2. Ardennes Forest
In the early hours of December 16, 1944, beneath pines laden with snow,
Sergeant Vinz Kuhlbach, a blond-haired twenty-five-year-old German
soldier and veteran of Normandy and Monte Cassino, turned on his
torchlight. In its bright stare, he could make out the frightened, sallow
faces of some eighty men from the 1st Company, 9th Regiment, 3rd
Fallschirmjaeger (Paratrooper) Division. Many of the young German
paratroops shivered; others stamped their feet to fend off frostbite
3. Bomber PlansThe
German Luftwaffe forces ranged against Poland on 1 September 1939 were divided into
two air fleets. Aircraft strength was about 850 bombers and dive-bombers and 400
fighters. In the first two days of the campaign these forces completely destroyed the
Polish Air Force. It had been a striking demonstration of air power. Aircrafts played also
a vitale role in the invasion of Norway and Denmark. For the campaign in the West the
Luftwaffe deployed 3,902 aircraft. So far, the air force had been used as a tactical
weapon, creating air supremacy and providing support for the ground forces with
bombers.
4. Paris
The capital region of France had been governed by Nazi Germany since the signing of the Second
Compiègne Armistice in June 1940, when the German Army occupied northern and westmost
France, and when the puppet regime of Vichy France was established in the town of Vichy in
central France.
5. Kinder transport
There were very large Jewish communities in Central Europe and indeed in Galicia
between 1867 and 1914. Poverty was extreme. In that area 5,000 Jews died each year
through starvation (Gilbert M. 1981, p77). Many people emigrated to the US but also
to Germany with whom they shared a common language and where Jews flourished.
After WW1 Abraham left his native town for Berlin. It is possible that Abraham and
Erna had met before they emigrated to Germany since Abraham's older brother Simon
was already married to Erna's sister Rosa
6. Concentration camps
The number of camps quadrupled between 1939 and 1942 to 300+,[1] as slave-
laborers from across Europe, Jews, political
prisoners, criminals, homosexuals, gypsies, the mentally ill and others were
incarcerated,[2] generally without judicial process. Holocaust scholars draw a
distinction between concentration camps (described in this article) and extermination
camps, which were established by the Nazis for the industrial-scale mass murder of
the predominantly Jewish ghetto and concentration camp populations.
