Holly Curry

06/26/2025

📖 Voices of Memory vol. 1 - The Evacuation, Liquidation, and Liberation of Auschwitz

It includes a historical outline, selected accounts, photographs, and documents as well as a timeline of important events.

06/25/2025

Inge Lehmann was a woman who quite literally reshaped our understanding of the world—from the inside out. Born in 1888 in Denmark, she grew up in a time when women were expected to live domestic lives.

She pursued and , fields dominated by men, and faced constant skepticism. Yet she persisted, driven by a sharp mind and an unshakable curiosity about the Earth’s deepest secrets.

At the time, scientists believed the Earth’s core was a single molten sphere. But Inge, working as a seismologist, noticed something strange in the data from earthquakes. The seismic waves didn’t behave the way they should if the core were entirely liquid—some waves reflected in unexpected ways, as if they had hit a solid boundary. While male colleagues dismissed the anomalies, Inge trusted her calculations. In 1936, she published a groundbreaking paper proving that the Earth’s core wasn’t just a molten blob—it had a solid inner core, a hidden heart within the fiery depths.

Her discovery revolutionized geology, but recognition came slowly. Male scientists often took credit for her ideas, and her work was overshadowed for years. Still, she continued, unbothered by the lack of applause, because the truth mattered more than fame. She worked well into her 70s, her brilliance undimmed by age or the dismissive attitudes around her.

06/25/2025

06/23/2025

21 October 1942 | “Behind the Wall” In the Warsaw Ghetto, a mother lifts her child over a cracked brick wall to a non-Jewish friend on the other side. She stays behind. The child’s hand stretches back one last time.

06/23/2025

Ludwik Puget was born on 21 June 1877 in Cracow.

A gifted Polish sculptor, painter, and art theoretician, he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow and played a leading role in Polish artistic life as the founder of the “Rzeźba” (Sculpture) Association.

His creativity and intellect were silenced by the N**i regime. On 20 April 1944, Ludwik was imprisoned in Auschwitz, registered as prisoner no. 33164. Barely a month later, on 20May 1944, he was shot.

A brilliant artist and thinker, murdered in his 65th year — his life and work remain a testament to the enduring power of art in the face of brutality.

🕯️ We remember Ludwik Puget. May his memory and legacy endure.

06/22/2025

Killed in Action 81 Years Ago Today;
PVT Verlaine Alton, KIA in Normandy on June 21, 1944, he was 23 years old…

Verlaine Buster Alton was born on January 17, 1921 in Divide County, North Dakota to Charles & Elsie Alton.

He enlisted in the Army in 1939 and served with Troop A of the Second Calvary at Fort Riley, Kansas.

In 1942 Alton transferred to the Paratroopers, he was serving with H Company, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division when he parachuted into Normandy on DDay, he was Killed in Action near Étienville on June 21, 1944.

PVT Verlaine Alton is buried at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France - Plot D Row 1 Grave 29

Brothers Verdun & Verne, and sister Verona all served in the military during WW2.

06/22/2025

Věra Picková was born on 21 June 1933 in Prague, the capital of what was then Czechoslovakia. She came into the world during a turbulent decade marked by growing antisemitism and political instability across Europe. Věra was born into a Jewish family and spent her early childhood in a culturally rich city known for its historic Jewish Quarter and vibrant intellectual life. Her childhood, like that of many Jewish children of the time, was soon overshadowed by the rise of N**i power and the subsequent occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.

As the N**i regime tightened its grip, the Jewish population of Prague faced increasing restrictions. Věra, just a young girl, would have been forced to give up her place in school, wear the yellow star, and live under constant fear. By the time she was ten years old, she and her family were deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto. This site, presented by the N**is as a “model ghetto,” was in reality a place of suffering, hunger, and overcrowding. Many children, including Věra, were torn from their homes and subjected to the harsh conditions of ghetto life, where disease and despair were commonplace.

On 15 May 1944, Věra was among the thousands deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland. This transport was one of many that took place that spring, as the N**is accelerated the mass extermination of Jews in the final phase of the Holocaust. At just ten years old, Věra was likely separated from her family upon arrival and sent directly to the gas chambers, as was the fate of most young children who arrived at Auschwitz. She never had the chance to grow up, to dream, or to live beyond the cruel confines of war and genocide.

Věra Picková’s story is one among millions, yet it remains deeply personal and profoundly tragic. She represents the countless children whose lives were stolen in the Holocaust—children with names, families, hopes, and futures that were extinguished far too soon. Remembering her is an act of resistance against forgetting and a call to protect the dignity and rights of every child, everywhere.

