The last Kings of China: by Jonathan Kaufman 2022, 302pg

The rival Jewish Dynasties that helped Create Modern China 15/3/22

587 BC  The fall of the first Temple and the exile of Jews to Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar.

1489 a stone marked of the Jews of Kaifeng.

1829 David Sassoon forced to flee Bagdad and set up in Bushire.

1864 with David's death most of his son's moved to London. Elias Sassoon ran the business in Shanghai

1850 Taiping rebellion virtual civil war.

1891 British Parliament legislates ending the opium trade

1894 Japan begins to attack China.

1895 Shanghai had a modern tram system and gas works that rivaled London and was the 4th largest city in the world.

1905Takahashi met Jacob Schiff of KuhnLoeb and Co.just after the Kishinev pogroms Shift gave him loans to build a navy against Russia.

1908 Model T ford that needed rubber for tyres 

1909 International conference in Shanghai banning the opium trade.

1911 Wuchang revolutionary groups organize uprising. The Qing dynasty collapsed bringing the Chinese Republic.

1924 the Kadoories moved into China led by Sir Lawrence Kadoorie.

1925 SunYat-sen died of cancer and Chiang Kai-shek became China's leader.

1927 Chou Enlai launched an armed communist uprising that was put down and 12 Communist's were executed with an anticommunism campaign that killed 300,000.

1934 Mao's Long March

1937 Japan's massacre of Nanking. The British ambassador and Victor Sassoon named enemies of Japan.

1938Victor Sassoon started preparing for Jewish refugees and purchased big tracks of land in Brazil as an investment 

1939 10,000 refugees in Shanghai, and the American Joint Distribution Committee sent money. Diseases like Diphtheria scarlet fever, tuberculosis , measles and typhoid were appearing

1940  700 students enrolled in the Kadoories school in Shanghai

1940 Sept Japan joined the Axis powers. The Germans asked for a list of German Jews in Shanghai

1941 Autumn Victory Sassoon left Shanghai for India as he knew he would be arrested by the Japanese

1949 The year the communists seized power. The Kadoories  partnered with Chinese factory  owners to bring electricity  to those fleeing the communists in Hong Kong

1976 Mao Zedong died he was born in 1893 In was in the freedom of the foreign colony that he set up the communist party

        Deng Xiaoping became ruler

1979 The US established relations with China, Nixon's visit and the writer was a reporter.

1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

2014 the Cathey Hotel was restored and a call was made for memorabilia of the past glory hundreds responded with all sorts of things like embossed dishes, photos etc.

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In 200 years living in China none of the Sassoon's bothered to learn Chinese.

These 2 families set up offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Bombay  and London from where they ruled global economy.

David Sassoon sent his sons to China while their wives remained in Bombay and he hired tutors to teach them. Civil wars in the countryside drove Chinese to seek refuge in the International settlement.

1870 the Sassoons controlled 70% of the trade in opium flowing into China. Siegfried Sassoon the poet became estranged from his family over this.

When Baghdadis heard of the Sassoon's success they flocked to join them.

Elly Sassoon when  bubonic plague broke out he distributed disinfected on credit to control it, so he broke away and started his own firm in 1891aged 25 under the alias ES Kelly. He married Laura who travelled with him; she was not prepared to just be a housewife.  Hong Kong was a crown colony more British than the British. By 1901 he proudly named the firm Elly Kadourie. They built a school in Baghdad for girls. The brother Ellis opened a school in Hong Kong for girls teaching them arithmetic and Chinese and English.

Unlike insular China Japan sent scholars to the west to learn.

Laura was on the ship going to the US that had Japanese officials going to the peace conference under Teddy Roosevelt to end the Russo Japanese War.

1908 Elly Sassoon invested in rubber in Malaysia as cars were now being  manufactured. When cars became available in China Laura was one of the first women do drive one

1909 Elly became the leader of the Zionist movement in China and got Sun Yat-sens support for the Belfour Declaration. Morris Cohen (2 gun Cohen was Sun's head of security.

Elly tried getting British citizenship citing his British wife and children had been educated at British boarding schools. He finally got this in 1926with a knighthood from George V. They visited Japan and a6 weeks later a fire broke out in their home and Laura died.

