Johanna Langefeld — life, role in the camps, and the mystery of her disappearance

Guard Johanna Langefeld with her son and another guard's daughter Johanna Langefeld (née May, 5 March 1900 – 26 January 1974) remains one of the most intriguing and morally complex figures among the female staff of Nazi concentration camps. Rising from a modest background as a domestic-economy instructor to become an Oberaufseherin (senior female overseer), she served at Lichtenburg, Ravensbrück, and the women’s section of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

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A rumour was enough to be sentenced to death.

It is strange how you can come across some stories. I was actually doing some research on the fate of the pets of Jews during the Holocaust, when a picture came up of Leo Katzenberger. What drew my attention to the picture was the fact that Leo looked a lot like one of my Uncles who was also called Leo, now my uncle wasn't a particularly nice man, where Leo Katzenberger by all accounts was a good neighbor and a good man.

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Would you willingly hurt someone,if someone in authority told you to?

I have already done a piece on the Milgram experiments, and this will be more of a follow up. The Milgram experiment,was designed to observe the extent to which individuals would perform acts that violated their personal conscience when under orders from an authority figure. Basically they wanted to investigate whether Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures as this was a common explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II.

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ROCKTOBER- Manowar-Blow Your Speakers.

It's that time of year again. ROCKTOBER 2023 wrote a letter to the M.T.VWhat's going on?Don't you care about me?Sent the same letter to the radioBut my party went deadLike a shot in the head We all like it - Rock and RollWe all want it - On your showPlay it loud, don't play it low…

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The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Child

The Holocaust is often best described in the simplicity of the art and words of the child victims. Below are some poems and drawings from children of the Holocaust. The painting above was by a child interred in the Terezin Camp during the Holocaust. She dreamed of seeing butterflies again. At TerezínWhen a new child comesEverything seems strange to him.

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The Last Shadow on the Scaffold: The Execution of Rainey Bethea and the End of Public Hanging in America

By now, you have probably heard the claim that the US government is planning to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan. The last public execution in the United States took place in 1936, nearly a century ago. On the humid morning of August 14, 1936, in Owensboro, Kentucky, an estimated crowd of twenty thousand onlookers gathered in a grassy lot near the local county jail.

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The forgotten WWII massacre

Although this blog is about a massacre which killed 750,000 victims within a week, not everyone reading this will be shocked about it. At the beginning of World War II, a government pamphlet led to a massive cull of British pets. As many as 750,000 British pets were killed in just one week. In 1939 the British government formed the National Air Raid Precautions Animals Committee (NARPAC) to decide what to do with pets before war breaks out.

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Denazification-a small price to pay for a Genocide.

After the liberation of Germany in May 1945 the Allied Powers initiated a comprehensive denazification program. Its purpose was to eradicate National Socialist thought from political, economic as well as intellectual and cultural life. As a first step the NSDAP and its subdivisions were prohibited, Nazi laws were abolished and the external signs and symbols of National Socialism removed. The main focus of the program was the systematic screening of all former members of the NSDAP - party membership was defined as the criterion for their dismissal from executive positions in industry and from public office.

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Zhengding Missionary Massacre

The Zhengding Missionary Murder—also known as the Chengtingfu Massacre—refers to the violent abduction and killing of nine Catholic missionaries on October 9, 1937, in Zhengding (then often transliterated as Chengtingfu), Hebei Province. Occurring in the chaotic early months of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), this tragedy sits at a painful intersection of religious humanitarianism, imperial aggression, and the lawlessness that accompanies total war.

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Claire Monis: Singing, Resisting, Surviving.

Claire Monis (1922–1967) lived a life that wove together art, defiance, and endurance. A French singer and actress from a Jewish family, she was both a member of the French Resistance and a survivor of Auschwitz, where she was forced to perform in the Women’s Orchestra. Her story illustrates how music could serve as both a weapon of survival and a haunting echo of oppression — and how memory of that time has remained complex and contested.

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Teenagers murdered on October 8-1942

I often hear people say 'that teenagers never had it as hard as they do now'. In a time where my generation failed to equip these teenagers with the resilience to deal with adversity, it is the absolute wrong message to sent out. In this post there will be small bios of teenagers who were murdered this day 84 years ago.

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My Interview with Liz Elsby—Holocaust Educator at Yad Vashem: World Holocaust Center, Jerusalem

During my interview with Liz Elsby, Holocaust Educator at Yad Vashem: World Holocaust Center, Jerusalem, we discussed freelance illustration, design and art direction. We also talked a bit about her work with Yad Vashem, but mainly about the current situation in Israel and her experience.

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ROCKTOBER -We care a Lot-Faith No More

I watched "Guardians of the Galaxy-Volume 3" last night, and this song was featured prominently in one of the scenes in the movie. I had forgotten what great song it is. "We Care a Lot" is a song by American rock band Faith No More. There are three versions of the song, all of which have been officially released over three different albums.

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We all suffer things here that the human mind can not imagine.

The title is taken from a letter written by Marcel Nadjari ,a Jewish-Greek survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau. Marcel was a member of the Sonderkommando in Birkenau from May 1944 to November 1944. The letter is an eye witness account of his experiences as a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz Birkenau. He had the task of of removing dead bodies from the gas chambers.

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Earth-the final frontier.

Space-tourism is the buzzword nowadays. It seems like some of earth richest men are desperately trying to leave this planet. I have no issues with space travel, far from it, if I would be offered a place on one of those rockets. I would grab that chance with both hands and feet. But I do think that there is still so much to explore here, on the 3rd rock from the sun.

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Minutn Fun Bitokhn-Moments of certainty

Music is not just a few notes strung together to create a tune, often accompanied by lyrics. Music is much more then that. It is therapy. It gives hope where there is despair. It gives joy where there is grief. It can transport you back to the days of yore, when time was complicated. It gives you an outlet to voice an opinion in a creative way.

