscraper hidden in plain sight right across from City Hall.”

“We’re now seeing deaths, upheaval of communities, destruction of property and vast economic losses. And this is to do with the form of the city”