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Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile. Also visit our general discussion thread.

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941: Status of Forces and Allied Theater Boundaries, 2 July 1942
India-Burma, 1942: Allied Lines of Communication, 1942-1943

Special Guest Map – The Conquest of Tunis: May 6-12, 1943 (from The Hinge of Fate, by Winston Churchill)

May 12, 1943:

May 9: "The Skalat, Ukraine, Jewish community is destroyed.
May 10: "Two Jews are successfully smuggled out of Dobele, Latvia, and hidden in a haystack.
May 12: "Seventeen-year-old Frania Beatus, active in the Warsaw Ghetto underground, commits suicide rather than surrender to the Nazis.
"In London, Polish Jew Samuel Artur Zygelbojm, a key figure in the prewar Jewish Social Democrat Party, commits suicide following nearly a year of fruitless campaigning on behalf of Jews trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto, including his wife and teenage son.
His death is reported in the press, which pointedly omits the text of his suicide note, which condemns the Allies for their indifference to the Jews."

Jürgen Stroop

"General Jürgen Stroop gained notoriety for brutally suppressing the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of April-May 1943.
In recognition of his services to the Third Reich, Stroop was awarded the Iron Cross First Class. p "In April 1943 Stroop (pictured, left) was ordered to remove the remaining 56,000 Jews from Warsaw and to crush the revolt that had recently broken out.
He approached the task with ruthless efficiency.
More than 2000 SS and army units descended upon the ghetto and systematically destroyed it building by building.
His detailed report of his activities attests to his cold-blooded callousness.
On May 16 Stroop reported that the 'operation' was complete and that 'the Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is no more.'

"Stroop was sentenced to death by a Polish court of law and executed on September 8, 1951."

"A Finnish battalion of the Waffen-SS returns home from action on the Soviet front.
This Freiwillige (volunteer) unit was one of the many non-German groups that joined the Waffen-SS.
Their anti-Russian attitudes were exploited by the Nazi regime for the benefit of both the war effort and facilitation of the "Final Solution.""

"A family interned in the Marzahn Gypsy camp in Germany awaits its fate.
Large-scale deportations to Auschwitz began in February 1943, when a "family camp" for Gypsies was established at the Birkenau killing center.
The appalling conditions condemned thousands to death, while Josef Mengele conducted ghastly "medical experiments" on Gypsy twins."