04 juillet 2009

Good news for Summer!

Dear all,

If you're like me, have gained kilos these last months (me coz I'm back in France and hate it - and have given up smoking - eugh!! 8kg piled on around the bum and middle...) and you're looking at your wardrobe wondering what the heck you can squeeze into never mind the bikinis, don't panic! Help is on its way! See below recipe for Cabbage Soup. I remember Milla used to make it from time to time and a friend of her's, Sarah (another one), lost a load of weight with it...but remember - no longer than a week and the last few days you can add meat to it. You can also do it once a month, of course, like a cure. Don't forget to eat fruit during the day and drink full cream milk if you like it and yoghurt if not. Just follow the recipe and drink the juice. Here goes:

Mettons-nous d'accord : les aliments capables, réellement, de brûler les graisses, ça n'existe pas (malheureusement). En revanche, certains fruits et légumes favorisent la perte de poids puisqu'ils sont pauvres en calories et ont des vertus amincissantes.

Ce qu'il faut manger
On cite le chou, le céleri, le persil, le poivron, l'aubergine, mais aussi le citron, les oranges et le kiwi. Un des plus efficaces est l'ananas, souvent vendu en gélules pour accompagner les régimes alimentaires à cause de l'enzyme minceur qu'il contient. Le chrome, souvent utilisé dans les compléments alimentaires brûle-graisses, se trouve aussi dans certains aliments comme les prunes, les brocolis, les fromages et les noix.

La soupe au chou
C'est la fameuse soupe brûle-graisses qui fait fondre en une semaine (on peut ainsi perdre jusqu'à 4 kilos !). Attention, on ne va pas au-delà des sept jours, cette soupe n'apportant pas les nutriments nécessaires à l'équilibre. Pour la préparer, rien de plus simple.

Ingrédients
6 tomates, 3 poivrons, 1 céleri, 5 carottes, 4 gousses d'ail, 6 oignons et une branche de persil. On coupe les légumes en petits morceaux, on les fait bouillir ensemble dans trois litres d'eau, jusqu'à ce que les légumes soient tendres. Et voilà ! On boit cette soupe midi et soir, à volonté, en l'accompagnant soit d'un ou deux fruits, soit de lait écrémé. Les deux derniers jours, on peut ajouter 150 grammes de viande (boeuf, veau ou blanc de poulet exclusivement).

Auteur : Cassandra Lister
© Dmitriy Melnikov - Fotolia.com

Lola's Article in Nine O'Clock

Great article, Lola.

Below, Lola's editorial from Nine O'Clock:

We all killed him

published in issue 4464 page 1 at 2009-07-03

We all killed Michael Jackson. He is the victim of a fanatically morbid culture that turned him into a cartoon character, exposing every detail of his life in total disrespect to a human being, who fed its sick curiosity on fabricated news when there was nothing new to report, or when facts were not so exciting as to make the front page of tabloids.

We all failed him. Instead of thanking him for the wonderful gift he brought into the lives of hundreds of millions and stand by him when he was weak and vulnerable, the target of low attacks and false accusations, we all deserted him. And the outcome was a tragedy that was just waiting to happen, and which happened a week ago to the day…

As brilliant as Michael Jackson’s accomplishments as an artist were, as tragic his personal destiny was. If musically speaking he is an Icon or a Legend, Michael Jackson outside the stage was just a human being.

A deeply sensitive man, as depicted by those who knew him, with a big heart, with his dreams, his doubts and fears, flaws, good and bad choices, errors, incredible generosity and terrible traumas, originated in his abused childhood. As hard as the man tried to live up to his legend, he failed. And the reason for which he failed is this sick culture that creates icons and puts them on pedestals just to better destroy them afterwards. A society that refuses to believe that a man can stay beautiful and righteous until the end. A sick society that chased and dissected in the public place his every gesture and statement, in the hope that sooner or later the Icon will stumble and fall. Until eventually he did. We turned Michael Jackson into a God, denying him the right to be a human being and when he claimed back his freedom, it was too late.

It happened before, and unfortunately it won’t probably stop with Michael Jackson. Unless we, as a society, make a change, report and condemn the injustice and the hypocrisy, unless we expose the leeches and the vultures who build fortunes on distorting reality and spreading lies, tarnishing a man’s dignity even when he lies lifeless in a coffin.

Some say that his last years of torment and loneliness anticipating the tragic end are the ultimate price he had to pay for his unmatched successful career, fame and fortune. It shouldn’t have been like that, it’s highly unfair. We should have stopped and listen to his cry for help, all of us, starting with his family, his friends, his fellow musicians, his fans, all those who loved and respected him, the honest media.… As human nature is so predictable, now we swallow our tears in remorse, regretting the loss only when it is too late…

The real tragedy is not that we lost an Icon, an artist that marked the culture and the history, or more precisely, a man who made history with his out of this world talent in music and dance, his love for humankind and this planet. No matter what, his wonderful legacy will outlive us all. The real loss, the only one that counts, is the loss of his life, so soon, so unfairly.

His detractors say it was greed that drove Michael Jackson to making his comeback with the series of concerts scheduled to start in only few days in London. There’s no doubt in my mind that Michael Jackson wanted to give his fans one more spectacular, revolutionary show, to prove that he is the same fantastic performer who still deserves the admiration of his public. It was a cry for love. Michael Jackson had nothing more to prove, nothing more to give, as he already gave us everything, he exposed his soul in his art; his music, shows, videos are still so much ahead of his time, and no other living musician is even half way to equal him. Therefore, we are the ones to blame, because we forgot to thank him and applaud him, because we couldn’t stop wanting for more. We were the greedy ones.

The outpour of emotion and beautiful tributes paid by people all over the planet leaves however a little hope for the survival of our humanity.

Once more, in his final act on planet, Michael Jackson, brought the people of the world together, this time sadly, in grief. Irrespective of their age, nationality, colour of the skin, religion, gender identity, social background, profession, people came together to mourn and celebrate his life. And again, Michael Jackson reminded us that love is the only one that wipes away all our differences and mend things. This is the most beautiful lesson he taught us, his ultimate legacy.

Sadly, these moments of sorrow, when people honour his memory, when three little kids grieve the loss of their father, the only parent they ever had and loved, are again overshadowed by the ugliness of those detractors who turn a man’s dignity into a trivial tradable commodity. The tabloids didn’t even wait for the artist to be laid to his eternal rest that they started digging up the dirt, dragging him into the mud, once again.

The Sun claims to have got hold of an ‘autopsy report’, depicting Michael Jackson as very frail, giving gruesome details that were proved false just a day later by the Los Angeles County Coroner. The next day, the same tabloid printed the pictures with the star rehearsing for the London show and quoting people who worked with him to have said Michael Jackson was on ‘incredible form and full of life’…, but no apologies whatsoever… The Daily Mail printed an article by a journalist who says he ‘investigated’ the last years of the mega-star with the aim of telling people ‘the truth’ about his life. The article is full of dirty allegations based on so-called sources close to Michael Jackson, obviously not named, and personal opinions of this journalist about the life of the singer. With no respect to the man’s private life, breaching all deontological rules and moral ethics, starting with confidentiality of the medical records. This journalist lists a number of health conditions and other pieces of intimate information. Unfortunately it will be out on the day of the funeral in the form of a non authorised ‘biography’, which the media already anticipates as being  “a gold mine” for its Canadian publisher... News of The World, known here for having framed a Romanian man for the attempted kidnapping of the Beckham kids, prints other dreadful allegations about Michael Jackson told by the ex-nanny of his three children, allegations that are not corroborated by anyone else. Just wonder where the journalistic approach is in all these stories…The same tabloid published the statements of Michael Jackson’s first wife, giving other details (if real of course) that should have stayed private

Unfortunately, as much as Michael Jackson tried and to his credit, succeeded, to protect the private lives of his children, now, these innocent kids are exposed to the gruesome reality of a merciless society, as if the trauma of losing their father was not enough.

Dragging a man who has just passed away through the mud, attempting to take away his dignity when he can no longer defend himself is the lowest, most despicable and immoral thing that could possibly exist. Unfortunately, this is an extremely lucrative business.

As he is not present, it is the duty of good and honest people to defend his memory, letting him rest in peace. The power of words is huge and Michael Jackson used them for the good, to draw attention to injustice, prejudice, and discrimination, to spread the message of love, peace, respect and understanding. It’s time for all these vultures, all these people who come up front now selling Mr Jackson’s personal family pictures and revealing what the musician told them in confidence for a moment of elusive fame or for a handful of dollars, to look in the mirror and dissect their own consciousness. For the sake of us all.

by Rodica Pricop

23 juin 2009

Raluca

Dear Everyone,

My Nicole sent me the following three links for you to see. The first is a part of a report from Italian TV, as you will see. It's in Italian of course, but it doesn't matter. Romeo thinks it's a losing battle and there's really no point in fighting over it. My Nicole thinks, too, it's a waste of energy that I could well be putting into something else. For those of you who speak Italian or understand it at least a little, let me present Raluca. Here's a second video, where she defends the Roumanians working so hard in Italy once again.

That's Raluca. What about you?

21 juin 2009

Dear Everyone,

I'm posting an extract from an e-mail received yesterday on the subject of the last post. It sums things up perfectly:

"I'm sorry to say this, but some things are innevitable in life and in history too... fifty years from now, we'll write "Rromania" instead of the actual name of the country. During the middle ages, turcs failed several times to permanently occupy the country, therefore we managed to preserve our traditions and faith with so much struggle. Hopefuly because of that, today my name is not Hassan and I'm not praying on a carpet five times a day.
In our present time romanians are a weak nation, with no pride and no goal. The price we'll have to pay very soon as confronted to mondialisation and other problems ... is that we're just going to desapear and that's it. I'm not pesimistic about this issue, I know positive arguments exists also.... but just look at the stronger, bigger, wealthier nations...  and you''ll see I'm right."

Thank you for expressing that far better than I did.

18 juin 2009

Rrom and Roumanian...

It's my old moan. My favourite whine. The subject that really gets my goat and makes my friends roll their eyes with exclamations of 'here we go again - someone get the woman a drink to shut her up'...Following the attacks against the Rrom in Belfast and other areas of Europe lately, I would like to express my fury that, in the majority of newspapers and tabloids - even in the papers I would call 'cultural' such as Spiegel - no difference has been made between Rroms and Roumanians. Again.... Let's just tar ALL Roumanians with the same brush and make them gypsies, shall we? That would just simplify everything for everyone and I wouldn't have to keep writing rants such as these, which are both tiresome and upsetting.

This is an age old problem of ignorance entirely on our part. A lack of knowledge vis à vis history and sociology and an even greater lack of interest. Who cares if there's a difference after all? Well, we should care! Roumania is now Europe, whether some people like it or not. They are our neighbours. We have to understand that there IS a difference. One is both a nationality and an origin and the other is an ethnic minority with citizenship. How many of my Roumanian friends are afraid to even admit being Roumanian here in the west, because the Rroms, or gypsies, have so decimated the reputation of the country and its people. I remember introducing one Roumanian friend, blonde, well-educated, linguist to boot and dead elegant to some French friends. "No way!" exclaimed one of them, "you're really Roumanian?!!! Reeeeeally?!! Ca alors!" I reflect also, with no joy, on a student asking me, when speaking of all the packing I had to do for my year away, if I'd be able to buy shoes when I lived in Bucharest as people didn't wear them there...and she was deadly serious. Of course, out came the photo albums forthwith. Honestly, the ignorance born of indifference is so flagrant here in the oh-so-developed west. I cannot speak for the rest of the world because I don't know if the Rrom have managed to permeate the coasts of the US nor how they fare in Africa.

Below, a study on the whole issue by Sorina Chiper at the Cuza University in Iasi. Please do read it if you are not Roumanian. read it even if you are - go on, knock yourself out! Please absorb it and then please remember it when next you're in the tube or the metro and a beggar with a baby comes and asks for money, headscarfed and skirt swishing. Remember it when a gypsy jumps out at the traffic lights on av. George V / Champs Elysées and starts washing your windscreen when you don't want it washed. Remember it when you get pickpocketed by a bunch of gypsy children in the tube. Remember it when you get knocked over in the street while your handbag gets snatched. Remember it before you breathe the words 'sal roumain' or 'de type roumain'. Remember it when you're telling someone what happened to you in public transport this morning.... Please remember it.

