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Showing posts from March, 2012

Auschwitz-Birkenau - Yizkor!

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יזכור This blog post has been on my desktop for eight months. The pictures are now several years old (2008). I need to share them. I've been at a bit of a loss as to how. Uncharacteristically (for those who know me), without words (apart from the occasional caption) is the only way I can think of. Because I have none other than those that these pictures scream. - AMB (Click on thumbnails to view full-size image) Main gate, Auschwitz I  Execution yard Crematorium Gallows built after the liberation to hang the camp commandant Entrance to Auschwitz II "Birkenau" One of the scenes of just some of the crimes Symbolic headstones

Where are the Prussians?

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Growing up in the latter half of the 20 th Century, depending on where you happened to be in the world, it was often neither popular nor PC if you were saddled with a niggling identity that included the historically taboo epithet “Prussian”. Recent online debates on the subject have added it to the agenda in the minds of many, across the full spectrum of the political landscape. Today, anyone prepared to offer a cut-and-dried answer to that question is either a fool or historically illiterate. From a purely de jure historical perspective, Prussia was effectively abolished in 1932 and ceased to exist in 1947. Therefore, while many born after the latter date may claim to be “Prussian” by clear ancestry, descending from the original Prussian tribes has long ceased to be a prerequisite. The first time I heard the term “Prussian” was from my father who, as a liberal (reform, if you prefer) Jew fled from his birthplace of Königsberg to the Netherlands in 1933 and thence t

The Unknown Soldier

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Cemetery of Honour to the Fallen of the Dutch Resistance 1940-45, Bloemendaal, the Netherlands The Unknown Soldier We had no cause to hate him; A chap like you and me, With a mother, or a sweetheart, Or a wife, or p’raps all three. He’d trained as hard as we had, His orders were the same: Rout and kill your “enemy”. Obliterate his name! Then Mars put us on different sides Of that field so far away, And Fortune sealed that I, not he, Would fight another day. It wasn’t like a rugby match Where the better team had won. There wasn’t any glory And it wasn’t any fun. Just an emptiness that settled In a corner of each soul As all men breathed, and tallied-up The losses on the roll. No ringing-out of trumpets, But laments of sweat and smoke; And I still wonder every day, 'Bout the name of that poor bloke. They litter fields around the world Under headstone, cross or tell; Names and bodies cast awry By the blast of every shell. So, as we remember t