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5 November 2023
Remember the Warsaw ghetto
(Drawn from Wikipedia article “Warsaw Ghetto”)
The Warsaw Ghetto .. was established in November 1940 by the German authorities within the new General Government territory of occupied Poland. At its height, as many as 460,000 Jews were imprisoned there, in an area of 3.4 km2 with an average of 9.2 persons per room, barely subsisting on meager food rations.
An influx of refugees into the ghetto…
By the end of the September campaign the number of Jews in and around the capital increased dramatically with thousands of refugees escaping the Polish-German front. In less than a year, the number of refugees in Warsaw exceeded 90,000.
Non-Jews also contained in the ghetto…
In January 1940 there were 1,540 Catholics and 221 individuals of other Christian faiths imprisoned in the ghetto, including Jewish converts. It is estimated that at the time of closure of the ghetto there were around 2,000 Christians, and number possibly rose eventually to over 5,000. Many of these people considered themselves Polish, but due to Nazi racial criteria they were classified by German authorities as Jewish..
Collaboration…
.. families and individuals frequented restaurants, clubs and cafes, showing in stark contrast the economic inequalities of ghetto life. Tilar Mazzeo estimates that group at around 10,000 people – “rich industrialists, many Judenrat council leaders, Jewish police officers, profiteering smugglers, nightclub owners [and] high-end prostitutes” who were spending their time at over sixty cafes and nightclubs…
Capitalists of the occupying power exploit labour from the ghetto…
Not long after the ghetto was closed off from the outside world, a number of German war profiteers … appeared in the capital. At first, they acted as middlemen between the high command and the Jewish-run workshops. By spring 1942, the Stickerei Abteilung Division with headquarters at Nowolipie 44 Street had already employed 3,000 workers making shoes, leather products, sweaters and socks for the Wehrmacht. Other divisions were making furs and wool sweaters also, guarded by the Werkschutz police. Some 15,000 Jews were working in the ghetto for Walter C. Tobbens from Hamburg, a convicted war criminal…
Finally, resistance…
Many of the remaining Jews decided to resist further deportations, and began to smuggle in weapons, ammunition and supplies
On January 18, 1943, after almost four months without deportations, the Germans suddenly entered the Warsaw Ghetto intent upon further roundups. Within hours, some 600 Jews were shot and 5,000 others removed from their residences. The Germans expected no resistance, but the action was brought to a halt by hundreds of insurgents armed with handguns and Molotov cocktails.
Preparations to resist had been going on since the previous autumn. The first instance of Jewish armed struggle in Warsaw had begun. The underground fighters achieved considerable success initially, taking control of the ghetto. They then barricaded themselves in the bunkers and built dozens of fighting posts, stopping the expulsions.
but ending in utter destruction…
The final assault started on the eve of Passover of April 19, 1943, when a Nazi force consisting of several thousand troops entered the ghetto. After initial setbacks, 2,000 Waffen-SS soldiers under the field command of Jurgen Stroop systematically burned and blew up the ghetto buildings, block by block, rounding up or murdering anybody they could capture. Significant resistance ended on April 28, and the Nazi operation officially ended in mid-May, symbolically culminating with the demolition of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw on May 16. According to the official report, at least 56,065 people were killed on the spot or deported to German Nazi concentration and death camps
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/501778/family-of-8yo-with-brain-cancer-told-to-prepare-for-the-worst
It’s sickening that people’s sicknesses should be served up to us as news. And certain photogenic people are chosen to be presented. Are we supposed to be concerned and deeply sad each time, crocodile tears about things that we hope won’t happen to us? How can we be as there are sad things bound to happen in life, and we can have therefore hardly any room in the media for positive, even happy news!
And then there are the reruns of bad news as with the hearing about the mosque tragedy. Which briefly touched what remains of the heart of the government though soon they were telling bereaved mothers that they should leave their children and be breadwinners in the absence of their husbands who were murdered. So let’s get rid of any happy good things so we can wallow in despair and depression. We obviously have to be prodded to care for anything for at least a day and a half or maybe we are suffering from a surfeit of sad and bad news and policies and our sensibilities have become brutalised.
Be sure not to miss other sadnesses now showing! There is the Palestine disaster going on, many sadnesses there. Are we to be overwhelmed with so many that we don’t notice ones that have just dropped out of the news – Manus Island and Papua New Guinea for instance.
I am deeply troubled by this continuing trend in NZ to wear blinkers about major political crimes which tend to be presented as blunders. Lake Alice and Dickens era brutality, child stealing from young parents and particularly by the government who have created a Native People’s Management Corps by another name, but harking back to stolen children days we thought we had left behind. People still believe that we are a good country and before we pour black ink over our copybook and cannot recover our past work and achievements, let’s force change from this disgraceful period.
