Random Object Photographs
- Thread starter opaul
- Start date
What is this stuff? 
Ruthie with her sister Sharon at the nursing home.
THE PILGRIM
Member
Took this one on 12/27/2024: Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is actually in color but it was frosty and had dense fog. Here is some info.
Construction of Auschwitz II began in September 1941, and from 1942 until late 1944 freight trains delivered Jews from all over German-occupied Europe to its gas chambers. Of the 1.3 million people sent to Auschwitz, 1.1 million were murdered. The number of victims includes 960,000 Jews (865,000 of whom were gassed on arrival), 74,000 non-Jewish Poles, 21,000 Romani, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and up to 15,000 others. Those not gassed were murdered via starvation, exhaustion, disease, individual executions, or beatings. Others were killed during medical experiments.
At least 802 prisoners tried to escape, 144 successfully, and on 7 October 1944, two Sonderkommando units, consisting of prisoners who operated the gas chambers, launched an unsuccessful uprising. After the Holocaust ended, only 789 Schutzstaffel personnel (no more than 15 percent) ever stood trial. Several were executed, including camp commandant Rudolf Höss. The Allies' failure to act on early reports of mass murder by bombing the camp or its railways remains controversial.
As the Soviet Red Army approached Auschwitz in January 1945, toward the end of the war, the SS sent most of the camp's population west on a death march to camps inside Germany and Austria. Soviet troops entered the camp on 27 January 1945, a day commemorated since 2005 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In the decades after the war, survivors such as Primo Levi, Viktor Frankl, Elie Wiesel, and Edith Eger wrote memoirs of their experiences, and the camp became a dominant symbol of the Holocaust. In 1947, Poland founded the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the site of Auschwitz I and II, and in 1979 it was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Auschwitz is the site of the largest mass murder in a single location in history.
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"Man's inhumanity to man', writ very large
Have you seen Zone of Interest? Chilling. Filmed in an empty house just down the road from Höss's own house, which the production crew painstakingly rebuilt to be as close to the original as possible, and filmed in natural light, with the cameras and microphones hidden to avoid distraction.
Höss's eldest daughter, Hannah, just died recently. Her story is interesting. After the war she worked as a fashion model, emigrated to the US and worked for a fashion company - owned by Jews. At a party she let slip that she was Höss's daughter. But the owner took her aside and said, "It doesn't matter. You are not responsible for what your father did. You are welcome here." Wow...
There was this article in the NYT a few years ago (free link)
David Dushman, Soviet Soldier Who Helped Liberate Auschwitz, Dies at 98
Mr. Dushman is believed to have been the last surviving liberator of the camp.
"Man's inhumanity to man', writ very large
Have you seen Zone of Interest? Chilling. Filmed in an empty house just down the road from Höss's own house, which the production crew painstakingly rebuilt to be as close to the original as possible, and filmed in natural light, with the cameras and microphones hidden to avoid distraction.
Höss's eldest daughter, Hannah, just died recently. Her story is interesting. After the war she worked as a fashion model, emigrated to the US and worked for a fashion company - owned by Jews. At a party she let slip that she was Höss's daughter. But the owner took her aside and said, "It doesn't matter. You are not responsible for what your father did. You are welcome here." Wow...
I did see the movie...just two weeks ago. Very well done and chilling. Höss was executed by hanging. The Soviets killed him in 1947 just next to the gas chamber of Auschwitz I. The museum had recreated the scaffold at the location of the execution.
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^^A Day in the Life^^
THE PILGRIM
Member
This complex was not marked on any map. Its existence was known to only 12 people in Poland. Facility 3001 in Podborsko was meant to provide nuclear support to the Polish army during the Cold War. On February 25, 1967 an "Agreement between the Polish Government and the Soviet Government concerning measures taken with respect to the increase in the army's operational readiness" was signed in Moscow. It was agreed that three special facilities would be built by November 1, 1969. Each of the facilities would have two special storehouses, where nuclear weapons and assembly teams and the necessary auxiliary infrastructure were housed. The parties agreed that the Soviet Government would design the special storehouses, and provide the special technical equipment necessary to control, assemble, and handle nuclear weapons. The Polish side was to cover the costs of the construction of the facility, engineering networks, and all buildings and installations. On July 6, 1967, the Polish Minister of Defense, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, signed the "instruction on the protection of construction of facilities for communications units." It was assumed that "Plan 3001" (the name used for the investment plans related to the construction of three complexes), was a top state secret. The investment was formally carried outfrom June 27, 1967 to August 21, 1969. The cost of construction of Facility 3001 in Podborsko amounted to 68.3 million Polish zloty. In each bunker there is a loading chamber connected to four nuclear weapons storehouses. Each storehouse could accommodate up to 20 warheads and nuclear bombs; 160 nuclear warheads total. The facility was guarded by Soviet Spetznatz troops and was considered sovereign Soviet soil. The existence of these three facilities was kept secret from the Polish people except for the 12 Poles high in government.
