Valdemar Langlet

Valdemar Langlet (; December 17, 1872 in Lerbo, Sweden – October 16, 1960 in Stockholm) was a Swedish publisher, and an early Esperantist. With his wife Nina Borovko-Langlet in Budapest, he is credited with saving many Jews from the Holocaust, by providing Swedish documents saying that people were waiting for Swedish nationality. Raoul Wallenberg was inspired by Langlet and used the same method to save Jewish people when he came to Budapest. In 1965, Valdemar and Nina Langlet were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
Early life.
He was the son of architect Emil Victor Langlet and his wife author Clara Mathilda Ulrika Clementine Söderén (1832-1904). His brother included chemist Abraham Langlet (1868-1936).
After his student years (in Germany, Austria and Switzerland) he worked as an engineer, and later journalist and editor of many Swedish newspapers (among others, "Svensk Handelstidning" and "Svenska Dagbladet". He wrote books about current affairs and about voyages to Russia and Hungary. In 1890, he learned Esperanto, and was a founding member of the Esperanto club of Uppsala in 1891, the second Esperanto club in the world, and for many years he served as president of the club. When the Swedish Esperanto Federation was founded in 1906, he became its president, until the great Ido-schism during Easter of 1909.
In 1899, he married a Finnish esperantist Signe Blomberg from Turku. After her death in 1921, he met Nina Borovko, the daughter of Nikolai Afrikanovich Borovko, a friend and a pioneering Esperantist in Russia. In 1925, Valdemar and Nina married.
In 1932, Langlet was hired by the University of Budapest, where he served as lecturer on the Swedish language. At the same time, he worked as an officer in the Swedish Embassy in Budapest.
War years.
In 1944, when World War II became more and more dangerous for the life of Hungarians, Langlet still worked at the university and the embassy. He saw the cruel persecution not only of Jews, but also other people not favored by the fascist regime. Together with his wife Nina, he initiated humanitarian work under the protection of the Swedish Red Cross. At first, he helped his own acquaintances one at a time. But little by little the group grew, and soon he had a long line of people at his door begging his help.
Nina and Valdemar's home no longer was sufficient for his humanitarian work. They searched and rented apartments, homes and farms. People who left town gave their home to the Langlets. Many locations, both in Budapest and the surrounding areas, they arranged for orphanages and safehouses for older people. They distributed food and medicine. In some of these homes, they occasionally secretly hid people who were persecuted because they were Jews, or people who for one reason or another were unwanted by the Hungarian fascists or the German SS.
During the last year of the war, thousands and thousands of Hungarian Jews were transported to certain death in German concentration camps. Langlet already during his first years in Budapest established warm interrelations with many Jewish families. In early 1944, he suddenly noticed that some people he knew disappeared without warning. Other people secretly sought Langlet to express their fear of arrest and transport to the camps. Langlet now understood what he had to do. By means of official actions of the Swedish Embassy, he could help some people which had some kind of relation to Sweden. For others he could do nothing. The situation seemed hopelessly dark. Although he did not have the right to act without sanction of the Swedish authorities in Stockholm, he set up a special protective unit of the embassy, and afterward in his home office. In the name of the Swedish Red Cross he started to publish printed verification documents attesting Swedish citizenship and because of that, the person carrying it was under "special Swedish protection."
External links.
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Edward Grosvenor

Edward Grosvenor was an English soldier and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1656 to 1659. He served in the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War.
Grosvenor was quartermaster-general in the Parliamentary army. He was created MA at Oxford University on 19 May 1649. In 1656, he was elected Member of Parliament for Middlesex in the Second Protectorate Parliament. He was re-elected MP for Middlesex in 1659 for the Third Protectorate Parliament.


Brazilians in Turkey

Brazilians in Turkey are one of the very small Brazilian communities outside Brazil, numbering about 275. The majority of Brazilians in Turkey work in embassies and/or consulates in Istanbul and Ankara, with a small number working in private companies in other metropolitan cities.


List of colonial governors of Angola

This is a list of European (Portuguese and Dutch) colonial administrators responsible for the territory of Portuguese Angola, an area equivalent to modern-day Republic of Angola.
List.
For continuation after independence, "see:" List of heads of state of Angola


