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When the Soviet Army entered Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, the soldiers found more than 7,000 surviving inmates, most of them ill and dying. Auschwitz was the largest of the Nazi extermination centers, located in German-occupied Poland. It is estimated that at least 1.3 million people were deported there between 1940 and 1945, and that … Read more

In 1948, a seven-year-old girl in Berlin sat down to write a letter. Around her, the city lay in ruins. Two million people faced the threat of starvation. Soviet forces had blocked every road and railway into West Berlin. But Mercedes Simon did not write about hunger or fear. She wrote to complain about an … Read more

On October 15, 1944, Regent Miklós Horthy announced on Hungarian national radio that Hungary had signed an armistice with the Soviet Union and was withdrawing from the Axis alliance. Within hours, German forces launched Operation Panzerfaust, arresting key officials and forcing Horthy to resign. By that evening, the fascist Arrow Cross Party, led by Ferenc … Read more

Magda Ritzel was born on November 11, 1901. She was the illegitimate child of engineer Dr. Oskar Ritzel and a maid named Auguste Baron. Her biological parents ended their relationship, and her mother soon married a Jewish businessman named Friedländer. Historians debate both her true name and her true paternity, with some believing Friedländer was … Read more

On March 26, 1945, US Army units advancing toward Central Germany liberated the town of Hadamar and its psychiatric clinic, one of six killing facilities in the Nazi so-called euthanasia program. The soldiers found catastrophic conditions. More than 500 patients were starved and weakened by systematic neglect and targeted malnutrition. Although the US Army provided … Read more

On March 26, 1945, US Army units advancing toward Central Germany liberated Hadamar, a psychiatric clinic that had served as one of six killing facilities in the Nazi so-called "Euthanasia Program." The soldiers encountered catastrophic conditions. More than 500 patients were starved and weakened by systematic neglect and targeted malnutrition. Although the US Army provided … Read more

Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933, bringing an end to German democracy. Guided by racist and authoritarian ideas, the Nazis abolished basic freedoms and sought to unite all social classes and regions behind one Führer. Few people knew that the Führer was a lifelong hypochondriac. He suffered from skin and … Read more

On April 11, 1945, American soldiers of the 4th and 6th Armored Divisions entered the Buchenwald concentration camp. What they found inside the gates left many of them weeping and others unable to speak at all. Piles of corpses lay alongside living prisoners who were barely distinguishable from the dead. In the officers' quarters, investigators … Read more

Lina Heydrich was born Lina Mathilde von Osten on June 14, 1911, in Fehmarn, then part of the German Empire. Her father, Jürgen, was an impoverished German nobleman of Danish origin who worked as a country teacher, while her mother was a homemaker. The von Osten family was strongly right-wing, and Lina showed herself from … Read more