Miya 18. INTJ.Ravenclaw with Slytherin aspirations. Curmudgeon with delusions of grandeur. Lover of film, television (usually flawed, for writer reasons),history, literature, art, musicals, smoked salmon and Gothic vaulting. Movie music makes me cry. And that's just about the gist of it. About Me Blogroll Tags ewoks
During the Bosnian War, cellist Vedran Smailovic plays Strauss inside the bombed-out National Library in Sarajevo, on September 12, 1992. (Michael Evstafiev/AFP/Getty Images)
During WWII, Irena Sendler, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive.
Irena smuggled Jewish infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried. She also carried a burlap sack in the back of her truck, for larger kids.
Irena kept a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.
The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.
During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.
Ultimately, she was caught, however, and the Nazi’s broke both of her legs and arms and beat her severely.
Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she had smuggled out, in a glass jar that she buried under a tree in her back yard.
After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived and tried to reunite the families.
Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.
In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.
In MEMORIAL - 65 YEARS LATER
November 19th 1863: Gettysburg Address
On this day in 1863 during the American Civil War the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, delivered his famous Gettysburg Address. He made the speech at the dedication ceremony for the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, site of the major battle between the Union and Confederacy that July. The speech is one of the most famous in American history, despite being only around two minutes long. In this brief time, Lincoln discussed the egalitarian ideas of the Declaration of Independence, praised the efforts of Union soldiers and extolled the virtues of American democracy.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
- Opening lines of the speech
November 17, 1989: The Velvet Revolution begins.
In reaction to the stagnant political and social landscape of the country, discontent simmered in Czechoslovakia and finally erupted on November 17, 1989, when riot police put down an anti-Communist student rebellion in Prague. What resulted over the next few days was an outbreak of strikes, demonstrations, and public discussions across the country. This kind of civil resistance was common to the upheaval that occurred in various other Eastern Bloc states during 1989 (first Poland, then Hungary and East Germany, and then Czechoslovakia).
In late November, some 750,000 people gathered for protest in Prague. On November 27, a general strike supported by an estimated three-quarters of the population was successfully carried out; on the same day, the censorship of anti-Communist material ended. The Civic Forum, led by Václav Havel, met with Czechoslovakian Prime Minister Adamec, and it was decided that three articles from the country’s constitution would be removed entirely.
By December of 1989, Alexander Dubček, who had been ousted during the 1968 Prague Spring after attempting to implement reforms, was elected Chairman of the Federal Assembly/Parliament. Havel was also elected to office - he became President of Czechoslovakia by the Federal Assembly’s vote. On December 31, 1992, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was officially dissolved.
Images from the series Irandokht by Najaf Shokri, 2006-2009 (via).
According to Shokri, “One day outside the Statistic and Registration Administration in Tehran, I discovered piles of discarded identity cards by the dustbins. They were all of women born in the early 1940s, who were photographed in their youth. The astonishing diversity of hair-dos – only a minority wore a scarf or chador – reflected the variety of choices that women had in the late 1950s and 60s. The ID cards also represented the many different classes and personalities of women of the time, from shy and demure to upfront, confident and glamorous.
When I found these pictures, sometime in 2005, I wondered whether these women had died, never renewed their identity or emigrated. It seemed to me that the government was most probably erasing evidence of our recent and distant past, for these photographs oppose the current dominant culture. I was shocked that these records of our community could be discarded so easily, without remorse. Photography is more about discovering than creating. Being a finder is the dominant, innate state. In Irandokht I have tried to stitch together another aspect of our history, one that is not about throwing away, ignorance and corruption. To me, discarding history reflects the intolerance and negligence of institutions in power. The Irandokht series invites the audience to face a certain period without any judgment. These women lived in Iran, and I feel I am in some way reviving and preserving their memory.” (quote source)
Three women at the 1903 State Fair in Saint Paul, Minnesota
Frances Benjamin Johnston, photographer
Johnston Collection, Library of Congress
Nov 11:
Remembrance Day. Poppy Day. Armistice Day.At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France.
11/11 Now is considered a memorial day since the end of World War I, to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty.
The day was specifically dedicated by King George V on 7 November 1919 as a day of remembrance of members of the armed forces who were killed during World War I. This was possibly done upon the suggestion of Edward George Honey to Wellesley Tudor Pole, who established two ceremonial periods of remembrance based on events in 1917.
It is called Poppy Day as well, due to the poem “In Flanders Fields” wrote by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae. These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in World War I.
“In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields…”
(Source: katherineofvalois)