Absentee voting in the United Kingdom

Absentee voting in the United Kingdom is allowed by proxy or post (known as "postal voting on demand") for any elector.
Proxy voting is allowed for people who will be away, working, or medically disabled. Anyone eligible to vote in the election may be a proxy for close relatives and two unrelated people.
Postal voting does not require a reason, apart from in Northern Ireland, where postal voting is available only if it would be unreasonable to expect a voter to go to a polling station on polling day as a result of employment, disability or education restrictions.
Pilots in 2003 and 2004 showed a significant increase in turnout where postal voting was trialled and no evidence of an increase in electoral fraud. However, a 2016 government report found postal voting to be vulnerable to "fraud, undue influence, theft and tampering."
History.
Voting at elections originally took place by way of a public show of hands or by a public ballot. The right to vote by secret ballot was introduced by the "Parliamentary and Municipal Elections Act 1872" (the Ballot Act 1872). After this voting took place at polling stations where voters marked their votes in secret and placed their ballot papers in a closed box.
Absent voting was first introduced for the immediate post-war period in 1918 for servicemen and others prevented "by reason of the nature of their occupation…from voting at a poll" by the Representation of the People Act 1918. Armed forces still serving overseas at the end of World War I were allowed to vote by post, and permanent arrangements were made for proxy voting by servicemen. The Representation of the People Act 1945 again made temporary provision for postal voting by service voters. Postal voting was not extended to civilians until 1948 when the Representation of the People Act 1948 granted postal voting facilities to both service personnel and to certain groups of civilians including those who were physically incapacitated, those unable to vote without making a journey by sea or air or because of the nature of their occupation, and those who were no longer residing at their qualifying address. All had to provide an address in the UK to which ballot papers could be sent. Service personnel could, alternatively, vote by proxy if they were likely to be at sea or abroad on polling day.
In 1983, in its review of electoral law, the Home Affairs Select Committee criticised the categories of absent voters who were allowed to vote by post. The Committee made clear that they would not wish absent voting facilities to be made available to everybody on demand but recommended that "the Home Office should review the existing criteria for eligibility for absent voting facilities, and in particular we suggest that it would be permissible to apply for a postal vote due to absence “by reason of employment”, without the necessity to distinguish between one type of employment or another." The committee also called for voters absent on holiday to have the right to apply for a postal vote. The government responded to the committee's report in January 1984 and expressed some concern at the increased opportunities for electoral abuse offered by absent voting (especially postal voting) and in particular by the standing arrangements made for those allowed an absent vote for an indefinite period. However, the government's response was summed up as follows:
The Representation of the People Act 1985 subsequently made provision for these extensions to the right to apply for an absent vote. The proposals did not apply to Northern Ireland where there was already widespread concern, shared by the government, at the extent and nature of electoral abuse, including the abuse of postal voting. Further amendments were made to the rules governing absent voting in the Representation of the People Act 1989.
By 1999 the system of postal and proxy voting for those unable to vote at polling stations was seen as cumbersome and complex. A Working Party on Electoral Procedures chaired by George Howarth, Minister of State at the Home Office, published its report in October 1999. The working party recommended that
The Representation of the People Act 2000 implemented the Howarth report's recommendations. The Representation of the People (England & Wales) Regulations 2001 introduced the changes to the absent voting arrangements from 16 February 2001. The main change was to allow postal voting on demand.
Since 2001, any elector has been entitled to request a postal vote (known as "postal voting on demand") without giving a reason, apart from in Northern Ireland, where postal voting is available only if it would be unreasonable to expect a voter to go to a polling station on polling day as a result of employment, disability or education restrictions. Prior to 2001, postal votes had been available since 1948 only to those unable to attend a polling station for reasons of ill health, employment or planned holiday away from home and to some electors living on small islands where they would need to cross water to reach their polling station. Before 1985, holidays were not a sufficient reason, and the employment criterion allowed only some professions. After the introduction of on-demand postal voting in the UK, there has been a massive uptake in postal voting. Whilst in 2001 1.8 million postal ballots were distributed to voters, this has increased to more than 8 million postal ballots by the UK 2017 general election.
Procedure.
Registered voters who wish to vote by post must submit an additional application form to the electoral registration officer at their local authority (or to the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland if in Northern Ireland) stating whether they want their ballot paper to be sent for one single election, all elections until a specified date or indefinitely. They must also submit their date of birth, and signature specimen on the form (or apply for a grant of a signature waiver due to a disability or inability to read or write). In addition, if a person eligible to vote in the United Kingdom is chosen by another voter to be his/her proxy, the proxy can apply to vote by post. To receive a postal vote for an election, the postal vote application must have been received by the electoral registration officer by 5p.m. eleven working days before polling day.
Returning officers issue and despatch postal ballot packs at 5p.m. on the eleventh working day before polling day at the earliest. The issuing of postal ballots is not open to the scrutiny of candidates and their agents; by law, only the returning officers, their staff, representatives of the Electoral Commission and accredited observers are permitted to attend. Some returning officers produce postal ballot packs in house, whilst others outsource the process to an external company.
Each postal ballot pack contains inside the cover envelope a ballot paper, two envelopes ("A" and "B") and a postal voting statement. Postal ballot papers contain the following design, security and identification features on the reverse:
When issuing each postal ballot paper, the officer marks on a list (called the corresponding number list) next to the postal ballot's unique identification number the elector number of the voter to whom the postal ballot is sent, and then makes a mark next to the voter's name in a separate list of postal voters. The unique identification number of the postal ballot paper is also marked on the postal voting statement sent within the postal ballot pack. The local authority name and address and the name of the constituency/ward are printed on both envelopes "A" and "B". Once all ballot papers for an election have been issued by the returning officer, the corresponding number list is sealed in a packet which can only be opened upon the order of a court when an election result is challenged.
Upon receipt of the postal ballot pack, the voter completes the ballot paper according to the instructions and seals it inside the envelope marked "A". A separate postal voting statement must be filled in by the voter with his/her date of birth and signature (unless a signature waiver has been granted or if the voter is an anonymous elector). It is strongly recommended that postal voting statement and envelope "A" (containing the ballot paper) be placed and sealed inside the larger envelope "B" when returned, although this is not a requirement. The vote can be posted back to the returning officer at the local authority address (postage is prepaid when returned from within the United Kingdom), or returned in person to the returning officer at the local authority office, or directly handed in to a polling station on polling day (but only one which is situated within the constituency/ward marked on envelopes "A"/"B"). For the vote to be counted, it must "reach" the returning officer/polling station by the close of poll (usually 10p.m. on polling day).
Upon receipt of a postal ballot pack in the post (or of the postal ballot paper and postal voting statement if sent separately), the returning officer places it inside the postal voters' ballot box allocated to the particular constituency/ward. If a presiding officer receives a postal ballot pack in a polling station, it is sealed inside a packet which is later delivered to the returning officer at the close of poll together with a form recording the number of postal ballot packs received by the presiding officer.
Candidates and their agents, representatives of the Electoral Commission and accredited observers are entitled to observe the opening of postal ballot packs – the returning officer must give candidates and their agents at least 48 hours' written notice of the time and location of every opening session of postal ballot packs. After emptying the postal voters' ballot box, the postal voting statements and envelopes marked "A"/loose postal ballot papers are separated into two different groups. The returning officer is required to verify the date of birth and signature filled in on at least 20% of the postal voting statements from each postal voters ballot box with the details provided on the original postal vote application forms. If the details do not match, then the postal voting statement is rejected. The returning officer makes a mark next to the name of the voter on the postal voters list for each postal voting statement received, even if it is selected for verification and rejected. On a separate list, the returning officer must write down the unique identification numbers of postal voting statements which were chosen for verification and subsequently rejected.
The returning officer then compiles all loose postal ballot papers together with postal ballot papers having been removed from envelopes marked "A". The unique identification numbers of all rejected postal ballot papers are noted on a list.
The postal ballot papers are counted and finally placed in the postal ballot boxes), except for rejected postal ballot papers and postal ballot papers which have the same unique identification number as rejected postal voting statements. The postal ballot boxes are securely sealed by the returning officer (candidates and agents can also apply their own seals).
At the count, the postal ballot boxes have their seals broken, are opened and then the postal ballot papers are counted.
Voters can contact the returning officer to check that their postal voting packs (or their postal voting statements and their postal ballot papers) have been received – however a response can only be given after an opening session since the returning officer will have to refer to the postal voters list. At the end of an election, the marked postal voter lists are open for public inspection and also can be purchased by the Electoral Commission, candidates, elected representatives, government departments, police forces, registered political parties and local constituency parties.
Controversy.
In the United Kingdom a 2016 government inquiry found that postal voting "was considered by some to be the UK’s main electoral vulnerability and to provide the 'best' opportunity for electoral fraud... Evidence was presented of pressure being put on vulnerable members of some ethnic minority communities, particularly women and young people, to vote according to the will of the elders... the possibilities of undue influence, theft of postal votes and tampering with them after completion were all still risks."
The government responded by saying it would consider the recommendations on postal voting.
The report recommended that voters update their signatures and other identifying information every three years, rather than every five years as now, to reduce the chance of rejecting valid ballots based on signature mis-matches.
The same 2016 report identified 330 allegations of voting offenses from 2012-2015, of which at least 97 involved postal ballots. It also lists four "significant election court cases since 2004", of which three involved postal votes. The postal vote fraud at the 2004 European and local government elections in Birmingham received wide press attention.
All-postal voting pilots.
In 2000, the UK government passed legislation to permit local authorities to apply to pilot innovations in the method of voting at local elections (including all-postal voting, electronic voting, and voting at weekends), with the first pilot elections being held in May that year.
In May 2000, 2002 and 2003, many local authorities piloted all-postal voting at their local elections. In May 2003, 35 local authorities did so. The outcome of those pilots was a recommendation from the Electoral Commission that all-postal voting should be adopted as the normal method of voting at local elections in the UK. This reflected the positive impact on voter turnout at these elections (in some places, turnout doubled) and the fact that there was no evidence of an increase in electoral fraud.
The local elections scheduled for May 2004 were postponed to June and combined with the European Parliament elections. The UK government used this opportunity to trial all-postal voting in these elections across four regions: North East, North West, East Midlands, and Yorkshire and the Humber.
The pilots did show a significant increase in turnout where postal voting was trialled.


