Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst

Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst (born 20 November 1959) is a German prelate of the Catholic Church and theologian. He was a vicar and an auxiliary bishop in Münster before becoming the Bishop of Limburg in January 2008.
Pope Francis removed him from the exercise of his episcopal office on 23 October 2013 and on 26 March 2014 accepted his resignation as Bishop of Limburg, following a long-standing public dispute about the costs and financing of a diocesan construction project.
Life and ministry.
Tebartz-van Elst is the second of five children born on 20 November 1959 to a farming family in Twisteden, near the Catholic pilgrimage village of Kevelaer in North Rhine-Westphalia. The name "Van Elst" suggests that one of his ancestors came from the Dutch city of Elst, Gelderland.
He studied philosophy and Catholic theology at the Wilhelms University of Münster and the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg. He completed further theological studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. From 1990 to 1996 he was vicar and chaplain at St. Paul's Cathedral in Münster, before receiving a teaching appointment at the University of Münster. His work in pastoral theology focused on the baptism and catechism for adults, and his manual for adult baptism reflects his focus on the Catholic evangelism of adults in an increasingly secular Germany.
In 2003, Pope John Paul II named him titular bishop of Girus Tarasii and auxiliary for the Diocese of Münster. On 28 November 2007, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Bishop of Limburg. In Limburg, he replaced Franz Kamphaus, whose liberal views had brought him into conflict with Pope John Paul II. In 1999, Kamphaus had refused to follow a Vatican instruction that Catholic organisations cease cooperation with medical clinics that issue referrals for abortions. He even refused when faced with a direct ultimatum from the Pope in March 2002, and the Vatican then stripped him of authority over counseling centres for pregnant women. Tebartz-van Elst, named a few years later to replace Kamphaus, who had been popular with his clergy, was seen as a representative of Roman discipline and authority.
Early controversies.
In 2008, Tebartz-van Elst admonished one of his priests, the Rev. Peter Kollas, for joining a Lutheran pastor in blessing a homosexual couple. The bishop argued that the relationship did not conform to Catholic teachings; Kollas argued that offering a blessing contradicted no norms of Catholic practice. Citing broken trust, the bishop removed Kollas from an administrative appointment within the diocese, while leaving him as parish priest of his local church in Wetzlar.
In 2012 "Der Spiegel" reported that Tebartz-van Elst's and a travel companion flew to India in first class earlier that year, contradicting the Catholic Church's position on personal austerity. Tebartz-van Elst sued the magazine and swore in affidavits submitted to the court that he had travelled in business class using accumulated bonus miles. The state's attorney determined that he had actually flown in first class and cited him for perjury, for which he was fined €20,000.
Diocesan Centre St. Nicholas.
In 2002, the Diocese of Limburg committed to financial austerity, cutting salaries and expenses. In that context, the diocese's 2007 announcement of plans for a €6 million building renovation project was criticised by some of the laity. The diocese announced it was allocating €5.5 million, with €200,000 for the bishop's apartment, €300,000 for his private chapel, €500,000 for the administrative and guest area, €2 million for the renovation of the historic walls and display of archaeological finds and €2.5 million for the rehabilitation of the old clergy house. Years later, on 14 October 2013, as the controversy continued, the project's architect Michael Frielinghaus said that the 2010 figure of €5.5 million was always understood to be well below the true cost of the project. When the building complex opened on 29 June 2013, the diocese announced that the final costs would be €9,850,000. It revised that number the next day after an internal audit committee complained that the number was totally unrealistic.
In September 2013, a Vatican inspector, Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, visited Limburg to hold discussions with diocesan officials. A Vatican audit of the construction project determined that the costs of the project had grown to €31 million. Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, chair of the German Bishops' Conference warned that the Limburg scandal was affecting the Catholic Church throughout Germany and said he would discuss that impact with Pope Francis. He also set up a commission to investigate the finances of the Limburg diocese. A spokesman for the Limburg diocese said Tebartz-van Elst was "concerned about the escalation of the current discussion" and that "It is obvious to the bishop that the decision on his episcopal ministry in Limburg lies in the hands of the Holy Father."
Suspension and resignation.
On 21 October 2013, Tebartz-van Elst met in Rome with Pope Francis, just after Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Archbishop of Cologne, met with the Pope. On 23 October 2013, Pope Francis suspended Tebartz-van Elst from the exercise of his episcopal office as Bishop of Limburg because he thought Tebartz van Elst could no longer exercise his duties as bishop. His statement noted the recent visit of the Vatican monitor and the investigation of the diocese's finances by the German Bishops. The pope named Wolfgang Rösch as vicar general, with the appointment to take effect immediately.
In January and February 2014, details of the German Bishops commission's investigation became known, including material sufficient to require an investigation by the public prosecutor, including evidence of the misuse of funds. The commission finalised its report on 4 March 2014.
On 26 March 2014, Pope Francis accepted Tebartz-van Elst's resignation as Bishop of Limburg. The Vatican statement said that a fruitful execution of a bishop's duty could no longer be expected from Tebartz-van Elst.
On 28 March 2014, Tebartz-van Elst met again with Pope Francis for a quarter-hour. Afterwards he told reporters that "with today's knowledge I realize I have made mistakes. Though I never intended to, I have destroyed trust."
Tebartz-van Elst defended himself and remained unapologetic. He said the vicar general was responsible for the deteriorating situation and that when he arrived he found the diocese had "an administrative situation which was ... hardly factual and disordered". He said he wanted to invest in high-quality construction in light of earlier problems with construction projects in the diocese.
After obtaining the report from the German Bishops commission, the state attorney in Limburg was examining whether Tebartz van-Elst's actions constituted a criminal offence.
Later career.
Following his resignation, Tebartz-van Elst moved to Regensburg. In December 2014, he was appointed to a position in the Roman Curia beginning in March 2015 as a delegate to the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelisation, assigned to the International Council for catechesis.
For several months in 2015, Apostolic Administrator Grothe and other officials of the Limburg diocese sought to hold Tebartz-van Elst personally liable for the construction costs. This raised legal questions that only the Vatican could resolve. In September, the Holy See announced following discussions between Grothe, the Congregation for Bishops, and the Secretariat of State, that the diocese would not initiate legal proceedings against Tebartz-van Elst.


Charles Howard, 2nd Earl of Berkshire

Charles Howard, 2nd Earl of Berkshire KB (1615 – April 1679) was an English peer, styled Viscount Andover from 1626 to 1669, was the eldest son of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Berkshire and his wife Lady Elizabeth Cecil.
Early career.
Howard was created a Knight of the Bath in 1626. He was elected the MP for Oxford in 1640, but was never seated as he was given a writ of acceleration to the House of Lords before the beginning of the session. He was a Royalist sergeant-major of horse in 1643, and a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles II in exile, from 1658 to 1660. He succeeded his father as Earl of Berkshire in 1669.
Popish Plot.
As an influential member of the Catholic nobility, and a staunch supporter of the Duke of York, the Catholic heir to the throne, he was, like his cousin William Howard, 1st Viscount Stafford (who was executed for treason in 1680), an obvious target of Titus Oates and other informers during the Popish Plot. More wary of the danger than was Stafford, he fled abroad in November 1678 before any accusation of treason was made against him, and died in Paris the following April.
No credible evidence of treason was ever produced against him, although it has been argued that his sudden flight was suspicious in itself.
A number of supposedly incriminating letters which he wrote in 1674 merely confirmed his political support for the future James II, who he promised to stand by "in the dark hour of his fortune", and his alleged deathbed confession to a treasonable conspiracy is now regarded as a forgery.
Family.
On 10 April 1637, he married Hon. Dorothy Savage, daughter of Thomas Savage, 1st Viscount Savage and Elizabeth Savage, Countess Rivers. They had three sons who all died young, and one daughter, Anne (c. 1650 – 19 September 1682) who married in 1666 to Henry Bedingfield, but died childless. With no male issue, he was succeeded by his brother Thomas in 1679.


