The Seventh Nights by Ladislav Mnacko: A witness to the end of the Prague Spring. 1968 220pg

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Book translated into English in 1969 . He was one of  the few Czechoslovak writers translated into English.(1919 -1994)

1968 August 30th he woke up and it was extremely quiet , no cars or trucks or trams making a noise, the Russians had arrived in Bratislava. General Kadoj speech in the  Czechoslovak general assembly had started this crises.  5 Warsaw Pact countries had invaded and all tanks had a white line down the middle so that the different countries, from different sides could identify each other across the 4114 km  Czechoslovak frontier. Poland, East Germany, Hungry and Bulgaria were all countries that hated Russia but part of the Pact that invaded her.

1938  Czechoslovakia was deserted by her democratic allies England and France. Czechoslovakia had spent a fortune to protect the country, which was hermetically surrounded and sealed by enemy states. Both Eduard Benes and Klement Gottwald didn't fight. Gottwald prepared to take the party underground and then fled to Moscow. Gottwald was head of the Communist Party and had they fought they would at least have had a seat at the victory  table.  All decisions were made behind their backs.

Yugoslavia under Tito owed Stalin nothing for liberation. The Slovak Clerical Fascist state had been Hitler's ally. The Slovak Popular party helped Hitler destroy the remnants of the Czech and Hitler occupied that.

When WW2 ended the Czech we waiting for the Russians to enter and drive out the Germans they entertained them and fed them as heroes and gave them  sex freely so they didn't have to rape. The Communist Party lost  28,000 fighting the Germans, killed and tortured fighting the Germans in Bohemia and Monrovia.

1968 600,000 troops arrived one for every  20 Czechoslovaks, 12 divisions. Tanks rolled in destroying fields paving. The Russians broadcast Czech in a German accent and Slovak with a Russian accent, they said they came to liberate with imbecile inventions.  Goebbels said a lie told 100 times becomes the truth . No Czech politician joined the occupation forces. 

Ladislav reported on Israel's  Six day war and in 1967 the Soviet Ambassador had approached Levi Eshkol and asked why Israel had 2 divisions of panzers on the Syrian border. Eshkol wanted to take them to see that this was a lie, but they refused to go.

1968 The army invading arrived without field kitchens believing as in 1945 that the Czech would provide this. Motorized  kitchens and water tanks had to quickly be sent as nobody would betray instructions sent over the free radio, very different from 1945.  The 6 months of freedom from Burocratic Dictatorship had done wonders for the society as the public regarded the occupation as something that had gone wrong.

Mobile broadcasting trucks or broadcasting from the edge of the forest, or the Danube islands. The  Czechoslovak army put its broadcasting equipment that was meant to be used against the west, was put to the Free Radio use. At times the radio announced when there would be a TV program. The broadcasts were by well known voices that the public knew , were calm and assured and were several times of the day and the public followed the instructions exactly.  Rumor's were that Dubcek Cemik and Smirkovsky were arrested and negotiating.  The Russians could find nobody to cooperate. Revolution demanded the return of Dubcek and Svabado from Moscow. There were careers to be made by working with the Russians, but for the first time no Quislings arrived.

Eventually the  Czechoslovaks will work with the Russians just to get bread.  

 In communist society because nothing works always have to find an individual to blame for failure and not the system.  In the show trails, put on witnesses were forced to say the opposite of what they knew to be the truth.

1948 when Israel became independent  Ladislav was there as a reporter on the war and wrote his first book in Czech. The US hoped to weaken Britain and the Soviets wanted to deal a blow to the feudal Arab leaders.

Jews trained in  Czechoslovakia as fighters and sent to Israel ceased to be communists, while Egyptians whose socialism was supported were a waste to time to the Soviets.

1952 The Slansky trial - The best weapon in abnormal society is a Political scandle and anti-Semitic worldwide Zionist conspiracy, this was state sponsored  antisemitism and innocent people were found guilty, at the same time there was the Doctors plot. 

1953 Beria was shot at a meeting just after Stalin died - 2 weeks later it was reported in Tass that he had been tried and executed for espionage.  "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist agent"

1956 Russian troops were in accordance with the treaty of the Soviet and Hungarian governments, not so with the  Czechoslovaks.. Dubcek without Russia's permission had had free elections , economic reforms had ended censorship. Democratic socialism horrified Ulbricht  ,Kosygin and Brezhnev. Gomulka deceived the Polish people.  Dubcek put democracy into practice. The Russian invasion had nothing to do with the fears of these leaders. The  Czechoslovaks produced 70% of the types of goods produced in the world, but the west would not buy them only the Third World wanted to buy these outdated tractors for cheap. To increase production they produced shoddy goods. There is a constitutional right to employment thus the anomaly of artificial employment.

In North Vietnam Haiphong harbour, US planes saw Soviet weapons arriving but were not allowed to bomb as it would create a war with Russia.

1962 An American news agency said they can't have a full time reporter in Prague as nothing happens there, by 1964 there were many reporters, as the situation seemed to be moving as the Czechs were getting ready for a resolution in western eyes.

In Moscow they agreed to remain in the Warsaw Pact and censorship will  reestablished even though in the constitution no censorship is allowed on a legal basis . Dubcek's crime - he was a servant and not a dictator of the people.  Novotny was not purged but realized that his position was untenable he had been editor of the press that was the mouth piece of the party loyalists .Under Dubcek the press telling  the truth and the circulation increased. The Czech press said there was not a single political prisoner and it was true. 

Ladislav was 14 when Hitler came to power. The USSR had saved Czechoslovakia from extinction but had then gone into power politics and expansion, but had deserted the principles of the revolution.   Dubcek, Carnik and Smarkorsky returned from Moscow with guarantees that were worthless before they were made.