Chinese people in Turkey

There is a small community of Chinese people in Turkey, mostly temporary expatriates. A few hundred Chinese students are enrolled in various Turkish universities. Turkey has a sizeable number of Muslim Uyghur people who hail from the Xinjiang region of China. They have come in large numbers since the early 1950s from the northwestern provinces of China and as part of their migration to the Middle East, many chose to settle down in urban centres of Turkey. Today, they have effectively associated themselves with the local economy and can be seen practicing in various forms of trade.
In the past, the living conditions of the Turkic Uyghurs in China has often been a source of contention between the two countries, with Turkey protesting the treatment of Uyghurs in China. Many Uyghur activists in Turkey are members of secessionist groups such as "Home of the Youth", which advocate the independence of a Turkestan republic carved from the current Uyghur homeland of Xinjiang, PRC. These groups have reportedly engaged in various attacks against Chinese nationals and interests based in Turkey.
In 2005, China voiced concerns over such organisations, stating explicitly that Turkey should contain any separatist activities which posed a threat to China and that Turkish security agencies had to better protect the life and property of Chinese citizens in Turkey. In 2009, the Chinese Foreign Ministry warned its citizens in Turkey "to remain vigilant and ... avoid crowded or sensitive places" after a series of threats were made on Chinese people and facilities.
Several people of Chinese origin have moved to Turkey in order to further their table tennis careers and compete internationally for Turkey, including Melek Hu, Cem Zeng and Bora Vang.
Chinese people in Turkey are one the  ethnic groups  of overseas Chinese living in Central Asia, they consist mainly of Chinese-born expatriates living in Turkey and descendants of Chinese migrants. In 2020, there were 18740 documented Chinese people living in Turkey (TurkStat 2019). Turkey also hosts approximately 50, 000 Uyghur refugees which hail from the Xinjiang Region of North-West China (Davidson 2020).
With flowing tourism and investment, Chinese interest in cities such as Istanbul has grown (Yilmaz & Cooke, 2008). Dolpadere, a neighborhood in Istanbul, is now undergoing transformation to become the new Chinatown in the city
History.
After many centuries of migration from the Chinese state, there has been an emergence of distinct Chinese ethnic diasporas in the Turkish State (Faroqhi & Berktay 2016). Chinese Empires went through phases of trying to synthesise cultures with steppe ethnicities, including Turkic peoples, as they conquered them.  This is referred to as the Eurasian Hybrid model  (Whittow 2018). During the Tang Dynasty, the Northern China-Inner Asia borderlands were often contested, with ethnically distinct and autonomous regions (Di Cosmo & Mass 2018, 356). An Lushan, a former provincial governor and half Turkic military commander for the Tangs revolted, causing the Tang Dynasty to rely on Uyghur Empire military reinforcements, another Turkic group (Di Cosmo & Mass 2018). The Silk Road was a ancient, international trade route which connected the Ottoman and the Chinese empires for 2000 years. The road spanned from the ancient Chinese capital of Chnagan ], through Inner Asia to the modern day Turkey. Today, the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of Turkey stand on the Eastern and Western ends of Eurasia and the Silk Road.
Sino-Turkic economic policies were strengthened in the 20th century (Eliküçük Yıldırım 2021). The 1970s saw developments in Turkish foreign policy and Turkey’s relationship with China. The international Cold War trade divisions of the Eastern and Western Blocs were loosening as the Sino- American relationship was strengthening (Çolakoğlu 2021).  The US Congress put an embargo on trade with Turkey in 1975 in response to the Cyprus Dispute, because of their opposition to the Turkish operation of sending troops to Cyprus on July 20, 1974 (Güney 2004).  Ankara now needed to seek relations with socialist nations that were not found in the Arab World, so began to prioritise developing the policy with Asia for their own national interest.  Turkey then turned to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) for support (Çolakoğlu 2021), since it was a member of the UN Security Council, which gave it increasing leverage in world politics. From the 1970s, Ankara began to standardise the development of Asian Foreign Policy (Eliküçük Yıldırım 2021).
Migration patterns.
The Turkish census (TurkStat) shows the number of immigrants and emigrants by country of citizenship.  In  2019, there were 7328 Chinese immigrants and 3252 Chinese emigrants (Turkstat 2019). The immigrant population comprised 4169 males and 3159 females (Turkstat 2019), while in the emigrant population, 2501 were male and 751 were female. There was an overall net migration of 4076 people. These figures have decreased since 2016, where there were  8281 Chinese immigrants living in Turkey and 3057 Chinese emigrants. Chinese people make up the 19th largest foreign national migration group in Turkey (Turkstat 2019).
Demographics.
Turkstat reports that in 2019, the overall population of Chinese people living in Turkey was 18505 people. 10085 of this population were male and 8420 were female. In 2020, this population increased by 235 people, bringing the new overall total to 18740. The male population increased by 335 people, while the female population decreased by 103 people. Chinese people also make up a considerable portion of naturalised ethnic groups, being the 12th largest group of citizens in the country.
Ethnic Minorities.
Uyghurs.
Since the 1950s, there has been a growing diaspora community of ethnic Uyghurs in Turkey. Some founding members of this community, Mehmet Emin Buğra and İsa Yusuf Alptekin,  provided  social cohesion to unify disparate individuals which have fled their homeland in Communist China (Uşçu 2013, 74). The earliest migration waves of the Uyghurs to Turkey are traced back to 1952, when the Chinese Communist Party seized control of the Xinjiang region in northwest China in 1949 (Abdulbakieva 2020).  These first migration waves were also led by  Buğra and Alptekin, and these prominent members continued the legacy of Uyghur migration well after new waves had arrived in Turkey. Turkey hosts approximately 50, 000 Uyghurs (Davidson 2020). The majority of this population is dispersed in Istanbul’s Sefakoy and Zeytinburnu districts, located in the southeast of the city (Muller 2021).
The community has been supported by Uyghur political and cultural organisations that have been mobilized by first-generation Uyghur of the initial waves of emigrants. The Eastern Turkistan Foundation (Dogu Turkistan Vakfi), founded by Mehmet Riza Bekin in 1978,  and East Turkistan Human Rights Watch Association, are both non-profit organisations located in Istanbul (Uşçu 2013). Largely, the organisations campaign and raise awareness, criticising alleged human rights abuses by the Chinese Government directed at the Uyghurs, who are extradited from Turkey (Rodríguez-Merino 2019).  The Uyghur community do not feel pressured to assimilate into a Turkish identity, distinguishing themselves in their distinct diaspora (Abdulbakieva 2020, 15). They instead have a strong affiliation with Uyghurness, central to this is their embrace of Islam (Abdulbakieva 2020).
Inter-Ethnic relations.
The Silk Belt and Road initiative has been put forward to involve Central Asia in the Global Sphere, after the collapse of the Soviet Union (Wang 2016). It has also been an opportunity to improve cultural ties in the Sino-Turkish relationship. The Belt Road provides transportation links for railways and roads in landlocked Asia. Sino-Turkish strategic cooperation is essential due to their positioning at either end of the Silk Road (MA 2014).  Chinese President Xi Xinping attended the 2015 G20 summit held in Antalya, Turkey, and had sights on building a community of common interests with Turkey. China and Turkey  declared they were going to increase their trade volumes to 50 billion in 2015 and increase further to 100 billion in 2020 (Ekrem 2018).
The Chinese Belt Road (BRI) has renewed Chinese investors’ interest in buying real estate in Turkey. 415 units were purchased by Chinese Nationals from January to July 2020 (Turkstat 2020). The Chinese are now the 8th largest foreign property buyer in Turkey (TurkStat 2020). Foreign investments have increased alongside the Turkish Citizenship by Investment Program (Yilmaz & Cooke, 2008). This program allows foreign nationals to invest in different country sectors in order to obtain the rights of Turkish Citizenship, it was introduced on 12th January 2017 (Mondaq Business Briefing 2017). Foreigners can buy property valued at 1 million dollars USD or more and then are entitled to Turkish Citizenship themselves and their family.
Chinese investment has been focused on the Istanbul quarter of Dolapdere, located in the Beyoğlu district of the central city.  The head of the Turkey-China Business Council for the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK) , Murat Kolbaşı, has said,  “There are ‘Chinatowns,’ where people of Chinese origin live, in a number of cities across the world. As Chinese interest in Istanbul grows stronger, we may see something similar emerging here.” Chinese tourists in Istanbul numbered 500, 000 in 2018 which was an increase of 100% from the previous year.  Dolpadere, a historically been a poor neighbourhood, has undergone gentrification to become Istanbul’s Chinatown,  seeking interest by Chinese foreign investors.  Chinese investors have launched The Regard and the Beijing hotels located in Dolpadere.  Chinese companies are undertaking these investments to support to large numbers of Chinese tourists who visit Istanbul annually. Other Chinese-lead venture are under development, including real estate programs.
Notes


Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth

The Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth was a senior commander of the Royal Navy for hundreds of years. Plymouth Command was a name given to the units, establishments, and staff operating under the admiral's command. Between 1845 and 1896, this office was renamed Commander-in-Chief, Devonport. The Commanders-in-Chief were based in what is now Hamoaze House, Devonport, Plymouth from 1809 to 1934 and then at Admiralty House, Mount Wise, Devonport from 1934 until 1996.
History.
The post dates back to around 1743. It extended along the South Coast from Exmouth in East Devon to Penzance in Cornwall. In 1845, this office was renamed as Commander-in-Chief, Devonport until 1896, when it was altered back to its original name. In 1941, during World War II, elements of Plymouth Command were transferred to Western Approaches Command which was established at Derby House in Liverpool. Meanwhile, Plymouth Command occupied a new combined Headquarters, known as the "Maritime Headquarters", at Mount Wise. The post of Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth was merged with that of Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth in 1969, to form Naval Home Command. Between 1952 and 1969, the Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth double-hatted as Plymouth Sub-Area Channel Command (PLYMCHAN) commander in NATO's Allied Command Channel, and from 1969 to 1994, he double-hatted as Naval Base Commander Devonport, NATO Commander Central Sub-Area (CENTLANT) and Commander Plymouth Sub-Area Channel (PLYMCHAN).
After 1969, Admiralty House and the Maritime Headquarters became the home of the Flag Officer, Plymouth until that post was also disbanded in 1996. At around the same time the nearby RN Dockyard and barracks were reconstituted as HM Naval Base Devonport and placed under the command of a Commodore.
Office holders.
Commanders-in-Chief and Flag Officers have included:
Post 1969 period.
On 30 December 1970, Vice-Admiral J R McKaig CBE was appointed as Port Admiral, Her Majesty's Naval Base, Devonport, and Flag Officer, Plymouth. On 5 September 1971, all Flag Officers of the Royal Navy holding positions of Admiral Superintendents at Royal Dockyards were restyled as Port Admirals.


