Dirk Verhofstadt's Books

A Tailor in Auschwitz

By: David van Turnhout,Dirk Verhofstadt

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David Van Turnhout and Dirk Verhofstadt traced the story of David's Jewish grandfather, Ide Leib Kartuz. Fleeing from antisemitism and violence, he came to Antwerp in 1929 and set up business as a tailor. The family he left behind ended up in the ghetto of Radomsko. Each and every member of the family was gassed at Treblinka. In Belgium, Kartuz joined the resistance movement, but was arrested by the Nazis in 1942 and deported to Auschwitz. On arrival there, his wife and two children immediately died a horrible death. He survived in a unit of tailors where he repaired camp clothing and SS guards' uniforms, sometimes receiving special orders from SS officers. Kartuz endured an inhuman death march to Mauthausen. After the war, back in Antwerp, he made tailored suits for bankers and other business people. His final battle was against the Belgian state, for recognition as a Belgian citizen, member of the resistance and war victim. Very few people realise how difficult it was for Jewish people to survive after liberation. The authors dig deep into the core of the Holocaust and investigate every trail from Radomsko to Miami. In the Auschwitz archives, they discover unpublished witness statements by tailors in Block 1. And completely unexpectedly, they also discover a cousin of Ide's, living in Florida. She had survived as a child by hiding in an attic in Brussels and speaks for the first time about those dark days. It took the authors a year to wind their questing way through important discoveries and setbacks but in this tribute, an unknown piece of history has finally been given a face.

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Page Count

312

Publisher

Pen and Sword History

Published Date

ISBN 10

1399004379

ISBN 13

9781399004374

A Tailor in Auschwitz

By: David van Turnhout,Dirk Verhofstadt

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A Tailor in Auschwitz

By: David van Turnhout,Dirk Verhofstadt

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Page Count

250

Publisher

Pen and Sword History

Published Date

ISBN 10

1399004395

ISBN 13

9781399004398

Dark and Bright Mathematics

Hidden Harmony in Art, History and Culture

By: Dirk Huylebrouck

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Dark and Bright Mathematics

Hidden Harmony in Art, History and Culture

By: Dirk Huylebrouck

Was it necessary for a 17th century painter to know principles of optics to hide a skull in one of his masterpieces? Is it possible the violent deaths of Roman emperors obey a statistical law? Are there connections between market trends and geometry? How did Islamic artists draw almost perfectly regular nine-sided polygons, when these cannot be traced with the use of compasses? Dirk Huylebrouk asks these and other exciting questions in this collection of essays, originally written for the science magazine EOS, a Dutch equivalent of Scientific American, distributed in Belgium and in The Netherlands. Every chapter can be read independently, as some subjects are repeated, and not strictly interconnected. Such is the case for instance of the golden section, an often-recurring topic in general mathematics. The reader will appreciate the original point of view expressed through each chapter, which makes this book stand out against the general information one can find by browsing the general media. The subtly provocative character of some parts is meant to stimulate the reader for further exploration. The book's title itself may already generate surprise. Sure, to many, mathematics seems to come from hell, but the darkness in the title in fact refers to the lugubrious stories about math and skulls, murders or World War II. There is also a more down-to-earth part is about math and maps, money, Facebook, folding paper, shapes in ice and the most earthly yet unsolved math problems. ‘Bright mathematics’ alludes to Vedic, Islam, New Age, a meta-divine section, and is concluded by an interview with a top mathematician who also wrote about the existence of God.

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Page Count

244

Publisher

Springer Nature

Published Date

ISBN 10

3031362551

ISBN 13

9783031362552

A Plea for Individualism

By: Dirk Verhofstadt

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A Plea for Individualism

By: Dirk Verhofstadt

The individual rights and freedoms of man must not be consigned to possibilities of the human mind to experience ideas, thoughts and convictions only within oneself. Humanising modernity precisely has the task to broaden the frontiers of the mind and spread them into the domain of freedom of opinion on a political, social level. Each person has to feel safe and has to be able to speak freely about any subject under the sun all over the world. At the same time, a person has to be able to resist any behaviour or action imposed by 'authority' that goes against a universal secular morality. Following this definition universality and individualism are a logical combination, and are therefore diametrically opposed to fundamentalism and extremism, and also to those trends within conservatism, communitarism and nationalism that wish to subjugate human freedom to tradition, the community or the people.

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Publisher

Createspace Independent Pub

Published Date

ISBN 10

1481967622

ISBN 13

9781481967624

Book's by Dirk Verhofstadt

A Tailor in Auschwitz

A Tailor in Auschwitz

A Tailor in Auschwitz

A Tailor in Auschwitz

Dark and Bright Mathematics

Dark and Bright Mathematics

A Plea for Individualism

A Plea for Individualism

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