World War II (1939-45)

Subterms

    Latest story

    150 Shares131 Views

    There Will Always Be a Trump. That’s Only Part of the Problem.

    by

    Because we forget history, we forget that the American experiment cannot succeed without constant, courageous leadership. Our nation is not inherently good and our high ideals are often eclipsed by our baser nature. This has been true since our founding, and it is true now.We also know that if American ideals depend on a single party for their protection, then that effort is doomed to fail. It’s not that America is one election from extinction. Our nation is not that fragile. But it can regress. It can forsake its ideals. And millions of people can suffer as a result.I’m writing those words in the context of a presidential contest that already represents a national failure. Even if Kamala Harris wins on Tuesday, there should be relief, not lasting joy. The United States will have come within an eyelash of electing a man who tried to overturn an election to cling to power.While Donald Trump’s individual actions were unprecedented, the idea that a critical mass of Americans would embrace a demagogue should not be a surprise.Last week, I helped host a fireside chat with Susan Eisenhower, the founder and expert in residence at the Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College. She’s also Dwight D. Eisenhower’s granddaughter. During our conversation, she told a story that I’d forgotten — one with direct relevance to the present moment.In the aftermath of World War II, there was intense interest in General Eisenhower’s potential political career. He’d never voted before he left the Army in 1948. Both parties courted him, but the Republican Party needed him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      ‘The Safekeep’ Is a Story in the Shadow of Anne Frank

      by

      In Yael van der Wouden’s debut novel, “The Safekeep,” the writer spins an erotic thriller out of the Netherlands’ failure to face up to the horrors of the Holocaust.The author Yael van der Wouden stood in her slippers at the front door of a canal house in the Dutch city of Utrecht. “Let me prepare you for the journey ahead,” she said, smiling. “There will be a lot of stairs.”She turned and led the way through a long darkened hallway, up a narrow staircase, to another winding hallway, and up more stairs to reach her attic-level apartment in the back of the building.“My landlady calls it ‘het achterhuis,’” said van der Wouden, once inside the cozy interior with slanting roof beams, decorated with books and bric-a-brac. “She’s about 90, and I don’t think she quite understands what that means to me.”“Het Achterhuis,” is the Dutch title of Anne Frank’s famous World War II diary. In English, it is often translated as “the secret annex,” referring to the storage space where the teen diarist and her family hid to escape the Nazis for more than two years. But “achterhuis” is also just a term for the back part of a house, and van der Wouden, who is Israeli and Dutch, does not fault her landlady for missing the reference.“It feels like just another part of existing invisibly, where no one quite thinks about the full effect of their words,” van der Wouden said.“The Safekeep,” van der Wouden’s debut novel and one of six books shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, is full of such clashing perspectives. Words that mean one thing to a character can hold explosive charge for another. Seemingly innocuous objects like silver spoons, or a single shard of broken china, become emotional land mines.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      John Kinsel Sr., Navajo Code Talker During World War II, Dies at 107

      by

      Mr. Kinsel, who served from October 1942 to January 1946, was part of the second group of Marines trained as code talkers at Camp Elliott, Calif., after the original 29 who developed the code for wartime use.John Kinsel Sr., a World War II veteran who was one of the last surviving Navajo Code Talkers, a group of Marines whose encrypted wartime messages based on the Navajo language helped secure an Allied victory in the Pacific, died on Saturday. He was 107.Buu Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation, announced Mr. Kinsel’s death in a post on social media. No cause was given.An estimated 400 Navajo Code Talkers served during World War II, transmitting a code crafted from the Navajo language that U.S. forces used to confuse the Japanese and communicate troop movements, enemy positions and other critical battlefield information. Mr. Kinsel, who served from October 1942 to January 1946, was part of the second group of Marines trained as code talkers at Camp Elliott in California, after the original 29 who developed the code for wartime use.The code was never broken. A fictionalized version of the codetalkers’ story was depicted in the film “Windtalkers,” directed by John Woo.In an interview in 2019 with The Arizona Republic, Mr. Kinsel remembered training alongside 25 other marines at Camp Elliott, and he recalled working with some of the original 29 to develop additional code, including by working on code words for military words like “tank” and “aircraft.”Mr. Kinsel was assigned to the Ninth Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, and took part in the battles of Bougainville (in Papau New Guinea), Guam and Iwo Jima. He was never deployed to the front lines, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, but he worked with his division headquarters while on Bougainville Island to develop code and transcribe messages.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Judge Awards Schiele Drawing to Heirs of Merchant Killed by the Nazis