Mustafa Setmariam Nasar

Abu Musab al-Suri, born Mustafa bin Abd al-Qadir Setmariam Nasar (), is a suspected Al-Qaeda member and writer best known for his 1,600-page book "The Global Islamic Resistance Call" ("Da'wat al-muqawamah al-islamiyyah al-'alamiyyah"). He has held Spanish citizenship since the late 1980s following marriage to a Spanish woman. He is wanted in Spain for the 1985 El Descanso bombing, which killed eighteen people in a restaurant in Madrid, and (as a witness) in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings. He is considered by many as 'the most articulate exponent of the modern jihad and its most sophisticated strategist'.
Nasar was captured by Pakistani security forces in 2005 and was rendered to Syria, where he was a wanted man. As of April 2014, he was being held in a Syrian prison.
Life.
Nasar's full name is Mustafa bin Abd al-Qadir al-Rifa'i (); he is a descendant of Ahmed al-Rifa'i, who is the founder of the Rifa'i Sufi order, and his paternal great grandmother was Set Mariam (, meaning Lady Mariam). His mother is the daughter of Mohammed Nasar, an Egyptian who came to Syria with Ibrahim Pasha's campaigns against the Ottoman Empire.
Nasar was born and grew up in Aleppo in Syria, and attended four years of university studies there at the University of Aleppo's Department of Mechanical Engineering. In 1980, he joined the Combatant Vanguard organisation, a radical offshoot of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which was at the forefront in the Islamist uprising in Syria against Hafez Assad's government. Nasar was forced to flee Syria at the end of 1980. He then joined the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood organisation in exile, receiving training at their bases and safe houses in Iraq and Jordan. He is reported to have participated in the uprising of Hama in 1982. He emigrated to France and later to Spain in the mid-1980s.
In 1987, Nasar and a small group of Syrian friends left Spain for Peshawar, where they met Abdallah Azzam, the godfather of the Arab-Afghan movement. Nasar was enlisted as a military trainer at the camps for Arab volunteer fighters, and he also fought at the frontlines against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the communist government in Kabul after the Soviet withdrawal in 1988.
Nasar met Osama bin Laden in Peshawar and claims to have been a member of his inner circle and working for bin Laden until sometime around 1992, when Nasar returned to Spain.
In Peshawar, Nasar became well known under his pen name Umar Abd al-Hakim after he published a 900-page treatise in May 1991, entitled 'The Islamic jihadi revolution in Syria', also known as 'the Syrian Experience' ("al-tajrubah al-suriyyah"). The treatise was a vehement attack on the Muslim Brotherhood and constituted an important part of the intellectual foundation for al-Qaida and the jihadi current during the 1990s.
From 1985 to 1995, Nasar adopted Spain as his primary place of residence, even though he traveled extensively and spent much time in Afghanistan. In Spain, he married Elena Moreno in 1987/88, who converted to Islam. This marriage allowed him to become a Spanish citizen. They have four children.
Among his associates was Imad Eddin Yarkas alias Abu Dahdah, head of al-Qaeda's Madrid cell, who was arrested in November 2001 on suspicion of membership in al-Qaida and of involvement in the 11 September 2001 attacks. He was later acquitted of charges of assisting the 9/11 plotters, but convicted of membership in a terrorist organization.
Nasar first moved to London in 1994, and brought his family along in mid-1995. It is possible that he fled Spain because of suspicions he was involved in the 1995 Islamist terror bombings in France. For a while, Nasar edited "al-Ansar", the most important jihadi magazine at the time, with ties to the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA). Nasar left the journal in 1996, partly due to disagreements with the new GIA leadership in Algeria and partly as a result of a conflict with its chief editor, Umar Mahmud Uthman Abu Umar, better known as Abu Qatada al-Filastini. The latter is widely regarded as al-Qaeda's principal cleric in Europe.
In 1997, Nasar established a media company called Islamic Conflict Studies Bureau with Mohamed Bahaiah. Through this office, he facilitated two important media events for bin Laden in Afghanistan, in particular Peter Bergen's famous CNN interview with bin Laden in March 1997. In fact, he served in the days before 9/11 as the facilitator who took Western reporters to meet with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
In the autumn of 1997, Nasar left London for Afghanistan, operating initially as a lecturer and trainer in the Arab-Afghan camps and guesthouses. He settled there with his family in 1998. In 1999, he formed a media and research center in Kabul and in 2000, he was allowed to open his own training camp, the al-Ghuraba Camp, located in Kargha, near Kabul. Nasar's camp was formally part of the Taliban's Ministry of Defense, and separate from al-Qaida and bin Laden's organization, whom he had fallen out with in 1998. In a seven-page letter from mid-1998, Nasar launched scathing criticism of bin Laden for the disdain al-Qaeda had shown towards the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan, including Mullah Omar. He is also highly critical of their strategies, and has denounced al-Qaeda's 1998 attacks on the US embassies in East Africa and the September 11 attack on New York's Twin Towers, which he argues put a catastrophic end to the jihadi cause.
On 19 January 2009, FBI interrogator Robert Fuller testified during a hearing before Canadian Omar Khadr's Guantanamo military commission that during interrogations in October 2002, Khadr confessed to staying at a Kabul guest house run by "Abu Musab al-Suri".
In September 2003, Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzon indicted 35 members of the Madrid cell for their role in the September 11 attacks, including Nasar. In November 2004, the United States Department of State named Nasar a Most Wanted Terrorist and offered a reward of US$5 million for information about his location.
Reports of detention.
Nasar was reportedly captured in the Pakistani city of Quetta in late October 2005, although exactly where and when is disputed. He was handed over into American custody a month or so after his capture; however, he was not among the 14 high-profile al-Qaeda suspects transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in late 2006, and there were persistent reports that he was one of the ghost prisoners held in secret detention at the U.S. Navy's Naval Support Facility (NSF) on Diego Garcia.
