#single women in poland | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

whencyclopedia · 6 days ago

Photo

Eyewitness Accounts of the Holocaust

The Holocaust was the murder of 6 million Jewish people by the SS, Gestapo, and other organisations of Nazi Germany and its allies in the years prior to and through the Second World War (1939-45). Innocent men, women, and children were shot in mass executions, or, if not too young or too old, they were sent to labour camps where they worked until they could do so no longer. The ultimate fate of millions was to die in the gas chambers of extermination camps like Auschwitz in occupied Poland.

In this article, accounts are presented by those who witnessed the Holocaust genocide firsthand, both its victims and those involved in its execution who were obliged to give evidence in, for example, the post-war Nuremberg trials of 1945-6.

Unburied Corpses, Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

Wislon-Oakes - Imperial War Museums (CC BY-NC-SA)

The Nazis & the Jews

Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) established himself as the dictator of Nazi Germany in 1933, and he identified Jewish people as the main enemy of the state. Based on dubious and inconsistent racial theory as propounded by such Nazi figures as Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946), Hitler and the Nazi Party began a propaganda campaign against German Jews, which presented them as an inferior race who were holding Germany back from achieving its full economic potential.

Hitler wanted to remove all Jews from German territory, but the first step was to identify who exactly was a Jew. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws loosely identified Jews since even having a single Jewish grandparent placed an individual in that category. A series of 'solutions' to what Hitler called the "Jewish problem" were rolled out, such as encouraging emigration and persecuting Jewish business owners. Jews were then attacked in such pogroms as the Kristallnacht of November 1938. Next, Jews were rounded up and obliged to live in segregated areas such as ghettos in cities or in concentration camps. Jews were deprived of citizenship and other basic rights.

From 1942, the Nazis began what was secretly described as the 'Final Solution', that is the plan to murder all European Jews. Jews were transported to labour camps where they worked on state projects until they died from disease, extreme malnutrition, or physical exhaustion. Other Jews, and those who could no longer work or were too young or too old to work, were transported directly to death camps like the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex in occupied Poland where they were killed in gas chambers and their remains were communally cremated. Jews were not the only victims since the Nazis also targeted Romani people, Communists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, homosexuals, political rivals, prisoners of war, and those with physical or mental disabilities, amongst others. In addition, hundreds of thousands more victims were murdered in mass executions in occupied territories during the Second World War by mobile killing squads known as Einsatzgruppen. The Jews made up by far the majority of those killed, and it is estimated that 6 million died in what is today called the Holocaust. The sheer scale of the Nazis' programme means that determining the precise number of victims is not possible.

Arrested Jews, Baden-Baden

Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-86686-0008 (CC BY-SA)

Hugh Greene, a British newspaper journalist, recalls what he saw of the Kristallnacht in 1938:

I was in Berlin at that time and saw some pretty revolting sights – the destruction of Jewish shops, Jews being arrested and led away, the police standing by while the gangs destroyed the shops and even groups of well-dressed women cheering.

(Holmes, 42)

Avraham Aviel, a Polish Jew and survivor of a mass execution, gives the following account of his experience in May 1942:

We were all brought close to the cemetery at a distance of eighty to a hundred metres from a long, deep pit. Once again everybody was made to kneel. There was no possibility of lifting one's head. I sat more or less in the centre of the town people. I looked in front of me and saw the long pit then maybe groups of twenty, thirty people led to the edge of the pit, undressed probably so that they should not take their valuables with them. They were brought to the edge of the pit where they were shot and fell into the pit, one on top of another.

(Holmes, 319)

An anonymous survivor from a ghetto massacre in Lviv, Ukraine, in August 1942 gives the following description of its aftermath:

I went with my mother to the office of the Jewish community regarding an apartment and there in the light breeze, dangled the corpses of the hanged, their faces blue, their heads tilted backward, their tongues blackened and stretched out. Luxury cars raced in from the center of the city, German civilians with their wives and children came to see the sensational spectacle, and, as was their custom, the visitors enthusiastically photographed the scene. Afterwards the Ukrainians and Poles arrived by with greater modesty.

(Fiedländer, 436)

Nazi Classification of Jewish People

VolksVeritas (CC BY-SA)

Rivka Yoselevska, a Polish Jew, describes her experience and that of her family in the Hansovic ghetto massacre in August 1943:

Some of the younger ones I got out naked covered with blood…I was still alive. Where should I go? What should I do?

(Holmes, 320-1)

The SS lieutenant-colonel Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962), in charge of the Final Solution's transportation requirements, here lies to Jews to make sure they do not create trouble as they are transported by train from a ghetto to the concentration camps:

Jews: You have nothing to worry about. We want only the best for you. You'll leave here shortly and be sent to very fine places indeed. You will work there, your wives will stay at home, and your children will go to school. You will have wonderful lives.

