World War 2

• 
• SOURCE: 60 Minutes
  5/9/2021
  

  The Ritchie Boys

  Stories from members of the Ritchie Boys, a secret U.S. WWII intelligence unit bolstered by German-born Jews.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  5/10/2021
  

  Gaming The System: KU Professor Says 'Call Of Duty' Can Help Teach History

  Historians should recognize that many of their students are exposed to views of the past informed by video games and explore how to build on that interest while correcting errors, says University of Kansas historian Andrew Denning. 

• 
• SOURCE: Vimeo
  5/8/2015
  

  The Fallen of World War II

  by Neil Halloran

  On the anniversary of V-E Day, an animated video from 2015 demonstrates the human toll of war. 

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• 5/9/2021
  

  Reflections on Russia's "Victory Day"

  by Nadya Williams

  Russia's observance of Victory Day prompts reflection on the ways Holocaust survivors and their descendants lived lives shaped by this trauma. 

• 
• SOURCE: Jerusalem Post
  5/2/2021
  

  World War II Mass Grave of Holocaust Victims Uncovered in Belarus

  "The head of the State Forensic Examination Committee of Belarus, Alexei Volkov, said the investigation team will work to identify the bodies at the site."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/25/2021
  

  Malcolm Gladwell on the Hard Decisions of War

  by Thomas E. Ricks

  Malcolm Gladwell's new study of the US Air Force unexpectedly rehabilitates the image of General Curtis LeMay. 

• 
• SOURCE: Jacobin
  4/25/2021
  

  Stop Pretending Italian Fascists Were Innocent Victims

  The growing far right has sought to draw a moral equivalency between Italian Fascists and the leftist partisans, including Communists, who fought to expel fascist forces from occupied Yugoslavia at the end of World War II. Historian Eric Gobetti says that victims of reprisals were targeted for fascist allegiance, not Italian ethnicity.

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• 4/18/2021
  

  Review: "The Third Man: Churchill, Roosevelt, Mackenzie King, and the Untold Friendships that Won WWII"

  by Walter G. Moss

  Canadian Prime Minister William Mackenzie King kept a voluminous diary that is an incredible source of insight into his role as a witness (and often an influencer) to the wartime and post-World War II leadership of Roosevelt and Churchill. A new book distills the 30,000 pages of the diary. 

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• 4/18/2021
  

  Sadly, Hatred is Very Much American

  by Ralph E. Shaffer

  "Lieutenant Cable, and Oscar Hammerstein, had it wrong in "South Pacific."  Americans don't have to be "carefully taught " to hate. Historically, it's been inherent, one generation after another. The only change has been the target."

• 
• 4/18/2021
  

  History Found Dixie Kiefer, one of the Greatest Heroes of World War II in the Pacific

  by Don Keith with David Rocco

  Dixie Kiefer, dubbed "The Indestructible Man" by Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, was at the center of crucial events in the Pacific in World War II. 

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• 4/11/2021
  

  Holocaust Remembrance 80 Years After the Beginning of Hitler's Campaign of Genocide

  by Rick Halperin

  We must see our lives as inextricably linked to both the past and future, so that all peoples, individually or collectively, do not have to know of a world with genocide.

• 
• SOURCE: NBC News
  4/4/2021
  

  How a Chicago Teacher Sparked a 'Memory War,' Forcing Lithuania to Confront its Nazi Past

  Siliva Foti's family history project became a book that challeged Lithuania's official narrative about its role in the Holocaust, and exposed her grandfather's active role in the extermination of thousands of Lithuanian Jews. 

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• 4/4/2021
  

  Pamela, Randolph and Winston: The Wartime Discord of the Churchills

  by Josh Ireland

  The recent Royal Family drama had nothing on the relationship of Winston Churchill and his son Randolph, which was thrown into tumult by the younger Churchill's marital problems at the onset of World War II. 

• 
• 4/4/2021
  

  Hidden Stories of Jewish Resistance in Poland

  by Judy Batalion

  I was fascinated by the widespread resistance efforts of Polish Jews, but equally by their absence from current understandings of the war. Of all the legions of Holocaust tales, what had happened to this one?

• 
• SOURCE: Public Books
  3/25/2021
  

  The Spy Who Came in from the Carrel

  Two new books by Kathy Peiss and Richard Ovenden deal with the question of acquiring or destroying knowledege as an act of war, including the work of archivists in the OSS's "Chairborne Division" and the forced labor of Jewish scholars to identify major works of Judaica for Nazi Germany to purge. 

• 
• SOURCE: WGBH
  3/29/2021
  

  ‘Atomic Cover-Up’ Reveals A Previously Unseen Story Of Human Devastation

  The new documentary "Atomic Cover-Up"  reminds that "people of goodwill can differ over whether we did the right thing in order to bring a terrible war to its conclusion or if, instead, we committed unforgivable crimes against humanity. What none of us can do is look away."

• 
• SOURCE: Greg Mitchell
  3/22/2021
  

  “Atomic Cover-Up” Premieres

  by Greg Mitchell

  Documentarian Greg Mitchell's new movie about the two film crews – one Japanese, one American – who recorded the human toll of the Hiroshima bombing and had their footage suppressed has premiered. Find out how to view it. 

• 
• SOURCE: Stat
  3/16/2021
  

  Nazi Anatomical Drawings are Donated in Effort to Address Ethical Quandary — and Spotlight a Dark History

  The Pernkopf Atlas of anatomy was an unmatched documenting of the nervous and circulatory system. But it was created by Nazi doctors and partly based on the examination of the bodies of people executed by Nazis. A long effort to resolve the ethical dilemma inherent in its use has resulted in the donation of the illustrations to the Medical University of Vienna. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/15/2021
  

  Scholar of World War II Homefront Wins American History Book Prize

  Tracy Campbell, the author of “The Year of Peril: America in 1942,” has been named the winner of the New-York Historical Society’s Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize, which is given each year to the best work in the field of American history or biography.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  3/202/2021
  

  A Grandson's Gift — A Spotlight — For His Grandfather's WWII Band

  Jason Burt, a middle school history teacher and historian, believes this album is the only known recording of a front line band from WWII to have surfaced.