Stalin's Revenge; Operation Bagration and the Annihilation of Army Group Centre. 2009 311pgs

  20/2/25

Byelorussia or White Russia a place of lakes and swamps with dense impenetrable forests infested with Soviet partisans. Georgian  Prince Pyotr  Bagration 1765-1812 was the hero of the Battle of  Borodino 1812 Napoleons last offensive.

Hitler dismissed Gereralfieldmarshal Erich von Manstein who had the temerity to point out to Hitler they could not win a straight fight. Gereralfieldmarshal Busch followed Hitler's orders slavishly to the detriment of his command.

This big offensive started about a fortnight after D-day at Normandy, and the 3rd anniversary of the German invasion. Now Russia after bitter experience was matched by a growing technological experience with Germany and had resources that Hitler could not match. In Jan 1944 Russia had secured the  Leningrad -Moscow railway.  Then the army ejected the German forces in Southern Ukraine. They liberated Crimea from the Black Sea and Sevastopol

Operation Bagration was the 5th offensive aimed at liberating Byelorussia. It annihilated Hitler Army Group Centre and trapped Army Group North , neutralizing almost a million men. 40% of the Red Army was committed to this campaign.

Stalingrad and Kursk paved the  way for Soviet Victory Bagnation ensured that Hitler would never regain the initiative.. The laurels of the victory go to Georgy Zhukov and Konstantin Rokossovsky.(1896 to 1968) At the end of 1944 the Red Army manpower peaked and showed what the Soviets were capable of. The opening of Bagration ended in the liberation of Minsk.

First Russia introduced ever more powerful armor and revitalized the Red Air Force. The Soviets were made up of vast numbers of ethnic groups such as Armenians, Byelorussians, Georgians, Tajiks, Ukrainians and Uzbeks. 

Stalin said that the Western allies are afraid the Soviets will rout the Germans before them.

Zhukov pointed out that once the Central German Enemy in Byelorussia their entire strategic defenses will collapse. and the enemy must be pursued and destroyed. Stalin wanted one major thrust and Rokossovsky said they have to have 2 to divide the Germans. Rokossovsky had suffered such tortures 3 years in the Gulag that he was not afraid to tell Stalin his views.

Byelorussia at the start of the war their had been 9.2 million people a 3rd of them were gone by the end.  Jews and people taken as slave labour mostly didn't return.  To confuse the enemy a dummy armor corps was set up in Ukraine and the Germans were led to believe that the first blow of the summer campaign would be in the Ukraine  and not  Byelorussia. After Kursk this was the most thoroughly  prepared Russian operation. 5000 trains each with about 50 freight cars making 90 strips a day to the front.12000 trucks at the railheads. There were 294 hospital beds ready for casualties. The Red Airforce had 5,327 combat aircraft and 1007 bombers ready.

There was  a brutal guerilla war with Hitler's armies with  partisans attacking the long German lines of communications and railway lines on a regular basis. In one night in June 21st  they cut off all railway track communication as well as bridges and blew up trains, water pumping stations and attacked garrisons. There were many Soviet officers and men left behind when the Red Army fled as well as Komsomol members. These drew soldiers from the front to the rear.  But in some places it was almost civil war as many official and police were German collaborators. Most railway workers were still Russians.

From Slovakia, Hungary and  Romania, Hitler's allies attacked into Ukraine. In March1944 Admiral Miklos Horthy had lost his stomach to fight and Hitler occupied his ally.  Hitler's decision to hold Crimea from 1941 was insane. Despite the Germans' and Romanians having overwhelming superiority in tanks and aircraft.  In 1944 the Soviets captured Byelorussia in 4 days, possibly the German troops lacked morale. 

 Bulgaria refrained from joining the crusade against communism. By Jan 44 the Wehrmacht was in tatters after the they had been expelled from Leningrad after besieging it for 900 days. The Finns at this stage were trying to resume their armistice talks with Russia while Germanies other allies saw they would be on the wrong side.

Stalin was now placing more reliance on the advice of the Stavka in 1944. Stalin was winning the war but he would have to insure his position in the aftermath.

1939 Japanese troops had made a surprise attack and crossed into friendly Mongolia which the Soviets had a treaty to protect. Zhukov at Khalking Gol severely mauled killing 45,000 Japanese to 17,000 Soviet soldiers. After that Japan in 1940 signed a border treaty saving Stalin from a 2 front fight. 

With the German invasion Moscow , Ukraine the Donets basin and Leningrad were the main German goals to gain the materials they needed for the war. Had Germany got full control the oil fields Churchill knew that Germany would have all the materials they need to win the war. Hitler had a policy of rigid resistance instead of strategic falling back by timely withdrawals. Which would have made it far more difficult for the Russians.

The Byelorussia partisans used his girlfriend to assassinate the Governor and the German governor who took over tried to attract support to the population by offering limited autonomy if they helped against the Reds. The partisan war behind the Germans was at its worst when Bagration began.

The British and Americans were operating over Germany between the UK, Italy and the Soviet Union. This was meant to alleviate the pressure over the Normandy landing by drawing the Lufwaffe Eastwards. The Americans wanted 6 bases in Russia but only got 3 Piryatin , Poitava and Mirogorod. The Luftwaffe suddenly got information on this and attacked the 3 airbases destroying 1030 Allied planes. The conclusion was that Stalin wanted the American out of Russia and colluded with the Germans.

The organized Russian tactic was to begin a barrage rolling forward on the Germans and at the same time attack the from behind with both artillery and planes so the could not escape and then encircle them. Busch's lack of flexibility on Hitler's behalf was to waste his limited reserves. Busch was now replaced by Model as German Army commander.

Vassily Grossman The Red Star Correspondent. describes entering Bubruisk a town ablaze and weapons and corpses of Germans and the ruthless revenge of those who hadn't surrendered and tried to break out.