Stalin had sent the Kirghiz and Chechens to Siberia on the grounds that they had collaborated with the Nazis.  Russia is a free giant power made up of nations that  are not free. Russian Public know nothing but what others allow them to know. They are not a self assured nation and know nothing of the bible and when they get to the west realized they have been deceived. After WW2 they had to rebuild the country work done mostly by women as there were no men left. Expansion is a sign of weakness to cover internal failure and cover the crises within. Antisemitism is the same. Brezhnev saw himself as a Red Napoleon. The Soviets knew to leave Tito as he would fight. Stalin was in the end thrown out of the mausoleum as he had had a personality cult. 

When the writer saw friends they were horrified that he was still around in the country and they were sure he would be a prime target of the KGB so he took a taxi to the Austrian border and had no problem getting through and lived in exile.

On the night of 20–21 August 137 Czechoslovaks died during the invasion.^[ It was not until the 2000s, following the publication of texts dating from 1968 other writers material on this period was published. 

1969 At the International Ice Hockey championship in Stockholm the score ended up Czechoslovakia 4 – Occupation forces 3! The whole Czechoslovakia population turned out onto the streets to celebrate causing riots that the loyalist police put  down and this was used as an excuse to depose Dubcek.

1989 Dubcek was with Vaclav Havel in the Velvet Revolution and received the Sakharov prize that year.

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August 21st. The Rape of Czechoslovakia by Colin Chapman 124 pg. 1968  13/2/24

Warsaw Pact maneuvers had been a front for a possible invasion.

Dobryin the Soviet Ambassador in Washington from 1962 to 1986. He informed L.B.Johnson that what was happening was an internal affairs' of t he Soviet Union, Dean Rusk was secretary of State. The USSR was dealing with counter revolutionaries.

The invasion was considered necessary as Dubcek government was getting to friendly to West Germany, and this would have broken the balance of power. The Communists leaders of East Germany , Hungary and Poland felt threatened. The Red Army sent 3 armies into Bohemia and only 1 into Slovakia as Bohemia was more pro Western. The Hungarian invader asked for food as the expected to be provided by their fellow countryman.

The Red Army were well disciplined considering the provocation they were under.

The invasion was meant to end the 7 and a half month of freedom 

In 1948 proper democratic election were held and the Communists won 38% of the votes. Stalin forced they to accept a fully Soviet style government and to renounce participation in the Marshall plan.

1966 Professor Ota Sik drew up a plan that would improve the economy. 

Dubcek was arrested and Soviet Quisling were meant to take over but the protest were so strong that the Kremlin had to negotiate and agreed to leave Dubcek but he had to tow their line and Soviet "advisors" were sent to be present.

In 1921 the Kronstadt sailors rebelled against the Communist terror, they wanted proper elections and a free press. Later the Hungarians revolted in 1956. Now Czechoslovakia for the same reason, this occupation that followed was no where near as bloody as the ones in 1921 and 1956.

Alexander Dubcek 1921to 1992 died in a car crash, considered mysterious.

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 Archivist on a bicycle edited by Helen Epstein and Wilma Igges 2015 138pg. 5/12/2023

In 2014 Jiri  (78)and Dagmar (74) Fiedler were found stabbed in their apartment by a thief who was caught.

Jiri was a linguist , writer , translator and editor by profession. He was born in 1935 in Olomouc. He was not Jewish even though his name Fiedler could be.

1945 After the war the family moved to Prague and he was at The King George school with Vaclav Havel and film-maker Milos Forman and Ivan Passer. This was a school for carefully selected students but the Communists closed it as it was class biased in 1953. You weren't allowed to talk about Jewish existence in Czech lands now and Jewish cemeteries and building were completely neglected. Perhaps by documenting these he found a sense of freedom under this repressive regime.

1963 Ralp Yablon a philanthropist paid to by 1564 scroll that remained in the State Controlled Jewish Museum. The Westminster Synagogue  set up a trust to distribute these to where they were needed Documented in Out of the Midst of the Fire by Phillippa Bernard.

 He also studied Servo Croatian. Starting in 1960 he toured Bohemia an Monrovia collecting information on extinct Jewish communities and build up an enormous achieve in his apartment that he sheared with his wife and children. His wife was supportive of him.

1991 After the Velvet Revolution he was able to publish Jewish Sights in Bohemia an Moravia. He was given money to help publish this but where he helped people in their genealogical search never asked for money. As soon as the Jewish Museum was returned to the Jewish community by the Czech government in October 1994 he worked there till 2012 He created an electronic encyclopedia of Jewish communities in Czech lands. He finally could dedicate himself fully to his old love.

He worked at the Albatros Publishing House in Prague dealing with the publication of children's books. The translated dozens of books into Polish and Serbo Croat.

Jihlava a village has the house where Gustav Mahler grew up.

Jiri was 10 when the Nazi occupation ended and he saw their retreat. He came across old Yiddish newspapers and deciphered the letters like hieroglyphics. and taught himself Yiddish. He chanced upon a bilingual journal in German and Yiddish and did not give up until he had penetrated the mysteries of East European Jews. He had studied linguistics at the Charles University, but his passion was taking photos of churches old synagogues and cemeteries. If it hadn't been for Jiri a lot of Czech modern Jewish history would have been lost. Sometime he had to flee the place he was documenting or explain what he was doing. Everything was controlled by the secret police and he had to explain to them that he was doing nothing illegal. The Jewish community representatives behaved like cowards and rudely rejected him. Even the Rabbi informed the Secret Police. Between 1948 and 2007 he kept detailed dairies of his riding around.

Visitors knew to get dropped off nearby and not reveal to the taxi the address they were going to.

After the Soviet Invasion of 1968 jobs at the Jewish museum were kept for loyal party members. Jiri never had much luck getting information from the Jewish achieve till after 1989..