Introduction

One of the problems that Romania needs to solve with a view to the integration in the European Union is related to minorities. Whereas, according to EU reporters, the situation of the Hungarian and German ethnic minorities has much improved, the Rroma population is still a reason of concern both for us, inside the country, and for the European Union.

Western Europe has been faced over the last decade with the migration of members of the Rroma community coming from countries in the former communist block, and especially from Romania. They have often been summoned in EU countries courts, and interpreters have always been needed. I have therefore thought it worthy of interest to draw upon challenges that interpreters face when they are commissioned for public service interpreting for members of the Rroma community. The examples that I will use make reference to court interpreting between English and Romanian in the UK.

Ignorance has hovered large on the issue of the gypsy or Rroma population origin. Initially, the common assumption was that they came from Northern Africa, from Egypt. The noun "Egyptian" is actually the root for the word "gypsy." Only in the nineteenth century did linguists discover, on the basis of similarities between Sanskrit and Rromani - the language spoken by gypsies - that they are of Indian extract.

Comparative and diachronic linguistic studies have contributed extensively to retracing the gypsies’ history. They established that the gypsies’ ancestors, initially located in Northern India, started migrating to the west in the 11th century. The reasons for the migration remain in the dark, and are the subject of legends and folk stories. What is known fro sure is the itinerary that they followed: across Persia, the Near East and North Africa to the Byzantine Empire, where they settled in the East. From there, they separated into three branches that followed different routes. The lom branch went to Caucaz, north west of the Black Sea; the dom branch went to Syria, Palestine, North Africa, and from there to Spain; and the rrom branch migrated to central and western Europe (Sarau: 1988, 11).

The Byzantines called the darker-skinned new-comers "athigganoi" – the untouchable. This was the name originally given to a heretic sect. Its meaning was extended to refer to the gypsies as well because their behaviour was similar to that of the heretics: they had their own customs and traditions, they were very united as a group and would not adjust to Byzantine manners and rules. The root "athigganoi" bred the names currently used almost all over Europe: ciganie (Poland), ciganos (Portugal), czignyok (Hungary), ţigani (Romania), tsiganes (France), Zigeuner (Germany), zingari (Italy) (Sarau, 23).

Over the years, host nations have developed negative stereotypes about gypsies, or "tigani." They are usually associated with high criminality rate, illiteracy, unsanitary living conditions, pagan rituals and witchcraft. This is why the politically correct term, deprived of such connotations, is now "the Rroma," which makes reference to the historical rrom branch that spread across Europe.

In the Romanian Principalities the Rroma were first mentioned in 1385 in Wallachia and in 1428 in Moldavia, respectively, quite shortly after the first record of their existence in the Balkans in 1348. Unlike other European states, whose authorities did not allow gypsies to remain on their territory, the Romanian Principalities more or less forced them to settle by turning them into slaves. They were used to work for the ruling Prince, for lords or for monasteries until the middle of the 19th century, when they were freed as a result of political action taken by participants in the 1848 revolutionary movement. Soon after their liberation, they resumed their nomad life and either travelled across the Principalities, or moved on to Transylvania, and from there to Western Europe.

Almost a hundred years later, in 1942, marshal Ioan Antonescu, who held fascist views, deported 250.000 Romanian gypsies – the dangerous and the non-desired ones – in Transnistria. Half of them died there, and those who survived came back after the Germans left.

A turning point in the gypsy population’s social life in Romania took place under the Communists. In the 60’s, the Party policy was to consolidate the national unity and to create a homogeneous Romanian society. The communists, therefore, set out to "romanianise" the gypsies. They forced them to cut their hair and change, at least in part, their style of dress; they registered them with the local authorities and gave them identity cards; they forced them to attend schools and serve in the army, and the state gave them a "civilised" place to stay, thus aiming to stop their nomad life.

After the 1989 revolution, gypsies, or the Rroma, as they started calling themselves, took to the road again. Many of them left the country either illegally, when they could not get a visa, or legally, mostly after visas were no longer required. In the aftermath of the Revolution, common targets were the UK, Germany and Spain, where they would ask for political asylum, on account of persecution by Romanian authorities and of racial discrimination.

Currently, the public opinion is still biased. They are seen as the ones who have made us infamous abroad, since articles or programmes broadcast abroad, dealing mostly with their begging and crimes, mention them as Romanians and not as Rroma of Romanian citizenship.

Thank you, my Nicole, fabulous researcher of mine, for sending this to share.

The Rroma in Romania

17 juin 2009

Rroms attacked in Belfast...

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) - The thugs used bricks and bottles to drive more than 100 Romanian Gypsies from their homes in a wave of attacks. On Wednesday, the victims were sheltering in a community center after a church plucked them off a Belfast street.

The grim images from this week—families carrying possessions in bundled blankets, a mother clutching her 5-day-old baby—are more evidence of rising anti-immigrant sentiment across Europe, but also of a situation unique to Northern Ireland: new fault lines in its tragic history of ethnic divisions. About 20 Romanian families, carrying their belongings in suitcases, duffel bags and blankets, were being sheltered on the community center's indoor tennis courts. One man carried an accordion, while parents gripped the hands of young children and some women covered their heads with jackets and sweaters to avoid being photographed.

The families were taken in by the City Church on Tuesday after youths attacked their homes in a working-class neighborhood of south Belfast, smashing windows and hurling threats. Local authorities moved them to the roomier community center Wednesday morning. Some said the attackers had guns, but there were no reports of serious injuries.

"They made signs like they wanted to cut my brother's baby's throat," said one man, Couaccusil Filuis. "They said they wanted to kill us."

Police said the racist attacks started last week, with gangs smashing house windows and attacking cars. The violence flared again on Monday when youths hurling bottles and Nazi salutes attacked an anti-racism rally called to support the migrants.

Belfast City council press officer Mark Ashby said the majority of the victims were Roma, or Gypsies, from Romania.

Romania's Foreign Ministry condemned the attacks and urged British authorities to take measures to avoid more racist violence.

Marian Mandache, from the Romanian Gypsy NGO Romani Criss, said the Northern Ireland violence was the latest in a disturbing trend of attacks across Europe.

"Starting with Italy in 2007, there have been waves of ... racist attacks against Roma," said Mandache. "Afterwards, there were attacks in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania."

The Northern Ireland government said the displaced Romanians would be given temporary accommodation in Belfast. But many said they wanted to leave Northern Ireland.

"We want to go home because right now we are not safe here," said a woman who gave only her first name, Maria. "We want to go back home to Romania, everybody right now does."

Racial tensions are rising across Europe as the pace of migration grows and the economy worsens. Far-right parties picked up seats in many countries in elections for the European Parliament earlier this month. The whites-only British National Party, which calls for the "voluntary repatriation" of immigrants, increased its share of the vote and won its first two European seats.

Europe's 7 to 9 million Roma people face widespread prejudice in Romania—where estimates of their numbers vary between 500,000 and 2 million—and other countries. The European Union's rights agency has said Roma face "overt discrimination" in housing, health care and education, despite many government programs designed to help them.

Since Romania joined the EU in 2007, thousands of Roma have moved west to richer European countries, where many live in squalid camps with no access to health services, education, basic sanitary facilities or jobs. More than 700 encampments have been built in Italy, where Gypsies have been met with hostility and blamed for begging and street crime.

Northern Ireland has only a tiny Romanian population—fewer than 1,000 people, according to a government estimate.

But a number of Romanian Gypsies have moved to Belfast since 2007 and have become a visible presence, selling newspapers on the city's streets.

"The fact is we've seen a lot of things change here—people selling the Belfast Telegraph on the streets, something you didn't see before," said Jolena Flett of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities. "They are easily identifiable.

"When people are looking for a fight, as a lot of people are now, just because of frustrations in their own lives, anything will spark it off."

Northern Ireland's surge in racist violence over the past few years has coincided with the decline in Northern Ireland's traditional conflict between paramilitary groups rooted in rival Catholic and Protestant districts.

Much of the violence has been blamed on Protestant youths, who once would have vented their anger against Catholics or joined outlawed pro-British paramilitary groups.

Racist attacks have become especially common in south Belfast, a diverse area that is home to Queen's University, some of the city's most affluent neighborhoods and a Protestant district known as The Village, a close-knit working-class neighborhood where curbstones are painted in pro-British red white and blue.

Dozens of families, including Chinese, Africans and Poles, have been driven from their homes in recent years, and student houses—occupied by a mix of Catholics and Protestants—have been attacked by Protestant gangs.

Patrick Yu, director of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, accused the perpetrators of seeking "ethnic cleansing of all minorities out of the Village and the surrounding area."

The latest bout of racial tension in Belfast has escalated since an international soccer match between Poland and Northern Ireland sparked rioting three months ago. Flett said more than 40 Polish families had been forced out of their homes in south Belfast since then.

Police said there was no evidence the violence against the Romanians had been orchestrated by paramilitary groups, and politicians from both sides of the sectarian divide were quick to condemn the attacks.

Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, a Catholic and former IRA commander, said the attacks had been carried out by "racist criminals within our society who are unrepresentative of the vast majority of the people of Belfast."

"I am appalled at this situation," said Health Minister Michael McGimpsey, a Protestant from the Ulster Unionist Party. "There is no place in Northern Ireland for this kind of racist violence and abuse."

___

Associated Press Writers Meera Selva and Nardine Saad in London and Alina Wolfe Murray in Bucharest, Romania contributed to this report. Lawless reported from London.

16 juin 2009

Violence and Prose...

My dears,

Hope you're all fine and haven't melted in the heat. Thinking of you with fond memories of my treetop flat up there in 'les tilleuls' and boiling pre-aircon (less fond memories!). I do hope the authorities haven't emptied the fountains again, so that you may take a little time out, bathing weary toes, as you nibble on covrigi...

I've just read an e-mail from my Nicole full of info and links, reminding me that this is the anniversary, nineteen years ago almost to the day, when an estimated 10,000 miners invaded Bucharest and rampaged their way through it, killing, maiming, beating innocent people, destroying the Liberal Party HQ and private houses as they went. Here's what happened. The fear of going out onto the streets even to go to work lasted quite a time, and nineteen years isn't that long ago really, is it?

To think that one of the instigators, Vadim Tudor, is now representing Roumania in the European Parliament makes me feel sick. I won't mention the other two idiots since it's off subject and I'll be berating them for hours. It's not the point of this 'particular' post.

Nicole says, "it is a  shameful page in Romania's history, and absurdly, the principal instigator, Ion Iliescu, was exhonerated by the courts. An insult to the memory of those who were assaulted or lost their lives."

She has been particularly prolific today and sent me heaps of info which I will share with you. Here are some details from the 1990 statistics showing the effect on the suppression of the students. Quite dreadful. Oprescu denied all knowledge - and look where he, too, is today....

Frank Sellin, political scientist, says, "June 1990 represented not the first, not the second, but the third mineriadă on Bucharest. The first two dry runs were in January and February 1990, used to intimidate opposition demonstrations against the National Salvation Front of Iliescu and his fellow workers, mostly second and third tier ex-communists from pre-1989 days.

Most importantly, a mineriadă doesn't just spontaneously generate itself among not-so-educated miners who are just barely past the sudden exit of a communist regime, not to mention severely repressed after the 1977 miners' strike and infiltration by the Securitate. It has to be organized.

Transporting hundreds of people from the Jiu Valley to be prepared to bash heads in Bucharest -- at least five hours by train -- required trains, weapons, and according to news reports at the time, plenty of alcohol.

So if the coercive forces of the state were no longer able to control the situation in Piaţa Universităţii in June of 1990, who still had the organizational capacity to transport and arm the miners?

Just like two times previous? Iliescu can rewrite history all he wants, but that just adds insult to what should be a search for redemption for the young and innocent lives lost in June 1990 to aggravated assaults by the miners."
He has written an excellent blog  of information - please go and visit it. The comments which go with his post on this subject also make veeeery interesting reading.

