Last Days of Freedom For Anne Frank

"Not being able to go outside upsets me more than I can say, 

and I'm terrified our hiding place will be discovered 

and that we'll be shot," she wrote in her diary in September 1942.

The Jews in hiding had withstood bombs, near-starvation, two break-in attempts, and the many privations of their helpers during over two years in hiding, and the suspense had begun to take its toll. They were pale and malnourished from life without sun, but they were alive.

And then, on August 4, 1944, everything changed.

read more here @ Mental Floss

The Lady in Number 6

The Lady in Number 6 - Malcolm Clarke's documentary profiles 109-year-old pianist Alice Herz Sommer, the oldest living Holocaust survivor, who shares her story on the importance of music, laughter and how to live a long happy life. 

From Huffington Post:

Alice Herz-Sommer is known for her grace and wisdom. The 109-year-old, who is the oldest living pianist and Holocaust survivor, is undoubtedly one of the most inspirational people in the world.

Now, a documentary called "The Lady In Number 6" is telling her incredible story from beginning to end -- but just the 11-minute preview in itself is amazing enough.

"Every day in life is beautiful," Herz-Sommer says in the video above. "Every day. It's beautiful."

The 38-minute-long documentary is directed by Malcolm Clarke and produced by Nicholas Reed and has already been shortlisted for the Academy Awards' documentary short subject category, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Website dedicated to Alice -> http://nickreedent.com

Video of Alice -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oxO3M6rAPw

Book on Alice -> A Century of Wisdom by Caroline Stoessinger

WWII Female Marine Honoured

From The Richmond Register:

After training at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Campbell was sent to Camp Pendleton in San Diego, where women Marines operated the military bases while every able-bodied Marine man was engaged in combat.

“Without women stepping up to the plate in WWII, there was no way those stations could have stayed open,” James said.

During the WWII era, women soldiers had catchy nicknames like “WACS” or “WAVES,” which are both acronyms for women in the Army and Navy respectively.

Campbell was one of the 18,000 women Marines who were enlisted during WWII between 1943 and 1946, James Martin said.

That number was reduced to just a few thousand near the end of the war, until 1948 when Congress voted to give women “full-fledged status in the military,” he said.

Mary Louise Rasmuson

From the New York Times:

Mary Louise Rasmuson, who joined the Women’s Army Corps when it was formed during World War II,  rose to be its director under two presidents and later found a new life as a civic leader and philanthropist in the young state of Alaska, died on Monday at her home in Anchorage. She was 101.

In 1948, the corps was renamed and made a permanent part of the Army. Women were not allowed in combat roles, but their responsibilities gradually increased. They became aircraft mechanics, trained men in sending code, rigged parachutes and worked as cryptologists in the cold war. Mrs. Rasmuson spent four years in Europe as an Army adviser before President Dwight D. Eisenhower named her director of the corps in 1957. President John F. Kennedy reappointed her in 1961.

Books for 2012

The Wicked Wives by Gus Pelagatti

In The Wicked Wives by Gus Pelagatti, we are given the opportunity to look into the lives of a group of both women and men that were responsible for the murders of the women's husbands in the 1930s. The story is based on a true set of crimes, and the strange and unethical reasons understate how little it takes for someone to cross over to the side of murder. During this time in Philadelphia, the scandal resulted in seventeen wives being arrested for murdering their husbands. It would take one man to stand up for the victims and uncover the acts that would bring justice.

Calories and Corsets: A History of Dieting over 2,000 Years by Louise Foxcroft

Medical historian Louise Foxcroft explains in her new book, Calories and Corsets: A History of Dieting over 2,000 Years. Foxcroft fixed on the topic of weight-loss schemes after speaking to a friend who's a medic. "She said that whenever she gives talks, as soon as she mentions diet drugs, everybody in the audience perks up. I thought that was so interesting, so I decided to see if I could use the history of dieting to throw light on the assumptions we make about our health."

A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France By Caroline Moorehead

A Train in Winter is the story of brave women hailing from villages and cities of France united in their hatred and defiance against their Nazi occupiers. The book is based on interviews with these women, their families and brings to surface the historical archives and documents held by World War II resistance organisations covering this darkest chapter of human history. When Moorehead began writing this book, seven of the women were still alive and she talked to the ones whose health allowed them to. Moorehead has heavy relied upon interviews with survivors and their relatives giving this overlooked corner of history a new urgency and meaning.