(Bascomb, 6)

The death camps were deliberately located in remote Poland to provide the Final Solution project more secrecy. Rudolf Höss (1901-1947), a camp commandant at Auschwitz, stated:

We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy, but of course the foul and nauseating stench from the continuous burning of bodies permeated the entire area and all of the people living in the surrounding communities knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz.

(Neville, 49)

New Arrivals at Auschwitz

Bernard Walter (Public Domain)

The typical conditions of the train journeys to the camps are described here by Avraham Kochav, an Auschwitz survivor:

There were twenty to twenty-five cars in every train…I heard terrible cries. I saw how people attack other people so as to have a place to stand, how people push each other so that they could stand somewhere or so that they could have air for breathing. It was terribly, terribly stifling. The first to faint were the children, women, old men, they all fell down like flies.

(Holmes, 332)

Zygmunt Klukowski, a Polish hospital director, describes the train journeys for Jewish people sent to the Belzec extermination camp in occupied Poland:

On the way to Belzec the Jews experience many terrible things. They are aware of what will happen to them. Some try to fight back. At the railroad station in Szczebrzeszyn a young woman gave away a gold ring in exchange for a glass of water for her dying child. In Lublin people witnessed small children being thrown through windows of speeding trains. Many people are shot before reaching Belzec.

(Friedländer, 358)

Yaacov Silberstein, a Jewish teenager, describes his arrival at Auschwitz in October 1942:

When we arrived we saw how the Jews were running to the electrified fence. There they stuck. They were tired of life; they could not continue in this fashion.

(Holmes, 330)

Dr Lucie Adelsberger, a prisoner of Auschwitz, describes the processing of new arrivals destined for the labour camps:

We undressed, had our hair cut – no actually our heads were shaved to stubble; then came the showers and finally the tattoos. This was where they confiscated the very last vestiges of our belongings; nothing remained…no written document that could have identified us, no picture, no written message from a loved one. Our past was cut off, erased…

(Cesarini, 656)

Aerial View of Auschwitz

South African Air Force (Public Domain)

Bernd Naumann, a survivor from the Birkenau camp, describes the prevalence of rats in the camp:

They gnawed not only at corpses but also at the seriously sick. I have pictures showing women near death being bitten by rats.

(Neville, 50)

Seweryna Smaglewska, a prisoner in the Birkenau women's camp, describes the living conditions there:

There were no roads, no paths between the blocks. In the depths of these dark dens, in bunks like multi-storied cages, the feeble light of a candle burning here or there flickered over naked, emaciated figures curled up, blue from the cold, bent over a pile of filthy rags, holding their shaved heads in their hands, picking out an insect with their scraggly fingers and smashing it on the edge of the bunk – that is what the barracks looked like in 1942.

(Cesarini, 528)

The SS, which managed the camps, made sure there was a hierarchy amongst the prisoners such as trustees who survived a little longer than the rest by being 'favoured' with certain duties such as burning the bodies in the crematoriums or beating other prisoners. SS Lance Corporal Richard Bock, a guard at Auschwitz-Birkenau, recalls:

A block chief would call out the kapo very fiercely, 'Kapo, come here.' The kapo came over and – boom – he hit the kapo in the face so hard that he fell over…And then he said, 'Kapo, can't you beat them any better than that?' And the kapo ran off and grabbed a club to beat up the prisoner squad quite indiscriminately. 'Kapo, come over here,' he shouted again. The kapo came and he said, 'Finish them off,' and then he went off again and he finished the prisoners off, he beat them to death…a kapo had to beat and club to save his own life.

(Holmes, 325)

Luggage of Auschwitz Victims

Jorge Láscar (CC BY)

Those meant for the gas chambers were often unaware of their fate. Bock describes the procedure that he witnessed with a colleague called Holbinger who was responsible for the Zyklon B tins that would produce the lethal gas:

…the new arrivals had to get undressed, and then the order came, 'Prepare for disinfection'. There were enormous piles of clothing…Lots of them hid their children under the clothes and covered them up and then they shouted, 'Get ready' and they all went out, they had to run naked approximately twenty yards from the hall across to Bunker One. There were two doors standing open and they went in there and when a certain number had gone inside they shut the doors. That happened about three times, and every time Holbinger had to go out to his ambulance and they took out a sort of tin – he and one of his block chiefs – and then he climbed up the ladder and at the top there was a round hole and he opened the little round door and held the tin there and shook it and then he shut the little door again. Then a fearful screaming started up and approximately after about ten minutes it slowly went quiet…They opened the door…then a blue haze came out. I looked in and I saw a pyramid. They had all climbed up on top of each other…They were all tangled, they had to tug and pull very hard to disentangle all these people.

