I posted the same question, differently worded, in this sub earlier. I'm posting again because I'm very curious about this subject and can't find a good answer readily available online.

I am currently in the process of watching Shoah, and I've noticed a pattern: many people interviewed (nazis, civilians, and Jews alike) seem to remark quite a bit about Latvian police during the Holocaust being "the worst" or 'the most barbaric" however they didn't really go into detail on why they felt as such. I was wondering if this was mostly coincidence, mere propaganda, or if this was common opinion during the time period. If so, why?

Perhaps I should have said the Dutch in my title, but the question applies to the inhabitants of the region at any period.

My grandfather is 85 years old and is a descendent of Frederick Koolhoven, founder of N.V. Koolhoven which constructed military aircraft for the Dutch air force during the war up until the Blitzkrieg in 1940 which razed its facilities. He left to the United States around 10 years after the war in the 1950's so he was around up until (mostly) the end.

This is for a college history assignment. While I know I can do research on it, I want to try and get down to some things I wouldn't know I should have been researching.

I regretfully never really took the time to pay attention to some of the stories he has shared but ones I do recall says he was in the middle of it all. Such as having blonde hair and blue eyes allowed him to find German soldiers to escort him home after school to avoid being sent off or killed.

What are some topics I can focus on or specific questions I should ask to find out more about the life in Netherlands during WWII?

Can someone provide me with a rundown of some examples of strategies and tactics used in battles and wars during the middle ages? I'd find it really useful, and if anyone knows of some good books on the topic of medieval warfare please tell me, I'd love to check them out. Thanks in advance!

In modern times, the worst epithet you can throw at someone is to compare them to Hitler. Before Hitler came along, who was the worst bad guy in history, that everyone used as a point of extreme reference?

BONUS POINTS for actual cited references.

I know that corn mash whiskey was huge at the time--I guess rye and beer are assumptions, but safe ones, I'll venture. Wondering what, if anything, would have been brought in from the East, and whether imported liquor was a thing yet--either on the frontier or back east.

I've read that basically anybody not of Nordic or Germanic descent was not considered part of "die Herrenrasse", the master race of Nazi ideology. Yet in WWII, many people within the south slavic states opted to side with the occupying Germans. Was it widely known at the time outside of the Nazi administration that slavic peoples were considered a great and immediate threat to the "master race"? If so, why did many slavs still decide to side with the axis armies?

[deleted]

I'm going to make the assumption - which may be wrong - that wool and linen were the predominant fabric for clothing in Europe and the North American colonies prior to the rise of the South's cotton industry. At what point did cotton supplant those "older" fibers?

[deleted]

Reading over some of the Nuremberg laws, it would seem like a registry would make sense as a useful tool to enforce the new laws. But I haven't seen any explicit references to such records.

Did the Nazis monitor and track the Jews living Germany?

Also, was low quality plate armor a new invention then? What prevented blacksmiths from cranking out large numbers of "munition-quality" plate armor in 1350 AD or 1000 AD?

The narrative of history memorized in school is a list of laws, treaties, alliances, marriages--of things accepted. So here, tell me about the most and the least important rejections in history!

I want to emphasize, I'm not looking for a debate as much as I want to hear what either side of the debate would have to say. I have some guesses myself, on both sides, but I imagine people with knowledge of the mindset of both the Americans and the Japanese at the time could do better than my speculation.

More specifically:

1. Did he bare hatred for Elizabeth I and others who played a role in her execution?

2. Did she have any impact on him at all, both when she was alive and after her execution?

There is a growing number of news articles related to the rise of the "alt-right", is there historical precedence for extreme political groups, left wing or right wing, to grow in popularity after a presidential election?

When the Coalition armies began to push the French back to their homeland, was there any feeling of contempt among Coalition troops for the Polish people who generally hailed Napoleon as a liberator? With the Duchy of Warsaw being right in the path of the Russian armies, it seems possible that they wouldn't have taken very well to how much support the Poles gave the French during the invasion of Russia.

I recently stumbled upon the term "Finlandisation" and wish to know more about the path it took to survive.

The term is heavily political but the writing does not have to be regarding the politics. Anything regarding Finland during that era is welcome.