On 14 April 2009, Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón sent out queries as to Nasar's location.
Daniel Woolls, writing for the Associated Press, reported that Garzon queried Britain, the US, Pakistan, Syria, and Afghanistan. The report stated US officials confirmed that Nasar was apprehended in Quetta, Pakistan, in November 2005.
The Spanish newspaper "El País" attributed Garzon's query to United States President Barack Obama's announcement that the Guantanamo detention camp and the CIA's black sites would be closed.
It appears that at some stage, Nasar was rendered to Syria, where he was a wanted man. In late 2011, rumours emerged that Nasar had been released from a Syrian jail. This was repeated in early 2012 by a posting on an al-Qaeda-linked web forum.
However, in March 2014, al-Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn revealed that Nasar was still in prison. In April 2014, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri also confirmed that Nasar was still in prison.
Works and Influence.
Due to his prolific writings on strategic and political issues, and his guerrilla warfare experience, Nasar is a popular lecturer and to a certain degree an unofficial adviser for a wide range of jihadi groups in Afghanistan. Organizationally, however, he has remained a rather independent figure. While some reports have linked him to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who later led al-Qaeda's component of the insurgency in Iraq, his network of contacts was much wider, and included jihadis from Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraqi Kurdistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Uzbekistan, and elsewhere. Media reports have also alleged that one of his associates, the Moroccan Amer Azizi (Uthman al-Andalusi), had met September 11 organizers Mohamed Atta and Ramzi bin al-Shibh in Tarragona, Spain, weeks before the attacks, but this seems to be incorrect.
Nasar is reported to be the mastermind of the 2004 Madrid train bombings as well as the 7/7 London bombings. In a statement released after the attacks, al-Suri said: "[In my teachings] I have mentioned vital and legitimate targets to be hit in the enemy's countries … Among those targets that I specifically mentioned as examples was the London Underground. [Targeting this] was and still is the aim."
Nasar's best known work is the 1,600-page book "The Global Islamic Resistance Call" ("Da'wat al-muqawamah al-islamiyyah al-'alamiyyah"), which appeared on the Internet in December 2004 or January 2005. In an article in the September 2006 edition of "The New Yorker" magazine, author Lawrence Wright wrote that in this book, Nasar:
proposes that the next stage of jihad will be characterized by terrorism created by individuals or small autonomous groups (what he terms 'leaderless resistance') which will wear down the enemy and prepare the ground for the far more ambitious aim of waging war on 'open fronts' ... 'without confrontation in the field and seizing control of the land, we cannot establish a state, which is the strategic goal of the resistance.
The American occupation of Iraq, he declares, inaugurated a 'historical new period' that almost single-handedly rescued the jihadi movement just when many of its critics thought it was finished.
In early 2014, a top Sharia official in the Syrian jihadist group Al-Nusra Front, Dr. Sami al-Oraydi, acknowledged that his group is influenced by the teachings of Abu Musab Al Suri. The strategies derived from Abu Musab's guidelines to win hearts and minds amongst local Muslim communities include: providing services to people, avoiding being seen as extremists, maintaining strong relationships with communities and other fighting groups, and putting the focus on fighting the government.
French political scientist Gilles Kepel says that "he is part of the second generation of the jihadist movement, the ones who were concerned with the failure of mobilization after 9/11." Nasar feels that the failure of the 9/11 attacks to rouse global Muslim outrage was compounded by the failure of the jihadist terror campaign in Iraq, and by the subsequent Western success in reducing what was once a global movement into increasingly isolated archipelagos of local movements and causes, says Kepel.
Nasar conflicted with bin Laden, and a 2001 email was intercepted in which he wrote that "We are in a ship that you are burning on false and mistaken grounds," accusing bin Laden of having "caught the disease of screens, flashes, fans and applause."
Brynjar Lia of the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment portrays him as the most brilliant and dangerous ideologue of his cohort of radicals, "a dissident, a critic and an intellectual", who puts "hard-nosed realism before religious wish-fulfillment and pragmatic long-term strategies before utopianism."
Scholars Brian A. Jackson and Bryce Loidolt argue that Mohammad Hasan Khalil al-Hakim's "Management of Savagery" and al-Suri's "Call to Global Islamic Resistance" led al-Qaida to innovate and shift practices.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar (Abu Musab al-Suri), Abdullah Azzam, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Osama bin Laden were cited by Abu Khalid al-Suri when he addressed ISIL.
Mustafa Setmariam Nasar wrote in support of the East Turkestan Independence Movement and praised the conquest of Kashgar by Qutayba ibn Muslim and Yaqub Beg, praising the latter's buildings of educational institutions for Islam and mosques and calling him "Attalik Ghazi" and a "good man" for his war against Buddhists and Chinese people. Mustafa Setmariam Nasar had met some Uyghurs in Afghanistan, where they trained as mujahidin. He criticized China for restrictions on religion and Islamic teaching imposed on Uyghurs. The Turkistan Islamic Party's 18th issue of the magazine "Islamic Turkistan" published an article on Mustafa Setmariam Nasar's career. The 19th issue of this magazine contained an article by Abi Khadeejah al-Shami on Nasar.
Publication of articles in "Inspire".
In June 2010, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was reported to have published "Inspire magazine" – its first English-language publication, sprung from the imagination of Anwar al-Awlaki. It contained an article published under the name Abu Mu'sab al-Suri.
This article was the beginning of a series entitled "The Jihadi experiences". Further articles in this series appeared in the next 5 issues of "Inspire". They were excerpts copied from a translation of "The Global Islamic Resistance Call" which appeared in a biography of Abu Musab al-Suri.


