April 30, 2009 - Posted by Josh - 0 Comments
So you never knew that a small island in the West Indies was once a Swedish colony? Apparently, not that many Swedes do either. But the story, which has been largely wiped from school history books, is now being told to a new generation.
From 1784 – 1878, war, enslavement, piracy and destruction ruled on the West Indian island of St Barthélemy. The Swedes had come to town. Throughout their near-century reign, the nomads from the North also brought prosperity and order to a place that could hardly have been more different from their homeland. It makes for a riveting read but it’s a tale that has rarely been told, obscured by Sweden’s bigger story of neighbourly conquests and decades of neutrality. Read on…
April 19, 2009 - Posted by Josh - 1 Comment
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Die Moorsoldaten [German Version], performed by Hannes Wader
Peat Bog Soldiers is one of Europe’s best-known protest songs. It exists in countless European languages, became a Republican anthem during the Spanish Civil War; was a symbol of resistance during the Second World War; and is popular with the Peace movement today. What makes it perhaps so poignant is the knowledge that is was written, composed and first performed in a Nazi concentration camp by the prisoners themselves.
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Broadcast about the Moorsoldaten Lied on Radio Goethe
This song was written by prisoners in Nazi moorland labour camps in Lower Saxony, Germany. By 1933 the Börgermoor camp held about 1,000 Socialist and Communist internees. They were banned from singing political songs so they wrote and composed their own. The words were written by Johann Esser (a miner) and Wolfgang Langhoff (an actor); the music was composed by Rudi Goguel and was later adapted by Hanns Eisler and Ernst Busch.
It was first performed at a Zircus Konzentrazani ("concentration camp concert") on 28 August 1933 at Börgermoor camp. Here is Rudi Goguel’s description of it:
The sixteen singers, mostly members of the Solinger workers choir, marched in holding spades over the shoulders of their green police uniforms (our prison uniforms at the time). I led the march, in blue overalls, with the handle of a broken spade for a conductor’s baton. We sang and by the end of the second verse nearly all of the thousands of prisoners present gave voice to the chorus. With each verse, the chorus became more powerful and, by the end, the SS – who had turned up with their officers – were also singing, apparently because they too thought themselves "peat bog soldiers".
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Die Moorsoldaten [German Version], performed by Helium Vola
The song has a slow simple melody, reflecting a soldier’s march, and is deliberately repetitive, echoing and telling of the daily grind of hard labour in harsh conditions. It was popular with German refugees in London in the Thirties and was used as a marching song by the German volunteers of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. It was soon picked up by other nationalities and it appears in almost all the collected anthologies of Spanish Civil War songs.
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Peat Bog Soldiers [English Version] performed by Paul Robeson
Source: Wikipedia | Deutsche Version
April 12, 2009 - Posted by Josh - 5 Comments
Peleliu is a small island that forms part of the nation of Palau in the Pacific. It’s about five hours flying time south of Japan and three hours east of the Philippines. It’s now, like the rest of Palau, beautiful, peaceful and home to more shades of blue in the sea and sky than you or your camera lens would ever have thought possible.
Blue wasn’t always the colour. Between September and November 1944, it was the site of an incredibly fierce battle between US and Japanese armed forces.
When you arrive on Peleliu, it doesn’t take long to start spotting the remains of the war. This is partly because while the US helped rebuild Peleliu (and Palau as a whole – the country only become fully independent in 1994), they just moved the civilian population from the south of the island to the north and started afresh. The south of the island and its thick jungle still contain plenty of WW2 relics.
Head over here to read the full story…
April 10, 2009 - Posted by Josh - 0 Comments
Recreation of Al Capone’s cell
No one really knows how Al Capone was able to get permission to have a phonograph, Turkish rugs and comfortable furniture in his cell. My guess is with bribes. Many many bribes. Eastern State Penitentiary was the United States’ first penitentiary, an ominous fortress of a building erected in Philadelphia in 1829. Eastern State is now a museum, and is in the same state it was found in after being abandoned. There are no plans to repair it, instead the prison is preserved in ruin.
Photos and great Article about Eastern State