(Holmes, 334-5)

Dov Paisikowic, a Russian-Jewish survivor of Auschwitz, was part of the team responsible for taking bodies out of the chambers, removing valuables such as rings and gold teeth, and then taking the corpses to the crematoria. He recalls:

…the doors were suddenly opened to the gas chambers. People, naked people, started falling out. We were all frightened, no one dared ask what it all was. We were immediately taken to the other side of this house and there we saw hell on this earth – large piles of dead people, and people dragging these dead to a long pit, about thirty metres in length and ten metres in width. There was a huge fire there, with tree trunks. On the other side fat was being taken out of this pit with a bucket.

(Holmes, 335)

Thousands of detainees in the camps were subjected to unnecessary and often horrific medical operations and experiments. One of the most infamous SS doctors was Josef Mengele (1911-1979), who performed all kinds of macabre operations at Auschwitz. Mengele was, though, only one part of a large SS medical team, which operated in many different camps. Dr Franz Blaha, a Czech detainee at the Dachau concentration camp, was obliged to work in this area of Nazi terror, specifically performing autopsies. Blaha reported:

From the middle of 1941 to the end of 1942 some 500 operations on healthy prisoners were performed. These were for the instructions of the SS medical students and doctors and included operations on the stomach, gall bladder and throat. These were performed by students and doctors of only two years' training, although they were very dangerous and difficult….Many prisoners died on the operating table and many others from later complications…These persons were never volunteers but were forced to submit to such acts.

(MacDonald, 59)

Auschwitz Bunks

Bookofblue (CC BY-SA)

Hertha Beese, a Berlin housewife and underground resistance worker, recalls that, unlike the general public, the resistance network was more informed about the camps. She states:

We knew that the concentration camps existed. We also knew where they existed, for example Oranienburg just outside Berlin. We sometimes knew which of our friends were there and we also knew of the cruelties in them right from the beginning.

(Holmes, 315)

Anthony Eden (1897-1977), British Foreign Secretary during WWII, notes:

…as the war progressed some horrifying reports began to come out. At first it was very difficult to assess their accuracy and they were so horrible it was hard to believe they could be true.

(Holmes, 314)

Wynford Vaughn-Thomas, a British journalist, recalls the conditions of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany when it was liberated in 1945:

In the huts typhoid, everything, had broken out and you couldn't hear yourself speak for the death rattle. There were people lying on top of each other, sick, vomiting, withered bodies crawling on their hands and knees…It was sealed off in this dark north German plain and you felt you'd reached the cesspit of the human mind.

(Holmes, 337)

Mass Grave, Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

H. Oakes-Imperial War Museums (Public Domain)

The British Lieutenant Colonel J. A. D. Johnson described what he saw when he arrived at Bergen-Belsen:

The prisoners were a dense mass of emaciated apathetic scarecrows huddled together in wooden huts, and in many cases without beds or blankets, and in some cases without any clothing whatsoever…There were thousands of emaciated corpses in various stages of decomposition lying unburied. Sanitation was to all intents and purposes nonexistent.

(Cesarini, 759)

Hans Stark, Gestapo staff member at Auschwitz, stated, like so many others, that he had merely been following orders:

I took part in the murder of many people…I believed in the Führer, I wanted to serve my people. Today I know that this idea was false. I regret the mistakes of my past, but I cannot undo them.

(Neville, 57)

Rabbi Frankforter, who died in the Holocaust, which Jewish people often call the Shoah or Ha-Shoah in Hebrew, gave this last wish to survivor Yaacov Silberstein:

You are still young and you will remain alive. I have only one request for you that you should never let people forget. Tell everyone what they did to us at this small camp, in Buchenwald. Wherever you go tell this, also to your children so that they should pass it on. To remember and not to forget.

(Holmes, 339)

#History #ConcentrationCamp #FinalSolution #Genocide

140 notes · View notes

jazda-iga · 22 days ago

Text

Iga Swiatek of Poland speaks with Eva Lys of Germany following victory in the Women's Singles Fourth Round. (Hannah Peters)

#this is cute #iga swiatek #eva lys #wta tennis #tennis #australian open 2025

56 notes · View notes

endiness · 2 months ago

Text

just some lauren quotes

“The comedy is what separates ‘Witcher’ from a lot of other fantasy material like ‘Game of Thrones.’ It comes from an organic place which is that Andrzej Sapkowski is Polish, and he was telling me a lot about what it was like to grow up in Poland at a time when there country was being constantly taken over by other countries, there was a lot of political turmoil, a lot of people died, a lot of conflict, and yet you still have to get up every day and put one foot in front of the other and continue on with your life. He said, ‘How do people deal with tragedy? They laugh.’ Bringing that aspect into a fantasy show is really fresh and had never really been done before. It was really important to me to keep in that in, and I hope the fans appreciate it.”

"Yes, he’s a consultant on the show. I met with him very early in Poland when I came on to adapt and really dug into his life and why he was writing these short stories in the first place, what drew him to the character and how his own experiences in Poland influenced how he wrote it."