For more articles, click on this link. This very good one from NYT dated June 15, 1990:

Evolution in Europe; ROMANIAN MINERS INVADE BUCHAREST

By CELESTINE BOHLEN, Special to The New York Times

Published: Friday, June 15, 1990

Responding to an emergency appeal by President Ion Iliescu, thousands of miners from northern Romania descended on the capital city today with wooden clubs and rubber truncheons and sought crude revenge for anti-Government rioting Wednesday.

In grimy work clothes and helmets, their faces blackened by soot, the miners took control of Bucharest's main boulevard and central square, menacing and beating passers-by whom they apparently suspected of having tried to bring down the Iliescu Government.

Their suspicions appeared to be indiscriminate; motorists in their cars, well-dressed professors, students, photographers, reporters, mothers with children and girls walking their dogs were chased off the street, sometimes hit across the shoulders with rubber hoses.

By evening, the miners had emptied University Square, which was the setting of a marathon anti-Government demonstration that was broken up in a police raid before dawn Wednesday.

Summoned by Mr. Iliescu to save the Government from a ''fascist rebellion,'' the miners joined other workers loyal to the governing National Salvation Front early this morning and ransacked the headquarters of the two main opposition parties, setting fires, breaking windows and carting off or destroying equipment and documents.

The miners' arrival in the city came the day after soldiers opened fire on anti-Government demonstrators outside the Interior Ministry, killing at least four and wounding scores in the worst violence in Eastern Europe since December, when Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown in a popular revolt.

Opposition Papers Seized

In the violence today, pro-Government workers laid siege to the apartments of prominent Government opponents and halted the publication of Romania Libera, the main opposition newspaper.

By the afternoon, the miners were still in control of the headquarters of one opposition party, the Peasants Party, lounging in the courtyard and on the balconies amid broken typewriters and piles of trash. At the Liberal Party headquarters, militiamen guarded the doors, while party members stayed away.

''We took a common decision to stay home and stay in touch by telephone,'' said Sorin Botez, a spokesman for the Liberal Party. Other critics of the Government also stayed off the streets today.

The rampage by the miners and other workers, tolerated by the few policemen visible today in Bucharest, came just as Romania's new Government, headed by Mr. Iliescu and the front, is about to take office. Although bitterly opposed by students, liberal intellectuals and the so-called historical parties, the front won the May 20 election by a landslide, buoyed by Mr. Iliescu's personal popular appeal.

Attacks by Miners Assailed

The extent of the Government's role in bringing the miners to the city, beyond Mr. Iliescu's appeal, was not known. A Government spokesman, Ion Pascu, said the police and the army had not responded to save the Government in what he called a coup attempt by opposition forces. The spokesmen said that in the absence of an adequate police force, the Government would continue to rely on the miners, who he said might stay in the capital for another two or three days. The miners are thought to number about 7,000.

Although the miners said that they came to Bucharest spontaneously after Mr. Iliescu's summons, the Government has clearly taken responsibility for them. This afternoon buses arrived at University Square to take the miners to an exhibition hall where they watched the World Cup soccer match before being bused back to the square and then to some location in the city where they were spending the night.

Mr. Botez criticized the attacks against the Government on Wednesday, but said they did not justify Mr. Iliescu's call to the miners. ''It is not a good beginning for a new Government to start with acts of terrorism,'' he said. ''It is a unique case in European history, a world premiere, for a president to incite one part of the population against the other.''

Dumitru Mazilu, who resigned from the leadership of the front last winter in a dispute over the Government's response to a demonstration against the front, said today that his apartment was surrounded for about five hours by a group of belligerent miners, armed with sticks, who threatened to kill him.

In a pre-dawn raid Wednesday, the police cracked down on the protest that had occupied University Square for seven weeks.

Witnesses to the raid Wednesday said a number of protesters were beaten as they were dragged off by the police and 253 were arrested - although all were released a few hours later.

Later in the day anti-Government protesters armed with gasoline bombs and guns seized in a raid on Central Police Headquarters, laid siege to the Interior Ministry, the state TV station and the Government's central offices at Victory Square. Five people were killed and 277 were wounded, the Health Ministry said.

Because of the crisis, sessions of the assembly and senate scheduled for today were postponed until Monday. A joint session after that is formally to appoint Mr. Iliescu head of state.

A miners' spokesman said in a statement carried by the Rompres press agency that they would stay in Bucharest as long as necessary. ''We shall stay here until we are sure that order is reinstated and people go back to work,'' the statement said. ''Nobody called us to Bucharest so we won't accept anyone telling us to go back home.''

Mr. Pascu said the Government would continue to rely on the miners while examining the creation of a new police force, a kind of national guard, that would supplement the function of the municipal police. ---- 'Vigilante Violence' Assailed WASHINGTON, June 14 (Reuters) - The United States accused Romania today of using vigilante violence against anti-Government demonstrators and said it would defer a decision on normalizing trade ties.

''The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the rioting of the past two days, and the Government-inspired vigilante violence that departs from the commonly accepted norms of democracy and the rule of law,'' said the White House spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater. ''We are concerned that the deplorable events of the past two days are being used to justify the suppression of legitimate dissent in Romania.''

The State Department spokeswoman, Margaret D. Tutwiler, replied affirmatively when asked if it was fair to assume that Washington would defer a decision on granting most-favored-nation-status to Romania until it is satisfied with the human-rights situation there.

The British Government accused the Iliescu Government of using the tactics of the Ceausescu regime. In London, a Foreign Office official, William Waldegrave, said: ''What is depressing is both the rhetoric - talking about all their opponents of being fascists and gypsies, just like Ceausescu - and the way in which they called out the 'rent-a-mob' of coal miners who were bused in, armed with pickax handles and knives, and loosed off into the streets.''

Article also from The Independent in 1999. Please also pay a visit to this blog and to Wikipedia.

So much pain in this country of my heart. Fighting, always fighting to try to make things better. Or in fact, one could opt for the other choice which is to sit and do nothing at all. Unfortunately, many have taken this option and it's hard to blame them. One stands up and is knocked down again. Constantly. Time and time and time again. Has so much changed since the 'revolution' of 1989? What is one to do when the people at the top are the most corrupt of all. Elena Negula, a victim of the miners attack and hunger striker, sums it up in an old Romanian idiom, "we want to make something good and instead we break our own heads."

______________________________________________________________________________

The 120th anniversary since the death of the national poet, Mihai Eminescu, also deserves a mention a day late (sorry!). Wikipedia says the following curiosity regarding his death:

"Recent sources claim that the Romanian and Austrian authorities of the time staged the "illness" of Eminescu in order to marginalize a powerful political adversary of the Romanian-Austrian treaty that was signed at that time. The secret treaty required Romania to cease its support to Transylvanian Romanians (then under Austrian rule). It did so (for a time), which caused certain Transylvanian-born Romanians to leave Bucharest. Eminescu, too, was under constant surveillance, and the only (unconfirmed) syphilis diagnosis was given by Romanian doctors."

Having already shared the Dacian Prayer with you a long time ago on this blog, here's another, The Lake, below. Eminescu may not be everyone's cup of tea (I mentioned him to a Roumanian friend the other evening who said, "oh don't tell me you LIKE Eminescu?!!"), but one must admit that he portrays the spirit of the country of my heart and its people perfectly. Perhaps that's why, to some, he may read uncomfortably. Of course, it does lose something in translation - the following is not my dear Popescu, who was able to transfer the Roumanian to English without dropping a thing. Mr Cuclin has made a valiant effort, though.

The Lake

Water lilies load all over
The blue lake amid the woods,
That imparts, while in white circles
Startling, to a boat its moods.

And along the strands I'm passing
Listening, waiting, in unrest,
That she from the reeds may issue
And fall, gently, on my breast;

That we may jump in the little
Boat, while water's voices whelm
All our feelings; that enchanted
I may drop my oars and helm;

That all charmed we may be floating
While moon's kindly light surrounds
Us, winds cause the reeds to rustle
And the waving water sounds.

But she does not come; abandoned,
Vainly I endure and sigh
Lonely, as the water lilies
On the blue lake ever lie.

(1876, Translated by Dimitrie Cuclin)

09 juin 2009

Here's a book NOT to buy!!

My dears,

I just told my Nicole that I was too tired to write my blog, but the temptation became irresistable. Due to a tale she told me this evening, I write this post to tell you of a book you shouldn't bother to buy. The trip to Diverta, Cartaresti or Humanitas would be both a waste of your time and cause superfluous wrinkles around your mouths. What on earth am I going on about? Dieter Stanzeleit, of course. Who's he? He's the chap (pictured below) who claims he's the son of the King of Roumania and has written a book on the subject, Regina pierdută - Edited by Fundaţiei culturale "Libra", Bucharest, 2006. He looks rather a nice chap and I'm almost sorry to disbelieve his story. Here's the introduction from his website:

"I have two names and can introduce myself as Dieter Stanzeleit or as Nicolae Vasile de Alba Iulia, Crown-Prince of Romania.
         The first name I got five years after my birth when a German refugee-a woman gave me the identity of her deceased son Dieter, a baby. Obviously she did so for my protection because 1945 there was still war in Germany.
         As Nicolae Vasile I was born on 28. November 1939 in Sinaia and baptized in the orthodox faith in Carmen Silva, nowadays Eforie de Sud.
         In 2007 my book ,Regina pierduta’ (,The lost Queen’) appeared in Romanian language. It is dedicated to my mother and contains the story of my life and of the political circumstances which led to my both names and that I had lived in Germany for more than 50 years."

Hmm...intrigue to say the least. His mother, he says, is Nerissa Bowes-Lyon, niece of Queen Elizabeth the Queen mother and a cousin of QE2.

About his mother, he explains the following:

"On 6. September 1940, my father became King. But when Romania under the leadership of Ion Antonescu became Hitler’s ally, the situation was still more precarious. My mother collaborated with the British secret service and communicated through Red-Cross organization with her home country.
         The Coup d’Etat together with the arrest of marshal Antonescu raised a sudden security gap where SS was able to arrest my mother and me.
         Hitler saw a sudden chance to fulfill his old dream of an alliance with England by pressure on Churchill through my mother as a hostage. Therefore we had not been executed in Romania, but brought to Germany by air. 25. August 1944 at 3 a.m., as a prior concession, Himmler gave Eichmann the order to stop immediately all transports of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. But when a disappointed Hitler had to realize that his dream didn’t turn into a reality, my mother was executed."

Wikipedia, however, says this of Nerissa Bowes-Lyon:

Nerissa Jane Irene Bowes-Lyon (February 18, 1919 – 1986) was a niece of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. The Royal Family informed Burke's Peerage that she had died in 1940. When it became apparent that this was not the case the editor of the book responded, "if that is what members of the family told us, then we would have included it. It is not normal to doubt the word of members of the royal family."

A daughter of the Honorable John Herbert Bowes-Lyon (died 1930) and his wife, the Honourable Fenella Hepburn-Stewart-Forbes-Trefusis (died 1966), Nerissa and her sister Katherine Bowes-Lyon were born mentally impaired. When Nerissa was 22 and Katherine was 15, they were removed from their family home and placed in the Royal Earlswood Hospital in Surrey where Nerissa spent the next 46 years. The sisters reportedly had the mental age of six and were largely unable to speak. They had two sisters who were born without any handicaps, Anne Ferelith Fenella Bowes-Lyon (1917–1980) and the socialite Diana Cinderella Mildred Bowes-Lyon, Mrs. Peter Somervell (1923–1986); she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Queen Elizabeth II.

Three of the Bowes-Lyon sisters' cousins were institutionalized as well, all classified as mentally disturbed: Idonea, Etheldreda, and Rosemary Fane.

Nerissa Bowes-Lyon was buried in Redhill, Surrey.

So, the plot thickens. A very talented lady if she could be both interred in Surrey and the lover of the Sovereign of Roumania at the same time. Wonder how she managed that. She also managed to die twice! Fancy that. The first time executed by Hitler in around 1944 and the second time in 1986...  In a nutshell, the man claiming to be her son says she was executed in the early 40's - hard to mistake that when you are speaking about your own mother...and the British royal family quite liked that version since they could write her off once and for all...only she didn't die then, but much later in 1986. Not in the country of my heart, but in Redhill, Surrey. Alone. Poor thing.

