In 1939, there were some 140,000 Dutch Jews living in the Netherlands, among them some 25,000 German-Jewish refugees who had fled Germany in the 1930s (other sources claim that some 34,000 Jewish refugees entered the Netherlands between 1933 and 1940, mostly from Germany and Austria), The Nazi occupation force put the number of (racially) Dutch Jews… Read more »
The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was a major German attack near the end of World War II, in Belgium, France and Luxembourg. The attack surprised Allied forces. It became the worst battle in terms of casualties for the United States. It also used up huge amounts of Germany’s war-making resources. The… Read more »
Elbe Day, April 25, 1945, is the day Soviet and American troops met at the Elbe River, near Torgau in Germany, marking an important step toward the end of World War II in Europe. This contact between the Soviets, advancing from the East, and the Americans, advancing from the West, meant that the two powers had effectively cut… Read more »
Ravensbrück was the Nazi’s largest concentration camp for women. There, 132,000 women and children, and 20,000 men were imprisoned. In 1945, when Rinkel worked there, thousands of prisoners were killed on the orders of the SS in the gas chambers. In the 1950s, Rinkel moved to the United States, where she met her future husband… Read more »
Zutphen is a town in the province of Gelderland in the Netherlands. It lies some 30 km north-east of Arnhem, on the Eastern bank of the river IJssel at the point where it is joined by the Berkel On the 14th of October 1944, Zutphen was bombed by the allies At 4 PM three allied bombers… Read more »