Action Figures from Russia

The legendary Lyudmila Pavlichenko snuffed out the lives of 309 Germans during the Stalingrad seige.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko

Woody Guthrie wrote a song as a tribute for her

I’d hate to drop in a parachute and land an enemy in your land.
If your Soviet people make it so hard on invadin’ men;
I wouldn’t crave to meet that wrong end of such a pretty lady’s gun
If her name was Pavlichenko, and mine Three O One

The Soviet women did kick some major ass in the Great War as did the men. 60+ years later, we have this fellow – riding horses, flying planes, cuddling bears, tagging tigers, tracking beluga whales, arm wrestling with other Russian dudes, driving F1 cars – and also doing his day job as prime minister of Russia.

Of Resistance and Genocide

I had bookmarked two links which I wanted to blog about at a convenient date. Though they are already dated, I suppose such themes as they convey are never go out of vogue for a historian.

Nancy Wake, legendary Resistance agent, hunted by the Gestapo who called her The White Mouse, passed away earlier this month. Honourd by France, Australia and her nation of birth New Zealand, Wake worked as a courier for the Resistance before being retrained as a saboteur. During a raid, an SS sentry spotted the maquisards she was aiding. Years later, when interviewed about what happened to the sentry. she simply ran through thumb across the throat.

I’ve travelled to Germany many times since the war. It’s a lovely country to visit but I keep well away from the older generation of Germans in case I become involved with some ex-Nazi. I will never be able to forget the misery and death they caused to so many millions of innocent people; the savage brutality, the sadism, the unnecessary bloodshed, the slaughter and inhuman acts they performed on other human beings. I am inclined to feel sorry for the young Germans of today, knowing how utterly miserable I would be if I was descended from a Nazi.

Nazi war criminals are being hunted even today  with guards and death camp officials being arrested and standing trial in Germany. However, the manhunt for Balkan war criminals seem to have come to an end. In what reads less like a news article and more like a paragraph from a Ludlum paperback the article traces the SAS and other agencies from the NATO countries picking up the war criminals from all sides – Goran Hadzic, Serb leader in Croatia, responsible for the destruction of Vukovar in 1991 reminiscent of Lidice, was the last of the 161 named by the ICC.

The first war-crimes arrests in former Yugoslavia were carried out on 10 July 1997 in an operation codenamed Tango. For the preceding four weeks it had involved SAS soldiers lying in a shallow trench beside a lake near the town of Prijedor, watching a man called Simo Drljaca. During the war, Drljaca had been Prijedor’s police chief, and had organised the “ethnic cleansing” of the town’s Muslims, who were driven into a string of horrific concentration camps at Omarska, Keraterm and Trnopolje. Many of the inmates were beaten or starved to death.

In peacetime retirement, Drljaca had relaxed, spending a lot of time fishing at the lake, and on this particular summer morning he had brought along his son and brother-in-law, unaware that his impunity had run its course.

In the clipped account of one British official: “It was a hardcore SAS operation. The SAS came out of the undergrowth saying: ‘We are here to arrest you.’ Drljaca pulled out a pistol and fired at them and they shot him.

Now that it is over

Justice is finally being delivered, but it has taken 18 years since the ICTY was established. During that time, many thousands of victims were killed and 10 Hague indictees cheated justice by dying before they were caught.

“We are pleased that at the end of the day they were all arrested, but was it really necessary that it took so long, and was so painful?” says Brammertz. “Many of the survivors of the crimes in the meantime died without seeing justice being done. So I share the frustration.” But he does not agree that justice delayed has been justice denied. As well as paving the way for a permanent war crimes court, the ICC, he said The Hague tribunal had struck a firm blow against a culture of impunity in the western Balkans and beyond.

Wonder what Nancy Wake would have had to say about the Balkan war crimes.

The Great Patriotic War

For the Soviet Union, the Great Patriotic War caused more casualties than any other combatant country. Via Metafilter, I came across this repository of memoirs of Soviet soldiers.

Sapezhnikov Alexei Ananyevich fought in Manchuria defeating the Japanese.