German submarine U-573

German submarine "U-573" was a Type VIIC U-boat built for Nazi Germany's "Kriegsmarine" for service during World War II.
Her keel was laid down 8 June 1940 at the Blohm & Voss yard in Hamburg as yard number 549. She was launched on 17 April 1941 and commissioned on 5 June with "Kapitänleutnant" Heinrich Heinsohn (12 February 1910 – 6 May 1943) in command. Heinsohn commanded her for her entire career in the Kriegsmarine. In May 1941 he had arranged that the city of Landeck in Tyrol adopted the submarine within the then popular sponsorship programme (Patenschaftsprogramm), organising gifts and holidays for the crew, earning her the honorary name "U-573 "Landeck"".
The boat began her service career as part of the 3rd U-boat Flotilla when she conducted training; on 1 September 1941 she commenced operations with that flotilla. She was transferred to the 29th Flotilla, also for operations, on 1 January 1942. She was sold to the Spanish Navy that same year and became the Spanish submarine "G-7".
Design.
German Type VIIC submarines were preceded by the shorter Type VIIB submarines. "U-573" had a displacement of when at the surface and while submerged. She had a total length of , a pressure hull length of , a beam of , a height of , and a draught of . The submarine was powered by two Germaniawerft F46 four-stroke, six-cylinder supercharged diesel engines producing a total of for use while surfaced, two Brown, Boveri & Cie GG UB 720/8 double-acting electric motors producing a total of for use while submerged. She had two shafts and two propellers. The boat was capable of operating at depths of up to .
The submarine had a maximum surface speed of and a maximum submerged speed of . When submerged, the boat could operate for at ; when surfaced, she could travel at . "U-573" was fitted with five torpedo tubes (four fitted at the bow and one at the stern), fourteen torpedoes, one SK C/35 naval gun, 220 rounds, and a C/30 anti-aircraft gun. The boat had a complement of between forty-four and sixty.
German service.
"U-573" conducted four war patrols, sinking just one ship.
1st, 2nd and 3rd patrols.
Her operational career began with her departure from Kiel on 15 September 1941. She entered the Atlantic via the North Sea and the gap between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. She almost reached the Labrador coast before heading for St. Nazaire in occupied France, docking on 15 November.
"U-573"s second patrol involved the boat slipping past the heavily defended Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, where she sank the Norwegian "Hellen" (5,289 tons) with two torpedoes on 21 December 1941. She arrived at Pola in Croatia on 30 December.
Her third sortie was relatively uneventful, starting and finishing in Pola between 2 February and 6 March 1942.
4th patrol and internment.
On 29 April 1942, "U-573" was attacked with depth charges by Lockheed Hudsons of No. 233 Squadron RAF, northwest of Algiers. Seriously damaged, she limped north to Spain, arriving in Cartagena on 2 May. International agreements allowed ships in neutral ports 24 hours to make emergency repairs before they were to be interned. The Spanish authorities granted "U-573" a three-month period for repairs, which prompted several strong protests from the British Embassy in Madrid. On 19 May Heinsohn flew from Madrid to Stuttgart, then travelled on to Berlin, in order to discuss the situation with the "Kriegsmarine". He returned by train via Hendaye (in southwest France) on 28 May. Realizing that even three months would not be enough to repair the boat, the "Kriegsmarine" sold the vessel to Spain for 1.5 million Reichsmarks. On 2 August 1942, at 10 am, (one day before the three-month period was due to expire), the Spanish navy commissioned the boat as the "G-7".
"U-573"s crew suffered no casualties during her career in the "Kriegsmarine". The men had been interned in Cartagena and were gradually released in groups of two or three. The last five members of the crew left with "Kapitänleutnant" Heinsohn on 13 February 1943. He returned to the "Kriegsmarinearsenal" in Gotenhafen (Gdynia, Poland), then German-annexed Poland, In March he was ordered to Brest, then in German-occupied France to take command of , and died with all his crew two months later.
Spanish service.
Work started on the "U-573", now the "G-7", in August 1943 following the sale to Spain but took four years to complete. The damage caused by the British attack was found to be more extensive than was first thought; also German technical assistance and parts were difficult to obtain in the last years of World War II and after. In addition, Spain’s economy was weak following the Spanish Civil War. Repairs were completed in early 1947 and on 5 November 1947 "G-7" was re-commissioned. The bow's net cutter and the 20mm anti aircraft cannon were removed.
Despite the Type VII being out-dated by the end of World War II, "G-7" was the most modern of Spain’s submarine fleet; her other vessels (two ex-Italian, and four home-built boats) dating from the early 1930s. "G-7" lacked radar and did not possess a snorkel. In 1951 development was started on a snorkel design by Empresa Nacional Bazán, the Spanish shipbuilding company, but these came to nothing when the Spanish Navy bought the former US Navy submarine .
"G-7"s repairs were completed in 1947. In 1958 Arca-Filmproduktion GmbH rented "G-7" to take part in the semi-fictitious movie "U 47 – Kapitänleutnant Prien", partially based on his patrol to Scapa Flow, where he sank .
In 1961 the Spanish Navy’s submarine force was re-numbered, and "G-7" became "S-01".
One other U-boat was interned in Spain during World War II: .
On 2 May 1970 she was de-commissioned after 23 years service. She was auctioned for 3,334,751 Pts (about US$26,500), after which, despite efforts to save and preserve her as a museum, the submarine was broken up for scrap.


Cossacks in Turkey

Cossacks in Turkey refers to descendants of a group of Don Cossacks who had lived in the territory of the Republic of Turkey until they migrated in 1962.
History.
A group of Don Cossacks took part in the Bulavin Rebellion in opposition to reforms of Peter the Great. After their defeat, starting from 1737, they began to take refuge in the Ottoman Empire and moved from the Kuban region where some of them, known as Nekrasov Cossacks, had settled earlier. A group settled around Constanţa on the Black Sea coast, while another group settled on the shores of Lake Manyas in northwestern Anatolia in 1740. In 1883, the group in Romania moved to Anatolia, first to settle on Mada Island on Lake Beyşehir, then to the shores of Lake Akşehir in Central Anatolia.
In a separate event after the dissolution of the Zaporozhian Host and the destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich, up to 5000 Cossacks fled to the Turkish-controlled Danube delta where the Sultan allowed them to form the Danubian Sich. After several bloody clashes with Nekrasovites, resulting in most of them to either return to Russia or re-located to Manyas, and their support for Turkey against the Greeks during the Greek War of Independence, the Danubian Sich ended in 1828. Some returned to Russia, whilst others were moved to central Turkey and worked in forced labour.
As of 1927, there were three Cossack villages in Turkey: Eski Kazaklar (later officially renamed as Kocagöl, the earlier settlement on the southwestern tip of Lake Manyas) and Yeni Kazaklar (founded by a community that left Eski Kazaklar and located on the northern shore of Lake Manyas) in Manyas district of Balıkesir Province, and Kazak (on the eastern shore of Lake Akşehir) in Akşehir district of Konya Province. Their main economic activity was fishery.
In 1927, residents of Yeni Kazaklar left Turkey. Cossacks of Eski Kazaklar and Kazak decided to migrate in 1962, most Eski Kazaklar villagers repatriating to Russia, while most residents of Kazak chose to settle in the U.S.


MV Ciudad de Barcelona

Ciudad De Barcelona was an ocean liner built by Cantiere Navale Triestino, Monfalcone, Italy for the Compañía Trasmediterranea and launched on 8 June 1929. Her original name was "Infante Don Jaime", but after the declaration of the Second Spanish Republic on April 1931, the ship was renamed "Ciudad De Barcelona".
The ship was owned by a company of the Spanish businessman Juan March Ordinas who was an important Falangist’s financial supporter. As the Spanish Civil War broke out in June 1936, "Ciudad De Barcelona" was nationalized by the Republican government. She was torpedoed by the Spanish Nationalist "Archimede"-class submarine "General Sanjurjo" and sunk off the coast of Malgrat de Mar on 30 May 1937. "Ciudad De Barcelona" was carrying 200–250 volunteers of the International Brigades from Marseille to Spain. Up to 65 of them are estimated to have drowned, as well as more than 100 other passengers and crew members.
Service history.
In 1929–1931 "Ciudad de Barcelona" offered cruises from Barcelona. 1931–1936 she sailed between the Balearic and Canary Islands with stops in Cadiz, Santa Cruz de La Palma, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas. Since the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, the ship was used to land troops at Ibiza and in the failed Invasion of Mallorca. In October 1936 "Ciudad De Barcelona" sailed to the Soviet Black Sea ports and made voyages to Marseille and Algiers to transport International Brigade volunteers to Spain.
Sinking.
The first effort to sink the "Ciudad de Barcelona" had been attempted in January 1937, but the torpedo had malfunctioned. On Saturday 29 May 1937, some 200–250 international volunteers boarded the ship in Marseille. They were mainly from North America, Great Britain, Germany and Italy, but some came from Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand. There was also a group of French pilots and Senegalese passengers. "Ciudad de Barcelona" was intended to sail to Barcelona or Valencia, depending on situation of the armed conflict between the communists and anarchists in Barcelona. The ship had a cargo of war material, including items like tanks, tires, motorcycles, cotton fabrics and canned food. A day before, the ship's cargo of flour was sabotaged as someone had poured kerosene upon it. She was under the command of captain Francisco Nadal.
At sunset, "Ciudad de Barcelona" headed for the open sea with all lights off. She sailed a distance of approximately one mile from the shore, trying to avoid the Italian submarines and warships. The Non-Intervention Committee had ordered this part of the sea under the control of Italian Navy. As the ship reached the Spanish waters, it was warned of the lurking submarines by the Republican airplanes and patrol boats. Soon she was escorted by a Spanish gunship.
On the afternoon of Sunday 30 May, "Ciudad de Barcelona" was off the coast of Malgrat, about 60 kilometres north of Barcelona. She was spotted by the Italian submarine "General Sanjuro", which was under the command of captain Pablo Suances Jaudenes. The submarine was originally named "Torricelli" and transferred to the Spanish nationalist navy in April 1937. "General Sanjuro" was seeking revenge for the Germans, as the cruiser "Deutschland" was hit by the Republican airplanes in the port of Ibiza a week earlier. The attack killed 31 German sailors. The submarine launched two torpedoes. The first one missed and landed to the beach of Lloret de Mar. Captain Nadal tried a desperate maneuver by turning "Ciudad de Barcelona" towards Malgrat, in order to save the passengers, but at 6 PM she was hit by another torpedo which exploded in the engine room. At the time, the ship was only 400 metres off the shore. "Ciudad de Barcelona" sank rapidly, in just two or three minutes.
The passengers were saved by Republican Coast Guard boats and seaplanes, as well as the local fishermen who rushed to the scene. The President of Catalonia, Lluis Companys, came from Barcelona to observe the life saving efforts. The victims were hospitalized, some to the town of Calella and others to Barcelona. The surviving volunteers were transported to Barcelona were they soon joined the International Brigades. Only one decided to leave back home. One of the survivors was the Finnish American newspaperman Hjalmar Sankari (died March 1938 in the Aragon Retreats), an editor of the New York daily "Eteenpäin", who wrote an article to his newspaper of the incident. According to Sankari, some of the volunteers were singing the "Internationale" while they were drowning with the ship.
The death toll was over two hundred dead, although some sources cite more than three hundred. According to the Madrid newspaper "ABC", the ship carried 312 passengers and 64 crew members of which 4 died. 60–65 volunteers lost their lives, but only 25 names are known. The Republican government tried to censor news of the incident to avoid a negative effect on future shipments. However, an Italian news agency informed the press of the sinking and it was already on Monday newspapers.
The wreck of "Ciudad de Barcelona" lies in the depth of 30 meters and is often visited by divers.


Harald Turner

Harald Turner (8 October 1891 in Leun – 9 March 1947 in Belgrade) was an SS commander and "Staatsrat" (privy councillor) in the German military administration of the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia in the partitioned Kingdom of Yugoslavia during World War II. In a 1942 letter to Karl Wolff, chief of the personal staff of "Reichsführer-SS" Heinrich Himmler, Turner indicated the murderous nature of "Schutzstaffel" (SS) activities in the occupied territory. In the letter he indirectly indicated that he intended to use vehicles most likely equipped with gas to murder Jews.
Already some months ago, I shot dead all the Jews I could get my hands on in this area, concentrated all the Jewish women and children in a camp and with the help of the SD got my hands on a “delousing van”, that in about 14 days to 4 weeks will have brought about the definitive clearing out of the camp..." "Dr. Harold Turner's letter to Karl Wolff, dated April 11, 1942."
His quotation marks around the vehicle's name indicate that the vehicle was meant for killing the Jews he mentioned. This follows a similar practice by the Nazis to publicly call gas chambers in concentration camps, "shower rooms".
In 1946, Turner was extradited to Yugoslavia where he was tried and convicted. He was executed in 1947.