"It’s interesting because the women in the books that [Andrzej] Sapkowski wrote are very, very strong and very independent. It’s actually one of the first things that I asked him about, when I met him. The women were much more powerful, much more centered, and much more independent than I ever could have imagined, for a fantasy book from the 1980s, and Sapkowski said, “I just based them on the women that I knew.” Especially coming from Poland, and Central Europe, when he grew up, a lot of the men were killed in war and conflict, and women really had to be at the forefront, not just of their families, but of their communities and the workplace. These were the women that he knew, so they’re the women he wrote, and that’s one of the big things that I tried to honor."

"You know, when I first spoke to Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of the books, I actually, I told him, I was actually surprised by the strength of the women in these books and he pointed, actually he said something fascinating; that I’ve never met his mother. He basically explained to me the role of women in post-war Poland and said that most of the men had died off in conflict and women really became, not just the centre of the family, but the centre of society, of culture and of the workplace. And so, you know, it’s interesting because people ask me about the female characters a lot and the complications of them, but it’s really what real women are like anyway, right? I mean it’s strong in some circumstances, vulnerable in others, occasionally bold, occasionally bitchy, occasionally silent. It really is, to me, what I wanted to capture is these women before they were seen through the lens of anyone else."

"I met him really early on in the process. I went to Poland on a research trip and he and I had an amazing lunch and just sort of sat down. We didn't even talk about The Witcher for a while. I just kind of wanted to know what made him tick as a writer, you know. So it was a great lunch between two writers and I just wanted to understand why he wrote this book, what he put of himself in it, what he put of his travels in it. He's very famous. He talks a lot about his international travels and those are really the things that inform these stories."

"When I spoke with Sapkowski, we talked about what his books meant to him — he gave me a fair share of important points, but the thing that resonated most with me is this struggle between humans and non-humans. This can be extrapolated into our current real world in dozens of ways: immigration, racism, sexism, xenophobia, class warfare, yes. But it’s also as simple as old playground feelings of not belonging, feeling on the outside, feeling “other.” It’s something every single person can relate to, in one way or another. It’s really important, in a world of dragons and monsters and elves, that we keep the emotional touchstones of the show really relatable, so we’ll be continuing to explore it a lot in season two."

#the witcher #lauren hissrich #andrzej sapkowski #!txt: the witcher

58 notes · View notes

hanzajesthanza · 2 months ago

Note

in doing my research for exactly where/ if it would say in the canon that no girls would survive the trials, I found that a lot of the lore around the origin of Witchers and the other Witcher schools is not from the games or books but from the TTRPGs, both the one from Poland in 2001 and the new one that CDPR made

now I have to take the wikis word for it since I don't own any of the TTRPG books and I do not speak Polish, do you have any more insight into this?

As far as I can remember, the idea that a girl would not survive the trials is never stated in the books.

What is stated in the books is:

The chances of survival for boys given the mutations is three to four out of ten (30–40%). This is considered barbaric by essentially every single character that we’ve seen comment on it. Geralt and the witchers around his age are the last witchers to be produced in Kaer Morhen. // Source: Something More Part IV, Crossroads of Ravens Ch. 12

Geralt states to Calanthe that the witchers believe a Child of Surprise would not require the trials. // Source: Something More Part IV.

Geralt and the witchers invite Triss as a sorceress to Kaer Morhen, but not because they want her to figure out the spells, reverse-engineer the stale decoctions, and give Ciri the mutations—rather, because Ciri is—unknown to them—a Source, and has been doing crazy magic shit like giving trance prophecy, and scaring the utter crap out of them. // Source: Blood of Elves, Ch. 2

Triss speculates that Ciri might resent the witchers, should she continue to be given hormones (the mushrooms she eats at dinner), because she would thus grow up to have more masculine features, rather than feminine ones — similar to giving a female child puberty blockers or testosterone. This is also when Triss shames the witchers for training Ciri like a boy, like any other child witcher, because none of them have any problem with it and have considered it a positive thing—until Triss points out Ciri had her period, and none of them knew. The witchers then agree to stop giving her the mushrooms, become more sensitive to her biological sex, which they had previously ignored. So, like with everything in Witcher and in life, it’s not a yes-or-no question. Ciri’s biological sex distinguishes her a bit because there are things about cis women’s bodies which her male guardians are ignorant to, but, as Geralt said, “… and her gender? What does that matter?” // Source: Blood of Eves Chapter 2

I would also like to add that pre-pubescent children divided by biological sex are not very dissimilar in strength and physical endurance, anyways. It’s puberty which begins to give men more muscle and women more fat. Or—sorry—their “womanly attributes.” // Source: Lived through puberty.