Canada's Bomb Girls

From the Toronto Sun:

This hardly is explosive news, but Meg Tilly didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about where bombs were made before she was cast in Bomb Girls.

“I didn’t even know there were bomb factories, I just thought they magically appeared,” said Tilly, referring to the World War II era in which Bomb Girls is set.

“And I wasn’t aware of how many people I know whose parents, or aunts, or grandparents worked in them.”

In Canada the dangerous art of making of bombs fell largely to women, with so many men fighting overseas. The personal and professional politics of this together-by-necessity work environment is at the heart of Bomb Girls, a six-part Canadian mini-series that debuts Wednesday, Jan. 4 on Global.

Magdalena Grodzka-Guzkowska - A Lucky Woman

From CBS News:

Magdalena Grodzka-Guzkowska's journey of self-discovery is pieced together from interviews with her and people close to her, emails made available to The Associated Press, information provided by Yad Vashem, her memoir "Lucky Woman," and documentary footage.

Decades after she helped save the rabbi and about a dozen others, mostly children, by teaching them Christian customs, Grodzka-Guzkowska discovered documents in an old suitcase showing that her father and other close family members were Jews. Growing up she knew vaguely that one of her great grandmothers was Jewish but nothing more about those roots.

By the Winter Sea

From Skegness Standard:

CAMERA crews are set to pop up all over the local area in the coming days after work got underway on a new short film about the life of an Anderby Creek land girl.

Wartime Lincolnshire and the experiences of ‘Ada’, who worked a Lincolnshire coastal farm during World War Two.

“The 10 minute film entitled ‘By the Winter Sea’, is being made on behalf of the Lincolnshire Coastal Country Park project by Red Dog Film,” said a spokesperson for Lincolnshire County Council.

“It shows how London city girl Ada found the rural life and hard physical work a shock initially, but she gradually overcame her inexperience and grew to love her life as a land girl.

“The film is based on actual events – director Phil Stevens discovered the story in a book called ‘Lincolnshire Women at War’.

“The book is a compilation of letters from women who came from all over the country to work in Lincolnshire during WWII,” they added.

Farewell White Mouse

From ABC News:

Nancy Wake biographer Peter FitzSimons knew Australia's 'force of nature' better than most.

"I've dealt with many strong personalities in both football and journalism and writing books, I've never dealt with a stronger pure personality than Nancy" he remarked fondly in an interview with Louise Maher on 666.

Wake's heroism is well documented, but through writing her biography Peter FitzSimons grew to know her as a friend visiting her regularly at her home in London.

"I would bring her bottles of gin...one of her great passions was gin!"

But it was, as with the rest of the world her bravery during conflict that FitzSimons was intrigued by.  "She had anger inside her, a volcano that was its best and most useful in wartime launching ambushes on German soldiers" he described.

And it seems that Nancy Wake was as much of a force to be reckoned with in her later years as she was during her time with the Resistance.

"We had many blues until we both came to the conclusion that she was ten times the man I would ever be" recalled her biographer.

See also: The West: 

The war dead buried in and around Montlucon will be joined by one of their bravest comrades next spring.  Nancy Wake, the fearless Resistance fighter and leader who relished killing Germans as much as she enjoyed a gin and tonic, will have her ashes scattered in the central French town she helped rid of Nazis in 1944.  During the celebrations following the German evacuation of Montlucon, some Spanish Resistance fighters wrapped some local wildflowers in their national flag and presented it to her.  She will now be scattered among the wildflowers on Montlucon.

Rape in Wartime - Part II

From CNN - Silence Lifted:

A growing movement wants to peel back that rug. Scholars are revisiting old testimonies and documents -- and seeking new ones. Authors have published works to inspire conversation. Psychologists want to help survivors heal from their secrets. Activists, including feminist writer and organizer Gloria Steinem, hope these victims of the distant past can help shape a better future.