1920s 40,000 foreigners lived in Shanghai, half of China's new factories were started by Chinese businessmen in Shanghai. The settlement was a haven for political radicals including the communist party. There were many Chinese language daily , weekly and monthly papers published.  Joseph Stillwell was amazed at Shanghai; he later became  US soldier who  played a pivotal role in China relations.

Elly Sassoon welcomed people to his house Marble Hall including Charles Lindberg and Katherine Stringson the first woman to fly there from England.  Hollywood celebrities visited Shanghai - Douglas Fairbanks and wife Mary Pickford. Christopher Isherwood and WH Auden visited.  

At Kadoorie's Majestic hotel the wedding of Chaing Kai shek to Sun's younger sister , wedding of the century

1934 Mao's Long March resulted in the Nationalists nationalizing the banks and all silver deposits were to be exchanged for paper. Thus the Nationalists controlled the loans that could be given out and the ability of foreigners like Victor to move money in and out.

50 years of communism had put China through revolution, famine and a Cultural Revolution.

1938Victor Sassoon started preparing for Jewish refugees and purchased big tracts of land in Brazil as an investment but Brazil would not allow the entry of Jews. Ho Feng -Shan the Chinese ambassador to Vienna who spoke German saw that Jews could not get visas and issued transit visas to them. China at this time was buying arms from Germany.  Many used the visas to get out of Austria and went to the US Palestine or Philippines. These people bought tickets through Switzerland to Naples and bought tickets on the Conte Biancamano to Shanghai. 

1905Takahashi met Jacob Schiff of Kuhn Loeb and Co. just after the Kishinev pogroms he gave him loans to build a navy against Russia. Takahashi later became finance minister and then premier of Japan.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was printed in Russia in 1903, Henry Ford later sponsored printing 500,000 copies in 1920.

Inuzuka directed that Jews living in Shanghai should be treated fairly as other foreign nationals. Later on when he was arrested to be tried as a war criminal Shanghai and Manchuria Jews stepped forward to protect him.

1941 May Laura Margolis, an American woman, was sent by the Joint and during the war money came to support the refugees. She was later sent back to the US in a prisoner exchange Sept 1943

1941 before the Japanese occupation Hong Kong had a population of 1.25 million by wars end it had shrunk to 600,000

1942  The SS Colonel Josef Meising the Butcher of Warsaw came to Shanghai to execute the Jews but the Japanese would not allow this as they considered them valuable hostages.

At the end of the war American General Albert Wedemeyer, the commander of China, moved into Victor Sassoon suit in the Cathey Hotel.  The US aid to Chiang Kai-shek was siphoned off by corrupt Nationalist officials.

At wars end in Hong Kong Laurences assets were safe and became a boom town with more than 10,000 refugees a month pouring in.

In Hong Kong Horace set up The Kadoorie Agricultural Aid Association before the model of microloans was known. Hong Kong had to prevent rogue troops of the Red Guards from entering.

1950 Shanghai Factories were producing  half China's GDP.

In 1954 Laurence Kadoorie acknowledged that the fight to save Marble Hall was over and agreed to donate it to Madame SunYetsen for her children's fund.

Mao's Great |Leap Forward produced widespread famine. In a conflict between Mao and other leaders in China, Mao decided to strike back with the Cultural Revolution and he chose Shanghai as his headquarters.

1970's by this time Hong Kong had a per capita income 10X that of China and Lawrence boasted that he had 10% of its economy.

 1972  In the thaw with Deng Xiaoping.  Rong Yiren was a partner of the Kadoories who fled to Hong Kong from Shanghai as well as Madam SunYatsun so they now had 2 friends in Beijing. Now that China was opening up, the Kadoories were a bridge to the west.

1979 The US treasury secretary Michael Blumenthal stunned officials in Beijing when he spoke Chinese with a Shanghai dialect. He had been at the Kadoorie school and went back to see his old house there.

Michael Medavoy, a Hollywood executive announced he wanted to make a movie on the Shanghai refugees.

Shaul Eisenberg, the billionaire head of Israel arms dealing, also came from Shanghai during the war.

