Tag Archives: USSR

The Horror of the Ukraine—The Holodomor, a Forgotten Genocide

The Holodomor comes from the term moryty holodom which translates as “death inflicted by starvation.” A man-made famine that convulsed the Soviet Republic of Ukraine from 1932 to 1933, peaking in the late spring of 1933.

Millions of Ukrainians were killed in the Holodomor, engineered by the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin. The primary victims of the Holodomor were rural farmers and villagers, who made up roughly 80 per cent of Ukraine’s population in the 1930s.

The first journalist to write about it was Gareth Jones. He went to the USSR, to investigate and witnessed the horrors with his own eyes.

On 29 March, he issued his first press release, which was published by many newspapers, including The Manchester Guardian and the New York Evening Post:

“I walked along through villages and twelve collective farms. Everywhere was the cry, ‘There is no bread. We are dying.’ This cry came from every part of Russia, from the Volga, Siberia, White Russia, the North Caucasus, and Central Asia. I tramped through the black earth region because that was once the richest farmland in Russia and because the correspondents have been forbidden to go there to see for themselves what is happening.

On the train, a Communist denied there was a famine. I flung a crust of bread which I had been eating from my own supply into a spittoon. A fellow passenger, a peasant fished it out and ravenously ate it. I threw an orange peel into the spittoon and the peasant again grabbed it and devoured it. The Communist denier subsided. I stayed overnight in a village where there used to be two hundred oxen and where there now are six. The peasants were eating the cattle fodder and had only a month’s supply left. They told me that many had already died of hunger. Two soldiers came to arrest a thief. They warned me against travelling by night, as there were too many starving desperate men.

‘We are waiting for death’ was my welcome, but see, we still, have our cattle fodder. Go farther south. There they have nothing. Many houses are empty of people already dead,’ they cried.”

This report was denounced by several Moscow-resident American journalists such as Walter Duranty and Eugene Lyons, who had been obscuring the truth to please the dictatorial Soviet regime.[3] On 31 March, The New York Times published a denial of Jones’s statement by Duranty under the headline, Russians Hungry, But Not Starving. Duranty called Jones’ report “a big scare story.”

On 11 April 1933, Jones published a detailed analysis of the famine in the Financial News, pointing out its main causes: forced collectivisation of private farms, removal of 6–7 million of “best workers” (the Kulaks) from their land, forced requisitions of grain and farm animals and increased “export of foodstuffs” from USSR.

Below is the full of the April 11 and the follow-up report.

BALANCE SHEET OF THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN

1-INDUSTRIALISATION

By Gareth Jones

It is difficult to gauge the industrial achievements of the Five-Year Plan. It is true that on paper formidable results can be produced, such as the increase of coal production from 35 million tons in 1927-28 to 62 million tons in 1932, the increase of iron production from 3,283,000 tons to 6,206,000 tons, and the increase of oil from 11 million tons to 21 million tons in the same period. Official statistics also show great achievements in the building of tractors, the annual production of which rose from 1,27 five years ago to 50,000 last year, and in the building of motor lorries, the production of which increased from 677 in 1927-28 to 24,000 in 1932. In light industry, gigantic figures are also produced. On the other hand, in 1932 less rolled steel was made than two years previously, and the production of steel has remained almost stationary since 1929-30. One is justified, however, in having very little confidence in Soviet statistics.

White Elephants
The giants of Soviet industry, Dnieperstroy, Magritogorsk, the Nijni-Novgorod factory, and the Kharkoff Tractor Works, can also be regarded as great achievements, but achievements of the order of Wembley or the Crystal Palace rather than well-functioning organisations. Difficulties of production are so great that they will long continue to be white elephants.

Through the Five-Year Plan, the Soviet Government succeeded in creating many factories for the construction of machines, which were never been made before in Russia. This was part of the autarchic aim of the Five-Year Plan, namely, to make the Soviet Union independent of the rest of the world. This aim has not been reached. In spite of all the various objects, which can now be made in the Soviet Union, such as motorcars, aluminium, and hydraulic turbines, which were formerly imported, their quality is so bad, and the lack of specialists is so great, that the Soviet Union can never be regarded as independent of the capitalist countries. Autarchy has not been achieved in so brief a span as five years. The shortage of foreign currency will render the render import of machinery difficult, and the recent cutting down of orders from abroad points to a slowing down of Soviet industry. The number of foreign specialists in Russia grows less month by month and when most of them have gone, the plight of the machinery will be grave.

According to experts, the Five-Year Plan has succeeded in its munitions side, and, from the point of view of ammunition, large gun, rifle and tank factories, there is reason to believe that it was a great success, for it was first and foremost a military and not an economic plan. Its primary aim was to render the Soviet Union powerful in defence against capitalist aggressors.

Another achievement is the great increase in the production of cotton in Central Asia.

In spite of colossal achievements, however, on paper, the difficulties facing the Soviet industry are greater than ever and are likely to increase in the future. They are mainly hungry, lack skill and fear responsibility, transport and finance.

In some factories, especially in the big Moscow factories, the first difficulty, hunger, does not yet exist, for there solid meals with meat are still given each day. But in the majority of factories, especially in the provinces, there is undernourishment. In a Kharkoff factory, the male worker received the following rations: 600 grams (about 1.3/4 lb.) of black bread per day, a pound of sugar per month, a quarter-litre of sunflower oil per month, and 800 grams (about 1.3/4 pounds) per month of fish, which was usually bad. In Moscow, the worker receives 800 grams (about 1.3/4 lb.) of bread per day, together with a meal at the factory. If he is a skilled worker, he will have sufficient to eat. There is every prospect of food conditions worsening, which will lessen the productivity of the workers.

Disastrous Negligence

Lack of skill and fear of responsibility are other great enemies of industrialisation. The damage done to good machinery through clumsy handling and negligence is disastrous. Much of the skill and brains of Russia have disappeared through shooting or imprisonment, while the successive trials have led to a condition of fear among many engineers, which is not conducive to good work and responsibility.

Transport difficulties are still unconquered and are responsible for most of the bad distribution in Russia. Last summer, according to “Pravda,” perishable goods had from 30% to 95%, losses en route; potatoes sometimes took sixty days to come to Moscow from a village about forty miles away. The result of these difficulties has been rapidly growing unemployment, which is a striking contrast to the shortage of labour one year ago. There have already been many dismissals throughout the country. In Kharkoff, for example, 20,000 men have been recently dismissed. Unemployment is a problem, which will attack the Soviet Union more and more and led to increasing dissatisfaction, for there is no unemployment insurance, and the unemployed man is deprived of his bread card.

What are the causes of unemployment in the Soviet Union?

The first is technological. A director of the Kharkoff Tractor Factory explained why his factory had dismissed many workers: “We dismissed them because we had improved our technical knowledge, and thus do not need so many workers!” an admission that technological unemployment is not confined to capitalist countries.

