“Es ist für jemanden wie mich ein eigenartiges Gefühl, Tagebuch zu schreiben. Nicht nur, dass ich noch nie geschrieben habe, sondern ich denke auch, dass sich später keiner, weder ich noch ein anderer, für die Herzensergüsse eines 13-jährigen Schulmädchens interessieren wird.” - Anne Frank
These Jewish children are on their way to Palestine after having been released from the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. The girl on the left is from Poland, the boy in the center from Latvia, and the girl on right from Hungary. T4c. J. E. Myers, June 5, 1945. 111-SC-207907.
The dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral (undamaged) stands out among the flames and smoke of surrounding buildings during heavy attacks of the German Luftwaffe on December 29, 1940 in London, England. (AP Photo/U.S. Office of War Information)
Les enfants devant la fontaine d’Izieu, été 1943. Cette photographie fut probablement prise avant ou après une représentation théâtrale. © Maison d’Izieu/Succession Sabine Zlatin
Izieu was the site of a Jewish orphanage during the Second World War. Most of the children were however only separated from their parents or sent purposely in the Savoy mountains which was then under Italian rule. Italy was less oppressive in that time. On 6 April 1944, three vehicles pulled up in front of the orphanage. The Gestapo, under the direction of the ‘Butcher of Lyon’ Klaus Barbie, entered the orphanage and forcibly removed the forty-four children and their seven supervisors, throwing the crying and terrified children on to the trucks.
As a witness later recalled: ‘I was on my way down the stairs when my sister shouted to me: It’s the Germans, run away! I jumped out the window. I hid myself in a bush in the garden. I heard the cries of the children that were being kidnapped and I heard the shouts of the Nazis who were carrying them away.’
Following the raid on their home in Izieu, the children were shipped directly to the “collection center” in Drancy, then put on the first available train towards the concentration camps in the East.
Forty-two children and five adults were gassed in the concentration camp of Auschwitz. Two of the oldest children and Miron Zlatin, the superintendent, ended up in Tallinn, Estonia, and were killed by a firing squad.
The orphanage director Sabine Zlatin survived the Gestapo raid, being away collecting funds for the institution. Some 40 years later she testified against Barbie at his trial. Towards the end of her life, she convinced the president François Mitterrand to turn the orphanage premises into a memorial.
Perhaps because as children, we associated it with Christmas.
I always imagine myself the hero who killed dragons, rescued virgins, and freed the world from evil. As we went out yesterday to find the prisoners, I felt like that little boy
who wanted to save the world.
Vogler: Albrecht, stop.
Albrecht Stein: But as we returned, I understood that I am part of the evil that I wanted to save us from.
Vogler: Albrecht, stop.
Albrecht Stein: Shooting prisoners is wrong. They were not armed, as Governor Stein told us, to incite us. We didnt shoot men, only children.
Vogler: Out!
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From "Napola -Before The Fall"
Albrecht Stein: Pull myself together? Do you know what we just did? You shouldn't have shot! You shouldn't have shot!
Tjaden: I didn't give the order. Your father said they had guns!
Albrecht Stein: Why are you looking at me like that?
Friedrich Weimer: I'm not looking at you.
Albrecht Stein: I know what you're thinking. Don't look at me like that!
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From "Napola - Before The Fall"
History stuff: Dem Prussian horses
The “East Prussian Warmblood Horse of Trakehner Origin” or “Trakehner” is one of the oldest European warmblood breeds with a history that reaches back more than 400 years.
The name derives from Trakehnen , the site of the Main Stud (de:Gestüt Trakehnen) in Prussia (since 1945, Yasnaya Polyana, Kaliningrad Oblast).
The breed is based on a small local East Prussian horse, the “Schwaike”, of phenomenal endurance and versatility. In the early 18th century, King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, the father of Friedrich the Great, began to see the need for a new type of cavalry mount for the Prussian army, so he chose the best horses from seven of his royal breeding farms, and in 1732 moved them all to the new royal stud at Trakehnen, began selective breeding among them, and the Trakehner breed evolved.
Through the latter part of the 1800s and up to the Second World War, the Trakehner was a most successful breed, excelling as a military and endurance horse.
The breed famously sat a speed record for the distance between Berlin and Koenigsberg.
Between the two World Wars dominated the Olympics wining gold and silver in dressage and eventing in 1924 and 1936. Between 1921 and 1936, the hardest steeplechase in the world, the Pardubice steeplechase, was won 9 times by East Prussian horses.
However, history was to deal the Trakehner a nearly fatal blow, after being halved during World War I, the remaining herd was again threatened during World War II as soviets were closing in on the lush and beautiful area around Trakehnen, the order came quickly to move about 800 horses to safety, unfortunately they did not go far enough west, and most of them along with their documents fell into the hands of the Russian occupation forces and were shipped to Russia, or killed.
The remaining heard was saved with the determination of private breeders, and what followed was a horror story that went down in history, “The Trek” began, hitching their precious breeding stock to wagons laden with a few personal possessions and all the food they could carry, these people along with their horses began their journey to safety, it was the dead of winter, snow deep on the ground and many of the mares heavily in foal.
The East Prussians headed West literally running for their lives, for two and a half months and for 600 miles the nightmare continued, as they reached the shores of the frozen Baltic sea they were surrounded by the advancing soviet troops, the only escape was to cross the treacherous expanse of thawing ice, at times covering the ice at a gallop to stay ahead of the breaking Ice, many did not make it across this expanse.
After the war, the breed, which once numbered tens of thousands was reduced to approximately 600 broodmares and 50 stallions in West Germany.
The last original Trakehner was Keith, born there in 1941, who died in November 1976 in Gilten shortly before his 35th birthday. On 23 October 1947 the East Prussian Studbook Society was dissolved and the Association of Breeders and Friends of the Warmblood Horse of Trakehner Origin, known today as the Trakehner Verband, was created.
Among the greatest obstacles the organization faced was that unlike other German breeds, the Trakehner had no mother state. The re-establishment of the breed originally depended on the determination of its members and the largesse of others. True pure-bred Trakehner show the Ostpreußische Elchschaufel (East Prussian moose horn) branding.
Today in Germany the breed is considered a federal responsibility, with its governance falling under both the Trakehner Verband and the Trakehner Gesellschaft mbH; the latter handling all business operations.
Stallion inspections are held in Neumünster, Germany, each October and approved stallions are required to complete extended performance tests, which rate the horses’ gaits, temperament, jumping ability, and suitability over a cross country course, before being given full breeding licenses.
The Trakehner is used as a “refiner” of other breeds.
Le baiser de la libération à Saint-Briac. Le sergent Constanzo avec la petite Noëlle le 15 août 1944. © Tony Vaccaro
