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On 20 June 1942, four prisoners escape Auschwitz through the front gate, disguised as SS officers.
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Among them is the Polish 22-year-old Kazimierz Piechowski. During the first days of the war, he saw how the Germans killed his friends from the boy scouts, who were perceived as potential sources of resistance. Knowing that he will suffer a similar fate if he doesn’t flee, Piechowski decided to…
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On May 11, 1943, 12,500 U.S. soldiers landed on the northern and southern ends of Attu Island. For over two weeks, battles raged over the tiny island.
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There were few large-scale engagements; as in the rest of the Pacific Theater, the Japanese preferred to employ “small group” tactics, using the rough terrain of Attu to their advantage and lying motionless for hours in foxholes until they could pin down American units with sniper fire. As they moved…
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Last weeks of 1942 were a turning point of WWII. At Stalingrad, German 6th Army was already doomed, while the second battle of El Alamein and “Operation Torch” neutralized the Axis threat to North Africa, the Suez Canal and the Middle East.
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➡ In November, New York saw the premiere of “Casablanca,” set in the Vichy France colony of Morocco. One of the main characters in the movie was Victor Laszlo, member of Czech resistance fleeing from the Germans. Some people say he was modelled on a real person. ➡ If so,…
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Evidence of early human presence in the Arctic found on an ancient Woolly Mammoth :
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Paleolithic records of humans in the Eurasian Arctic (above 66°N) are scarce, stretching back to 30,000 to 35,000 years ago at most. Pitulko et al. have found evidence of human occupation 45,000 years ago at 72°N, well within the Siberian Arctic. The evidence is in the form of a frozen…
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Pictures taken during the Battle for Hill 192 in Normandy – June/July 1944
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Note that some of these pictures were taken in or near Saint-Georges-d’Elle Hill 192 was located between the cities of Saint-Lô and Bayeux in Normandy. The Battle was fought between elements of the 2nd US Infantry Division and the 16,000 strong 3rd German Fallschirmjäger (Parachute) Division, commanded by Generalleutnant Richard…
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In August 1961, a daring East German soldier defied orders to aid a young boy’s escape across the newly built Berlin Wall.
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The picture capturing this act likely dates back to when the wall was first erected. The boy was caught on the wrong side, separated from his parents who were in West Berlin visiting relatives. Despite the stern commands of the East German government prohibiting passage, the soldier chose to help…
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This weekend marks another milestone for me – it’s exactly 50 years since I set a record I believe remains unbroken.
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The 16-year-old me had landed in New Zealand the day before, an immigrant from the UK. At 5pm on Sunday, October 4, I was delivered by relatives to Wellington College where I was to become a boarder for the final school term of 1970. A few minutes after 9pm, I…
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This is the Legend of Anna Maria Stockhausen.
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“This is Anna Maria Von Stockhausen’s corpse, strapped to keep her coming back from the dead. She was accused of being a witch during the Middle ages and Black Plague. This folklore about Anna was that she was killed about 6 times. She was first hanged and later clawed herself…
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The Thinking Man’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’
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In 1930 Georg Pabst’s ‘Westfront 1918’ was Germany’s most anticipated cinema release. It chronicled the shattering impact of the Great War upon four German soldiers on the Western Front. The film lived up to expectations. At its premiere in Berlin, its unsparing realism reportedly caused 20 people to faint. In…
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A Baby Was Just Born From An Embryo That Was Frozen 27 Years Ago
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Molly Gibson’s birth is believed to have set a world record for the oldest-known frozen embryo to result in a successful delivery. An embryo that was frozen in 1992 was implanted into the uterus of a woman earlier this year — and now, that embryo has just successfully been born…