Free Republic

October 16, 1943, is engrained in Italy's history as a day of clear and direct anti-semitism. It's the day when Nazi soldiers evacuated Jews from the Roman Ghetto. Now, new details show Pius XII helped Jews in Rome, before the events of the so-called "Black Saturday.” Even before the arrival of the Nazis to the Eternal City. DOMINIEK OVERSTEYNS  L'Opera della Chiesa "By July 9th, a monastery was already taking in Jews, and on July 20, a letter from the Diocese arrived. It read: 'This is Papal territory, please do not enter.' And this happened seven weeks before the German...

JASENOVAC -- A commemoration marking the 69th anniversary of the breakout of prisoners of the Ustasha death camp Jasenovac was held on Sunday [May 4, 2014.](Beta/Hina) Attending the event, Croatian President Ivo Josipović said genocide had occurred at that location and that it should never be forgotten. Josipović called on everyone to protect the memory of the people who had died in that camp, a place that would remain in collective memory forever, the Croatian electronic media reported. "Evil should be called by its real name, opposed and denied any opportunity to happen ever again," he stated. Evil is not...

It was an evening in Manhattan twenty years ago, at the Union League Club, with Fr. George Rutler regaling us with his learning and wit.  At one moment he remarked, in that off-handed way of his, that he was at the keyboard of his piano when suddenly came coursing through his fingers to the keys was. . .the Lithuanian National Anthem.  He would weave together in his talks the most striking leaps and juxtapositions – from St. Anselm to Mark Twain, the Guelphs and the Ghibbelines to the Yankees and the Dodgers. But through it all was a penetrating...

Breathtaking new photographs, including several vivid full-color images, offer a never-before-seen look at the war-weary soldiers in the Battle of the Bulge who fought through the frozen Ardennes Forest in a mountainous region of Belgium in the dead of winter.

"With the remains in their possession, the team disguised themselves as fishermen and drove into the mountains, stopping at a cliff along a small stream. There, in a spot screened by trees, they lit two campfires. One was to make soup. The other, to further burn the remains. Gumenyuk has called the second cremation a waste of a can of gasoline, but the remains were finally burned to ashes. They collected these in a rucksack, which Gumenyuk took onto the cliff and opened up into the wind. With that, one of history’s greatest monsters disappeared, a brown cloud of dust...

The Army deployed 67 infantry divisions for the Second World War. Each was like a small town with its own equivalents for community services plus the eight categories of combat arms. Units such as artillery, engineering, and heavy weapons engaged the enemy directly. Yet of all categories, the foot soldier faced the greatest hazard with the least chance of reward. Except for the Purple Heart and the coveted Combat Infantryman’s Badge, recognition was often missing because so few came through to testify to the valor of many. The infantryman faced the most dismal fate of all whose duty was uninterrupted...

As far as his closest aides were aware, he kept to a strict healthy diet and drank only lukewarm water. But Adolf Hitler would regularly stave off attacks of midnight munchies by tucking into specially made ‘Fuhrer Cake’ and other gooey treats. He would raid the kitchen after staying up late talking to guests and rarely get up before 2pm, according to a maid who worked at his mountain retreat in Bavaria. Austrian Mrs Kalhammer – then Elisabeth Marchtrenkerin – went to work at the Fuhrer’s retreat near Berchtesgaden in 1943 after answering an advert in her local paper: ‘Maid...

"Confidence thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live." Franklin Delano Roosevelt REMEMBERING GENERAL DRAZA MIHAILOVICH: A TRULY GREAT MAN WHO LEFT HIS MARK FOREVER. Taking to the hills of Serbia with only a few Serbian patriots to mount the first real resistance to Hitler's occupying forces in Europe was impressive by all human standards. The guts it took and the resolve necessary for these men and their leader to initiate such a courageous act against the Nazi war machine that in 1941 appeared to be invincible...

Congratulations on surviving Auschwitz, now here’s your tax bill –Dutch intern reveals Amsterdam’s postwar shame Imagine you had survived one of the Nazi death camps, but on returning home found that you owed the city council back rents and taxes on the house the Nazis had stolen from you, and to add insult to injury, had to pay fines for late payment. < That is exactly what happened to 217 Amsterdam Jews, and now the city is considering compensating them . “They were completely expropriated. And then, after the Second World War, they were taxed for the period in which...

Detailed images two American ships that sank off the coast of England during a pre-D-Day training exercise in World War II have been recorded by a U.S. submarine. The images, recorded by a Massachusetts company that surveyed the wreckage to mark the 70th anniversary of the sinking, are the first in high definition. The two ships were sunk off by German forces during Exercise Tiger on April 28, 1944, claiming the lives of 749 U.S. soldiers and sailors.