      by

      The drawing of Schiele’s wife was the focus of a trial at which three parties, all with Jewish roots, argued whether it had been looted by the Nazis and from whom.For three weeks in May a judge in Rochester, N.Y., heard evidence meant to solve the mystery of who really owns a drawing of a smiling woman by the Austrian artist Egon Schiele.For years, the drawing has been in the possession of a foundation named after Robert Owen Lehman Jr., who said he had received the work, “Portrait of the Artist’s Wife,” in the 1960s from his father, a financier who steered the Lehman Brothers investment firm through the Great Depression.But the heirs of two men, Heinrich Rieger and Karl Mayländer, both art collectors who knew Schiele and were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, had pursued competing claims to the work as well.During a bench trial at State Supreme Court, the heirs of Rieger, who had been Schiele’s dentist, and the heirs of Mayländer, a textile merchant who is the subject of two Schiele portraits, presented evidence to suggest their relatives had owned the work before chaos and Nazi looting caused countless gaps in the ownership histories of important art.On Thursday, Justice Daniel J. Doyle ruled in favor of the organization founded by the Mayländer heirs, who are now represented by a foundation that pursues the family’s interests. “The evidence presented at trial establishes by a preponderance of the evidence that the Mayländer Heirs have superior title to the drawing,” Justice Doyle wrote in an 86-page decision.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Overlooked No More: Otto Lucas, ‘God in the Hat World’

      by

      His designs made it onto the covers of fashion magazines and onto the heads of celebrities like Greta Garbo. His business closed after he died in a plane crash.This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.To many fashionable women in the mid-20th century, no hat was worth wearing unless it was made by Otto Lucas.A London-based milliner, Lucas designed chic turbans, berets and cloches, often made from luxe velvets and silks and adorned with flowers or feathers.His designs made it onto the covers of magazines like British Vogue, and onto the heads of clients who reportedly included the actresses Greta Garbo and Gene Tierney, and the Duchesses of Windsor and Kent.The name Otto Lucas was ubiquitous in England, and at the height of his success, he sold thousands of hats each year around the world.The British actress Zena Marshall wearing a hat designed by Lucas.Colaimages/AlamyWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Biden Says He Would Not Pardon His Son in Felony Gun Trial

      by

      In a wide-ranging interview with ABC News, the president touched on Hunter Biden’s trial, Donald Trump’s felony conviction and the war in Gaza.President Biden said on Thursday that he would not grant Hunter Biden a pardon if he was convicted in his felony gun trial, a rare comment from Mr. Biden about the legal troubles facing his son.When asked during an interview with ABC News whether he would accept the outcome of the trial of his son, who faces charges including lying on an application to obtain a gun in October 2018, Mr. Biden said, “Yes.”In the wide-ranging interview, the president also defended his border policies and reiterated his support for a cease-fire proposal in the war in Gaza. When the topic turned to former President Donald J. Trump and his recent felony conviction, Mr. Biden said his opponent needed to “stop undermining the rule of law.”Last week, a New York jury found Mr. Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money paid to a porn actress, in an unlawful conspiracy to aid his 2016 presidential campaign. He has since repeated his criticism of the judge in the case and suggested he could seek to prosecute his political opponents if elected again. At a campaign rally in Arizona on Thursday, Mr. Trump called his trial “rigged” and said the charges had been “fabricated.”Mr. Biden took on a sharper edge when asked about his political opponent’s broadsides after a recent executive order allowing the suspension of asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. The former president called the move “weak and pathetic.”“Is he describing himself — weak and pathetic?” Mr. Biden said in the interview, which took place on the sidelines of his visit to the beaches of Normandy in France to observe the 80th anniversary of D-Day.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 175 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      World War II Veteran Dies at 102 While Traveling to D-Day Event in France

