Tag: KZ Sachsenhausen

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KZ Illustrators: Haunted Art

For those of you who have read my books, you know the featured walks and stories are heavily dependent on images. The same goes for our bi-weekly blogs. So, over the years I have become quite familiar with and adept at using various sources to locate images.

I found there are only two options available to obtain images of Nazi concentration camps during the war. The first are the photos taken by the Germans who worked in the camps. These are relatively scarce as the Nazi leaders did not want any archival evidence of the atrocities they were committing. The second option are the inmate drawings and paintings done either while a prisoner or from a survivor’s memory.

As the Allied troops liberated the camps, Gen. Eisenhower ordered his photographic units to take pictures. One of his motivations was to ensure people could never deny these horrific events had taken place. Many of us are familiar with the photos of emaciated prisoners, stacks of bodies, and ovens that were still warm. These images can be found in the German Archives (Bundesarchiv), various Holocaust memorial museum archives, and government archives such as the Imperial War Museum, Smithsonian Museum, and the US National Archives.

Today’s blog will focus on the illustrations made by camp prisoners and survivors. Click here to watch Paintings from Terazín Concentration Camp. Read More KZ Illustrators: Haunted Art

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Diplomatic Lessons and Warning Signs,

Fifteen years after the end of World War II, William L. Shirer published his epic book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I purchased the book almost forty years ago through the “Book of the Month Club”⏤remember that organization? (Believe it or not, BOMC still exists.) I just finished reading it and there were many topics from ninety-years ago that pertain to today’s world. Today’s blog captures one of those subjects.

American author and journalist, William L. Shirer. Photo by anonymous (c. 1961). PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
American author and journalist, William L. Shirer. Photo by anonymous (c. 1961). PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.

William L. Shirer (1904−1993) was an American journalist and war correspondent. He was an eyewitness to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism during the 1930s. He started as a print journalist and worked for Universal Service until 1937 when he was fired from the William Randolph Hearst news company. Edward R. Murrow, European manager for CBS, immediately hired Shirer to open a bureau on the European continent. (Murrow worked out of the London office and wanted a correspondent located in Europe.) Shirer’s office was in Vienna but most of his reporting was done onsite from Paris, Berlin, and Rome. After Dunkirk, he personally followed behind the movement of German troops to report on the war. As the Nazis continued to pressure him in 1940 to report inaccurate information, Shirer suggested to Murrow that his tenure in Nazi territory was about over. Right about the same time, Shirer learned the Gestapo was developing a case against him for espionage which carried the death penalty. In December 1940, Shirer left Germany and did not return to Europe until 1945 when he covered the Nuremberg trials. Read More Diplomatic Lessons and Warning Signs,