Thomson Hankey

Thomson Hankey (15 June 1805 – 13 January 1893) was a British merchant, a banker and a Liberal Party politician.
Hankey was the son of Thomson Hankey from Portland Place in London, and his wife Martha, the daughter of Benjamin Harrison from Clapham Common. He became a merchant in the City of London and a director the Bank of England, serving first as its Deputy Governor and then as its Governor from 1851 to 1853. In June 2020 the Bank of England issued a public apology for the involvement of Hankey, amongst other employees, in the slave trade following the investigation by the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership at UCL.
At the 1852 general election, Hankey unsuccessfully contested the borough of Boston in Lincolnshire.
He then contested the by-election in June 1853 for the City of Peterborough, where he lost by a margin of 21 votes (out of a total 451) to the Liberal George Hammond Whalley.
Whalley had been returned for Peterborough at a by-election in December 1852, but an election petition was lodged and his election was subsequently declared void on 8 June 1853 on the grounds that Whalley had been complicit in the "treating" of voters. After his second by-election win, a further petition was lodged, and a committee of the House of Commons found that Whalley's election was invalid, because he had been disqualified as a result of the previous void election. The seat was therefore awarded to Hankey, who was declared duly elected on 14 August 1853.
Hankey was re-elected in 1857, 1859 and 1865, but was defeated at the 1868 general election by the Liberal William Wells. He was re-elected in 1874,
but was defeated in 1880. His name was discussed in early 1882 as a possible candidate for any future vacancy in Peterborough, but when Hampden Whalley resigned in June 1883, Hankey did not contest the resulting by-election, and did not stand again thereafter.
He was also a Justice of the Peace (JP) for Middlesex, Kent and the City of London, and a member of Commission of lieutenancy for the City of London.
He died on 13 January 1893, aged 88. In his later years, his advanced age prevented him from taking any active part in public life.