The Shanghai refugee museum has a panel devoted to Ho Feng-Shan as well as an exhibit on the Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara.

1981 Lawrence was made Baron Kadoories of Kowloon by Queen Elizabeth.

Today the Kadoories are worth  $11billion

 

Island at War by Deberah Car 2021 360pg 15/2/22 The Channel Islands

 This is a novel on the 5 years that the Channel Islands were under German Occupation 

I have recorded the historic aspect of the story -1940 June 19th The Lieutenant General announced that the Channel Island will not be defended if invaded by sea.  

Estelle was going to remain behind to help her father and grandparents run the farm. Her mother had died giving birth to her younger sister Rosie when Estelle was 7.  Rosie is taken to evacuate to go to her aunt in London. The ferry leaves for Weymouth in Dorset.

St. Malo is the French port closest to the Channel Island and some troops escaped there at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation.

1940 Jan2nd The German's bombed the port killing her father while he was taking potatoes to sell there, then dropped flyer to say they were under occupation. St Ouen's village was their nearest shop. Her boyfriend on leave from the army and friends looked for a boat to escape on as the ship had been cancelled..

The Germans had put up their flag on Regents Castle. Their uniforms were the same as seen on Pathe News at the cinema. They were told to hand in their weapons and the soldiers on leave were taken away as prisoners of war. German troops were buying up all they could at the shops, especially luxury items. Goods slowly became scarce.

The holiday camp at Grouville was turned into a prison or internment camp with barbed wire.  They were not allowed to pay in Pounds and had to change their money to Deutschmarks. On the farm they hid things as the Germans were confiscating them.

The services like the buses were drastically reduced  .German officers were billeted in their homes, and they cooked and did laundry for them but this was by arrangement. Where they were lucky and had a decent officer he helped them send and receive a telegram. Germans would drink Gluwehn (mulled wine) over Christmas. Farms that grew their own food were sought out as billets. The number of cows and  pigs they had had to be registered with the authorities. Trucks were confiscated and so bicycles were in high demand.

Elizabeth I  Castle had given refuge to Charles II during the civil war.

 Those in London described that everything seemed to have a coat of soot on it. There was a bucket of water and sand in every building in case of fire. Silver barrages were put up against low flying enemy planes and Lyons Corner House where you went for tea. Bombs and incendiaries were dropped on the city. Besides London, Coventry , Liverpool and Clyderbank as well as Plymouth were badly bombed.

School Kids helped harvest potatoes and everyone helped their neighbours especially those alone. At the local grocer you got your weekly ration. The other Channel Islands include Guernsey, Herm Jethrou and Sark. fuel was scarce so tractors could not be used and many were hidden.  People who had not discarde their old clothes put them back to  use. Worn sweaters were unraveled and knitted into winter socks. 

Jarrais is a French dialect that most kids learned from their parents and had a revival so that the German or the French could not understand. However, kids who spent the war in England returned unable to speak it. Where people fell out with their neighbours or had a grudge they snitched on them to the Kommandant. A French boy was caught trying to escape to England and was shot.

1941 May 10th ws the heaviest night bombing during the blitz as it was full moon with the Thames at its lowest. This was a last effort before the Germans needed their planes to attack Russia.

1941 June 22nd Germany attacked Russia. Somebody illegally listened to the BBC and told the others the proper news. When Germany started losing the war they had to hand in their radios, some people made crystal sets.

The few Jews were rounded up and sent away. What farmers grew was strictly controlled by the authorities. German soldiers throught that they were there for a brief holiday till Germany crossed the channel, but that was canceled.

Wood for heating was rationed and even on your own land you could not just take what you needed. The BBC appealed to people to put V signs on walls as a protest.  They made ersatz tea with bramble leaves, dried carrots and peapods. After storms when trees  branches broke off and hid them before the Germans took control of them.

Professional soldiers were sent to the Eastern Front while less skilled ones were brought to the island. Women were brought from the continent to brothels to keep the German soldiers occupied.

