Internment camps in France

Numerous internment camps and concentration camps were located in France before, during and after World War II. Beside the camps created during World War I to intern German, Austrian and Ottoman civilian prisoners, the Third Republic (1871–1940) opened various internment camps for the Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Following the prohibition of the French Communist Party (PCF) by the government of Édouard Daladier, they were used to detain communist political prisoners. The Third Republic also interned German anti-Nazis (mostly members of the Communist Party of Germany, KPD).
Then, after the 10 July 1940 vote of full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain and the proclamation of the " État français" (Vichy regime), these camps were used to intern Jews, Gypsies, and various political prisoners (anti-fascists from all countries). Vichy opened up so many camps that it became a full economic sector, to the extent that historian Maurice Rajsfus writes: "The quick opening of new camps created jobs, and the Gendarmerie never ceased to hire during this period." In any case, most of these camps were closed definitively after the liberation of France at the end of World War II. Some were however used during the Algerian War (1954–1962). Several of these were then used to intern "harkis" (Algerians who had fought on the French side) after the 19 March 1962 Évian Accords. Finally, the Camp de Rivesaltes in the Pyrénées-Orientales and the camp of Bourg-Lastic in the Puy de Dôme were also used to intern Kurdish refugees from Iraq in the 1980s.
First World War and later.
The first internment camps were opened during the First World War (1914–1918) to detain civilian prisoners (mainly German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman). These prisoners were detained in Pontmain in the department of Mayenne, Fort-Barreaux in Isère, in the military camp of Graveson (Bouches-du-Rhône), in Frigolet near Tarascon (Bouches-du-Rhône), Noirlac (Abbey) (Cher), and Ajain(Creuse).
Other internment camps were used for Armenians in the 1920s-1930s (Mirabeau camp, Victor Hugo camp and Oddo Camp in Marseille); Gypsies after the 1912 Act on nomadism (for instance in the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, but also in iron mines in the Manche and other disaffected industrial centers in Mayenne, in the Manche, in Loire-Atlantique, in the Sarthe, in the Maine-et-Loire, etc.).
Spanish Civil War.
The most infamous internment camps before World War II were used to intern the Spanish Republican refugees and military personnel during the Spanish Civil War. In 2 weeks in January and February 1939 around 500,000 men, women and children crossed the border. These were interned mostly in camps in the Roussillon Province, such as the Camp de concentration d'Argelès-sur-Mer although internment camps for defeated Spanish Republicans were established in all of French territory, even in Brittany, in the north-west of France. These camps were located in:
To these camps must be added the camps for the German prisoners in 1939 (sometimes overlapping with those above), and those of the Colonial Empire, not well known in Europe.
Furthermore, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who had been named Consul in Paris for Immigration, organized the transportation to Chile of 2,200 Spanish refugees who had been detained in the camps on board the "Winnipeg", which departed on 2 August 1939, and arrived in Valparaíso at the beginning of September 1939.
After 1940 when the Nazi Germany divided France in occupied and free zone, the camps were also used to imprison Jews, Gypsies, and sometimes gays, and the original prisoners were used as forced labor to make the camps larger.
During World War II and the Vichy regime.
As early as 1939, the existing camps were indiscriminately filled with German anti-Nazis (Communists, German Jews, etc. Following the 1940 defeat, and the 10 July 1940 vote of full powers installing the Vichy regime, these camps were filled with Jews, first with foreign Jews, then indifferently with foreign and French Jews. The Vichy government would progressively hand them up to the Gestapo, and they would all transit by Drancy internment camp, the last stop before concentration camps in the Third Reich and in Eastern Europe and the extermination camps.
Beside Jews, Germans and Austrians were immediately rounded-up in camps, as well as Spanish refugees, who were later deported. 5,000 Spaniards thus died in Mauthausen concentration camp. The French colonial soldiers were interned by the Germans on French territory, instead of being deported.
The Third Republic and the Vichy regime would successively call these places "reception camps" (), "internment camps" (), "séjour" camps (), "guarded "séjour" camps" (), "prisoner camps" (), etc. Another category was created by the Vichy regime: the "transit camps" ("camps de transit"), referring to the fact the detainees were to be deported to Germany. Such "transit camps" included Drancy, Pithiviers, etc. In particular, Pithiviers was used in 1941 for the green ticket roundup, and Drancy in 1942 for the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, before the victims were deported.
During the 1943 Battle of Marseille and urban in the center of town, 20,000 people were expelled from their homes and interned during several months in military camps nearby Fréjus (La Lègue, Caïs and Puget).
The camp of Struthof, or Natzweiler-Struthof, in Alsace, one of the concentration camps created by Nazis on annexed French territory, included a gas chamber which was used to kill at least 86 detainees (mostly Jewish) with the aim of forming a collection of preserved skeletons for the use of Nazi professor August Hirt.
Camps under foreign authorities.
The Nazis also opened Struthof in Alsace (in the part annexed by the Reich).
The United States military police also possessed legal authority over the camp in Septèmes-les-Vallons, in the Bouches-du-Rhône.
Ilags.
"Ilag" (for "Internierunslager") were internment camps established by the German Army to hold Allied civilians, captured in areas that were occupied by the Germans. They included US citizens caught in Europe by surprise when the war was declared in December 1941 and citizens of the British Commonwealth caught in areas engulfed by the Blitzkrieg.
Colonial administration.
Although not architecturally conceived as an internment camp, the "Vel' d'Hiv" (Winter Velodrome) was used during the July 1942 Roundup. Most internment camps, however, were not conceived as such. The "Vel d'Hiv" was also used during the Algerian War ("see below").
In the colonial empire, Vichy created in Algeria and in Morocco labour camps ("camps de travail") for Jews in:
The liberation.
German prisoners of war.
Camps were also used after the liberation to intern German prisoners. In Rennes, after General Patton's United States Third Army liberated the city on 4 August 1944, about 50,000 German prisoners were kept in four camps in a city of 100,000 inhabitants at the time.
In the Camp de Rivesaltes, the German prisoners worked extensively in the reconstruction of Pyrénées-Orientales, between May 1945 and 1946, 412 German prisoners of war died in the camp.
After World War II.
Indochina war.
Internment camps were used to receive French from Indochina following the end of the Indochina War in 1954, as well as approximatively 9,000 Hungarian refugees following the Budapest insurrection of 1956 (in Annecy, Colmar—"Caserne Valter"—, in Gap, in Le Havre, in Metz—"Caserne Raffenel", in Montdauphin, in Montluçon—"Caserne de Richemond"—, in Nancy ("camp de Chatelleraud"), in Poitiers, in Rennes, in Rouen, in Strasbourg—"caserne Stirn"—and in Valdahon). Humanitarian concerns largely intertwined with repressive aims, and internment restrictions and assistance given to populations varied widely (Hungarian refugees were better treated than French from Indochina).
Algerian war.
Internment was also put to use during the Algerian War (1954–1962), generally under the name of "camps de regroupement" ("regrouping camps"). Within Algeria, the colonial administration used a form of camps as a counter-insurgency tactic, with up to 2 million civilians being internally deported in "villages de regroupement") to prevent their falling under the influence of the opposing FLN forces. were brought to French metropolitan territory.
In France, some camps used under Vichy were opened again, in Paris in particular, to hold suspected FLN and other Algerian independentists.
The Harkis.
Internment camps were also used to intern the Harkis (Algerians who fought on the French Army's side) after the 19 March 1962 Évian Accords which put an official end to the war. Finally, the "Camp de Rivesaltes" in the "Pyrénées-Orientales", and "Bourg-Lastic" in the "Puy de Dôme", used to intern Jews, were also used to intern Harkis in the 1960s, and Kurdish refugees from Iraq in the 1980s.


Ouranopithecus macedoniensis

Ouranopithecus macedoniensis is a prehistoric species of "Ouranopithecus" from the Late Miocene of Greece. See more detail at "Ouranopithecus".
This species is known from three localities in Northern Greece. The type location is Ravin de la Pluie. The other localities are Chalkidiki and Xirochori. It is known from a large collection of cranial fossils and few postcranial. The material has been dated to the late Miocene 9.6 – 8.7 million years old, so slightly earlier than "O. turkae". To some this suggests "O. turkae" is the direct descendant of "O. macedoniensis", although it is generally accepted that they are sister taxa.
Etymology.
The specific epithet "macedoniensis" is due to the holotype fossil's discovery location in Macedonia, Greece.
Habitat.
Examination of dental remains of "O. macedoniensis" and associated bovid species indicate a habitat of low tree cover and a rich herbaceous layer.
Morphology.
"O. macedoniensis" had a large, broad face with a prominent supraorbital torus. It also had square-shaped orbits. "O. macedoniensis" may have had a relatively large body size. The postcranial evidence is thin, but the dentition of "O. macedoniensis" suggests extreme sexual dimorphism, a far higher degree than that seen in any extant great ape. The ape was probably a quadruped. It is not possible to postulate on how "O. macedoniensis" used the trees but it seems likely that it did.
"O. macedoniensis"'s molar enamel cover was fairly thick and had low cusps. The male "O. macedoniensis" had large canine teeth with shearing lower premolars.
Diet.
Based on the heavily pitted surface of the second molar of "Ouranopithecus macedoniensis", it is assumed that its diet consisted of harder foods such as nuts or tubers.
Behaviour.
Behaviour is very difficult to infer in species with such a small diversity of fossil remains. The large body size may have made climbing difficult in some aspects so it may have been a terrestrial forager but this is speculation within the literature.


Antas da Valeira

The Antas da Valeira are two Chalcolithic dolmen, or burial chambers, about 100 metres apart, close to the village of Nossa Senhora da Graça do Divor in the Évora district of the Alentejo region of Portugal. Situated in a farm field about one kilometer from the Vale Maria do Meio Cromlech and ten kilometers from the notable megalithic complex of the Almendres Cromlech, these dolmen are among numerous megalithic sites identified in the Évora area. These two monuments have yet to be studied by archaeologists and are in a poor condition.
Anta da Valeira 1 is situated between two olive trees. It consists of a degraded polygonal chamber with traces of an entrance corridor and tumulus. Six large stones or pillars can be seen but all have fallen from their original positions. There is no trace of a capstone or an entrance corridor. Anta da Valeira 2 is also in a bad condition. Five large stones that would have served as pillars remain on the site, which has been much affected by agricultural work.