Hille Feicken

Hille Feicken (died 27 June 1534) was a Dutch Anabaptist.
She was born to the worker Feicke in Wirdum in Friesland and married Psalmus van Utrecht: no children are known. Her spouse joined the Anabaptist theocracy in Münster, and later sent for her to join him there, and she handed out their property in Sneek to the poor before she left. During the Münster Rebellion, she worked with the other women of the town to strengthen the besieged city walls. On the early morning of 16 June 1534, she left the city with the purpose to seduce and kill the commander of the enemy forces, Bishop Franz von Waldeck, in the manner of Judith and Holophernes. Later, she stated that she acted only on her own initiative and her own idea. She failed, was discovered, interrogated and executed.


Elections in France

France is a representative democracy. Public officials in the legislative and executive branches are either elected by the citizens (directly or indirectly) or appointed by elected officials. Referendums may also be called to consult the French citizenry directly on a particular question, especially one which concerns amendment to the Constitution.
France elects on its national level a head of state – the president – and a legislature.
In addition, French citizens elect a variety of local governments. There also are public elections for some non-political positions, such as those for the judges of courts administering labour law (), elected by workers and employers, or those for judges administering cases of rural land leases.
French politics has ordinarily displayed some tendencies characterizing a two-party system in which power alternates between relatively stable coalitions, each being led by a major party: on the left, the Socialist Party, on the right, and its predecessors. This pattern was upset in 2017, when neither of those parties' candidates reached the second round of the presidential election and the newly formed party gained both the presidency and a comfortable majority in the National Assembly.
Elections are conducted according to rules set down in the Constitution of France, organisational laws (), and the electoral code. Voting is not compulsory.
Elections are held on Sundays.
The campaigns end at midnight the Friday before the election; then, on election Sunday, by law, no polls can be published, no electoral publication and broadcasts can be made. The voting stations open at 8 am and close at 6 pm in small towns or at 8 pm in cities, depending on prefectoral decisions. By law, publication of results or estimates is prohibited prior to that time; such results are however often available from the media of e.g. Belgium and Switzerland, or from foreign Internet sites, prior to that time. The first estimate of the results are thus known at Sunday, 8pm, Paris time; one consequence is that voters in e.g. French Guiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe knew the probable results of elections before polling booths close. It has been alleged that this discourages voting in these places. For this reason, since the 2000s, elections in French possessions in the Americas, as well as embassies and consulates there, are held on Saturdays as a special exemption.
The next national election will take place in 2022. Current President Emmanuel Macron is eligible for re-election in that year.
Voters.
With the exception of senatorial election, for which there is an electoral college, the voters are French citizens over the age of 18 registered on the electoral rolls. People are automatically registered on reaching the age of 18. For municipal and European, but not national elections, citizens aged 18 or older of other European Union countries may vote in France. Registration is not compulsory, but the absence of registration precludes the possibility of voting.
Citizens may register either in their place of residence or in a place where they have been on the roll of taxpayers for local taxes for at least 5 years, but not in more than one place. Citizens living abroad may register at the consulate responsible for the region in which they live.
Only citizens legally registered as voters can run for public office.
There are exceptions to the above rules. Convicted criminals may be deprived of their civic rights, which include the right to vote, for a certain period of time depending on the crime. In particular, elected officials who have abused public funds may be deprived of the right to run for national public office for as long as 10 years. The application of such rules in the case of certain politicians has been controversial; see for instance the case of Alain Juppé.
Voting by proxy is possible when the citizen cannot easily attend the polling station (reasons include: health problems, the citizen does not live in the voting constituency, he or she is away for work or vacations, he or she is jailed but has not yet been sentenced and deprived of civic rights etc.) The citizen designates a proxy, who must be a voter from the same "commune". The designation of the proxy must be made before a legally capable witness: a judge, a judicial clerk, or an officier of judicial police, or, outside France, before an ambassador or consul. In the case of handicapped or severely ill people, an officer of judicial police or delegate thereof can be sent to the home of the citizen to witness the designation. The procedure is meant to avoid pressures on voters.
Electoral system.
In all elections where there is a single official to be elected for a given area, including the two major national elections (the election of the President of the Republic and the election of the members of the National Assembly), two-round runoff voting is used.
For elections to the European Parliament and some local elections, proportional voting is used.
National Assembly.
The 577 members of the National Assembly are elected using a two-round system with single-member constituencies.
To be elected in the first round, a candidate is required to secure an absolute majority of votes cast, and also to secure votes equal to at least 25% of eligible voters in their constituency. Should none of the candidates satisfy these conditions, a second round of voting ensues. Most constituencies proceed to a second round election. Only first-round candidates with the support of at least 12.5% of "eligible" voters are allowed to participate, but if only 1 candidate meets that standard the two candidates with the highest number of votes in the first round may continue to the second round. In the second round, the candidate with a plurality is elected. Of the 577 constituencies, 539 are in metropolitan France, 27 are in overseas departments and territories and 11 are for French citizens living abroad.
Party primary elections.
Primary elections, within registered political parties, are used to select presidential candidates for the general election. Primaries also use two-round runoff voting when there are multiple candidates within a party. (see ). Open primaries, where any eligible voter may participate with minimal requirements, also occur.
Voting procedures.
In general, voting is done using paper and manual counting. The voter gets pre-printed ballot papers ("bulletin") from a table at the entrance of the voting office (mail-in voting is not allowed in France). There is one ballot paper for each candidate, pair of candidates (for departmental elections) or list. These ballot papers are also sent by mail to voters before the election. The voter then has their identity and registration checked by an official, after which the voter takes an envelope. If they also act as a proxy for another voter, they take a second enveloppe. The voter then enters a curtained booth ("isoloir"), where they are hidden from sight, and inserts the ballot paper of their candidate into the envelope. They walk to the ballot box, where the president of the voting office or their deputy formally checks their identity (in conurbations with more than 5000 inhabitants, an identification document must be shown). After the officials have acknowledged their right to vote, the ballot box is opened and the voter inserts the envelope. One of the officials, traditionally loudly, announces ""A voté!" (Has voted!)". This is purely ceremonial and has a double meaning: the voter's "voix" (voice) will be taken into account and they have accomplished their civic duty. The voter then signs the voters' list and their voter registration card is stamped.
Procedures differ when electronic voting is used. It is not widespread in France, but is used in some cities, despite controversy over its safety and effectiveness.
Other elections.
As well as presidential and legislative elections, France also has municipal, cantonal, regional, European, and (indirect) Senatorial elections.
Regional.
Regional elections have been held since 1986 to elect regional councillors and regional presidents: all elected to serve 6-year terms.
European Parliament.
Elections for the French delegation to the European parliament are held every five years.
Senate.
French senators are renewed by halves every six years through an indirect electoral college composed of elected officials and general, regional, and some local councillors.
Municipal.
Municipal elections to elect city mayors and councillors are held every six years.
Referendums.
The Constitution of France defines in Article 3 that "National sovereignty shall vest in the people, who shall exercise it through their representatives and by means of referendum." The Constitution describes two ways for holding a referendum:
The Constitution explicitly states that a referendum can be called only on a Government Bill "which deals with the organization of the public authorities, or with reforms relating to the economic or social policy of the Nation, and to the public services contributing thereto, or which provides for authorization to ratify a treaty which, although not contrary to the Constitution, would affect the functioning of the institutions" (Article 11 of the Constitution).
The second procedure for holding a referendum has several limitations:
The second procedure for holding a referendum was added to the Constitution in 2008, and it still has not come into effect (as of 2013). It will come into effect when appropriate legislation is implemented by the Parliament.
The Constitution of France can be amended in two ways:
Most constitutional revisions went through the super-majority of the Parliament in Congress.
Ratification of treaties of accession of states to the EU must go through the same procedure as amendment of Constitution of France. All of ratifications went through the super-majority of the Parliament, except the first EU enlargement in 1973.
There were 9 referendums in the Fifth Republic:


