On May 10, 1940, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands. German paratroopers seized tactical points while ground troops advanced across the country, supported by heavy aerial bombardment. The bombing of Rotterdam culminated on May 14 with the destruction of its entire historic center. When the Germans threatened to bomb Utrecht in the same way, the Dutch … Read more
On December 22, 1947, in Krakow, Poland, former staff of Auschwitz heard their sentences read. After a month of gruesome testimonies, it was revealed that many SS officers had taken part in inhumane torture and the mass murder of prisoners, often for pleasure. Their cruelty went far beyond what their superiors ordered them to do. … Read more
On December 22, 1947, in Krakow, Poland, former staff of the Auschwitz concentration camp heard their sentences read aloud. After a month of gruesome testimonies, it was revealed that many SS officers had taken part in inhumane torture and the mass murder of prisoners, often for pleasure. Their cruelty went far beyond what their superiors … Read more
On the evening of January 17, 1961, three days before handing the presidency to John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower sat alone in the Oval Office. The White House was nearly empty. The transition briefings were finished and the boxes were packed. Eisenhower picked up a yellow legal pad and wrote seven words at the top … Read more
On May 8, 1945, the war in Europe was over. Somewhere in Bavaria, an American soldier put a bullet through a locked door. The smell reached him before his eyes adjusted. Rot. Death. Something chemical. Something wrong. Inside were people who weighed 89 pounds after three years in Dachau. Skin and bone, eyes still open, … Read more
Inside a glass case at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston sits a piece of coconut shell. It was carved by hand, a distress message scratched into the husk in August 1943 after a Japanese destroyer split PT-109 in two in the Solomon Islands. That shell stayed on the Oval Office desk for … Read more
The Sobibor killing center, established in occupied Poland during World War II, was the site of one of the most daring prisoner revolts of the Holocaust. Among the SS officers killed during the uprising on October 14, 1943, was Rudolf Beckmann, a fanatical Nazi who had risen through the ranks of the regime's killing apparatus. … Read more
In May 1945, as the war in Europe ended, an American soldier forced open a locked door somewhere in Bavaria. The smell reached him before his eyes adjusted: rot, death, something chemical. Inside, he found human beings reduced to 89 pounds of bone wrapped in skin, their eyes still open, still watching, still alive. The … Read more
On May 23, 1953, under white linen tents at St. Francis Xavier Church in Hyannis, Massachusetts, 500 of America's most powerful political elites gathered to witness what the national press called the Catholic wedding of the decade. Eunice Kennedy, 31, drew the spotlight in a custom silk taffeta gown as she stood beside R. Sargent … Read more
On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. The Nazi regime quickly began restricting the civil and human rights of Jews and opened its first concentration camp, Dachau, near Munich. Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its European allies established more than 44,000 camps and other … Read more