224 articles
Oise-Aisne American Cemetery Plot E
Plot E at Oise-Aisne American Cemetery, Seringes-et-Nesles, France, is the hidden burial ground, established 1949, for 94-96 American servicemen executed for murder, rape, or desertion in WWII Europe.
Operation Hope Not
Operation Hope Not was the British government code name for the state funeral plan of Sir Winston Churchill, begun by Queen Elizabeth II's direction in 1953 after Churchill's stroke, chaired by the Duke of Norfolk, and executed at his 30 January 1965 funeral.
Oskar Gröning
Oskar Gröning, the Bookkeeper of Auschwitz (Buchhalter von Auschwitz), an SS-Unterscharführer at Auschwitz-Birkenau 1942–44, convicted in 2015 of accessory to murder in 300,000 cases and sentenced to four years, confirmed by the BGH in 2016; he died 9 March 2018 at 96 without serving the sentence.
Otto Ohlendorf
Otto Ohlendorf (1907-1951), German SS-Gruppenführer and lawyer-economist, headed RSHA Amt III (SD-Inland) and commanded Einsatzgruppe D, responsible for about 90,000 killings; chief defendant in the 1947-1948 Einsatzgruppen Trial, executed at Landsberg in 1951.
Pakistani Instrument of Surrender
The Pakistani Instrument of Surrender is the document signed by Lieutenant-General A.A.K. Niazi at Dhaka on 16 December 1971, ending the Bangladesh Liberation War and creating Bangladesh.
Paris Peace Accords
The Paris Peace Accords (Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring the Peace in Vietnam), initialed by Kissinger and Le Duc Tho January 23, 1973 and signed January 27 by four parties, ended direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, provided for POW release and a sixty-day U.S. withdrawal, and collapsed by 1975.
Paul Blobel
Paul Blobel (1894–1951), German SS-Standartenführer and SD officer, commanded Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C in Ukraine, took part in the Babi Yar massacre, directed Aktion 1005 grave erasure, and was hanged after the Einsatzgruppen Trial.
Plains of Abraham
Plains of Abraham (Plaines d'Abraham), a 98-hectare historic urban park in Quebec City named for settler Abraham Martin, site of the 1759 Wolfe-Montcalm battle and Canada's first national historic park, run since 1908 by the National Battlefields Commission.
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference (Potsdamer Konferenz) brought Truman, Stalin, and Churchill together at Cecilienhof palace from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to shape postwar Europe.
Potsdam Declaration
The Potsdam Declaration (ポツダム宣言), also the Potsdam Proclamation, was a 13-article ultimatum issued July 26, 1945 by Truman, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek demanding Japan's unconditional surrender of armed forces, limiting sovereignty to the home islands, and incorporating the Cairo Declaration.
Prince Yasuhiko Asaka (朝香宮鳩彦王)
Prince Yasuhiko Asaka (朝香宮鳩彦王, 1887–1981), son-in-law of Emperor Meiji and founder of the Asaka-no-miya house, was an Imperial Japanese Army general who commanded the Shanghai Expeditionary Army during the Nanjing Massacre of December 1937; he was interrogated but never prosecuted.
Prisoner-of-war camp
Prisoner-of-war camp: a facility for holding enemy armed forces members captured in international armed conflict, governed by the Third Geneva Convention (1949). About 8 million POWs in WWI and 35 million in WWII; ICRC-monitored, preventive detention ending in repatriation.
Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal
Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal: Canadian commemorative medal (2012) marking the 60th anniversary of Elizabeth II's accession as Queen of Canada; 60,000 awarded, 11,000 to Canadian Forces; administered by the Chancellery of Honours, Rideau Hall.
Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal
Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal: Canadian provincial commemorative medal (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, PEI, Saskatchewan, Alberta) marking the 70th anniversary of the 1952 accession; 32 mm silver design, authorized for wear by P.C. 2022-1192; distinct from the UK medal.
Rape during the Bosnian War
Rape during the Bosnian War (1992–1995): mass wartime sexual violence, chiefly against Bosniak women, in detention and rape camps; 14,000–50,000 estimated victims; landmark ICTY Foča convictions defined rape as torture and crime against humanity.
Ratlines (World War II)
The Ratlines, also called the Vatican Ratlines, were clandestine escape routes that helped Nazi war criminals flee Europe after World War II, chiefly through Spain and Italy to Argentina.
Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day, formerly Armistice Day, is observed on 11 November in Commonwealth countries such as Canada, Australia, and the UK to honor war dead, marking the 1918 armistice with silence and poppies.
Remembrance Sunday
Remembrance Sunday, also known as Armistice Sunday, is the United Kingdom's annual day of remembrance for the British and Commonwealth armed forces, held on the second Sunday of November.
Responsibility for the Holocaust
Responsibility for the Holocaust covers the Nazi leadership, SS under Himmler, Wehrmacht, German state and industry, and ordinary perpetrators like Police Battalion 101, plus postwar accountability from the Nuremberg IMT and Eichmann trial to German reparations.
Rudolf Höss
Rudolf Höss (Rudolf Höß), SS-Obersturmbannführer and first commandant of Auschwitz (May 1940–November 1943), organized the murder of over one million Jews; captured 1946, testified at Nuremberg, executed in Poland 1947.
Russia 200
Russia 200, or Cargo 200 (Груз 200), is the Soviet and Russian military codename for transporting dead soldiers' bodies home. Originating in the Afghan war's Black Tulip flights, it continued through Chechnya and the Ukraine war.
Rwandan genocide trials
The Rwandan genocide trials prosecuted the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi through three parallel systems: the ICTR in Tanzania, Rwanda's national courts, and community gacaca courts.
Sapun Gora Memorial Complex
Мемориальный комплекс Сапун Гора (Sapun Gora Memorial Complex) in Sevastopol commemorates the 7 May 1944 assault; includes the 1959 diorama by Maltsev, obelisk, Eternal Flame, and park.
Serbia in the Yugoslav Wars
Serbia in the Yugoslav Wars refers to Serbia's role, under Slobodan Milošević, in the four wars of Yugoslavia's breakup from 1991 to 1999, including the Kosovo war and NATO bombing.
Shirō Ishii (石井四郎)
Shirō Ishii (石井四郎), 1892–1959, Japanese army physician who commanded Unit 731's human-experimentation and biological-warfare program; granted US immunity in exchange for experiment data, never prosecuted.
Simon Wiesenthal
Simon Wiesenthal (1908–2005), Austrian Holocaust survivor and architectural engineer, founded documentation centers in Linz and Vienna and provided leads on Nazi criminals including Eichmann, Stangl, Silberbauer, and Braunsteiner Ryan.
Soap made from human corpses
Soap made from human corpses refers to the World War II claim that Nazi Germany made soap from murdered Jews, uncorroborated except for a small experimental operation at Danzig.
Somalia affair
The Somalia affair was a 1992-1993 Canadian military scandal in which Canadian Airborne Regiment soldiers tortured and killed Somali teenager Shidane Arone, triggering the Létourneau commission, the Dishonoured Legacy report, the regiment's disbandment, and military justice reform.
Soviet atrocities committed against prisoners of war during World War II
Soviet atrocities against POWs in World War II: the NKVD Katyn massacre of nearly 22,000 Poles (March 1940 Politburo decision), harsh captivity of German and other Axis prisoners, and Gulag-bound filtration of returning Soviet POWs.
Soviet war crimes
Soviet war crimes: violations of the laws of war by the USSR's Red Army and NKVD, 1939-1945, including the Katyn massacre of 21,857 Polish prisoners, violence against German civilians in 1944-1945, and NKVD mass operations.