I see why the witchers were giving Ciri those hormone mushrooms, then, because they would give her more strength and energy to endure the rigorous training, but also essentiallly influence her puberty to be a male one; however, unbeknownst to them, she was already going through her own puberty, it had already hit her. So they went, “whoops, our bad,” and stopped.

There are also female witchers in the TTRPG and in the Hexer, where there is a school of female witchers. But these are not “canon” to the books or games continuum.

And I will not say any more, for I shall save my full recitation of sources for the video I am working on ;)

#ask #anon #c: ciri #the witcher 4

42 notes · View notes

jgthirlwell · 5 months ago

Text

It's with a heavy heart that I have to announce the passing of Roli Mosimann.

Roli died at 2:15am this morning in hospital in Wroclaw, Poland, from lung cancer.

Roli was my partner in my project Wiseblood. We released the album Dirtdish, the EP PTTM and the 12" single 'Motorslug' and played live extensively.

I was drawn to working with him after seeing his incredible drum skills in Swans. Roli was also acclaimed for producing the Swiss band Young Gods and working with JoJo Meyer, Faith No More, That Petrol Emotion, Machines of Loving Grace, The The and many others. He was a questing musician and a sonic sculptor. He was also a great guy, and, as his first wife Alexa said, “lover of women, wine and song..”

My heart goes out to his family and those whose lives he touched.

RIP Roli Mosimann 11.07.1955 – 09.15.2024

#Roli Mosimann #Wiseblood #Dirtdish #PTTM #Young Gods #JoJo Meyer #Faith No More #Machines of Loving Grace #The The #That Petrol Emotion

53 notes · View notes

weirdpolis · 7 months ago

Text

First medal for Poland at the Olympic Games Paris 2024!

Silver medal in Women's Canoe Slalom - Kayak Single won by Klaudia Zwolińska.

Klaudia Zwolińska zdobywa srebrny medal w kajakarstwie górskim kobiet. To pierwszy medal dla Polski na Igrzyskach Olimpijskich w Paryżu 2024.

#olympics #paris 2024 #olympic games 2024 #klaudia zwolińska #kayaking #poland #polska #kajakarstwo górskie #igrzyska olimpijskie #olimpiada

59 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 3 months ago

Text

Sarah McBride is the first openly transgender person elected to the U.S. Congress, but she is not the first trans politician to be banned from using the bathroom of her choice by a hostile fellow lawmaker.

Back in 2006 in Italy, newly elected Vladimir Luxuria was briefly barred from using the ladies' room when she took her seat in Parliament. She said her heart breaks for McBride, a Democrat from Delaware.

"They did that to me," Luxuria, 59, said in a telephone interview with NBC News from her home in Rome. "What is happening to Sarah McBride is rank politics."

Which bathroom McBride will be able to use in the next Congress became an issue last week when Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican and staunch supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, introduced a resolution to prohibit lawmakers and House employees from “using single-sex facilities other than those corresponding to their biological sex.”

When asked if the move was specifically in response to McBride, Mace said, "yes and absolutely, and then some." Not long afterward, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is also a Republican and a Trump supporter, said he supports restricting “single-sex facilities” in the Capitol, including restrooms, to “individuals of that biological sex."

McBride, in a post on X, responded, “Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness.”

Luxuria, who left Parliament in 2008 and is an actress and activist, was following in the footsteps of the late Georgina Beyer, a New Zealander who became the world’s first openly transgender member of Parliament when she was elected in 1999.

The only other transgender woman who has served in a national parliament is Poland's Anna Grodzka, who was elected in 2011 and served one four-year term.

Luxuria said she had endured a lifetime of "cruelty" but was still shocked when Italian lawmaker Elisabetta Gardini, who was a supporter of then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, confronted her "outside the women's toilet."

"I always went to the women's bathroom because if I even tried to use the men's toilet they would be embarrassed and demand to know what I am doing there," Luxuria said. "So when I came out, I was surprised when Gardini began yelling at me, 'What were you doing in here! You're a man!'"

Luxuria said Gardini "was very angry" but she was determined not to back down.

She said she told Gardini: "OK, I am a trans woman. But if you don't want to see me in here, you should go use the men's toilet."

Luxuria said Gardini walked off in a huff and in no time "the matter of where I could go to the bathroom became a debate in Parliament."

"I was lucky because, in the end, the members of Parliament decided I could use the women's bathroom," she said. "But it was embarrassing that it became an issue."

Luxuria said she has her suspicions about why Gardini, who was a well-known actress and popular TV personality before she got into politics, went after her.

"I suspect Berlusconi's party wanted to make this an issue to attack my party, which was in opposition," she said. "So I am very sympathetic to Sarah McBride."

Gardini did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Noting that Mace once described herself as a pro-LGBTQ social moderate, Luxuria said she thinks Mace's attack on McBride was part of a bigger plan to try to divide Democrats and force them to defend an issue that still makes many Americans "uncomfortable."