Volosovo culture

The Volosovo culture is an archaeological culture that followed the Neolithic Pit-marked pottery culture (Balakhna). The archaeological assemblage identified with this culture is related to finds from the middle Volga and Kama basin.
The Volosovo culture emerged sometime between the third and fourth millennium B.C. and lasted until the second millennium BC.
The people of the Volosovo culture has been described as forest foragers.
Discovery.
The Volosovo culture was discovered in the 1900s. Like other groups with forest origin such as the Garin-Bor and other northern cultures, the Volosovo lived in the forest steppes of the Volga-Ural region, particularly the area of the present-day Samara oblast. Specific sites include those in central Russia, the Middle and Lower Oka, Lower Kama, and Middle Volga. The culture also inhabited the Veletma River area adjacent to Murom, a city that is part of Vladimir Oblast. The Veletma River site was excavated from 1877 to 1928.
Since the discovery of the Volosovo culture, it has been investigated extensively but it remains controversial due to some unresolved aspects, particularly the chronology of its history, cultural attributes, origin, and ethnic affiliations. For example, it was believed that Volosovo was a separate cultural entity but other studies show that it is related to cultures associated with the Volga and Kama basin.
Characteristics.
The stone and ceramic artifacts that are used to describe the Volosovo culture were from the semisubterranean dwellings, which are often situated in river floors and within the area of lakes. These dwellings have lower and upper cultural layers. The artifacts found in the lower layer indicates a cultural affinity with the Russian Pit-marked Pottery culture called Balakhna. The upper level, which is considered the actual Volosovo phase, included ceramics that were distinct from the pit-marked pottery as well as those attributed to the Fatyanovo culture.
Based on excavated artifacts, the Volosovo culture first used stones and bone tools and were particularly adept at bone carving and sculpture. A small art emerged, one that has been considered rich and diverse as demonstrated by the varied flaked flint sculptures that represented the human form. This phenomenon was distinguished from what manifested in the Tokareva culture.
The Volosovo c. transitioned out of the Neolithic Age and abandoned its stone and bone technologies after learning early metal working. Later in its development, an early form of agriculture emerged with evidence of domestic animals. Discovered cranial and long bones of a primitive turbary dog, for example, showed improved animal breeding. However, the culture still favored foraging, hunting, and fishing. It is suggested that there emerged an animal cult among the Volosovo population after 1500 BCE as evidenced by the use of animal teeth and bones on ornaments such as necklaces. According to this theory, bears were worshiped for their power while dogs and pigs were revered for their economic value.
A late Volosovo culture emerged later on and this phase was associated with the sites located in the upper Volodary and Panfilovo.
Cultural contacts.
There is evidence that the Volosovo culture had extensive contacts with other cultures such as the Balanovo culture, a group considered to be the metal-working aspect of the eastern Fatyanovo. This is also demonstrated by the existence of Fatyanovo ceramics in Volosovo sites as well as the discovery of Volosovo ceramics in Fatyanovo graves. Evidence showed that the late Volosovo phase also had extensive contact with the Abashevo population, helping spread cattle-breeding economies as well as metallurgy among the northern forest cultures. There were also Volosovo populations that were absorbed into the Abashevo culture before 2500 BCE while others were moving north.
It is speculated that the Volosovo people maintained contacts with linguistic relatives who settled in Finland and Russian Karelia as well as Proto-Baltic speakers, who were later absorbed into the culture.


Pataria

The pataria was an eleventh-century movement focused on the city of Milan in northern Italy, which aimed to reform the clergy and ecclesiastic government within the city and its ecclesiastical province, in support of Papal sanctions against simony and clerical marriage. Those involved in the movement were called patarini (singular "patarino"), patarines or patarenes, a word chosen by their opponents, the etymology of which is unclear. The movement, associated with urban unrest in the city of Milan, is generally considered to have begun in 1057 and ended in 1075.
History.
Early in the year 1057, a preacher named Ariald arrived in the city of Milan and began to preach against the Milanese clerics' custom of marrying. It is possible that he took advantage of the absence at this time of the Archbishop of Milan, Guido, who was in Germany in August at the Council of Tribur.
The Milanese clergy grew concerned by Ariald's attempt to whip up the city against them, and sent envoys to Pope Stephen IX in Rome. On hearing this, Ariald travelled to Rome himself. Pope Stephen IX was sympathetic to Ariald's position, and sent two envoys to Milan, Hildebrand (later Pope Gregory VII) and Anselm of Baggio (later Pope Alexander II). Ariald also returned to Milan, and now began to criticise the Milanese clerics' practice of simony, resulting in urban unrest. Ariald's close associate Landulf Cotta was attacked, and later died from his injuries.
In 1059 Ariald travelled to Rome again to seek advice; Pope Stephen IX again sent envoys to Milan, this time Peter Damian and again Anselm of Baggio, but this did nothing to quell the unrest in the city. In 1063, Landulf Cotta's brother Erlembald went to Rome where he obtained a papal banner from the newly elected Pope Alexander II in support of the Pataria movement. In 1066, Pope Alexander II finally excommunicated Archbishop Guido. Guido used this excommunication however to whip up the citizens' anger against the Paterenes at a public meeting, and Ariald was first chased out of the city of Milan, and then assassinated, in June 1066.
However, when Ariald's body was found in May 1067, it quickly became the object of a cult, and popular opinion in Milan swung back behind the Pataria. Archbishop Guido was forced out of the city, leaving it under the control of Erlembald, and Alexander II formally proclaimed Ariald to be a saint in 1068.
Archbishop Guido resigned in 1068, in favour of his associate Gotofredo da Castiglione, who was also supported by Emperor Henry IV. The papacy and the Pataria however supported a different candidate as archbishop, Attone, and Pope Gregory VII excommunicated Gotofredo in 1074.
Rioting in Milan led to the murder of Erlembald in 1075, and after this point the Pataria movement lost much of its energy. The controversy over the appointment of the archbishop of Milan continued, however, and contributed to the political tensions between Emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII.
Medieval historiography.
There are several contemporary and nearly-contemporary sources for the Pataria, each of which offers different and sometimes contradictory perspectives. These include:
Modern historiography.
As Paolo Golinelli has emphasised, modern debates about the Pataria have often centred on whether the Pataria was primarily a religious movement, or whether it was instead the religious expression of social tensions within the city and region of Milan. The Italian historian Gioacchino Volpe, for instance, argued in 1907 that the Pataria was a class conflict between the elites of Milan and the lower-status population. This interpretation was also supported by Ernst Werner in 1956. For Hagen Keller, the Pataria is best understood as part of the history of the emergence of the Italian commune.
More recently, historians such as Herbert Cowdrey have emphasised the movement's essentially religious nature. Many historians have associated the movement with wider reforming trends in the Church. For William North, the Pataria was 'the longest... and most violent of the popular responses to the call for ecclesiastical reform in the eleventh century'. In his article on religious change in the eleventh century, R.I. Moore discussed the Pataria extensively as a major part of the 'appearance of the crowd on the stage of public events', which he sees as being brought into being by religious reform (itself however a response to social change).
In a recent article, Piroska Nagy has suggested a new path of interpretation by analysing the collective emotions of the movement.


Franca Viola

Franca Viola (born 9 January 1948) is an Italian woman who became famous in the 1960s in Italy for refusing a "rehabilitating marriage" () to her rapist after being kidnapped, held hostage for more than a week, and raped numerous times. She is considered to be the first Italian woman who had been raped to publicly refuse to marry her rapist. Instead, she and her family successfully pursued prosecution of the rapist. The trial had a wide resonance in Italy, as Viola's behavior clashed with traditional social conventions in Southern Italy, whereby a woman would lose her honour if she did not marry the man to whom she had lost her virginity. Franca Viola became a symbol of the cultural progress and emancipation of women in post-war Italy.
Kidnapping and rape.
Franca Viola was born in the rural town of Alcamo, Sicily, the oldest daughter of Bernardo Viola, a farmer, and his wife, Vita Ferra. In 1963, at the age of 15, she became engaged to Filippo Melodia, then aged 23, a nephew of mafia member Vincenzo Rimi. Melodia was subsequently arrested for theft, and Viola's father insisted she break off the engagement, which she did. Melodia then moved to Germany. By 1965 Viola was engaged to another man, and Melodia had returned to Alcamo and was trying unsuccessfully to re-enter Viola's life, stalking her and threatening both her father and boyfriend.
In the early hours of 26 December 1965, Melodia and a group of 12 armed companions broke into the Viola home and kidnapped Franca by dragging her into a car, in the process beating up Viola's mother and also taking Franca's eight-year-old brother Mariano, who refused to let go of his sister. Mariano was released a few hours later, but Franca was held for eight days in the home of Melodia's sister and her husband, a farmhouse on the outskirts of the town, where she was repeatedly raped. Melodia told her that now she would be forced to marry him so as not to become a "dishonoured" woman, but Viola replied that she had no intention of marriage and, moreover, that she would have him sued for kidnapping and rape. On 31 December, Melodia contacted Viola's father Bernardo for the "piacata" (Sicilian for 'appeasement', i.e., striking a deal between the families of the man and woman who "eloped"). Bernardo pretended to negotiate with the kidnappers, saying he agreed and consented to the marriage, while collaborating with the Carabinieri police in preparing a successful dragnet operation. Viola was freed and her kidnappers arrested on 2 January 1966, seven days before her eighteenth birthday. She said her father asked her if she really wanted to marry Melodia and, when she said she did not, he told her he would do everything possible to help her.
Refusal of a rehabilitating marriage.
Melodia offered Viola a rehabilitating marriage, but she refused, thus acting against what was the common practice in Sicilian society at the time. According to traditional social norms, this choice would make her a "donna svergognata", or 'woman without honour' (literally: a 'shameless woman'), as she had lost her virginity but remained unwed. These concepts were not exclusive to Sicily or rural areas; to some extent, they were also implicit in the Italian Penal Code of the time, namely Article 544, which equated rape to a crime against "public morality" rather than a personal offence, and formalized the idea of a "rehabilitating marriage" ("matrimonio riparatore"), stating that a rapist who married his victim would have his crime automatically expunged. Giving the rapist the opportunity to escape punishment by marrying his victim is also found in Jewish law.
Trial.
After Viola's refusal to marry her rapist, her family members were reportedly menaced, ostracised, and persecuted by most townspeople. Their vineyard and barn were torched. These events, and the eventual trial, resonated powerfully with the Italian media and public. The Parliament itself was directly involved, as it became obvious that part of the existing legal code was at odds with public opinion. Melodia's lawyers claimed Viola had consented to a so-called "fuitina" ('elopement'), fleeing voluntarily to get married secretly rather than being kidnapped, but the trial (which happened in 1966) found Melodia guilty. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison, later reduced to 10 years, with a two-year period of compulsory residence in Modena. Five of his friends were acquitted, and the others received relatively mild sentences. Melodia was released from prison in 1976, and was killed in April 1978 in a mafia-style execution before he could return to Sicily.
The article of law whereby a rapist could vacate his crime by marrying his victim was not abolished until 1981.
Sexual violence became a crime against the person (instead of against "public morality") only in 1996.
Marriage of choice.
Franca Viola married Giuseppe Ruisi in December 1968, when she was almost 21 years old. They had liked each other since childhood. Ruisi, an accountant, insisted he would have married the girl he had long loved despite threats and rumours, but had to request a firearms licence after obtaining the marriage licence, to protect himself and his bride-to-be. Both the Italian President Giuseppe Saragat and Pope Paul VI publicly expressed their appreciation of Franca Viola's courage and their solidarity with the couple. President Saragat sent the couple a wedding gift and the pope received them in a private audience soon after the wedding. Viola and Ruisi would go on to have three children, two sons and one daughter. The family still lives in Alcamo.
Legacy.
In 1970, director Damiano Damiani made the film "The Most Beautiful Wife", starring Ornella Muti, based on Viola's case. In 2012 the Sicilian writer Beatrice Monroy published Viola's story under the title "Niente ci fu" ('There was nothing'). In 2017, a fifteen-minute film based on Viola's story, titled "Viola, Franca", was included as a finalist in the Manhattan Short Film Festival.