Arthur Goodwin

Arthur Goodwin (circa 1593/94 – 16 August 1643) of Upper Winchendon, Buckinghamshire was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1621 and 1643. He supported the Parliamentary cause during the English Civil War.
Background and upbringing.
Goodwin was the son of Francis Goodwin (1564–1634), a landed gentleman of Upper Winchendon and his wife Elizabeth Grey (died 1630), daughter of Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey of Wilton. He was believed to have been born in 1593 or 1594 (being described as 40 years old in his father's will in 1634) He was educated in Oxfordshire at Lord Williams's School, was a law student of the Inner Temple in 1613 and graduated with BA from Magdalen College, Oxford on 10 February 1614.
Parliamentary career.
In 1621 Goodwin was elected Member of Parliament for Wycombe. He was re-elected MP for Wycombe in 1624. In 1626, he was elected MP for Aylesbury.
In April 1640, Goodwin was elected with his friend John Hampden as MP for Buckinghamshire in the Short Parliament. He was re-elected MP for Buckinghamshire in November 1640 for the Long Parliament. Goodwin was a strong Parliamentarian and Puritan and opposed many of the policies of Charles I of England. When open war broke out between Parliament and the King, he gave substantial sums to the Parliamentarian cause, and commanded a cavalry regiment.
Civil war.
Goodwin took part at the Battle of Edgehill and Turnham Green. However, he was primarily active on his home ground in Buckinghamshire and the surrounding counties. In August 1642, he joined Hampden and Bulstrode Whitelocke to capture the Earl of Berkshire, who had been attempting to execute a commission of array in Oxfordshire for the King. Hampden and Goodwin also captured the Earl of Northampton at Daventry that year.
Goodwin was appointed Parliamentary commander-in-chief of Buckinghamshire in January 1643, and made an unsuccessful attempt to seize Brill. While harrying Prince Rupert's troops after the siege of Reading, Hampden was wounded at Chalgrove Field on 18 June 1643. Although it is often reported (by who) that Goodwin persuaded Hampden to leave the field and ride to Thame, where he died on 24 June there is no firm evidence that Goodwin even took part in the battle. (There is no evidence whatsoever of Goodwin being at the Battle of Chalgrove)
Goodwin himself died shortly after, at Clerkenwell, London, on 16 August 1643 of "camp fever". He was buried at Wooburn, Buckinghamshire, In his will he endowed and caused six almshouses to be erected in Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire, a project the war prevented him fulfilling when alive.
Family.
Goodwin married Jane Wenman, daughter of Richard Wenman, 1st Viscount Wenman in April 1618. They had one daughter Jane (1618–1658), who married Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton in 1637.


President of the Republic (Spain)

President of the Republic () was the title of the head of state during the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939). The office was based on the model of the Weimar Republic, then still in power in Germany, and a compromise between the French and American presidential systems.
The "Republican Revolutionary Committee" set up by the Pact of San Sebastián (1930), considered the "central event in the opposition to the monarchy of Alfonso XIII", and headed by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, eventually became the first provisional government of the Second Republic, with Alcalá-Zamora named President of the Republic on 11 December 1931.
Note that Spain is one of the democracies (see President of the Council for the full list of countries) where the term 'president' must be used with care, as it does not solely refer to the head of state but to several distinct offices: President of the Republic for some historical heads of state; President of the Government for the head of the executive; President of the Senate for the speaker of the upper parliamentary chamber, etcetera. This has led to some confusion in countries where the term president refers solely to the head of state, such as the United States: several incidents involved high-profile American politicians calling the Spanish head of government "President," including George W. Bush in 2001, Jeb Bush in 2003, and most recently, Donald Trump in September 2017. With Spain a constitutional monarchy since 1975, the current monarch is head of state.
First Spanish Republic (1873–74).
Following the abdication of Amadeo I on 10 February 1873, the short-lived First Republic (1873–74) had four heads of state (officially, Presidents of the Executive Power): Estanislao Figueras, Pi i Margall, Nicolás Salmerón, and Emilio Castelar.
On the eve of the "pronunciamiento." ("coup d'état") of 3 January 1874, General Pavia sent for Francisco Serrano y Domínguez take to the leadership. Serrano took the title of president of the executive and he continued at the end of December 1874 when the Bourbons were restored by another "pronunciamiento."
Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939).
Following the abdication of Alfonso XIII on 14 April 1931, there was no official head of state, meaning that the Prime Minister was, in effect, the highest office in the land. Niceto Alcalá-Zamora assumed the new role of President of the Republic, the effective head of state, after the approval of the new Constitution in December of 1931. Manuel Azaña remained as Prime Minister, head of the government, until 12 September 1933.
Presidents of the Republic.
With Franco's victory imminent, a National Council of Defense was established to negotiate a peace settlement with the Nationalists. By this point, Franco effectively had military control of the whole country.
Fall of the Republic.
On 27 February 1939, after both France and the United Kingdom had recognised Franco's military victory, President Manuel Azaña, exiled in France, resigned. The following week, the so-called Casado's Coup against Prime Minister Negrín's government led to the creation of the National Defence Council which attempted, unsuccessfully to negotiate terms, with Franco breaking off talks "motu proprio". Following Franco's final offensive at the end of March 1939, the Republic fell.


Peter Courtney (MP)

Sir Peter Courtney (c. 1616 – c. April, 1670) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1640 and in 1660. He fought for the Royalist cause in the English Civil War.
Courtney was the son of Edward Courtney of Ladock, Cornwall, and his wife Elizabeth Gorges daughter of Tristram Gorges of Butshead, St Budeaux, Devon. He matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford on 21 June 1633, aged 16 and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in 1636. He settled at Trethurfe, Cornwall.
In April 1640, Courtney was elected Member of Parliament for Mitchell in a double return for the Short Parliament. He was knighted at York on 28 June 1642 after a hazardous ride from Cornwall to tell the King that he had the good affection of the Cornish people. During the Civil War he served under Sir Bevil Grenville. He compounded for a fine of £346 in 1648. In 1650, he was a member of the Western Association and was ready to serve on any insurrection. He claimed he had lost £7,000 and been imprisoned seven or eight times during the Commonwealth.
Following the Restoration Courtney was granted the farm of Cornish tin customs which was then rescinded when it was found someone else had an earlier grant. In October 1660, he was elected Member of Parliament for Tregony in the Convention Parliament.
Courtney petitioned for a pension in 1665 in view of his losses in the Royalist cause, but nothing was done. His will was proved in 1670.
Courtney married firstly Alice Rashleigh, daughter of Jonathan Rashleigh of Menabilly Cornwall, and had a son and four daughters. He married secondly Amy Courtney, daughter of Peter Courtney of Penkivel, Cornwall. He had a son William and a daughter Alice who married Humphrey Courtney.


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Giles Estcourt

Sir Giles Estcourt, 1st Baronet (c. 1601–1668) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1628 to 1629. He fought for the Royalist cause in the English Civil War.
Escourt was the son of Sir Edward Estcourt of Salisbury. He matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford on 8 May 1618 aged 17 and entered Lincoln's Inn in 1618. He was knighted on 6 December 1622 and created a baronet on 17 March 1627. In 1626 he was of Newnton when he became High Sheriff of Wiltshire.
In 1628, Estcourt was elected Member of Parliament for Cirencester and sat until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament for eleven years. He fought for the King in the civil war and was taken prisoner after the fall of Bath. He was assessed for a fine of £1000 but neither compounded nor paid the fine.
Estcourt married Anne Nordaunt daughter of Sir Robert Mordaunt, 2nd Baronet of Massingham Parva, Norfolk. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his son Giles who was killed in duel in Italy. Estcourt's son William then succeeded but when he was killed in a pub brawl the baronetcy became extinct.