Germans brought in slave labour to build fortifications along the beaches with massive guns and cannons. These slaves were badly fed and clothes and dogs on leads were used to control them, and the islanders were not allowed to feed them. This was organized in Germany by Fritz Todt in 1938, he died in a plane crash in Feb1942. Spanish Republican who fled the civil war to France were rounded up and used as slaves to build the Atlantic fortress and on the islands.

The islanders took sea water to use as salt. People born in Britain now were being deported to Europe and some killed themselves rather than be taken away. Limpets were eaten but they took 2 hours boiling to get them soft.

In Germany chocolate bars were given to Luftwaffe pilots, for others they were hard to come by.

1943 August Italy was being besieged, while on Jearsey the beaches were blockaded and had barbed wire and mines on them. There was an outbreak of diphtheria and many of the soldiers took ill with it, and German nurses were brought in to relieve the local nurses to care for the German soldiers, but no medicines were getting through to the islands.

1944 June D'Day for the first time a Hawker Typhoon flew over and was shot down by German Ack Ack, and German supply lines to the Channel island were cut by the allies, very little food arrived. Papers were dropped in German telling them to surrender the islands.

1944 Christmas the Neutral Red Cross Ship the Vega brought provision to the islands to stop people starving.

1945 March The Palace hotel where German officers were living  and nearby ammunition caught fire. 

1945 9th May HMS Beagle arrives with British troops. Note the Germans refused to capitulate so were just left there isolated till the war ended.

The novel part of the book is based on the writer's family as her father was 4 years old with his family and cousin evacuated from the island.

The Magician by Colm Toibin 2021 512 pg On Thomas Mann

The story of the German writer Thomas Mann 30/11/21

This is a novel but it is so factual that it covers the history of the first half of the 20C

Colm Toibin born 1955 Writes on Irish society , living abroad, process of creativity and preservation of personal identity.

Antigay laws in Ireland. David Norris Irish MP lobbied the EU against these laws and succeeded in 1993. He was the first openly gay  person to be elected to public office in Ireland. Rehabilitated James Joyce in disapproving Irish view. He had an Israeli partner Ezra Nawi

The author as well as  Henry James and Thomas Mann have to deal with homosexuality.  This book is the writers tenth novel. 

This is the story of the German writer Thomas Mann born 1875 and died in 1955 he received the Nobel Prize in 1929. The family lived in Lubeck

His older brother Heinrich as well as 3 of his 6 children Erika, Claus and Golo were all writers.

His mother was of Brazilian origin and was always regarded as a foreigner but was respected as the Senators wife.

His father the Senator died in 1891. He had changed his will 3 months earlier instructing his executors to sell the business and properties and trustees were to look after the assets.  He did not feel his sons were capable of running the shipping business.

Thomas had thought of himself as the one to take it over and was shocked and insulted.  The mother then moved the family to Munich. Thomas remained in Lubeck in digs at a teacher and to complete his schooling.  The teachers son Wilfri and him had a mutual gay relationship but not a friendship.

Heinrich was being supported by his mother while he wrote but Thomas whose school reports were bad ,was taken out of school to work at a fire insurance company as a clerk. Because he was not doing his work at school and Heinrich never thought much of his poetry.

He married Katia Pringheim and they had 6 children. By the time he wrote in 1912 Death in Venice about the infatuation with a young boy his reputation was so strong that nobody noticed himself in the book. Katia married him "as her father was a philanderer but Thomas does not run after every women he sees"

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1891 The story starts in Lubeck They were a Catholic family that consisted of Heinrich the oldest brother the Thomas  and sister Lula and Carla and the very youngest brother Victor. 

 . Mann was a friend of the violinist and painter Paul Ehrenburg.  

. His first job was to make a copy of the ledger at the insurance company but instead he wrote articles and was fired, but meanwhile sold the article.

His mother now gave him an allowance to go to his brother in Italy where he wrote the book 1901  Buddenbrooks the breakdown of a high family but portayed his mother as a good capable person. The book made him famous and soon a 2nd edition sold.

He gets invited to the Pringsheim family secular Jews a Professor who has inherited a fortune. When Katya wsa asked why she married Thomas she said her father was a philanderer and she had no such problem with Thomas

1909 The book "Royal Highness "was a portrayal of his wife's family which his father in law considered the book anti Semitic.

