پست‌های تلگرام History

Many of Lisogorsky's cartoons made fun of what he saw as Western hypocrisy.

International Women's Day: we congratulate you, dear women!
(Naum Lisogorsky, USSR, 1963)

22 February 1943: Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst are executed in Munich for distributing anti-war leaflets as part of the Weiße Rose (White Rose) group. They were aged 21, 25, and 23 respectively.

Though initially showing some enthusiasm for the promise of the Nazi regime, the Scholls gradually became disillusioned. In 1936 Hans vocally defended Hitler in front of his father and became a flagbearer at the annual Nuremburg Rally, but was disappointed by the restrictive attitude of his superiors.

Sophie, who had lost faith in the regime by 1939, was turned actively against it by her boyfriend, soldier Fritz Hartnagel, who told her of atrocities against civilians in the east.

Christoph wished for an honourable peace and joined the White Rose alongside Hans and Sophie.

Betrayed by caretaker Jakob Schmid, who received 3,000 marks, the trio were inevitably sentenced to death. The guards at their prison were taken aback by their courage and dignity, to the extent that they allowed the prisoners to have a final cigarette together, an unprecedented liberty.

They were executed by guillotine. Their friends Alexander Schmorell (25), Willi Graf (25), and Kurt Huber (49) were murdered later that year.

Advert for the 'Bantam Units' - used during WWI by the British, these units consisted of men 5ft to 5'3", who were too small for ordinary service.

Today it is Lunar New Year. In China it is the year of the snake. The snake is associated with cunning, intelligence, and charm.

Image source

80 years ago on January 27th, 1945, the Red Army came across Auschwitz.

Primo Levi describes the moment:
"They were four young soldiers on horseback, who advanced along the road that marked the limits of the camp, cautiously holding their sten-guns. When they reached the barbed wire they stopped to look, exchanging a few timid words, and throwing strangely embarrassed glances at the sprawling bodies, and the battered huts and at us few still alive. To us they seemed wonderfully concrete and real, perched on their enormous horses, between the grey of the snow and the grey of the sky, immobile beneath the gusts of damp wind which threatened the thaw."

Many of the inmates at both Auschwitz I, II (Birkenau), III (Monowitz, where Levi was), and the various other subcamps, were near death, because most of the stronger inmates had been evacuated in order to work in camps further from the frontline.

(Photo: Henryk Makarewicz)

January 25 1911: Kanno Sugako is executed in Japan for her part in a plot to assassinate Emperor Meiji.
She was radicalised as a teenager after being raped, and finding mental support for this within the socialist movement. She strongly advocated for equal rights for men and women and deplored the terrible state of the working class in Japan.
Before her execution, she became an anarcha-feminist.

Her reflections written before her death can be read here.

The three Biblical magi Balthazar, Caspar, and Melchior as depicted by Herrad of Landsberg (France, 1185) and reproduced by Christian Maurice Engelhardt (1818).
The true identities of the Biblical Magi, whose visit to baby Jesus is celebrated on Epiphany, is not known. Their traditional names originate from a lost 6th century Greek manuscript - other Christian groups call them different names, such as Syrians, who call them Larvandad, Gushnasaph, and Hormisdas. A Chinese tradition holds that one of them was from China.
The historicity of the story is debated. It seems possible that the story was more one laced with symbolism, foreshadowing, and allegory than one based on reality. For example, myrrh was frequently used in burial practices at the time - a hint of the fate of the baby they were visiting.

A 'Mari Lwyd' (Thomas Evans, Llangynwyd, Wales, 1904-10).
This strange Welsh custom involves a horse skull being held on a stick, with a sheet hanging down, to create a sort of hobby-horse. A person stands inside. The horse then goes wassailing (an old form of carol singing). The person visited traditionally refuses the horse entry, before giving in and letting it and its companions inside to have food.
The origins, and even the meaning of the name, remain a mystery.