Jonathon Van Maren, at The Blogs

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Jun 20, 2020, 1:26 AM

An eyewitness to the birth of Israel and the Convoy of 35 speaks

I reached Dr. Sol Bloom by phone at his home in Omaha, Nebraska, late last fall. I was working on an oral history project, recording the experiences of men and women who witnessed the cataclysmic events of the 20th...

Apr 23, 2020, 1:38 AM

Surviving the Warsaw Ghetto

After surviving six Nazi concentration camps and the Warsaw Ghetto, it is a miracle that Pinchas Gutter has lived to become 86 years old. Born in 1932 in Lodz, Poland, just a few years before the Reich that would...

Apr 21, 2020, 6:28 PM

What Dr. Jordan Peterson taught us about the Holocaust

On March 27, 2018, CNN reported that an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor named Mireille Knoll was stabbed to death in her Paris apartment, which was then set on fire—officials believe the attack was motivated by anti-Semitism. As a ten-year-old girl,...

Apr 20, 2020, 7:04 PM

The murdered Jews of Austria

It was grey and chilly when I finally found the Judenplatz, a small cobblestoned square surrounded by cafes with the Jewish museum looming on one side. In the centre of the square, a memorial of steel and concrete rose...

Jun 25, 2014, 11:23 PM

Saving the Jews of Hungary

I first heard of Raoul Wallenberg when I was visiting Israel in the summer of 2008. I had just spent a gut-wrenching morning inside Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial. It was very dark inside the museum, since the halls...

Jun 23, 2014, 7:54 PM

The Nazi-Hunter

I think every young boy with awareness—however muted—of World War II, especially those of us who grew up hearing stories about it from our grandparents, have imagined what it would be like to hunt Nazis and bring them to...

May 6, 2014, 5:23 PM

Canadian anti-Semitism and the “Mother of Lost Causes”

“Without a belief in the dignity of man, without indignation against arbitrarily created human suffering, there can be no democratic principles.” This statement was written by a woman named Cairine Wilson, Canada’s first female senator. Appointed to the Senate in...

May 5, 2014, 6:52 PM

The Holocaust and the Vatican Pimpernel

There is perhaps no conflict with as many unsung heroes as the Second World War, where the sheer enormity of the evil being perpetrated across Europe brought much opportunity for righteous response. From well-known heroes such as Oskar Schindler...

May 3, 2014, 10:25 PM

The good Goering brother

The name “Goering” instantly brings to mind the evil and grotesquely overweight Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo, leader of the Luftwaffe, and arguably second in power in Nazi Germany only to Adolf Hitler himself. However, there is another...

Mar 21, 2014, 8:55 PM

On Schindler’s list

I noticed, just recently, that Leon Leyson died about a year ago at the age of 83. His name is not one that incurs automatic recognition, but his story certainly will: Leyson was the youngest survivor on Oskar Schindler's...

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About Me

Jonathon Van Maren is a writer from the Greater Toronto Area with an affinity for history and politics. His work has been featured in the National Post, the National Review, The Jewish Independent, and elsewhere.