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ROCKTOBER-Paradise by the Dashboard light.

The career of Michael Lee Aday aka Meat Loaf, has been a turbulent one, to used an understatement. It went from filling huge stadiums with adore fans, to barely getting people to see him perform in small community halls in Ireland, and back to stadiums. His most iconic song though has to be "Paradise by the Dashboard light" written by Jim Steinman.

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1096 Days since Oct 7 2023

Hamas terrorist abducting a man during the Re'im music festival massacre that left at least 360 people dead and others taken hostage 1096 Days of Darkness It’s been 1096—two years of nights that never end.The sun still rises,but for too many, it doesn’t shine. October 7—a date carved into hearts,a wound that doesn’t close.The world moved on,

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Burnings of Kali Sykia

On the morning of October 6, 1943, the mountain village of Kali Sykia fell completely silent. The men had vanished into the ravines; only the women, children, and the elderly remained. By nightfall, thirteen people were dead—trapped inside their own homes as the wood was barricaded from the outside and set alight. Twelve were women, including one eight months pregnant; the thirteenth was a bedridden old man.

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ROCKTOBER: Van Halen—Best of Both Worlds

On the 6th anniversary of the death od Eddie van Halen "Best of Both Worlds" is a song by Van Halen, released in 1986 on their album 5150, the first album featuring Sammy Hagar as the band's lead vocalist after the departure of David Lee Roth. The song became a defining track of the "Van Hagar" era, characterized by a shift in the band’s musical direction that blended hard rock with more mainstream, pop-oriented sounds.

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Funhouse Mirrors

A blog by my good friend Grant Gochin. Lithuania’s Genocide Centre never examined the judgment it used to defend a Holocaust collaborator. Now it is a European partner teaching source criticism. Vladimir Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine by claiming to protect people from genocide. On 16 March 2022 the International Court of Justice ordered Russia to suspend its military operations.

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A moment of compassion in hell.

One of the most cruelest crimes committed by the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII, was the Bataan Death March. It was a march in the Philippines of some 66 miles (106 km) that 76,000 prisoners of war (66,000 Filipinos, 10,000 Americans) were forced to take, by the Japanese military to endure in April 1942, during the early stages of World War II.

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The Jarrow March

The Jarrow March of October 1936 remains one of the most poignant and defining symbols of Great Britain’s Interwar economic crisis. Undertaken during the height of the Great Depression, this 300-mile pilgrimage from the post-industrial town of Jarrow in North East England to the Houses of Parliament in London was not an ideological uprising, but a disciplined, dignified petition for the right to work.

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Karl Höcker’s Auschwitz Photographs: A Window into the Banality of Evil

The discovery of the Karl Höcker album—a collection of personal photographs documenting the social lives of Auschwitz SS officers—provides a chilling juxtaposition to the atrocities committed at the Nazi concentration and extermination camp. These images, often depicting lighthearted moments of camaraderie, leisure, and relaxation, offer a stark contrast to the brutality occurring just miles away. Höcker, an SS officer and adjutant to the commandant of Auschwitz compiled these images during the latter half of 1944, one of the most deadly periods at the camp.

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The Budy Massacre: A Forgotten Atrocity within Auschwitz

The Budy Massacre of October 5–6, 1942, remains one of the lesser-known atrocities of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. Within the women’s penal company (Frauenstrafkompanie) at the Budy subcamp, approximately ninety French-Jewish women were beaten to death by SS guards and prisoner functionaries. This blog reconstructs the event, examines its causes and aftermath, and situates it within the broader framework of Nazi camp violence and gendered terror.

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ROCKTOBER : Zombie-The Cranberries

Still so profoundly sad that Dolores died so young, This is one of their best songs, although there is no such thing as a bad Cranberries song. The song was written in response to the death of Johnathan Ball, 3, and Tim Parry, 12, who had been killed in the IRA bombing in Warrington, northwest England, when two devices hidden in litter bins were detonated.

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The Bombing of Geleen—5 October 1942

I have written about the bombing of Geleen before, but since today is the 84th anniversary, I thought it a good idea to revisit that awful day. Geleen is a town in the southeast part of the Netherlands. It used to be a mining town. Although the Bombing of Geleen was a devastating event, I only learned about it a few years ago.

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The Edelweiss Pirates—The Proverbial Pain in Himmler’s aSS

The Edelweiss Pirates, or Edelweißpiraten, were a group of loosely organized German youth who stood in open defiance of the Nazi regime during the Third Reich. They played a unique if often overlooked, role in resisting Nazi authority, fighting against conformity, and supporting anti-fascist efforts. Although they were not as coordinated or ideologically unified as other resistance groups, the Edelweiss Pirates demonstrated courage and nonconformity in one of the darkest periods of history.

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Irish Fascism: An Examination of a Political Fringe, and a Slow Return

Fascism, a political ideology that rose to prominence in Europe during the early 20th century, left deep imprints on the history of several countries, from Mussolini’s Italy to Hitler’s Germany and Franco’s Spain. In Ireland, however, fascism remained a relatively marginal movement, confined to small groups and figures that never gained mass political support. Yet, Irish fascism was a significant part of the political landscape during the interwar period, influenced by European trends and shaped by Ireland's own nationalist struggles and Catholic conservatism.

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ROCKTOBER: Anthrax-Indians

"Indians" is a song by Anthrax, one of the pioneering bands of the thrash metal genre. It was released in 1987 as part of their third album, Among the Living, which is considered one of their most influential and successful records. Here’s an overview of the song: 1. Song Theme and Lyrics "Indians" is a politically charged song that addresses the historical mistreatment of Native Americans.

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