06/21/2025

1936, in the French city of Lyon, a little girl named Yvette Kahn came into the world. The summer rain tapped softly on the rooftop of the Kahn family's apartment, and the moment she heard it, Yvette smiled. Her mother would later say it was as if she arrived dancing—born to the rhythm of the rain.
Even as a baby, Yvette responded to sounds with delight. She would clap her hands, not randomly, but with a strange and wonderful sense of timing. Her father would chuckle, “A drummer, maybe? Or a dancer?” She wasn’t even walking yet, but already she moved to life’s invisible music.
2. Growing Up in Lyon
Yvette grew up in a modest Jewish household, nestled in the colorful and cobbled streets of Lyon’s old quarter. Her parents, Bernard and Esther Kahn, ran a small tailoring shop. They worked hard, and they adored their daughter with all the quiet joy of parents who had waited years for a child.
The Kahn family was known for warmth. On Shabbat evenings, their home glowed with candlelight and laughter. Neighbors would hear Esther singing Yiddish lullabies and little Yvette clapping along to the beat.
More than anything, she loved the rain. When it fell lightly on the windowsill, she would stand with arms raised, giggling, clapping to its tempo as if it were a secret concert just for her.
“Listen, Maman!” she would shout. “The clouds are singing!”
3. A World of Sound and Joy
Yvette had no toys that made noise. The family couldn’t afford such luxuries. But that didn’t matter. The world itself was her orchestra.
She drummed on pots and pans in the kitchen. She tapped spoons on tabletops. She clapped in the park, at synagogue, even in her sleep. She made rhythm from life’s quiet moments—the swing of a shutter, the chirp of a bird, the tap of her shoes on the pavement.
But she wasn’t wild or loud. Yvette had a gentleness to her. A softness in how she touched the world. She would reach for flowers carefully, like they might break under her fingers. She kissed her parents on the cheek every night before bed.
Her mother would whisper, “My little raindrop,” and Yvette would whisper back, “Goodnight, sky.”
4. Clouds Gather
As the 1930s drew to a close, the clouds over Europe darkened—not just literal clouds, but the gathering storm of war and hatred. In 1940, when Yvette was just four years old, Germany invaded France. Soon, Lyon, like much of the country, became a place of fear for Jews.
The family’s tailoring business suffered. Anti-Jewish laws forbade Bernard from working. Synagogues were vandalized. Friends disappeared. The walls of the city—once alive with color—were now covered in swastikas and silence.
But Yvette still found rhythm. She still clapped to the rain. She did not understand the full weight of what was happening—but she felt the change.
“Maman, why are people scared now?” she asked.
Esther only held her tighter.
5. Hiding in Shadows
By 1942, the Kahn family had gone into hiding. They left their home and took refuge in the countryside, with the help of a Christian family who risked everything to shelter them. Yvette was told not to sing. Not to dance. Not to clap.
But sometimes, when it rained, she forgot. She would raise her hands instinctively, tapping her fingers against her knees, smiling as the drops played on the roof.
Her father had to hush her. “We can’t make noise, my love. We must be silent like the rain when it stops.”
Yvette didn’t cry. She just nodded. She understood enough. But it hurt her—more than hunger, more than fear—to stop hearing the music in the world.
6. Betrayal and Arrest
The Kahn family was eventually betrayed—by a neighbor, or perhaps by an informant hoping to avoid their own punishment. One cold morning in early 1944, N**i soldiers arrived. There was no time to escape.
Yvette was eight years old.
She watched her mother being pulled from the arms of their protector. She saw her father’s hands tied. She clung to her little knapsack—one she had stitched herself. Inside was a scarf, a small crust of bread, and a drawing of clouds and musical notes.
They were transported to Drancy, the infamous transit camp near Paris. There, children and parents were separated. Yvette was confused. Her eyes searched for her mother across the sea of faces, but she never found her again.
A few days later, she was put on a train to Auschwitz.
7. Auschwitz
The train ride was long, cold, and suffocating. There was no music—only the sound of wheels grinding, people weeping, and the distant whistle of death.
Still, Yvette tapped her fingers against the wood. Very quietly. Perhaps imagining it was rain.
She arrived at Auschwitz, a place where children’s lives ended before they began. The N**is did not see her as a girl who danced, or who loved rain. They saw only a number.
Yvette Kahn—born 11 June 1936—was murdered in 1944. She was 8 years old.
8. A Life Too Brief, A Song Too Short
She never got to turn nine.
She never danced in the rain again.
She never returned to Lyon, never sat in her mother’s lap again, never wore her special Sabbath dress again.
She never saw the clouds drift by in peace.
She was not a soldier. She was not a rebel. She was not someone who could fight back.
But she lived. She clapped. She smiled. She listened. She found music when the world made none.
And that, too, was resistance.
9. Remembering Yvette
Today, we say her name. Not because she was famous. Not because she wrote books or changed the world in grand gestures. But because she was the world, in the eyes of those who loved her.
Say her name:
Yvette Kahn.
A girl who clapped to the rhythm of rain.
A girl who found beauty in a time of darkness.
We remember her not as a victim, but as a voice—small, steady, rhythmic—tapping on the heart of history.
10. A Song That Never Ends
There is a legend that the souls of children rise into the sky as music. That their laughter becomes the wind, their footsteps become the rhythm of rain. If that is true, then Yvette is with us still.
Every time it rains, perhaps she is there—clapping softly, not in fear, but in joy.
She lives in every child who hums without reason. In every puddle jumped. In every hand raised to the clouds.
She lives when we remember. When we refuse to forget.
She lives when we build a world where no child must hide their song.

