The Christy Collection

Military Stories and Articles

WW2 – The Liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp

WW2 – The Liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp

On January 27 1945 the Soviet Army pried open the gates of Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland and liberated some 7,000 emaciated prisoners. About 58,000 others had been hurriedly marched westward before the Soviet Army approached. Auschwitz, the German word for the Polish town of Oswiecim, was the site of the largest Nazi concentration camp during WWII. It consisted of a concentration camp, a labor camp, and large gas chambers and crematoria. More than 1.3 million people...

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Irena Sendler

Irena Sendler

Often, non-combatant civilians risk their lives by performing quiet yet extraordinary acts of selflessness and gallantry that require just as much bravery as a soldier charging head-on into enemy fire. Irena Sendler was one such civilian. She was a gentle but determined Polish social worker who managed to smuggle 2,500 children out of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Second World War. As amazing as this feat was, she was only internationally honored for her immense bravery toward the end of her...

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World War II Veterans

World War II Veterans

How Many World War II Veterans are Still Alive Today? According to Pew Research, the number of living WWII veterans dropped to under 300,000 in 2020 from over 930,000 in 2015. The oldest of these veterans is Lawrence Brooks, an Army veteran born in Louisiana in September 1909, drafted at the age of 31, and sent to the Pacific front with the 91st Engineers. One of the 1.2 million African-Americans served during the war, PFC Brooks mainly cooked and cleaned for his superior officers. The...

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Teenage Sisters Persuaded German Soldiers

Teenage Sisters Persuaded German Soldiers

Jannetje Johanna "Hannie" Schaft and Truus and Freddie Oversteegen When the Nazis steamrolled into the Netherlands in May of 1940, Jannetje Johanna "Hannie" Schaft and Truus and Freddie Oversteegen were just 19, 16, and 14 years old, respectively. As for the Oversteegen sisters, their mother, Trijn, had left their father years before. Freddie states of this, "She was just fed up one day - we lived on a large ship in Haarlem, but my father never made any money and didn't pay anything for the...

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