I still occasionally pinch myself, even after all these years, when visiting places behind the former Iron Curtain. For instance, this is a building in #Riga I never thought in my worst nightmare I would ever enter: the KGB building. And it's as bad as I feared. Thousands were held prisoner in the basement cells here over the years. So-called 'political' prisoners, all on trumped up charges. Packed into cells, barely room to stand let alone sleep. After first being interrogated, often with extreme violence here.

So, here goes. This is a very grim story indeed. In November 1944, ten girls and ten boys aged between 5 and 12 were brought to the Neuengamme concentration camp from Auschwitz as subjects for medical experiments with tuberculosis pathogens. In an attempt to erase the traces of their crimes, the SS took the children to the former school building on Bullenhuser Damm in the Hamburg borough of Rothenburgsort on 20 April 1945. Until a few days previously. the building had served as a satellite camp of KL- Neuengamme.

Behind the windows of this beautiful villa on the shore of the Wannsee in Berlin, fifteen men met on the morning of Tuesday, January 20, 1941. Ten of the fifteen were university graduates. Eight of them had doctorates. Eight of them had studied law. One of them died as recently as 1987, having - unbelievably - successfully practiced law in post-war West Germany.

So, busy old history day today, following in the last footsteps of one of the most repulsive specimens of humanity ever: Heinrich Himmler. To provide a little context I'm attaching a timeline of his movements in May 1945 together with a basic map (to make @guywalters happy). This is the timeline.