 The Germans sent 53 trains to evacuate the wounded and  support staff of the defenders of Minsk The Germans began demolishing the city. The Byelorussian parts and sent a message to bring engineers for demining of Government House in Minsk.  Afterwards the Germans said that their defeat in Byelorussian and the rout of the Army Group Centre was the greatest defeat the Germans had a far great catastrophe than Stalingrad. By 1944 August the Germans had lost 1,510,000 troops as well as 1,391,000 missing. This included the losses in France.

Between Normandy and Byelorussia German losses were such that Hitler was scaping the bottom of the barrel.  Hitler had lost faith in his generals and Germanys supplies of materials were almost gone. Later on there were very few officers to lead the Hitler Youth and  Volkssturm Home Guard

1944 July 7th The Polish Home Army rose up against the Germans in Vilnius, These insurgents found themselves rounded up by the NKVD and invited to join General Berling Soviet backed Polish Army other Polish straggles were rounded in the forests were sent off to the Gulags.

At this stage the German Army Group Centre in a space of 2 weeks had been wiped out. On July 17th 57,000 bedraggled German troops were displayed marching through Moscow with Stalin gloating. Russian youngsters booed and threw things at them but old women were full of commiseration with tears thinking and saying "just like our boys"

1944May the Russians were taken Vilnius , Pinsk, Kovno and  Grodno and were 100 miles from the German border. The Jews of Lvov had sufferer both under the Nazis and the Ukrainian nationalists. Under the Soviet Nazi pact  Stalin's secret police had massared thousand of prisoners mostly Ukrainian nationalist who felt that the region should by part of Ukraine and not Poland. Ukraine hoped it would gain independence with Nazi help and 180,000 Ukrainian's served in the Wehrmacht.

Zhukov wanted to now start fighting in East Prussia but Stalin felt that Germans will fight to the end on German territory and he wanted to weaken the Germans' by driving them out of Ukraine and eastern Poland.

When Poland had been split with Germany 250,000 polish officers and me were moved into the Soviet Union. Stalin had a score to settle with the Poles as they had defeated the Red Army in 1920 civil war.. The Germans had found 10,000 bodies of Polish officers in the Katyn forest. This undermined further Soviet Polish relations.

Both Bering and Rokossovsky had both been in the Austrian Imperial Army and Polish army.

1944 August  Walter Model relinquished his post of Army Group Centre and to France to avert the German defeat in Normandy.

September the Polish Home army were defeated by the Germans after 62 day uprising in Warsaw. Vengeful Himmler expelled the rest of the population and ordered the city flattened. 

In capturing a German Tiger tank the Russians discovered that it was of poor quality metal and the welds were weak and even if shells did not get through the plating cracked at the welds.

At this stage the American and British wanted to help in Poland and Stalin wanted attack immediately, but Zhukov and Rokossovsky said the army needs to be rested. Zhukov discovered this meeting was a sham as Bagration in the end got Byelorussian, the Baltic States and domination of Poland.

1944 June the Red Army was on the Vistula, 4 weeks later the capitals of Romania and Bulgaria and 6 weeks after that the Baltic and Yugoslav capitals.

1944 December the Red army peaked reached the end of its supply lines, the Wehrmacht had been broken and the army needed to rest while Hitler threw 2 rejuvenated armies against the Western front. Stalin wanted to make sure the once the Eastern European countries were under him he could keep them under the Soviet sphere.

1944 offensives cost the Soviets 1.4 million soldiers. They had 14,000 tanks in the fields but most lacked radios that greatly hampered communication.

Of 110,000 Jewish draftees or volunteers 48,000 were killed.

At Yalta it was agreed that Soviet citizens serving the Nazis would be returned to Stalin. Rokossovsky  was made Polish defense minister after the war. In the Baltic States , Poland, Belarus , Ukraine , Stalin treated the people little better than what the Nazis had.

It took till 1990 for Moscow to admit that it was responsible for the Katlyn massacre. Stalin's catalogue of mismanagement had cost the Soviet people 40 million dead.

Zhukov led an  army attack against  the Japanese held Manchukuo (Manchuria) and eventually gained north Korea, southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. The attack was vast like Bagration with 1.5 million men and 5000 tanks. The fighting lasted a week and the Japanese capitulated. For 40 years after this NATO lived in armed awe of the Soviet Army.

By 1942 there was no shortage of  tanks but more broke down than were knocked out. From 1941 Britain and commonwealth supplied 3,300 tanks and 24,000 other vehicles and 2,600 aircraft. America 7000 tanks 436,000 wheeled vehicles and 14,800 aircraft. These came via Marmusk , Alaska and Iran. The American Sherman had padding inside so that you did not bump yourself and its medical kit as well as sulphidin. The tracks were too narrow for the Russian conditions. The Canadian build British Valentine tank was popular. Many lend lease trucks were assembled in Iran and driven northwards. The food sent from America was a luxury like tins of hams.

The RAF had a fighter squadron in Marmansk to protect the artic conveys. This was Stalin's only concession to the allies desire to operate from his territory.

By the Western allies bombing Germany they were able to draw 80% of  the Nazi airplanes away from the east from helping the Soviet battles. Most of the German pilots were by this stage young and inexperienced. The Germans needed planes to fly supplies to forward isolated positions. 

The Republic of Belarus only came about in 1993.

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Soviet Union in WW2  92 pg Captivating History 2002    22/2/25

Britain and the US together  total losses in WW2 was 800,000 while that was  the Soviet loss in only the Siege of Stalingrad.  The New economic policy NEP caused a split in the Communist Party but that was solved  by Lenin's death in 1924.

1929 Stalin had won his war for power over Trotsky and allies.

1934 the  purge cemented Stalin's place.

1935 Hitler introduced conscription to enlarge the army to 500,000. Many believed that Germany was a bulwark  against the Soviets.