Eliezer David Greenwald

Rabbi Eliezer David Greenwald (1867-1928) was a rabbi and head of a yeshiva in the cities of Tzehlim (today Deutschkreutz in Austria), Oberwischau (Upper Vishuvah) and Satmar in Transylvania. He is known for his book Keren L'David. Brother of Rabbi Moshe Greenwald, author of "Arugat HaBosem".
Life.
He was born in Csorna, Hungary, to Rabbi Amram Greenwald, son of Rabbi Yosef Greenwald, Av Beit Din of Tchechowitz. In his youth, he studied with his brother, the author of Arugat HaBosem. He also studied briefly with Rabbi Shmuel Ehrenfeld, author of "Chatan Sofer".
In 1889 he married the daughter of Yaakov Rappaport of Bardeyov. After his marriage, he spent five years in Bardeyov, where he founded and chaired a yeshiva throughout his stay in the city. At the beginning of 1907 he was elected rabbi of the Jewish community of Tzehlim, where he also headed a large yeshiva. In 1912 he moved to serve as Rabbi of Oberwischau, and headed a yeshiva that numbered hundreds of students. In 1921 he was elected rabbi of the Satmar community, and at the same time he headed a local yeshiva that with 400 students was one of the largest in the region.
His adopted daughter married the grandson of his brother, Rabbi Yosef Greenwald, who was his pupil and worked on printing his books.
Although he did not carry within the Eruv on Shabbat, but did so once to show that it was completely Kosher.


Verbrennungskommando Warschau

Verbrennungskommando Warschau () was a slave labour unit formed by the "SS" following the Wola massacre of around 40,000 to 50,000 Polish civilians by the Germans in the early days of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
The purpose of the "Verbrennungskommando" was to remove evidence of the citywide campaign of mass murder that took place during the Uprising, by collecting corpses into large piles and burning them in open-air pyres on Elektoralna and Chłodna Streets among others. The squad was directly subordinated to "SS-Obersturmführer" Neumann and was also earmarked for execution after the completion of their work.
Background.
During the Warsaw Uprising, Polish civilians were indiscriminately killed by the Germans and their Ukrainian and Russian collaborators in punitive mass executions, the most notorious of which took place in Wola, Ochota and in Warsaw's Old Town, based on the explicit orders of Heinrich Himmler, who said: "Every inhabitant of Warsaw is to be shot. Prisoners will not be taken; the town is to be razed to the ground."
Most of the atrocities were committed by troops under the command of SS men Oskar Dirlewanger, Heinrich Reinefarth, and Bronislav Kaminski.
Between 8 and 23 August 1944, the Germans organised several dozen captured Poles into a cremation commando which they named "Verbrennungskommando". These men were forced to pick through the ruins and collect thousands of the victims' bodies under strict supervision of German overseers. In the first two weeks the "Verbrennungskommando" cremated an estimated 6,000 bodies.
Tadeusz Klimaszewski, a prisoner who survived the cremation commando, and later wrote a memoir about the experience called "Verbrennungskommando Warschau" (published in 1959 in Warsaw), described his first day of corpse disposal at the Franaszek Factory in the following way:
The "Verbrennungskommando" members were not informed about Himmler's true intentions, but were promised a return to "normalcy", as soon as the "bandits" were punished. They were told that their "duty" to burn the dead bodies was therefore in their own interest. There was one Jewish prisoner among them.
After the war, most of the ashes dumped into bomb holes and ditches by the cremation commando were exhumed in 1947 and buried in Warsaw cemeteries. They included 5,578 kilograms of human remains from Stalina Avenue, 2,180 kilograms from the military prison at Zamenhofa, 1,029 kilograms from 60 Wolska Street, 1,120 kilograms from Sowinski Park, 600 kilograms from 47 Dzielna Street, 600 kilograms from the Franaszek Factory, 192 kilograms from 59 Okopowa Street, and 120 kilograms from "Dobrolin" Wolska Street, among several other locations. The full list of burial sites was then delivered to the Regional Commission for the Investigation of Nazi German Crimes in Poland.