At that time we didn’t know what the future may hold. I walked in the Manchurian mud, shaded food, tobacco and weight of backpacks with my brothers in arms, took part in attacks, lost friends but I always was sure about our victory. I saw many frightful things – T-34 explosed by Japanese suicide soldiers under Mu Dan Chan, pillboxes with fanatics chained themselves to machinegun, friendly fire from our airforce, convoy of 10 000 Japanese prisoners to Grodekovo, rejoicing of Chinese. And finally – Victory!

Nina Erdman was drafted as a medic in a band of irregulars made up of old men and teenage girls.

What are opolchentsy [member's of the people's militia, irregulars] anyway? They knew nothing, couldn’t do anything. None of these old people, who might have served at one time, could do anything. Many didn’t know to shoot a rifle. The Germans attacked us. Everything was like in the movies – they surrounded us. You would see a wall moving right at you! And there we were, just the old men and us. We fled immediately, how could it have been different?!

Alexandra volunteered and trained herself to be a sniper. She was sent to Orsha.

I remember how I killed my first fascist. Together with my partner Zina Vershinina we occupied our sniping positions. While observing enemy positions, I spotted a machinegunner. I aimed and shot. It was unclear whether I hit him or not. But when I returned to the detachment, everyone already knew I’d killed an enemy. An artillery observer reported this. He saw it in his periscope, how the enemy machine gunner was killed. Everyone was joyous, they hurries to congratulate me. And I wept, for I had to kill a man…

Moving stuff.

The Great Nazi Hunt Contd

Simon Kunz, 88, will be tried as a minor for abetting the deaths of over 430,000 people, mostly Polish Jews, while serving as a camp guard at Belzec in Poland. The reason why he will tried as a minor is because he was below the age of 21 at the time of the event. Simultaneously, the trial of 90 year old John Demjanjuk is also going on. Demjanjuk was at Sobibor also in Poland. (Poland had some of the deadliest extermination camps – Treblinka, Auschwitz, Trawinki besides Sobibor and Belzac. They were all set up as part of Operation Reinhard, the purpose being to exterminate all Polish Jews).

What this means is that Nazi hunting continues. Even if they are octogenarian or nonagenarian, these buggers are going to be picked up by the different Nazi hunters around the world (Simon Wisenthal Centre for one). There is even a list of most wanted Nazis still in circulation (Demjanjuk is no 1).

The shadow of Nazism and the Holocaust was revisited earlier this month with Oliver Stone and his statement on the need to contextualise Hitler. Rabbi Cooper of the Simon Wisenthal Centre writes a typically indignant response. Somewhere, one is rankled by the response by Cooper.

Ultimately, Stone’s “contextualizing” of Hitler and Stalin as not-such-terrible-guys with whom we could empathize not only casts an ugly revisionist shadow on the past, it could also disable our future resolve against mega-evil.

I don’t think there is anybody who is denying the atrocity of the Holocaust. Obviously there are a few nutcases like Ahmadinejad and the like but if you leave them aside, the average liberal person aware of history is by and large usually shocked and disgusted by the events.

However, this embargo on revisionism is something one must question. Revisiting history will have no effect on the notoriety of Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini and Franco and Salazar and Idi Amin and etc etc as they are all people whose demonic images will remain for ever because the weight of historical evidence that points it in that direction. Any “creative liberties” will remain purely a piece of fiction.

But there are many people, the citizens of the respective countries, who were herded by the force of the regimes to follow procedures and live in a particular way of life. It was a matter of survival. Their being treated as silent conspirators en masse is questionable. There are many like Max Planck who deserve to be remembered and against whom the tag “silent conspirator” cannot apply. But to be able to identify such folk, one must be allowed to revisit the old facts again.

http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4441467&ct=8549283

Biological Warfare in the Second World War

Britain had released documents pertaining to biological warfare research done during WW2. The Brits tested everything from spreading anthrax through cows, dysentery and cholera by infecting reservoirs and restaurants and even creating bombs for their Wellington and Bleinheim bombers.