1912 Katia was at a sanatorium in Davos for tuberculosis and he started writing a novel then about that

1924 wrote the Magic Mountain, in this his wife's role is played by a man.

1929 this book got him the Nobel Prize

His sister is due to marry a man. Was he a married man she was a mistress to and then kills herself, his other sister also took her own life

When WW1 broke out he was basically a patriotic supported the war effort while his brother Heinrich said that there is nothing to be gained but death. He was very friendly with Ernst Bertram a gay who later became a Nazi supporter. He also wrote a book "Reflections on a non Political Man" but in the defeated Germany it did not sell. After the war women were enfranchised.

1919 the Bavarian Soviet Republic.  Thomas was terrified that as a known rich person and non socialist views he would be attacked so he stayed home. Eventually the German government with troops suppressed this. Heinrich apparently had protected Thomas and asked for Thomas to vouch for Ernst Toller which he agree to do. After this Thomas and Heinrich renewed their friendship and he met Heinrich young son Heinrich was now married.

This was a period of hyperinflation caused by the reparations and many wealthy people became poor and died of depression. Thomas had an income from publications abroad so this hardly affected him but their were all sorts of shortages.

 Mann's books were not among those burnt publicly by Hitler's regime in May 1933, possibly since he had been the Nobel laureate in literature for 1929. In 1936, the Nazi government officially revoked his German citizenship. He then was able to get Czech citizenship.

Thomas an Katya were in Switzerland for the summer and were told not to return home, Their son packed up their stuff in Munich and Thomas was worried about his diaries as they showed that he had erotic feelings about young boys and if a scandle came out his books might not sell.

  He was scared to come out straight and say what he thought of Hitler because he was sure Hitler would not last and his publisher would be stopped from selling his books in Germany. Katya's  Jewish parents would also be endangered. His American publisher Alfred Knoft took him for a trip to America to promote his books even though he had only just started learning English.

The  lesbian daughter Erica asked Christopher Isherwood (Good by to Berlin) to marry her and he suggested that she approach his male partner the poet W H Auden so she was able to get British and American citizenship, this was a good arrangement as they hardly saw each other.

Finally the Manns left to live in  the States, where he was given a position in Princeton, Elizabeth was  going to marry Borgese a man a bit younger than her father.

The Mann's later went for a holiday to Sweden and while they were there the war broke out. They were on the phone to get out when Agnes Meyer phoned from Washington and told them she had made all the arrangement and they flew to Amsterdam but the route went over German terretory and they were worried. The got a ferry and went to Southampton. The ship was  a vacation ship, turned into a evacuation ship and they were packed into it 4 men in a cabin.

Agnes arranged that Michael would get a visa as a musician with Thomas giving a financial guarentee, Heinrich would get a contract for a year at Warner brother as he had written the Blue Angle in which Marlene Detrich acted 1930 her first talkie..

Varian Fry had helped Heirich his wife Nelly , Franz Werfel and Alma Mahler.  Nelly was low class bar maid but she really loved Heinrich struggled to get him over the Pyrenees.  Alma Mahler had also been married to Walter Gropius (Bauhouse architect) before she went of with Franz Werfel and yet she showed herself as an anti-Semite.

Thomas was warned not to say anything to get America into the war as that had to come from Americans and Roosevelt was standing for election. He was also told that sooner or later America would be forced into war and he was the most suitable person to represent America in the post Hitler Germany.  Both his brother Herman or son had taken political views that were not suitable.

Erika was haveing a relationship with Bruno Walter. Klaus was both gay and an addict to morphine. Intended joining the US Army. 

Agnes Meyer told Thomas about a visitor he would get an a young man wearing a yarmulke came and told him the the Nazi's had been wiping out European Jewry, Thomas phoned Washington and confirmed this that it was worse than they knew.

Heinrich's wife Nelly dies of an overdose of sleeping pills.

The FBI  want to know from Thomas if Brecht is a communist but Thomas won't reveal any knowledge of that.

The war has now ended and Klause became the correspondent for the Stars and Stripes in Germany as the war ended.  Erika worked as a BBC correspondent and met the Nuremburg detainees.  Goering told her that he would have handled the Mann family differently.