History of the Jews in Latvia

The history of the Jews in Latvia dates back to the first Jewish colony established in Piltene in 1571. Jews contributed to Latvia's development until the Northern War (1700–1721), which decimated Latvia's population. The Jewish community reestablished itself in the 18th century, mainly through an influx from Prussia, and came to play a principal role in the economic life of Latvia.
Under an independent Latvia, Jews formed political parties and participated as members of parliament. The Jewish community flourished. Jewish parents had the right to send their children to schools using Hebrew as the language of instruction, as part of a significant network of minority schools.
World War II ended the prominence of the Jewish community. Under Stalin, Jews, who formed only 5% of the population, constituted 12% of the deportees. In comparison, the Holocaust killed 90% of Latvia's Jewish population.
Today's Jewish community traces its roots to survivors of the Holocaust, Jews who fled to the USSR to escape the Nazi invasion and later returned, and mostly to Jews newly immigrated to Latvia from the Soviet Union. The Latvian Jewish community today is small but active.
General history.
The ancient Latvian tribes had no connections with the Jews and their entrance was banned into Livonia. Only after the Livonian War in the second half of the 16th century, when the lands of Latvia became the subject to Denmark, Poland and Lithuania, Jews began to arrive in the territory of Latvia. First was the Duchy of Courland, where there formed a Jewish community near modern day Piltene and Aizpute after 1570. In the 17th century large numbers of Jews arrived in the Duchy of Courland that was a vassal of the King of Poland. The Jews were entrusted with the offices of tax-collectors, money-changers and merchants. They facilitated Duke Jacob's (1610-1681) economic reforms. Attempts of the conservative landowners to banish the Jews failed. In 18th century, Duke Ernst Johann von Biron and his father Peter von Biron had a benevolent attitude toward the Jews. A great role in the modernization of Courland was achieved by finance assistant court Jew Aaron Levi Lipman (served until 1741), upon whose request many craftsmen, doctors and teachers of Jewish extraction came to Courland. They brought the idea of emancipation of the Jews - Haskalah, with them. Jews also took part in the building of the Duke's palaces in Rundāle and Jelgava. In 1793, the Jews in Jelgava expressed their gratitude to Duke Peter von Biron for the protection of Jews and religious tolerance.
In the Eastern part of Latvia, Latgale, Jews came from the Ukraine, Belarus and Poland in the 17th and 18th centuries, of whom most belonged to the Polish culture of Yiddish. A large part of their community life was managed by the "kakhal" (self-government). In the 17th and 18th centuries, Jews were not permitted to stay in Riga or Vidzeme. During the reign of Catherine II from 1766 onwards, Jewish merchants were allowed to stay in Riga for six months, provided they lived in a particular block of the city. In 1785, the Jews of Sloka were allowed a temporary stay in Riga for a longer period of time.
Essentially the nucleus of Latvian Jewry was formed by the Jews of Livonia and Courland, the two principalities on the coast of the Baltic Sea which were incorporated within the Russian Empire during the 18th century. Russia conquered Swedish Livonia, with the city of Riga, from Sweden in 1721. Courland, formerly an autonomous duchy under Polish suzerainty, was annexed into Russia as a province in 1795. Both these provinces were situated outside the Pale of Settlement, and so only those Jews who could prove that they had lived there legally before the provinces became part of Russia were authorized to reside in the region. Nevertheless, the Jewish population of the Baltic region gradually increased because, from time to time, additional Jews who enjoyed special "privileges", such as university graduates, those engaged in "useful" professions, etc., received authorization to settle there. In the middle of the 19th century, there were about 9,000 Jews in the province of Livonia.
By 1897 the Jewish population had already increased to 26,793 (3.5% of the population), about three-quarters of whom lived in Riga. In Courland there were 22,734 Jews in the middle of the 19th century, while according to the 1897 Imperial Russian Census, some 51,072 Jews (7.6% of the population) lived there. The Jews of Courland formed a special group within Russian Jewry. On the one hand they were influenced by the German culture which prevailed in this region, and on the other by that of neighboring Lithuanian Jewry. Haskalah penetrated early to the Livonia and Courland communities but assimilation did not make the same headway there as in Western Europe.
Courland Jewry developed a specific character, combining features of both East European and German Jewry. During World War I when the Russian armies retreated from Courland (April 1915), the Russian military authorities expelled thousands of Jews to the provinces of the interior. A considerable number later returned to Latvia as repatriates after the independent republic was established.
Three districts of the province of Vitebsk, in which most of the population was Latvian, Latgallia (), including the large community of Daugavpils (Dvinsk), were joined to Courland (Kurzeme), Semigallia (Zemgale) and Livonia (Vidzeme), and the independent Latvian Republic was established (November 1918). At first, a liberal and progressive spirit prevailed in the young state but the democratic regime was short-lived. On May 15, 1934, the prime minister, Kārlis Ulmanis, dissolved parliament in a coup d'état and Latvia became an autocracy. Ulmanis was proclaimed a president of the nation. His government inclined to be neutral.
Jewish population in the Latvian Republic.
Before World War I there were about 190,000 Jews in the territories of Latvia (7.4% of the total population). During the war years, many of them were expelled to the interior of Russia, while others escaped from the war zone. In 1920 the Jews of Latvia numbered 79,644 (5% of the population). After the signing of the peace treaty between the Latvian Republic and the Soviet Union on August 11, 1920, repatriates began to return from Russia; these included a considerable number of Jewish refugees. In this time, there were 40,000 Jews in Riga alone. By 1925 the Jewish population had increased to 95,675, the largest number of Jews during the period of Latvia’s existence as an independent state.
After that year the number of Jews gradually decreased, and in 1935 had declined to 93,479 (4.8% of the total). The causes of this decline were emigration by part of the younger generation and a decline in the natural increase through limiting the family to one or two children by the majority. Between 1925 and 1935 over 6,000 Jews left Latvia (the overwhelming majority of them for the Mandatory Palestine which was soon to be declared the State of Israel), while the natural increase only partly replaced these departures. The largest communities were Riga with 43,672 Jews (11.3% of the total) in 1935, Daugavpils with 11,106 (25%), and Liepāja with 7,379 (13%).
Economic life.
Jews already played an important role in industry, commerce, and banking before World War I. After the establishment of the republic, a severe crisis overtook the young state. The government had not yet consolidated itself and the country had become impoverished as a result of World War I and the struggle for independence which Latvia had conducted for several years (1918–20) against both Germany and the Soviet Union. With the cessation of hostilities, Latvia found itself retarded in both the administrative and economic spheres. Among other difficulties, there was running inflation. Jews made a large contribution to the rebuilding of the state from the ruins of the war and its consequences. Having much experience in the export of the raw materials of timber and linen before World War I, upon their return from Russia they resumed export of these goods on their own initiative. They also developed a variegated industry, and a considerable part of the import trade, such as that of petrol, coal, and textiles, was concentrated in their hands. However, once the Jews had made their contribution, the authorities began to force them out of their economic positions and to deprive them of their sources of livelihood.
Although, in theory, there were no discriminatory laws against the Jews in democratic Latvia and they enjoyed equality of rights, in practice the economic policy of the government was intended to restrict their activities. This was also reflected in the area of credit. The Jews of Latvia developed a ramified network of loan banks for the granting of credit with the support of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA). Cooperative credit societies for craftsmen, small tradesmen, etc., were established and organized within a central body, the Alliance of Cooperative Societies for Credit. However, the Jewish banks and cooperative societies were discriminated against in the sphere of public credit and the state bank was in practice closed to them. These societies nevertheless functioned on sound foundations. Their initial capital was relatively larger than that of the non-Jewish cooperative societies. In 1931 over 15,000 members were organized within the Jewisherion societies. Jews were particularly active in the following branches of industry: timber, matches, beer, tobacco, hides, textiles, canned foods (especially fish), and flour milling. About one half of the Jews of Latvia engaged in commerce, the overwhelming majority of them in medium and small trade. About 29% of the Jewish population was occupied in industry and about 7% in the liberal professions. There were no Jews in the governmental administration. The economic situation of the majority of Latvia’s Jews became difficult. Large numbers were ousted from their economic position and lost their livelihood as a result of government policy and most of them were thrust into small trade, peddling, and bartering in various goods at the second-hand clothes markets in the suburbs of Riga and the provincial towns. The decline in their status was due to three principal causes: the government assumed the monopoly of the grain trade, thus removing large numbers of Jews from this branch of trade, without accepting them as salaried workers or providing them with any other kind of employment; the Latvian cooperatives enjoyed wide governmental support and functioned in privileged conditions in comparison to the Jewish enterprises; and Jews had difficulty in obtaining credit. In addition to the above, the Jewish population was subjected to a heavy burden of taxes.
Public and political life.
Latvian Jewry continued the communal and popular traditions of Russian Jewry, of which it formed a part until 1918. On the other hand, it was also influenced by the culture of West European Jewry, being situated within its proximity (i.e., East Prussia). In its spiritual life there was thus a synthesis of Jewish tradition and secular culture. From the socio-economic point of view the Jews of Latvia did not form one group, and there were considerable social differences between them. They engaged in a variety of occupations and professions: there were large, medium, and small merchants, industrialists, and different categories of craftsmen, workers, salesmen, clerks, teachers, and members of the liberal professions such as physicians, lawyers, and engineers. All these factors—economic and spiritual—were practically reflected in public life: in the national Jewish sphere and in the general political life of the state. The Jewish population was also represented in the Latvian parliament. In the National Council which was formed during the first year of Latvian independence and existed until April 1920, there were also representatives of the national minorities, including seven Jews, among them Paul Mintz (later chairman of the Jewish National Democratic Party), who acted as state comptroller (1919–21), and Mordecai Dubin (Agudas Israel). On May 1, 1920, the Constituent Assembly, which was elected by a relatively democratic vote, was convened. It was to function until October 7, 1922, and included nine Jewish delegates who represented all groups in the Jewish population (Zionists, National Democrats, Bundists, Agudas Israel). The number of Jewish delegates in the four parliaments which were elected in Latvia until the coup d’état of 1934 was as follows: six in the first (1922–25), five in the second (1925–28) and the third (1928–31), and three in the fourth (1931–34). Among the regular deputies were Mordecai Dubin (Agudas Israel), Mordechai Nurock (Mizrachi, later a member of the Knesset in Israel after the country was established in 1948), Matityahu Max Laserson (Zionist Party), and Noah Meisel (Bund). The last two were not reelected to the fourth parliament.
Culture and education.
On December 8, 1919, the general bill on schools was passed by the National Council; this coincided with the bill on the cultural autonomy of the minorities. In the Ministry of Education, there were special departments for the minorities. The engineer Jacob Landau headed the Jewish department. A broad network of Hebrew and Yiddish schools, in which Jewish children received a free education, was established. In addition to these, there were also Russian and German schools for Jewish children, chosen in accordance with the language of their families and wishes of their parents. These were, however, later excluded from the Jewish department because, by decision of the Ministry of Education, only the Hebrew and Yiddish schools were included within the scope of Jewish autonomy.
In 1933 there were ninety-eight Jewish elementary schools with approximately 12,000 pupils and 742 teachers, eighteen secondary schools with approximately 2,000 pupils and 286 teachers, and four vocational schools with 300 pupils and thirty-seven teachers. Pupils attended religious or secular schools according to their parents’ wishes. There were also government pedagogic institutes for teachers in Hebrew and Yiddish, courses for kindergarten teachers, popular universities, a popular Jewish music academy, evening schools for working youth, a Yiddish theater, and cultural clubs. There was a Jewish press reflecting a variety of trends.
After the Ulmanis coup d’état of May 15, 1934, restrictions were placed on the autonomy of minorities' "cultures and minorities" education as well as education in native language. This was part of a wider move to standardize Latvian usage in schooling and professional and governmental sectors. As a result, Jewish schools continue to operate while secular Yiddish schools were closed. This resulted in the works of eminent Jewish authors such as the poet Hayim Nahman Bialik ("Latvian": Haims Nahmans Bjaliks) and historian Simon Dubnow ("Latvian": Šimons Dubnovs) being removed from the Jewish curriculum. Notably, Dubnow was among the Jews who fled from Germany to Latvia for safety in 1938. (Latvia continued to take in refugees until the fall of 1938.)
All political parties and organizations were also abolished. Of Jewish groups, only "Agudat Israel" continued to operate. Jewish social life did, however, retain its vitality. Owing in part to the restrictions imposed on minorities including Jews, the influence of religion and Zionism increased, motivating some to return to the future Israel. This also increased the influence of the banned Social Democrats, while the Jewish intelligentsia gravitated toward Zionism.
World War II.
Soviet occupation, 1940–1941.