1937  the Great Purge or Great Terror. Bukharin , Kamenev and Zinoviev put on the Show Trials. Tukhachevsky a military man  here accused of plotting with a capitalist government to overthrow Stalin and was executed .

Of 80,000 officers 35 ,000 became Stalin's victims. 3 of 5 Marshalls were killed and 75 of 85 corp. commanders were killed, resulting in the Red army being paralyzed both literally and phycologically .

Strangely the nation that helped Hitler to hide his efforts. Especially in the area of aircraft and development and pilot training was the Soviet Union. In return for German expertise in training in fine tool making ,  The Russians opened their secret airbases to the Germans and sold massive amounts of agricultural products to Germany.

By the end of the 1930s the USSR was sufficient in foodstuffs though barely, but life was getting better.  The Soviets had build up a large army and the risk of war during the Great Depression and the recovery from WW1 was minimal. When Hitler came to power the Soviets increased spending extraordinary amounts or arms.

The Soviet pact with Hitler allocated Bessarabia and 2 regions of Romania to Stalin and would not interfere with Stalin's designs on Finland and the Soviets would cease all anti Nazi propaganda. In return for German machinery and Technical knowledge the Soviets would supply massive amounts for grain and natural resources to Germany. Even when the Nazi's attacked in 1941 they saw grain bound for Berlin. both nations got from the pact what they needed in trade

No nation suffered more than Poland in the war 20% of the  population or 1 in 5 Poles died. Stalin taking over the Baltics drove much of the population into Hitler's arms.

Japan saw its future in the Asian mainland with wide open spaces and natural resources of iron, nickel ,timber etc. Once Japanese troops provoked an incident in Mongolia. Stalin sent Georgy Zhukov and humiliated the Japanese decisively.

Barbarossa

Mussolini abortive invasion of Greece where a pro Allied coup toppled regent Prince Paul and placed King Peter 2 on the throne, by declaring him of age. Hitler invaded both Yugoslavia and Greece. Yugoslavia drew hundred of thousand of troops from the front. 80% of the trucks used for Barbarossa were French and it took time to bring them from the west. 3 and a half million Nazi troops invaded Russia and this included Finnish, Romanian Hungarian and Italian troops.

After he was back in power from the shock of the invasion he had a few General's shot for  defeatism. A large number of men were drafted and between their time of entry till death was only a few days. Some Soviets welcomed the invaders like the Ukrainians' nationalists. In the Soviets women had greater power than before in manufacturing and government. If the Germans had treated and respected the population better they may have won millions of converts against Stalin. 

Initially no Soviet General was  willing to take the initiative. Zhukov was given a free hand to deal with the Japanese as long as he succeeded this was not the case with the Nazi - Soviet war. New draftees were given a uniform not always boots and told to pick up weapons of the men who had fallen next to them. Most of the forests were bypassed by the Germans to be swept for stragglers later. Hitler believed it was a matter of time before the Soviets collapsed and begged for terms of surrender.

More than 5 million Soviet Soldiers died of starvations, disease in the German concentration camps and those who survived captivity were sent directly to the gulag as traitors for re-education. The Germans invaded faster than imagined and people simply fled in panic before the local Communist party told them to. Where organized evacuation had not occurred the Germans took away factories, food, railroads and other infrastructure. A large number of factories had been left behind. The main weapons factories were moved to the Volga , Urals, Siberia and Kazakhstan. Once America entered the war  supplies started coming to Russia from the  US. Rusputitsa or "Sea of Mud" bogged the German tanks and horses had to be used slowing down the Germans. When winter arrived there was a nationwide drive in Germany to donate winter clothes for the troops.

The Japanese war plans did not include attacking Russia. The far Eastern troops were well trained and able to return and experienced. Hitler honored the his agreement with Japan and attacked the Americans. on Dec11th 1944.

 Leningrad

To Hitter's dismay the Finns refused to continue fighting Leningrad, once they got back the land taken by Stalin and were out.  Leningrad had 3 million people. The German bombers had destroyed most of the food warehouses. Soviet officials were reluctant to tell Stalin bad news so the High Command was unaware of the food shortage. It needed 600 ton of food a day. This siege was called the 900 days .   Dogs and cats were eaten and sawdust was added to bread, bark was cooked as soup, cannibalisms was reported and marketed as pork pies. When Lake Ladoga froze trucks started being sent in with food and the railroad was build across the ice. Before the war 10% of manufactured goods came from the city. 

Stalingrad we see that Russia was getting stronger. Hitler had planned to 1) Seize the Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus with other resource rich areas in Southern Ukraine. 2) Cut off those supplies to the Soviets. Stalingrad was a major industrial centre producing 10% of all Soviet heavy machinery and sheet steel products. Taking Stalingrad would cut off supplies moving north on the Volga.  The Italian, Romanian and Hungarian armies were poorly equipped and poorly motivated. In Spring of 1942 the Stavka was fooled and believed by deception that  the main thrust would be against Moscow. The oil fields that the Germans captured were thornily destroyed by retreating Soviets. The city was bombed but the rubble made natural defenses.   By getting close to the Germans the Russians felt the Germans could not bomb them without hitting their own men. This "hugging" sometimes worked.                

1) at this stage the German soldiers were tired , sick and malnourished2) the Nazis kept pouring reinforcements into the city but neglecting their flanks3) Axis troops to the north and south of the city were Hungarians, Italians and Romanians much weaker than the Germans.  A million men in total had already been killed or died of frostbite and starvation. The Soviets at night moved troops from the front to the north of the city and trapped the Germans stopped rescue attempts many miles short of the German lines. Paulus was named Field Marshall in the hope that no German Field Marshall had surrendered.

Kursk

Soviets had become better in surmising what the German intentions were and were helped by Allies code breaking who were able to inform Stalin about many German plans and partisan forces had grown to million. The Soviets began an artillery barrage just before the Germans were about to begin theirs. Kursk was commanded by Zhukov. The Germans could not replace their losses. At the same time word came that the American had invaded Sicily.