But the topic of sexual violence during the Holocaust is fraught with controversy. Some observers believe it's a subject not sufficiently widespread or proven to warrant broad attention. Others fear it's driven by a microscopic view that deflects focus from what needs to be remembered. And still others feel that by pushing the issue, it may harm survivors who've suffered enough.

What everyone can agree on is this: When it comes to learning from those who lived through the Holocaust, time is running out.

Editor's Note: This is the second of two stories focusing on rape as a tool of war. The first story looked at the role of interviewers of rape victims. Both stories contain graphic language; discretion is advised.

Ann Smith - Veterans Oral History Project

From Gainsville:

In retirement, Ann Smith is not content to sit back and relax.

As coordinator of the Veterans Project for the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida, Smith is busy interviewing veterans, transcribing interviews and working with student interns to teach them about oral history.

Before she retired in the mid-1990s, Smith was a nurse in Gainesville.

"When I retired, I was looking for something that would be more meaningful than reading the novels I hadn't had the chance to read yet," Smith said. "I wanted an intellectual component. I didn't think dusting the mantel would do it for me."

Smith saw an article about the Oral History Program at UF and its need for volunteers.

The program calls itself "one of the largest and most diverse oral history repositories in the United States," having conducted some 4,800 interviews.

Women & Warfare

From the Waverley Leader - Remembering our ANZAC Women:

WHILE most of the focus on Anzac Day highlights the many soldiers who fought for their country in military conflicts, a strong group of ladies will also pause on April 25 to remember their contribution.

Oakleigh Carnegie RSL life member Verna Phillips will be one of them.

The 88-year-old joined the Australian Army during World War II in 1942 after seeing notices posted in the city encouraging women to take on administration and office jobs.

From Third Coast Digest - Band of Sisters:

America’s female soldiers are breaking new ground both here and abroad. They are fighting and dying just like the men do.

It is this phenomenon that led author Kirsten Holmstedt to focus two books on the stories of female soldiers, both in the Iraqi theatre and after they returned home.

From the Arizona Republic - Woman Who Spied For The Union:

"Nurse," written by Marissa Moss, tells the true tale of teenager Sarah Emma Edmonds, who dressed as a man and enlisted in the Union Army under the name Frank Thompson. Thompson rescued the wounded on battlefields, nursed them and served as a spy, disguising herself as a slave to get behind Confederate lines.

American WASPS

From Utah News:

Within months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. Army Air Force, faced with an acute shortage of male pilots, decided to use women in domestic aviation to relieve their male counterparts for combat.

This was a first for the military. They knew little about women’s adaptability, attitudes, strength or psychological bearings. So they turned to world-renowned pilot Jacqueline Cochran, who created in-country ferrying and training programs including aerial navigation, target towing, assimilated bombing missions and conveyance.

Cochran had broken international speed and altitude records. President of the Ninety-Nines, an international organization of women pilots, she was a member of the Wings for Britain, delivered military aircraft from America to England and became the first woman to pilot a bomber across the North Atlantic.

Actively recruited, 25,000 young women stepped forward to volunteer, and about 1,800 were accepted into the program. Learning to fly “the Army way,” 1,074 graduated into the Women Air Force Service Pilots, or WASPS.

Photos from the personal albums of Eva Braun

From CNN:

Life.com has obtained a set of newly released photos from the personal albums of Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler's longtime girlfriend and, in their final hours, wife.

The photos "reveal new dimensions" of the woman who married Hitler as the Russian army closed in on his Berlin bunker and then committed suicide with him a day later. He was 56. She was 33.

The 30 photos cover almost all of Braun's life, from images of her as a toddler and schoolgirl to her spending time with Hitler at his mountaintop retreat in the Alps.

Among the most interesting images are those of Braun posing seemingly naked behind an umbrella and her made up as American actor Al Jolson in his role in "The Jazz Singer."

The photos come from "a cache of images confiscated by the U.S. Army in 1945 and brought to light by collector and curator Reinhard Schulz," Life.com reports.

Gaston Hospice: A Story of War Brides

From the Charlotte Observer:

She left France 65 years ago, a war bride with a baby boy.

Speaking no English, with little money and only the clothes on her back, she found bad news waiting in the U.S.: Her GI husband wanted her to go home and leave the infant behind.

