It’s Friday, May 20, and seems like just yesterday I was bemoaning the advent of Monday. The good news is that the weekend is nigh; the bad news is that we’re all a week closer to death.
On this day in history, Shakespeare’s sonnets were published by Thomas Thorpe in London (1609), the first traffic ticket in the US was issued in 1899 (a taxi driver, Jacob German, was ticketed for driving 12 miles per hour in New York City). And, in 1940, the first prisoners arrived at Auschwitz. I’m taking the liberty of showing four photos I took when visiting Auschwitz in 2013:
Early in the camp’s operations, every prisoner was photographed; later, they were recorded with numbers tattooed on the forearm. Many of these photos show people in a state of shock, for of course they were taken right after the prisoners had arrived, had their heads shaved, and had begun being brutalized:
Some of the suitcases left by prisoners who were gassed. They were told to put these aside and they’d be returned after they had their “showers”:
One prisoner’s tunic. The orange triangle in the Star of David denotes a Jewish political prisoner:
A mockup of an entire day’s rations: two bowls of thin soup, a hunk of “bread” (often made with sawdust) and a pat of margarine. (Photo taken through a glass case.) No wonder so many prisoners died of starvation, or of dysentery from the food. On this amount of food you were expected to work the whole day:
The toilets in Birkenau, the women’s camp a few km away:
And the women’s sleeping “facilities” (these are original). Six people fit onto each level between the posts, and the cement floor underneath was also occupied:
Those born on this day included John Stuart Mill (1806), Cher (1946; she turns 70 today), and reader/biologist Marlene Zuk (happy birthday!). Those who died on this day included Gilda Radner in 1989 (she was but 43) and Stephen Jay Gould in 2002 (he was 60). Both died of cancer. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili makes a threat:
Hili: How the time flies.A: That’s true.Hili: I would stop it if the clock were hanging a bit closer.
Hili: Jak ten czas leci.
Ja: To prawda.
Hili: Gdyby ten zegar wisiał trochę bliżej, to bym go zatrzymała.
And Gus’s staff made him a “nomming box” similar to that described in yesterday’s Simon’s Cat episode, but they used toys instead of dead leaves, so the food wasn’t concealed among leaves. They made it too easy for him! And he still needs an Ikea box.
And Shackleton’s team finally got help on this day in 1916 when then reached help at the whaling station in South Georgia http://www.shackleton100.com/ernest-shackleton/
…poor Herbert – murdered within a month…
Is this his family do you suppose?
http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn509138
Maybe another person. Gut(t)man is not an uncommon name. Still, worth listening…. amazing that children survived.
The only place I visited that comes anywhere close to concentration camps were some of the slave quarters at southern plantations. But at least they were property and had some value.
The Auschwitz pictures are haunting and devastating. The visit must take an enormous emotional toll.
Thanks for the birthday greetings, PCC(E)! And my parents were holocaust survivors, so I also appreciate the remembrance. My mother was liberated from Bergen-Belsen in April of 1945.
The photos of Auschwitz are haunting. I can’t imagine how hard it would have been to be there, let alone what the prisoners went through.
It is always good to be reminded so as not to forget. I did in fact forget that May 9 was VE day.
Let’s just hope that 23 June doesn’t turn out to be EE day (Exit Europe).