The Guardian published an article in 2000 reporting the same story - that she was incarcerated for the same amount of time and was never visited once by a single member of the royal family. Scroll down around three quarters of the way through this artilce on Princess Alice for the afore-mentioned info.

From the Sunday Herald, an extract from an article dated 2006 below:

Monday, February 20, 2006

Royal Family: Bowes Lyon kids abandoned in state-run mental asylum and declared dead to avoid public shame - [Sunday Herald]

Nieces abandoned in state-run mental asylum and declared dead to avoid public shame


By Neil Mackay


IT was while Nazi bombs were raining down on London and the Queen Mother was reigning on the throne with her husband King George VI that her two nieces, Katherine and Nerissa Bowes Lyon, were first locked away in a mental hospital.

Nerissa is now dead, but Katherine is still alive and remains confined in an obscure state-run home in a quiet corner of Surrey. Katherine, this long-forgotten member of the Bowes Lyon family, will be significantly absent from Westminster Abbey at 11.30am this Tuesday during the ceremonial funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

The sad life of Katherine and the lonely death of Nerissa stand in contrast to the life and death of the Queen Mother. While the Queen Mother enjoyed a life of opulence and is now having her death marked with honour and remembrance, Nerissa was interred in what amounted to a pauper's grave and Katherine is all but a non-person for the British monarchy and aristocracy.

Indeed very sad, and not a way to treat your rellies...but I'm still impressed that this woman, born retarded with a mental age of six, interred for 46 years and unable to speak could manage to be in Roumania at the time of WW2 and charm the pants off the King.

See this site for other articles should the mood grab you. The treatment by the royal family of its mentally ill members is thoroughly shameful. Prince John, son of George V and Queen Mary, is a prime example. Problems of mental health is a well known common occurence due to interbreeding, presumably. But still, Dieter Stanzeleit's story is so far-fetched I can hardly believe that anyone actually went and bought his book, but they did...

I feel so sorry for poor Nerissa and her sister Katherine, and only wish that she could be remembered in a kind and endearing way rather than as part of a dreamed-up fairy tale intertwined with the King of Roumania, which can only lead to ridicule rather than sympathy. My humble and very unconvinced opinion, of course. If you have another, do please comment below. If you have better things to do, frankly, I don't blame you. I personally am off to bed to try to finish 'Millenium'. Makes a ripping yarn, though, dunnit.

Love Sarah xox

08 juin 2009

Dear Everyone,

Having spent most of the evening either working for the week's classes to come or on the phone to Mandita and Lucia, the news of Europe is shocking regarding Roumania. I heard this evening that Roumania have voted for three representatives in the European Parliament..that's fine, but who...vai de capul meow, the three biggest idiots (you'd be hard-pressed to find stupider) in the country: Elena Basescu, Gigi Becali and Vadim Tudor. So, who does Roumania, the country of my heart, have symbolising them politically? A model, a shepherd and a Nazi...fabulous. Well done team!!! How on EARTH did that happen???? Apparently the votes for these three goons were from the countryside. They'd have been better off voting for Marcel and the bear population. I couldn't believe my ears.... The Romania far-right are set to win two seats.

What else now? I have one ear on the results. It seems that Europe is predominantly centre right (very good news says the British socialist, who I suppose on an equality level is Euro central right) much to Sarko and Merkel's joy. Hungary has shown a high dose of far right, probably due to the amount of crimes committed by gypsies (that didn't come from me - I just heard it on Euro-News). The socialists have taken a massive thwack in the face with a wet cod. They were beaten by the greens who found themselves in 2nd place much to everyone's surprise.

In the Netherlands, a controvertial chap who was refused entry into UK recently after he called the Coran a 'fascist book' did really well...he happens to be a politician. Far right, of course. The socialists won in the Czech Republic with 23%. The only group who did better than that was the percentage shown for not voting at all. Oops. The right wing went down the pan in Prague and the communists, too. No surprise there.

The EPP (European Peoples Party) have done very well across the board and there are a whole load of seats up for grabs. There are 18 additions to the non-aligned parties this evening. rather an interesting outcome. In the UK, the Tories came top, UKIP next then labour followed by Lib Dems...not that I class the UK really as Europeans til they take the Euro, learn foreign languages, read world news and mix a bit more...ooh, meow, hiss, spit! Get this, the far-right BNP have won the first seat ever in the EU Parliament. Very worrying. These extremist showings of responses, say the political analysts, are a result of the recession. I don't think so. I think they are a result of high crime and immigration issues. Why don't these analysts wake up and smell the coffee.

In Austria, the far right have doubled their score from 7% to 13% but they didn't do as well as expected. It's maybe anti-expense rebellion which puts a lot of pressure on the soc dems and the EPP...the socialists are the biggest percentage of the coalition, even if conservatives won the most votes.

What happened in Germany? Merkel's CDU didn't do terribly well. they lost around 6% but Merkel's quite happy - it's the night of the centre rights. Libs have done well - best results for an election in Germany. But globally, centre right held its ground. If the result was repeated in a Bundestag election, Merkel wants to break out of the coalition. The results give her hope that it could be possible.

In Spain, the socialists got 38% against 42% to the conservatives...how come? Economy and unemployment is the highest in Europe. Only 45% turn out but still, people voted against the government. Unemployment is expected to continue to rise.

I could not vote. I was away with my beloved Nicole and Serge when I should have signed up for the right to vote. I am, as you can imagine, furax not to have been allowed to voice my opinion.

But France 'did good'. A high (ish) turn out for a Euro election and despite Sarkozy being so unpopular, he scrubbed up pretty well.

Below, an article from Bloomsburg.com:

Merkel, Sarkozy Win EU Vote, Easing Stimulus Pressure (Update1)

By James G. Neuger

June 7 (Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy led pro-business parties in defeating socialists in European Parliament elections, lessening the pressure for more stimulus measures to fight the deepest recession since World War II.

Amid signs the economic slump is bottoming out, the continent’s top two leaders escaped the drubbing in European Union-wide elections that was handed to U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and socialists in smaller countries including Spain, Austria, Portugal, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovenia.

Merkel’s Christian Democrats and allied Christian Social Union racked up 38 percent of the German vote, beating the rival Social Democrats with 20.8 percent, according to preliminary results. Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement scored 28 percent, beating the Socialists with 16.8 percent.

“It’s a very successful election for Merkel,” said Jan Techau, an analyst at the Berlin-based German Council on Foreign Relations. “Maybe it’s a sign that pressure will ease regarding demands for more social spending to counter the economic crisis.”

Overall, the center-right group known as the European People’s Party remained the strongest in the Parliament, with 263 to 273 out of the total 736 seats, according to an initial projection. The Socialists won 155 to 165 seats and the Liberal Democrats 78 to 84.

“It is a very sad night for Social Democrats in Europe, we’re very disappointed, we had hoped for better results,” Martin Schulz of Germany, the socialists’ floor leader, said. “It’s a very bitter evening.”

British Voters

In Britain, voters were set to deal a rebuke to Brown, battling to hang on to power after the resignation of six cabinet ministers in a week. Brown’s Labour Party braced for a “terrible” outcome, Wales Secretary Peter Hain said on Sky News.

France’s Socialists blamed internal disarray for their defeat. “We’re not yet credible,” Socialist leader Martine Aubry said. “Our Socialist Party has suffered from internal battles and divisions.”

Protest voters made their voices heard in smaller countries, with anti-immigrant parties picking up 17 percent in the Netherlands, 13 percent in Austria and 10 percent in Finland.

The campaigns “have been very national in character. they’ve been fought quite largely on domestic issues and the domestic economic situation,” said Joseph Curtin, a senior researcher at the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin.

About 9,000 candidates ran for seats in the Parliament, which passes EU-wide laws on everything from consumer safety to financial services, approves the bloc’s 116 billion-euro ($165 billion) budget and vets top appointments.

First elected by popular ballot in 1979, the Parliament has gained authority over a widening area of regulation. Still, its lack of powers over taxes, spending and foreign policy render it invisible to most voters.

Turnout

EU-wide turnout fell to 43 percent, the lowest ever, from 45.5 percent in 2004, according to a first official estimate. Turnout has dropped in every EU election from the peak of 62 percent in 1979.

The center-right’s victory boosts the odds that Jose Barroso will win a second term at the helm of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm. EU leaders may reappoint Barroso at a June 18-19 summit in Brussels, a step that requires the Parliament’s approval.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's allies shared in the center-right’s gains, snaring 39 percent to 43 percent, with the opposition at 27 percent to 31 percent, according to an IPR Marketing survey cited by the Ansa news agency.

In Germany, a repeat of today’s voting in the national election on Sept. 27 may enable Merkel to stay in power, forming a coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats instead of the Social Democrats, her party’s historic rival with whom she currently rules.

Obama’s Pleas

Merkel resisted President Barack Obama’s pleas for additional pump-priming measures, criticized the European Central Bank for buying assets, and was the first to reflect publicly on rolling back the stimulus.

Stimulus measures in 2009 amount to 1.6 percent of gross domestic product in Germany, 1.4 percent in Britain, 0.7 percent in France and 0.2 percent in Italy -- all short of a target of 2 percent, the International Monetary Fund said in April.

Data such as a rise in retail sales for the second month in April and a jump in business and consumer confidence to a six- month high in May have fuelled optimism that that the economy is starting to pull out of the slump.

Still, EU-wide unemployment reached 9.2 percent in April, the highest in almost a decade, and the European Commission predicts the economy will shrink 4 percent in 2009 and another 0.1 percent in 2010.

To contact the reporter on this story: James G. Neuger in Brussels at jneuger@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 7, 2009 17:29 EDT

06 juin 2009

Ion Pacepa

Here's an article for you, recommended by my Nicole (and quite right, too) from the Wall Street Journal dated 2nd June:

By ION MIHAI PACEPA

They say history repeats itself. If you are like me and
have lived two lives, you have a good chance of seeing the
re-enactment with your own eyes. The current takeover of
General Motors by the U.S. government and United Auto
Workers makes me think back to Romania's catastrophic
mismanagement of the car factories it built jointly with the
French companies Renault and Citroen. I was Romania's car
czar.

When the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu decided in the
mid-1960s that he wanted to have a car industry, he chose me
to start the project rolling. In the land of the blind, the
one-eyed man is king. I knew nothing about manufacturing
cars, but neither did anyone else among Ceausescu's top men.
However, my father had spent most of his life running the
service department of the General Motors affiliate in
Bucharest.

My job at the time was as head of the Romanian industrial
espionage program. Ceausescu tasked me to mediate the
purchase of a minimum, basic license for a small car from a
major Western manufacturer, and then to steal everything
else needed to produce the car.

Three Western companies competed for the honor. Ceausescu
decided on Renault, because it was owned by the French
government (all Soviet bloc rulers distrusted private
companies). We ended up with a license for an antiquated and
about-to-be-discontinued Renault-12 car, because it was the
cheapest. "Good enough for the idiots," Ceausescu decided,
showing what he thought of the Romanian people. He baptized
the car Dacia, to commemorate Romania's 2,000-year history
going back to Dacia Felix, as the ancient Romans called that
part of the world. In that government-run economy, symbolism
was the most important consideration, especially when it
came to things in short supply (such as food).

"Too luxurious for the idiots," Ceausescu decreed when he
saw the first Dacia car made in Romania. Immediately, the
radio, right side mirror and backseat heating were dropped.
Other "unnecessary luxuries" were soon eliminated by the
bureaucrats and their workers' union that were running the
factory. The car that finally hit the market was a
stripped-down version of the old, stripped-down Renault 12.
"Perfect for the idiots," Ceausescu approved. Indeed, the
Romanian people, who had never before had any car, came to
cherish the Dacia.

For the Western market, however, the Dacia was a nightmare.
To the best of my knowledge, no Dacia car was ever sold in
the U.S.