After first extracting Latvian agreement under duress—Stalin personally threatened the Latvian foreign minister, in Moscow, during negotiations—to the stationing of Soviet troops on Latvian soil, the Soviet Union invaded Latvia on June 16, 1940. Jewish civic and political leaders began to be arrested in August 1940. The first to be arrested were the Zionist leaders Favid Varhaftig and Mahanud Alperin. The leadership of Betar were deported. In 1941, the Soviets arrested M. Noruk, M. Dubin and other Jewish civic leaders, Zionists, conservatives, and right wing socialists. Their arrest orders were approved by S. Shustin. When the Soviets executed the first round of mass Baltic deportations, on the night of June 13–14, 1941, thousands of Latvian Jews were deported along with Latvians. Of all the ethnic groups so deported, Jews suffered proportionately more than any other, and were deported to especially harsh conditions. Records have been preserved of the deportations of 1,212 Jewish Latvian citizens (12.5% of those deported to the far reaches of the USSR) but the actual number of Jews deported was certainly larger, on the order of 5,000 to 6,000 during the first Soviet occupation.
The deportations of Jewish civic leaders and rabbis, members of parliament, and the professional and merchant class only a week before Nazi Germany invaded the Baltics left the Jewish community ill-prepared to organize in the face of the invasion and immediately ensuing Holocaust. Those deported included Constitutional Convention members I. Rabinovičs and I. Berzs, 1st and 3rd Saiema deputy and head of the Bund N. Maizels as well as other Jewish members of parliament. Men were separated from their families and sent to labor camps at Solikamsk (in Perm), Vyatka, and Vorkuta, while their wives and children were sent to Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, and elsewhere. Approximately half died as the consequence of their deportation, some deported more than once—M. Dubins died after being deported a second time in 1956.
It is estimated that of the 2,100,000 Jews who came under Soviet control as a result of Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact dividing Eastern Europe, about 1,900,000—more than one out of two —were deported to Siberia and central Asia.
German occupation of Latvia, 1941–1944.
Latvia was occupied by the Germans during the first weeks of the German-Soviet war in July 1941. It became part of the new Reichskommissariat "Ostland", officially designated as "Generalbezirk Lettland". Otto-Heinrich Drechsler was appointed its commissioner general, with headquarters in Riga, the seat of the Reich Commissioner for Ostland, Hinrich Lohse. At the end of July 1941 the Germans replaced the military with a civil administration. One of its first acts was the promulgation of a series of anti-Jewish ordinances. A subordinate civil administration composed of local collaborationist elements was also established, to which Latvian general councillors were appointed. Their nominal head was Oskars Dankers, a former Latvian army general.
In mid-June 1941, on the eve of Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union, 14,000 citizens of Latvia, including several thousand Jews, were deported by the Soviet authorities to Siberia and other parts of Soviet Asia as politically undesirable elements. During the Nazi attack of Latvia a considerable number of Jews also succeeded in fleeing to the interior of the Soviet Union; it is estimated that some 75,000 Latvian Jews fell into Nazi hands. Survivor accounts sometimes describe how, even before the Nazi administration began persecuting the Latvian Jews, they had suffered from antisemitic excesses at the hands of the Latvian activists, although there is some disagreement amongst Jewish historians as to the extent of this phenomenon. Latvian-American Holocaust historian Andrew (Andrievs) Ezergailis argues that there was no "interregnum" period at all in most parts of Latvia, when Latvian activists could have engaged in the persecution of Jews on their own initiative. The Einsatzgruppen ("task forces") played a leading role in the destruction of Latvian Jews, according to information given in their own reports, especially in the report of SS-Brigadeführer (General) Stahlecker, the commander of Einsatzgruppe A, whose unit operated on the northern Russian front and in the occupied Baltic republics. His account covers the period from the end of June up to October 15, 1941.
Nevertheless, the Latvian Arajs Kommando played a leading role in the atrocities committed in the Riga ghetto in conjunction with the Rumbula massacre on November 30, 1941. One of the most notorious members of the group was Herberts Cukurs. After the war, surviving witnesses reported that Cukurs had been present during the ghetto clearance and fired into the mass of Jewish civilians. According to another account Cukurs also participated in the Burning of the Riga synagogues. According to Bernard Press in his book The Murder of the Jews in Latvia, Cukurs burned the synagogue on Stabu Street
At the instigation of the Einsatzgruppe, the Latvian auxiliary police carried out a pogrom against the Jews in Riga. All synagogues were destroyed and 400 Jews were killed. According to Stahlecker's report, the number of Jews killed in mass executions by Einsatzgruppe A by the end of October 1941 in Riga, Jelgava (Mitau), Liepāja (Libau), Valmiera (Wolmar), and Daugavpils (Dvinsk) totaled 30,025, and by the end of December 1941, 35,238 Latvian Jews had been killed; 2,500 Jews remained in the Riga Ghetto and 950 in the Daugavpils ghetto. At the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942, Jews deported from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and other German occupied countries began arriving in Latvia. Some 15,000 "Reich Jews" were settled in several streets of the liquidated "greater Riga ghetto". Many transports were taken straight from the Riga railroad station to execution sites in the Rumbula and Biķernieki forests near Riga, and elsewhere. In 1942 about 800 Jews from Kaunas Ghetto (in Lithuania) were brought to Riga and some of them participated in the underground organization in the Riga ghetto.
The German occupying power in Latvia also kept Jews in "barracks camps", i.e., near their places of forced labor. A considerable number of such camps were located in the Riga area and other localities. Larger concentrations camps included those at Salaspils and Kaiserwald (Mežaparks). The Salaspils concentration camp, set up at the end of 1941, contained thousands of people, including many Latvian and foreign Jews.
Conditions in this camp, one of the worst in Latvia, led to heavy loss of life among the inmates. The Kaiserwald concentration camp, established in the summer of 1943, contained the Jewish survivors from the ghettos of Riga, Daugavpils, Liepāja, and other places, as well as non-Jews. At the end of September 1943 Jews from the liquidated Vilna Ghetto (in Lithuania) were also taken to Kaiserwald. When the Soviet victories in the summer of 1944 forced a German retreat from the Baltic states, the surviving inmates of the Kaiserwald camp were deported by the Germans to Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig, and from there were sent to various other camps.
German retreat and Soviet re-occupation, 1944.
About 1,000 Latvian Jews survived their internment in concentration camps; most of them refused repatriation and remained in the Displaced Persons camps in Germany, Austria, and Italy. Along with the rest of the survivors they eventually settled in new homes, mostly in Israel. In Latvia itself, several hundred Jews had managed to survive. A public demonstration was held in Riga a few days after its liberation, in which sixty or seventy of the surviving Jews participated. Gradually, some of the Jews who had found refuge in the Soviet Union came back. Several thousand Latvian Jews had fought in the Soviet army’s Latvian division, the 201st (43rd Guard) and 304th, and many were killed or wounded in battle.
According to the population census taken in the Soviet Union in 1959, there were 36,592 Jews (17,096 men and 19,496 women; 1.75 percent of the total population) in the Latvian SSR. It may be assumed that about 10,000 of them were natives, including Jewish refugees who returned to their former residences from the interior of Russia, while the remainder came from other parts of the Soviet Union. About 48 percent of the Jews declared Yiddish as their mother tongue. The others mainly declared Russian as their language, while only a few hundred described themselves as Latvian-speaking. Of the total, 30,267 Jews (5/6) lived in Riga. The others lived in Daugavpils and other towns. According to private estimates, the Jews of Latvia in 1970 numbered about 50,000. The overwhelming majority of them lived in Riga, the capital, which became one of the leading centers of national agitation among the Jews of the Soviet Union. Underground religious and Zionist activity resulted in greater suspicion by authorities.
War crimes trials.
On April 7, 1945, the Soviet press published the "Declaration of the Special Government Commission charged with the inquiry into the crimes committed by the German-Fascist aggressors during their occupation of the Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic". This document devotes a chapter to the persecution and murder of Jews. The declaration lists Nazis held responsible for the crimes committed in Latvia under German occupation. They include Lohse, the Reich Commissioner for Ostland; Friedrich Jeckeln, chief of police (HSSPF) for Ostland; Drechsler, Commissioner General for Latvia; Rudolf Lange, chief of the security police; Kurt Krause, chief of the Riga ghetto and commandant of the Salaspils concentration camp; Max Gymnich, his assistant; Sauer, commandant of the Kaiserwald concentration camp; and several dozen other Nazi criminals involved in the destruction of Latvian Jewry. On January 26, 1946, the military tribunal of the Baltic Military District began a trial of a group of Nazi war criminals, among them Jeckeln, one of the men responsible for the Rumbula massacre at the end of 1941. He and six others were sentenced to death by hanging; the sentence was carried out in Riga on February 3, 1946. Other trials were held in the postwar Latvian SSR, but altogether only a small number of Germans and Latvians who had taken part in the murder of Latvian Jewry were brought to justice.
Latvians of varying backgrounds also took part in the persecution and murder of the Jews in the country outside Latvia. At the time of the German retreat in the summer of 1944, many of these collaborators fled to Germany. After the war, as assumed Displaced Persons, they received aid from UNRRA, from the International Refugee Organization (IRO), and other relief organizations for Nazi victims, and some of them immigrated to the U.S. and other countries abroad. On the other hand, there were also Latvians who risked their lives in order to save Jews. One such, Jānis Lipke, helped to save several dozen Jews of the Riga ghetto by providing them with hideouts.
Developments 1970–1991.
The Jewish population of Latvia declined from 28,300 in 1979 to 22,900 in 1989, when 18,800 of its Jews lived in the capital Riga. Part of this was due to a high rate of emigration to Israel; the Soviet Union allowed limited numbers of Jewish citizens to leave the country for Israel every year. Between 1968 and 1980, 13,153 Jews, or 35.8% of the Jewish population of Latvia, emigrated to Israel or other Western countries. Another major factor was a high rate of assimilation and intermarriage, and a death rate higher than the birth rate. In 1988–89 the Jewish birth rate was 7.0 per 1,000 and the Jewish mortality rate – 18.3 per 1,000. In 1987, 39.7% of children born of Jewish mothers had non-Jewish fathers. Another major factor was immigration to Israel, which the Soviet Union allowed in limited numbers every year.
In 1989, there were 22,900 Jews in Latvia, who comprised some 0.9% of the population. That same year Soviet Union allowed unrestricted Jewish immigration, and 1,588 Jews emigrated from Latvia (1,536 of them from Riga). In 1990, 3,388 Latvian Jews immigrated to Israel (2,837 of them from Riga). In 1991, the number of immigrants to Israel from Riga was 1,087. That same year, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Latvia regained its independence. Immigration continued throughout the 1990s, causing a decline in the Jewish population. According to the Jewish Agency, 12,624 Jews and non-Jewish family members of Jews immigrated from Latvia to Israel between 1989 and 2000. Some Latvian Jews also emigrated to other Western countries. Many of these emigrants kept their Latvian citizenship.
After the fall of the Soviet Union and Latvian independence in 1991, many Jews who arrived from the Soviet Union were denied automatic Latvian citizenship, as with anyone of any nationality who was not a Latvian citizen, or descendant of one, until 1941. This included children and grandchildren who were born in Latvia, as to the Latvian law citizenship is not determined by place of birth, but by having an ancestor who is a national or citizen of the state. In public school, the compulsory use of Latvian affected many Jewish students, who spoke Russian as their primary language. As Latvia sought to become a member of the European Union, its citizenship requirements were gradually relaxed, allowing for its postwar residents to apply for Latvian citizenship.
While striving toward independence the Latvian national movement sought to make common cause with the Jews in the republic. July 4 was established in Latvia as a memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust.
Many Jewish organizations operate in the country.
In independent Latvia.
On June 11–17, 1993, the First World Congress of Latvian Jews was held in Riga. It was attended by delegates from Israel, the US, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Britain, South Africa, and Australia.
Two desecrations of Holocaust memorials, in Jelgava and in the Biķernieki Forest, took place in 1993. The delegates of the World Congress of Latvian Jews who came to Biķernieki to commemorate the 46,500 Latvian Jews shot there, were shocked by the sight of swastikas and the word "Judenfrei" daubed on the memorial. Articles of antisemitic content appeared in the Latvian nationalist press. The main topics of these articles were the collaboration of Jews with the Communists in the Soviet period, Jews tarnishing Latvia's good name in the West, and Jewish businessmen striving to control the Latvian economy.
In the early 2000s, after a decade of mass emigration, around 9,000 Jews remained in Latvia, mostly in Riga, where an Ohr Avner Chabad school was in operation. Ohel Menachem also operated a day school, as well as a kindergarten. An active synagogue, the Peitav Synagogue, operates in the Old City section of Riga. The city also contains a Holocaust memorial on the site of the wartime ghetto. The main Jewish cemetery is located on the city's eastern fringe.
Historical demographics.
Before World War II, Latvia had almost 100,000 Jews. Most Latvian Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Latvia's Jewish population after World War II peaked at almost 37,000 in 1970, and afterwards began consistently declining. Latvia's Jewish population significantly declined in the 1990s after the fall of Communism when many Latvian Jews left and moved to other countries, especially they made aliyah to Israel and the United States (specifically, to the U.S. states of California and New York).
Notes and references.
References.
Significant portions of this article were reproduced, with permission of the publisher, from the forthcoming Encyclopaedia Judaica, Second Edition.