Lack of Raw Material

The second cause of unemployment is the lack of raw materials. A factory has to lie idle because the supply of coal or of oil has failed. Such is the synchronisation in the Plan that when one supply fails there are delays in many branches of industry. “Pravda” of March 10 contained the following item, which throws a light upon this cause of delay: “In the storehouses of Almaznyanski Metal Factory 13,000 tons of metal are lying idle, intended mainly for the agricultural machine factories; 550 tons are waiting to be sent to the Rostoff Agricultural Machine Factory, 1,500 tons to the Kharkoff Factory, 2,000 tons to Stalingrad Tractor Factory. The Southern Railway is only sending 12-15 wagons of iron per day, instead of 35. On some days absolutely no wagons are despatched.”

The third cause of unemployment in the Soviet Union is the food shortage. The factory is now made responsible for the feeding of its workers, a given a certain agricultural district or certain State or collective farms from which to draw supplies. A director is made responsible for the supply department. When the food supply is not sufficient for the total number of workers, the surplus men are dismissed. Some experts consider this the chief cause of unemployment.

The final cause of unemployment is financial. This will be dealt with in my next article, which will appear in tomorrow’s issue of the Financial News.

The Financial News, Tuesday, April 11th, 1933.

BALANCE-SHEET OF THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN

—

II-FINANCIAL IMPRESSIONS

–

By GARETH JONES

A drastic economy drive is now in progress in the Soviet Union. The control over expenses in the factory is new exceedingly strict. The factories no longer have financial autonomy and a heavy responsibility is placed upon the administration of the factories to balance their budget. Last year the expenses of the factories exceeded the estimates. To counteract the deficits, which were caused by over spending the planned figures imposed from above on the factory administrations are now to be absolutely obligatory, and the financial work of each factory is to be controlled each month by the bank, which gives it credit.

When a factory or a trust has a deficit, sanctions are applied. In some cases, where the deficit is attributed to bad organisation a trial of the director is held and he is condemned and thrown out of the Communist. Part. Other sanctions in cases of deficit are: Non-payment of salaries and the obligation for the factory administration to dismiss a part of the staff. The rigid economy drive has thus been responsible for a part of the growing unemployment. In some offices and factories 20 per cent, 30 per cent., and even 40 per cent of the staff have been dismissed on financial grounds.

No Figures

The absence of statistics upon the most vital sections of financial life makes it difficult to form a judgment concerning the currency. Gold reserve figures are no longer published. Gold production figures are hard to obtain, but in one official organisation the figure given for 1932 was 84,000,100 roubles. No figures are published on the amount of gold obtained from the Torgsin Stores, where customers have been able to buy with gold, silver, or with foreign currency. Even on the issue of roubles there have been no statistics published since September 5th, 1932. Some reliable observers state that they have seen at least l00 one-rouble notes with the same number printed upon them. The impression one obtains, is that those in charge of Soviet finances are bewildered.

There is only one certainly about. Soviet finances, and that is that there is a large-scale inflation, however loudly it may be denied by the Soviet Government, and however much members of the Communist Party may boast that “the chervonetz is the only stable currency in the world.” Some data on prices form sufficient proof of this. The Government has opened the so-called commercial shops for those who earn good salaries, where the following prices are now normal:

Butter: From 62 roubles to 75 roubles a kilo. (rouble at par equals 3s.).

Meat: 15 roubles a kilo.

Sugar: 15 roubles a kilo., but difficult to obtain.

Bread (black): 3 roubles a kilo.

(white): 4 roubles 50 kopeks a kilo.

In the open market the prices are as follows:-

Meat: About 20 roubles a kilo.

Tea: 25 roubles a pound.

Butter (when obtainable): 65 roubles a kilo.

In the Ukraine, where the food shortage is greater, the prices are higher.

In the co-operatives bread may be obtained cheaply for breadcards at the price of 7 kopeks a pound for black bread and 12 kopeks a pound for so-called white bread.

The gold prices in the Soviet Union provide interesting data for the economist:-

Flour (25 per cent.): 47 kopeks a kilo.

Sugar (refined): 50 kopeks a kilo.

Potato flour: 40 kopeks a kilo.

Flour (85 per cent.): 24 kopeks a kilo.

Butter in Torgsin (gold or foreign currency) costs from 1 r. 40k. to 1 r. 90k.

Rising Prices

The rapid rise in prices has been a source of disorder for the Plan, for long-term planning ahead is disarranged when the currency loses its value, in the same way as in the capitalist world falling prices disorganise trade. The high prices in the Soviet Union must, however, be studied in connection with the wages which are paid. An unskilled labourer receives about 120 roubles a month; a skilled worker may receive anything from 200 to 600 roubles. Engineers are well paid, and usually receive monthly from about 500 to 1,500 roubles, and even 2,000 roubles. A young train conductor receives about 67 roubles a month.

A part of the wages goes, however, to the loans and lotteries, which play an important part in financing the Plan. In 1932 15.9 per cent. of the budgetary receipts came from loans. In 1933 it is planned to raise 2,800,000,000 roubles through internal loans. Lotteries, while providing a negligible part of the State funds compared with the loans, are used to finance such undertakings as the Soviet Mercantile Marine, the Society for Aviation and Chemical Defence, and the Motorisation of the Soviet Union. Prizes, such as motor-cars, which may be owned as private property by one man, and even money prizes, are offered as incentives to invest in these lotteries.

In internal finances one obtains impression of disorder. The rouble seems to have run away from the Plan. On the Black Market 50 to 70 roubles can be obtained for a dollar, instead of the legal 1 rouble 94 kopeks. Any suggestion of devaluation, however, is immediately refuted with indignation.

Obligations Abroad

The external financial situation also arouses no confidence. It is estimated that the Soviet Union’s obligations abroad total £120,000,000. Recently the adverse balance has mounted up with the declining prices of the goods exported by Russia. In 1929 the Soviet Union exported 923,700,000 gold roubles’ worth of goods, whereas in 1932 her exports amounted to 563,900,000 gold roubles. Her imports have not declined so rapidly, having fallen from 880,600,000 gold roubles in 1929 to 698,700,000 gold roubles in 1932.

World prices have declined so much and Russia’s agriculture has received such a blow from the Five-Year Plan, that it is doubtful whether the Soviet Union will long be able to maintain her payments abroad, however meticulous she may have been in meeting payments up to now. If an embargo is placed upon Soviet imports by the British Government, the difficulties of payment will become still greater, for normally nearly 30 per cent. of Soviet Russia’s exports are destined for Great Britain, and a blow will be dealt to the creditors of the Soviet Union in Britain, and especially in Germany, where the Government has guaranteed German ex-ports to Russia to a considerable degree.

The concluding article of this series, dealing with agriculture, will appear to-morrow. The first, on unemployment, appeared in our issue of yesterday.