Ceausescu, undaunted, was determined to see Romanian cars
running around in every country in the world. He tasked me
to buy another Western license, this time to produce a car
tailored for export. Oltcit was the name of the new car --
an amalgam made from the words Oltenia, Ceausescu's native
province, and the French car maker Citroen, which owned 49%
of the shares. Oltcit was projected to produce between
90,000 and 150,000 compact cars designed by Citroen.

Ceausescu micromanaged Oltcit, but he didn't even know how
to drive a car, much less run a car industry. To save the
foreign currency he coveted, he decreed that the components
for the Oltcit were to be manufactured at 166 existing
Romanian factories. Coordinating 166 plants to have them
deliver all the parts on time would be a monumental job even
for an experienced car producer. It proved impossible for
the Romanian bureaucracy, which pretended to work and was
paid accordingly. The Oltcit factory could produce only 1%
to 1.5% of its intended capacity owing to the lack of the
parts that those 166 companies were supposed to furnish
simultaneously. The Oltcit project lost billions.

Ceausescu was an extreme case, but automobile manufacturing
and government were never a good mix in any
socialist/communist country. In the late 1950s, when I
headed Romania's foreign intelligence station in West
Germany, I worked closely with the foreign branch of the
East German Stasi. Its chief, Markus Wolf, rewarded me with
a Trabant car -- the pride of East Germany -- when I left to
return to Romania.

That ugly little car became famous in 1989 when thousands
of East Germans used it to cross to the West. The Trabant
originally derived from a well regarded West German car (the
DKW) made by Audi, which today produces some of the most
prestigious cars in the world. In the hands of the East
German government, the unfortunate DKW became a farce of a
car. The bureaucrats and the union that ran the Trabant
factory made the car smaller and boxier, to give it a more
proletarian look. To reduce production costs, they cut down
on the size of the original, already small DKW engine, and
they replaced the metal body with one made of
plastic-covered cardboard. What rolled off the assembly line
was a kind of horseless carriage that roared like a lawn
mower and polluted the air worse than a whole city block
full of big Western cars.

After German reunification, the plucky little "Trabi" that
East Germans used to wait 10 years to buy became an
embarrassment, and its production was stopped. Germany's
junkyards are now piled high with Trabants, which cannot be
recycled because burning their plastic-covered cardboard
bodies would release poisonous dioxins. German scientists
are now trying to develop a bacterium to devour the
cardboard-and-plastic body.

Automobile manufacturing and government do not mix in
capitalist countries either. In the spring of 1978 Ceausescu
appointed me chief of his Presidential House, a new position
supposed to be similar to that of the White House chief of
staff. To go with it he gave me a big Jaguar car. That
Jaguar, which at the time had been produced in a
government-run British factory, was so bad that it spent
more time in the garage being repaired than it did on the
road.

"Apart from some Russian factories in Gorky, Jaguars were
the worst," Ford executive Bill Hayden stated when Ford
bought the nationalized British car maker in 1988. How did
the famous Jaguar, one of the most prestigious cars in the
world, become a joke?

In 1945, the British voters, tired of four years of war,
kicked out Winston Churchill and elected a leftist
parliament led by Labour's Clement Attlee. Attlee
nationalized the automobile, trucking and coal industries,
as well as communication facilities, civil aviation,
electricity and steel. Britain was already saddled by
crushing war debts. Now it was sapped of economic vigor. The
old empire quickly passed into history. It would take
decades until Margaret Thatcher's privatization reforms
restored Britain's place among the world's top-tier
economies.

The United States is far more powerful than Great Britain
was then, and no American Attlee should be capable of
destroying its solid economic and political base. I hope
that the U.S. administration, Congress and the American
voters will take a closer look at history and prevent our
automotive industry from following down the Dacia, Oltcit or
Jaguar path.

Lt. Gen. Pacepa, the highest ranking Soviet bloc official
granted political asylum in the U.S., is the author of the
memoir "Red Horizons" (Regnery, 1987).

Remember this guy, Pacepa? The one who made Ceausescu really, really peed off? Wish I'd been a fly on the wall in Ceausescu's office when he heard Pacepa had walked into the embassy in Bonne and asked for asylum. One of Ceausescu's less than good days, I'd imagine. You don't know who I'm talking about? Oh. Then read on. Extract below from Wikipedia:

"Pacepa studied industrial chemistry at the University Politehnica of Bucharest, but just months before graduation he was drafted by the Securitate, and got his engineering degree only four years later. Between 1957 and 1960 he served as chief of the Romanian intelligence station in West Germany, and, between 1972 and 1978, he was Ceauşescu's adviser for national security and technological development and the deputy chief of the Romanian foreign intelligence service.

Pacepa defected in July 1978 by walking into the American Embassy in Bonn, where he had been sent by Ceauşescu with a message to Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. He was secretly flown to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., in a United States military airplane.

In September 1978, Pacepa received two death sentences from Communist Romania, and Ceauşescu placed a bounty of two million US dollars on his head. Yasser Arafat and Muammar al-Gaddafi set one more million dollars reward each. In the 1980s, Romania’s political police tasked Carlos the Jackal to assassinate Pacepa in America in exchange for one million dollars. Carlos was unable to find Pacepa, but on February 21, 1980, he blew up a part of Radio Free Europe's headquarters in Munich, which was broadcasting news on Pacepa's defection.

On July 7, 1999, Romania’s Supreme Court Decision No. 41/1999 cancelled Pacepa’s death sentences, restored his military rank and ordered that his properties, confiscated on Ceauşescu's orders, be returned to him. Romania's government refused to comply. This ignited a series of Western articles alleging that Romania was still not a country of laws. In December 2004, the new government of Romania quietly restored Pacepa’s rank of general.

Pacepa occasionally writes articles for The Wall Street Journal and various American conservative publications, such as National Review Online, The Washington Times, and the online newspaper FrontPage Magazine."

For more, and it makes fascinating reading, see Wikipedia as well as some other articles by Pacepa: The Arafat I Knew (WSJ), a review on Raul Castro, Propaganda Redux, Believers in Hate....

Love, Sarah

Pro-tv special!

Dear Everyone,

Here's Mandita with news of Nicu...a little old hat but I don't have a more recent update. I must call this weekend.

Have a good evening

Love Sarah

05 juin 2009

The Dark Continent: Spiegel article

Back in Paris again and this is from Spiegel On-Line...excellent (albeit uncomfortable) article, (bravo! bravo!) which brings to mind John Sacks and his 'Eye For An Eye' for its courage although the subject is not at all the same - the only parallel (apart from the courage) is cover-ups. The Germans are not the only ones to blame for the horrors of WW2, of course, but who wants to talk about such a thing...and if that's what you think, consider yourself convinced otherwise with the article below. I am very glad (if not horrified) to read such an honest article. Superb job, Georg Bönisch, Jan Friedmann, Cordula Meyer, Michael Sontheimer, Klaus Wiegrefe. Thank you.

THE DARK CONTINENT

Part 1: Hitler's European Holocaust Helpers

By SPIEGEL Staff

The Germans are responsible for the industrial-scale mass murder of 6 million Jews. But the collusion of other European countries in the Holocaust has received surprisingly little attention until recently. The trial of John Demjanjuk is set to throw a spotlight on Hitler's foreign helpers.

He's been here before, in this country of perpetrators. He saw this country collapse. He was 25 at the time and his Christian name was Ivan, not John; not yet.

Ivan Demjanjuk served as a guard in Flossenbürg concentration camp until shortly before the end of World War II. He had been transferred there from the SS death camp in Sobibor in present-day Poland. He was Ukrainian, and he was a Travniki, one of the 5,000 men who helped Germany's Nazi regime commit the crime of the millennium -- the murder of all the Jews in Europe, the "Final Solution."

He was part of it, if only a very minor cog in the vast machinery of murder. Ivan Demjanjuk stayed in post-war Germany for seven years before he emigrated to the US in 1952 with his wife and daughter on board the General Haan. Once he arrived, he changed his name to John. His time as a supposed DP or "displaced person," as the Anglo-American victors called people made homeless by the war, was over.

DP Demjanjuk had lived in the southern German towns of Landshut and Regensburg where he worked for the US Army. He moved to Ulm, Ellwangen, Bad Reichenhall, and finally to Feldafing on Lake Starnberg. Feldafing belongs to the area covered by the Munich district court, which is why Demjanjuk has been sitting in Munich's Stadelheim prison since he was deported from the US last week. His cell measures 24 square meters, which is extraordinarily spacious by usual prison standards.

Last Big Nazi Trial in Germany

He faces charges of aiding and abetting the murder of at least 29,000 Jews in Sobibor. The trial could start in late summer, provided Demjanjuk, now almost 90, is deemed fit to stand trial. Witnesses will be called to testify, but none of them will be able to identify him. The only evidence lies in the files, but that evidence is strong. Twice, in 1949 and 1979, former Travniki Ignat Danilchenko, who is now dead, stated that Demjanjuk had been an "experienced and efficient guard" who had driven Jews into the gas chambers -- "that was daily work."

Demjanjuk has denied this charge throughout. He says he was never in Flossenbürg or in Sobibor, never pushed people into the gas chambers. The ex-American has adopted the same tactic of denial as many other defendants who stood trial for war crimes after 1945.

But it's already clear that this last big Nazi trial in Germany will be a deeply extraordinary one because it will for the first time put the foreign perpetrators in the spotlight of world publicity. They are men who have until now received surprisingly little attention -- Ukrainian gendarmes and Latvian auxiliary police, Romanian soldiers or Hungarian railway workers. Polish farmers, Dutch land registry officials, French mayors, Norwegian ministers, Italian soldiers -- they all took part in Germany's Holocaust.

Experts such as Dieter Pohl of the German Institute for Contemporary History estimate that more than 200,000 non-Germans -- about as many as Germans and Austrians -- "prepared, carried out and assisted in acts of murder." And often they were every bit as cold-blooded as Hitler's henchmen.

Just for example, on June 27, 1941, a colonel in the staff of the Germany's Northern Army Group in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas passed a petrol station surrounded by a crowd of people. There were shouts of bravo and clapping, mothers raised their children to give them a better view. The officer stepped closer and later wrote down what he had seen. "On the concrete courtyard there was blonde man aged around 25, of medium height, who was taking a rest and supporting himself on a wooden club which was as thick as an arm and went up to his chest. At his feet lay 15, 20 people who were dead or dying. Water poured from a hose and washed the blood into a drain."

The soldier continued: "Just a few paces behind this man stood around 20 men who -- guarded by several armed civilians -- awaited their gruesome execution in silent submission. Beckoned with a curt wave, the next one stepped up silently and was (…) beaten to death with the wooden club, and every blow met with enthusiastic cheers from the audience."

Orgy of Murder Like a Lithuanian National Ceremony

When all lay dead on the ground, the blonde murderer climbed on the heap of corpses and played the accordion. His audience sang the Lithuanian anthem as if the orgy of murder had been a national ceremony.

How could something like that happen? For a long time now, this question hasn't just been directed at the Germans, whose central responsibility for the horror is undisputed -- but also at the perpetrators in all countries.

What led Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu and his generals, soldiers, civil servants and farmers to murder 200,000 Jews (and possibly twice that many) "of their own accord," as historian Armin Heinen puts it. Why did Baltic death squadrons commit murder on German orders in Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine? And why did German Einsatzgruppen -- paramilitary "intervention groups" operated by the SS -- have such an easy time encouraging the non-Jewish population to wage pogroms between Warsaw and Minsk?

It's completely undisputed that the Holocaust would never have happened without Hitler, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler and the many, many other Germans. But it's also certain "that the Germans on their own wouldn't have been able to carry out the murder of millions of European Jews," says Hamburg-based historian Michael Wild.

It's a perception that many survivors never doubted. When the Association of Surviving Lithuanian Jews convened in Munich in 1947, they passed a resolution that bore an unmistakable title: "On the guilt of a large part of the Lithuanian population for the murder of Lithuania's Jews."

In the Third Reich with its well-functioning bureaucracy, there were comprehensive registers of the Jewish population. But in the territories conquered by the German army, Hitler's henchmen needed information of the type supplied in the Netherlands by registry offices whose staff went to a lot of trouble to compile a precise "Register of Jews."

