Learn about WWII History

Explore the critical events related to the war and the personal stories of those who lived through that challenging time.

More history

Andrée Collin

Like the other children in La Roche, Andrée Collin was eagerly looking forward to Christmas of 1944. In September the Am...

#Biography

Arlette Varin-Baudin

During the Allied invasion of Normandy Arlette Varin, ten years old, lived in the city of Lisieux. On 6 June 1944 she lo...

#Biography

Augusta Chiwy

Augusta Chiwy was a Belgian nurse who risked her life treating badly wounded American soldiers in the Battle of the Bulg...

#Biography

Bernard Blin

In 1942 Bernard Blin joined the French armistice army. He joined an artillery unit in North-Africa which, after the Alli...

#Biography

Chantal Rivière-Nobécourt

As a young girl of 19 years old Chantal Nobécourt volunteered for the Red Cross in Caen in the summer of 1944. When the ...

#Biography

Christiaan Lindemans

Christiaan Lindemans was a Dutch resistance member and escape line organizer, who turned a double agent for the German i...

#Biography

Cornelius Ryan

Cornelius Ryan is the author of 'The Longest Day: 6 June 1944 - an account of the D-Day invasion'. He wrote his most fam...

#Biography

Czesława Sidor Daniłowicz

The 20-year-old Pole Czeslawa Sidor was one of the tens of thousands of women conscripted into forced labour in Berlin. ...

#Biography

Danuta Siedzikówna, alias ‘Inka’

The Polish freedom fighter Danuta Siedzikówna (born 1928) enlisted in the Home Army in 1943 in her strive to end the Ger...

#Biography

Edouard Gérard

Edouard Gérard managed to reach Britain after the German invasion of his home country of Belgium. He joined the Belgian ...

#Biography

Fred Glavan

Fred Glavan left high school in Minnesota to join the elite American airborne forces. It took a long year of rigorous tr...

#Biography

Frederick William [Fred] Perfect

During the D-Day invasion of 6 June 1944, journalist Fred Perfect sailed with the Allied troops on HMS Largs. As the Dai...

#Biography

Gisela Stange

Gisela Stange experienced the Battle of Berlin up close when she was 16 years old and assigned to the Volkssturm medical...

#Biography

Hans Kuik

Hans Kuik was born on 19 November 1926. Together with his older brother, Bert, he witnessed the attack on and occupation...

#Biography

Horst Helmus

In 1944 Horst Helmus turned eighteen. For several years, the German from Gummersbach, a town east of Cologne, had been s...

#Biography

Hubert Pierlot

Hubert Pierlot, born in Cugnon, Belgium, was Prime Minister of the Belgian government in exile in London from September ...

#Biography

Ilse Schier

The German Ilse Schier spent her childhood and youth in East Prussia, the easternmost part of the German Reich. Her rura...

#Biography

Jenny-Wanda Barkmann

In the last year of the Second World War, Jenny-Wanda Barkmann was a young SS-guard in the German concentration camp Stu...

#Biography

Juan Pujol Garcia - Agent Garbo

Juan Pujol Garcia, known by the British codename Garbo, was a double agent during the Second World War. Pujol played a k...

#Biography

Julius Erasmus

The war took his family and his home. In 1945 Julius Erasmus returned to the Hürtgen Forest. On his own initiative he st...

#Biography

Kapitan Franciszek Dąbrowski

Captain Franciszek Dąbrowski was major Sucharski right-hand man during the defence of the Military Depot at Westerplatte...

#Biography

Captain Mieczysław Słaby

During the German assault on the Westerplatte, Mieczysław Słaby was responsible for treating the wounded. In spite of th...

#Biography

Karl-Heinz Kracht

Karl-Heinz Kracht was a 19 year old German corporal, who first saw action during the Battle of Arnhem. He was the loader...

#Biography

Kees Pouwelse

During the battle for the Scheldt the island of Walcheren was bombed heavily by the Allied air force. The aim of these b...

#Biography