Padanian Union

The Padanian Union ("Unione Padana", UP) is a Padanist and separatist political party active in Lombardy, Italy.
The party emerged in November 2011 by the merger of Lega Padana Lombardia, led by Roberto Bernardelli and Giulio Arrighini, and other groups of Padanists led by Francesco Formenti and Giovanni Ongaro. All four politicians had been deputies of Lega Lombarda–Lega Nord in the 1990s.
The first congress of the party was attended by leading Padanists such as Giancarlo Pagliarini, Gilberto Oneto, Gianluca Marchi and Leonardo Facco.
As soon as in March 2012 the provincial wing of Bergamo, led by Ongaro, split and formed the Alpine Padanian Union (UPA). In May 2013 the Lombard branch of the party created a new organization: "Lombard Independence" (Indipendenza Lombarda).
In April 2014 Bernardelli was arrested, along with a group of Venetian separatists (including Franco Rocchetta, leading members of the Venetian Most Serene Government and the European Federalist Free Entrepreneurs), for suspected crimes including criminal association for terrorism and subversion of the democratic order. Bernardelli was released on 18 April, along with Rocchetta and most of the others, as the tribunal of Brescia did not uphold the accusations.


Keyta

Keyta () was used instead of soap in Iceland before it was introduced there. Keyta was made by storing urine from domestic animals for some time, the alkaline fluid left over is rich in urea which is ideal for cleansing wool for example. It is also a good fertilizer. Sometimes human urine was used in its basic state, and it would be used for bathing.
Keyta was also heavily used to wash show-winning live-stock, especially hairy pigs such as boar. This is referred to as Svínskeggur. Farm animals which have been cleansed using this process are referred to as Addi.


James Lucas (hermit)

James Lucas (1813 – 21 April 1874) was a celebrated English Victorian eccentric and hermit who gained international renown by his strange way of life. He was known as the Hermit of Hertfordshire and Mad Lucas.
Life.
Lucas was an amiable, eccentric landowner who was well-educated, had studied medicine and was a good conversationalist. However his mother's death, in 1849, greatly accentuated his eccentricities. He became a complete recluse, and barricaded himself into his home.
He refused to administer his mother's will, in which he inherited the family estate at Elmwood House near Redcoats Green, Hertfordshire, and deferred burial of her for three months. He developed a paranoid fear of his relatives. He locked himself in his mansion and allowed nothing in the building to be touched. It sank into a dilapidated and decaying condition. He lived solely in the kitchen, sleeping on a bed of ashes and soot. He went naked except for a blanket, enveloped in which he used to appear at his windows. He never washed and his hair grew to waist length. He lived on bread, cheese, eggs, red herrings and gin. His house became infested with rats and he kept his food in baskets hung from the ceiling to protect it from them. He always kept a gun at his side.
Lucas communicated with the world only through an iron grille and employed two armed watchmen who lived in a nearby hut. He was, however, quite willing to receive visitors, mostly tramps and children but increasingly the well-to-do who came to engage him in conversation.
According to the "Legacies of British Slave-Ownership" at the University College London, Lucas was awarded a payment as a slave trader in the aftermath of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 with the Slave Compensation Act 1837. The British Government took out a £15 million loan (worth £ in ) from Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Moses Montefiore which was subsequently paid off by the British taxpayers (ending in 2015). Lucas was associated with three different claims, two of which were successful, he owned 1121 slaves in British Guiana and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, he received a £57,970 payment at the time (worth £ in ).
Lucas died of apoplexy in 1874, having hoarded a considerable sum of money in his living room.
He is buried in the family grave in Hackney churchyard, London.
After his death 17 cartloads of dirt and ashes were removed from the house.
Lucas is the subject of the song "Mad Lucas" by The Breeders on their 1993 album, "Last Splash".


Referendums in the Czech Republic

Referendums in the Czech Republic can be held in the Czech Republic at a national, regional or local level. National referendums are very rare as there are no provisions concerning referendums in the Constitution of the Czech Republic, except for "referendum concerning the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union" and the only national referendum in the Czech Republic was 2003 Czech European Union membership referendum. Local referendums are most common. As of 27 February 2018 there has been 269 local referendums since 2006. There hasn't been any regional referendum in the Czech Republic so far.


Raoul Wallenberg International Movement for Humanity

The Raoul Wallenberg International Movement for Humanity (RWIMH) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the education of the work of Raoul Wallenberg ]and to the promotion of the moral principles that made it possible.
Raoul Wallenberg.
Raoul Wallenberg (August 4, 1912 – ?) was a hero of the Holocaust who saved 100,000 Jews in Budapest, Hungary from Nazi deportation.
Creation of the RWIMH.
Dr. Vera Parnes illegally founded the Raoul Wallenberg Society and created what she called the “Raoul Wallenberg Museum” in Moscow, USSR, housing a small collection of books, articles and artwork devoted to Wallenberg. The Society organized expositions at cultural events in Moscow and delivered lectures in schools. The Society appealed to Mikhail Gorbachev demanding any records regarding Wallenberg, but received no response. She finally published an open letter to Gorbachev in a news paper ("Литературная Газета" ["Literary Gazette"], September 5, 1990) imploring the Soviet leader to honour Wallenberg as an honorary citizen.
Following the 1991 coup against Gorbachev, Dr. Parnes left the USSR and eventually established The Raoul Wallenberg International Movement for Humanity in Montreal, Canada, on the occasion of what may have been Wallenberg’s 80th birthday, to develop a stronger international organization aimed at promoting Wallenberg’s achievement, and discovering the truth about his imprisonment.
Work and Accomplishments.
The mission of the RWIMH is to promote the memory and humanitarian principles of Wallenberg – his lessons, ideas, courage, and outstanding humanism – so that future generations may grow and improve in order to develop and enhance the values of enlightenment in the face of ideologies endangering our civilization. The Movement organises conferences exhibitions, media reports, lectures, commemorative ceremonies, and vigils to educate the public and to combat growing neo-Nazist Holocaust denial, ethnic tension, and discrimination guided by the example provided by Wallenberg.
Beginning in 1993, the RWIMH petitioned the government of Canada to honour Raoul Wallenberg. The Canadian Parliament declared January 17 "Raoul Wallenberg Day" in 2001, having received the support of, among others, Members of Parliament Clifford Lincoln, Irwin Cotler, and Sheila Copps, and Senator Sheila Finestone.
Some of the RWIMH’s other work and accomplishments include: Raoul Wallenberg Square (and monument), Teaching Guide (available from the RWIMH website), “Search for the Truth” (an international conference investigating Wallenberg’s imprisonment), annual conferences, meetings, and exhibitions, "The Wallenberg Bulletin", RWIMH Certificate of Honour, Raoul Wallenberg Archives (compiled research pertaining to Wallenberg), and the planting of a grove in Jerusalem.
The RWIMH is currently preparing to honour Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Andrei Sakharov later this year, and to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the declaration of Canada’s first honorary citizen, Raoul Wallenberg, next year.