The Financial News, Tuesday, April 13th, 1933

BALANCE-SHEET OF THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN

III-RUIN OF RUSSIAN AGRICULTURE

–

By GARETH JONES

THE main result of the Five-Year Plan has been the ruin of Russian agriculture, a fact which completely outbalances the achievements of Soviet industry and is already gravely affecting the industrialisation of the country. In the eyes of responsible foreign observers and of peasants, the famine

in Russia to-day is far worse than that of 1921. In 1921 the famine was spread over wide areas, it is true, but, in comparison with the general famine throughout the country which exists to-day, it might be considered localised. In 1921 the towns were short of food, but in most parts of the Ukraine and elsewhere there was enough bread, and the peasants were able to live. To-day there is food in the towns although in the provinces not enough whereas the countryside has been stripped of bread.

Symptomatic of the collapse of Russian agriculture is the shooting of thirty-five prominent workers in the Commissariat of Agriculture and in the Commissariat of State Farms, including the Vice-Commissar of Agriculture himself, and Mr. Wolff, whose name is well known to foreign agricultural experts. They were accused of smashing tractors, of burning tractor stations and flax factories, of stealing grain reserves, of disorganising the sowing campaign and of destroying cattle. “Pravda ” (March 5) stated that “the activities of the arrested men had as their aim the ruining of agriculture and the creation of famine in the country.” Surely a formidable task for thirty-five men in a country which stretches 6,000 miles!

Sign of Panic

The shooting of thirty-five is a sign of the panic which has come over the Soviet regime on account of the failure of collectivisation. The writer has visited villages in the Moscow district, in the Black Earth district, and in North Ukraine, parts, which are far from being the most badly hit in Russia. He has collected evidence from peasants and foreign observers and residents concerning the Ukraine, Crimea, North Caucasia, Nijni-Novgorod district, West Siberia, Kazakstan, Tashkent area, the German Volga and Ukrainian colonists, and all the evidence proves that there is a general famine threatening the lives of millions of people. The Soviet Government tries its best to conceal the situation, but the grim facts will out. Under the conditions of censorship existing in Moscow, foreign journalists have to tone down their messages and have become masters at the art of understatement. The existence of the general famine is none the less true, in spite of the fact that Moscow still has bread.

What are the causes of the famine? The main reason for the catastrophe in Russian agriculture is the Soviet policy of collectivisation. The prophecy of Paul Scheffer in 1920-30 that collectivisation of agriculture would be the nemesis of Communism has come absolutely true. Except for drought in certain areas, climatic conditions have blessed the Soviet Government in the last few years. Then why the catastrophe?

Passive Resistance

In the first place, the policy of creating large collective farms, where the land was to be owned and cultivated in common, led to the land being taken away from more than two-thirds of the peasantry, and incentive to work disappeared. Moreover, last year nearly all the crops were violently seized, and the peasant was left almost nothing for himself. The passive resistance of the peasant has been a far more important factor in Russian development than the ability to cook statistics.

In the second place, the massacre of cattle by peasants not wishing to sacrifice their property for nothing to the collective farm, the perishing of horses through lack of fodder, the death of innumerable livestock through exposure, epidemics and hunger on those mad ventures, the cattle factories, have so depleted the livestock of the Soviet Union that not until 1945 could that livestock reach the level of 1928. And that is, provided that all the plans for import of cattle succeed, provided there is no disease, and provided there is fodder. That date 1945 is given by one of the most reliable foreign agricultural experts in Moscow. In all villages visited by the writer most of the cattle and of the horses bad been slaughtered or died of lack of fodder, while the remaining horses were scraggy and diseased.

In the third place, six or seven millions of the best workers (the Kulaks) have been uprooted and deprived of their land. Apart from all consideration of human feelings, the existence of many millions of good producers is an immense capital value to any country, and to have destroyed such capital value means an inestimable loss to the national wealth of Russia. Although two years ago the Soviet authorities stated that they had liquidated the Kulak as a class, the drive against the better peasants was carried on with renewed violence last winter.

The final reason for the famine in the Soviet Union has been the export of foodstuffs. For this it is not so much the Soviet Government as the world crisis, which is to blame. The crash in world prices has been an important factor in creating the grave situation in Russia. Prices have dropped most in precisely those products, wheat, timber, oil, butter, &c., which the Soviet Union exports, and least in those products, such as machinery, which the Soviet Union imports. The result has been that Russia has had to export increased quantities at lower value.

What of the Future?

What of the future? In order to try and gauge the prospects for the next harvest, the writer asked in March the following questions in each village:-

(1) Have you seed?

(2) What will the spring sowing be like?

(3) What were the winter sowing and the winter ploughing like?

(4) What do you think of the new tax?

On the question of seed, several villages were provided with seed, but many lacked seed. Experts are confident that the Government has far greater reserves of grain than in 1921, but evidence points to a lack of seed in certain areas.

Peasants were emphatic in stating that the spring sowing would be bad. They stated that they were too weak and swollen to sow, that there would be little cattle fodder left for them to eat in a month’s time, that there were few horses left to plough, that the remaining horses were weak, that the tractors, when they had any, stopped all the time, and, finally, that weeds might destroy the crops.

Information received concerning the winter sowing and the winter ploughing was black. There had been little winter sowing, which accounts for about one-third of the total crops, and winter ploughing had been bad. The winter sowing had been very late.

On the question of the Soviet Government’s new agricultural policy, peasants were also doubtful. The new tax, by which the collective farms will pay so much grain (usually about 2 and half centners) per hectare and be free to sell, the rest on the open market, is not likely to make much difference to the situation, for the peasants have completely lost faith in the Government.

The outlook for the next harvest is, therefore, black. It is dangerous to make any prophecy, for the miracle of perfect climatic conditions can always make good a part of the ‘unfavourable factors.

The chief fact remains, however, that in building up industry the Soviet Government has destroyed its greatest source of wealth – its agriculture.

This is the concluding article of a series of three; the first appeared in our Issue of Tuesday and the second yesterday.”

On May 13th the New York Times published a stinging reply from Jones which reiterated that he stood by every word he had said:

…” I stand by my statement that Soviet Russia is suffering from a severe famine. It would be foolish to draw this conclusion from my tramp through a small part of vast Russia, although I must remind Mr. Duranty that it was my third visit to Russia, that I devoted four years of university life to the study of the Russian language and history and that on this occasion alone I visited in all twenty villages, not only in the Ukraine, but also in the black earth district, and in the Moscow region, and that I slept in peasants’ cottages, and did not immediately leave for the next village.

My first evidence was gathered from foreign observers. Since Mr. Duranty introduces consuls into the discussion, a thing I am loath to do, for they are official representatives of their countries and should not be quoted, may I say that I discussed the Russian situation with between twenty and thirty consuls and diplomatic representatives of various nations and that their evidence supported my point of view. But they are not allowed to express their views in the press, and therefore remain silent.

Journalists, on the other hand, are allowed to write, but the censorship has turned them into masters of euphemism and understatement. Hence they give “famine” the polite name of “food shortage” and “starving to death” is softened down to read as “widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.” Consuls are not so reticent in private conversation.