Czechoslovakia had no friendly relation with Yugoslavia 

All  Jewish spoils of the holocaust were brought to Prague. You had 1400 torah yadim  and Kiddush cups inscribed with family names. 1982 The Precious Legacy of Judaic Treasures from the State Jewish Museums in Prague was created.. Jewish building had been converted to other uses, perhaps a warehouse. Less than 10% of the community survived the Nazis. 

1990 he was invited to the Jewish Council meeting in the USA to a conference of Jewish Monuments and designated the Czech research director. He went for a tour of synagogues in NY and was given a personal tour of the White House by Mark Talisman who had been appointed by Jimmy Carter to set up the US Holocaust museum.

1992 Ruth Gruber wrote Jewish Heritage Travel: A guide to Easter and Central Europe.  Jiri's help was invaluable to her. After 1995 synagogues were returned by the state to Jewish communities and some building have been restored or rented out.

1848 There was a plagues and  research was do on the victims, some were buried in mass graves. of it .Jiri was also in great demand in the Jewish Gen Society.

The synagogue in Kolyne was repaired and opened.to great fanfare.

The Jewish museum in Prague deals with 800 Czech communities that once existed.

Panama. The Path between the Seas by David McCullough 1976 617pg

The Story of the Panama Canal. 20/9/22

 French experience 1881 to 1889

1513 The Darien wilderness is on the isthmus of Panama where Balboa began his crossing of  only 40 miles. There is an  isthmus at Techantepec, Guatemala, Honduras , British Honduras , El Salvador , Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. There were 19 possible places that a canal might be build.

 1794 Paris Polytechnique This was a military collage that came out of the revolution, it was a military school and from it emerged French army  engineers in the service of the state. The French became very good engineers, the American's were more adept to  improvise.

1801in Haiti the black insurrection by Tousaint L'Ouveture was put down and with that accomplished the French army was to have occupied New Orleans and Louisiana but yellow fever struck and thousands of them died including General Leclerc. This was one of the reasons that Napoleon decided to sell the territory to the US in 1803.

1848 Gold found in California and to get there there were 3 routes " the Plains across , the Horn around or the Isthmus over."

1850  Panama Railroad began runs from Colon to Panama City. It took 5 years to build instead of 2 and cost 6 times beyond anyone's estimate. Workers came from far and wide to work including many Chinese.  It is estimated that 6 thousand died building this railway of Cholera, dysentery , smallpox, as well as the problem of flies and mosquitos , ticks, chiggers , spiders and poisonous snakes. Many of these cadavers were pickled in large barrels and sold to medical schools. They also had to deal with marshy flats and  swamps.

1854 Commodore  Mathew Perry opened Japan up another reason for a need of a canal.

1870 to 1875 A total of 7 US expedition sent by Grant to research a canal. 

1881 de Lesseps approached General Grant to run the Canal Organization, who replied that he would not have his name on a program that was doomed to failure. 

In Panama jungle  the rainfall is 10 feet per annum on the Caribbean slope and up to 6 feet per annum on the Pacific side.  The Charges river stood directly in the path of the canal.  Immense trees and tangled undergrowth had to be removed.

1881 many of the managers and engineers arrived with their wives.  In these parts iron and steel turned yellow with rust overnight and leather grew moldy. Glued furniture  fell apart.

None of the advisors, engineers, an admiral were willing or bold enough to challenge de Lesseps against the inevitable cost of a sea level canal. First residences , barracks and hospital were set up but by summer yellow fever had returned to the area and this caused the death of most people. A person had Yellow fever only once either he lived or died, but never gets it again.

1881 by the end of the year there were 2000 people at work a few from Colombia , Venezuela and Cuba but most were English speaking West Indian blacks mostly from Jamaica as well as 500 blacks from New Orleans.  Most machinery arrived in parts and had to be assembled. The French bought out this railway to be able to control it and use it in the construction. An earthquake struck doing extensive damage to the railroad.

In Paris the high death toll was no longer a secret and at the Ecole des Ponts et Chausees graduates were advised not to go to Panama. but there was still no shortage of recruits and some of the best trained technicians went there.

Where they wanted to dam the Chargres River they could not find a suitable rock formation to do this.

There were no theaters, libraries or entertainment for the workers and if you wanted to read a book at night a candle drew a swarm of insects.

Excavation done in the dry season was destroyed by the rainfall the next season and panama geology is made of 17 different rock formation with 5 major cores of volcanic rocks creating and engineering nightmare.

1885  Prestan Uprising, this part of the civil war in Colombia and the main town of the canal workers was Colon which this burned down with lots of riots amongst black workers. Pedro Prestan was  publicly hanged  and many black workers walked off the job to return to Kingston.

1885 Jules Isodore Dingler a very capable man in charge  gave up a defeated man and returned alone to France with all of his family buried in Panama. Others who followed him were younger less experience and gave up or died very soon.

1886 In NY  harbor the Statue of Liberty was unveiled by Grover Cleveland.  de Lesseps was present as this was a show of great French engineering.

1887 a commission convened  on the possibility of a lock canal, with the idea of using dredgers instead of diggers to excavate. 

1888 proposal to raise money with a lottery system. At this stage a sale of bonds did not even attract a third of investors.

1889 the Compagnie Universell du Canal Interoceanique was liquidated.

It was 3 years till the scandle broke loose. At this time Edourd Drumont brought out his anti Semitic tropes of La France Juive.  He blamed Jewish bankers for the failure.

From Suez on deLesseps enjoyed the privilege of being believed with out having to prove what one affirms, he was such a popular force and thus dangerous man. The black laborer's returned home at the expense of the Jamaican government.