MLAKA -- Patriarch Irinej of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) on Tuesday held a memorial service in Mlaka near Jasenovac, the site of Croatia's WW2 death camp.(Photo: Tanjug, file) April 22 is the anniversary of the Jasenovac breakthrough staged by the camp's prisoners. The day is also marked in Serbia as Holocaust Remembrance Day. After liturgy services lead by Patriarch Irinej, Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro and the Littoral and Bishop Jovan of Lipljan and other clerical dignitaries, a commemoration was held to honor the Jasenovac victims. "The church in Mlaka is built on the land of the sufferers where hundreds...

A German submarine sank to its watery grave somewhere off the coast of South America in 1943. This is the exact moment it's discovered. Secrets of the Third Reich: The Ghost of U-513 The pride of the wolfpacks, German sub U-513, became a tomb for all but seven of her crew after being bombed by a U.S. patrol plane in 1943. The U-boat then vanished off the South American coast, where it was lost for more than 68 years. Now, witness the ghost ship's story through rare archival footage and interviews with U-boat vets, and follow the Brazilian entrepreneur who...

One week after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt began pressing the U.S. military to immediately strike the Japanese homeland. The desire to bolster moral became more urgent in light of rapid Japanese advances. These included victories in Malaya, Singapore, the Philippines, Wake Island, and the Dutch East Indies, as well as sinking the British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse. Only improbable ideas warranted consideration, because submarines confirmed Japan placed picket boats at extreme carrier aircraft range. One idea even involved launching four engine heavy bombers from China or Outer Mongolia to strike Japan and fly on to Alaska. Captain Francis...

A film about kamikaze pilots has been playing to packed theaters from Hokkaido to Kyushu since its release in December of 2013, becoming one of the top-grossing Japanese productions of all time. In addition to attracting the admiration of Prime Minster Shinzo Abe, “The Eternal Zero” has drawn a fair amount of criticism for being the latest in a string of recent films that mythologize the Japanese role in World War II.

Long after the dust from the last battle has settled, the dead have been laid to rest and the confetti from the victory parade has been swept into the gutter, the nature continues to bear the scars of human conflicts. A remarkable series of photos taken in a Russian forest have been making the rounds on social media sites, showing what happens over time to instruments of carnage discarded in the woods.

Republicans, I come in peace.Until very recently, Rand Paul’s project of insinuating himself comfortably within the Republican Party, and positioning himself as a plausible presidential nominee, had gone along with remarkable ease. Yes, the author of his campaign book turned out to be an unreconstructed neo-Confederate. That was a speed bump. (Who among us has not entrusted the explication of his worldview to a man who has cheered on the assassination of President Lincoln?) Paul had staged a masterful piece of political theater with his marathon Senate speech denouncing the Obama administration’s drone policy. He has assembled a top-tier campaign...

Tonight on Turner Classic Movies a film named as one of the "100 Greatest War Films" in Britain, "Went the Day Well"--This film has consistent suspense, worthy of Alfred Hitchcock ! It was released in 1943, when the war with Germany was raging. If you're fond of older British movies you'll recognize some fine actors: Leslie Banks, David Farrar, Thora Hird, Basil Sydney, Mervyn Johns. The film is a well-constructed piece of stirring, patriotic wartime propaganda. ....Midnight EDT. .....;

Hair samples said to have come from a hairbrush used by Hitler’s long-term lover, Eva Braun, were tested by a BBC’s documentary and discovered to share qualities with the Eastern European Jewish genome. […] The scientists were surprised to discover a specific genome sequence—haplogroup N1b1—within the small group of maternal DNA which is associated with Ashkenazi Jews. …

KRASNOYARSK, April 3 (RIA Novosti) Andrei Marmyshev - Fragments of a US bomber that crashed near the Russian city Krasnoyarsk in southern Siberia during World War II have been delivered to San Francisco, where they will form part of a memorial commemorating pilots who lost their lives in the war, a historian in Krasnoyarsk told RIA Novosti. "San Francisco is planning to set up a memorial to pilots who died during the Second World War. The fragments of the Boston bomber will also be used," said Lt. Col. Vyacheslav Filippov, an aviation officer and historian. "For example, they are going...

Pope John XXIII is pictured in this undated photo. (CNS photo) The press called him a caretaker pope. Elected on October 28, 1958, at the age of 77, he was expected to warm the Chair of Peter for a few years without making any great waves. They could hardly have been more wrong. The people called him Good Pope John because of his genial nature, and few popes have been more loved. His successor, Paul VI, hailed him as “an incomparable pope.” But the Jews had a special relationship with John XXIII, and it is their love for him...