The Netherlands in WWII: More Aftermath

image from wikipedia

An American Facebook acquaintance recently posted this video with the comment: “Just for the record”. I watched it and I found it to be a strange hodgepodge of information, rumor and images without commentary. It’s in Dutch, so let me briefly tell you what it’s about.

It begins with  KLM, the Dutch airline, and its role in helping Nazis

All Heil to the Good Guys

In my last post, I addressed the idea of giving teachers guns in the classroom. But the NRA wants more than that. They want everyone to have a gun, because, as they say, “The only thing more dangerous than a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”. Or something like that.

The Netherlands in WWII : It’s Still Not Over

This is the thirteenth and last (for now) post in a series about American high school students’ impressions on a presentation about the Netherlands in World War Two. Click here for the introduction to said presentation.

Photo: historietilburg.nl

Any member of the resistance who was captured, was interrogated/tortured first to get names of more resistance members, and then shot. Sometimes in the dunes on the coast, sometimes in the street, as a deterrent.

Photo: Joh. van Bueren

The Netherlands in WWII : Lessons Learned

Photo: rijksoverheid.nl

This is the eleventh post in a series about American high school students’ impressions on a presentation about the Netherlands in World War Two. Click here for the introduction to said presentation.

Authority Before the war, the Dutch were a very law-abiding people, with great respect for authority. During the war, the majority of the Dutch police

The Netherlands in WWII : The End

Photo: sg7cz6o.edu.glogster.com

This is the tenth post in a series about American high school students’ impressions on a presentation about the Netherlands in World War Two. Click here for the introduction to said presentation.

About a week before the end of the war, planes from Britain began food drops. They were a drop in the bucket, but they gave hope. And on May 5, 1945, after five years of German occupation, the Netherlands was liberated.

The Netherlands in WWII : The Hunger Winter

This is the ninth post in a series about American high school students’ impressions on a presentation about the Netherlands in World War Two. Click here for the introduction to said presentation.

On June 6, 1944–D-Day–the allied troops landed in Normandy. The idea was to

The Netherlands in WWII : The Day Bed

My mother and my aunt on my aunt’s first birthday

This is the eighth post in a series about American high school students’ impressions on a presentation about the Netherlands in World War Two. Click here for the introduction to said presentation.

The following is another example I told the students of an almost-disaster story.

The Netherlands in WWII : The Gun

Photo: smith-wessonforum.com

This is the seventh post in a series about American high school students’ impressions on a presentation about the Netherlands in World War Two. Click here for the introduction to said presentation.

I told the students the following story as an example of how even ordinary people, who were not in the resistance, who were just trying to survive, were faced with decisions that affected lives.

The Netherlands in WWII : The Resistance

This is the sixth post in a series about American high school students’ impressions on a presentation about the Netherlands in World War Two. Click here for the introduction to said presentation.

“The resistance” was anyone who thwarted the German occupation and the German war effort in any way.

Photo: http://www.en.bestpicturesof.com

They could be teenagers, like high school boys and their teachers who organized into gangs, or men spying and communicating by illegal radio with the government in exile and with the allied forces.

The resistance was involved in hiding Jews, providing the allied forces with information,

The Netherlands in WWII : The Beginning

This is part one of a series about a presentation I gave to a high school class in Austin, Texas, about the Netherlands in World War Two. Click here for the introduction to said presentation.

American Teens and WWII Netherlands

My son B.’s ninth-grade class is learning about World War Two right now, so I offered to give a presentation about the Netherlands during WWII. Not because, in itself, the Netherlands’ history is so important in the big picture, but because I suspected that otherwise the students probably wouldn’t learn too much about how it was for Europeans to be occupied by the Germans.

The demography and geography of the different countries in Europe may vary greatly, but the stories of German occupation, resistance, and living in constant fear and uncertainty have much in common.

And, of course, the occupation of countries, the killing of Jews and the constant intimidation and terror all over Europe is what American soldiers were fighting, even though they may often not have been aware of it, since they were mainly in battle situations against other soldiers. But when they were fighting for freedom, this is what it meant.

So I gave a Powerpoint presentation (my first ever) about WWII in the Netherlands, basically talking about the same things that I mentioned in this post. Only longer, and with photos.