In Prague, Heinrich first wife and daughter are found, they survived but suffered very badly.

Thomas wrote a book called Dr. Faust  which is about a composer who invented the 12 tone music and had syphilus Arnold Chernberg could sue him for that, but didn't. He learns that Cherberg saw a spiritual side to music and and converted back to Judaism.

On the French Riviera their son Claus finally dies of an overdose  at the same time as they are touring Europe.

They go on a tour of Germany and he talks about Goethe and is awarded the Goethe prize. He is warned by the American consul not to got to the Eastern sector. However they do go.

Heidrich is offered a stipend to live in East Germany but died before he managed to move. Back in the States they figure out that the US no longer need them and so they move to Switzerland. Erika still had not received US citizenship and if she leaves might not be allowed to return. She is asked about her Lesbianism and the later Red scare made the US unwelcome.

They settle in Switzerland but he goes to Lubeck and sees the Bruderbud house. He is awarded the key to the city and the book now has readers that appreciate it 

Diedricht Buxtehude1637 to 1707 was the organist  at the Mariar Kirsch in Lubeck   had a student Johan Sabastian Bach

Thomas Mann 1875 to 1955 married 1904 Katja Pringstein 1883 to 1980

Klaus Pringstein 1883- 1972 leading musician brother to Katja.

1929 Received Nobel prize

Henrich Mann 1871 - 1950 The nazi's burned his books.

Name	Birth	Death
Erika #	9 November 1905	27 August 1969
Klaus #	18 November 1906	21 May 1949
Golo #	29 March 1909	7 April 1994
Monika	7 June 1910	17 March 1992
Elisabeth	24 April 1918	8 February 2002
Michael	21 April 1919	1 January 1977

# became significant writers, all three were homosexual and with Klaus it came out in his writings, a morphine addict he commited suicide.

Monica was also a writer, her husband drowned when a Uboat struck his ship.

Michael became a well  known musician had married with 2 children and an adopted child, died possibly on barbiturates.

Elizabeth married a man her fathers age, had children 2

Golo adopted a son.

Major works

 1901Buddenbrooks   on his parents and family.

1909 The book "Royal Highness "was a portrayal of his wife's family which his father in law considered the book anti Semitic

1912Death in Venice on homosexual tendencies

1924 Magic Mountain Inspired by his wife being at a hospital to recover from tuberculosis in Davos.

1943 Dr Faustus on a German  composer and religion (Arnold Chernberg)

Trieste and the meaning of nowhere Jan Morris 2001 203 pages

The City that lost its purpose   2/12/21

Epitome of Mitteleuropa – of Europe distilled, as it were.”Trieste was founded as the port city for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was dissolved at the end of World War I. Its natural hinterland was present day Czech, Slovakia, Hungary and its heyday was 1897. Thus it was built for a lost purpose.

Guglielmo Oberdan, who fled Austrian conscription, and became an Italian, returned to Trieste in an unsuccessful effort to kill the Emperor, Franz Joseph, in 1882 It was a precursor of the ethnic hatreds that led to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, before. WWI.

James Joyce, who wrote A portrait of an artist as a young man there.  Sir Richard Burton, explorer who ended his days there as a British Consular official. He had been an expert in Arabic and had a knowledge of the Moslem world.

The great composer and director Gustav Mahler also conducted in Triesta around 1907.

 1856 Having ably reformed the Austrian Navy retired from the sea Maximilian  (brother of Franz Joseph) and Carlota built Miramar Castle. His brother the Emperor sent him to become king of Mexico where the French abandoned their support for him. He was executed by Jaurezes rebels  and his wife went crazy when she went home.

Historically it was a coastal village of Illyrians who traded fish salt, olive oil and wine . Colonized by Rome and called Tergeste and had built a forum here.. The Austrians fought the Turks and it was the Habsburgs when they came to rule this part of the Adriatic wanted a maritime empire also.

1711from Charles IV to France Joseph I who died in 1916 a total of 6 monarchs ruled Austria the population of Trieste grew from 7000 to 220000 the nearest equivalent was Hong Kong started by the  British in 1814.