Oude Mannenhuis

An Oudemannenhuis, or "Old Men's house" is a Dutch term for a home for poor men older than sixty, who could spend their final days enjoying regular meals and a clean place to sleep. It can be regarded as an early type of retirement home, which lasted up to the 19th century. As an institution, they were an improvement over almshouses for the elderly poor known as hofjes. Because older men were generally less able to care for themselves than women, the city councils of the Netherlands built special purpose houses. After the introduction of "Oudemannenhuizen", the hofjes were designed almost exclusively for women, because women could organize themselves more efficiently. For women who became too feeble to take part in hofje life, special "old houses" for woman were opened, that were often combined with old men's houses. Like the hofjes, living in an old man's house was usually free of charge and was considered a favor.
Similar to hofjes, the regents of old men's houses had a regent's room for meetings. The regents made and enforced the house rules, such as making church attendance mandatory and ladies visit or drunkenness prohibited. Breaking the rules was usually followed by house arrest. The old men lived in a room where they only had a bedstead, and occasionally they were assigned two to a room. A few old men's houses have been preserved, but they have been given a different purpose.
Older men with means could buy a room in a Proveniershuis, which was cheaper than a rental or hotel, but afforded more luxury than an Oudemannenhuis.


Thomas Dickenson

Thomas Dickenson (Dickinson), a merchant of York, was an adherent of the Parliamentary cause during the English Civil War. He was also a sheriff, alderman, and twice Lord Mayor of York and a Member of Parliament for York during the Protectorate.
Biography.
Dickenson was Sheriff of York in 1640, twice Lord Mayor of York, in 1647 and again in 1657 the year he was knighted by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. He was a Member of Parliament for York in the First, Second and Third Protectorate parliaments.
Although a strong partisan of Cromwell, Dickenson was probably moderate in his religious views; and, according to the testimony of a contemporary, more Episcopalian than Presbyterian or Independent. Dickenson was a patron of literary men. John Bulmer, M.D., dedicated to him his "Anthropometamorphosis"; or, "Man Transformed", 4to, 1653; and the Rev. Josiah Hunter dedicated to him a Sermon on "Philip" iv. 5, 4to, 1656.


Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation

The Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation is an independent French organization
founded by Isaac Schneersohn in 1943 in the town of Grenoble, France during the Second World War to preserve the evidence of Nazi war crimes for future generations. After the Liberation, the center was moved to Paris in 1944 where it remains today.
The goal of the CDJC is to conduct research, publish documentation, pursue Nazi war criminals, seek restitution for victims of the Nazis, and to maintain a large archive of Holocaust materials, especially those concerning events affecting French Jewry. Part of the efforts of the CDJC include providing educational materials to students and teachers, guided museum visits and field trips, participation in international conferences, activities and commemorations, maintaining monuments and sites like the Mémorial de la Shoah and the monument at Drancy, and most importantly collecting and disseminating documentation about the Holocaust in their extensive archives.
Background.
While the Second World War was still underway, the Nazis had already formed a contingency plan that in case of defeat they would carry out the total destruction of German records of the extermination of millions of victims, per Heinrich Himmler's statement to SS officials that the history of the Final Solution would be "a glorious page that will never be written". They largely succeeded in this attempt. In France, the situation with respect to preserving war records was not much better, partly as a result of French state secrecy rules dating back to well before the war aimed at protecting the French government and the state from embarrassing revelations, and partly to avoid culpability. For example, at Liberation, the Prefecture of Police destroyed nearly all of the massive archive of Jewish arrest and deportation.
France's Jewish population before the war was around 300,000, of which 75,721 were deported, with only 2500 surviving. Political deportees fared better, with 37,000 returning. By the 1950s, the Jewish population was half what it was before the war, most of them from Eastern Europe. In the aftermath of the shock and trauma of the war, many Jews converted to Christianity, Frenchified their names, and the number of Jewish ceremonies performed (including circumcision which could identify males as Jewish) dropped precipitously. Many just wanted to forget, and disappear into French society; for most, gathering a history of the Holocaust was not a priority.
It was in this context, that a very small number of Jews first took on the task of preserving the record of events in order that it not be lost to history. In France, this occurred first at Drancy where camp registers were carefully preserved and turned over to the new National Office for Veterans and Victims of War; which however then held them in secret refusing to release copies even to the CDJC.
Founding and early efforts.
Already before the end of the war, Isaac Schneersohn, anticipating the need for a center to document and preserve the memory of the persecution for historical reasons and also support claims post-war, gathered 40 representatives from Jewish organizations together at his place at rue Bizanet in Grenoble which was under Italian occupation at the time in order to form a "centre de documentation". Exposure meant the death penalty, and as a result little actually happened before liberation. Serious work began after the center moved to Paris in late 1944 and was renamed the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation ("", CDJC).
Its stated goal was to document the persecution and martyrdom of French Jewry by collecting massive amounts of documentation, to study discriminatory laws, to support attempts at recovery of confiscated Jewish property, to document the suffering as well as the heroism of the Jews, and to record the attitude of governments, administrations, and various sectors of public opinion.
Early efforts received little recognition for a number of reasons. One was that these were grassroots movements to preserve the memory of the Holocaust, much of it by people who were not part of academia or trained as historians and thus looked down on by professionals. Another reason was that much of the early historiography focused on the perpetrators, with little effort aimed at documenting the experience of victims, which was relegated to the domain of "memory" rather than that of "history". In addition, early efforts consisted of collecting and publishing primary sources and survivor testimonies, and rarely on analysis and thematic interpretation of events which might have attracted more attention from academia. Finally, Schneersohn wanted CDJC to be the sole repository and outlet for historiography on the Holocaust, and when for example Poliakov published outside the CDJC in 1951, they had a falling-out.
However, the early efforts in collecting, documenting, and preserving the basic information laid the groundwork for all future Holocaust historiography. The Nuremberg trials presented the opportunity for its first public appearance on the world stage.
Relocation to Paris.
After the liberation in 1944, the CDJC moved to Paris. In 1956 it moved to the Marais, the Jewish district of Paris in the 4th arrondissement, sharing space in the building containing the memorial to the Unknown Jewish Martyr. Renovations were undertaken in 2004 to handle expansion and to be able to host conferences and have exhibition space.
Publications.
Early publications.
Early publications in the 1940s had limited exposure, such as "Les Juifs sous l'Occupation: Recueil de textes francais et allemands 1940-1944" and "La Condition des Juifs sous l'occupation allemande 1940-44". Starting in 1951, works such as Poliakov's "Bréviaire de la haine" (Harvest of Hate), the first major work on the genocide, first began to reach a wider audience and receive some good reviews in opposition to the prevailing opinion in studies at the time that a major genocide of six million Jews was logistically impossible and thus could not have happened. Most CDJC publications were not in bookstores and were not widely available. There was little public interest in the Holocaust, and financial returns were minimal.
Reaction to early CJDC publications in early postwar France
During the first period until 1955, most publications depended on German archives to document anti-Jewish persecution in France going back to the Dreyfus period, and served both Vichy and the Nazis. However any indication in new scholarship that attempted to pin any amount of culpability on the French ran counter to public feeling in France at the time, which was that the Germans were responsible for all persecution and that the French were either blameless victims or members of, or helping the Resistance. Vichy was considered an unpleasant aberration, and the general feeling was to avoid discussion about it so as to avoid poking old wounds. The three-volume "Le commissariat General aux Question Juives" by Joseph Billig published in 3 volumes in 1955-60 showed that the French response to roundups of Jews when they were not actively profiting from the spoils, was apathetic at best. The book was mostly ignored due to the prevailing feeling at the time but since has been considered a seminal work. Because of these factors and the general atmosphere at the time, the CDJC operated almost in an underground manner. Poliakov said in his "Memoires" that even the word "genocide" was considered unfit for publication in 1951 when his groundbreaking work was first published.
Periodicals.
The CDJC began publishing a periodical bulletin in 1945 which continued appearing under various names, into the 21st century. It began in April 1945 as the "Bulletin du Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine" (Bulletin of the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation) which printed eight issues through January 1946. These were not sold openly. It stopped publishing temporarily in September 1945, when Schneersohn applied to the French Minister of Information for permission to publish, under the new name "Revue du Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine" (Journal of the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation). This, in turn, officially changed its name to "Le Monde Juif" (Jewish World) in July 1946, and was published as a monthly, 24-page magazine with about 1500 charter subscribers. Its first issue was published on August 1946. In 1995, it was renamed as "Revue d'histoire de la Shoah – Le Monde Juif" (Journal of the History of the Shoah–Jewish World) and finally ending up as the "Revue d'histoire de la Shoah" in 2005. The CDJC initials had disappeared from the cover and were incorporated instead as part of the new logo adopted by the Mémorial de la Shoah, Musée, Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine.
War crimes trials.
One of the core missions of the CDJC is to bring perpetrators of war crimes to justice. CDJC played a role at Nuremberg, and has participated in several high-profile and numerous other actions. The most well known cases are those of Adolf Eichmann, Klaus Barbie, and Maurice Papon.
Nuremberg trials.
The Nuremberg trials began in November 1945. Schneerson sent Léon Poliakov who had recently joined CJDC as a historian to Nuremberg as an expert researcher, along with an assistant, Joseph Billig. They founded Jewish World War II historiography alone with no training. Many documents in evidence at Nuremberg ended up in the Center, and became the kernel of their photo and document archives. These, in turn, were used in France in the post-war years in many war crime trials, such as those of Klaus Barbie, Maurice Papon and others. The Center was also responsible for bringing a key document to light, the original order for the 1944 roundup of Jewish refugee children of Izieu who were later deported to Auschwitz and killed upon arrival.
Contrary to the opinion that there was no serious scholarship about the Holocaust before the early 1960s, the CDJC had been active going back to the 1940s and 50s, although their efforts were little noted even by historians and were almost totally unknown to the public. The Eichmann trial in 1961 changed all that, and the decision to televise it brought the trial and the history of the Holocaust into millions of homes and riveted the attention of the world. The Barbie trial in Lyon in 1987 once again brought the history of World War II onto the front pages of newspapers and public awareness, and again the proceedings were filmed, due to their exceptional historical importance. In both cases, the archives maintained by the CDJC played a role.
Adolf Eichmann.
The trial of Adolf Eichmann for crimes against humanity began in Jerusalem on 11 April 1961. The Israeli government arranged for the trial to have prominent media coverage, and the worldwide press was there.
CDJC science director Georges Wellers served as a witness in the Eichmann trial.
One of the goals of the trial was to disseminate information about the Holocaust to the public, and for the great majority of people around the world watching or reading about it, the Eichmann trial was their first confrontation with anything having to do with the Holocaust. As a result of all the coverage, it sparked interest in wartime events, which ultimately resulted in an increase in coverage of the war in public school education, publication of memoirs as well as academic studies which helped promote public awareness of the Holocaust.
Eichmann was sentenced to capital punishment, and the sentence was carried out on 1 April 1962.
Klaus Barbie.
Klaus Barbie was a Gestapo member, known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for having personally sadistically tortured French prisoners including men, women, and children, in Lyon, France. He was responsible for arresting French Resistance member Jean Moulin, and for signing the deportation order for the children from the orphanage at Izieu. He was wanted for crimes committed in Lyon between 1942 and 1944.
After being tracked and discovered by the Klarsfelds (Serge and Beate Klarsfeld) living in Bolivia in 1971, Barbie was eventually extradited and returned to France in 1983. He faced trial 11 May 1987 in Lyon before the "Cour d'assises". As in the case of the Eichmann trial, the court recognized the great historical importance of the trial, and very exceptionally allowed it to be filmed.
The CDJC was in possession of a key document relating to the deportation of the children from Izieu, and provided a copy to the French courts, which enabled the prosecution of Barbie for Crimes against Humanity. Barbie had been tried in absentia in 1952 and 1954, and French law prohibits double jeopardy. But the charges did not include events at Izieu, and so it was this charge, backed by the evidence provided by the telegram supplied by the CDJC, which enabled his prosecution and conviction. Faure had actually read the Barbie telegram in his summation to the jury at Nuremberg but without naming him as he was not on trial there, but merely as a way of describing the routine, administrative nature of the killing that was carried out by the Nazis. It wasn't until the Barbie trial, that his name was linked to the telegram.
Barbie was sentenced to a life term, and died of natural causes in prison in 1991.
1970s and 80s.
Until the 1970s, almost all Holocaust studies emanating from France came from the CDJC and its historians, and no serious works appeared from French universities or other historical scholarship from within France. When serious studies finally did come out in the 1970s and 1980s outside the CDJC, they came from abroad, including the United States, Canada, and Germany, such as Robert Paxton's seminal "Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944 " which hit France like a hurricane and sparked the "Paxtonian revolution", as it was known in France, in Vichy historiography. Attacked vehemently at first by French historians and others, he ended up being awarded the Legion of Honor in 2009.
CDJC and Yad Vashem.
Before 1982, only one conference was held in France on the subject of the Holocaust, and it was one organized in 1947 by the CDJC. Schneersohn wanted to make Paris the primary world center for the memory of the genocide, but Zionists had other ideas and ultimately Schneersohn agreed in 1953 to a division of responsibilities with the Yad Vashem memorial center in Israel with the latter holding most of the responsibilities.
Memorials and monuments.
Part of the CDJC's mission is to establish and maintain monuments or memorials to promote the remembrance of the Holocaust.
Memorial of the Unknown Jewish Martyr.
A tradition of honoring the unknown soldier existed in France since the post-World War I era. As a way of combatting forgetfulness of the genocide, Schneersohn added a Memorial Tomb to the CDJC Center which was inaugurated in October 1956. The Memorial of the Unknown Jewish martyr ("Mémorial du martyr juif inconnu") was dedicated at the CDJC and became the central memorial and symbol of Jewish memory in France, serving as the venue for Holocaust commemorations.
In 2005, the CDJC and the Memorial of the Unknown Jewish Martyr merged, and was renamed the Mémorial de la Shoah; the new entity opened its doors on January 27, 2005.
Memorial at Drancy.
During the Occupation 90% of Jews and others deported to the concentration camps passed through the Drancy internment camp. From 1942 to 1944, about 63,000 Jews were interned here and sent east.
Land for a memorial at Drancy was donated by Drancy City Hall, and funded by the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah. The memorial was billed as an adjunct to the one in Paris, and a way to introduce the public to the former internment camp there—a place of history, and of remembrance.
The Shoah Memorial was inaugurated September 21, 2012 at Drancy by François Hollande, President of the Republic.
Holdings and selected works.
The Center has a large library and has published many documents, including some from the French Gestapo, the German Embassy in Paris, the German Supreme Military Command in France, and the French (CGQJ). The original holdings stemmed from a huge collection of documents and photos received from the Allies after Nuremberg.
A selection of some individual documents and publications of historical interest include:
Timeline.
Selected chronology related to the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation or in the context of current events:


