National Australia Remembers Freedom Wall

13/06/2026

So how did we get Anzac Day?

The answer to the concrete starting date of the formational roots o...

13/06/2026

Very interesting https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Ebt1gSm9P/?mibextid=wwXIfr

11/06/2026

A new series in the making WWII Bomb Bunkers as Restaurants suggestions welcome

First of all series of Food bomb bunkers of Brisbane

09/06/2026

In this the 85th year Lest we Forget

Powerful speech celebrating the memory of the Rats of Tobruk. ...

08/06/2026

Worth a read https://www.facebook.com/share/1Evsv2cQPt/?mibextid=wwXIfr

On the night of October 1, 1943, the Gestapo knocked on doors across Copenhagen expecting to find Denmark's Jews waiting to be arrested.

The houses were empty.

Three days earlier, a German diplomat named Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz had done something that could have gotten him hanged. He leaked the date of the planned roundup to Danish politicians, who passed the warning to the Jewish community during Rosh Hashanah services. The rabbi told his congregation to go home, pack, and disappear.

What happened next had no real precedent in occupied Europe.

Ordinary Danes hid their Jewish neighbors in apartments, summer houses, churches, and farms. Doctors at Bispebjerg Hospital admitted hundreds under invented names, listing them as patients with illnesses they did not have. Ambulances carried families to the coast. Taxi drivers refused payment. Police looked the other way.

The coast was the bottleneck. Sweden was neutral and only a few miles across the Øresund strait, but getting there meant crossing open water patrolled by German boats.

Danish fishermen took the job.

They packed people into cargo holds, under fish, beneath tarps, in engine compartments. Some charged steep fares because the risk was real and the boats were their livelihoods. Others took nothing. Wealthy Danes set up funds to cover the cost for families who could not pay, so no one was turned away at the dock.

Over roughly three weeks in October 1943, about 7,220 Jews and close to 700 non-Jewish family members were ferried to Sweden. Around 99 percent of Denmark's Jewish population escaped.

The Gestapo caught 470. They were sent to Theresienstadt, not Auschwitz, partly because Danish officials would not stop asking about them. Red Cross inspectors were allowed in. Care packages were sent. Of those deported, more than 50 died in the camp, mostly elderly people who could not survive the conditions. The rest came home.

Duckwitz survived the war and later served as West Germany's ambassador to Denmark. Yad Vashem named him Righteous Among the Nations in 1971.

When the Danish Jews returned in 1945, many found their homes had been looked after by neighbors. Plants watered. Mail stacked on tables. Cats fed.

The country had decided, without ever holding a vote, that this was not going to happen here.

05/06/2026

Powerful overview of Allies in a Bind Dr Jack Fords ground breaking book

Key book being republished Dr Jack Gords “Allies in a Bind”P...

02/06/2026

The history of the Australian Coastwatchers includes one incredible Act

Caroline Kennedy remembers the Australian Coastwatchers ...

02/06/2026

A very moving story https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BhcjA8AMx/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Yolŋu artist Jennifer Dikarr Malarra Roy’s woven World War II plane is more than a striking artwork. It carries Dhäwu-mirr, story and memory, preserving community experiences of the 1943 bombing of Yurrwi/Milingimbi Island for future generations.

Through the Australian War Memorial’s Defending Country Indigenous Acquisitions Program, supported by Boeing Australia, First Nations artists are sharing powerful stories of service, survival and cultural strength through contemporary art.

Through works like Dikarr’s woven planes and the Yolŋu led Miringu larrakitj recognising the Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit (NTRSU), the Defending Country program is transforming how Australians understand the past.

These artworks demonstrate that defending Australia includes defending culture, honouring ancestral knowledge, and strengthening First Nations voices.

Photograph: Jennifer Dikarr Roy with World War II Plane (74 x 80 x 30 cm, pandanus, sedge grass & kurrajong fibre). AWM2025.379.1 courtesy of Milingimbi Art and Culture, 2025.

The Boeing Company

27/05/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/1EWzzxj1Ne/?mibextid=wwXIfr Bucket List!