World War Two
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Today in 1945 the Soviet Army liberated the Auschwitz death camp in Southern Poland.
I remember the jokes. They were usually about one of two things: hardship or fear.
It’s been strange, this week, to reflect that most people will never know, as I did (albeit as a visitor) what it was really like in the old Soviet Bloc. But the jokes used to tell the story.
An American dog, a Polish dog and a Russian dog are talking. The American dog says “Where I live it’s good. You bark loudly enough, and they give you meat”. The Polish dog says” What’s meat?” The Russian dog says “What’s bark?”
Continue reading "Recalling communism through its black jokes" »
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BJ says:
I have a joke from modern-day Ukraine, where I lived for three years. A reflection on the corrupt police. The graduate from the Police academy gets a job at the city precinct. He goes there on his first day, and the Chief gives him his uniform, his gun and his… Read more »
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George says:
Both Capitalism and Communism suffer from inadequacies. Typically, both sides made fun of one-another in a bid to deflect negative attention away from their own system and it’s policies. Unfortunately this 10,000 years old “tactic ” (one of the many inventions by man that hasn’t been “trumpeted” quite so often… Read more »
Just a few years ago I ended up in Warsaw on a business trip to Poland where my former boss Eric Dodd had been invited to talk to top government officials about reforms to Poland’s embryonic private health system.
As a journo and an amateur student of history, I was astonished to learn that our hotel in Warsaw was located on what was previously the Jewish Ghetto in World War II from which tends of thousands were shipped to their deaths.
And just a matter of a few hours drive away was the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp where hundreds of thousands of Jews and gypsies were imprisoned in the most horrific conditions and slaughtered in the gas chambers.
Continue reading "Kyle should use his free time to visit Auschwitz" »
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West End says:
Daffy Duck, you have stupidly attempted to sidetrack the whole issue. Firstly, there haven’t been millions of deaths in Palestine/Israel, more like thousands ; we can argue about rights and wrongs but the Palestinians still exist as a nation and their population is growing annually which somehow wouldn’t occur if… Read more »
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SherpaG says:
Someone said to me today “It’s ok for Kyle to be a shock jock as long as he doesn’t shock people”....ummm…whaaa? Read more »
An old newspaper can work like a telescope into the past, the details sharp but the whole picture a little shaky and blurred, and the newspaper on my wall is like that. It’s the front of the Melbourne Argus for Sunday, September the third, 1939, and it contains only one story, told in a series of blaring headlines.
BRITAIN AT WAR
DECLARED AT 8.20 P.M.
‘OUR CONSCIENCE CLEAR’ – MR CHAMBERLAIN
LONDON, TO-NIGHT
A DECLARATION THAT A STATE OF WAR EXISTED BETWEEN BRITAIN AND GERMANY WAS MADE BY THE PRIME MINISTER, MR CHAMBERLAIN, TO THE NATION FROM NO. 10 DOWNING STREET TO-NIGHT.
Continue reading "70 years on, how Australia too was at war" »
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Nic says:
So why was it ok for Australia (and New Zealand) to declare they too were at war while other Commonwealth countries actually took days to have a debate in parliament before declaring war - Canada springs to mind as one example… ? Read more »
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Josh says:
The Nazis were an enemy that made it very black or white. You either supported them or you hated them. Australia went with hate and sent brave men to fight to help out others in europe who needed some extra help stopping the nazi threat. It was the right decision… Read more »
In the town of Caen, in Normandy, is one of the most remarkable museums I’ve ever visited.
I went there in 1994, the week of the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day, and what I remember most clearly about the Memorial de Caen – the Caen Peace Museum – is the long spiral ramp down which you must walk to enter it.
You can read about it here: or if your French is up to it, take a virtual tour here: but nothing will really reproduce the experience of walking in person down the spiral of history that led to world war and genocide.
Continue reading "Remembrance of things past: history without an airbrush" »
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Paul says:
Mark, Great to see that journalists have something more to add than reporting of the facts. My own take on this, is that its the ideas behind the events? ie, why did Hitler do as he did? The same can be asked of Pol Pot, even Bush, perhaps Chamberlain, Churchill,… Read more »
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Gareth says:
Great article, will visit that museum next time I’m in Caen! It seems that as advertising revenues decline, journalism gets increasingly compromised as it seeks to focus on its more commercial requirement - get eyeballs! As this occurrs, balance, fairness and objectivity (what history seeks to achieve) give way to… Read more »
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