Skejby

Skejby is a neighbourhood and former village in Aarhus, Denmark. The neighbourhood is part of the city district Aarhus N.
The Skejby village was originally situated in the countryside north of Aarhus, overlooking the broad flat Egå Valley, but urban development has engulfed it, creating a new suburban neighbourhood by the same name. The old village is still distinctly visible, surrounding the old white village church. Archaeological excavations have revealed, that Skejby has been settled since the early Iron Ages (c. 500 BC), but finds from the Stone Age has also been unearthed. Søften and Lisbjerg north of Skejby, are important archaeological sites.
The neighbourhood.
The Skejby neighbourhood comprise a large business park, an industrial park, a regional hospital, and several major institutions for education and business. Residential areas forms a large part of Skejby east of the expressway of Randersvej, while the old village is the only residential area west of the expressway, with the exception of a few new apartment blocks near nature site Vestereng.
Business Park Skejby stretches south from the village of Skejby towards Aarhus and continues into the neighbourhood of Christiansbjerg. In Skejby, it contains the Agro Food Park, with a focus on agriculture and foodstuff, and offices and business headquarters for companies such as Vestas, Rambøll, IBM, TDC Hosting and NRGi. The headquarters of INCUBA Science Park, the educational institution of Professionshøjskolen VIA University College is also located here.
The New University Hospital (DNU) was built in Skejby in the years 2012-2018 and is absorbing all other hospital departments across Aarhus, to be fully functional in 2020. The new hospital complex includes a psychiatric department and the only emergency and trauma center in Aarhus.
East of the expressway of Randersvej, in a low-rise residential area, is the mall of Skejby Centret and the headquarters of the television company department TV 2/Østjylland. North of here is a lightweight industrial park stretching eastward into the neighbourhood of Vejlby. The industrial park comprise large store departments of ILVA, IKEA and Silvan Byggemarked, and a number of mixed industries, offices and warehouse facilities. The woodland of Mollerup Skov in the east, connects with the nature site of Egå Engsø.
Aarhus light rail.
The first leg of Aarhus light rail was inaugurated in December 2017 and connects the inner city to Skejby, continuing north to Lisbjerg. There is a station at the new AU Hospital.


County of Manresa

The County of Manresa (, ) is the western extremity of the County of Osona, divided into the Moianès and Bages. Through the Reconquista, Manresa was extended as far as Anoia, Segarra, and Urgell.
The castle at Manresa dates from the last quarter of the ninth century. In that period, the region, depopulated since the rebellion of Aissó in the 826, was repopulated by settlers from the overpopulated regions of Pallars and Cerdanya. The repopulated regions came under the control of Wilfred the Hairy, who gave them their ecclesiastical and political organisation. The Valle de Lord was attached to the County of Urgell and the "pagus" of Berga (Berguedà) to the County of Cerdanya, but the region of the Ripollès, the Lluçanès, the Plana de Vic, and the Guilleries were structured around the city of "Ausa", a region which in ancient times had been ethnically distinct, inhabited by the Ausetani. The County of Ausona was thus born and to it Wilfred attached the Moianés and Bages, which already had their own traditional capital, Manresa, which had historically been the region of the Lacetani.
From the year 906, it is clear from documents that Manresa never possessed any judicial or administrative significance — it never had a viscount — rather it was a geographical unit solely. The centre of Manresa was the "pagus" of the same name. The most notable difference between Manresa and the rest of Ausona was due to privileges granted by King Odo in 889 and 890 whereby he gave Manresa the right, because of its position on the front line against Moorish aggression, to build towers of defence called "manresanas" or "manresanes". Manresa fell into disuse as a term in the twelfth century, when the county was divided into veguerias.


Loviisa

Loviisa (; ) is a municipality and town of inhabitants () on the southern coast of Finland. It is located from Helsinki and from Porvoo. About 43 per cent of the population is Swedish-speaking.
The municipality covers an area of of which is water. The population density is .
The neighboring municipalities of Liljendal, Pernå and Ruotsinpyhtää were consolidated with Loviisa on 1 January 2010.
Loviisa was founded in 1745, as a border fortress against Russia. Most of the fortifications have been preserved. Loviisa was originally called Degerby, but king Adolf Frederick of Sweden renamed the city after his spouse Lovisa Ulrika after visiting the town in 1752.
Loviisa is the site of two of Finland's nuclear reactors, two VVER units each of 488 MWe, at the Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant. The other operating reactors are at the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant.
Politics.
Loviisa is led by a town council with 35 members. The Swedish People's Party gained majority in the municipal election in 2017.
International relations.
Twin towns — sister cities.
Loviisa is twinned with:
History and sights.
The building of the sea fortress of Svartholm, located to the south from the city, was begun at the same time as the fortification of Loviisa. The purpose of the sea fortress was to protect the city from the sea, as well as to offer safe haven for the Swedish coastal navy. A joint Anglo-French navy unit destroyed the battlements of the island during the naval warfare in the Gulf of Finland. No longer fit for use the fortress was left to decay. As of the 1960s the fortress has been restored led by the Finnish Heritage Agency. The restoration was brought to a conclusion in time for the 250th jubilee of the fortress in 1998.
During the summers various programmes are arranged on the island for both locals and tourists. The guided tours, an exciting adventure for juniors and a restaurant lure both boaters and people travelling by the ferry boat, which does regular traffic between Loviisa centre and Svartholm.
Loviisa is also renowned for its Old Town. The Old Town was spared from the great fire of 1855. An annex of the Degerby estate, dating from the 17th century, is located in the Old Town. The building is one of the oldest surviving wooden houses in Finland. In Loviisa there is also a high society clubhouse, the only one of its kind in Finland spared from fires. Having been restored it now is a library/mediatheque. The first church in Loviisa was destroyed during the fire. The current Neo-Gothic church was inaugurated in 1865.
The German Brandenstein division landed in Valko in Loviisa on April 7, 1918. The division advanced as far as to Lahti, before returning to Loviisa in order to leave the country on December 16, 1918, as Germany had lost World War I.
The summers are lively in Loviisa. The most popular summer events are the Historical Houses of Loviisa (an event for traditional house building and renovating), the Sibelius Days, the Loviisa Day on August 25 and the King Arrives in Loviisa (a weekend in the spirit of the 18th century), Small Ships' Race (festival for traditional small sailing ships), the Peace Forum and the horse trotting contests
Transport.
Highway 6, which runs northwards towards Kouvola and Lappeenranta, branches off at the former Pernå municipality from Highway 7 (E18) between Porvoo and Loviisa.
Industry.
Loviisa boasts many companies useful for the local tourism. The port in Valko and the Loviisa Power Plant bring industry to Loviisa. There is also an industrial park in the Uusikaupunki district, housing many smaller companies, for instance mechanical shops and retail sellers of spare parts.
There is a harbour for cargoes such as timber, bulk and parcelled goods in the southern city district of Valko. From the harbour there is a traffic connection to Route 7, the major highway between Helsinki and St Petersburg. Loviisa centre is located immediately by Route 7, equally close to Helsinki and the Russian border. There is also a train connection from the harbour to Lahti, from where the carriages can reach other destinations in the country. The route into the harbour is 9.5 meters deep.
Notable people.
Mikael Agricola, the father of the Finnish literary language, was born in the village of Torsby in Pernå, which now belongs to Loviisa.


