The company was founded by Clement Griscom, who led it from its founding until the International Mercantile Marine Co. took it over in 1902. Red Star Line survived IMM's financial crisis in 1915. In the 1930s Red Star Line was part of Arnold Bernstein Line.

The Hollandse Schouwburg (Dutch theater) was opened on the 5th of May 1892 in the Amsterdam Plantage District, it was designed by the Dutch architect Cornelis Antonius Bombach. Initially it was named the Artis Schouwburg, but two years later it was renamed the Hollandsche Schouwburg. In the beginning of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, little changed in the daily life of the theater, but in 1941 the Nazis changed the name of the theater to the Joodse Schouwburg (Jewish Theatre).

Westerbork itself was first and foremost a transit camp, from which deportations took place to Auschwitz, Sobibor, and in a select few cases to Theresienstadt or Bergen-Belsen. On the 15th of July 1942, the first deportation train left the station. From then until the last train on the 13th of September 1944, more than 100.000 people had been deported with 93 trains.

Kamp Amersfoort (Camp Amersfoort) started off as a Dutch military barrack camp named Barakkenkamp Appelweg (Barrack Camp Appel road) and initially consisted of six barracks in a square formation. In 1939, the camp started to house Dutch soldiers that were mobilized to protect the Grebbelinie (Grebbe Line), a forward defense line of the Hollandsche Waterlinie (Dutch Water Line). During this period it started to be known as de Boskamp (Forest Camp), due to the forest that surrounded it.

At the end of July 1940, the German police force, which was a part of the German SS, installed in Belgium. The following month the decision was made to install an Auffanglager in Breendonk to take in the prisoners of the police force. On September 20, 1940 the first prisoners were brought to the Fort. It wasn’t until after January 1941 that the number of prisoners would exceed 100.

Franco’s army supporting the coup d’état steadily advanced, causing a constant exile of Republicans running away both from the bombings and the violent repression carried out by the army in the areas they were gradually occupying.  The defeat of Barcelona, taking place on January 26th, 1939, was the main trigger to the massive exile towards the French border, known as la Retirada (the Retreat).

The history of Cerbère, a small town at the Côte Vermeille has been always subjected to their status as a border area. On 1864, France and Spain signed an agreement to connect their railway lines through the Belitres mountain pass, natural path of communication among Cerbère and the adjacent Spanish town Portbou. This decision entailed the building of a railway station in each town connected through an international tunnel opened in 1876.

At the last stage of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), General Franco’s coup army concluded the occupation of Catalonia on February 10th, 1939. Seeing the Francoist advance, over 450,000 Spanish republicans fled during the winter across the border into French territory. That massive exile was known as la Retirada (the Retreat). A few months before in France, precisely on November the 12th 1938, the government of Édouard Daladier approved a Decree-Law allowing the internment of “undesirable foreigners” under permanent surveillance.

The Gonars concentration camp was located in the town of Gonars, in the province of Udine in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, in the northeast of Italy, near the border with modern-day Slovenia. The region has been a hub for much interaction and exchange between the two cultures for centuries. Although technically on Italian soil, the area was and is a blend of both ethnic Italians and ethnic Slavs as a result of its vicinity to a historically contested border.

In order to crush partisan resistance in Ljubljana, Fascist Italy carried out raids beginning in February 1942 and the majority of arrested civilians were sent to Rab (or Arbe in Italian), the largest concentration camp in Italian-occupied territory. Established in July 1942, the camp held 10,000-15,000 people until it was disbanded in September 1943. Rab was notorious for having the worst sanitary and living conditions of all the Fascist camps. At its peak, Rab held as many as 15,000 internees. As early as 1953, a memorial was set up at the camp’s former site/cemetery.