By the  time Bagration was over no German troops were left in the Soviet Union.

Poles who fled to the USSR were treated with suspicion but as the war turned against Stalin they were drafted into Polish units of the Red Army and many volunteered. At the Vistula Stalin ordered troops to stop many were exhausted at this stage. The US and Britain pleaded with Stalin to allow them to help the Poles but he refused. The Soviet watched as the Nazis destroyed the 1944 Polish uprising and flattened 90% of the building in the Polish capital.

At Yalta Churchill and Roosevelt realized that nothing was going to remove Stalin from Poland.

Berlin

90% of German casualties took place against the Red Army and over 20% had died from the German invasion.

Berlin was razed to the ground already by US and British bombs. The SS inside Berlin now began a terror campaign against anyone believed to have shirked duty or deserters and hanged untold numbers on trees or light posts. The Volkssturm and Hitler Youth were effectively armed with Panzerfaust and destroyed many Russian tanks  but had no high ranking officers to lead and did much harm before they were wiped out.

Eastern Europe was firmly under Stalin's control and his pledge to free election never happened. The USSR was set back for years, the prewar population never recovered till the late 1950s

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler 1940 211pp

The book is about the Stalinist purges and the Moscow Show Trial and was written in German while in Paris. 2/12/16 Rubashov one of the Old Bolsheviks finds meaning in politics, history, and philosophy. We see him wrestling with the meaning of suffering, senseless suffering versus meaningful suffering. He yields to the logic of the revolution as more important than any individual even when the accusations are complete fabrications. This book explains the period better than Stalin The court of the Red Tsar by Simon Montefiore 2005. The results of a godless, collectivist society. The Soviet Government is referred to as the Party while the Nazis are called the Dictatorship. Stalin is always called "Number1" Darkness at Noon is divided into four parts: The First Hearing, the Second Hearing, the Third Hearing, and the Grammatical Fiction. In the cell next to him is a person who supports the restoration of the Tsar He thinks back to people he had to expel from the party in Belgium as they never kept to the party dogma. One committed suicide. He is told that if he doesn't agree to the confession and public trial he will be at an administrative tribunal which is all secret. Tukhachevsky Soviet Chief of Staff purged. One of the greatest Russian generals Rubashov is interrogated by two secret police officials, the “good cop” Ivanov (a former friend) and the “bad cop” Gletkin (a younger, robotic apparatchik), The movement which was meant to improve conditions of the masses ends up terrorizing it people including it founders. R has expelled 2 people form the party Richard in Germany and Leowy in Belgium who committed suicide and the weight is heavy on Rs mind which accounts for his present situation. Ivanov the first examiner was a friend of R in the civil war. They were familiar with prison from being revolutionaries under the old regime. Ivanov was executed as he failed. The parties’ principles were right but the results were wrong. R is a synthesis of the people who were in the Moscow Trials a mixture of Trotsky , Bukharin and Radek – the dying old Bolshevik guard. Bukharin for example by following his ideal broke the oath of loyalty. Koestler was arrested on suspicion of being a Soviet agent. This book impressed George Orwell and Animal Farm and 1984 were inspired by it. By acting out the at the court he was persuaded to do one last thing for the party, but most did it to save their wives and children. The book was important before Russia joined the allies and then again with the Cold War. The old Bolsheviks were responsible for the Totalitarian Regime, they ignored the will of the people, and the Mensheviks remained democratic. Violent dictatorship eradicates individuality. Peasants are shown to be a reactionary class refusing government vaccination or burning a threshing machine. Koestler supports socialism. 402 represents the theme of individuality. Rip van Winkle was in jail 20 years as a revolutionary and then freed, came to the workers’ paradise and did not know that the Bolsheviks he supported were purged as traitors. The 1930 destroyed the goal of the revolution. R in the end discredits the Philosophy that the end justifies he means. If Lenin had lived longer he would have done the same as Stalin. The religious symbolism is shown. Rs patronym is obviously Jewish and there is a reference to Moses. After wondering 40 years in he dessert there is no sign of the Promised land and he has become a party scapegoat. 406 taps out Christian versus. R identifies with Christ rubbing his glasses on his sleeve is like the rosary. R is a savior but for what purpose is he dying. Stalin In the 5 years after Kirov’s death, the key intellectual leaders of the revolution had been purged or sent to Gulags . The Moscow Show Trials were to get public support for the government. The accused acted their role to save their families. Three trial s 1 Ivan Smironov one of 3 charged with Trotsky conspiracy. 2 Karl Radek accused of spying for Japan and Germany. 3 Bukharin recanted his confession and said he was innocent. Commitern was an organization to spread communism with a worldwide agenda in the 1920. Stalin was less committed to world foreign revolution and the with drawls of fund from those parties led to sever consequences for the party members. Bukharin was involved in this agenda but by 1930 Stalin’s priorities made him isolationist. Rs exhaustion is an expression of human limits he is guilty of opposition views . The masses are too immature to recognize their own interests thus justifying the dictatorship who led them into the darkness of night. It is better to follow immature ethics (old religion) than to be subjected to a dictator that irradiates individuality. Stalin was a prisoner of his own parties philosophy. The movement dedicated to rejuvenating mankind ended up enslaving it. The novelists aim is not to solve but to expose. 

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The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden 2024 272pg

 15/2/24  Story of Jews who survived the holocaust and returned to the Netherlands.

Set in the Dutch countryside in 1961, it’s focused on a woman, Isabel, living in her late mother’s large home. Isabel is set in her ways, and her routines are disrupted when her brother Louis insists that his girlfriend, Eva, stay with Isabel while he works overseas for the summer.

Eva is a typist at Van Dongen - an aunt passed on a sum of money to her and so she is quite independent.(so she says) Louis has a string of different girlfriends but they don't last long. He will get bored of you and I'll never hear of you again. Louis had digs in the city paid for by his company but was often abroad. Eva helped Louis decorate his room.

Louis only came to the house twice a year once at Easter and once to visit mothers grave at Swolle cemetery. Eva seemed like the type who had lots of friends.

Isabel went to church on Sundays. On Thursdays when Johan was in town she went to the Van der Bergs to see him so that he would not come to her house.

Uncle Karol had promised the house to Louis if he ever wants it, unspoken was that he must  be married and have a family, though he never did seem to want a family or house. Uncle Karol had found the house in winter of 1944 during the famine. At first only the children could leave Amsterdam. The house is bigger than the Amsterdam one and they have food. Isabel was 21 when her mother died. Her father fell down the steps and died a week later.

At school she was called shit breath Isa by popular Vera and the whole class followed and called her that because of the pickles she ate.. Bombs were falling over Amsterdam.

A women and a young girl came knocking on the door " She wanted our stuff" Isa was 15 when they first heard about the camps. They complained at that "the school treated them worse  and maybe should gas us" When the war  ended they never returned to Amsterdam but stayed in Uncle Karol's house. This was a house of fathers dying, mother dying, pets dying. Finding bullet holes and finding names on the bark of the tree who were not there.

For the mother funeral Hendrik and he male partner stayed in a bed and breakfast. Uncle Karol told her not to become a burden to her brothers.

Isa had a friend Silke who wanted to know about her brother Louis and then talked about every boy in the class. Isa asked her "are boys the only thing you can talk about." Isabel bit her and after that all the boys barked at her. Neelke was Silke sister and Isa gave her job as maid with great   satisfaction.

Louis had said that Eva could stay in mothers room and she wouldn't move out. Bijenkorf Catalog of a department store.

When Isabel had her first period she soiled her clothes and sheets her mother never explained what this was about.

Eva asked Isabel  "Is there anything you want to know about me? No said Isabel. Does nothing bring you joy said Eva? Why are you determined to dislike me 

The dinner service patterned with leaping hares, silver cutlery, blue baking dishes, a writing desk with a lock and key – all of these things play a role.  "Oh your so protective. Eva a house is a precious thing."

Isabel did not like Eva treating Needke as a friend rather than a servant and drinking wine together. Isabel had strong ideas of beauty that she did not find in herself.

If Johan touched Isa it sent shivers up her spine. Eva " is it such a strange thought that you should be liked "

Hendrik took piano lessons Isa did not even though she tried several times but gave up. The piano teacher didn't seem too close to his wife. One day after his piano lesson Hendrik went after the teacher and Isa followed and found Hendrik and the teacher entangled. When Hendrik arrived for dinner he had a mark on his neck and that was the end of the piano lessons.  Hendrik told Isa he lied he doesn't love me, I wanted Edwin. Like Louis before him Hendrik was suddenly gone and Uncle Karel found Hendrik a small apartment in Scheveningen. A coastal resort town.

When mother got sick Louis came for a day Hendrik came with a man. Isabel did not want the man to stay in the house and this cooled her relationship with her brother and he never came the next Christmas.

The only stranger who came into the house were the maids. A few years later Hendrik and Sabastian came to the house for a holiday. After the holiday Hendrik told her that he and Sabastian are settling in Paris and she is welcome to visit, but she said she can't just leave the house.  "Will you ever tell me anything  Isa" said Hendrik.

Eva gets Isa after some drinks to dance and then arouses her sexually and Isa thinks she has a fever as she has not had such an experience. Hendrik tells Isa that Eva is good for her as she has loosened her up.

The 4 of them get caught in a rainstorm and Eva askes Sebastian about his childhood.  He was born in Algiers and came to Paris aged 4 and his mother raised him alone. But his family was nowhere. 

In the draw was an EDH and her mother name was Elizabeth she never knew what the DH were for and never asked.

You've done this before with other women asked Isa? Eva has night terrors and Isa would stop her from hurting herself and Isa.  Isa wants Eva to be her partner.  Eva said I will have to go with Louis he is better than nothing. Eva was prepared to marry Louis for his money. 

 Louis phones and asked  Isabel to get Eva out of the house as he is has met Mary and is mad about her. Isabel kicks Eva out. When Louis and Mary arrive Isabel is extremely ill. Mary speaks English and French but not Dutch. However they wont live in the house as it is far away from everything.

Eva's diary is left behind Eva de Haas (hare) she reads the notes in it.

Malcha told me she knew a woman who came back from the camps and went to the women with whom they had left their things to be told that it had all been sold. Eva was told to always wear long sleeves. One family got their home back but had to pay back taxes and so sold the house in 1947, You have to sell everything and you have been tricked into poverty. One girl got the family who now lived in her family home to hire her. and as a maid took the things piece by piece. 

Eva had heard about the family  Den Brave now in her home that only the daughter lived there. She found Louis and managed to form a relationship with him. I think I could make him marry me.   Saw a woman in the market with a number on her arm that was 2 numbers off Mum's number.   After the war the Red Cross came for the French and Swiss  but nobody came for the Dutch so they went with the Swiss to Switzerland, where they were helped recover after a few years they came back home but the Swiss government wanted payment from the Dutch government who asked the survivors to pay up. They were sent to a big barn in Eindhoven for left over Jews.

When her mom arrived  back from the camps in Amsterdam Centraal in 1945 she was told she was lucky as the whole of the Netherland had suffered great hunger.

Louis told Eva that his mothers favorite animal was the Hare. Eva and her mother hid at families as long as they had money. She hid at a farm where the old women knew she was stealing food but pretended not to see her. Eva kept stealing things and sending them to Malcha. Eva says that for years Isabel had treated her mother things like treasure and takes care of them even the plate shard. When Eva was 16 she and her mother knocked on the door and were not admitted to the house. Eva had been born in this room and had carved the EDH.

The tailor shop that Isabel mother did not want her to look at where she returned a skirt that had been repaired insisting that That Jew had soiled it . 

Isabel requested  a meeting with Uncle Karel and asked him about their house during the war. He guaranteed her that he had not come on the house in a dishonest way. He only took out 2 biscuits? He said that every day people cannot pay the mortgage and the taxes. The house was empty. Every house has  a  history. The bank took back Parate execution' a standard procedure. Isabel said" I want this house to be mine and to grow old there."

Isabel found the Menorah in the wine cellar. Before the war a woman had given aunt Rian  an oven dish and asked for it back. Rian refused to even though there were 5 oven dishes in the kitchen.

People in the Netherland were living on rations and starving and not concerned what was happening to others. Hendrik and Sabastian were going to live in Paris. She told Hendrik he was lucky to have Sabastian. Hendrik reminded Isabel that when she had night terrors and he used to comfort her.

Needke had a boyfriend Bas van der Laan. Needke stops coming and married Bas in the city hall on a drab Monday.

 When Johan comes she wont let him in, he tells her that he is her last chance to marry but sends him away.

Louis told her she should make a effort to find a man and no man wants to move into his wife's home.  "I will never marry."" Hendrik will never marry" Louis agrees she can use the house while she is alive. He and Mary will be living in a city.

She traces Eva in a hovel and brings her to share the have as partners. Eva tells us her father was the school principle and died in the camps and didn't pay the mortgage.  The vitrine is empty as all the plates have been wrapped up as Isabel doesn't feel it right eating from someone else's plates.  She tells Eva this is your house and you must live in it with me.

The book ends with her looking at the local synagogue with the quotation "for my house will be called house of devotion for all" Isiah 56.7

Summer before the dark by Volker Weidermann 2014 172 pgs

 Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth at Ostend, Belgium  1938  book originally written in German.    8/2/25

 An “émigré society” of authors and journalists – many Jewish – all opposed to and banned by Nazi Germany, try to continue with their lives and work in Ostend. The contrast between the bleak overall European situation and the sunny interlude., Irmgard Keun was in exile by choice, after her books were banned she tried to get compensation via the court but no case could be  opened. Her books were far too modern and suited for the Weimer Republic. She had a Jewish lover in American a doctor Arnold Straus he would have given up his wife to marry her.

 In occupied Poland an index of 1,500 prohibited authors was created. Under Alfred Rosenberg a list of Jewish authors was drawn up that contained 28,000 names   in May 1944 when the project was stopped due to lack of staff. Not all on the list are Jewish. In 1936  German publishers could no longer publish their books and so some looked to the US that had a big German speaking population. Lotta Altman had studied languages and was looking for a job as a librarian when the job with Zweig came up. He took her with him to Scotland when he researched Mary Quean of Scots. Zweig was 13 years older than Roth but they had an affinity to each other. Stefan Zweig was a German speaking assimilated Jew born to wealth. 

When Roth finally wrote Job and the Radetzky March both books should have brought him fame and fortune they were banned in Germany and Austria. Roth's books yearned to travel back in time. He was an advanced  alcoholic and had swollen feet as a result. His book The Wandering Jew portrayed East European Jews and how they were treated by the more Westernized German Jews. This was the world that he came from and knew and Jews had no home.  Zweig was moved by this book and this created the lifelong friendship. They were both in a situation of flight.

Roth was back at his family home with  Irmgard Keun here he did not have to act somebody he was not, and  could enjoy speaking Yiddish his mother tongue. His novel Strawberries documents this .

 Roth had a plan for emperor in waiting Otto van Habsburg to take over from Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg but he is tipped off to get out of Austria. He is sent a message by the head of state security. He goes to Paris the day before the Anschluss on 12 March 1938.

1938 Stafan Zweig meets up with Roth in Paris who is in a bad shape as Irmgard Keun has left him for a naval officer. For almost 2 years they had a fantastic relationship of writing together. Roth's last book The story of a holy Drinker but is not able to get it published. When he hears that Ernst Toller committed suicide , Fredrika Zweig is with him and takes him  hospital where is dies from his liver disease. Freidl Roth after her parents emigrated to Palestine was in a mental home and was murdered by the Nazi euthanasia program.

Author Koestler born in Budapest and received money from Willi Meunzenburg to write a sequel to the Good soldier Sweik unfinished a satirical dark comedy novel by Czech writer Jaroslav Hasek. Koestler was too Jewish and  later became a Zionist. He was disillusioned with communism when he  wrote Darkness at Noon.

The Spanish civil war started after the monarchist opposition leader Jose  Calvo Setoto was murdered by the fascist led by Franco. Koestler was to go to Spain and find evidence of German and Italian support for Franco.

Ernst Toller play No More Peace was produced on the London stage it was translated by WHAuden into English. Christinana was supposed to act in the1933 Nazi propaganda movie Hans Westmar (based on the Horst Wessel story ) but declined and married Ernst Toller in London when she turned 18. She had been a child star at 15.

The boxer Max Smelling 1905 to 2005  refused to bow to Nazi pressure and divorce Czech-born actress Anny Odra wife or leave Jewish manager Joe Jacobs.

Stefan Lux a Czech Jewish reporter committed suicide during the packed assembly of the League of Nations.

Franz Josephs brother Maximillian was crowned emperor of Mexico here, Kirsh claims he was Napoleons grandson.

Irmgard Keun read all  Roth's books. He got her to be a disciplined writer a writing was a sacred duty. Roth knows he has no home anymore. Irmgard Keun can't get a divorce from her Nazi soldier husband in Germany ,Roth tell her to write about the Negroes and Jews that she is sleeping with in Belgium.

1940 May German troops marched into Ostend and the city was destroyed and had not ever reverted to how it was then.

Willi Meunzenburg 1889 to 1940 in Weimer he was a Communist Press Czar. Disappeared in France under the Vishi regime?

Egon Erwin Kisch went to NY then Mexico and after the war returned to Prague where he died in 1948 where he received a big state funeral. He was a leading anti fascist reporter.

Author Koestler 1903- 1983 Hungarian born, repudiated Communism  in his book Darkness at Noon. He spoke a number of languages went from writing in German to French and then English. In 1983 with his wife Cynthia committed suicide

 Irmgard Keun hid in Holland under the German troops. Nazi's had claimed in the press he had died. In 1977 the magazine Stem discovered her and her books were reprinted, so her financial position recovered. Died in Cologne in 1982.

In the post war period the old exiled writers were not able to get their recognition again as a new younger wave of German writer took over. In the 12 Hitler years a generation never knew them.

Inside of Time: My Journey from Alaska to Israel by Ruth Gruber2002

1940 to 1952  Ruth Gruber reports on her life and travels in this time.  5/2/25

Harold L Ickes was Secretary of the Interior. he had cleaned  up the Teapot Dome Scandal. The Teapot Dome scandal has historically been regarded as the worst such scandal in the United States^[  of cabinet corruption. It is often used as a benchmark for comparison with subsequent scandals.

1924 Revenue Act. the right to obtain the tax records of any taxpayer.

1939,I Went to the Soviet Arctic,  Ickes wife read this book and as a result wanted Ruth to work for  him to report directly on what was happening in Alaska as it was only 3 and a half miles Bering Straight from Russia and could be important in the case of war.   Alaska was a 5th the size of the US and only had 30,000 Whites and 30,000 native peoples. Alaska became state in 1959 (Note 2023 the population was 733406 with full employment. 16% are Native American.) So she informed the Herald Tribune that she was working for the government and not doing a series of article for them. The question was how to populate the territory and also conserve its resources and natural beauty.

She was the only women reporter at  press conference with FD Roosevelt. She knew Walter Lipman 1889 to 1974 a leading reported who introduced the concept of the Cold War.  

She attended an all women press conference under Eleonor Roosevelt. People hated her power over the President.

She had to get a security clearance and be fingerprinted at the FBI and Edgar J Hoover assured Ickes that she was clean. She was now sworn in as the representative of  the Alaska Railway. She took a train to LA and then from there to Seattle  She was warned that she would be attacked in the press but they were really attacks on Ickes. The Arctic explorer Vihijalmur Stefanson,  explored Alaska in 1908. He wrote in the press that Ruth Gruber was a very suitable person for the job.  1898 Alex Hrdlicka an anthropologist who had spent 4 years in Alaska, studying the migration routes of man from Siberia to America. There was not much other research done on Alaska. 

Sourdoughs was the name for early Alaskan settlers. On the steamship she was told that only 2 types of women came to Alaska schoolmarms and whores and the purser seats them by profession. However she found young women who were travelling to be clerks , stenographers, telephone operators and brides. Prostitution was a big profession in the Gold Rush days then settled down to marry. As on all frontiers few middle class types were there. Doukhobor sect were Christian who had fled Russia 75 years earlier and wanted religious freedom as the rejected the Russian Orthodox Church.

She visited Juneau the Territory Capital. The Baranhof hotel a 9 story building named after the Russian governor Alexander  Baranov who ruled Alaska between 1790 and 1818.

Drinking and gambling was a major problem. The big companies paid Federal taxes but refused to pay local taxes. She was taken to the Mendenhall Glacier. (Note we also saw this on our Alaska cruise)  

Anchorage 1941  the biggest town along the Railroad was where she set up home and workplace. She met the upper crust of Alaska and the military brass who were preparing Alaska for war. Alaska had 22,000 US troops and airbases were hurriedly being build at Kodiac and Sitka, as refueling station between the US and Soviet Union. Here there were gold and coal in the mountains a good harbor for ships and a railroad linking Mt. McKinley to Fairbanks. It had a row of brothels in wooden shacks. There was a school in every village and the University of Fairbanks which opened in 1922. Fairbanks was founded by the gold find there in 1902. At the cemetery a section for prostitutes. 

Ruth could imagine farmers who had left the dust bowl coming there, people who wanted adventurous independent . lives and doctors and nurses who wanted to help the native peoples who were being destroyed by alcoholism and new diseases. Tuberculosis was a big problem and she recommended a hospital be set up for that. Airmen from Britain, Canada Australia, USSR and US from Fairbanks flew to Russia. Women here were doing everything from running businesses, judges, community leaders as well as a woman miner running her mine.  Mount McKinley, is the highest mountain peak in North America, 20,310 feet above sea level.

At None there was the Catholic Church and the Swedish Lutherans. At one time you had the Russian Orthodox Church there. At St. Michaels you had the onion shaped domes of the Russian Church. When she showed children magazines they were most interested in the adverts. She met a women that had a herd of over 4000 deer.

Dancing is important in Eskimo folk law and it usually follows a successful hunt. At this time the average lifespan Eskimos was 24 years. Teachers had been sent but there was a resistance to sending doctors. Movies brought the war to this isolated area. You could see Japanese cannery ships fishing in these waters.

St Paul's has the Pribilof island largest seal rockery in the world where seals came out of the water to mate and bear their young. The Fouke Fur Company had an exclusive contract with the Federal Gov. for seal skins. The eerie death fields for women's coats. 1182 seals were killed the morning she was there.  The pelts were scraped for blubber for soap and the ground up carcass for dogfood.  Commercial harvesting of seals was ended in 1984. There are about 900,000 seals left at the peak there were 3 million. The cinema was segregated with whites in the gallery and Aleuts sat below. When the US bought Alaska in 1867 the picked up where the Russians left of by treating the Aleuts as and government slaves.

Stinson105 an aircraft with high wings were build in the 1940s and carries 2 people. The Arctic is the hardest place to fly. In 1935 the entertainer Will Rogers had died near Point Barrow. Life here revolved around whaling and walrus hunting and this was not hunting for the profit of people far away but only to feed their families. The catch of a huge walrus would be divided up amongst the hunter and frozen to survive the long harsh winter.

Dutch Harbor was preparing for war and young soldiers were keen to talk to here about their longing for home. The were displaced from their farms ,  jobs and schools and traumatically their homes.

From Anchorage she visited Matanuska valley a government project to take people out of the dustbowl, and this was a success. 750 people lived at Palmer an agricultural dream of lush fields and healthy cattle. Many farms were run by the wives while the men had jobs at the army base. People who had  living on relief,  here now had jobs on farms , sawmills roadwork and the air base.

Once America entered the WW2 Alaska was on the front line. The Japanese canneries on the coast - How many of them were spy ships. A thousand Aleuts were evacuated from the islands. Japanese bombed Dutch Harbour and captured Kiska and Attu islands. At wars end the native population was returned to their homes. The army now wanted to get army wife's and children off Alaska but they refused to go. Once the women were evacuated then many business folded, leaving liquor as the only viable business.

Once Ruth returned from Alaska, Ickes wanted here to remain on as his special assistant. She now edited a movie about the territory. She drafted speeches for Ickes. All mail to do with homesteading came to her. She discussed the need for more women in Alaska. Eleonor Roosevelt phoned her as she had letters from soldiers who wanted to homestead in Alaska after the army service and could she write replies. She now wrote a book that would be sent to these potential settlers. This was 63 pages including maps and Alaska's history. 1867 the US bought Alaska from Peter the Great for $7.2 million.

When Ruth returned to Washington the train was packed with soldier, sailors and airmen. The imminence of war was everywhere.

1943 Ickes called her to go to Canada's Northwest territories and report on the Canol Project and Alcan Highway  and how the army was getting along with the project. The Canol Poject involved the construction of 3985 kilometers of winter and summer roads, 2512 kilometers of pipeline, tank farms, airfields, and an oil refinery. This project was abandoned in the end as there was not sufficient oil. Oil had been discovered in 1919. 

From White Horse in British Colombia to Skagway in Alaska. There were not yet good maps or the area. You had to wear sunglasses and there was a problem of dust, and mosquitoes. The Alcan Highways was from Edmonton to Fairbanks to take food, munitions and medicines to win the war. Most of the workers were African American from the South. She complained that these soldiers were not given clothes for the cold weather. This highway was built in 9 months. A network of weather bureaus was set up.  In Seattle the US Employment Service started recruiting single women for Alaska. The Matanuska valleys farmers earned very well and were able to feed the local army and civilian population. Roads and transport was still a problem

Helen Reid took over running the Herald Tribune and hired more women reporter than other papers. She had just printed a series of articles that government official were Nazi sympathizers. Eleanor "Cissy" Patterson was the owner and publisher of the Washington Times. She also met Henri Bernstein a French playwright

1941 Ion Antonescu the Romanian Dictator  began murdering his Jews. The State Dept. wanted to hear no more about Hitler atrocities against  Jews. Morgenthau approach Roosevelt who set up the War Refugee board a thousand refugees from Romania were taken to Naples, they also took Lion Feuchtwanger , Thomas Mann and Marc Chagall as well as 425,000 German POWs. The 1000 refugees  taken to Camp Ontario at Oswego. Ruth went with the refugees by train. Later on She went with Eleonor Roosevelt and Elinor Morgenthau to visit the camp. The refugees were surprised to see the First Lady visiting. These refugees were brought in by FDR on the pretext that they would go back at the end of the war, with much maneuvering they were allowed to stay.

Robert Sherwood was a playwright and FDRs speechwriter.

When the war ended she corresponded through Europe the Middle East. UNSCOP the United Nation Special Committee on Palestine. Travelling abroad immediately after the war was only for journalists, camera men and people with special permission. You flew from Gander Newfoundland to Shannon ,Ireland. The 6 American were meant to support the opening of Palestine to Jews while the British 6 were meant to veto it.

Stuttgart was a city to which German Jewish Holocaust victims had returned and hoped to rebuild there lives there.

 This was the 20th committee studying the Jewish Palestine issue.  Later she was in Israel to write on the 1973 War

The farm that had been owned by Julius Streicher publisher of the Sturmer amti-Semitic paper  was turned into a training centre for youths who intended to go to kibbutzim in Palestine.

Nuremburg was a demolished city US bomber knew it was Hitler's favorite city. The UNSCOP committee met in Vienna which before the war was a city of operas and symphonies now was a kaleidoscope of post war poverty. Amongst the rumor's was that the US was sending German Jews to govern Germany and Austria. In Cairo Arab speakers stated that Jewish immigration to Palestine would be regarded as an act of war.

Gershon Agronsky was the American editor of the Palestine Post. At the Hadassah Hospital Jerusalem there were many American doctors and nurses.

Ruth went to Amman and met King Abdulla as well as his grandson Prince Hussein. Haifa she considered a morning city with people working in factories and oil refineries, Tel Aviv was High Noon while Jerusalem a Night City. The report was finally decided in Lausanne Switzerland. Bevin announced that Britain would not accept the report.

There were American students studying in Israel under the GI bill.

When Israel's war of Independence began Ruth was sent back report on it. While in Alaska settlers were cutting down trees to develop towns in Israel they were planting trees. There were no flights to Israel and she came by ship. The nightly curfew under the British were over. She met Ben Gurion and told him that the condition in the new immigrant camps were bad. He asked her to write a report on the situation and got all his minister to visit them.  They started building development towns to absorb the immigrants 

1952 She showed Eleonor Roosevelt around Israel and that it was absorbing thousands of immigrants.

Spouse: Henry Rosner(m. 1974–1982), Phillip Michaels (m. 1951–1968) Children: David and Celia Michaels. Ruth Gruber died in 2016