List of rulers of Lithuania

The following is a list of rulers over Lithuania (grand dukes, a king and presidents), the heads of authority over historical Lithuanian territory. The timeline includes Lithuania as a sovereign entity or legitimately part of a greater sovereign entity, as well as Lithuania under control or occupation of an outside authority (i.e. Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic). The incumbents and office-holders are listed by names most commonly used in English language. Where appropriate, the alternatives in Lithuanian, Ruthenian (later Belarusian) and Polish are included.
The state of Lithuania was formed in the 1230s: when threatened by the Livonian Order in the north and the Teutonic Knights in the west, the Baltic tribes united under the leadership of Mindaugas. He became the only crowned king of Lithuania. His state became known as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After Grand Duke Jogaila became also king of Poland in 1386, the two states became more closely connected, and from 1440 both were ruled by a common ruler. In 1569 the Union of Lublin was signed and a new entity—the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—emerged. The commonwealth was partitioned in 1795 and Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire until 16 February 1918. The Council of Lithuania was able to establish the country's sovereignty only in 1919, after the end of World War I. The first republic of Lithuania existed until 1940, when it was occupied by the Soviet Union. During the Soviet-German War, Lithuania was occupied by Nazi Germany. In 1944, as Germany was losing the war, Russia re-occupied Lithuania and established the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence. The restored Republic of Lithuania is a democratic republic, a member of both the European Union and NATO.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1236–1569).
Title: Grand Duke (; ; ) except for Mindaugas, who became king of Lithuania ().
House of Mindaugas (1236–1268).
Dates are approximate because of scant written sources.
House of Gediminas (1285–1440).
Some dates are approximate.
House of Jagiellon (1440–1569).
The act of personal union with Poland was signed as early as 1385; however, the continuous line of common rulers of the two countries started only with Casimir IV (even then, Polish and Lithuanians twice selected different rulers following the death of an earlier common monarch, but the Lithuanian one always eventually assumed the Polish throne). The monarchs retained separate titles for both parts of the state, and their numbering was kept separate. The Jagiellon dynasty was a direct continuation of the Gediminids.
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795).
The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was established by the Union of Lublin in 1569. The elected King of Poland was automatically a Grand Duke of Lithuania (until then the Lithuanian dukedom was hereditary). The first common ruler of both countries was Sigismund II Augustus. Following the partitions in 1772, 1793, and 1795, the commonwealth ceased to exist and Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire for 123 years. There are some gaps in the timeline as it took a while to elect a new king. The first Grand Duke elected after the Gediminid line became extinct and after the Valois fled back to France was Stephen Báthory, who had made an effort to be recognized as Grand Duke of Lithuania by establishing Vilnius University.
Title: King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania
 ("karol Polščy, vialiki kniaź litoŭski")
Kingdom of Lithuania (1918).
The Council of Lithuania declared independence on 16 February 1918 and invited Wilhelm of Urach to become king of Lithuania. The name of the state was the Kingdom of Lithuania. On 9 July 1918, Duke Wilhelm accepted the offer and took the name Mindaugas II. However, on 2 November the council revoked this decision as it was likely Germany would lose the war.
State of Lithuania (1918–1920).
State of Lithuania was ruled by the Presidium of the State Council of Lithuania, its chairman was de facto Head of State. Institution of Presidium of the State Council of Lithuania was changed into President's on 4 April 1919. Chairman of the Presidium Antanas Smetona was elected as First President of the State of Lithuania by the State Council of Lithuania.
Republic of Lithuania (1920–1940).
The institution of President () was created on 4 April 1919.
Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (1940–1941 and 1944–1990).
The Soviet Union occupied Lithuania and established the Lithuanian SSR in July 1940. As Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Lithuania was occupied by the Germans. For a few days before the German occupation, Lithuania was ruled by pro-German rebel government of Juozas Ambrazevičius. Under the Germans, the General District of Lithuania was governed by the administration of general Petras Kubiliūnas. As Nazi Germany retreated, the Soviet Union reoccupied the country and reestablished the Lithuanian SSR in 1944.
Title: First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania (; ).
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet acted as a collective head of state from 25 August 1940 to 11 March 1990.
Republic of Lithuania (1990–present).
The leader of the Supreme Council was the official head of state from the declaration of independence on 11 March 1990 until the new Constitution came into effect in 1992 establishing the office of President and the institution of Seimas. The state and its leadership were not recognized internationally until September 1991 [NB: Iceland was the first country to recognise the regained independence of Lithuania in February 1991.
Title from 1990 to 1992: Chairman of the Supreme Council (Parliament) ().
Title from 1992 onwards: President ().


Barreira Megalithic Complex

The Barreira Megalithic Complex () is located in the Sintra municipality in the Lisbon District of Portugal. Situated on a small wooded hill overlooking the village of Odrinhas, site of Roman ruins and an archaeological museum, it consists of about twenty menhirs and other monoliths or megaliths.
The site, which is assumed to be a dolmen or cromlech, contains mainly cylindrical stones of varying heights, with the largest being approximately four metres tall. The size of the stones decreased as they became more distant from the central menhir and the megaliths were arranged irregularly depending on the terrain. No carved or painted symbols have been detected, except for a few pairs of small circular cavities, possibly representing eyes. A small number of items have been found to the west of the complex, including flints from the Lower Paleolithic, ceramic fragments and other items from the Neolithic period, and ceramic fragments from the Iron Age, suggesting that the site has been reused over time.
The complex was not identified as a megalithic site until 1961 when it was studied by Gil Estevam Miguéis Andrade and Eduardo Prescott Vicente, who continued their studies in subsequent years. In 1975 several monoliths were removed to be used in construction work at the Port of Ericeira. In 1985, three more menhirs were also removed by the landowners, including the central monolith. It was classified as a Site of Public Interest in 1993.


Karl Plutus

Karl Plutus (11 September 190412 November 2010) was an Estonian jurist and the oldest verified living Estonian man in 2008–2010.
Plutus was born in Kolu Manor, Virumaa. He spent his childhood in Eastern Estonia and Saint Petersburg, where his family had moved to in 1913, and witnessed the October Revolution. In 1921, his family returned to Estonia. During The Second World War he was in Soviet rear and was not sent to the front line. He studied law instead and became a jurist. He worked in this occupation until his retirement in 1992.
In his later years Plutus lived with his sister who was younger than him by eight years. His hobbies were fishing and dancing. He died on 12 November 2010 at age 106.


Viktor von Maydell

Viktor Karl Jakob von Maydell (28 August 1838 – 27 January 1898), Baron von Maydell, was a Baltic German railway engineer and politician who was the mayor of Reval (now Tallinn) from December 1885 to July 1894.
von Maydell was born in what is now Haapsalu, Estonia, but studied first in Heidelberg and then studied engineering at ETH Zurich, where he graduated as an engineer. In Zurich, he was one of the founders of the Corps Baltica-Borussia Danzig zu Bielefeld. After his return to Russia, he joined the railway administration and was the section engineer of the Odessa-Tiraspol section of the Odessa Railway from 1863 to 1872 and the departmental engineer at the Elisavetgrad-Kremenchuk and Kremenchuk-Kharkiv railways. From 1872 to 1873, he was an independent manager of the railway construction on the railway line from Snamenka to Nikolayev. He then settled back in his native Estonia, where he bought the Gut Wiems in Reval. From 1877 onward, he was a homeowner and a city councilor in Reval, and was a part of the city council from 1880 onward. In 1883 he became an assistant to the mayor and was, from 1885 to 1893, the mayor of the city. For a few months before his mayoralty, he was the deputy mayor after the forced resignation of Wilhelm Greiffenhagen. He oversaw the disbandment of the Magistracy of Reval in 1887. For health reasons, he left Reval and settled with his family in Stuttgart, where he died in January 1898. He was succeeded by Eduard Ernst Bätke.


2004 in Switzerland

Events from 2004 in Switzerland.


