Anne Frank House in Amsterdam

27 January 2024 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  11 minutes

Anne Frank in May 1942, two months before she and her family went into hiding © Photo collection Anne Frank House, Amsterdam

Anne Frank in May 1942, two months before she and her family went into hiding
© Photo collection Anne Frank House, Amsterdam

The Anne Frank House (Dutch: Anne Frank Huis) is a writer’s house and biographical museum dedicated to Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank. The building is located on a canal called the Prinsengracht, close to the Westerkerk, in central Amsterdam in the Netherlands.   read more…

Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism

27 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  4 minutes

© flickr.com - Fred Romero/cc-by-2.0

© flickr.com – Fred Romero/cc-by-2.0

The NS-Dokumentationszentrum is a museum in the Maxvorstadt area of Munich, Germany, which focuses on the history and consequences of the Nazi regime and the role of Munich as Hauptstadt der Bewegung (′capital of the movement′).   read more…

Kazimierz in Krakow

27 January 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  19 minutes

Szeroka Street © flickr.com - Ana Paula Hirama/cc-by-sa-2.0

Szeroka Street © flickr.com – Ana Paula Hirama/cc-by-sa-2.0

Kazimierz is a historical district of Kraków and Kraków Old Town, Poland. From its inception in the 14th century to the early 19th century, Kazimierz was an independent city, a royal city of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom, located south of the Old Town of Kraków, separated from it by a branch of the Vistula river. For many centuries, Kazimierz was a place where ethnic Polish and Jewish cultures coexisted and intermingled. The northeastern part of the district was historically Jewish. In 1941, the Jews of Kraków were forcibly relocated by the German occupying forces into the Krakow Ghetto just across the river in Podgórze, and most did not survive the war. Today, Kazimierz is one of the major tourist attractions of Krakow and an important center of cultural life of the city. The boundaries of Kazimierz are defined by an old island in the Vistula river. The northern branch of the river (Stara Wisła – Old Vistula) was filled-in at the end of the 19th century during the partitions of Poland and made into an extension of Stradomska Street connecting Kazimierz district with Kraków Old Town.   read more…

Theme Week Belarus – Minsk

30 July 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  21 minutes

Babrujskaja street © Viktar Palstsiuk/cc-by-sa-4.0

Babrujskaja street © Viktar Palstsiuk/cc-by-sa-4.0

Minsk is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administrative centre of Minsk Region (voblasć) and Minsk District (rajon). As of January 2021, its population was 2 million, making Minsk the 11th most populous city in Europe. Minsk is one of the administrative capitals of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). First documented in 1067, Minsk became the capital of the Principality of Minsk before being annexed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1242. It received town privileges in 1499. From 1569, it was the capital of the Minsk Voivodeship, an administrative division of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was part of a region annexed by the Russian Empire in 1793, as a consequence of the Second Partition of Poland. From 1919 to 1991, after the Russian Revolution, Minsk was the capital of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, in the Soviet Union. In June 2019, Minsk hosted the 2019 European Games.   read more…

East Turkestan or Xinjiang and the Uyghurs in China

11 March 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  25 minutes

Xinjiang Internment Camps map © US  National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Xinjiang Internment Camps map © US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (East Turkestan) and formerly romanized as Sinkiang, is a landlocked autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest of the country close to Central Asia. Being the largest province-level division of China and the 8th-largest country subdivision in the world, Xinjiang spans over 1.6 million square kilometres (620,000 sq mi) and has about 25 million inhabitants. Xinjiang borders the countries of Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The rugged Karakoram, Kunlun and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiang’s borders, as well as its western and southern regions. The Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract regions, both administered by China, are claimed by India. Xinjiang also borders the Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai. The most well-known route of the historic Silk Road ran through the territory from the east to its northwestern border. It is home to a number of ethnic groups, including the Turkic Uyghur, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, the Han, Tibetans, Hui, Chinese Tajiks (Pamiris), Mongols, Russians and Sibe. There are more than a dozen autonomous prefectures and counties for minorities in Xinjiang. Older English-language reference works often refer to the area as Chinese Turkestan, East Turkestan and East Turkistan. Xinjiang is divided into the Dzungarian Basin in the north and the Tarim Basin in the south by a mountain range, and only about 9.7% of Xinjiang’s land area is fit for human habitation. Capital und largest city by far is Ürümqi.   read more…

Anne Frank Educational Centre in Frankfurt

27 January 2022 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions Reading Time:  8 minutes

Diary of Anne Frank © Diego Delso/cc-by-sa-4.0

Diary of Anne Frank © Diego Delso/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Anne Frank Educational Centre (German: Bildungsstätte Anne Frank) was founded in 1997 and is located in the neighbourhood of Dornbusch, Frankfurt am Main in Germany where Anne Frank was born. The Centre is supported by the Anne-Frank-Fonds in Basel. In their work, the Centre uses the biography and the diary of Anne Frank as a unique tool to promote tolerance and educate people about the consequences of Nazism, discrimination and racism.   read more…

Książ or Fürstenstein Castle

23 November 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Hotels, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  14 minutes

© Jar.ciurus/cc-by-sa-3.0-pl

© Jar.ciurus/cc-by-sa-3.0-pl

Książ (Polish: Zamek Książ, German: Fürstenstein) is the largest castle in the Silesia region, located in northern Wałbrzych in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. It lies within Książ Landscape Park, a protected area located in the Wałbrzyski Foothills. The castle overlooks the gorge of the Pełcznica river and is one of the Wałbrzych’s main tourist attractions.   read more…

Lodz in Poland

27 May 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Museum of Art © panoramio.com - Mietek Ł/cc-by-sa-3.0

Museum of Art © panoramio.com – Mietek Ł/cc-by-sa-3.0

Łódź, written in English as Lodz, is the third-largest city in Poland and a former industrial centre. Located in the central part of the country, it has a population of 679,941 (2019). It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately 120 kilometres (75 mi) south-west of Warsaw. The city’s coat of arms is an example of canting, as it depicts a boat (łódź in Polish), which alludes to the city’s name.   read more…

Synagogue of Halle (Saale)

27 January 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Halle Synagogue © Allexkoch/cc-by-sa-4.0

Halle Synagogue © Allexkoch/cc-by-sa-4.0

The synagogue of Halle (Saale) is the house of worship of the Jewish community in Halle (Saale), which had 555 members in 2018. The building was originally built in 1894 as the Tahara House of the Jewish cemetery, laid out in 1864 northeast of downtown Halle, from white and yellow bricks according to plans by the architects Gustav Wolff and Theodor Lehmann. The conversion to a synagogue took place from 1948 after some renovations (consecrated in 1953) as a replacement for the old synagogue in the city center, which was destroyed during the November pogroms in 1938.   read more…

Return to TopReturn to Top