 1892 it emerged that 150 French deputies had been bribed into voting for the allocation of financial aid to the Panama Canal Company, and in February 1893 Lesseps, his son Charles, and a number of others faced trial and were found guilty.

1894 de Lesseps died in Paris.

1896 Dryfus Affair which ended in his Presidential  pardon in 1906. Dryfus had learned engineering at the Ecole Polytechnique. This is an important aspect of the problems of French society at this period. France wanted to salvage lost honor from this crises.

Americans take over 1903 till 1914  

1901 Mc Kinley assassinated at Buffalo and Theodore Roosevelt become President at age 42. 

Roosevelt had read the book by Alfred Mahan The influence of Sea Power on History and decided that the Panama canal was vital  indispensable for American Sea Power and commercial supremacy would follow. Roosevelt had written the book the Naval  War of 1812 in 1882   and had been the Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

1901 Britain was bogged down in the Boer War and was happy to leave Panama Canal to the Americans.  A lot of money had gone into research of the best place to build the canal and Nicaragua was favored, it had a better climate but volcanoes. In Panama the French had left an inventory of property as well as the Panama railroad, building hospital, machinery tugs, dredges, locomotives etc. and by buying them out they would buy the right from Colombia to land across the isthmus. They also left  extensive maps.

A Panama canal would need 5 locks while a Nicaragua one would need 8. Nicaragua had a better climate was closer north but a far wider crossing. 1902 Mount Pelee on Martinique exploded wiping out the city of St Pierre in 2 minutes so this put an end to the Nicaragua possibility.  Panama would take half the time for a ship to transit and had better harbours.

1898The American troops were in Cuba and 13 times their number died of malaria an yellow fever compared to those who died in battle and the army had to be withdrawn. 

1904 work under the American started with John F Wallace as Chief engineer, he resigned with fear of Yellow fever. Americans that came left and reported back on the terrible conditions and diseases including bubonic plague. They food workers got was bought from the locals and it was expensive and poor

Colonel William Gorgas was assigned as sanitary officer, he had had yellow fever survived and was now immune and had eradicated the plagues in Havana. The Anopheles mosquito travels widely and spread malaria. The Stegmomyla mosquito spread yellow fever but is only local and it takes 27 days incubation a persons body before the disease becomes infectious. Ronald Ross had proved the mosquito was the malaria carrier but when Gorgas came in 1904 he was not given the resources as the scientific evidence was not understood by the engineers "To spend money chasing mosquitoes"

1902 Ronald Ross had won the Nobel prize for his malaria discoveries . In 1904 he visited Panama and said Gorgas work was sound.

1903 In Paris, Walter Reeds work was an accepted fact that Yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes.

1903 Kitty Hawk with the Wright Brothers flying an heavier than air balloon also was not  an accepted idea till a few years later.

1904 The 95 ton Bucyrus steam shovel started working in the Culebra  Cut.

1905 John Steven the greatest railway engineer in the US took over. He had built the Great Northern Railroad to the Pacific through the Marius Pass over the Continental divide in 1889.  He accepted the Panama post because this was the largest public works ever attempted.

Stevens spent a time examining the situation and them stopped the digging and gave instructions that first housing , hospitals anything needed to get rid of the diseases was priority. Just the cost of screening alone was the same as the budget that sanitary had been allocated, also ordered was fumigation material rat traps etc. Running water installed in all houses to do away with open water tanks, even the holy water in the churches had to be changed daily.  In Havana Yellow fever had taken 8 months to eradicate in Panama a year and a half with 4000 workers. 

 Stevens now brought in experienced railway men and double tracked the Panama Railway with heavier rails. Americans were the skilled workers or Gold workers an were given housing and other perks to attract them. Later social clubs were opened baseball leagues and they were encouraged to bring their wives to stop the rapid turnover of Americans. All workers were given free medical treatment a thing that was never given in the USA.

Most unskilled workers called Silver class were black from Barbados as the Jamaica Government would not allow recruiting. 80% of these were illiterate and they were mostly cane field workers.

Stevens wanted to bring Chinese but there was the Chinese  Exclusion  Act. He also wanted to bring southern blacks but the Congressmen there did not want their states being deprived of cheap labour. At the canal the color line was part of daily life and not much was said about it in the press. Black women came to be with their husbands. Black labors were available in abundance but skilled white workers had to be attracted with perks. No one in Panama went hungry. Among the blacks the crime rate alcoholism , venereal disease was abnormally low. 80% of the black workers were illiterate.  Initially the blacks were poor workers but once the got better food their capability improved in Barbados they had eaten a low protein diet of rice and yams.

1855 completed  the Soo Canal between Lake Superior and Lake Huron the system and experience that the locks were to be based on. To build a dam the Charges River had to be tamed.

 The Panama Railway now had to be moved  at a   cost of $9 million as well as villages that would be flooded.

1906 President and Mrs. Roosevelt visited Panama this was the first time a President in office left the USA.

1907John Steven decided to resign he was offered a top railway engineering job. He was not one who knew how to build the locks, he had no experience in the large scale use of concrete to build the Gatun Dam.\

George Washington Goethals  now took over he was the top army engineer and brought other army engineers to work with him but nobody wore uniforms. The French butler who hardly spoke English worked at the chief engineers house and Goethals was the 7th and final resident.

He started a weekly paper. The locks had to be 1100 feet by95 feet to accommodate the widest warship. The Pacific lock had to be further inland so that it could not be bombarded from the sea. A lot of spoil was dumped into the pacific claiming a lot of land . The Gatun dam wall was a mile and a half across and the top was 15 times as wide as the base. During this time there were 3 passenger trains daily running in each direction.