Charles Marsham, 2nd Earl of Romney

Charles Marsham, 2nd Earl of Romney (22 November 1777 – 29 March 1845), styled Viscount Marsham between 1801 and 1811, was a British peer and politician.
Biography.
Romney was the son of Charles Marsham, 1st Earl of Romney, and Lady Frances, daughter of Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont.
Romney was Member of Parliament for Hythe from 1798 to 1802 and from 1806 to 1807 and for Downton from 1803 to 1806. In 1811 he succeeded his father in the earldom and entered the House of Lords.
According to the "Legacies of British Slave-Ownership" at the University College London, Romney was awarded a payment as a slave trader in the aftermath of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 with the Slave Compensation Act 1837. The British Government took out a £15 million loan (worth £ in ) with interest from Nathan Mayer Rothschild and Moses Montefiore which was subsequently paid off by the British taxpayers (ending in 2015). Romney was associated with three different claims, two of which were successful, he owned 432 slaves in Saint Kitts and Nevis and received a £7,268 payment at the time (worth £ in ).
Marriages and children.
Lord Romney was twice married. On 9 September 1806 he married Sophia Pitt, daughter of William Morton Pitt. They had one son and four daughters:
Lady Romney died in September 1812, shortly after the birth of her youngest child.
On 8 February 1832 Lord Romney married secondly the Hon Mary Elizabeth Townshend, daughter of John Townshend, 2nd Viscount Sydney and widow of George James Cholmondeley. They had one son:
Lord Romney died in March 1845, aged 67, and was succeeded by his only son from his first marriage, Charles. Lady Romney died in December 1847.


Roger Fenwick (Roundhead)

Roger Fenwick (1632–1658) was an English lieutenant-colonel in the New Model Army who was mortally wounded while leading his regiment at the Battle of the Dunes (1658).
Biography.
Fenwick was born on 18 March 1632. He was the son of Edward Fenwick of Staunton and his wife Sarah Nevill of Cheat, Yorkshire.
He was Lieutenant-Colonel of Lockhart's New Model Army regiment at the battle of the Dunes fought on 4/14 July 1658. He led Lockhart's regiment in an attack up the dune (sand-hill) which was defended by veteran Spanish soldiers, and the sides of which were so steep that attacking English had to scramble up on hands and knees. The English after two volleys and push of pike managed to drive the Spanish from the hill and then pursued them down the far side. They were then in turn attacked by cavalry who were unable to break the English formation and were themselves then driven off by French cavalry. All but two of the officers in the regiment that took part in the storming of the sand-hill were killed or wounded with Captain Henry Jones who had volunteered to accompany the regiment into battle taken prisoner. The performance of the Regiment won the English Army renown throughout Europe. A contemporary newspaper reported that:
Literature.
In his "A poem on the death of his late Highness the Lord Protector", Andrew Marvell mentions Fenwick and the battle of the Dunes suggesting the victory was gained with the help of the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell's prayers:
<poem>
And where the shady mountain Fenwick scaled.
The sea between, yet hence his prayer prevailed.
</poem>


George Bouchier

George Bouchier or Bourchier (died 1643) was a wealthy merchant of Bristol who supported the royalist cause during the English Civil War.
Bourchier entered into a plot with Robert Yeamans, who had been one of the sheriffs of Bristol, and several others, to deliver that city, on 7 March 1643, to Prince Rupert, for the service of King Charles I; but the scheme being discovered and frustrated, he was, with Yeamans, after eleven weeks' imprisonment, brought to trial before a council of war. They were both found guilty and hanged, drawn and quartered in Wine Street, Bristol, on 30 May 1643.
In his speech to the populace at the place of execution Bouchier exhorted all those who had set their hands to the plough (meaning the defence of the royal cause) not to be terrified by his and his fellow-prisoner's sufferings into withdrawing their exertions in the king's service. There is a small portrait of Bouchier in the preface to William Winstanley's "Loyall Martyrology", 1665.


International recognition of the Khojaly massacre

The Khojaly massacre is currently recognized and commemorated by parliamentary acts adopted in fifteen countries and in twenty three states of the United States of America.
Azerbaijan.
International recognition of the massacre is an important part of Azerbaijan's foreign policy. The government of Azerbaijan refers to the massacre as a genocide, and aims to raise international public awareness of the massacre, and its root causes in the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. A photo and children's paintings exhibition titled "Victims of aggression", which was organised by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation in Brussels on 26 February 2007, is a part of activities to promote international recognition of the massacre. In the same year the Heydar Aliyev Foundation held commemorative ceremonies in Istanbul and 25 provinces of Turkey as a part of "Khojaly Week" events program on February 19–26. On 14 February 2008 a conference titled "Khojaly massacre and realities of 1915 events" held in Berlin.
International organizations.
International organizations officially recognising the Khojaly Massacre include:
Parliaments and governments.
In recent years, parliaments of several countries have formally recognized the event as a massacre. The Hungarian party Jobbik stated, that they express solidarity with Azerbaijani people and issued statements during massacre's anniversary.


2023 Polish parliamentary election

The next parliamentary elections to the Sejm and Senate will be held in the autumn of 2023, although they can be held sooner if a snap election is called, which last occurred in 2007. The most recent election, in 2019, resulted in the re-election of the Law and Justice government, albeit without a majority in the Senate.
Electoral system.
The process of election for the Sejm is through party-list proportional representation via the D'hondt method in multi-seat constituencies, with a 5% threshold for single parties and 8% threshold for coalitions (with the requirements waived for national minorities).
The date of the election will be set by the President of Poland (in constitutional termin, election may be held during 30 days before 4th anniversary of beginning the current convocation of Parliament, on public holidays - so possible dates are 15, 22, 29 October and 1, 5, 11 November)
Political parties.
The table below lists party groups currently represented in the Sejm.