And how would the SS and police have been able to track down Jews in the cities of Eastern Europe with their broad mix of ethnic groups if they hadn't had the support of the local population? Not many Germans would have been able "to recognize a Jew in a crowd," recalls Thomas Blatt, a survivor of Sobibor who wants to testify as a witness at Demjanjuk's trial.

At the time, Blatt was a blonde-haired boy and tried to pass for a Christian child in his Polish home town of Izbica. He didn't wear a yellow star and tried to appear self-confident when he ran into uniformed people. But he was betrayed a number of times -- the Germans paid for information on the whereabouts of Jews -- and he always escaped with a lot of luck.

Denunciation Was Common

Denunciation was so common in Poland that there was a special term for paid informants "Szmalcowniki" (previously a term for a fence). In many cases, the denouncers knew their victims. And while the French, Dutch or Belgians could submit to the illusion that the Jews deported to the east from Paris, Rotterdam or Brussels would be all right in the end, the people in Eastern Europe learned through the grapevine what lay in store for the Jews in Auschwitz or Treblinka.

For sure, many counter-examples can easily be found. A senior officer in Einsatzgruppe C, responsible for the murder of more than 100,000 people, complained that the Ukrainians lacked "pronounced anti-Semitism based on racial or ideological reasons." The officer wrote that "there is a lack of leadership and of spiritual impetus for the pursuit of Jews."

Historian Feliks Tych estimates that some 125,000 Poles rescued Jews without being paid for their services. It's clear that the perpetrators always made up a small minority of their respective population. But the Germans relied on that minority. The SS, police and the army lacked the manpower to search the vast areas where the Nazi leadership planned to kill all people of Jewish origin. Across the 4,000 kilometers stretching from Brittany in western France to the Caucasus, the Nazis were bent on hunting down their victims, deporting them to extermination camps or to local murder sites, preventing escapes, digging mass graves and then carrying out their bloody handiwork.

Of course only Hitler and his entourage or the army could have stopped the Holocaust. But this doesn't invalidate the argument that without the foreign helpers, countless thousands or even millions of the approximately six million murdered Jews would have survived.

In the killing fields of Eastern Europe, there were up to 10 local helpers for every German policeman. The ratio is similar in the extermination camps. Not in Auschwitz, which was run almost entirely by Germans, but in Belzec (600,000 killed), Treblinka (900,000 deaths) or in Demjanjuk's Sobibor. There, a handful of SS members were assisted by some 120 Travniki men.

Without them, the Germans would never have managed to kill 250,000 Jews in Sobibor, says former prisoner Blatt. It was the Travniki who guarded the camp, drove all the Jews from the railway wagons and trucks after their arrival in the camp, and who beat them into the gas chambers.

Was the Holocaust a European Project?

Such a stupefying number of victims raises disturbing questions, and Berlin historian Götz Aly already started asking them a few years ago: was the so-called Final Solution in fact a "European project that cannot be explained solely by the special circumstances of German history"?

Part 2: Many Foreign Perpetrators Acted Voluntarily

There is no final verdict yet on the European dimension of the Holocaust. The French and Italians started late -- when most of the perpetrators were already dead -- to deal comprehensively with this part of their history. Others, such as the Ukrainians and Lithuanians, are still dragging their feet; or they have only just begun, like Romania, Hungary and Poland.

Since 1945 the countries invaded and ravaged by Hitler's armies have seen themselves as victims -- which they doubtless were, with their vast numbers of dead. That makes it all the more painful to concede that many compatriots aided the German perpetrators.

In Latvia, local assistance was greater than anywhere else. According to the American historian Raul Hilberg, the Latvians had the highest proportion of Nazi helpers. The Danes are at the other end of the scale. When the deportation of Denmark's Jews was about to begin in 1943, large parts of the population helped Jews to escape to Sweden or hid them. Some 98 percent of Denmark's 7,500 Jews survived World War II. By contrast, only nine percent of the Dutch Jews survived.

Does the Holocaust represent the low point not only of German history, but of European history as well, as historian Aly argues?

There is evidence challenging the widely-held notion that foreign perpetrators were forced to help the Germans commit murder. It's true that local helpers risked their lives by refusing to assist the German occupiers. That applied to the police units and civil servants in occupied Western Europe as much as it did to newly-formed auxiliary police in the east. But it's also true that in many places people volunteered to serve the Germans or participated in crimes without being forced to.

There is also the often-repeated claim that the governments of countries allied with Hitler had no choice but to hand over Jewish citizens to the Germans. That's not true either. The Balkan countries in particular quickly understood how important the "solution to the Jewish Question" was to Hitler and his diplomats -- and they tried to extract the highest possible price for their complicity.

There's also reason to doubt the assumption that the helpers were pathological sadists. If that were true, they should be easy to identify, for example within the group of 50 Lithuanians who served under the command of SS Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) Joachim Hamann. The men would drive around the villages up to five times a week to murder Jews, and ended up killing 60,000 people. It only took a few crates of Vodka to get them in the mood. In the evenings the troop would return to Kaunas and boast of their crimes in the mess hall.

None of the Lithuanians had been criminals before. They were "totally and utterly normal," believes historian Knut Stang. Almost everywhere after the war, the murderers returned to their ordinary lives as if nothing had happened. Demjanjuk too was a law-abiding citizen. In Cleveland, Ohio, where he lived, he was regarded as good colleague and a friendly neighbor.

It's the same as with the German perpetrators. There's no identifiable type of killer -- that's a particularly disturbing conclusion reached by historians. The murderers included Catholics and Protestants, hot-blooded southern Europeans and cool Balts, obsessive right-wing extremists or unfeeling bureaucrats, refined academics or violent rednecks.

Among them was Viktor Arajs (1910-1988), a learned lawyer from a Latvian farming family who commanded a unit of more than 1,000 men that murdered its way around Eastern Europe on behalf of the Nazis. Or the Romanian Generaru, son of a general and commander of the ghetto in Bersad in Ukraine, who had one of his victims tied to a motorbike and dragged to death.

Anti-Semitism Was Rife Across Europe

And anti-Semitism? In the 1930s, anti-Semitism grew across Europe because the upheaval after World War I and the global economic crisis had unsettled people. In Eastern Europe, the tendency to regard Jews as scapegoats and to try and exclude them from the job market was especially strong. In Hungary, Jews were banned from public office at the end of the 1930s and were forbidden to work in a large number of professions. Romania voluntarily adopted Nazi Germany's racist and anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws. In Poland, many universities restricted access for Jewish students.

The extent of the hatred of Jews is also reflected in the fact that after the end of the war in 1945, mobs in Poland killed at least 600, and possibly even thousands of Holocaust survivors. However, excessive nationalism appears to have been the more important factor, at least in Eastern Europe. Many there dreamed of a nation state devoid of minorities. In this sense, the Jews were simply one of several groups that people wanted to rid themselves of. As World War II raged, the Croats didn't just murder Jews but also killed a far larger number of Serbs. Poles and Lithuanians killed each other. Romania liquidated Roma and Ukrainians.

It's hard to determine what motivated people to kill. Often nationalism or anti-Semitism were just excuses. During the war, no one had to go hungry in Germany, but living conditions in Eastern Europe were squalid. "For the Germans, 300 Jews meant 300 enemies of humanity. For the Lithuanians they meant 300 pairs of trousers and 300 pairs of boots," says one eyewitness. That was greed on a personal level. But it also featured on a collective level. In France, 96 percent of aryanized companies remained in French hands. The Hungarian government used the assets seized from Jews to extend its pension system and reduce inflation.

Jews Were Scapegoats for Soviet Crimes

Imaginary revenge also played a part. Pogroms in Poland by local people against Jews in 1941 were based on the assumption that the Jews formed some sort of base for Soviet rule, because communists of Jewish descent had for a time been over-represented in some areas of the Soviet bureaucracy. As a result, many people blamed Jews for the crimes committed during the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland between 1939 and 1941. Stalin's secret police the NKWD had actual and presumed opponents of the regime in the Baltic States, eastern Poland and Ukraine shot or deported to Gulags. As the German troops advanced, the Soviets left behind a deeply traumatized society between the Baltic and the Carpathians -- and many fresh mass graves.

Hitler hadn't worked out all the details of the Holocaust from the start, instead assuming he would be able to drive out all Jews from his sphere of influence after a quick victory over the Soviet Union. But the German advance into the Soviet Union started faltering in autumn 1941, which raised the problem of what to do with the people crammed into ghettos, especially in Poland. Many Gauleiter, SS officers and top administrators called for their territory to be made "judenfrei" ("free of Jews" -- which meant liquidating them. The construction of extermination camps began, first in Belzec, then Sobibor, then Treblinka.

Brief Holocaust Training Course

It was a gigantic killing program in which most of Poland's Jews, 1.75 million, were murdered. The SS preferred to recruit its helpers among Ukrainians or ethnic Germans in prisoner-of-war camps where Red Army soldiers like Demjanjuk faced the choice of killing for the Germans or starving to death. Later, increasing numbers of volunteers from western Ukraine and Galicia joined the unit. The men had to sign a declaration that they had never belonged to a communist group and had no Jewish ancestry. Then they were taken to Travniki in the district of Lublin in south-eastern Poland where they were trained for their deadly profession on the site of a former sugar factory. In mid-1943 some 3,700 men were stationed in Travniki. Training for the Holocaust took several weeks. The SS men showed the new recruits how to carry out raids and how to guard prisoners, often using live subjects. Then the unit would drive to a nearby town and beat Jewish residents out of their homes. Executions were carried out in a nearby forest, probably to make sure that the recruits were loyal.

At first the Travniki were used to guard property and to prevent supply depots from being plundered. Then their German masters sent them to clear ghettos in Lviv and Lublin, where they were remorseless in rounding up their Jewish victims. Finally they were put to work in eight-hour shifts in the extermination camp. "Everyone jumped in where he was needed," recalled one SS officer. Everything worked "like clockwork."

Historians estimate that a third of the Travniki absconded despite the punishment that entailed if they were caught. Some were executed for disobedience. And the others? Why didn't they try to get out of the killing machine? Why didn't Demjanjuk? Die he allow himself to be corrupted by the feeling of "having attained total power over others," as historian Pohl argues. Was it the prospect of loot? In Belzec and Sobibor the Travniki engaged in brisk bartering with the inhabitants of surrounding villages and paid with items they had seized from the prisoners.

Perhaps there was something else, something even more disturbing that many people have deep in their psyche: following orders from authorities even if they ran counter to their conscience. Total and utter obedience.

Part 3: Germany Relied on Outside Help in the Monstrous Murder Project

Germany's troops didn't have the whole of continental Europe under the gun to the same extent. Outside the Third Reich and the occupied territories the Germans needed the help of foreign governments in their monstrous murder project -- in the west as well as the south and southeast of Europe. Their support was strongest among the Slovaks and Croats whom Hitler had given their own states. The Croatian Ustasha fascists set up their own concentration camps where Jews were killed "through typhoid, hunger, shooting, torture, drowning, stabbing and hammer blows to the head," says historian Hilberg. The majority of Croatian Jews were killed by Croats.

Anti-Semitism wasn't so deep-rooted in Italy and was ordered by the state out of consideration for the Germans. An Italian military commander in Mostar (in today's Bosnia) refused to chase Jews from their homes because he said such operations "weren't in keeping with the honor of the Italian army." That wasn't the only the only such case. But it's clear that Benito Mussolini's puppet government of 1943 eagerly took part in persecuting Jews. More than 9,000 Italian Jews were deported to their deaths.

Some 29,000 Jews from Belgium were murdered, many after being denounced in return for cash. Denunciations also happened in the Netherlands and France. Local authorities obediently paved the way for the deportation of Jews and later said they hadn't suspected what fate the Jews faced. That excuse was used by henchmen, opportunists and pen-pushing bureaucrats -- a category of perpetrator that was denied for a long time after the war in France as the country sought to build a myth that the entire French people had been involved in the heroic resistance.