There would be eventually  50 thousand on the payroll, of these only 3500 American workers  who would get  42 days paid leave p.a. to go home. Gemstones could be found in the digging and many men spent their Sunday searching for sapphires, opals ,garnets and fossil sharks teach. No private contractors were used and the Canal Company fed, housed and gave free medicine as well as education for children of  all the workers.  Some Congressmen commented on the danger of socialism but it was more of a caste system with a Brahman at the top.

Goethals would travel on a small locomotive with a gasoline powered engine along the track, and stayed the 7 years till completion of the canal.

1909 Taft becomes president he had been to Panama twice as Secretary of War.

The steam shovels all worked on rails that had to be moved at one period on the Culebre Cut the steam shovel just kept cutting away and the soil kept moving up to the rails as its weight sunk and sand slid.

1910 the Gatun Dam started filling up but it would take 4 years to build the locks, with chambers of 110 to by 1000 feet. The lock gates were built of vanadium steel, and Pittsburg had 50 different mills foundries and machine shops involved in making the parts. The locks and pumps were designed to raise or lower a ship in 15 minutes.

1912The sinking of the Titanic as well as the return of Haileys Comet.

1868 The steel cable knowledge came way back from the Brooklyn bridge construction. Everything was electrical and done by General Electric corp. The first electrical run factories had just started. The towing locomotives were the first of their kind.

Dr. William Gorgas left the canal to work in S. Africa dealing with pneumonia with the black gold mine workers but had been promised the position of surgeon general of the army.

1914 Goathals became the first governor of Panama. This canal opened almost the same day as years of peace in Europe ended with WW1  A few days after the canal was finished an earthquake struck but the locks were not damaged.

1914 and 1974 the rate was 90cents a ton for any ship from all nations including the US.

Costs of the canal for US Government. $ 10million bribe to the dictators of Colombia  plus $250000 rent per year. This was a totally clean project with no graft , kickbacks or payroll padding. 10 Years after it opened it had more than 5000 ships a year the same Suez.

Paid out the French $40 million  the total cost around $375 million to build.

Gangsters vs Nazis: How Jewish Mobsters battled Nazis in wartime America by Michael Benson. 2022 295pg

 Benson is not Jewish — he describes himself as a “lapsed Catholic”  24/8/22

By 1933, there were more than one hundred anti-Semitic groups operating openly in the United States, “Judge Perlman thought outside the box.”

Jewish kids had a favorite gangster like Catholics had a patron Saint.

Meyer Lansky was the one who lead the anti Nazi effort. Fascism gained popularity in time of economic crises like the Great Depression. German immigrants about 12 million were second only to the Irish and the German Bund was out to promote Hitler's agenda .

Henry Ford gave out free copies of the Protocols of the elders of Zion and Jews refused to buy Ford cars. Fortune magazine revealed that 1 in 10 Americans wanted Jews deported in the 1930s.

Fritz Julius Kuhn was the leader of the German American Bund. His favorite target was FDR and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of NY. Many Germans had no intention of becoming American citizens, and Kuhn was funded by a hand full of American industrialists.

 John Metcalf was in the Anti American Committee who investigated both communists and fascist.   Kuhn admitted  to Metcalfe that he represented a foreign power.

Camp Upton was used in WW1 to train soldiers including Irving Berlin, after the war it was transformed into a school for   immigrants to learn English and abandoned, then taken over as a Hitler youth camp.

Irish mobs and Jewish mobs stuck to their own turf but  Jews and Italians worked well together. Jewish kids were bullied and believed they needed to be tough and stand up and fight. Many were encouraged to take up boxing and a few became professional. Boxing became a big thing within the Jewish community as well as Jewish bookmakers betting on it.

1919  The 18th Amendment brought prohibition which later the Volstead Act enforced by the treasury, repealed in 1933. Meyer Lansky made his money through bootlegging now went into casinos and had an elaborate system of paying off police and politicians. Judge Nathan Perlman and Rabbi Stephen Wise approached him. Now Perlman owed Lansky a favor. However there was a no kill rules and Lansky wanted the Jewish press not to write about what he did. The mafia often didn't do it s own killing but contracted out. For this Lucky Luciano went to Louis" Lepke" Buchhalter. Lansky felt that the Nazi's were for the Jews to deal with, even though the Italians hated Mussolini as he was anti Mafia an forced them out of Italy.

Judd Teller the journalist wrote about anti-Semitism. Undercover he got a list of Bund members in NY and their home addresses and many of them were approached in the streets and mugged.

1904 in East Village of the Lower east side the neighborhood the Lutheran Church  organized  a ride on the Slocum a ferry which caught on fire and 1021 people drowned after that most Germans moved to Yorkville NY. This was the deadliest NY incident till 9/11.

1938 a Bund meeting in NY celebrated Hitler's birthday . The gangster wearing American Legion hats  came in and beat up the Nazi's  afterwards  dumped the hats and fled . The press blamed the American league.

The next meeting in Westchester only a quarter of the number attended. A stink bomb was pushed into a window behind the stage and as the Nazi's fled they were beaten up leaving.

1938 June African American Joe Louis beat German Max Schmeling  at Yankee Stadium. Schmeling was not a Nazi however was Hitler's pride and joy.

The Bund complained to Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia that the Jews were infringing on the Bunds rights. LaGuardia agreed to get the Jewish goons off them but in NY they must not wear uniforms, display swastikas or sing songs and march with drums. He also assigned Jewish police to protect them or German dignitaries visited NY. So the Bund moved across the river to New Jersey.

1936 Father Charles Edward Coughlin a catholic priest spoke on the radio via 46 syndicated channels. He defended Nazi Germany and praised the way Nazis deal with Jews. He knew about Kristallnacht that had been on Nov. 9th 1938. He had 22 million listeners. He wanted to run a Catholic candidate against FDR but could not find one. (The only Catholic presidents have been  Kennedy and Bieden). Eventually he went too far in making mistakes and was dropped by WMCA and the Detroit diocese made clear that his worldview was his own.