My second evidence was based on conversations with peasants who had migrated into the towns from various parts of Russia. Peasants from the richest parts of Russia coming into the towns for bread. Their story of the deaths in their villages from starvation and of the death of the greater part of their cattle and horses was tragic, and each conversation corroborated the previous one.

Third, my evidence was based upon letters written by German colonists in Russia, appealing for help to their compatriots in Germany. “My brother’s four children have died of hunger.” “We have had no bread for six months.” “If we do not get help from abroad, there is nothing left but to die of hunger.” Those are typical passages from these letters.

Fourth, I gathered evidence from journalists and technical experts who had been in the countryside. In The Manchester Guardian, which has been exceedingly sympathetic toward the Soviet régime, there appeared on March 25, 27 and 28 an excellent series of articles on “The Soviet and the Peasantry” (which had not been submitted to the censor). The correspondent, who had visited North Caucasus and the Ukraine, states: “To say that there is famine in some of the’ most fertile parts of Russia is to say much less than the truth: there is not only famine, but – in the case of the North Caucasus at least – a state of war, a military occupation.” Of the Ukraine, he writes: “The population is starving.”

My final evidence is based on my talks with hundreds of peasants. They were not the “kulaks”- those mythical scapegoats for the hunger in Russia-but ordinary peasants. I talked with them alone in Russian and jotted down their conversations, which are an unanswerable indictment of Soviet agricultural policy. ‘The peasants said emphatically that the famine was worse than in 1921 and that fellow-villagers had died or were dying.

Mr. Duranty says that I saw in the villages no dead human beings nor animals. That is true, but one does not need a particularly nimble brain to grasp that even in the Russian famine districts the dead are buried and that there the dead animals are devoured.

May I in conclusion congratulate the Soviet Foreign Office on its skill in concealing the true situation in the U.S.S.R.? Moscow is not Russia, and the sight of well fed people there tends to hide the real Russia.”

Banned from the Soviet Union, Jones turned his attention to the Far East and in late 1934 he left Britain on a “Round-the-World Fact-Finding Tour”. He spent about six weeks in Japan, interviewing important generals and politicians, and he eventually reached Beijing. From here he traveled to Inner Mongolia in newly Japanese-occupied Manchukuo in the company of a German journalist, Herbert Müller. Detained by Japanese forces, the pair were told that there were three routes back to the Chinese town of Kalgan, only one of which was safe.

Jones and Müller were subsequently captured by bandits who demanded a ransom of 200 Mauser firearms and 100,000 Chinese dollars (according to The Times, equivalent to about £8,000). Müller was released after two days to arrange for the ransom to be paid. On 1 August, Jones’s father received a telegram: “Well treated. Expect release soon.” On 5 August, The Times reported that the kidnappers had moved Jones to an area 10 miles (16 kilometres) southeast of Kuyuan and were now asking for 10,000 Chinese dollars (about £800), and two days later that he had again been moved, this time to Jehol. On 8 August the news came that the first group of kidnappers had handed him over to a second group, and the ransom had increased to 100,000 Chinese dollars again. The Chinese and Japanese governments both made an effort to contact the kidnappers.

On 17 August 1935, The Times reported that the Chinese authorities had found Jones’s body the previous day with three bullet wounds. The authorities believed that he had been killed on 12 August, the day before his 30th birthday. There was a suspicion that his murder had been engineered by the Soviet NKVD, as revenge for the embarrassment he had caused the Soviet regime. Former UK prime minister Lloyd George is reported to have said:

“That part of the world is a cauldron of conflicting intrigue and one or other interests concerned probably knew that Mr Gareth Jones knew too much of what was going on. He had a passion for finding out what was happening in foreign lands wherever there was trouble, and in pursuit of his investigations he shrank from no risk. I had always been afraid that he would take one risk too many. Nothing escaped his observation, and he allowed no obstacle to turn from his course when he thought that there was some fact, which he could obtain. He had the almost unfailing knack of getting at things that mattered”

Amazingly 90 years on Russia is still using the same tactics ‘allegedly’.

sources

https://www.garethjones.org/

https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor

https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/holodomor

https://www.garethjones.org/margaret_siriol_colley/financial_news.htm

Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact- No honor between dictators.

Many people give great credit to the USSR for their pivotal in the allies defeat of the Nazi regime. They say if it hadn’t been for the Soviets, the war could have lasted a lot longer and could have gone Germany’s way.

However, it can be argued that because of the USSR the war lasted longer. The did aligned themselves with the Nazis a few weeks before the start of WW2. For the first year and a half or so they fought along with the Nazis, in Poland.

On August 23, Germany and the USSR signed a non aggression pact.

The German-Soviet Pact was an agreement signed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It was negotiated by German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Commonly called the German-Soviet Pact or the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, it is also known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact or the Hitler-Stalin Pact.

On 23 August 1939, two Focke-Wulf Condors, containing German diplomats, officials, and photographers (about 20 in each plane), headed by Ribbentrop, descended into Moscow. As the Nazi emissaries stepped off the plane, a Soviet military band played “Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles”. The Nazi arrival was well planned, with all aesthetics in order. The classic hammer and sickle was propped up next to the swastika of the Nazi flag that had been used in a local film studio for Soviet propaganda films. After stepping off the plane and shaking hands, Ribbentrop and Gustav Hilger along with German ambassador Friedrich-Werner von der Schulenburg and Stalin’s chief bodyguard, Nikolai Vlasik, entered a limousine operated by the NKVD to travel to Red Square. The limousine arrived close to Stalin’s office and was greeted by Alexander Poskrebyshev, the chief of Stalin’s personal chancellery. The Germans were led up a flight of stairs to a room with lavish furnishings. Stalin and Molotov greeted the visitors, much to the Nazis’ surprise. It was well known that Stalin avoided meeting foreign visitors, and so his presence at the meeting showed how seriously that the Soviets were taking the negotiations.

In late July and early August 1939, Soviet and German officials agreed on most of the details of a planned economic agreement and specifically addressed a potential political agreement, which the Soviets stated could come only after an economic agreement.

Below are some impressions of the signing of the treaty.

The conclusion of the non-aggression pact between Germany and Soviet Russia gave a thorough rebuff to England’s encirclement methods. At the signing of the pact in the Kremlin. Mr. Stalin (right), Reich Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop (centre) and the lecturer Legation Councilor Hencke (left).

“The Prussian Tribute in Moscow” in the Polish satirical newspaper Mucha of 8 September 1939.

Signing of the Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). 23 August 1939,under the watchful eyes of Lenin.

The German-Soviet Pact consisted of two parts, one public and one secret. The public part was a non-aggression pact in which each signatory promised not to attack the other. They further promised that, should one of the two signatories be attacked by a third country, the other signatory would not provide assistance of any kind to the third country. In addition, they each agreed not to participate in any arrangement with other powers that was directly or indirectly aimed at the other. The non-aggression agreement was to last for ten years and be automatically renewed for an additional five years if neither signatory moved to end it.