History of the Jews in 20th-century Poland

Following the establishment of the Second Polish Republic after World War I and during the interwar period, the number of Jews in the country grew rapidly. According to the Polish national census of 1921, there were 2,845,364 Jews living in the Second Polish Republic; by late 1938 that number had grown by over 16 percent, to approximately 3,310,000, mainly through migration from Ukraine and the Soviet Russia. The average rate of permanent settlement was about 30,000 per annum. At the same time, every year around 100,000 Jews were passing through Poland in unofficial emigration overseas. Between the end of the Polish–Soviet War of 1919 and late 1938, the Jewish population of the Republic grew by nearly half a million, or over 464,000 persons. Jews preferred to live in the relatively-tolerant Poland rather than in the Soviet Union and continued to integrate, marry into Polish Gentile families, to bring them into their community through marriage, feel Polish and form an important part of Polish society. Between 1933 and 1938, around 25,000 German Jews fled Nazi Germany to sanctuary in Poland.
The Jewish community in Poland suffered the most in the ensuing Holocaust. From amongst the 6 million Polish citizens who perished during the occupation of Poland in World War II, roughly half (or 3 million) were Polish Jews murdered at the Nazi extermination camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzec, Sobibór, and Chełmno. Others died of starvation and maltreatment in the ghettos. Occupied Poland became the largest site of the Nazi extermination program since most of the targeted victims lived there. Only about 50,000–120,000 Polish Jews survived the war on native soil, including up to 230,000 in the Soviet Union. Soon after the war ended, Jewish survivors began to leave Poland in great numbers thanks to the repatriation agreement with the Soviet Union. Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish aliyah without visas or exit permits. The exodus took place in stages. Many left simply because they did not want to live in a communist country. Others did not wish to rebuild their lives where their families were murdered and instead joined their relatives abroad.
Polish independence movement.
As soon as the Polish independence movement took hold in 1912 to 1914 with the aim to put forth an armed struggle for sovereign Poland after a century of partitions, the main freedom organization was formed, "Komisja Skonfederowanych Stronnictw Niepodległościowych", and served as an interim government. Polish Jews played a significant role in it such Herman Feldstein, Henryk Eile (future Lieutenant of the Polish Army), Samuel Herschthal, Zygmunt Leser, Henryk Orlean, Wiktor Chajes, who worked in its various sub-commissions. Also, Jews made substantial financial contributions to the formation of the Polish military fund, "Polski Skarb Wojskowy".
Interwar period 1918–1939.
During World War I, while many other non-Polish minorities were ambivalent or neutral to the idea of a sovereign Polish state, Jews actively participated in the fight for Poland's independence between 1914 and 1918 – a significant number joining Józef Piłsudski at the famous Oleandry area in Kraków, among them Bronisław Mansperl-Chaber killed in 1915 as the First Lieutenant of Brigade I of the Polish Legions. In Lwów, chaired by Maria Loewenstein, two existing Jewish Women's Associations united as "Ognisko Kobiet", for the purpose of financial support and caring for the families of soldiers and their children. Representatives of the local Jewish merchant associations adopted a resolution declaring their participation in the struggle for Poland's independence and issued an appeal to the Jewish masses. Similar proclamations came from the Jewish youth organization "Zjednoczenie".
During the military conflicts that engulfed Eastern Europe at the time—the Russian Civil War, Polish-Ukrainian War, and Polish-Soviet War—many pogroms were launched against the Jews by all sides. A substantial number of Jews were perceived to have supported the Bolsheviks in Russia. They came under frequent attack by all those opposed to the Bolshevik regime. Just after the end of World War I, the West became alarmed by reports about alleged massive pogroms in Poland against Jews. American pressure for government action reached the point where president Woodrow Wilson sent an official commission to investigate the issue. The commission, led by Henry Morgenthau, Sr., announced that the reports of pogroms were exaggerated, and in some cases may have even been fabricated. It identified eighty-nine major incidents in years 1918–1919, and estimated the number of victims at 200–300 Jews. Four of these were attributed to the actions of deserters and undisciplined individual soldiers; none were blamed on official government policy. Among the incidents, in Pinsk a Polish officer accused a group of Jewish communists of plotting against the Poles, shooting 35 of them. In Lviv (then Lemberg) in 1918, as the Polish army captured the city, hundreds of people were killed in the chaos, among them about 72 Jews. In Warsaw soldiers of Blue Army assaulted Jews on the streets, but they were punished by military authorities. When the Polish troops entered Vilnius in 1919, the first Lithuanian pogrom in modern city on Lithuanian Jews took place, as noted by the Timothy D. Snyder, citing Michał Pius Römer. Many other events in Poland were later found to have been exaggerated, especially by contemporary newspapers like New York Times, although serious abuses against the Jews, including pogroms, continued elsewhere, especially in the Ukraine. The result of the concern over the fate of the Jews of western Poland was a series of explicit clauses in the Paris Peace Conference protecting the rights of Jews in Poland.
Jewish and Polish culture.
The newly independent Second Polish Republic had a large Jewish minority—by the time World War II began, Poland had the largest concentration of Jews in Europe. According to the 1931 Polish Census there were 3,130,581 Polish Jews measured by the declaration of their religion. Taking into account both population increase and the emigration from Poland between 1931 and 1939, there were around 3,474,000 Jews in Poland as of September 1, 1939 (approximately 10% of the total population). Jews were primarily centered in large agglomerations: 77% lived in the cities and 23% in the villages. In 1939 there were 375,000 Jews in Warsaw, or one third of the city's population. Only New York City had more Jewish residents than Warsaw. Jewish religious groups, political parties, newspapers and theatre thrived. Most Warsaw Jews spoke Yiddish, but Polish was increasingly used by the young who have not had a problem in identifying themselves fully as Jews, Varsovians and Poles. Polish Jews were entering the mainstream of Polish society, though many thought of themselves as a separate nationality within Poland. During the school year of 1937–1938 there were 226 elementary schools and twelve high schools as well as fourteen vocational schools with either Yiddish or Hebrew as the instructional language. The YIVO (Jidiszer Wissenszaftlecher) Scientific Institute was based in Wilno before transferring to New York during the war. Jewish political parties, both the Socialist General Jewish Labour Bund (The Bund) as well as parties of the Zionist right and left wing and religious conservative movements, were represented in the "Sejm" (the Polish Parliament) as well as in the regional councils.
The Jewish cultural scene was particularly vibrant and blossomed in pre-World War II Poland. There were many Jewish publications and over 116 periodicals. Yiddish authors, most notably Isaac Bashevis Singer, went on to achieve international acclaim as classic Jewish writers, and in Singer's case, win the 1978 Nobel Prize. Other Jewish authors of the period, like Janusz Korczak, Bruno Schulz, Julian Tuwim, Jan Brzechwa (a favorite poet of Polish children) and Bolesław Leśmian were less well known internationally, but made important contributions to Polish literature. Singer Jan Kiepura was one of the most popular artist of that era and pre-war songs of Jewish composers like Henryk Wars or Jerzy Petersburski are still widely known in Poland today. In 1918 Julian Tuwim co-founded the cabaret, "Picador," and worked as a writer or artistic director with many other cabarets such as "Czarny kot" (Black Cat 1917–1919), "Qui pro Quo" (1919–1932), "Banda" The Gang and "Stara Banda" The Old Gang (1932–1935) and finally "Cyrulik Warszawski" (Barber of Warsaw 1935–1939). Marian Hemar also wrote for some of the mentioned cabarets.
Scientist Leopold Infeld, mathematician Stanislaw Ulam or professor Adam Ulam contributed to the world of science. Others are Moses Schorr, Georges Charpak, Samuel Eilenberg, Emanuel Ringelblum just to name a few from the long list of Polish Jews who are known internationally. The term genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), a Polish-Jewish legal scholar. Leonid Hurwicz was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics. The Main Judaic Library and the Institute of Judaic Studies were located in Warsaw, religious centers had at their disposal Talmudic Schools (Jeszybots), as well as synagogues, many of which were architecturally outstanding. Yiddish theatre also flourished; Poland had fifteen Yiddish theatres and theatrical groups. Warsaw was home to the most important Yiddish theater troupe of the time, the Vilna Troupe, which staged the first performance of "The Dybbuk" in 1920 at the Elyseum Theatre. Some future Israeli leaders studied at University of Warsaw—Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, among others. The influence of Polish and Jewish cultures was reciprocal. Jewish chess players such as Akiba Rubinstein were ranked among the best, and they contributed to the Polish world championship in 1930. Many Yiddish-language films were produced in Poland, including "Yidl Mitn Fidl" (1936), "The Dybbuk" (1937), "Der Purimszpiler" (1937), and "Mamele" (1938). In 1937, the Polish-Jewish community was served by 150 Yiddish-language newspapers and journals (with a combined circulation of 600,000) and a number of Polish-language newspapers (circulation 180,000).
Economy.
An ever-increasing proportion of Jews in Interwar Poland lived separate lives from the Polish majority. In 1921, 74.2% of Polish Jews listed Yiddish or Hebrew as their native language, but that had risen to 87% by 1931, resulting in growing tensions between Jews and Poles. Jews were often not identified as Polish nationals, a problem that was caused not only by the reversal of assimilation, which was shown in national censuses between 1921 and 1931, but also by the influx of Soviet Jews escaping persecution especially in Ukraine, where up to 2,000 pogroms took place during the Russian Civil War in which an estimated 30,000 Jews were massacred directly and a total of 150,000 died. A large number of Jews immigrated to Poland from the east, as they were entitled by the Peace of Riga to choose the country that they preferred. Several hundred thousand refugees joined the already numerous Jewish minority of the Polish Second Republic. More than 75% of them lived in urban areas. There was, therefore, a disproportionate concentration of Jews in those communities who were disproportionately women, children and elderly. Poland was an underdeveloped country that strugglined with the remnants of devastating economic exploitation by the partitioners and their ensuing trade embargos (see also German–Polish customs war). For many years, there was widespread poverty among all citizens regardless of ethnicity but especially among the unemployed Jews for whom the help from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was slow in coming. Plans for their retraining, considered by the committee in 1929, were out of touch with the depth of the Polish depression. The average standard of living of Polish Jews was among the worst among major Jewish communities in the world. The mostly-nonexistent new job opportunities before Poland's industrialization of the mid-1930s were blamed on anti-Semitism, but Jewish per capita income among the working Jews was more than 40% higher in 1929 than that of Polish non-Jews. The impoverished families relied on local Jewish charity, which had reached universally unprecedented proportions in 1929, providing services such as religion, education, health and other services to the amount of 200 million zloty a year. The effects of the Great Depression had been very severe.
Rising Anti-Semitism.
The political situation of Jews in Poland was most amiable under the rule of Józef Piłsudski (1926–1935). Piłsudski replaced "Endecja's" 'ethnic assimilation' with the 'state assimilation' policy: citizens were judged by their loyalty to the state, not by their nationality. The years 1926–1935 were favourably viewed by many Polish Jews, whose situation improved especially under the cabinet of Pilsudski's appointee Kazimierz Bartel. However, a combination of various reasons, including the Great Depression, meant that the situation of Polish Jews was never too satisfactory, and it deteriorated again after Piłsudski's death in May 1935. Many Jews regarded his death as tragedy, since no pogroms were perpetrated during his term in office. Both Polish Jews and Polish Gentiles had nationalist movements of their own. Revisionist Zionism had a following among Polish Jews, who also experienced the revival of the Hebrew language and a growth of the idea of Aliyah. Meanwhile, the Polish nationalist Endecja movement and the National Radical Camp were also openly anti-Semitic despite being anti-Nazi. With their party influence growing, antisemitism gathered a new momentum and was most felt in smaller towns and in public arenas. In Grodno, antisemitic incidents led to the creation of a student self-defense group called Brit HaHayal (Soldier's Alliance) consisting of stronger Jewish youth. Polish high-school students, influenced by the Endeks, bullied their Jewish colleagues to stand up. The teachers were usually afraid to intervene. Jewish children often fell victim to antisemitic incidents on their way to or from school. Further academic harassment, anti-Jewish riots, and semi-official or unofficial quotas ("Numerus clausus") introduced in 1937 in some universities cut in half the number of Jews in Polish universities into the late 1930s. From 1935 to 1937, 79 Jews were killed and 500 injured in anti-Semitic incidents.