"The purpose here is to generate hate for political purposes," Luxuria said.

McBride and Mace did not reply to NBC News' request for comment.

In the aftermath of Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to Trump, some Democrats and pundits have pointed to the Biden administration’s support for transgender rights as one reason Republicans prevailed.

They noted that the Republicans spent more than $200 million on network television advertisements that underscored Harris’ past support for taxpayer-funded gender-affirming care treatments and that repeatedly aired during NFL and college football games.

During her four years in the Polish Parliament, Grodzka also faced verbal attacks and was repeatedly misgendered by fellow Polish lawmaker Krystyna Pawlowicz. In an interview with Pink News, an LGBTQ digital news outlet based in Britain, in 2013, Grodzka largely brushed off the transphobic comments.

“Krystyna is a very conservative person, therefore I guess I am probably just a little bit too much for her," Grodza said. “She has an imaginary idea of a [perfect] person who is supposed to go to church, etc. … In that case I ruin her picture, therefore it’s a reason for her to attack me."

In recent years — nearly a decade after she left Parliament — Grodzka is still occasionally on the receiving end of personal attacks from Polish lawmakers, as the country's right-wing has embraced anti-LGBTQ sentiments.

In a 2002 documentary about Beyer called "Georgie Girl," Beyer said she commonly faced questions about her gender identity that other politicians would not have to endure.

“I get asked questions no other politician would ever have to answer," she said. "Regarding the surgery, you know. ‘Did it hurt?’ or, ‘When you have sex now as a woman, is it different to how you had sex as a man?’ Well, honey, obviously.”

34 notes · View notes

girlactionfigure · 5 months ago

Text

LEICA AND THE JEWS

The Leica is the pioneer 35mm camera. It is a German product - precise, minimalist, and utterly efficient.

Behind its worldwide acceptance as a creative tool was a family-owned, socially oriented firm that, during the Nazi era, acted with uncommon grace, generosity and modesty. E. Leitz Inc., designer and manufacturer of Germany's most famous photographic product, saved its Jews.

And Ernst Leitz II, the steely-eyed Protestant patriarch who headed the closely held firm as the Holocaust loomed across Europe , acted in such a way as to earn the title, "the photography industry's Schindler."

As soon as Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany in 1933, Ernst Leitz II began receiving frantic calls from Jewish associates, asking for his help in getting them and their families out of the country. As Christians, Leitz and his family were immune to Nazi Germany's Nuremberg laws, which restricted the movement of Jews and limited their professional activities.

To help his Jewish workers and colleagues, Leitz quietly established what has become known among historians of the Holocaust as "the Leica Freedom Train," a covert means of allowing Jews to leave Germany in the guise of Leitz employees being assigned overseas.

Employees, retailers, family members, even friends of family members were "assigned" to Leitz sales offices in France, Britain, Hong Kong and the United States, Leitz's activities intensified after the Kristallnacht of November 1938, during which synagogues and Jewish shops were burned across Germany.

Before long, German "employees" were disembarking from the ocean liner Bremen at a New York pier and making their way to the Manhattan office of Leitz Inc., where executives quickly found them jobs in the photographic industry.

Each new arrival had around his or her neck the symbol of freedom - a new Leica camera.

The refugees were paid a stipend until they could find work. Out of this migration came designers, repair technicians, salespeople, marketers and writers for the photographic press.

Keeping the story quiet The "Leica Freedom Train" was at its height in 1938 and early 1939, delivering groups of refugees to New York every few weeks. Then, with the invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Germany closed its borders.

By that time, hundreds of endangered Jews had escaped to America, thanks to the Leitzes' efforts. How did Ernst Leitz II and his staff get away with it?

Leitz, Inc. was an internationally recognized brand that reflected

credit on the newly resurgent Reich. The company produced cameras, range-finders and other optical systems for the German military. Also, the Nazi government desperately needed hard currency from abroad, and Leitz's single biggest market for optical goods was the United States.

Even so, members of the Leitz family and firm suffered for their good works. A top executive, Alfred Turk, was jailed for working to help Jews and freed only after the payment of a large bribe.

Leitz's daughter, Elsie Kuhn-Leitz, was imprisoned by the Gestapo after she was caught at the border, helping Jewish women cross into Switzerland . She eventually was freed but endured rough treatment in the course of questioning. She also fell under suspicion when she attempted to improve the living conditions of 700 to 800 Ukrainian slave laborers, all of them women, who had been assigned to work in the plant during the 1940s.

(After the war, Kuhn-Leitz received numerous honors for her humanitarian efforts, among them the Officier d'honneur des Palms Academic from France in 1965 and the Aristide Briand Medal from the European Academy in the 1970s.)

