1914 - 1945   Guten Tag  / Index  / Histoire
The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.

— Edward Grey, July 1914

atavus:

The Monuments Men of World War II

The Monuments Men were a group of men and women from thirteen nations, most of whom volunteered had expertise as museum directors, curators, art scholars and educators, artists, architects, and archivists. The Monuments Men job description was simple: to save as much of the culture of Europe as they could during combat.

"If there is a God, He will have to beg my forgiveness."

— A phrase that was carved on the walls of a concentration camp cell during WWII by a Jewish prisoner 

(Source: notclarissa)

collectivehistory: Homecoming Prisoners, Vienna, 1947 by Ernst Haas A mother shows a picture of her son to a returning prisoners of war. 

Anonymous asked: I wouldn't recommend The Kommandant's Girl. Jenoff knows nothing about thethings she writes about, e.g. according to the book oranges were generally available product in the occupied Cracow. It's nonsense. The book is full of inaccuracies like this one, and someone who's not familiar with the history of Poland, will think it's all true. I know Anon asked for love stories, and history is always only a background for them, but I believe there are better and more historically accurate books to read

Thanks for the warning! I hadn’t gotten around to reading it yet, but now I don’t think I’ll bother (I like my historical fiction historically accurate thankyouverymuch).  

Well, they just put swastikas on everything, didn’t they?
The Mona Lisa during World War II She was packed up and moved out of the Louvre before the Germans arrived and was subsequently moved five times to avoid being looted.
Burning banned books by Jewish authors and others deemed against the Nazi agenda

Anonymous asked: I love this blog! Could you please recommend some books and movies with love stories set in this period? I assume that they will be heartbreaking as they should be. Thanks.

Good timing on this question - I’ve been compiling a list of WWI & II films and fiction that I’ll be posting soon, all organized by country and such, but for now here’s a list off the top of my head to start you off with:

WWI Films: A Very Long Engagement, Passchendaele, The Red Baron, and Birdsong (TV miniseries)

WWII Films: Dresden, Enemy at the Gates, Gloomy Sunday, Flame and Citron, The Edge of Love, Casablanca (1942), Pearl Harbor (not a huge fan of this film, but it is a love story so…) 

WWII Fiction: (haven’t read all of these yet so, not sure how good they are… you have been warned) Skeletons at the Feast, The Kommandant’s Girl, The Bronze Horseman, April in Paris, The Time in Between, The Welsh Girl 

Happy watching/reading!