The Jewish community in Poland was large and vibrant internally, yet substantially poorer and less integrated than the Jews in most of Western Europe. Towards the end of the 1930s, despite the impending threat to the Polish Republic from Nazi Germany, there was little effort seen in the way of reconciliation between Polish and Jewish societies. Many Polish Christians held that there were far too many Jews in the country. Polish government began actively helping the Zionist movement with its goal of creating the state of Israel, and armed and trained Polish Jews in paramilitary groups such as Haganah, Irgun and Lehi. Antisemitism in Poland was escalating. Discrimination and violence against Jews sweeping across much of Central and Eastern Europe had rendered the Polish Jewish population increasingly destitute. In 1937 the Catholic trade unions of Polish doctors and lawyers restricted their new members to Christian Poles while many government jobs continued to be unavailable to Jews during this entire period. In July 1939 Gazeta Polska, the unofficial organ of the Polish government wrote: "The fact that our relations with the Reich are worsening does not in the least deactivate our program in the Jewish question—there is not and cannot be any common ground between our internal Jewish problem and Poland's relations with the Hitlerite Reich." Escalating hostility towards Polish Jews and the official government support for Jewish Palestine led by Ze'ev Jabotinsky continued right up until the Nazi invasion of Poland.
World War II and the destruction of Polish Jewry (1939–1945).
Until the outbreak of World War II, the relations between the Jews and the local Gentile population which contained Byelorussians, Ukrainians but mostly Poles – had been generally good with the exception of Eastern Poland, especially the Wołyń area, where Jewish shopkeepers were ruthlessly chased out by the Ukrainian nationalists from some 3,000 villages. On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany entered into a Non-Aggression Pact, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, with a secret protocol providing for the partition of Poland. On September 1, 1939, Germany attacked Poland and two weeks later, the Soviets invaded on September 17, 1939.
Unlike the Vichy French or the Norwegian Quisling regime, Poles did not form a pro-Nazi collaborationist government. Further, Poles did not form collaborationist Nazi units such as the 29th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS RONA (1st Russian).
The Polish September campaign.
The number of Jews in Poland on September 1, 1939, amounted to about 3,474,000 people. In anticipation of the German attack, during the Summer of 1939, Jews and ethnic Poles cooperated preparing anti-tank fortifications. Contrary to many misconceptions, Jews in Poland were not simply victims of the ensuing Holocaust. Jewish Polish soldiers were among the first, to launch armed resistance against the Nazi German forces during the 1939 Invasion of Poland.
Among one million Polish soldiers fighting the Germans in September 1939, 13 percent (130,000) were Polish Jews, who fought in all branches of Polish Armed Forces. It is estimated that during the entirety of World War II as many as 32,216 Jewish soldiers and officers died and 61,000 were taken prisoner by the Germans; the majority did not survive. The soldiers and non-commissioned officers who were released ultimately found themselves in the ghettos and labor camps and suffered the same fate as other Jewish civilians. Germans killed about 20 000 civilians in September 1939, a number of them Jewish. For example, in Częstochowa 227 civilians were murdered on September the 4th, 22 of them Jewish.
Already in 1939 several hundreds synagogues were blown up or burned down by the Germans who sometimes forced the Jews to do it themselves. In many cases the Germans turned the remaining synagogues into storage facilities, workshops, places of entertainment, or ad-hoc prisons. Rabbis and other religious Jews were ordered to dance and sing in public with their beards cut or torn. Within weeks, Germans ordered all Polish Jews to register and the word "Jude" was stamped on their identity cards. Jews were placed outside the law and their lives were regulated by orders or edicts. Series of restrictions and prohibitions were introduced and brutally enforced. Jews were forbidden to walk on the sidewalks, use public transport, enter places of leisure, sports arenas, theaters, museums and libraries. On the street Jews had to lift their hat to passing Germans and contact between Jews and non-Jews was banned.
The German-Soviet occupation of Poland.
In newly partitioned Poland, according to 1931 census, 61.2% of Polish Jews found themselves under German occupation while 38.8% were in the Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. Based on population migration from West to East during and after the Invasion of Poland the percentage of Jews in the Soviet-occupied areas was probably higher than that of the 1931 census.
The Soviet annexation was accompanied by the widespread arrests of Polish government officials, police and military personnel, teachers, priests, judges, border guards, etc., followed by executions and massive deportation to Soviet interior and forced labour camps were many perished as a result of harsh conditions. The largest group of all those arrested or deported were ethnic Poles but Jews accounted for significant percentage of all the prisoners. Jewish refugees from Western Poland who registered for repatriation back to the German zone, wealthy Jewish capitalists, prewar political and social activists were labelled "class enemies" and deported for that reason. Jews caught for illegal border crossings or engaged in illicit trade and other "illegal" activities were also arrested and deported. Several thousand, mostly captured Polish soldiers were executed on the spot, some of them were Jewish. Private property, land, banks, factories, businesses, shops, and large workshops were nationalized. Political activity ceased and political prisoners filled the jails, many of whom were later executed. Zionism was designated as counter-revolutionary and forbidden. All Jewish and Polish newspapers were shut down within a day of the entry of the Soviet forces and anti-religious propaganda was conducted mainly through the new Soviet press which attacked religion in general and the Jewish faith in particular. Although the synagogues and churches were not shut down, they were heavily taxed. Sovietization of the economy affected the entire population. However, the Jewish communities were more vulnerable because of their distinctive social and economic structure. Red Army also brought with them new and different economic norms expressed in low wages, shortages in materials, rising prices, and a declining living standard. The Soviets also implemented a new employment policy that enabled many Jews to find jobs as civil servants in place of former Polish senior officials and leading personalities who were arrested and exiled to remote regions of Russia together with their families. Some Jewish militia participated in deportations of Poles by the Soviet NKVD.
Patriotism.
There were many Jews who considered themselves both good Poles and good Jews and demonstrated loyalty toward Poland, assisting Poles during brutal Soviet occupation. Among Polish officers killed by the NKVD in 1940 in the Katyń massacre there were 500–600 Jews, among them Baruch Steinberg, Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army during German invasion of Poland. From 1939 to 1941 between 100,000 and 300,000 Polish Jews were deported from Soviet-occupied Polish territory into the Soviet Union. Some of them, especially Polish Communists (e.g. Jakub Berman), moved voluntarily; however, most of them were forcibly deported, some of them to "Gulag". Small numbers of Polish Jews (about 6,000) were able to leave the Soviet Union in 1942 with the Władysław Anders army, among them the future Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin. During the Polish army's II Corps' stay in the British Mandate of Palestine, 67% (2,972) of the Jewish soldiers deserted, many to join the "Irgun". General Anders decided not to prosecute the deserters. The cemetery of Polish soldiers who died during the Battle of Monte Cassino and the one in Casamassima contains also headstones bearing a Star of David.
The wartime continuation of the Second Polish Republic, the Polish Government in Exile, included Polish Jewish representatives: Szmul Zygielbojm and Ignacy Schwarzbart. The Polish Underground State and its military arm, the Armia Krajowa, as one of the largest anti-Nazi resistance movements in Europe, included Jewish units: the Jewish Military Union and the Jewish Combat Organization.
Collaboration.
While most Poles of all ethnicities had anti-Soviet and anti-communist sentiments, a portion of the Jewish population, along with ethnic Belarusians, Ukrainians and communist Poles had initially welcomed Soviet forces. The general feeling amongst Polish Jews was a sense of relief in having escaped the dangers of falling under Nazi rule, as well as from the overt policies of discrimination against Jews which existed in the Polish state, including discrimination in education, employment and commerce, as well as antisemitic violence that in some cases reached pogrom levels. The Polish poet and former communist Aleksander Wat has stated that Jews were more inclined to cooperate with the Soviets Norman Davies noted that among the informers and collaborators, the percentage of Jews was striking, and they prepared lists of Polish "class enemies", while other historians have indicated that the level of Jewish collaboration could well have been less than that of ethnic Poles. Holocaust scholar Martin Dean has written that "few local Jews obtained positions of power under Soviet rule."
The issue of Jewish collaboration with the Soviet occupation remains controversial. A large group of scholars note that while not pro-communist, many Jews saw the Soviets as the lesser threat compared to the Nazis. They stress that stories of Jews welcoming the Soviets on the streets are largely impressionistic and not reliable indicators of the level of Jewish support for the Soviets. Additionally, it has been noted that ethnic Poles were as prominent as Jews were in filling civil and police positions in the occupation administration, and that Jews, both civilians and in the Polish military, suffered equally at the hands of the Soviet occupiers. Whatever initial enthusiasm for the Soviet occupation Jews might have felt was soon dissipated upon feeling the impact of the suppression of Jewish societal modes of life by the occupiers. The tensions between ethnic Poles and Jews as a result of this period has, according to some historians, taken a toll on relations between Poles and Jews throughout the war, creating until this day, an impasse to Polish-Jewish rapprochement.
Following Operation Barbarossa, numerous atrocities were carried out in the territories formerly occupied by the Soviets, some of them with help from Poles themselves as in the case of the massacre in Jedwabne in which some 300 Jewish citizens of Jedwabne were burned alive in a barn (Institute of National Remembrance: "Final Findings"). The Polish participation in massacres of the Polish Jewish community remains a controversial subject, in part due to the Jewish leaders refusing to allow the remains of the Jewish victims to be exhumed and their cause of death to be properly established. The Polish Institute for National Remembrance identified other pogroms similar to Jedwabne. The reasons for these massacres are still debated, but they included resentment over the cooperation with the Soviet invaders and prior collaboration in the Polish-Soviet War and the 1939 invasion of the Kresy regions, not to mention coercion by the Nazis to participate in German massacres.
Only a small percentage of the Jewish community had been members of the Communist Party of Poland during the interwar era, though they had occupied an influential and conspicuous place in the party's leadership and in the rank and file in major centres, such as Warsaw, Lodz and Lwow. A larger number of younger Jews, often through the pro-Marxist Bund (General Jewish Workers' Union) or some Zionist groups, were sympathetic to Communism and Soviet Russia, both of which had been enemies of the Polish Second Republic. As a result of these factors they found it easy after 1939 to participate in the Soviet occupation administration in Eastern Poland, and briefly occupied prominent positions in industry, schools, local government, police and other Soviet-installed institutions. The antisemitic Polish concept of "Judeo-communism" was reinforced during the period of the Soviet occupation (see Żydokomuna).
The Holocaust in German-occupied Poland.
By the end of 1941 all Jews in German occupied Poland were ghettoized. Except the children, they had to wear an identifying badge with a blue Star of David. Many Jews in what was then eastern Poland also fell victim to mobile Nazi death squads called "Einsatzgruppen", which massacred Jews especially in 1941. Poland was the only occupied country during World War II where the Nazis formally imposed the death penalty for anybody found sheltering and helping Jews. Food rations for Poles were very small (669 kcal per day in 1941) and black market prices of food were high, factors which made difficult to hide people and almost impossible to hide entire families, especially in the cities. Despite these draconian measures imposed by the Nazis, Poland has the highest number of Righteous Among The Nations awards at the Yad Vashem Museum.
The Germans established hundreds of ghettos in which Jews were confined and starved although cruelly offered hopes of survival before eventually being subjected to genocide. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest, with 380,000 people and the Łódź Ghetto, the second largest, holding about 160,000. Other Polish cities with large Jewish ghettos included Białystok, Częstochowa, Kielce, Kraków, Lublin, Lwów, and Radom. Ghettos were also established in smaller settlements. Living conditions in the Ghettos were terrible. Jews who tried to escape were shot to death with their bullet-riddled bodies to be left in public view until dusk as a warning. Many of those who fled to the Aryan side without connections with Christian Poles willing to risked their lives in order to help, returned to the ghettos when they were unable to find a place to hide. Hundreds of four- to five-year-old Jewish children went across en masse to the Aryan side, sometimes several times a day, smuggling food into the ghettos, returning with goods that often weighed more than they did. Smuggling was sometimes the only source of subsistence for these children and their parents, who would otherwise have died of starvation. Shooting of Jews who were caught trying to smuggle in food became routine. People were shot to death for bringing in a chicken or a liter of milk. Poles from the Aryan side found assisting Jews in obtained food were subject to the death penalty.