Why has no one told this story until now? According to the late Norman Lipton, a freelance writer and editor, the Leitz family wanted no publicity for its heroic efforts. Only after the last member of the Leitz family was dead did the "Leica Freedom Train" finally come to light.

It is now the subject of a book, "The Greatest Invention of the Leitz Family: The Leica Freedom Train," by Frank Dabba Smith, a California-born Rabbi currently living in England.

Thank you for reading the above, and if you feel inclined as I did to pass it along to others, please do so. It only takes a few minutes.

Memories of the righteous should live on.

Rabbi Yisroel Bernath

#Jews #Shoah #WW2 #Leica #Ernst Leitz II #righteous

49 notes · View notes

polishgirl4u1 · 14 days ago

Text

Find Your Match: Meet Polish Singles on PolishGirl4U

Discover meaningful connections and Meet Polish Singles on PolishGirl4U, the leading platform for finding love and friendship. Whether you're seeking a serious relationship or simply looking to meet new people, PolishGirl4U offers a welcoming space to connect with like-minded singles from Poland. Explore profiles, chat in real time, and build relationships in a secure and user-friendly environment. Meet Polish singles who share your interests and values.

#polish women for dating #single women in poland

0 notes

polishgirl4u · 7 months ago

Text

Discover Love on Polishgirl4u: The Premier Polish Dating Website

Welcome to Polishgirl4u, the ultimate Polish dating website where singles find meaningful connections. Our platform is dedicated to helping you meet genuine Polish singles who share your interests and values. Whether you're looking for friendship, romance, or a lifelong partner, Polishgirl4u offers a safe and friendly environment to start your journey. Join us today and discover the love you've been searching for on Polishgirl4u!

For more info Visit Us: https://www.polishgirl4u.com/

#Polish Dating Website #Polish Chat Website #Dating Polish Girls #Date Polish Girl Online #Meet Polish Singles #Date Polish Singles #Single Women in Poland #Polish Women Dating Site #Polish Women Dating #Polish Women for Dating

1 note · View note

kyeomwoo · 2 months ago

Text

Ten people I'd like to know better

Thank you @excitingsound for tagging me ❤️

Last song: Hymn to Virgil - Hozier what a surprise

Fav colour: Purple

Fav book: "The once and future witches" by Alix E. Harrow (we love books about women hating men in this house lol)

Fav movie: Mamma Mia!

Last TV show: The Penguin (i'm actually rewatching it so my mom can watch it too and so i can stare at my wife 😌)

Sweet/spicy/savoury: Sweet

Relationship status: Single 🤡

Last thing I googled: A photo of a character my friend and I knew to be from a kpop group, it turned out to be Yongmeong

Current obsession: Miniteen

Looking forward to: maybe July next year when I'm going to Poland for a concert? (my mom's birthday is on 17th and the concert is on 18th so it's perfect timing)

Tagging @horangslay @randomblog-things @tomorrowonu @jeonwonwooenthusiast

#tagged

29 notes · View notes

trueshame · 5 months ago

Text

Man locked out naked of hotel room

Location: Poland 🇵🇱 (city of Lodz) Year: 2024 Genre: Locked out naked

A young man was found locked out naked of the hotel room in Poland. He was standing just in his socks at the door, probably asking to be let back inside. Allegedly, he got into a fight with his girlfriend and he was pushed outside without his clothes as the women called the police.

We do not know if he was arrested or let back inside. Probably someone of the hotel room guests took this single picture and posted in on social media.

#enm #locked out naked #poland

31 notes · View notes

aimeedaisies · 1 year ago

Text

Aimee’s 2023 royal family engagement count: The final results!

Disclaimer; everyone’s counts will be different, people have different rules to their method of counting the Court Circular. It isn’t a definitive count and is done just for fun 💗

The court circular doesn’t record any work behind the scenes, only public engagements, official meetings and luncheons/dinners. It’s more a gauge of their public facing roles.

👑 Princess Anne 👑

Once again Princess Anne tops the chart as the hardest working royal, completing 467 engagements.

She has done 393 engagements in the UK.

She travelled to 10 different countries this year and did 74 engagements there. 🇨🇾🇪🇪🇳🇿🇦🇺🇫🇷🇨🇦🇩🇪🇯🇪🇮🇳🇬🇮

Dubbed by some as the unofficial Queen of Scots she did 62 in Scotland.

King Charles III

In the first year of his reign King Charles did a grand total of 463 engagements

In the UK he did 386 engagements.

He travelled to 5 different countries where he completed 76 engagements and did 3 full royal tours in Germany, France and Kenya. He also hosted a state visit for South Korea at Buckingham Palace. 🇩🇪🇷🇴🇫🇷🇰🇪🇦🇪

What is also worth mentioning is that he has Red Boxes that he has to go through every single day, except Christmas Day and Easter Sunday as well as a lot of work behind the scenes.

