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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
Soviet Summer and Fall Offensives: Operations, 17 July-1 December 1943
New Guinea Force Operations: Capture of Salamaua and Lae, 29 June-16 September 1943
Allied Invasion of Italy and Operations to 25 September 1943, Planned German Delaying Positions
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
Cartwheel, the Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls, and Concurrent Air and Naval Operations, 30 June 1943-26 April 1944

Caution: highly disturbing holocaust images.
Reader discretion advised.

September 10, 1943:

"Jewish youths attack German troops at Miedzyrzec, Poland, killing two.
Five Jews are shot.
"A tea party attended by the widow of Wilhelm H. Solf (former colonial minister under German Emperor Wilhelm II), her daughter Grafin Ballestrem, and other members of the anti-Hitler German Resistance is infiltrated by a Dr. Reckse, a Gestapo informant; See January 1944.
"Germans occupy Rome."

Majdanek

"Majdanek, a concentration and death camp near Lublin, Poland, became operational in October 1941.
Before Soviet troops liberated the camp on July 24, 1944, nearly 500,000 persons from 28 countries were imprisoned there.
Majdanek's death toll reached 360,000--mostly Soviet POWs, Poles, and Jews.
Sixty percent died from starvation, disease, and exhausting labor.
The others were executed, often on arrival.
Those victims included thousands of Jews who were murdered in Majdanek's seven gas chambers.

"In late October 1943, prisoners were ordered to dig three huge trenches in the camp's southern sector.
These preparations were for Erntefest (Harvest Festival).
At Majdanek's morning roll call on November 3, Jews were separated from the other prisoners, sent to the trenches, and shot.
Dance music blared from the camp's loudspeakers to drown out the screams and machine-gun fire.
The murders continued until nightfall.
'Bloody Wednesday' left 18,000 Jews dead in Majdanek's trenches.

"Intended to prevent Jewish prisoner revolts, Erntefest went beyond Majdanek.
Jewish prisoners at other camps in the Lublin district--8,000 to 10,000 at Trawniki and 15,000 at Poniatowa--also were shot on November 3.
It remained Majdanek's distinction, however, to be the most deadly site of the Germans' largest one-day killing operation against the Jews."

"Human skeletons cover the ground outside the crematorium at the Majdanek camp in Poland.
Approximately 145,000 people died in the seven gas chambers, which began operating, utilizing Zyklon B, in 1942.
Many others died from starvation, dysentery, or shootings.
The small crematorium proved incapable of handling the great influx of bodies, and so a large new one was constructed in September 1943."