 In Chicago Wilhelm Kunz  said America should emulate Germany as Hitler got employment for 5 and a half million workers. "Sure they are in the German army" when the heckler was attacked by storm troopers it started a riot.

In Chicago "Greasy Thumb" Guzik was the most powerful Jewish gangster and was Al Capones right hand man.

Herb Brin was a gangland reporter. The anti Deformation League here was the only  organization watching the Nazis.

The group that was to meet outside the German club meeting were told to say they were patriots and veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought against Franco in Spain.

 Ernst Wilhelm Meyer a German diplomat in America resigned saying he could not represent the Nazi government as  Hitler had betrayed Germanies interests.

New Jersey this was a period when everyone was poor, possessions were few and everyone's grandma lived with them but she spoke no English. You had horse drawn carts  the iceman , a fish man and a milk man and others delivered.. Writer Phillip Roth and NY mayor Ed Koch came from here. Newark had 65 thousand German immigrants. Longie Swillman was the Jewish gangster in control. The police told him where there were Bund meetings. Nat Arno a boxer was Newark's Fighting Hebrew. Arno set up an army of close to a thousand people and they called them the Anti Nazi Minutemen of America. They also travelled  to Philadelphia and busted the Bund there, when it met at the Turgemeide hall to celebrate the Anschluss of Austria.

Tear gas was first used by the police during the depression and the public were terrified of it as they had heard of the poisonous gasses used in WW1

When Bund speaker bragged about his relationship to Rudolf Hess, the FBI arrested him as an agent of a foreign government.

There was no such thing as illegal hate speech at that time and the right to assemble was protected by the constitution. The Minutemen busted the screening of a recruitment movie aimed at getting German American parents to send their kids to Nazi camps.  At a meeting to celebrate the acquisition of the Sudetenland Czechoslovak sympathizers also congregated outside, while the gangsters did their work, the police to protect the Nazi's advised them to get out of the uniforms. 

When the police raided Camp Norland they found evidence of espionage and weapons violations so the Bund leader had legal woes.

Jewish immigrants arrived in Minnesota directly from Poland , Ukraine, Belarus and Galicia as well as Romania some came from the Eastern cities of the USA. In Minneapolis and St. Paul's the was large German community, here  the most anti-Semitic candidates often received the most votes. The Silver Legion was run by William Dudley Pelley. 

Eric Sevareid was he top reporter for CBS news to  the find out about the Silver Legion.

At this stage municipal  Judge Larson said that the hate mail and speeches caused a deliberate stirring up  of class against class and is indirect opposition to the tolerance of race and religion which our constitution protects. Hate speech was like inciting a riot. No longer was all speech protected as free speech.

Congress kept off father Couglin but The FBI raided the Front finding weapons and ammunition and plans to blow up bridges and power plants. 

 Hollywood was the one place that Germany's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels had an eye on and Nazi infiltration started in 1933. There were thousands arriving in LA every year especially during the depression in 1935 90% of the population had been there fewer than 15 years and there was no sizable German community. Corruption was assumed and the Silver League had a headquarters here. About 70 thousand Jews lived there mostly in Boyle Heights the movie moguls and stars lived in Beverly Hills. There were many down and out German and  dust bowl migrants. 

 1872 Oil boom money started at the Le Brea tar pits. The oil millionaires were big anti-Semites 

1910 movie studios moved there from Brooklyn, Queens 

1938 Hollywood's greatest year with Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz. Germany had so many cinemas that a lot money was being made there. Germany loved Hollywood movies.

Leon Lawrence Lewis a Jewish attorney put together a squad to spy on the Nazis. Grace Comfort and her daughter Sylvia  were non Jews and worked as a secretary of the Bund and spied on it. Nazis were planning to lynch 20 film moguls. The Aryan bookstore was the meeting place of pro Hitler propaganda and meetings. 

Hillcrest was a Jewish country club as other LA  clubs had restricted membership. The moguls were called to a secret meeting and were prepared to donate money anonymously. Lewis was able to sow disinformation and conflict within the Nazi community, and after Pearl Harbor he had a list of Nazi's to give to the FBI.

1935 Sinclair Lewis wrote the anti fascist novel "It can't Happen Here"

1939 Feb20th the Bund had a rally in Madison Square Garden to hear Gerhard Kunze who call Roosevelt Frank D Rosenfeld and the New Deal Jew Deal denouncing the Jewish Bolshevik leadership and resulted in extreme violence with protesters led by the gansters. The police  1,700 was the largest force in NY history. 2017 documental by Marshall Curry called Night in the Garden.  

The Bund now moved its headquarter to Mexico city. Kuhn was accused of stealing from his organization.

When war came Kunze was arrested under the Selective Service Act

By the time of  Pearl Harbor the Bund was through and Dudley Pelley's Silver Shirts were on the run, not only from angry Jews but the Un American Activities Committee also. He was convicted of sedition and in jail till 1950. Most America Nazis went far underground and disappeared. Germans conscripted were sent to the Pacific. Many German American changed their names and said they were Swedish. In Chicago the Germania club got the name Lincoln Club.

With Lucky Luciano's help the docks were protected from infiltrators and for the invasion of Sicily, Luciano supplied all the information about Sicily and it coastline and arranged the American troops would be welcome there.

1938 Nazi Perverts and Thieves- the morality of the Bund leaders was questioned. Propagandist Winterscheidt was arrested for a child sex crime. He was secretly paroled in 1940  when he turned state witness about falsified applications for US citizenship. Thomas Dewey the NY District Attorney found the Bund had fraudulent tax returns. Several Bund officials returned to Germany. Kuhn's citizenship was revoked and he was arrested as an enemy agent once the US was at war, he was deported to Germany in 1945 but arrested again under the de-Nazification laws.

 Most of those Jews that fought the Nazis volunteered to go to war. The gangsters also did a lot for Israel.

Meyer Lansky was investigated by the IRS for tax evasion, but was never convicted as he had compromising photos of J.Edgar Hoover and his "close aide Clyde Tolson. Lansky died in 1983 aged 80. 

After Pearl Harbor FDR shut down Coughlins radio program and forbade his periodical Social Justice from being distributed. The Bishop forced him to get out of politics to remain in the Church.

The Jew Store : a family memoir by Stella Suberman 1998 297pg

A typical history of a Jewish family living in the southern states in the1920s /30s 15/8/22

I  found this interesting as I can compare it with Jewish life in rural South Africa the I was aware of in the 1950s.    In 1995 Stella went to visit the Tennessee which she had last seen in 1933 when her family left the town she named here Concordia.  Her parents got there by horse cart in 1920 with her brother Joey 7 and sister Miriam 5.At the time the town had a population of 5318 whites and  negroes. These town were steadily loosing population. What was called a" Jew store" was part of every town. The mother was not keen to leave her NY family but Nashville had a Jewish community, she looked back, while  he looked to the future.

When the arrived there the Medlin boys told them to go to Bookie Simmons who was a wealthy spinster and wanted company she was the daughter of Coco Cola wealth. "I child shall lead you" Isaih11.6 quoted T.

Late 1800s  a typhoid plague claimed Aaron's fathers mother, father and grandmother so grandfather brought him up in Podolska near Kiev. His only education was what he got from his grandfather in the evenings enough for his bar mitzvah. He worked in the grandfather business but with the pogrom's the business deteriorated  and took steerage from Hamburg  to NY. Amongst his jobs was delivering coal on a wagon. Paid a bribe and got recruited to  job in Miami but left the ship in Savanah where he worked for a Jewish store. Avram Plotchnikoff became Aaron Bronson.

 In the south Jewish stores opened on Saturdays unlike NY. Savannah had more blacks than whites, he got involved in a service league and girlfriends taught him to read and write English Palmer script and improve his speech and now became a US citizen but he wanted to marry a Jewish girl so returned to NY.

Her mother left the stetle at age 9 got 2 years schooling in the NY and got a job stuffing cuddly animals. 

Aaron married  Reba when she was 17 and convinced her to come with him south after Joey and Miriam were born. The went to Nashville. Because he was a good salesman his boss took him on a buying trip to St. Louis here , he was introduced to the  merchants who considered him trustworthy for credit.

A shoe factory was being build in Concordia and no Jewish dry goods  store was there. from Nashville the travelled with a wagon in 3 days to Concordia, cheaper than taking a train. The store was to serve working men and farmers as well as the coloreds(who came i the back door. There was suspicion of anybody not a southerner , white and Protestant. To  get a store on the main road  he happed to deal with 2 men who were foes of each other.

The author Stella Ruth was the only one born in Concordia and in the Southern tradition she was called by the 2 names.

What church do you belong to? One could change religion between the Protestant denominations. All life took place on the porch in the south. There was no Catholic church in the south then it came later with Hispanics coming.

1609 Henry Hudson discovery what he thought was the north west passage, Reba remembered the celebration of this in 1909

1914 to 1917John Purroy Mitchel was a very honest mayor of NY  and Reba fondly remembers attending his inauguration as a kid.

Bookie took a liking to Miriam and taught her to play the piano. We later find out that Bookie wanted to marry into a wealthy  German Jewish family but her father would not allow it. The Klu Klux  Klan had a big say here and we don't know why they left this Jewish family alone perhaps because of Bookie or their shop landlord. Workers would not patronize a store without their tacit approval. Saturdays farmers did their business shopping in the morning and personal shopping in the afternoon. 

The school year started late after the Tennessee harvesting season. They had storm cellars in case of tornadoes. They bought a Studebaker car that Joey at the age of 12 drove.  Purple Jesus a cocktail of grapes an moonshine.

1927 Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer was the first talkie movie. In the south you called you boyfriend your beau.

Aaron was part of every possible minority for the rural south  - a shopkeeper, foreign born , a Jew a white and Negroes were the majority in the town. When they were away their neighbours looked after their house and garden as was the norm.

1929 when the Wall Street collapse the shoe factory  was in debt, Aaron got the town leaders raised money to keep it ticking over. Because the factory was the biggest employer in town and workers were receiving IOUs for wages. Bookie insisted that she would loan money to the factory on condition that it stopped child labour, which was considered more reliable and cheaper than hiring Negros.

Reba insisted that Joey be sent away to learn for his bar mitzvah so he spent a year in NY at his mothers father home. When he returned to Concordia he was moved to a higher class but wanted to be in NY and so was returned there. 

Miriam was taught piano by Ms. Bookie and was the top girl in dancing. At 17 she wanted to go off with T but Reba said no and in 1933 they sold the store to a chain stores and came to NY where all 3 married Jewish spouses. Aaron got paid out for the business and 20 cents a $ for inventory as well as the money he had leant to the factory which returned slowly. The days of Jew Stores was coming to an end as chain stores took over  They bought a garage in NY and were able to run it successfully. Stella at arriving at the NY school was sent to speech lessons with foreign kids as her southern accent was considered unacceptable. Reba was the one that mow missed the south the most.

The Johnstown Flood by David Mc Cullough 1968 268pg

 The incredible story behind one of the most devastating disaster America has ever known, 2209 killed mostly at Johnstown.  12/8/22

1889 Memorial Day Thursday May 30. This occurred at the dam of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in Cambria County, Pennsylvania in the Allegheny Range. This club was owned by the wealthy Steel and Railway magnates to escape the dirt and noise of the cities. This area was settled by Germans and Welsh and those were the most prominent languages spoken, Cambria is another name of Wales.

1794 Washington put down the whiskey rebellion in Pittsburg.

1850 The Pennsylvania Company railroad came through and Cambrian Iron Company founded.

1879 Diphtheria killed 132 children within a few months.

1888 When Golf was first brought to the USA

Johnstown the more this city progressed the more uncomfortable it became to live there.

1838 the work began on the Water Reservoir to have water for dry summers.

1852 This earth  dam completed.

1879 Dam property taken over by the Pennsylvania Railway.

Trees were cut down to make space for the expanding town and the river channels were being narrowed, and to make it easier to put bridges across, resulting in more and more flooding. in 1885,87,88.

People got tired of hearing of the disaster that never happened

1856 Henry Bessemer, in Sheffield, England invented a blast furnace process for turning iron into steel that was far quicker and cheaper than what had been done at the time and in the 60s and 70s Johnstown was the most lively in the country. Henry Morrell used only American workers training farm boys to master the technology while others were importing English workers familiar with this process. David Morrell later became a member of Congress, he died in 1885.

Morrel wanted a discharge system put on the dam.  The spill way had a grating so that the fish could not escape and this jammed up. Then the dam was lowered so that a 2 lane road could be built on the top.

Heavy rain a logs jammed the bridges arches causing a flood in Johnstown.  A message was sent to East Conemaugh marshaling yard that the dam was liable to burst and prepare for the worst, but took no notice, a total of 3 warning messages were sent down the valley. When the dam burst it emptied in 45 .minutes  and the workers went into the mud with buckets to collect  the fish in the empty dam

.

Every locomotive driver used his whistle giving off his characteristic signal, freight trains used a different tone but a long  whistle with no letup indicated something was wrong., and a drivers whistle that was on for 5 minutes was the only warning that East Conemaugh heard . In Woodvale about 1000 people lived where there was a woolen mill build by Cambria Iron.  Rosensteel tannery  and a streetcar depot  she with 96 horses  that was left flattened.  345 people died here.

Johnstown was hit at 4.07pm. and it was hit harder than anything along the 14 mile route. The devastation was over in 10 minutes. All the flotsam ended up against the bridge and spread out as this formed a new dam and it caught alight with the oil of a derailed tank car.

The next morning people woke up to a silence as no industry was working and no mill whistles or wagons on cobbles or trains and nearly all Johnstown was destroyed. Dead were being found in large numbers. Many who escaped just  left and moved away. Every telephone and telegraph was cut, but farmers from around started bringing food.

Able bodied people crowded the schoolhouse and John Moxham took charge and immediately organized committees. The doctors established a temporary hospital and a police force was sworn in $6000 was recovered from what was left of  the bank. Many of the bodies could not be identified as there were a number of travelling men new in the territory

. The flood had killed 1 in 10 of the population. Millions in donation were give from all over the country both money and supplies like blankets etc, including the magnates. Many had family in Pittsburg and poured into the station , including lost or orphaned children.

A Lynch mob went to look for anyone left at the South Forks Club, in a court case criminal negligence was brought up, nobody was there. It was great wealth that was condemned not technology, and people said that every gain the magnates made people were losing something. They were accused of buying legislatures and cutting wages. The fact that the lake was designed purely for pleasure was unacceptable at the time. The South Forks club had a mortgage and not much money to claim against them. There were also suites against the Pennsylvania Railroad, but the  jury agreed it was a visitation of providence. Nobody had ever seen such a storm and no provision  could have been taken to prevent this. Several small dams build under Daniel J Morell had survived this.

The magnets Pitcairn , Frick and Phipps were named to serve on the Relief committee. Frick never ever made a statement.

1889 Carnegie had been at the Paris World Fair during the disaster, this was the time the Eifel Tower was inaugurated.. Robert Lincoln, Abraham's son was the US Minister in London who he visited. Carnegie later rebuild the library in Johnstown

The dam was a dramatic violation of the natural order. The homes at the dam left high and dry were abandoned and what was left was sold off by Sheriff auction.

1936  American Doctors Odyssey book  by Victor Heiser whose parents died and so he  left Johnstown became a physician and fought diseases all over the world especially the Philippines.

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The Ruthless Tide by Al Roker 2012 282pg  14/3/25

The heroes and villains' of the Johnstown flood . Americans astonishing Gilded age disaster.

This is a very readable book on the subject and starts off of the story of the Quinn family and their baby daughter who survives the flood with help and luck  David Mc Cullough who wrote the book in 1968, had interviewed her as an old women.

The Story of Clara Barton and the Red Cross. She was a hospital nurse in the US civil war in 1869 she went to Geneva, Switzerland. Was involved in the Franco Prussian War. She the managed  to set up the American Red Cross under President Chester Arthur by 1881. With the flood she arrived with the support of money raised by her committee and her organization helped and knew exactly how to go about it. She remained in Johnstown for 5 months organizing releif.

Rylands Rule This set a precedent in British Law. It establishes that a person who accumulates and keeps dangerous substances on their land is liable for any damage that results if those substances escape and cause harm, regardless of negligence.  Thus by changing anything that is not in nature or the geography of a area you take responsibility for harm to your neighbors , even if there is no negligence.

The end of the book asks the question why is it that people who were so powerful and keen to set up monopiles and exploits working people not allow workers unions.  Even hiring the Pinkerton gang or getting the police to stop strikes.  Yet when this type of tragedy happened people made such an big effort to help the people affected.  More money was collected than was necessary. However those who lost parents , spouses or children could never be compensated by money.  The people responsible never paid any price.

Carnegie only,  after he sold his businesses went into being a philanthropist.