The secret part of the pact was a protocol that established Soviet and German spheres of influence in eastern Europe. It recognized Estonia, Latvia, and Bessarabia as falling within the Soviet sphere. The signatories agreed to divide Poland along the line of the Narev, Vistula and San Rivers.

Two German sentries stand guard at Augustow on the demarcation line between Soviet- and German-occupied Poland. September 1939.

With the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in effect, Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, without fear of Soviet intervention. On September 3, 1939, Britain and France, having guaranteed to protect Poland’s borders five months earlier, declared war on Germany. Just over two weeks later, on September 17, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. These events mark the beginning of World War II.

Germany and the Soviet Union then moved to take control of the spheres of influence delineated in the secret protocol of the non-aggression pact. They amended the protocol to assign Lithuania and the city of Vilnius (then Wilno, Poland) to the Soviet sphere and adjusted the boundary they had set in Poland. On September 29, 1939, they partitioned Poland between them. Germany occupied western and most of central Poland and proceeded to annex the western provinces to the Reich. The Soviet Union occupied and annexed the rest of Poland.

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (German copy)

Who knows what would have happened of Stalin had not signed the treaty. Would Hitler still have invaded Poland. Basically it was a treaty designed and agreed by 2 men, who had no honor among them.

SOURCES

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=23%20augustus&rows=1&page=1

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/german-soviet-pact

The 2nd Battle of Kharkiv

I don’t think not too many people would have expected at the start of 2022, that Kharkiv would be dailyin the news in relation to battles happening in the area.

It is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine.Kharkiv was founded in 1654 as Kharkiv fortress, and after these humble beginnings, it grew to be a major centre of industry, trade and Ukrainian culture.

The 2n battle I am referring to is not in relation to the current war between Ukraine and Russia , but a battle which started on May 12,1942 during WW2.

The Second Battle of Kharkov, so named by Wilhelm Keitel, was an Axis counteroffensive against the Red Army Izium bridgehead offensive conducted from May 12 to May 28, 1942, on the Eastern Front during World War II. Its objective was to eliminate the Izium bridgehead.

On May 12, 1942, Soviet forces under the command of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko launched an offensive against the German 6th Army from a salient established during the winter counteroffensive. After initial promising signs, the offensive was stopped by German counterattacks. Critical errors by several staff officers and by Joseph Stalin himself, who failed to accurately estimate the 6th Army’s potential and overestimated their own newly-trained forces, led to a successful German pincer attack

The Soviets struck first. At 0630 hours, on May 12 an hour of artillery bombardment began, with the final 20 minutes joined by aircraft. At 0730 hours, the ground offensive began, meeting tough German defense from the start. By the end of the first day, the deepest penetration achieved by Soviet troops was merely 10 kilometers. Soviet generals realized that poor intelligence prior to operation led them to misjudge German strength in the region, which was twice as strong as they originally expected; part of that German advantage was possibly due to the Germans detected a possible Soviet attack, thus had bolstered strength at strategic locations. By the end of 14 May, both sides had suffered serious casualties. On the German side, the German 6th Army saw 16 of its battalions nearly wiped out.

By the end of May 24, Soviet forces opposite Kharkiv had been surrounded by German formations. Hemmed into a narrow area, the 250,000-strong Soviet force inside the pocket was exterminated from all sides by German armored, artillery and machine gun firepower as well as 7,700 tonnes of air-dropped bombs. After six days of encirclement, organized Soviet resistance came to an end as the Soviet formations were either killed or taken prisoner. The battle was an overwhelming German victory, with 280,000 Soviet casualties compared to just 20,000 for the Germans and their allies. The Second Battle of Kharkiv is know as a major Soviet setback that put an end to the successes of the Red Army during the winter counteroffensive.

The failure is often attributed to the Soviet inability to account for the military strength of the Wehrmacht as well as the reorganize their troops. The initial purpose of the attack on Kharkiv was for the Soviets to retake the previously captured strategic city of Kharkov assuming that they were now better prepared to deal with the German troops that had caught them off guard the previous year.

sources

https://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=50

https://worldhistoryproject.org/1942/5/12/the-second-battle-of-kharkov

https://ukrainetour.com/activity/kharkiv-battle-history-tour/

The USSczaR

Dear Comrade Putin,

You are telling the world that you have carried out this military mission in the Ukraine, to protect its citizens, to rid it of Nazis. However you have not fully explained to us what you consider to be Nazis.

I would love it of you could just clarify that matter to a simpleton like me. When you say Nazi, are you referring to the Ukraine’s Jewish president whose grandfather barely survived the Holocaust?

Or were you perhaps referring to the 10 year old school girl Polina, who was murdered on your orders?

Maybe it is the 2 year old Shpak who was murdered during a shelling ordered by you. Was he that Nazi you were referring to? Is that the type of funerals you want to see more in the Ukraine to achieve your goals?

Dear Comrade Putin, if you can’t explain it to me may you can explain it to Oleh,Shpak’s Father? Because he asked “I don’t know if there is a God. What is this all for? For what?”

Dear Comrade Putin, your actions look a lot like that of a nationalised German Austrian, he also said in the 1930’s that he wanted to liberated the people in the Sudeten land and Poland. But he was a Nazi, So are you perhaps a Nazi, Comrade Putin? If so, the only thing for you to do to rid the Ukraine from Nazis is by withdrawing your troops.

Perhaps that isn’t your goal. Perhaps you long to the Russia of the days of yore? Where it was still part of the USSR and maybe you want to rule like Czar Nicholas once did. Maybe you want to become the new USSczaR.

If you ask me that is what you want to be. But people will not remember you as a Czar. They will see you like cowards such as Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. That is what you real legacy will be.

Is that what you really want? It is not too late yet, you can still change that.

sources

https://www.news.com.au/national/what-is-this-all-for-father-mourns-2yearold-son-killed-in-russian-shelling/video/bae940c1ab46c5291ed2848ba1e2c53b

https://www.independent.ie/world-news/schoolgirl-polina-shot-dead-by-russian-troops-among-at-least-16-children-killed-in-ukraine-invasion-41395376.html

https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-insight/story/from-the-archives-vladimir-putin-the-new-czar-1917416-2022-02-24

Report on the Holocaust-December 1942.

Following is the transcript of the report from the World Jewish Congress on the annihilation of Jews in Europe which was issued on December 1,1942. I just want to make it clear that these are not my word. Bizarrely we live in a time where I feel compelled I have to mention this, because despite the fact they are the words of people who witnessed it and lived in that time, there are people now who will be offended by it because it is not political correct.

WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS December 1st, 1942.

(BRITISH SECTION).

————

ANNIHILATION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY.

HITLER’S POLICY OF TOTAL DESTRUCTION.

