[Homer_J_Simpson]

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.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Prime Minister to Chief of the Air Staff 16 June 43

The air forces in Egypt, etc., are very large indeed. Pray let me know how they are to play their part in the next few months. They seem to be doing very little at present. What state of preparation have the plans for reinforcing Turkey reached? What proportion of the air forces in Egypt, etc., are employed in helping in Sicily? We cannot afford to have any part of the Air Force standing idle.

Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring

[BroJoeK]

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June 16, 1943:

• "SS chief Heinrich Himmler allows a transfer of Jewish prisoners from the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp to the Sachsenhausen, Germany, concentration camp for medical experiments involving jaundice.

• "Dr. Nina Jurezkaya, a physician who escaped from the Minsk (Belorussia) Ghetto to nearby forests, is recaptured, tortured, and shot.

• "Berlin, 200 patients are deported from the city's Jewish hospital to the Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, camp/ghetto.

• "German authorities declare Berlin judenrein --purged of Jews."

"At the Mauthausen, Austria, concentration camp, Kapos and a German guard stand over the corpse of an inmate whom they have just beaten to death.
According to eyewitnesses, the prisoner had stumbled from the barracks in need of medical treatment, behavior his captors found offensive and deserving of a painful and gruesome death"

"These bodies await cremation in the ovens at the Mauthausen, Austria, concentration camp, where around 103,000 people died during the years 1938 to 1945.
One survivor of Mauthausen, George E. King, said he often dreamt about escaping. 'You go through this agonizing labor of trying to escape,' he said about his dreams.
'In these cases you are always moving in slow motion, as if you were up to your hips in mud....You are making a maximum effort to run but you are just barely moving.' "

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