Biological warfare was not thought “likely to achieve a decisive effect, but might cause grave embarrassment at a critical stage in the conflict,” the report said. Preparation was required both to defend against such attacks by “the enemy” and as a “means of retaliation”.

Nobody on the European front actually used biological weapons. However, Japan did do many experiments at the cost of Chinese lives. Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army was the division doing all this. Over 400,000 Chinese were killed by their activities which included dropping fleas carrying the bubonic plague virus.

And both on the Japanese and the German we had “Human experimentation’. The Nazis did it on the Jews, the Japs did it on the Chinese, Filipino and others.

A jovial old Japanese farmer who in the war had been a medical assistant in a Japanese army unit in China described to a U.S. reporter recently what it was like to dissect a Chinese prisoner who was still alive.

Munching rice cakes, he reminisced: “The fellow knew it was over for him, and so he didn’t struggle when they led him into the room and tied him down. But when I picked up the scalpel, that’s when he began screaming. I cut him open from the chest to the stomach and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony.

“He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped.

“This was all in a day’s work for the surgeons, but it really left an impression on me because it was my first time.” The man could not be sedated, added the farmer, because it might have distorted the experiment.

From the jungles of war, there is much truth that still needs to be uncovered.

Poetry Post: Ezra Pound

I have been a bit slack on the Poetry Posts. Not so Sanjeev. The last three days he has moved across the Atlantic and conversed with six poets. On the 20th, he did Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman.  As he closed, he gave an indication for the poets he would be chatting up with on the 21st. This is what he tweeted:

sanjeevn: With those words, I bid au revoir for today. Tomorrow, 2 more giants on whose shoulders modern #poetry stands. Hint: Born in US, Poets in UK

The two poets were Ezra Pound and TS Eliot.

sanjeevn: Speaking of #poetry, Ezra Pound & T. S. Eliot, American expatriate poets, are my 2 poets for the day

In this post, we will discuss Ezra Pound

sanjeevn: EP is considered the giant on whose shoulders such giants as TSE, H.D., and even Yeats (1 of tomorrow’s 2 poets in my series) stand. #Poetry

sanjeevn: Championing imagism, he is most famous for his encyclopedic Cantos – his “tale of the tribe” #Poetry

sanjeevn: Something shorter to enjoy here: “The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.” #Poetry

In this piece, A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste, Ezra Pound writes:

An “Image” is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. I use the term “complex” rather in the technical sense employed by the newer psychologists, such as Hart, though we might not agree absolutely in our application.

It is the presentation of such a “complex” instantaneously which gives that sense of sudden liberation; that sense of freedom from time limits and space limits; that sense of sudden growth, which we experience in the presence of the greatest works of art.

It is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works.

Thus we have Sanjeev tweeting “Championing imagism“. He also says, EP is most famous for his encyclopedic Cantos. Let’s see what it is about. Spanning fifty years, The Cantos started with Cantos I in 1925 and finally ended with the complete set in 1972 (the year he died). There was a period in 1939 during the World War 2 when he was held by Italian partisans and then transferred to the Americans. He had written on his anti-Semite opinions and had advocated that America stay out of the war in Europe. The Pisan Cantos as they are called got him the Bollingen Award though he was deemed a traitor by his country, America and had been diagnosed with mental illness (hence a madman).

I found this two liner poem “In a Station of the Metro” which contrasts with the fifty year long The Cantos. Here it is:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Tomorrow, we will take up the giant, T S Eliot.

Australia – The Movie and some history

Baz Lurhman’s Australia was a long film. Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge had us all tuned into some really good entertaining treatment of two love stories. Here in Australia, the length of the film gets multiplied by the sheer lack of entertaining features (as I was wont to expect from a Baz Luhrman film). Instead, it was a three hour long saga that had various plot elements that seemed to be a recreation of Gone With The Wind. It was all there - 

1. Large property in the outback
2. Lady of the house comes into ownership due to sudden events (death of her husband)
3. Racism
4. War
5. Love between two strangers
6. Brave rescues
7. Redemption
8. Reunion (This wasn’t there in Gone With The Wind)

There were a few things about the film that seemed to be truly good – the Aborigine kid actor Brandon Walters who acts as Nullah; the cinematography by Australian Mandy Walker and a couple of neat scenes. 