“The Jews of Europe are being exterminated by the Nazis. It is not merely that atrocities are being committed against the Jews. They are being quite literally slaughtered in masses, in pursuance of a systematic plan and in accordance with a deliberate policy.

This is Hitler’s ‘final solution of the Jewish problem of Europe’. He has openly proclaimed his design. He is now executing his policy with a diabolical fiendishness unknown in the whole history of human savagery.

2,000,000 is the barest minimum number of Jews murdered, tortured and deliberately starved to death in Eastern Europe. The number is probably much greater.

It is now clear that the mass deportation of Jews from France, Belgium, Holland and other Western European countries, has been for the purpose of concentrating all the Jews of Nazi occupied Europe chiefly in Poland for the purpose of facilitating their mass massacre.

On the 27th November 1942, it was stated at the Polish National Council in London that at the beginning of last September about 1 ½ million Jews have been murdered in an organised way. About half a million were deported to the U.S.S.R. in 1940, and of the rest of the peace-time Jewish population of Poland, several hundred thousand Jews have died of starvation, disease and frightful living conditions imposed by the Nazis.

Several hundred thousand Jews have been murdered in the Nazi occupied areas of the U.S.S.R. and in the Ukraine.

Almost the entire Jewish population of the Baltic States have been exterminated.

Hundreds of thousands of Jews of Roumania have been deported to Transdniestria and there massacred.

In addition, scores of thousands of German, French, Belgian, Dutch, Czechoslovak and Yugoslav Jews have been deported to Poland and the occupied areas of the U.S.S.R. for mass slaughter.

Many transports of Jewish deportees from Western Europe do not reach their destination. The victims, crammed into closed cattle-trucks, either die of suffocation or disease on the way or are done to death by their captors.

It is known that at the beginning of last August train-loads of Jewish deportees reached Germany from Belgium, Holland and France. The compartments were filled with dead and living Jews crowded together.

POLAND HAS BECOME THE NAZI SLAUGHTER-HOUSE FOR THE JEWS OF EUROPE:

Massacres of Jews have been going on from the first say of the German occupation. The holocaust took on a formal design, under an explicit policy, in March 1942. Himmler then gave orders for the extermination of 50% of the Jewish population of the so-called Government-General. The extermination was to be completed by the end of 1942.

Not satisfied with the speed and extent of the mass massacres, Himmler, in July last, decreed the total destruction of all the Jews concentrated in Poland.

It is from approximately this date that the large-scale deportations of Jews from Western Europe began. The massacres started on July 21st 1942, when German Police cars invaded the Ghettoes, shooting the inhabitants indiscriminately and at sight. On that date all the Jewish members of the Jewish Council of Warsaw were arrested on bloc as hostages.

On July 22nd 1942, the Nazis ordered the deportation to Eastern Poland and the Ukraine of all Jews irrespective of the age and sex. The daily quota of deportees was fixed at 6,000. Later this quota was increased to 10,000. Victims were dragged from their homes or seized in the streets in organised manhunts.

Jews were congregated in the squares. Old people and invalids were driven to cemeteries and shot in droves. Others were loaded into trucks, 150 persons being crowded into the space normally holding a maximum of 40. The trucks were then driven off. Hundreds died of suffocation.

This process is now going on continuously. The floors of the trucks are covered with a thick layer of lime and chlorine sprinkled with water. The doors are locked. Often the trains remain on a siding for a day or two or longer. The fumes of lime and chlorine, the lack of air, water and food, cause hundreds of deaths, with the result that dead and living remain packed side by side.

On arrival at their destination, 50% of the deportees were found dead. The remainder were taken to the special camps of Treblinka, Belzec and Selibor, where they were shot. Neither children nor babies were spared. By the end of September 1942, 250,000 Jews had been thus exterminated.

The deportations are described by the Nazis as “the re-settlement of the Jews”. The “re-settlement” is a final one in the sense that few, if any, of the “re-settled” Jews remain alive.

THE WARSAW GHETTO:

In March 1942, according to official German statistics, there were 433,000 Jews packed into the Ghetto – the area walled off by the Nazis which formerly contained about 200,000 Jews.

According to ‘Arbeitsamt’ – the official Nazi Labour journal – only 40,000 Jews are to be left in the Warsaw Ghetto. These are the highly-skilled workers who the Nazis require for their war industry.

For September 1942, the Nazis distributed 120,000 ration cards for the Warsaw Ghetto. In October, the number issued was only 40,000.

The same process of elimination and massacre is going on in all the other Ghettoes of Poland. The reports state that the Ghetto of Lodz which formerly contained about 250,000 Jews has been entirely cleared of Jews.

NAZI METHODS OF EXTERMINATION:

Besides the Firing Squads, the Nazis are now facilitating mass executions by the use of electrocution and lethal gas chambers in which Jews are crowded and ‘eliminated’.

An electrocution station has been installed at the Belzec Camp. Transports of deportees are de-trained near the execution place, sheds with a metal plated floor. The sheds are then locked and an electrical current passed through the metal plates. Death is almost instantaneous.

A large digging machine for mass graves has been recently installed at Treblinka.

In Chelm, 10,000 Jews have been gassed recently.

The Germans have organised special Extermination Squads – Vernichtungskolonne – whose task is to round up and kill Jews on sight. The Squads fire indiscriminately into windows of Jewish houses.

The above summary takes no account of suicides, the insanities of mothers whose children are seized or murdered, and the innumerable outrages and atrocities resulting in the deaths of many thousands of Jewish men and women.

source

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/holocaust/annihilation/

Arthur Nebe—Responsible For At Least 45,000 Deaths

There are some in Germany and in other countries who portray all of those involved in the 20 July plot as heroes. I believe this is a misinterpretation. Firstly they are not heroes because they did not succeed, and secondly, there were quite a few of them who had no issues with the Nazi policies but had more of an issue with Adolf Hitler.

Arthur Nebe was one of the plotters. He was to lead a team of 12 policemen to kill Himmler, but the signal to act never reached him. After the failed assassination attempt, Nebe fled and went into hiding.

Prior to this part in the plot, Nebe rose through the ranks of the Prussian police force to become head of Nazi Germany’s Criminal Police (Kriminalpolizei; Kripo) in 1936, which was amalgamated into the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in 1939.

In an August 1939 speech, he defined crime as “a recurring disease on the body of the people.” This disease was supposedly passed hereditarily from criminals and “asocial individuals” to their children. In the Nazi state, asocials were people who behaved in a way considered outside of social norms. The category included people identified as vagabonds, beggars, prostitutes, pimps, and alcoholics; the arbeitsscheu (work-shy); and the homeless. This category also included Roma. The Nazi regime viewed Roma as behaviorally abnormal and racially inferior. Defining crime as a disease connected to certain groups radicalized Kripo’s practice.