France was divided into two parts. Hitler's troops had occupied three fifths of the country but the southern part of the country remained unoccupied until November 1942 and was ruled by a right-wing government based in Vichy that collaborated with the Germans.

How Many Were Betrayed?

The first major roundup of Jews took place in mid-July 1942 in occupied Paris when almost 13,000 Jews who had no French passport were taken from their homes by French policemen. At least two thirds of the Jews deported from France were foreigners. The remaining third consisted of naturalized French citizens and children born in France to stateless Jews. Police "repeatedly expressed the desire" that the children should be deported as well, one SS officer noted in July 1942. Almost all deportations ended in Auschwitz.

In total almost 76,000 Jews were deported from France and only 3 percent of them survived the Holocaust. It's unknown how many of them were betrayed by the local population. In the Netherlands there's a figure that gives an indication of the extent of denunciation. The country had an authority that hunted Jews on behalf of the Nazis and that listed the property of Jews who had gone into hiding or already been deported. The "Household goods registry office" paid 7.50 guilders for every Jew who could be located -- that's about €40 in today's money. Dutch journalist Ad van Liempt has analyzed historical records and estimated that between March and June 1943 alone, more than 6,800 Jews were tracked down in this way, and that at least 54 people had taken part in this hunt once or even several times. "Most of them made this their main occupation for months," he says.

The head of the unit was a car mechanic called Wim Henneicke who evidently had good connections in the Amsterdam underworld. He built up an extensive network of informants who told him where Jews were hiding. Some 100,000 Jews from the Netherlands were murdered in concentration camps, a far greater proportion than in Belgium or France.

However, in contrast with France, Dutch collaborators were quickly punished after the war. Some 16,000 were put on trial by 1951, and most of them were convicted.

Demjanjuk is a different category of perpetrator. He's not a collaborator or head-hunter, not a policeman of the sort that contributed to the Holocaust far away from the actual killing. He was at the scene, prosecutors say in their detailed arrest warrant.

In the coming days doctors will decide will decide whether and for how long Hitler's last henchman from Sobibor can be put on trial. The German government wants him to face trial. "We owe that to the victims of the Holocaust," says Vice Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Those who suffered in the camps under Travniki men like Demjanjuk don't feel any desire for revenge when they talk about him today. American psychoanalyst Jack Terry, who was imprisoned in Flossenbürg concentration camp while Demjanjuk was a guard there, says it would suffice if Demjanjuk "had to sit in his cell for even just one day."

And Sobibor survivor Thomas Blatt says he "doesn't care if he has to go to prison, the trial is important to me. I want the truth."

Demjanjuk could provide information about Sobibor -- and about the terrible world of the Holocaust helpers.

Reporting by Georg Bönisch, Jan Friedmann, Cordula Meyer, Michael Sontheimer, Klaus Wiegrefe

01 juin 2009

Murders At The Border

Dear Everyone,

Try to ignore the fact that this article is badly written - I tried to correct it but gave up in the end as I was suffering from Proof Readers Blindness (!!!). However it is written the message is clear, and the final question is indeed a good one - for how long? Following article taken from Jurnalul National...

Fleeing Romania During Communism, Not An Easy Job

Hundreds, maybe thousands of Romanians tried to flee communist Romania over the border, some choosing to swim across the Danube, never to be heard from again by their relatives and friends.

de Marina Constantinoiu
17/05/2009

Kosta Jakovljevic, a retired forensic doctor from the Negotin region in Serbia took notes on the unidentified bodies the Danube washed away to Serbian shores, over the decades he was practicing his profession.

The documents Jakovljevic holds in his personal archive back to the 1970s, are also to be found in Serbian archives, and they tell the story of so many lives lost, many due to the criminal actions of the Romanian border guards.

For instance, a 16 March 1989 entry in Jakovljevic's records says:
Golubinje. Unidentified body, most likely Romanian. Male, 35 to 40 years old, dressed in a red and blue jacket, zipped. In pockets: swimming cap, a phone booklet. A small purse taped around body holding Romanian currency and note, on which was written "KNIJA VISESLOVA 72 tel. 992128 TRIM HOTEL H BENGOSEN".

Under the jacket he wore a blue waterproof suit, zipped up. On top he wore black trousers, with a black belt. The manufacturing label said Centrala Industriei Confectiilor Bucuresti. He wore shoes number 43. On top of the shoes he had put rubber gloves. He wore one pair of leather gloves and one pair of rubber gloves on top. The body may have been in the Danube waters for one or two weeks.

2 April 1989 entry in Jakovljevic's records says: Zapis, a place a little bit up stream from Donji Milanovac town. Unidentified body found, possibly Romanian. Male, height 1.70 meter, age 35, athletic type. Parts of the scalp were missing, as were parts of the flesh, probably after having been eaten by fish. The body may have been in the Danube waters for about two months. It was handed over to the Donji Milanovac city hall, for burial.

So far, post-communist Romanian authorities have started no investigation into the missing persons files of people who were killed trying to cross the border by their fellow countrymen acting as border guards.

The archives of neighboring Serbia could help trace victims and their killers, as would the living memory of the local people on both shores of the Danube.

The green uniform clad border guards started to sift through the people approaching the border some 15 to 20 kilometer before reaching it. On trains and in railway stations they started asking questions: "Why did you get out of the train at Orsova? Why are you travelling to Oravita? Where are you going? Who do you know in the villages and cities around here? Why do you want to enter the border zone?"

Travel restrictions in the the border area were decided by Government Decree 678 in 1969 laying out the guarding methods for the state frontier.

The law enforcement agents were border guards corps aided by the troops of the Ministry of Interior, and staff from the intelligence services, local councils, local militia and volunteer citizens. Officers serving with the border guards corps were empowered to declare prosecuting files against people violating the law, while the lower ranking officers could only file reports on facts they discovered.

Another provision of the law was for all persons reaching the border area to report to the local police station within 24 hours from their arrival.

At night, the freedom of movement was strictly restricted. Two kilometers from the border line all moving around, be it on foot or in a vehicle, was to be done only on approved public roads.

Also, people camping overnight for half a kilometer from the border had to get the explicit approval of the local commander of the border guards unit. Planting crops, grazing the animal stock, or using the water sources were also regulated, with activities forbidden 50 to 250 meters away from the border strip.

While fishermen were restricted to fish during day time, with documentation proving their identity, line of work, registration of the boat plus a fishing permit. Even so, thousands of Romanians ran over the border strip to brave the cold waters of the Danube and seek freedom via the former Yugoslavia.

For those stopped in their tracks by bullets fired by Romanian border guards, and had their bodies washed ashore in Serbia, forensic doctors in the neighboring country were able to positively identify them as Romanians, by the labels in their clothing.

However, Romanian authorities more often than not refused to take the bodies, claiming that no incidents were reported at their border, hence the dead were not Romanian. Thus many of these bodies were buried in Serbian communal graves, and murder trials never filed in Romania, on their behalf.

For how long?

More news from Hamden, CT

Dear Everyone

Don't you just hate it when that happens? You spend time creating a marvellous, creative post full of pix and info that you've obtained from hardy research and then...poof! You lose it. Why? Coz you were stupid and didn't hit the 'record' button as you know you should have, so you can't even blame the computer for your own shortcomings. Yesterday evening I wrote a post on Thomas Holloway's Royal Holloway Collection Nicole and I went to day before yesterday at the Gallery of British Art, Yale. It was so wonderful, leaving us moved and speechless. Last night, we sat at the computer hunting for various paintings online to admire once again and scrutinise at our leisure. On to the post it went, so you too could be equally wow'd and...well, you know the rest. Humbug.

So, here we go again. The shorter version.

In the last years of his life, Thomas Holloway (1800– 1883), a self-made millionaire, dedicated himself to creating a world-class collection of "modern" paintings. This collection formed the crowning gift to his generous endowment of a college for women (now known as Royal Holloway, University of London), which he founded in 1879 and which was opened by Queen Victoria in 1886. Between 1881 and 1883 Holloway amassed a diverse range of works that exemplify a variety of themes in mid-Victorian art. This remarkable collection is touring the United States for the first time and I'm so glad we went to see it at Yale. Paintings from the Reign of Victoria: The Royal Holloway Collection, London showcase sixty extraordinary works by artists including David Roberts, Sir Edwin Landseer, William Powell Frith, and Sir John Everett Millais.

It's worth adding here that early on in his career, Thomas Holloway managed to bankrupt himself, ending up in a debtors prison. The despair and horror of this period and his brush with poverty and unimaginable living conditions of those around him stayed with him throughout his life. His art collection portrays this, with paintings such as John Evan Hodgson's 'Relatives in Bond' (which I'd love to post here but I can't find it on line) and Edwin Longsden Long's 'Licensing the Gypsies of Spain'. Another very poignant painting, Samuel Luke Fildes' 'Applicant for Admission to a Casual Ward' (above) is heartrending - the queue of the desperate poor in freezing weather hoping for a place in the poorhouse so as not to die of exposure... The subject of workhouses and conditions for the Victorian poor has been well documented not only by historians but by our classic authors such as Dickens. I'll have to do a post on it, I think. It has got my imagination running riot. Dickens was such a huge noise to improve life for these wretched souls, doomed to starvation and hypothermia. These paintings catapulted us both into the lives of those portrayed.

Below also, WP Frith's 'Railway Station' and Longsden Long's 'Marriage Market' depicting the sale of women in order of their beauty in ancient Babylon:

Sobering to say the least. And a reminder that we should be grateful for what we have.

My time in Hamden with my dears is nearly at an end, at least for now, and the thought brings a lump to my throat, makes my eyes prick. I can't bear it. Back again in October, but it's a long time to wait and visit only by skype until then. News that Sarko hasn't invited HM Queen Liz for the D-Day memorial kind of has no impact. The plane awaiting me at Bradley Airport Tuesday, however, certainly does. The day has been erased from my diary. Tuesday 2nd June will not exist. Anyone with a birthday on that day, er....mes excuses.

Love, Sarah

29 mai 2009

The chicken and the egg

Dear Everyone,

How proud I am of my Nicole and Serge. We were in the supermarket the other day, Aldi's, a store I've come to be rather fond of, when Nicole decided she needed some eggs. Off we went to the refrigerators, stopped in front of the egg shelves, was about to reach out to take a box of two dozen when this mad woman (moi) shouts "Noooooooooooooo! Stoooooooooooooooooop!! They aren't free-range!!" My Nicole, bless her heart, just looked at me, somewhat confused. "What should I buy then?" she asked. "Free range only" says moi. I opened the fridge to show her...and there weren't any. Nice boxes, I grant you, with egg-looking eggs in them, but nowhere could one read "FREE RANGE".

Neither she nor Serge had seen Chicken Run. Education required but not before Nicole bought a box of non-free range. I was moooortified. Got home. Omelette. I had something else instead. Nicole gave in (Hee! Hee!). Next day, we found free range eggs in another store. Here in the US, they aren't called free range but cage free. We did the egg test later at home. I explained that happy hens lay happy eggs. They taste better, tout simplement. because they aren't stressed. No comment until a bit later when my beloved Nicole admitted that yes, indeed, they did taste better. At first, the idea of happy hens was ridiculous to them both. Now, I think Nicole has changed camps. Kind of. Serge just said "I don't believe in battery eggs. It's all in your head. You've been brainwashed by the French." I probably have, but not about battery eggs. They may only be chickens but chickens feel pain, get bored and have nervous breakdowns too, just like any other animal, and just as we do. Chickens may be stupid and have the memory spans of goldfish (though my Gustav and Fred are very intelligent goldfish indeed), but that's no cause for the cruelty of battery farms.

I'm very proud of my Nicole, though. I am sure she will switch to happy eggs. Happy hens lay happy eggs. I keep telling them. I think my dears reckon I've totally lost the plot, but it won't be the first time my battling for animal rights will cause a certain amount of concern pertaining to my mental health!!! Still, first things first. My Nicole must become a soldier for the cause. When at Aldi's, if she sees anyone reaching out to buy battery eggs, she must shout "nooooooooooooooo! Stoooooooooooooooop! Think of Ginger and Babs from Chicken Run!!! Buy cage free!" Okay, maybe that's pushing it a bit! But she's a fighter for rights of the oppressed, is my Nicole.

