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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 and the occasional radio broadcast 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
Anzio-Cassino Area, 1943: Situation 18 May 1944 and Advance in Operation Diadem, 11-18 May. Anzio Breakout, 23-25 May and Turn to Rome, 25-30 May
The Western Pacific, New Guinea and the Philippine Islands: Allied Advances to the Marianas, Biak and Noemfoor, 22 April-24 July 1944, and Japanese Kon and “A” Go Operations 30 May-19 June 1944
China, 1941: Operation Ichigo, April-December 1944 and Situation 31 December

Thank you very much for posting these articles. I have been reading them daily for the past few weeks and I think they are very interesting. It’s hard to imagine just how much World War II pervaded the everyday life of Americans. The articles on rationing and the draft show that this war was a constant part of daily life, something I have never experienced. I am also looking forward to future daily postings. Next week is D Day and I want to read what an average New Yorker read that day.
Thanks again.

May 30, 1944:

May 27: "Two Jews, Arnost Rosin of Czechoslovakia and Czeslaw Mordowicz of Poland, escape from Auschwitz.
May 28: "In a repeat of an incident of May 25, Jews being led to the gas chamber at Auschwitz run for nearby woods but are shot down.
May 29: "Several thousand Jews from Baja, Hungary, arrive at the German frontier after a 3-1/2-day rail journey; 55 are dead and about 200 are insane.
Late May: "At the Auschwitz rail junction, German soldiers who encounter a sealed deportation train carrying Hungarian Jews to the Birkenau death camp defy threats of SS guards and give water and food to pleading prisoners.
"An SS man who has fallen in love with a Jewish girl manages for months to shunt her away from the gas chambers, but when the romance is discovered both are executed."

"Two children clutch their father's hand while their mother, balancing on crutches, struggles to keep up during the deportation of Jews from the Sighet (Hungary) Ghetto.
From May 16 to 22, 1944, most of the nearly 8,600 Jews who had been crowded into the town's ghetto were deported to Auschwitz.
Among those sent from Sighet to Auschwitz was 14-year-old Elie Wiesel, who would later write of his experiences in Night."

"The little Hungarian town of Köszeg had only 80 Jews when a ghetto was created there on May 11, 1944.
The total population of the ghetto, which incorporated Jews from surrounding towns, was only 103.
This photograph shows the loading of the ghetto's population onto transport trains bound for Auschwitz.
Note the participation of troops from Hungary's Fascist organization, the Arrow Cross, in the deportation.
The organization's members, many of whom were poor and uneducated, participated vigorously in deportations."