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Free Republic University, Department of History presents World War II Plus 70 Years: Seminar and Discussion Forum
First session: September 1, 2009. Last date to add: September 2, 2015.
Reading assignment: New York Times articles delivered daily to students on the 70th anniversary of original publication date. (Previously posted articles can be found by searching on keyword “realtime” Or view Homer’s posting history .)
To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by freepmail. Those on the Realtime +/- 70 Years ping list are automatically enrolled. Course description, prerequisites and tuition information is available at the bottom of Homer’s profile. Also visit our general discussion thread.

Selections from West Point Atlas for the Second World War
Kursk and Vicinity 1943: Battle of Kursk, 4 July-1 August 1943
Soviet Summer and Fall Offensives: Operations, 17 July-1 December 1943
Sicily, 1943: Italo-German Counterattack, 11 July and Allied Advance, 12 July-17 August 1943
South Pacific Area Operations: Capture of New Georgia, 21 June-27 August 1943
New Guinea Force Operations: Capture of Salamaua and Lae, 29 June-16 September 1943
The Far East and the Pacific, 1941: Status of Forces and Allied Theater Boundaries, 2 July 1942
India-Burma, 1942: Allied Lines of Communication, 1942-1943
Cartwheel, the Seizure of the Gilberts and Marshalls, and Concurrent Air and Naval Operations, 30 June 1943-26 April 1944

July 28, 1943:

"Jan Karski, a Catholic-Polish underground fighter who had visited the Warsaw Ghetto and the Belzec death camp, arrives in the United States to tell American leaders what he has seen.
His interview with President Franklin Roosevelt indicates that the President already knows much about the Holocaust.
Late July: "Members of the Sonderkommando at the Belzec death camp are sent north to the extermination camp at Sobibór, where the inmates revolt upon arrival and are shot."

Music for the Doomed

"In Germany and occupied countries, the Nazis silenced Jewish musicians.
Yet they turned to Jews to mask with music the anguished cries from the camps, creating what the prisoners termed "Symphonia diabolica" ("Devil's Symphony").

"At each of the death camps, orchestras played cheerful and comforting tunes as the trains rolled in with their exhausted human cargo.
Deportees' suspicions and fears were allayed when they heard the familiar music of civilized society.

"At Auschwitz, which had six orchestras, and at other camps, orchestras played as inmates went to work (for the entertainment of the SS) as well as at selections and executions.
At the camp at Janówska, Ukraine, the Nazis ordered the composition of a special tune, the "Tango fun toyt" ("Tango of Death"), to usher prisoners to their deaths."

"A longtime Nazi, Odilo Globocnik joined the Party in Austria in 1931.
Before the Anschluss (annexation), he worked to increase the Party's numbers and influence.
Following the Anschluss, Globocnik's obedient service in the SS earned him the position of Gauleiter of Vienna, an office from which he was later fired due to corruption.
Putting Globocnik's ambition and slavish obedience to use, Heinrich Himmler pardoned him and placed him in charge of the Lublin region of Poland.
Globocnik oversaw the building of Majdanek, Belzec, Sobibór, and Treblinka, and controlled forced labor and extermination until August 1943."

"A barracks at the Auschwitz concentration camp is lined with triple-tiered wood bunk beds, on which inmates slept.
Each level was shared by more than one person and often lined with little more than a thin blanket.
Survivors describe the sleep routines with mixed feelings.
Whereas most viewed their bunks as refuge from the day's precarious and dangerous existence, the nights were also filled with terror.
The nocturnal ragings of drunk Kapos, ceaseless struggles with bunkmates, and the relentless trips to latrines and chamber pots punctuate the memories of survivors."