Europe Fondly Remembers The USA On Memorial Day

Europe will and should never forget the sacrifices the US made in liberating Europe from the Nazi's and making it possible for brilliant minds like Schuman, Monnet, Churchill, Adenhauer, Mansholt and others to create the EU and the Peace and Prosperity we have in Europe as a result today.

U.S. combat troops who died during the second world on the European-Atlantic combat and civilian war theaters included 183,588; Army ground forces 141,088; United States Army Air Forces 36,461 and Navy/Coast Guard 6,039.

Europe salutes these brave women and men who gave their life for freedom and democracy in Europe.

EU-Digest

The Netherlands: Geert Wilders compared with Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels

Wilders a reborn Goebbels?

The German Press Agency (DPA) has compared the statements that Wilders made during a speech, to those of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.made in Germany during the Second World War.

Last week, Wilders gave a speech at a PVV campaign event, in The Hague. During his speech he asked the audience: "In this city...and in the Netherlands...do you want more or less Moroccans?". The audience replied with: "Less, less, less!" while applauding loudly. The DPA claims that Wilders rhetoric is comparable to the same statements that Goebbels made during his Sportpalast speech, in 1943.

During Goebbels speech, he averted from his written textand began to mention the complete "extermination" of the Jews. In his written text of the speech, he wrote the word "solution" and fittingly stopped himself before completing his statement. "Solution" referred to the term "final solution" and was seen as a less harsher term to describe the true intentions of the Nazi regime.

After basking in the applause from his PVV party supporters, Wilders said: "Good, we can arrange that.".

Last week, Wilders had also stated during a visit to The Hague that with PVV leadership, the city would have "with less expense and if possible less Moroccans.".

Read more: Geert Wilders compared with Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels - Minneapolis Community Activism | Examiner.com

The Netherlands: The "Ten Boom Family Home Museum" in Haarlem - by RM

When tourists visit Amsterdam among one of the favorite spots to visit is the Anne Frank Museum.  

Another similar museum but far less visited than the Anne Frank museum is the Ten Boom family home museum in Haarlem. It was used as a refuge for fugitive Jews and resistance fighters hunted by the Nazis.

 In 1944 the Nazis arrested this courageous Christian family and all 5 were sent to prison (death) camps. Only Corrie ten Boom survived the Ravensbruck concentration camp near Berlin after the war had ended

In the early 1970's Corrie's book "THE HIDING PLACE" became a best seller and an award winning motion picture. Corrie died on her 91st birthday, April 15, 1983. 

In the Jewish tradition to die on your birthday is a special privilege. Personally I was most touched by what Corrie ten Boom wrote about fear and worry while in the concentration camp, "worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength".

The "Ten Boom Family Home Museum" certainly is a place to visit when in Holland.

Click here for additional information about the Ten Boom Family Museum  

EU-Digest

Second world war: Netherlands fined for Holocaust survivors treatment

The City of Amsterdam fined hundreds of Jewish Holocaust survivors for failing to pay taxes while they were in hiding or in concentration camps.

The affair was exposed in an article in Het Parool, a local daily, on March 30. Many of the houses in question were confiscated and used by members of the NSB Dutch Nazi party while the Jewish owners were in hiding or in camps.

The city went after survivors as late as 1947, the report said. Other Dutch municipalities waived such debts, Het Parool reported. The following year the city agreed to reimburse half of what it charged to some Jews who were taxed in absentia. The city’s archives contain 342 requests for reimbursement, Het Parool reported.

The documents about this taxation were discovered by Charlotte van den Berg, a 23-year-old university student. She said she found them bundled with an elastic band in the archive section of one of the city’s departments while conducting research on Jewish home owners.

About 75 percent of Holland’s pre-World War II Jewish population of 140,000 was murdered in the Holocaust, according to the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, a Hague-based watchdog on anti-Semitism which is known locally by its acronym CIDI.

Read more: Amsterdam fined, taxed Holocaust survivors in hiding | The Times of Israel