That goes for you all too! Buy free range! Remember! Happy hens lay happy eggs! And what's the connection here with the country of my heart? Simply that almost every single farm in Roumania is 100% natural. Free-range is not even a thought. It just is. As you drive through the countryside, the worry isn't "is that egg I just had free range or battery?" Oh nooooooooo! The thought is "Oh my God!! Mind that hen sitting in the middle of the road!!!" Bless the country of my heart and the simple uniqueness of its countryside. My heart cries for the hardship of such life, I shall never forget Ludos nor other such experiences and life-lessons. But simplicity is the greatest lesson of all. Even for chickens.

Decebalus Rex

My dear all,

Oh.....I'm so disappointed. I have just discovered that the head of King Decebal carved into that huge rock along the Danube near the frontier with Serbia in the beautiful region of the Banat isn't ancient after all. I had always romantically equated it with the amazing Buddha rock sculptures in Afghanistan for example, so criminally destroyed by the Taliban...but nope. Think again. It was carved by twelve sculptor rock-climbers at great danger and risk (one got bitten by a viper and five others fell in the Danube but were saved by coup de grace) to themselves under the orders of Constantin Dragan. Poor Decebal's nose was in the same state as Michael Jackson's by the end of the endeavour, had to be blown to smithereens and remodelled with iron girders and ciment, bringing the work to a final end in 2004. 2004?????? I ask you! All my romantic bubbles have burst. The orchestra playing the schmultzy symphony I heard in my head on conjuring this incredibly impressive piece of rock sculpture has screeched to an unpleasant halt, the fireworks have quite fizzled out into a disappointing 'ttttthhhhhhhhh!' What's a girl to do with such disappointment? Only answer to that - grab a cracker, smear it with my Nicole's icre and hum 'Hai Acasa Puisor' in sotto voce. Never fails to soothe even the darkest moment.

24 mai 2009

Blood (and tuica) is thicker than water....

How nice to see my favourite, satellite-eared Prince still taking such a lively and helpful interest in the country of my heart. Good for him. His two associations really are making a difference - they were responsible for stopping the go-ahead of the dreadful Dracula Theme Park, thank God. See below the last trip of Queen Marie's great-great-nephew:

'Transylvania is in my blood' says Prince Charles on Romania trip

13 MAY 2008
Prince Charles had the opportunity to revisit little-known ancestral ties on a recent trip to Romania. The heir to the throne, whose great grandfather's cousin Marie married the crown prince of Romania and went on to rule the country with her husband after WWI, visited several villages in the country's Transylvania region. There he told local journalists: "Transylvania is in my blood. I have family connections here and that's why I am very interested in this region."

And the 59-year-old royal's interest goes beyond family links. He has been instrumental in injecting new life into the area - buying several properties in the 12th-century Saxon village of Viscri, 250km north of Bucharest. He's also involved in several ecological farming projects and in the regeneration of the historic centre of neighbouring Sibiu city.

Both communities were on the Prince's schedule for this trip - his sixth in the last ten years. After checking out progress in areas he's been working hard to preserve and protect, Charles travelled to the quaint Transylvanian village of Miclosoara, where he stayed in an 18th-century manor belonging to a representative of one of the region's oldest families.

Count Tibor Kalnoky, who has been supervising the restoration of Charles' properties, opened his family home as a series of guesthouses in 2004 to help the region's development. Visitors, who frequently include European diplomats and aristocrats, arrive by horse and cart at the lodges nestled at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains.

Count Kalnoky began restoring the estate to its former glory in 1987 after returning from America where his family had fled during WW1.

Vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaai!

It takes your food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach. One human hair can support 3 kg (6.6 lb). The average man's penis is three times the length of his thumb. Human thighbones are stronger than concrete. A woman's heart beats faster than a man's. There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.   Women blink twice as often as men. The average person's skin weighs twice as much as the brain.   Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you are standing still. If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it. Women reading this will be finished now. Men are still busy checking their thumbs.

23 mai 2009

Bucharest in New York

Romanian Cafe Society Takes Manhattan

By Jennifer Schuessler

The New York Times

Last year, the first foreign-language edition of the Book Review launched in Romania. Now, in another unexpected bit of cultural turnabout, Midtown Manhattan has gotten what must be its only Romanian bookstore.

Well, sort of. From now until July 15, all you need to do to browse the hippest bookstore in Bucharest is stroll to 38th Street and Third Avenue, where a temporary outlet of the chain Carturesti has set up shop in the exhibition space of the Romanian Cultural Institute New York.

Oversize photos on the wall give a sense of the relaxed, Euro-cool mood of Carturesti’s nine branches, which are known for funky designs selected in architectural competitions. Shelves and tables feature colorful and attractively designed novels, art books and poetry collections, as well as DVDs and CDs, along with some rustic stools — based on the famous three-legged chairs of Horezu — to sit on. Alas, you can’t sample the full range of fine teas that Carturesti’s cafe’s are famous for dispensing, though you can peruse a book called “Confessions of a Coffee Drinker” (if you read Romanian, that is).

The New York Times

At the exhibit’s opening, the novelist Filip Florian, whose book “Little Fingers” will be published by Harcourt Brace in July, stood out front smoking (but not complaining — apparently you can’t smoke in Romanian bookstores either). Inside, guests mingled over coffee and croissants while Marius Parghel of Carturesti’s Timisoara branch, who curated the exhibit, gave a tour of some literary highlights.

There were books of surrealist poetry, books of avant-garde plays, books about the Romanian royal family (quite strong sellers, apparently), books by the dissident journalist and politician Octavian Paler and the writer and Orthodox monk Nicolae Steinhardt. There was also a healthy selection of novels by Mircea Cartarescu, described by Parghel as “the only Romanian author with chances for a Nobel.” His trilogy, “Orbitor” (“Glaring”), Parghel said, is an attempt to create “a mythology of Bucharest and its communist space,” using metaphors from medicine and alchemy, along with some techniques reminiscent of Latin American magical realists, to evoke an “underground of the mind.” (Can’t wait for the translation? Check out Cartarescu’s short story collection “Nostalgia,” available from New Directions.)

But one thing the bookstore didn’t have, strangely, is a cash register, though the organizers say an English-language version of Carturesti’s “libraria online” should be up and running soon.

(The Carturesti exhibit is on view until July 15 and again from mid-September through the end of the year at the Romanian Cultural Institute New York at 200 E. 38th Street.)

Uncharitable Caritas: Romania's own Madoff

Dear Everyone,

Sitting here with my Sergiu and my Nicole discussing the nutty Roumanian ex-mayor of Cluj, Funar, when Sergiu had a flash of an old story he'd read somewhere about Caritas in Roumania, a Ponzi scheme which ripped off thousands of people and still owed hundreds of millions of dollars to its victims. The creator, Ioan Stoica (see below), was supported by Funar who even gave him office space in his townhall (not surprised since this guy was a real nationalistic fruitcake - even painted the park benches, dustbins and pavements in Roumanian colours to show his nationalism and anti-Hungarian zeal...) which added to convincing people that it was bona fide. Read on - more details from Wikipedia:

Caritas was a Ponzi scheme in Romania that was active between April 1992 and August 1994. It attracted millions of depositors from all over the country who invested more than a trillion lei (between one and five billion USD) before it finally went bankrupt on 14 August 1994, having a debt of 450 million U.S. dollars ($663 million in current terms).

The rise of Caritas

The "Caritas" company, which organized the scheme, was founded by Ioan Stoica in April 1992 in Braşov as a limited liability company with just 100,000 lei (500 USD, or $778 in current terms) in capital. Caritas moved to Cluj-Napoca two months later. The deposits were initially small (2,000–10,000 lei), but then, the minimum initial deposit was 20,000 lei, while the maximum was 160,000 lei. At the beginning, only residents of Cluj were allowed to make a deposit, but starting summer 1993, all Romanian citizens were allowed to participate.

It labeled itself a "mutual-aid game" (hence the name "Caritas", meaning charity in Latin) which had the purpose to help the impoverished Romanian during the transition to capitalism and promised eight times the money invested in six months.

Caritas prospered with the help of the connection it had with the nationalist Party of Romanian National Unity (PUNR) and the mayor of Cluj-Napoca, Gheorghe Funar, who welcomed this scheme and even helped it build a credibility by renting space right in the Cluj town hall, appearing with him in public and on the television and defending Caritas from attacks. Funar also gave space in the local newspaper to publish a list of the 'winners' who would have to go and claim their money eightfold, a list which in its heyday filled 44 pages.

Size

The size of the scheme is under debate. Estimates vary between two and eight million depositors. The number most commonly quoted in the Romanian newspapers is four million, while the international newspapers tended to estimate their number to two or three million. In Autumn 1993, the list of names to be paid in a certain day as published in a Transylvanian newspaper included 22,000 names, which suggests that there were 660,000 depositors at one time.

Dan Pascariu, a banker and the chairman of Bancorex estimated that between 35% and 50% of the Romanian households were involved in the scheme. Mugur Isărescu, the president of the National Bank of Romania estimated that it held at one time a third of Romania's banknotes.

An estimate of Romanian newspaper România Liberă gives the amount of money involved as 1.4 trillion lei or about 20% of the 1993 expenditures of the Romanian government of 6.6 trillion. The New York Times estimate said the scheme attracted between $1 billion and $5 billion.

Bankruptcy

The Romanian government banned pyramidal schemes only after Caritas went bankrupt. The government received warnings about the scheme from several sources, included the Romanian Intelligence Service, which wrote a report in early 1993 (leaked to the press) and from Daniel Dăianu, the chief-economist at the National Bank, who named it a fraud.

As president Ion Iliescu commented on the issue, the main reason why the government allowed the game to go on was the fear of being ousted by riots and protests, or being afraid that such a measure would make it more unpopular.

The first signs of the downfall were in autumn 1993, when several western newspapers ran articles on Caritas, predicting its falling. At the same time, more and more Romanian newspapers published stories on it. In a press conference in September 1993, president Iliescu predicted its demise, noting that anyone with an elementary education could predict that anything which gives eightfold returns in three months cannot last.

There were discussions in the parliament on banning of such schemes and the state-controlled Romanian Television ran a negative report on Caritas which indicated that it might have problems with the state.

After this, the operations stopped for two days, explained as a computer error and Stoica tried to show that everything is going fine by opening a large supermarket in Cluj-Napoca. Although Caritas opened new branches in more cities, it failed to gather enough money to continue its activity and it was not able to pay back the money for those who deposited them after July 5.

In February 1994, Stoica claimed Caritas was not dead, just reorganizing itself, but soon, it announced a temporary cessation of activities, blaming the government, who allegedly refused allowing him to open another branch. Stoica announced the termination of its activities on May 19, 1994, saying his staff is trying to find a way to return the money to some of the depositors.

Stoica was sentenced in 1995 by the Cluj Courthouse to a total of seven years in prison for fraud, but he appealed and it was reduced to two years; then he went on to the Supreme Court of Justice and the sentence was finally reduced to one year and a half. He has been free since 14 June 1996. The trials between the depositors and the Caritas company were still under way in 2004.

I find it remarkable that Stoica hasn't been found in a ditch somewhere and even more remarkable that Funar was never publically linked to Caritas except as a supporter for a year...he was far too clever to contribute and have his name listed somewhere but he must have profited. I wonder how.

Nicole says 'there were so many tragedies - people lost everything, not just their money, but their homes...and in China he would have been condemned to death'. But he wasn't in China. Unfortunately for his Roumanian victims.

Does anyone know where Funar or Stoica are today? Is Funar still in Cluj? Did Stoica return to Brasov (maybe Marcel will eat him...but then again, Marcel has taste)? Or if anyone actually got any money back?

Love to you all from Connecticut, USA. Until the next post which will surely be soon as Roumania is never far from discussion and I am hearing it every single day (how wonderful) and speaking it a little, tentatively and very badly as usual, I send you love and a big hug.

See you in July my Brasovian dears!

Va sarut cu drag, Sarah xox