As a history buff, there were two points of interest in this film – The Stolen Generation and The Japanese Raids on Darwin during the Second World War.

The Stolen Generation

The Stolen Generation has been a cause of much repentence amongst most Australians over the last many years. Between 1869 and 1969, Aboriginal (or Indigenous Australians or Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Island Peoples) children were forcibly taken away from their parents and raised in missionaries or charities or as foster-children in white families. They were kept here till the age of 18 after which they were returned to their original families. There was three main rationale behind these programmes (mandated by laws passed by the Australian Federal and State parliaments)

1. Child Protection – it was believed that children would be best taken care off by the state in order to protect them from disease
2. Preventing extinction of the race – with population of the indigenous Australians declining, it was felt that by raising the children by the state, they would be more healthy and hence more capable of development
3. Protecting white race purity – this was a third view point which had a minority support group.

Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic torch at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Cathy, an Aboriginal Australian, was the grandchild of one such Stolen child. Midnight Oil, the cult Aussie band, demonstrated the national regret when they performed at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games wearing black sweatshirts with the word “Sorry”. 

There was of course a national apology by the Australian PM Kevin Rudd and an unanimous resolution by the Federal Parliament.

Japanese raids on Darwin

The next big point of interest is the advent of Second World War in Australia. This was the raid on Darwin by Japanese bombers on February 19, 1942. Called the Pearl Harbour of Australia, this raid in two waves attacked Australia at its weakest and most vulnerable point – completely underprepared and underequipped.

It remains the biggest attack on Australian soil though Japan never really occupied any Australian territory (in the main continent). The raids were executed by a combination of the Kate torpedo bombers and the Val dive bombers escorted by Zero fighters. The second wave was executed by Nell and Betty land-based bombers.

Naval commander Mitsui Fuchida who led the first wave later in his memoirs writes that it was a significant waste of time as there was nothing of any value at Darwin – a small port installation, an even smaller airfield with minimal facilities. 

Closing up on the movie – well, a movie buff is a movie buff – so one can watch it. And the movie will definitely do well in the awards marquees across the world. The only issue – its a big too heavy on the sugar and teary stuff.

Pearl Harbor – no more conspiracy theory

December 7 marks 67 years of the Pearl Harbor (am using the American spellings, after all, it is a proper name). While the number of survivors are dwindling with age, one of the oldest ongoing conspiracy theories seems to have been finally put to rest.

The Hindu reports that historians have concluded that US did not have advance information about the attacks. The conspiracy theory was that US (and FDR as president) were aware of the impending attacks but chose to keep it down so that they could then get the nation to support them in the war efforts on the side of the Aliies.

However, in what seems to be another indictment of intelligence failure, the report lists out the bureaucratic intelligence system in the country for not being able to make any call on the Pearl Harbor attack.

The news article says,

“The problem with the conspiracy theory is it diverted attention from the real substantive problems, the major issue being the intelligence system was so bureaucratised,”

Lidice, 10th June 1942

The children of Lidice – 82 of them who were exterminated in Chelmno – recreated in this memorial at the old village.

Bridge on the River Kwai

Just two and half hours bus ride from Bangkok in Kanchanaburi municipality, the famous Bridge on the River Kwai is a monument to the Second World War. For those who are WW2 buffs, this town is a must for a complete low down on the South East Asian war sector starting with the fall of Singapore right upto the Japanese advance into the North-eastern hills of India. (Remember Imphal).

The Kanchanaburi War Cemetery is the final resting place for many of the Allied soldiers who were engaged in the War in this sector including a plaque for 11 Indians.

There is a museum next to the War Cemetery called the Death Rail Museum giving the history and facts about the Siam-Burma Railway built by the Japanese.

If you have loads of time, you can stay over at Kanchanaburi and explore the place. If you trek and follow the railway line towards Burma, you will come across more sites of interest. We did a morning-in-evening-back trip as we didn’t have much time