Even though the soldier offered to pay for the trip, Josette Laney, then 23, knew there would be more opportunity in America.

In Gaston County, where her husband was from, she built a new life as a single parent. She worked in textiles and raised her son, Jim. They supported each other, and she helped put him through college.

At 88, Laney recently came under the care of Gaston Hospice, where staff heard about her experiences.

Officials with the nonprofit - celebrating its 30th anniversary this year - put Laney's story on the front of its winter newsletter. As the face of hospice, she helps call attention to the soon-expanding program.

 

According to the World War II War Brides Association, about 65,000 women married American soldiers and sailors; 7,000 came from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Noor Inayat Khan

From VOA News:

A campaign is underway to honor Noor Inayat Khan, an Indian woman who spied for Britain during World War II.

Born in 1914, she favored India's independence from Britain. But she put her feelings aside to help the British fight Nazi Germany. She was eventually caught in occupied France and executed at Dachau concentration camp.

WWII's Female Computers

From CNN News:

It was 2003 and Erickson was interviewing sisters Shirley Blumberg Melvin and Doris Blumberg Polsky for her documentary, "Neighbor Ladies," about a woman-owned real estate agency that helped to peacefully integrate a Philadelphia neighborhood. The twins, long-retired by then, reluctantly mentioned a different sort of job they'd held during World War II: Female "computers."

Computer, at that point, was a job title, not a machine. Long before the sisters were businesswomen, community activists, mothers or grandmothers, they were recruited by the U.S. military to do ballistics research. They worked six days a week, sometimes pulling double or triple shifts, along with dozens of other women.

The weapons trajectories they calculated were passed out to soldiers in the field and bombardiers in the air. Some of their colleagues went on to program the earliest of general-purpose computers, the ENIAC.

It wasn't factory work, but they were "Rosies" nonetheless, filling jobs that men would've taken if they hadn't been at war or wrapped up in other military research.

Women Falsely Punished For WWII Collaboration

From the News - Poland:

Veteran Polish film director Feliks Falk has said that many women were punished unjustly for charges of collaboration with Nazi Germans during World War II.

Falk discussed the theme in Kielce on Saturday at a special screening of his latest film, Joanna. The movie won two of the top awards at last year's Polish Film Festival in Gdynia.

Joanna tells the story of a Cracovian woman whose husband was interned by the Germans in a POW camp for officers. One day she meets a Jewish child in a church, and decides to take her in. However, Joanna is shortly denounced by her fellow countrymen. Her fate seems sealed, but a German officer gives her the chance of survival, if she is prepared to collaborate with him.

“The parents and neighbours who accused the heroine of hiding a Jew were not bad,” the director reflected. “They were simply terrified.”

“The decision to hide Jews was a difficult one,” Falk continued. “Joanna conquered that fear.”

The film went on general release in Poland before Christmas. Joanna is not based on a specific historical case, but explores the dilemmas of many Poles during German occupation. The penalty in Poland for hiding Jews was death, a sentence that was invariably meted out to the entire family.

Geraldine Doyle (aka Rosie the Riveter)

From the Washington Post:

Geraldine Doyle, 86, who as a 17-year-old factory worker became the inspiration for a popular World War II recruitment poster that evoked female power and independence under the slogan "We Can Do It!," died Dec. 26 at a hospice in Lansing, Mich.

Her daughter, Stephanie Gregg, said the cause of death was complications from severe arthritis.

For millions of Americans throughout the decades since World War II, the stunning brunette in the red and white polka-dot bandanna was Rosie the Riveter.

Remembering the "Women of Steel"

From BBC News:

"It was dirty, it was noisy and it was jolly hard work."

That is Kathleen Roberts's view of life as one of the Women of Steel in Sheffield in World War II.

They were conscripted to work in the steel works to keep production going when the men went off to war.

Their efforts were finally recognised by the government at the start of 2010 and now researchers are recording their personal accounts of life in the factories for an oral history project.

The project is part of a module for English students at the University of Sheffield, called Storying Sheffield.

Students work with members of the local community to collect, record and produce stories about their lives in Sheffield.

Three of the Women of Steel met with five students from the University's School of English in December 2010 to record their memories to create permanent digital artefacts.