The Warsaw Ghetto.
The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the German Governor-General Hans Frank on October 16, 1940. The German authorities allowed a Jewish Council ("Judenrat") of 24 men, led by Adam Czerniaków, to form its own police to maintain order in the ghetto. Judenrat was also responsible for organizing the labour battalions demanded by the Germans. At this time, the population of the ghetto was estimated to be about 380,000 people, about 30% of the population of Warsaw. However, the size of the Ghetto was about 2.4% of the size of Warsaw. The Germans then closed off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world on November 16 of that year, building a wall around it. During the next year and a half, Jews from smaller cities and villages were brought into the Warsaw Ghetto, while diseases (especially typhoid) and starvation kept the inhabitants at about the same number. Average food rations in 1941 for Jews in Warsaw were limited to 253 kcal and 669 kcal for Poles as opposed to 2,613 kcal for Germans.
Deportations to death camps.
On July 22, 1942, the mass deportation of the Warsaw Ghetto inhabitants began; during the next fifty-two days (until September 12, 1942) about 300,000 people were transported by train to the Treblinka extermination camp. The deportations were carried out by fifty German SS soldiers, 200 soldiers of the Latvian "Schutzmannschaften" Battalions, 200 Ukrainian Police, and 2,500 Jewish Ghetto Police. Employees of the "Judenrat", including the Ghetto Police, along with their families and relatives, were given immunity from deportations in return for their cooperation. Additionally, in August 1942, Jewish Ghetto policemen, under the threat of deportation themselves, were ordered to personally "deliver" five ghetto inhabitants to the Umschlagplatz train station. On January 18, 1943, some Ghetto inhabitants, including members of ŻOB ("Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa", Jewish Combat Organisation), resisted, often with arms, German attempts for additional deportations to Treblinka.
The first ghetto uprising is believed to have occurred in 1942 the small town of Łachwa in the Polesie Voivodship (see Lakhva Ghetto).
The final destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto came four months later after the crushing one of the most heroic and tragic battles of the war, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, led by Mordechaj Anielewicz. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which was reverberated throughout Poland and the rest of the world as an example of courage and defiance, was followed by other failed Ghetto uprisings in Nazi occupied Poland. Some of the survivors of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, still held in camps at or near Warsaw were freed a year later during the larger 1944 Warsaw Uprising, led by Polish resistance movement Armia Krajowa and immediately joined Polish fighters. Only few of them survived. Polish commander of that Jewish unit, Waclaw Micuta, described them as one of the best fighters of the Warsaw Uprising, always at the front line. It is estimated that over 2000 Polish Jews, some as well known as Marek Edelman or Icchak Cukierman, and several dozen Greek, Hungarian or even German Jews freed by Armia Krajowa from Gesiowka concentration camp in Warsaw, men and woman, took part in combat against Nazis during 1944 Warsaw Uprising. As many as 17,000 Polish Jews lost their lives during 1944 Warsaw Uprising, who either fought with the AK units or had been discovered in hiding.
The fate of the Warsaw Ghetto was similar to that of the other ghettos in which Jews were concentrated. With the decision of Nazi Germany to begin the Final Solution, the destruction of the Jews of Europe, Aktion Reinhard began in 1942, with the opening of the extermination camps of Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka, followed by Auschwitz-Birkenau where people were executed to death in the gas chambers and massive executions (death wall). Many died from hunger, starvation, disease, torture or by pseudo-medical experiments. The mass deportation of Jews from ghettos to these camps, such as happened at the Warsaw Ghetto, soon followed, and more than 1.7 million Jews were killed at the Aktion Reinhard camps by October 1943 alone.
The Polish Government in Exile was the first (in November 1942) to reveal the existence of Nazi-run concentration camps and the systematic extermination of the Jews by the Nazis, through its courier Jan Karski and through the activities of Witold Pilecki, member of Armia Krajowa and the only person who volunteered for imprisonment in Auschwitz and organized a resistance movement inside the camp itself. One of the Jewish members of the National Council of the Polish government in exile, Szmul Zygielbojm, committed suicide to protest the indifference of the Allied governments in the face of the Holocaust in Poland. The Polish government in exile was also the only government to set up an organization (Żegota) specifically aimed at helping the Jews in Poland.
Polish Jews in the Soviet Union.
Thousands of Polish Jews migrated, were deported or later evacuated to Central or Eastern Soviet Union and many of them survived the Holocaust. Some of them died however because of hard conditions, Soviet repressions or in result of Ukraininian nationalist's violence. Two Bund leaders, Wiktor Alter and Henryk Erlich were executed in December 1941 in Moscow as alleged agents of Nazi Germany. Some Jews joined the Polish Communist Army (Józef Różański, Włodzimierz Brus) or Union of Polish Patriots (Julia Brystiger) and returned to Poland in 1944, others were allowed to leave the Soviet Union after the war or around 1956 (Lew Rywin).
Communist rule: 1945–1989.
Between 40,000 and 100,000 Polish Jews survived the Holocaust in Poland by hiding or by joining the Polish or Soviet partisan units. Another 50,000–170,000 were repatriated from the Soviet Union and 20,000–40,000 from Germany and other countries. At its postwar peak, there were 180,000–240,000 Jews in Poland settled mostly in Warsaw, Łódź, Kraków, Wrocław and Lower Silesia, e.g. Bielawa. Dzierżoniów.
Soon after the end of the Second World War, Jews began to exit Poland thanks to the repatriation agreement with the USSR. Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish aliyah to Mandate Palestine. The exodus took place in stages. After the war, the vast majority of survivors left for several reasons, often more than one. Many left simply because they did not want to live in a communist country. Some left because the refusal of the Communist regime to return prewar private property. Others did not wish to rebuild their lives in the places where their families were murdered. Yet others wanted to go to British Mandate of Palestine soon to become Israel. Some of the survivors had relatives abroad. The dominant factor, however, was the decision made by Gen. Spychalski of PWP to sign a decree allowing the remaining survivors to leave Poland without visas or exit permits. Poland was the only Eastern Bloc country to allow free Jewish aliyah upon the conclusion of World War II. Consequently, the Jewish emigration from Poland increased dramatically. Britain demanded from Poland (among others) to halt the Jewish exodus, but their pressure was largely unsuccessful. Jewish-Polish writer Rachela Auerbach, who visited Treblinka in November 1945 as part of an official delegation for the Main Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes, found that some Polish peasants were digging up the ashes in search of overlooked valuables. Bełżec was similarly desecrated from 1943 onwards after the camp was closed, (see: Sonderaktion 1005 for the 1943 liquidation of the actual mass graves in both Treblinka and Belzec).
Postwar Poland was a chaotic country in which pro-Soviet communists and patriotic nationalists fought each other. Hundreds of Jews were murdered in anti-Jewish violence, including numerous functionaries of the new Stalinist regime. In the Kielce pogrom of 1946, thirty-seven Jews were brutally murdered. Until today the debate in Poland continues about the inferred evidence of the Soviet NKVD provocation and the presence of Russian soldiers in the killings. Between 1945 and 1948, 100,000–120,000 Jews left Poland. Their departure was largely organized by the Zionist activists in Poland such as Adolf Berman and Icchak Cukierman under the umbrella of a semi-clandestine, tolerated by the government of Poland, organization "Berihah" ("Flight"). Berman's brother Jakub supervised security forces, so he was one of the most influential people in Poland. "Berihah" was also responsible for the organized emigration of Jews from Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia totaling 250,000 (including Poland) Holocaust survivors.
A second wave of Jewish emigration (50,000) took place during the liberalization of the Communist regime between 1957 and 1959. Then there was the third major wave of emigration, which one might call an expulsion of Jews, in 1968–1969. Thereafter almost all Jews who decided to stay in Poland "stopped" being Jewish.
The Bund took part in the post-war elections of 1947 on a common ticket with the (non-communist) Polish Socialist Party (PPS) and gained its first and only parliamentary seat in its Polish history, plus several seats in municipal councils. Under pressure from Soviet-installed Communist authorities, the Bund's leaders 'voluntarily' disbanded the party in 1948–1949 against the opposition of many activists.
The Stalinist period.
For those Polish Jews who remained, the rebuilding of Jewish life in Poland was carried out between October 1944 and 1950 by the Central Committee of Polish Jews ("Centralny Komitet Żydów Polskich", CKŻP) which provided legal, educational, social care, cultural, and propaganda services. A countrywide Jewish Religious Community, led by Dawid Kahane, who served as chief rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces, functioned between 1945 and 1948 until it was absorbed by the CKŻP. Eleven independent political Jewish parties, of which eight were legal, existed until their dissolution during 1949–50.
A number of Polish Jews participated in the establishment of the anti-revisionist socialist government in the People's Republic of Poland between 1944 and 1956, holding, among others, prominent posts in the Politburo of the Polish United Worker's Party (e.g. Jakub Berman, Hilary Minc – responsible for establishing a socialist economy), and the security service "Urząd Bezpieczeństwa" (UB) and in diplomacy/intelligence. After 1956, during the process of destalinisation in Poland under Władysław Gomułka's regime, some "Urząd Bezpieczeństwa" officials including Roman Romkowski (born Natan Grunsapau-Kikiel), Józef ("Jacek") Różański (born Jozef Goldberg), and Anatol Fejgin were prosecuted for "power abuses" including the torture of Polish anticommunists (among them, Witold Pilecki), and sentenced to long prison terms. A UB official, Józef Światło, (born Izaak Fleichfarb), after escaping in 1953 to the West, exposed through Radio Free Europe the methods of the UB which led to its dissolution in 1954. Jerzy Borejsza was an important press and book editor, who attracted many talented writers.
Some Jewish cultural institutions were established including the Yiddish State Theater founded in 1950 and directed by Ida Kaminska, the Jewish Historical Institute, an academic institution specializing in the research of the history and culture of the Jews in Poland, and the Yiddish newspaper "Folks-Shtime".
From 1967–1989.
In 1967, following the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab states, communist Poland broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. The Israeli victory over the Soviet backed Arab states in 1967 was greeted by Poles with glee; "Our Jews have given the Soviet Arabs a drumming!"
By 1968 most of Poland's 40,000 remaining Jews were assimilated into Polish society, but over the next year they became the center of a Soviet backed, centrally organized campaign, equating Jewish origins with Zionist sympathies and thus disloyalty to Poland.
In March 1968 student-led demonstrations in Warsaw ("Polish 1968 political crisis") gave Gomułka's government an excuse to channel public anti-government sentiment into another avenue. Thus his security chief, Mieczysław Moczar, used the situation as a pretext to launch an anti-Semitic press campaign (although the expression "Zionist" was officially used). The state-sponsored "anti-Zionist" campaign resulted in the removal of Jews from the Polish United Worker's Party and from teaching positions in schools and universities. Due to economic, political and police pressure, 25,000 Jews were forced to emigrate during 1968–1970. The campaign, though ostensibly directed at Jews who had held office in the Stalinist era and at their families, affected most of the remaining Polish Jews, whatever their backgrounds.
There were several outcomes of the "March 1968 events". The propaganda campaign coupled with ORMO attack on universities, damaged Poland's reputation abroad, particularly in the U.S. Many Polish intellectuals were disgusted at the promotion of official anti-Semitism, and opposed the campaign. Some of the people who emigrated to the West thereafter, founded organizations which encouraged anticommunist opposition inside Poland.
During the late 1970s some Jewish activists were engaged in the anticommunist opposition groups. Most prominent among them, Adam Michnik (founder of Gazeta Wyborcza) was one of the founders of the Workers' Defence Committee (KOR). By the time of the fall of Communism in Poland in 1989, only 5,000–10,000 Jews remained in the country, many of them preferring to conceal their Jewish origin.


