Angry Norwegian Anchovies

Batterie Vara

Was a part of the German defenses of Norway, situated at Møvig close to Kristiansand in the southern part of the country. The building of the fort was started during the spring of 1941, and was meant to supplement a similar fort in northern Denmark, to make sure the Germans could close off the Sea of Skagerrak between the two countries.

It was built by 1400 Norwegians, Danes and Germans, and was later reinforced with 200 prisoners of war from the Soviet Union.

The most remarkable part of the fort were the large MKB 6/502 guns with a range of 42 kilometers, the second largest guns ever to be placed on land. The guns were produced by Friedrich Krupp in Germany, and were of the same type used on board the Bismarck and the Tirpitz.

“Batterie Vara is now a war memorial museum open to the public”.

Sources: http://www.nuav.net/maa.html & http://www.kanonmuseet.no/

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus…

…probably better know as the Victoria Terminus train station in Mumbai, built by the British over a period of ten years from 1878. It was renamed after the Hindu Marathan leader Shivaji Bhonsle (1627-1680), who has become an important symbol for the right wing Hindu nationalist movement the last decades due to his alleged fight for a Hindu nation.

The rise of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has made Shivaji, rather erroneous, “the supreme figure in the “Hindu struggle for freedom” from Muslim tyranny and as the inspirational figure for Indian independence”.

However, the train station is one of the busiest in India and serves around 2.5 million people every day.

Sources: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/945 & http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Mughals/Shivhistory.html

poundoflogic:

A crowd of Seattleites jammed on a bridge watching as their Japanese neighbors are forced to be evacuated to interment camps in California, 1942

Anne Frank.

If you read and enjoyed her diary check out http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/AnneFrankTree/

(Source: imkaneforever)

Pogrom via Yiddish from Russian: destruction, from po- like + grom thunder.

“After the war around 150 Jews left their hidings and returned to Kielce. They found a place in their former parish hall, waiting for a possibility to emigrate to Palestine. In June 1946 they were accused of having committed a ritual murder on a missing Polish boy. On 1 July 1946 a furious crowd gathered round the building and on 4 July 1946 they killed 42 Jews.”

Sources: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ & http://www.thefreedictionary.com/

“Like big, black clouds, the smoke of the crematorium hung over the camp. Sharp, red tongues of flame behind the sky, and the air was full of the nauseating smell of burning flesh.”

“The Angel of Auschwitz,” Dr. Gisella Perl.

Dr. Perl, from Sighet, Romania, was a Jewish gynaecologist transported to Auschiwtz Birkenau in 1944 where she ended up working in the hospital. She soon crossed paths with the infamous Dr. Mengele who instructed her to send her all the pregnant women she discovered. She quickly discovered they went through horrible medical experiments and ended in the gas chambers.

“I decided that never again would there be a pregnant woman in Auschwitz.”

In order to save these women Dr. Perl started to perform abortions “using only my dirty hands” in order to save them from Dr. Mengele.

Source: http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/gisella-perl/

October 16, 1941, Lubny, Ukraine.

These three Jewish women with a child were among the estimated 1,5 million people murdered by the Einsatzgruppen following the German army into the Soviet Union.

These execution squads overwhelmingly targeted Jews, but also murdered Romanis, Communist Party functionaries, and those accused of being partisans. The largest killing operation took place in the Babi Yar ravine outside Kiev, Ukraine, where more than 33 000 Jews were shot September 29-30, 1941.

Sources: http://www.holocaust-history.org/intro-einsatz/ & http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/gallery2/68544.htm

“The work camp Treblinka will be ready for operation on Saturday, 11.07.1942.”

Treblinka in Eastern Poland was mainly an extermination camp, not a work camp, the Nazis usually referred to the actions against the Jews with a camouflaged language. As many as 900 000 Jews were transported to the camp, at least 800 000 were gassed and killed. The Jews arriving were told it was a stop on their way to resettlement further to the east. In order to minimize resistance and suspicion the front of the gas chamber was decorated with the Star of David, a curtain which hung at the entrance also read “this is the gate through which the righteous pass”  in Hebrew.

“Since 22.7. a train with 5 000 Jews goes daily from Warsaw via Malkinia to Treblinka.”

400 000 Jews were sent to Treblinka from the Warsaw Ghetto before the operations ended on 19 August 1943.

Sources: http://www.jewishgen.org & http://www.holocaust-history.org/operation-reinhard/final-destination-treblinka

hrtbps:

During the Second World War, a shortage of postcards and envelopes on the front meant that Russian soldiers developed their own self-contained triangular letter.  They were never sealed, as they had to pass through censors before being delivered to their destination. (via)

Les musiciens anglais place Vendôme [250 musiciens de la Garde royale britannique, 20 mai 1917] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol]/ 250 musicians from the British Royal Gard, 20th of May 1917, place Vendôme

@credits

(Source: frenchhistory)