An ancestor of mine came to England from Holland to England as a soldier in the Army of William of Orange (who became King of England at the end of the 17^th cent.)

Should any one in the group have knowledge have knowledge that could help me there, I’d be much obliged

Moshe Felber

Jerusalem

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(US) Public Domain Day is the start of the year when a year’s worth of creative work joins the public domain. On January 1 2021 copyrighted works from 1925 will enter the US Public domain where they will be free for all of us to use.

The Center for the Study of the Public Domain lists some of these works, such as:

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time, and Franz Kafka’s The Trial (in the original German), silent films featuring Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton, and music ranging from the jazz standard Sweet Georgia Brown to songs by Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, W.C. Handy, and Fats Waller.”

The Internet Archive will add books, movies, music and more to its online library. Other repositories will also add text books and more from that year. Local community theaters can screen films.

To read more see: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2021/

Thank you to Dick Eastman and the Eastman Online Genealogy Blog for informing us about Public Domain Day.

Jan Meisels Allen

Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee

Some of the thousands of wedding rings the Nazis removed from their victims to salvage the gold

CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

© US NATIONAL ARCHIVES An aerial image of Buchenwald concentration camp seen in 1945. US NATIONAL ARCHIVES

The Buchenwald Concentration Camp memorial director has told treasure hunters to stay away after a documentary claimed Nazi loot may be hidden at the site. The director said excavations last year disproved rumors that a limestone quarry next to the camp contained valuables taken from Jews murdered at concentration camps during World War ll.

The documentary claims that a handwritten map pinpointed unopened underground chambers in a quarry. Their entrances had been covered up and unless they were searched legends of Nazi gold may persist. The map with the alleged treasure details was located in the United States National Archives.

The 30-minute documentary in German, The Secret Depots of Buchenwald, may be viewed at:

https://www.mdr.de/video/mdr-videos/reportagen-dokus/video-die-geheimen-depots-von-buchenwald-100.html

In 1945, US soldiers liberated the camp found 21 tons of gold filings, wedding rings and more from those murdered in Nazi death camps. On September 23, 1940 Heinrich Himmler ordered the SS to recover gold teeth from dead inmates of concentration camps. He later extended the order to include 'the golden teeth that cannot be repaired' from those who are alive.   The area ultimately fell under Soviet control and formed part of the German Democratic Republic.

At the outbreak of the war, people from across Europe were sent to Buchenwald and its 139 sub camps - which were then pressed into service to support the Nazi arms industry.

In total, 280,000 people are sent to Buchenwald and its sub camps - of whom, some 56,000 perished - many from disease, starvation and medical experiments.

The Nazis also executed 8,000 Soviet prisoners of war at the camp.   

To read more see:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9070213/Treasure-hunters-warned-stay-away-Buchenwald-concentration-camp.html

and

https://www.insider.com/concentration-camp-tells-looters-ignore-documentary-hidden-nazi-gold-2020-12

Jan Meisels Allen

Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee