Monatsarchive: November 2019

This site is a kilometer down a hiking and biking path through the dunes. The bell is encircled by a single strand of wire and protected by the unambiguous signage. Google Maps informs that the site opens at 10:00. I’d … Weiterlesen →

On 7 September 1943, after a deportation order had been issued for Mischa, Etty, and her parents, Etty stepped onto the platform beside a waiting train bound for Poland. Jopie Vleeschhouwer described her departure in a letter to the friends … Weiterlesen →

Several Google Maps reviews prepared me for the lecture experience. As interesting as the tour were conversations with the other tour participants. There was a couple from Dortmund, an Australian, a South African, and five Americans besides me. In talking … Weiterlesen →

„Resistance against the enemy happens always at the right time.“ And he’s naked. I like this so much! Commemorates 18 slain resistance fighters. He is facing across the road to the former police headquarters where captured resistance fighters were taken.

Rotterdam. Memorial monument 1940 – 1945, May 4, 1957. Here, truly, the modern meets the postmodern. This is in a shopping mall. I haven’t the heart to photograph in the other direction. I like the sculpture.

Amersfoort again. When I was here last month I’d thought the tower was just built to dramatize the museum entrance, but it turns out this is the only surviving original tower, which has been periodically refurbished. „Black black“ is the … Weiterlesen →

This is where the SS murdered 117 Dutch as a reprisal for the attack on Hanns Albin Rauter. Here as all over Eastern Europe the enemy is The Germans. At German memorials it’s almost always Fascism, rarely Nazism. Emblematic for … Weiterlesen →

Her descriptions of Westerbork inmates helping to load families, old people, and infants onto the doomed transport trains are ruthlessly candid and unbearably wrenching. She knew all too well that her survival would mean someone else’s death, and the whole … Weiterlesen →