      by

      Robert Persichitti witnessed the raising of the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima. He died at a hospital in Germany.A World War II Navy veteran who witnessed the raising of the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima died while traveling to France to participate in an event commemorating D-Day, a veterans organization said.Robert Persichitti, 102, died Friday, said Richard Steward, president of the Honor Flight Rochester, a veteran’s organization that Mr. Persichitti belonged to. Mr. Persichitti, of Fairport, N.Y., was among the dwindling number of his generation still attending D-Day celebrations.According to WHEC News 10, an NBC affiliate in Rochester, N.Y., Mr. Persichitti flew overseas with a group connected to the National World War II Museum and a companion, whom the organization identified as Al DeCarlo. He was on his way to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, known as D-Day, which turned the tide of World War II in Europe.But Mr. Persichitti suffered a medical emergency while aboard a ship sailing toward Normandy, where the celebration was being held, and was airlifted to a hospital in Germany, WHEC 10 reported.Mr. Persichitti had a history of heart problems, but his death was not expected, Mr. Stewart said. “He died peacefully, and he did not die alone,” he said.According to Stars and Stripes, the U.S. military news organization, Mr. Persichitti served in Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Guam as a radioman second class on the command ship U.S.S. Eldorado. He was named to the New York State Senate’s Veterans Hall of Fame in 2020.Mr. Persichitti watched the raising of an American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.Joe Rosenthal/Associated Press“I served in the Pacific for 15 months aboard a ship,” Mr. Persichitti said in a 2022 interview with WDSU, an NBC affiliate in New Orleans. He said he helped handle “all the communications for the two operations: Iwo Jima and Okinawa.”Stars and Stripes reported that Mr. Persichitti was on the deck of the Eldorado when he witnessed the raising of an American flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima on Feb. 23, 1945, a moment depicted in one of the most famous photos in American history.Mr. Persichitti later returned to Mount Suribachi in 2019. “When I got to the island today, I just broke down,” he told Stars & Stripes in a 2019 interview.Mr. Stewart described Mr. Persichitti active and sharp, even at 102.“He was a fit and upright and got around, and had the complete faculties of someone who would be decades younger,” Mr. Stewart said. “He was really something.” More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      WWII Rosie the Riveters Are Honored in Washington

      by

      Rosie the Riveters, American women who filled a crucial labor shortage during World War II and reshaped the work force, were honored at the Capitol.Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Marian Sousa moved to California to care for the children of her sister Phyllis Gould, who had gone to work as a welder in a Bay Area shipyard.Just a year later, Ms. Sousa, at 17 years old, joined the wartime work force herself, drafting blueprints and revising outdated designs for troop transports. Wearing a hard hat and with a clipboard in hand, she would accompany maritime inspectors on board ships she’d helped design and examine the product of her labors.She and her sister were just two of the roughly 6 million women who went to work during World War II, memorialized by the now iconic recruitment poster depicting Rosie the Riveter, her hair tied back in a kerchief, rolling up the sleeve of her denim shirt and flexing a muscle beneath the slogan, “We can do it!”More than eight decades later, Ms. Sousa, now 98, gathered at the Capitol on Wednesday with around two dozen other so-called Rosies — many of them white-haired and most wearing the red with white polka dots made famous by the poster — to receive the Congressional Gold Medal in honor of their efforts.Marian Sousa, wearing a red shirt with white polka dots in a nod to the classic recruitment poster depicting Rosie, at the ceremony on Wednesday.Kenny Holston/The New York Times“We never thought we’d be recognized,” Ms. Sousa said in an interview. “Just never thought — we were just doing the job for the country and earning money on the side.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      New England Journal of Medicine Ignored Nazi Atrocities, Historians Find

      by

      The New England Journal of Medicine published an article condemning its own record during World War II.A new article in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the oldest and most esteemed publications for medical research, criticizes the journal for paying only “superficial and idiosyncratic attention” to the atrocities perpetrated in the name of medical science by the Nazis.The journal was “an outlier in its sporadic coverage of the rise of Nazi Germany,” wrote the article’s authors, Allan Brandt and Joelle Abi-Rached, both medical historians at Harvard. Often, the journal simply ignored the Nazis’ medical depredations, such as the horrific experiments conducted on twins at Auschwitz, which were based largely on Adolf Hitler’s spurious “racial science.”In contrast, two other leading science journals — Science and the Journal of the American Medical Association — covered the Nazis’ discriminatory policies throughout Hitler’s tenure, the historians noted. The New England journal did not publish an article “explicitly damning” the Nazis’ medical atrocities until 1949, four years after World War II ended.The new article, published in this week’s issue of the journal, is part of a series started last year to address racism and other forms of prejudice in the medical establishment. Another recent article described the journal’s enthusiastic coverage of eugenics throughout the 1930s and ’40s.“Learning from our past mistakes can help us going forward,” said the journal’s editor, Dr. Eric Rubin, an infectious disease expert at Harvard. “What can we do to ensure that we don’t fall into the same sorts of objectionable ideas in the future?”In the publication’s archives, Dr. Abi-Rached discovered a paper endorsing Nazi medical practices: “Recent changes in German health insurance under the Hitler government,” a 1935 treatise written by Michael Davis, an influential figure in health care, and Gertrud Kroeger, a nurse from Germany. The article praised the Nazis’ emphasis on public health, which was infused with dubious ideas about Germans’ innate superiority.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More