World War 2

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/29/2023
  

  Dutch Villagers Find Hunt for Nazi Treasure Less and Less Charming With Passage of Time

  The recent declassification of a map drawn by a German soldier in 1945 has brought treasure hunters to Ommeren. The 751 residents have mixed feelings. 

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• SOURCE: LitHub
  

  Zachary Shore: the Struggle Between Vengeance and Virtue in WWII

  Zachary Shore discusses the contrasting decisions to drop atomic bombs on Japan and rebuild Germany. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  1/23/2023
  

  The Real Story of "Casablanca" Was the Refugees

  At its 80th anniversary, it's appropriate to honor the classic film by focusing on the waves of Europeans fleeing Nazi persecution and working to fight back. 

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• 1/22/2023
  

  The Pope at War: Pius XII and the Vatican's Secret Archives

  by James Thornton Harris

  David Kertzer's book argues that defenders of Pope Pius XII's actions during the Holocaust mistake his defense of the prerogatives of the Catholic Church for a defense of the victims of Nazi persecution and genocide. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/15/2023
  

  Two Black GI's Deaths Show the Racism in the WWII Military

  Allen Leftridge and Frank Glenn were shot and killed by military police for asking a French Red Cross worker for donuts. The aftermath showed the administrative and bureaucratic racism of the military supported and protected individual prejudice in the ranks.

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• SOURCE: Reuters
  1/3/2023
  

  Poland Claims Germany Refuses Participation in Talks for WWII Reparations

  Six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews, were killed during the second world war. Poland's nationalist government seeks to void agreements made under Communism to release Germany from liability. 

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• 12/18/2022
  

  Mussolini in Myth and Memory

  by Paul Corner

  Italians' recollection of Mussolini and the Fascist regime embody the replacement of historical memory with national mythology—a mythology that dismisses both the violence of the dictatorship and Italians' collective responsibility for it and enables the resurgence of the far right today.

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• SOURCE: History.com
  12/9/2022
  

  How Americans Celebrated the Holidays During World War II

  American women in particular found it challenging to uphold holiday traditions when mobilization, war work, rationing, and the lingering Great Depression hung over the season. 

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• 12/11/2022
  

  Writing My Father Into History

  by Stephen G. Rabe

  As a child, the author developed an interest in history by hearing his father's stories on the journey from parachuting in to Normandy to the Brandenburg Gate and the occupation of Berlin. But he waited until retirement to research and write about them. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/2/2022
  

  The Passing of the Generation that Remembers the Last World War Makes the Next One More Likely

  by Stephen Wertheim

  The United States faces a growing risk of conflict with other global powers without a strong awareness of how difficult and all-consuming it could be for the military, civilians, and the entire society. 

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• 11/20/2022
  

  James M. Scott's "Black Snow" Traces the Line from Tokyo to Hiroshima

  by James Thornton Harris

  "LeMay’s operation really served as an important trial balloon to see how the American public would respond to the mass killing of enemy civilians.... To the surprise of many in Washington, however, the American public voiced no real objection."

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• 12/4/2022
  

  How Ambassador Joseph Grew Tried to Prevent the Pacific War

  by Steve Kemper

  Caught between Japanese militarism and the State Department's inflexibility, Joseph C. Grew worked for a decade as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan to try to avert a war he saw looming long before Pearl Harbor. 

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• 11/11/2022
  

  The Wartime Service and Postwar Activism of One Latino Veteran

  by Ricardo Romo

  For Veteran's Day, a historian shares photos, and the history, of his father's wartime experiences. Like many of his compatriots, Henry Romo was reluctant to discuss those experiences, but drew on them to work for equal citizenship at home. 

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• 11/6/2022
  

  From Torch to Tunis to El Alamein: Events 80 Years Ago Made the Modern Middle East

  by Robert Satloff

  80 years ago Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa, opened a second front against Nazi Germany. Today, it has proven equally important for establishing models for America's relationship to the Middle East. 

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• SOURCE: WBUR
  10/24/2022
  

  Matthew Delmont Discusses the Black American Experience of World War II

  The African American experience of war began before Pearl Harbor, and was always grounded in the imperative of defeating a global fascist movement lest it gain more traction in the United States. 

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• 10/16/2022
  

  Putin's Strategy Echoing Hitler's Mistakes on Eastern Front

  by James Thornton Harris

  Although Vladimir Putin has called the Ukrainian leadership "Nazis" to justify invasion, the longer the Ukraine war drags on the more Putin's strategic errors resemble those made by Hitler on the eastern front.

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• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  10/8/2022
  

  How America Short-Changed Black WWII Vets, and Why it Still Matters

  by Matthew Delmont

  Black servicemembers immediately understood the insulting dismissal of their contributions to the war against fascism. But their exclusion, by legislative design and administrative discrimination, from the postwar benefits white veterans enjoyed was the longer-lasting harm. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/5/2022
  

  Matthew Delmont Examines How Black Americans Saw the Second World War

  For Black Americans, everything about the second world war looked different, including the start date, which the Black press dated to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. A new book centers the issue of global racism in a narrative of the conflict. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  9/22/2022
  

  TikTok Spurs Frenzy over Fake Photos of Nanjing Atrocities

  A Minnesota antiques dealer's mistake in identifying historical photos in a donated album intersected with the virality of social media and the still-raw international resentments over Japanese atrocities during its conquest and occupation of China to create a fake history furor. 

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• SOURCE: LAist
  9/23/2022
  

  Los Angeles Project Aims to Name Every Interned Japanese American

  The government's rosters of interned Japanese Americans are incomplete and error-ridden. A new project seeks a complete documentation of the missing names.