06/21/2025

Nanette (Nanny) Blitz Konig, born in 1929, attended the Jewish Lyceum in Amsterdam, where she was a classmate of Anne Frank. Though they weren’t especially close, they shared the same school environment and knew of each other. Anne mentioned Nanny briefly in her diary, noting her talkative nature and suggesting that Nanny may not have liked her—a sign of a somewhat strained or indifferent relationship. Still, Anne included Nanny in her birthday celebrations in June 1942, a small gesture that showed a sense of familiarity and schoolyard connection.
Years later, their paths crossed again under unthinkable circumstances at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. In that bleak place, seeing a familiar face brought an unexpected moment of comfort. Nanny was stunned by Anne’s frail appearance and the toll that imprisonment had taken. During their reunion, Anne spoke about her diary and expressed hope that it would survive her, a poignant reminder of her dream to be a writer and to make her voice heard.
Their time together in the camp was brief. Both girls fell ill with typhus, and Nanny’s last memory of Anne was of a silent, shivering figure wrapped in a blanket. Despite their earlier distance, Nanny later reflected on Anne’s remarkable spirit and believed she would have become a gifted writer. Though Anne did not survive, her diary lived on, becoming a vital and lasting testament to the human cost of the Holocaust and the enduring power of a young girl's voice.

06/21/2025

Remembering Chawa Rosenfarb ✡️🕯️
📅 Born: 9 February 1923
📍 Łódź, Poland
🖋️ Writer • Survivor • Witness

Chawa Rosenfarb was a Polish Jewish author whose voice rose from the ashes of unimaginable loss. A survivor of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen, she began writing poetry amid the horrors of ghetto life. ✍️

The Holocaust took her family, her friends, and her early writings—but not her will to remember. She made a vow: to preserve the truth through words. And she did.

🕊️ Chawa became one of the most important Yiddish novelists, playwrights, and poets of the postwar era. Her work is a powerful act of resistance and remembrance—testimonies of survival, resilience, and humanity.

🕯️ She passed away in 2011, but her words live on—reminding the world that even in the face of darkness, the human spirit can speak, write, and endure.

06/18/2025

1896 German Jew Dr. Curt Albersheim was born in Emmerich. A lawyer.

During the war he lived in Amsterdam. He, his wife Martha and their daughter Ruth were murdered in Auschwitz.

06/17/2025

Behold the Haleakalā silversword—aptly nicknamed the “Flower of Patience.”

This otherworldly plant is found nowhere else on Earth but the high-altitude slopes of Maui’s Haleakalā volcano, thriving in one of the planet’s harshest environments: intense sun, freezing nights, and rocky, nutrient-poor soil.

With its rosette of silver, sword-like leaves coated in fine hairs that reflect UV rays and trap moisture, the silversword is a master of survival.

It spends decades growing slowly, often up to 50 years, before blooming once in a dramatic final act.

When it does, it sends up a towering stalk covered in hundreds of dazzling purple and maroon flowers, attracting rare Hawaiian pollinators like the native yellow-faced bee.

After this single bloom, the plant dies, completing its solitary life cycle.

This slow, spectacular journey is a symbol of patience, endurance, and the fragile beauty of isolated ecosystems.

Once endangered due to human interference and grazing animals, conservation efforts have helped the silversword make a comeback—reminding us that even the rarest wonders can be saved with care.

A living monument to resilience and time, the Haleakalā silversword is proof that nature’s most extraordinary stories unfold at their own pace.