Some things have to be kept at a distance, not everything devalued in a hedonistic way. People need respect apart from whatever money and services they can command. Women need to be careful in how they bring up their boys to try and cut across this disrespect for others. Those are thoughts that cross my mind. There are some peculiar values or lack of them, impinging on society.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018914009/filmmaker-rosie-morris-on-the-reality-of-deepfake-porn
Rosie tells Kim Hill she first got interested in Helen’s story because the images of her face used in the deepfakes – “Helen on holiday, Helen at a graduation, Helen at a party at university” – were rather everyday images that she hadn’t ever shared online.
When she discovered the deepfakes were on a porn site and went to the police, Helen was told because they were not “real” images no action could be taken.
“She then was left to live with that, which I think was a big burden. It made the whole experience a lot worse. She felt she had absolutely no control over what had happened.
“Helen’s a writer with a feminist slant in her writing and she has wondered if that has contributed to why somebody might want to do this, which makes it feel even worse.”
The Ig Nobel Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize
Sounds humorous and perhaps satirical. NZ only I think.
I like the one for research done on exploding trousers. I wonder if one can be done on igniting lithium batteries.
The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard Computer Society, the Harvard–Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the Harvard–Radcliffe Society of Physics Students.[12]
Throwing paper planes onto the stage is a long-standing tradition. For many years Professor Roy J. Glauber swept the stage clean of the airplanes as the official “Keeper of the Broom”. Glauber could not attend the 2005 awards because he was traveling to Stockholm to claim a genuine Nobel Prize in Physics.
Who won the Nobel Prize in IG 2023? (They might like to study us on this blog!)
Ig Nobel Prize 2023: From re-animated dead spider to smart …
Chris Moulin, Nicole Bell, Merita Turunen, Arina Bahrain, and Akira O’Connor received the Ig Nobel Prize in Literature for studying the sensations people feel when they repeat a single word many, many, many, many, many, many, many times.15/09/2023
Ig Nobel Prize 2023: From re-animated dead spider to smart …
WIONhttps://www.wionews.com › Science
Here is some really disgraceful bad language that is taken to an art form in this rant about really disgraceful conditions in UK by Johnathan Pie. Worth watching now and keep the link to see if it is relevant each following year in NZ under the vital , fed-on-meat right wing Gnashional bunch who have taken over from the sleepy pussies we had in place here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gljtvwhcdhc&t=203s called ‘Strikes!’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8EhVfnFZck – Destitution UK
Bad news for our sheep farmers.
We need to understand the ins and outs of our business and exports otherwise we will remain like children having our lives decided for us. Citizen involvement and knowledge is essential in the running of the country, to understand more, else the big boys take our toys,
Aug.2023 https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/495611/us-group-exerts-pressure-over-nz-lamb-exports
Date 6/11/2023- https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/11/06/20-plus-drop-in-lamb-prices-harder-and-faster-than-expected/
But similar happened before, last century. What have we learned in the interim? I was interested in problems with the sheep trade to USA then and how and why our trade was threatened because of Australia’s excess supply of sheep meat to the USA at one stage.
As I understand the earlier situation: Last century there was a situation in the USA when subsidies to their sheep farmers were lifted. At that time there was a drought in Australia and feed was limited. Larger numbers of sheep were killed. There was an understanding with the USA that Australia and New Zealand would export lamb to them at a certain level that was flexible, but not set quotas. However Australia brought their price down to shift the increased volume of sheep killed. The American producers were being undercut and complained; having no subsidy now they were exposed to unfair competition they claimed. NZ had not increased its usual supply, but when there was talk about cuts in lamb export amounts they quickly sold more in case there was a swingeing drop.
Lamb was not a big seller in the USA and NZ felt that it could be promoted better to get more volume which would assist the home producers who considered their product was of a higher quality which should bring better prices and NZ would satisfy a niche demand for lower priced, possibly frozen cuts. However the USA people turned down a joint approach to promote the meat. Their reluctance to work together shot the market in the foot, so to speak and the opportunity lost.
Date not given – https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/sheep-industry-to-fight-us-ruling/X7VCAGR35YULGFPFOQ5USFTE74/
Transtasman sheep meat industries – unwilling to be scapegoats for under-performing American sheep farmers – will battle a United States trade commission ruling against lamb imports.
Both New Zealand and Australia yesterday reacted with disappointment after the US International Trade Commission announced that transtasman lamb imports were unfairly threatening local producers.
The finding means penalties, including tariffs or quotas, can be placed on New Zealand lamb imports.
Dec 1998 Report on Trade Mission to NZ and Oz.
A group of officials came from USA to NZ and Oz to discuss free trade possibilities.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-106WPRT68478/html/CPRT-106WPRT68478.htm
Trade Minister To Discuss Lamb Exports With Us …
Beehive.govt.nz https://www.beehive.govt.nz › release › trade-minister…
15/04/1999 — Trade Minister Lockwood Smith has invited US Ambassador Josiah Beeman to a meeting to discuss New Zealand’s response to the International …
Jun2000 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/smith-us-lamb-stance-bad-for-world-trade/4TTHXFBTH7YUGI6ZXHVC57QCK4/
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