Kripo officials from the KTI developed early techniques to gas people en masse. In October 1939, Nebe instructed the KTI to experiment with methods of killing people with mental and physical disabilities. This effort was conducted in cooperation with the Euthanasia Program. A KTI chemical engineer and toxicology expert, Albert Widmann, tested possible killing methods. He ultimately suggested carbon monoxide gas. In the fall of 1941, Widmann helped create gas vans. The vans used carbon monoxide gas generated from exhaust fumes.

Planners of Operation Reinhard killing centers adopted this development. At Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, large motor engines were used to generate carbon monoxide gas for the gas chambers.

In 1941 during operation Barbarossa, Nebe volunteered to serve as the commanding officer of Einsatzgruppe B, one of the four mobile death squads of the SS. During Nebe’s tenure, this deadly unit was responsible for the mass murders of 45,000 people in the areas around Bialystok, Minsk, and Mogilev. Many of these victims were Jews. Nebe was not forced to take control of this Unit, he volunteered.

In July 1941, Arthur Nebe reported that a “solution to the Jewish problem” was “impractical” in his region of operation due to “the overwhelming number of the Jews”, as in there were too many Jews to be killed by too few men. By August 1941, Nebe came to realize that Einsatzgruppe’s resources were insufficient to meet the expanded mandate of the killing operations, due to the inclusion of Jewish women and children since that month. This mean, seem to some as a person with a conscience, but the only reason he said these things, is not because he didn’t want to kill more Jews, he said it because he did feel he didn’t have enough men to do the job. Just let that train of thought sink in for a minute.

In late 1941, Nebe was posted back to Berlin and resumed his career with the RSHA. Nebe commanded the Kripo until he was denounced and executed after the failed attempt to kill Adolf Hitler in July 1944.

Nebe was arrested in January 1945 after a former mistress betrayed him. He was sentenced to death by the People’s Court on 2 March and, according to official records, was executed in Berlin at Plötzensee Prison on 21 March 1945 by being hanged with piano wire from a meat hook, in accordance with Hitler’s order that the bomb plotters were to be “hanged like cattle.”

sources.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-july-20-1944-plot-to-assassinate-adolf-hitler

https://www.yadvashem.org/untoldstories/database/hyperlinks/arthur_nebe.html?width=600&height=450

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nazi-kripo-criminal-police-1

Helmut Machemer caught between love and hate.

This is a story which must have been repeated many times in Nazi Germany, German men married to Jewish women and the anxiety and fear they must have gone through, However there is also a uniqueness to the Machemer’s family situation. And in a bizarre way this is also directly connected to me.

Helmut Machemer was a German ophthalmologist who served as “Truppenarzt” with the rank of “Unterarzt”, corresponding to the rank of sergeant with the wehrmacht in the USSR.

He worked with Professor Aurel von Szily in Münster during the 1930s and, with him, pioneered an electrical treatment for retinal detachment, to form a chorioretinal scar , that’s where my connection comes in. The retina in both my eyes became detached several years ago., one eye could not be saved.

Machemer dated Erna Schwalbe, who studied medicine at the university of Kiel.

In 1932 Erna found out her mother was Jewish. The couple were aware that this could become an issue due to the rise of the Nazi Party. Erna’s father wrote her a letter which confirmed her mother’s ancestry, which he had tried to keep hidden. Erna immediately offered to separate from Machemer, but he refused to do so on the grounds that he loved her. They married in October 1932. Erna’s mother divorced her father and moved to the Netherlands the following year, after the Nazis came to power.

The couple had 3 children. When the war broke out in 1939,Machemer decided to volunteer. He knew that due to his age he would not be drafted. He was born on May 7,1903 so he was 36 at the start of the war. Now one might think it odd that he volunteered. He could have stayed at home with his wife and children, but because of the Nuremberg laws he knew that his half Jewish wife and quarter Jewish children would not be safe.

He therefore volunteered in an attempt to make use of a little-known exception in the Nazi racial laws: that the “non-Aryan” family of an Aryan could be classified as being of “German blood”, if the man made a significant contribution to the Nazi state. Machemer became convinced that if he was awarded the Iron Cross, first class for bravery on the battlefield then he could secure the reclassification of his family.

Machemer served during the 1940 invasion of France and the 1941 invasion of Russia, in which he served as an Unterarzt (medical officer aspirant) of the reconnaissance unit of the 16th Panzer Division.

For his part in the latter operation he was awarded the second class Iron Cross. At one point he worked in a captured Soviet hospital, operating on captured Russian soldiers.

Whilst in action Machemer was shot in the neck, but after checking it was not serious, returned to duty treating soldiers who had been shot through the lungs.

He noted this in a letter home to his wife and Erna’s reply was that he “shouldn’t consciously put yourself in danger again, it seems to me like a challenge to fate”. Helmut also wrote to Erna of his concern that he might be withdrawn from the front line and placed in a field hospital where he would be unlikely to be recommended for a bravery award.

In a letter dated December 12,1941 he wrote:

“My place is at the front here, and the front line, which suits me perfectly. Therefore do not think that I am reckless and put myself in unnecessary danger”

To his 3 sons he writes:

“Daddy is not yet allowed to leave here, because not all Russians have been shot dead or captured yet. But it won’t be long now.”

He was also a enthusiastic photographer and took many pictures on the battlefield and even filmed it. Some of his film footage can be see in the BBC documentary “Lost Home Movies of Nazi Germany” especially in the 2nd part.

He describes the horrors of the battlefield.

“An unforgettable picture presents itself here. The whole height is thickly covered with dead Russians. I count around 200 corpses, and there could be more than that. The Russian came here in numerous waves throughout the night, but each new wave was mowed down like the previous one. (…) Such a harvest of death, said an experienced tank commander, he had never seen in France or Russia during the entire war. This is the picture of the Russian war with its unheard of cruelty.”

On May 14,1942 he receives his coveted Iron Cross. He hopes that this will reclassify his wife and kids as of ‘German Blood’. He tells his wife:

“Since I also receive the wounded badge in addition to the EK II and I as well as the assault badge, I now have all the medals and badges that can be bestowed to me.” He also records that he celebrated this decision with sparkling wine and, the next day had a hangover.

Four days after receiving the Iron Cross ,Machener was killed at mid-day , while on a trip to screen the battlefield for wounded soldiers. He was hit in head by shrapnel from a grenade during the Second Battle of Kharkov. He was travelling in a car at the time, his companion was heavily wounded, but survived.

Machemer, who was 39 when he died, in his final diary entry of 18 May he says that he had slept well and was awaiting orders. In March 1943 Erna and her children were granted “German-blood” status, in what is believed to be the only known case of such an exemption.

As a scientist, he wished to document his and his company’s way through wartime. His partly critical writings would have been unacceptable for promotion by the Nazi party and may have placed him at risk of arrest and he would not have been able to accomplish his mission. His collection included more than 160 letters, 2,000 photographs and five hours of film footage.Some of the records included depictions of dead German soldiers, dead civilians, burnt houses and dead horses. The majority of Machemer’s reports and private letters were sent via “Feldpost” through the postal service.

