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Posted on Dec 2, 2011 in History News

An anti-Semitic boardgame and an Unexploded WW2 Bomb

By Armchair General

Two stories related to World War II made news this week.

The Weiner Library in London, the world’s oldest Holocaust museum, has moved to a new location. In reporting the story, the BBC noted that the museum’s collection includes anti-Semitic children’s books and even boardgames like Juden Raus! (Out with the Jews!), in which the first player to remove six Jews from a village wins the game. Many of the items, including Juden Raus! were published by private companies, not the Nazi Party; they both exploited and reinforced the anti-Semitism of 1930s Germany. Today, they provide insight not only into how youth were indoctrinated into anti-Semitism but how German society at large was made comfortable with the idea of oppression, deportation and murder of Jews.

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Read the entire article by Mario Cacciottolo at BBC News.

The second story deals with one of the largest unexploded bombs ever found in Germany. Finding unexploded aerial bombs there is more common than finding arrowheads in America, but this 4,000-pounder, uncovered when dry conditions caused the Rhine’s water level to drop, poses a bigger problem than most. About 45,000 residents of Koblenz were evacuated, nearly half the city’s population.

The Royal Air Force bomb is capable of a destruction radius of over 70 yards. Additionally, a 275-pound American bomb was found nearby.

Read Mark Patton’s article in Stars and Stripes.