Сообщение The only Jew refugee camp in the US появились сначала на Old Pictures.
]]>
All Jewish refugees got their badges upon arriving at Fort Ontario. It was much better than the identification number tattoo on the hand.
Life of jews in the pre-WW2 period (and during the war as well) in Europe wasn’t sweet at all, and the jew refugee camp in the US sounded like a fairytale.
European Jews didn’t have a lot of options on how not to end your days in the concentration camps, behind the barbed wire fence, or experience other Holocaust horrors. Some of them, like genius physicists Albert Einstein, were wise enough to escape the Nazis in the early 30th. Others were the lucky holders of the Swiss passport, like photographer Robert Frank. And for the rest of the sons of Israel (which didn’t exist yet, but), the US seemed to be the best destination point.
First, you had to get to Italy, where fascists were much kinder to the Jews than their Axis allies from Berlin. Then you should take a chance to get to the US, to the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter.
The Jews streamed to the Land of the free as rapidly as mountain rivers do during the heavy showers, and the US government decided to greet them with a place to live.
The camp for the Jews was founded in June 1944, but it almost didn’t function at all. The US tried to limit immigration flow during the WW2. Many have claimed that President Roosevelt didn’t feel motivated to help the suffering Jews because he’d already won the Jewish vote.
But then Josiah E. Dubois, a US Treasury Department lawyer from New Jersey, alarmed the situation with visas for Jews, that were almost impossible to get. He pointed on different cases where the Fed government could act better and give the European jews at least a chance to survive. Dubois’s arguments convinced the Treasury, and funds for the War Refugee Board were approved in 1944.
Four million Jews had died by 1944, but the efforts of the War Refugee Board saved tens of thousands of lives.
Jewish refugees waiting for the train to Camp, New York on August 4
The opening of the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter
Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter was a personal idea of President Roosevelt, who he even attended the camp, and boosted the morale of many breathing there — but it was also a temporary measure. A news report from 1944, which can be heard in a haven from the Holocaust, an hour-long radio program, sums up the refugee crisis. As camp administration used to say, “Though Jews are our friends, they cannot enjoy all of the American freedoms. They cannot move outside a camp area. And they should go back to Europe when WW2 ends.”
Nonetheless, many inhabitants of the US jew refugee camp didn’t follow those commandments. They intend to look for the American dream, to stay and make a life in the country that had taken them in, rather than return to the devastation at home. When the jew refugee camp finally closed after the war, most of them got permanent status on the American Land.
The jew refugee camp in the US couldn’t save millions of murdered during the Nazi rule, but it was the only safe haven during the last war years. Even those spared in Oswego would have to adapt their own fates with those of the millions killed during the war. Or, as one survivor put it in the Haven radio program: “I felt wonderful, and I felt terrible — okay? That’s what the camp meant to me.”
Сообщение The only Jew refugee camp in the US появились сначала на Old Pictures.
]]>Сообщение Munich massacre history: facts and pictures появились сначала на Old Pictures.
]]>
The phenomenon of mass terrorism was unknown in Olympics history until September 5, 1972. Oldpics.net remembers those crimson days with a full set of history pictures and facts.
The main photo’ Munich massacre’ belongs to the Top 100 most influential pictures in history, according to TIME magazine.
- The 1972 Olympics was a significant historical event for Germany. The game came under “Games of peace and joy,” and organizers believed that a large number of armed guards would damage this image. Therefore, the entire light-armored security of the festival wore a blue uniform, a positive color without bad connotations. Access control was elementary: there are a lot of stories about how journalists entered the territory of the Olympic Village without a pass. It was enough to put on a tracksuit and pretend to jog.
Inside the coaches’ room. The first massive terrorist incident throughout sports history.
- The Israeli delegation went to the theater on the evening of September 4. At this point, Abu Daud, one of the leaders of Fatah and the ideological inspirer of the future attack, was instructing eight terrorists, members of the Black September group.
- The Olympic village had a mesh fence around. Many athletes admitted that they were too lazy to go around the wall to enter the territory through the gate, and they simply climbed over it instead. The terrorists did the same. They met a group of Canadians and Americans and helped each other climb over the fence (real athletes mistook eight strangers for fellow sportspeople from eastern countries).
Israeli delegation during the Olympics opening.
- The terrorists took the coaches’ rooms first. Moshe Weinberg, the wrestlers’ coach tried to resist; they shot his cheek and forced to lead the invaders to the rest of the Israelis.
- The terrorists took 12 people hostage, but when the athletes were brought down a floor to unite with the coaches, one of the fighters, Gadi Tsabari, succeeded with escape. Wounded Weinsberg distracted terrorists, and paid for it with his life. His body was thrown into the street at the entrance to the building – to intimidate and confirm the intentions.
Anti-terrorist operation failed utterly.
- There was no anti-terrorist unit at all in the German police, and the military could not take part in operations in the country in peacetime due to post-WW2 historical agreements.
- IOC President Avery Brundage knew about this historical tragedy at 6 a.m. He ordered the Games not to go on; The first event on September 5 began at 8:15 precisely on schedule. “Games must go on at all costs,” he declared. The competition had to be stopped, but it happened only at 15:50.
A tense standoff followed as Black September demanded the release of 200 political prisoners. The Israeli government refused to negotiate. The German authorities, who had no dedicated anti-terrorist response unit, floundered as the terrorists’ deadline approached.
- Terrorists killed all hostages at the airport during the SWAT operation that failed miserably. Armored vehicles that were supposed to arrive at the airport to support the police were stuck in traffic. Nobody could explain why they were not delivered in advance.
- Shmuel Lalkin, head of the Israeli delegation, wrote to the head of the security department of the Olympics a month and a half before the Games. He was concerned about security measures that merely existed.
West Germany police officers tried to free the hostages in the Village, but the operation was broadcasted on TV, and terrorists could know all the details. The German government tried to hide these history pictures from the public in order to hide its own incompetence.
Terrorists blew two helicopters at the airport. The pictures of the most miserable anti-terrorist operation in history.
The remaining Israeli athletes and officials returned home.
Coffins at the airport of Tel-Aviv. These pictures illustrate the saddest page in Olympics history.
Сообщение Munich massacre history: facts and pictures появились сначала на Old Pictures.
]]>