Actual Nazi flags captured during WWII via CTS56's flckr photostream.

Here’s a little tidbit about me: I was a German major in college. In fact, my father was a German professor at the University of Tennessee, and he made me privy to the atrocious crimes of the Nazi party as a very early age. As such, I knew all about the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler and the concentration camps. Like anyone with a moral compass, I had tremendous difficulty reconciling what happened during World War II. As such, I grew obsessed with German culture and wondered how it was possible that an entire country could allow for an evil man like Hitler to become their leader.

At some point, every parent must try to explain life’s horrors to their children. And I suspect in the not-so-distant future, I’ll be attempting to explain World War II Germany to my oldest daughter. With the recent exposure that Eva Braun has received, however, I’m wondering if that day will come sooner rather than later. Life Magazine has recently published never-before-seen photos of Eva and the carefree, fun-loving woman depicted in them stands in stark comparison to the dark world she was a part of.

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Geraldine Hoff Doyle

Geraldine Hoff Doyle’s iconic image has inspired hundreds of thousands of budding feminists over the years since World War II, her rolled-up sleeves and flexed muscles exclaiming, “We Can Do It!” to a nation of women left behind while the men went off to fight.  Doyle died Sunday at the age of 84, which is also the year she finally recognized herself as the subject of the famous print.

TIME magazine reports that “Doyle was 17 and working in a Michigan steelworks when her picture was taken by the United Press.  That image – well, the face at least – became part of the ‘We Can Do It’ poster commissioned from artist J. Howard Miller during World War II, used to motivate a nation of female workers called into manufacturing jobs to support the war effort overseas.”

Doyle’s image is often referred to as Rosie the Riveter, but that was never Miller’s intention.  Miller’s poster was displayed for just two weeks at a Westinghouse factory in 1942; Norman Rockwell’s image of the original Rosie the Riveter appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1943.  Shirley Karp Dick, who modeled for Rockwell, died in 2009 at the age of 85. Continue reading »

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Edith Shain, the nurse who was photographed being kissed by an unidentified soldier in Times Square on August 14, 1945, created one of the most lasting images of World War II.  Shain passed away Sunday in Los Angeles at age 92.  Her iconic photo was taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt and published in Life Magazine.

Shain is survived by two sons, six grand children and eight great grand children, according to ABC News.  She remained active until the very end of her life, and indeed was an activist.   Continue reading »

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I’ll admit that I have not read The Diary of Anne Frank since I was in school and, to be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure I read it all back then.  You see, it touched on a topic that was not discussed in our house — World War II and the Holocaust.  My father came to America by himself when he was 13.  His family was supposed to follow the next year; instead, they went to Auschwitz.  Despite this, I do believe that it is an extremely important document from a historical and cultural point of view and should be made available to students.  Not everyone, however, agrees.  Because Anne Frank was a girl.

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Making toys is hard. Who knows what kids like, amIright? Here, example, are some good intentioned toys that crossed the line from fun to frightening.

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