County of Apulia and Calabria

The County of Apulia and Calabria, later the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria, was a Norman state founded by William of Hauteville in 1042 in the territories of Gargano, Capitanata, Apulia, Vulture, and most of Campania. It became a duchy when Robert Guiscard was raised to the rank of duke by Pope Nicholas II in 1059.
The duchy was disestablished in 1130 when the last duke of Apulia and Calabria, Roger II of Sicily became King of Sicily. The title of duke was thereafter used intermittently as a title for the heir apparent to the Kingdom of Sicily.
Creation.
Drogo of Hauteville was made "count" of Apulia & Calabria by Emperor Henry III, with territories lost by Guaimario IV of the Principality of Salerno.
William I of Hauteville, who returned in September 1042 in Melfi, was recognized by all the Normans as supreme leader. He turned to Guaimar IV, Lombard, Prince of Salerno, and Rainulf Drengot, Count of Aversa, and offered both an alliance. With the unification of the two Norman families, Altavilla and Drengot, Guaimar offered official recognition of the conquests and at the end of the year, an assembly of Lombards and Norman barons at Melfi met with Rainulf and William, which ended at the beginning of the following year (1043).
In this meeting, Guaimar V of Salerno ensured the Hauteville dominance over Melfi. William of Hauteville formed the second core of his possessions and differentiated himself from Rainulf I of Aversa, head of the territories of Campania. All the barons present offered a tribute as a vassal to Guaimar, which recognized William I of Hauteville as the first of the title of "Count of Apulia". To tie it to himself, he offered to marry her niece Guide, daughter of Guy, Duke of Sorrento. Guaimar reconfirmed the title of count to Rainulf as well, which created the County of Puglia.
Duchy of Apulia and Calabria.
William stated that the first capital of the county, and home of the Crown would be Melfi, a city that would remain outside the partition. It would remain capital for forty years before being moved to Salerno: the center of the city of Melfi was divided into twelve districts, each of them with a palace and a count with control over that area of town.
After 1059 the county was named "Ducato di Puglia e Calabria" ("Duchy of Apulia and Calabria"), because Robert Guiscard was named "Duke" by the Pope Nicholas II.
Salerno was conquered in 1077 by the Normands and since then was no more the capital of the Principality of Salerno: these territories were added to the Duchy of Apulia & Calabria. With this conquest the Normans controlled all continental southern Italy, with the exception of the small Duchy of Naples.
The next year the Duchy's capital was moved from Melfi to Salerno and started to look at the conquest of Sicily: the Normands in this way created the precursor of the Kingdom of Sicily, the first unified state in southern Italy that was founded in 1130.
Salerno remained the capital of this southern Italian political entity for half a century (from 1078 to 1130), when the city flourished with the "Schola Medica Salernitana".
List of counts and dukes.
William is usually considered the first count of Apulia and Calabria. In 1047, the Emperor Henry III of Germany took away Guaimar's ducal title. He christened William's brother and successor Drogo "Dux et Magister Italiae comesque Normannorum totius Apuliae et Calabriae" and made him a direct vassal of the emperor.
In 1127 the duchy passed to the count of Sicily. It was thereafter used intermittently as a title for the heir apparent.
The title was left vacant after the death of Roger IV. It may have been revived for a short-lived son of William II:
It was revived by King Tancred for his eldest son in 1189:


Radoslav of Duklja

Radoslav (; fl. 1146-1148) was the Prince of Duklja from 1146 to 1149. As the oldest son, he succeeded as ruler of Duklja after the death of his father, Gradinja in 1146. He was installed by Manuel I Komnenos upon a visit to Constantinople to pay homage to the Emperor. Unlike his father who was a titular king, Radoslav had the title of Prince ("knez"). Radoslav began his rule at a time when the Serbs of Raška (the Vukanovići) had ambitions towards Duklja.
In ca. 1148, the political situation in the Balkans was divided by two sides, one being the alliance of the Byzantines and Venice, the other the Normans and Hungarians. The Normans were sure of the danger that the battlefield would bring from the Balkans to their area in Italy. Manuel also allied himself with the Germans after defeating the Cumans in 1148. The Serbs, Hungarians and Normans exchanged envoys, being in the interest of the Normans to stop Manuel's plans to recover Italy.
The Serbs under brothers Uroš II and Desa revolted against the Byzantines, when Manuel was in Avlona planning an offensive across the Adriatic, and this revolt posed danger to the Emperor if he would attack Italy, as the Serbs could strike at the Adriatic bases. Then, the Serbs took an offensive against Radoslav, who was a loyal Byzantine vassal. Radoslav was pushed to the southwestern corner of Duklja to Kotor, and retained only the coastal area with the brothers holding much of inland Duklja and Trebinje – over two thirds of Duklja. Radoslav sought help from the Emperor, who sent aid from Durazzo. At this moment, the "Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja" ends, presumably because the author of the text had died. A major war was about to erupt in the Balkans; Uroš II and Desa, in light of Byzantine retaliation, sought aid from their brother Beloš, the count palatine of Hungary. By 1150, Hungarian troops played an active role in Serbia. The fate of Radoslav is unknown.
According to Du Cange (1610–1688), Radoslav and Vakin were one person.


Charles Radclyffe

Charles Radclyffe (3 September 1693 – 8 December 1746), titular 5th Earl of Derwentwater, was one of the few English participants in the Risings of 1715 and 1745.
The Radclyffes were Roman Catholics from Northumberland, with long-standing links to the exiled Stuarts; sentenced to death in 1716, he escaped and spent the next 30 years in Europe. He was captured at sea along with his eldest son in November 1745 en route to Scotland and executed on 8 December 1746, under the warrant issued in 1716. His son James was released and later settled in Slindon, West Sussex.
Life.
Charles was born 3 September 1693 in Little Parndon, Essex, third and youngest son of Edward, 2nd Earl of Derwentwater (1655–1705) and Lady Mary Tudor (1673–1726), an illegitimate daughter of Charles II. He had two brothers and a sister; James, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater (1689–1716), Francis (1691–1715) and Mary (1697–1756). His brother Francis died in France, in May 1715.
On 24 June 1724, he married Charlotte Maria Livingston (1694–1755), daughter of the 2nd Earl of Newburgh and widow of Thomas Clifford. Their children included James, who inherited his mother's title in 1755, and Mary (1732–1798). He also had a daughter, Jane (1715–1755) from a relationship with Margaret Snowden (1697–1723). She is the main character in the 1962 novel "Devil Water" by Anya Seton that also features Radclyffe.
Career.
The Radclyffes were Roman Catholics, with long-standing links to the Stuarts; his grandfather Sir Francis Radclyffe (1625–1697) was created Earl of Derwentwater by James II in March 1688. His grandmother, Catherine Fenwick, came from another long-established Northumberland family; her brother Sir John Fenwick was executed in 1697 for conspiracy to assassinate William III.
His elder brother James was educated at the exile court in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he was companion to James Francis Edward Stuart. Allowed to return to England in 1709, he and Charles joined the 1715 Rising, with a troop of 70 servants and friends. Captured at Preston, they were both found guilty of treason and condemned to death. Witnesses at the trial claimed Charles was in command, but despite efforts to save him, James was executed at Tower Hill in February 1716 and his title died with him. In December 1716, Charles escaped from Newgate Prison with 13 other prisoners when a door was left open, and made his way to France.
He spent many years in Rome, location of the Stuart court post 1718, including a period as private secretary to Prince Charles. His nephew John, de jure 4th Earl Derwentwater, died in 1731, leaving a legacy to "my kinsman, Mr Thompson", which may refer to an alias used by Charles, who now styled himself 5th Earl Derwentwater. He visited London and Essex in 1733 and 1739, reputedly with the knowledge of the government.
Like many Jacobites, he was a Freemason, who reportedly served as Grandmaster of the French society in 1738. He is also listed as an officer in the Order of the Fleur de Lys, one of several organisations claiming to inherit the legacy of the Knights Templar; the Order still exists, although the more fantastic assertions have since been disproved.
In November 1745, during the Jacobite Rising, Charles and his son James boarded a French ship taking arms and supplies from Dunkirk to the Scottish port of Montrose. It was intercepted in the North Sea by HMS Sheerness and the two taken to the Tower of London. Charles had been commissioned into Dillon's Regiment, part of the Franco-Irish Brigade, a common technique used in hopes of being treated as a prisoner of war if captured, rather than a rebel. Francis Towneley, colonel of the Manchester Regiment, also employed this defence but the authorities carefully scrutinised such claims and rejected the vast majority. Lord Chancellor Hardwicke used the 1716 warrant to execute Charles in December 1746; although technically not a peer, he was beheaded, rather than being hanged, drawn and quartered, the normal fate for those found guilty of treason.
If he had not escaped in 1716, Charles would in all probability have been pardoned, but the government was particularly harsh on families and individuals seen as habitual or repeat offenders. In a letter to his wife Charlotte the night before his execution, Charles refers to "Fanny, that other mother of my dear children." This is generally taken to refer to Lady Frances Clifford, Charlotte's sister-in-law from her first marriage, who may have assisted in bringing up Radclyffe's own children. He was buried in the church of St Giles in the Fields, Camden.
James was released and pardoned under the 1747 Act of Indemnity; in 1749, he married Barbara Kempe, another Roman Catholic, whose family owned Slindon House near Slindon, West Sussex. He unsuccessfully petitioned for the return of the Derwentwater estates, which reverted to the government after the death of John Radclyffe in 1731 and the income assigned to the Greenwich Hospital. He succeeded his mother as Earl of Newburgh in 1755.