Machener did not go to war for hate, but for love. Undoubtedly he will have killed too, but as the saying goes ‘All is fair in love and war’ He was a husband and a father whose only aim was to safe his family.

sources

https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/helmut-machemer-aus-liebe-freiwillig-an-die-weltkriegsfront-a-1195017.html

https://www.medizin.uni-muenster.de/fakultaet/news/das-eiserne-kreuz-als-letzter-ausweg-arte-doku-ueber-den-wwu-augenarzt-helmut-machemer.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000crdh

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Trying to Please the Monsters

I was watching a documentary last night called Lost Home Movies of Nazi Germany. The documentary contained footage taken by German civilians and soldiers. Some of the footage was truly horrendous but other parts of the footage appeared at first glance quite pleasing. For example, it showed a young attractive woman dancing topless for some German soldiers.

However, when I thought about it later and put it in context, those pleasing images suddenly became very disturbing. The film material was taken in the USSR during Operation Barbarossa, and the young woman dancing was a Roma. It occurred to me that she wasn’t dancing half-naked because she enjoyed it, she was dancing because she thought it would please the monsters that had invaded her village. In her culture as in many other cultures, women would not show themselves naked in front of men—unless it was their husband.

Initially, I didn’t want to post the pictures, but I thought it was important to show the forgotten side of the horrors of the Holocaust. Also to celebrate the beauty of this young woman, not only her external beauty but also her internal beauty and the courageous soul she was. She must have realized that this could also result in her being raped.

The footage also showed how hypocritical and condescending the Nazis were. One soldier got his hand palm read while sneering at the woman.

Other young women tried to look their best, again to find favour with their occupiers.

Roma were seen as subhumans by the Nazis, but when it suited them they were willing to temporarily ignore that. If it would suit the purpose to make them feel good about themselves or playing God over these women, they would even flirt with them. Knowing well that these women would possibly be murdered, even by themselves.

I don’t know what happened to these women, even if they survived the war, there was a chance they would have been punished after the war for “entertaining” the enemy.

That same enemy would stare from a distance at a beautiful woman dancing half-naked for her survival, risking being raped or worse. The gawking soldier looks more like a Peeping Tom.

source

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000crdh

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Symphony of destruction.

symphony

People who know me, know I am a big Heavy Metal fan ,and one of my favourite tracks is called Symphony of Destruction by Megadeth.But this blog is about a different Symphony, a Symphony which was composed and first performed amidst great destruction.

The piece of music is commonly known as the Leningrad Symphony, It was Dmitri  Shostakovich 7th Symphony.

The disturbing news of the German attack on the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, had reached Leningrad at midday June 22 as Molotov announced the attack via loudspeakers throughout the city.

barbarossa

The 35-year-old composer Shostakovich  was head of the Leningrad Conservatoire’s piano department. He began work on his Seventh Symphony in the first hot days of July.

He had volunteered for the army but was dismissed because of his poor eyesight.

Shostakovich

Instead he became a volunteer for the Leningrad Conservatory’s firefighter brigade. However as a musician he set his talents to work and help the war effort in a different way. I did not research this but as a musician myself I know how powerful music can be, it cam alter moods, lift spirits and boost morale.

When Shostakovich played the first two tacts of his Seventh Symphony to some of his friends, in the besieged city of Leningrad in the summer of 1941, the performance was brutally interrupted by a German bombardment.

Shostakovich endured and worked with an inhuman intensity to finish what would become his best known work. Not because he wanted to become rich from it but because he knew how important art was and especially music in the most dire circumstances.

The first full performance in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) was given in August 1942 by a half-starved orchestra, whose emaciated state is symbolised by the drummer Dzaudhat Aydarov, who had literally been rescued from the dead.

Karl Eliasberg, the conductor on that occasion, stated that Soviet artillery pounded known German battery positions  prior to the start of  concert in order to silence them.

It was the same Eliasberg who went to the morgue looking for the drummer Aydarov,He found his presumed cadaver  still moving and breathing.

Despite the destruction around them and being under siege by the German army, the people of Leningrad still found a bit of comfort by buying a ticket for the mammoth work which lasted for over 78 minutes. 78 minutes where they could forget the war, the hunger and the despair.

ticket

Below is the music  the symphony in its full length.

 

 

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Sources

Classic FM

The Guardian

BBC

YouTube

 

 

 

 

The Fighting Girlfriend

tank

Your husband goes off to war and gets killed in battle. What do you do?

Well like any other wife you would sell all your belongings and with the money earned from that sale, you go an acquire a tank, to take revenge.

It sounds like a great plot for a revenge movie directed by Quentin Tarantino perhaps, However this is exactly what Mariya Oktyabrskaya did.

Her husband was killed fighting the Germans in Kiev in 1941. Mariya only found out 2 years later.The news enraged her and she was determined to take revenge. In order to do this she sold everything she had, and then went straight to the chief himself, Stalin. She wrote him the following letter.

“My husband was killed in action defending the motherland. I want revenge on the fascist dogs for his death and for the death of Soviet people tortured by the fascist barbarians. For this purpose, I’ve deposited all my personal savings–50,000 rubles–to the National Bank in order to build a tank. I kindly ask to name the tank ‘Fighting Girlfriend’ and to send me to the front line as a driver of the said tank.”

Stalin had no choice but to agree. The propaganda value would be priceless and it would provide for a much needed boost to the morale. With Mariya’s money a T 34 tank was bought.

t 34

Mariya received 5 months of training, which was uncommon because usually tank crews were rushed straight to the front line with minimal training.

After the training she was assigned to the 26th Guards Tank Brigade in September 1943, where she soon took part in the Second Battle of Smolensk.

smolensk

Although other tank crews regarded her as some kind of publicity stunt, she got the chance to prove them wrong.

During her first battle, Oktobskaya showed some excellent tank handling skills and helped in destroying machine gun nests and artillery positions. Whilst under heavy fire, her tank, “The Fighting Girlfriend,” drove  through enemy lines, but was badly damaged in the process.

damaged t 34

Oktyabrskaya, disregarded orders, leaped out of her tank and fixed the tank, amidst heavy fire. Because of  this feat she was promoted to the rank of Sergeant.

Her last battle was on 17 January 1944, she fought in another night attack as part of the Leningrad–Novgorod Offensive. It would  be her last.

nov len

The attack took place at the village of Shvedy near Vitebsk. She neutralized resistance in trenches and machine-gun nests with her Fighting Girlfriend. and she and her crew  also destroyed a German self-propelled gun. Subsequently, the tank was hit by a German anti-tank shell,and  the tank once again suffered damage , Oktobrskaya tried to pull the trick once again. She managed to repair the damaged track but was hit in the head by shell fragments and lost consciousness.

She was transported to a Soviet military field hospital at Fastov, near Kiev, where she stayed  in a coma for two months, before finally succumbing to her injuries / She died on the 15th of  March 1944. In August that year, she  was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union.

Mariya

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Source

Vintage News