Prince Edward, The Duke of Edinburgh

This year, on his 59th birthday, Prince Edward became the Duke of Edinburgh, taking the title of his father. With this he increased his work with the Duke of Edinburgh award and travelling to visit international sections of the award. Prince Edward also visited a lot of theatre related organisations and youth centres and charities.

He completed 294 this year and visited 13 countries on solo tours and with his wife. 🇹🇨🇧🇸🇺🇸🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇿🇮🇪🇹🇷🇧🇭🇸🇬🇳🇿🇦🇺🇮🇩

Sophie, The Duchess of Edinburgh

In 2023 Sophie carried on her hard work in areas like women’s rights in disadvantaged areas, avoidable blindness, hygiene and agriculture.

She completed 226 this year in the UK and the commonwealth and visited 10 countries on solo tours and with her husband. 🇳🇱🇹🇨🇧🇸🇮🇶🇮🇹🇪🇹🇨🇦🇨🇴🇨🇭

Prince Richard, The Duke of Gloucester

The Duke of Gloucester has this year completed 208 engagements in the UK.

He continued his long lasting work in heritage, architecture, the St John’s Ambulance and military organisations.

Hopefully next year we will see him do some overseas engagements. 🕯️

Queen Camilla

In the year of her Coronation, Queen Camilla carried out 198 engagements.

She visited Germany, France and Kenya where she did 42 engagements whilst on official tours. 🇩🇪🇫🇷🇰🇪

She focused a lot of her engagements this year on sectors close to her heart like women’s & children’s charities, osteoporosis care and animal welfare.

Prince William, The Prince of Wales

The Prince of Wales this year carried out engagements in the UK and the Commonwealth in areas like mental health, homelessness and conservation. In 2023 he did 183 engagements.

Prince William travelled to 4 countries where he did 32 engagements related to Earthshot in USA and Singapore, visiting Ukrainian troops in Poland, attending the Jordanian royal wedding in June and finally travelling to Kuwait to give his condolences to to The Emir of Kuwait following the death of The Emir Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. 🇵🇱🇺🇸🇯🇴🇸🇬🇰🇼

Catherine, The Princess of Wales

The Princess of Wales carried out 134 engagements throughout 2023. Catherine continued her work in her Early Years foundation and childhood development.

She visited France for two, one off engagements for the rugby World Cup in France and to Jordan for Crown Prince Hussein and Princess Rajwa’s wedding in June. 🇫🇷🇯🇴

Hopefully we will see her and the Prince of Wales go on a couple of overseas tours next year now that their children are older.

Birgitte, The Duchess of Gloucester

The Duchess of Gloucester has this year completed 127 engagements in the UK. She continued her long lasting work in sports, the arts (Opera, Ballet, Acting etc…) and accompanying her husband to official engagements.

Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence

Although not an official working royal, Sir Tim often attends as a great support to his wife’s engagements as well as having his own non-royal patronages and interests. It was recently announced that he would become chair of the Science Museum group and is the patron of a number of heritage organisations.

He accompanied his wife to a total of 92, represented her 4 times and accompanied her to 27 engagements abroad in 5 countries. 🇪🇪🇳🇿🇦🇺🇫🇷🇬🇮

(Operation working royal Tim) 👏

Prince Edward, The Duke of Kent.

Despite being 88, Prince Edward, the late Queens cousin, has carried out 75 engagements even with his ailing mobility.

He continued his valued hard work with organisations like the RNLI, the Royal Scots Guards and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which he recently passed on the presidency to the Princess Royal.

Princess Alexandra of Kent

Although she is practically retired now, we have seen Princess Alexandra attend four official engagements in 2023. Firstly she attended a Reception for British East and South-East Asian Communities, secondly to present medals to members of The Royal Lancers, thirdly she attended the Coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla and lastly she visited the Royal Chelsea Flower Show.

This year the British Royal Family completed a grand total of 2476 in the UK and 29 different countries across the world.

🇨🇾🇪🇪🇳🇿🇦🇺🇫🇷🇨🇦🇩🇪🇯🇪🇮🇳🇬🇮🇷🇴🇰🇪🇵🇱🇺🇸🇯🇴🇸🇬🇹🇨🇧🇸🇨🇿🇹🇷🇧🇭🇸🇬🇮🇩🇳🇱🇮🇶🇮🇹🇪🇹🇨🇴🇨🇭🇰🇼

See below for engagements from the past decade and the types of engagements carried out in 2023

#thank you for following me on this journey #i might carry on in 2024 #time will tell #king charles iii #queen camilla #william prince of wales #catherine princess of wales #prince edward duke of edinburgh #sophie duchess of edinburgh #princess anne #princess royal #tim laurence #timothy laurence #prince richard duke of gloucester #birgitte duchess of gloucester #prince edward duke of kent #princess alexandra of kent #2023 engagement count

76 notes · View notes