1719 The Habsburgs under Charles VI declared Trieste a free port and later had access to the Suez canal when that opened, and excavated the Grand Canal.

1830 a road was completed crossing the Karst to Slovenia and connecting Vienna to the Adriatic sea port. 

It has 2 bays: the Bay of Trieste in the north and Bay of Maggia in the south. Trieste was not badly damaged in the wars.

The streets were built around the Canal Grande.  The coastline stretches one way towards Split and Croatia and the other towards Venice.

The Cafe degli Sprecchi or Cafe of Mirrors is comforting today as in the days of Emperors.

Both Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig mentioned Trieste in their novels.  The Austrian Empire had no overseas possessions despite hypothetical kingship over the Holy Land.

1886 when Venice was lost to Austria the fleet headquarter shifted to Trieste, later the main base was shifted to the deeper safer Pole.

Baron Pasquale Revoltella was a wealthy bachelor of Venetian origin and founded Assicurazioni Generale, he was also the Austrian representative of the Suez Canal and died in 1870 leaving his house and contents to the city and it became the civic gallery of modern art.

1857 Carl Marx said that Trieste was run by " motley crew of speculators' ' Italian, German English, French, Armenian and Jewish which meant they were not tied down by tradition.

1830 Josef Ressel, a forester, botanist and conservationist and inventor of screw propulsion for ships.

Ricardo Illy at the start of the 20C was the Mayor and set up the coffee company, a mainstay of the Trieste economy.

Mirimar Castle had hosted a lot of unlucky people Empress Elizabeth stabbed to death in Geneva. Kaiser Wilhelm II,  . Duke of Aosta the Italian Viceroy of Ethiopia never returned to Italy.  American occupation governors who stayed there died in Korea and  one in a car crash on the way back to Trieste.

1840s it was discovered as a health resort as smart as Nice and Monte Carlo. Franz Joseph often came and had a mistress in neighboring accommodation.

1878 4 railway lines conveyed good inland  1) by Ljubljana and Graz to Vienna 2)Udine Salzburg to Munich. 3) Gorizia to Prague and 

1862-1863 Alfred Domette a poet from Trieste who became PM of New Zealand for these  2 years.

1772 to 1774 Casanova lived here for this time but left after being prosecuted in Venice.

1797 Louis XV of France's 2 daughter escaped the revolution and came here.

Jews left their stetles in east Europe to Trieste and on to the US or Palestine.

1919 The created state of Yugoslavia after the Habsburgs empire collapsed. Trieste was snatched from its geography and united with the Kingdom of Italy as a spoil of being on the winning side in WW1 and because it had a majority of Italian speakers and it banned Slovene schools.

During WW2 it was ruled by Germany and the area was called Kirstenland till Tito of Yugoslavia and the New Zealand division arrived. Churchill's famous speech said "from Stettin to Trieste a Iron Curtain has fallen."

1945 The Yugoslavs' arrived and wanted to make the city entirely Yugoslav. and there was a period of uncertainty but became an Italian state as part of a secret agreement with Slovene as a language also. Slovenia had to develop Koper as an outlet to the sea.

With the fall of communism thousands crossed the border by bus to do shopping there as market economies had not yet been set up, but this later fizzled out.

Lloyd Triestino now belongs to Taiwanese owners.

Thomas Mann wrote part of Buddenbrooks during a stay at the Hotel deVille? and Eichmann escaped to  Argentina via Trieste?

Geocoma Meyerbeer: The deliberately forgotten Composer by David Faiman 2020 215pg 1/8/21

 How anti-semitism influences our music taste?

(1791–1864). The archetypal composer of French grand opera. Meyerbeer's huge extravaganzas such as Les Hugeunots and Le Propheta were immensely popular in their day. All the great opera singers sang in his opera's at the time when he was a great celebrity. 1678 Antonia Vivaldi's works were never known until the Four Seasons was played in the 20C and then his other compositions which might only have been known in Venice were discovered. Meyerbeer was well known till WW1 and extremely famous till his memory was deliberately erased while Vivaldi was accidently forgotten. Meyerbeer died in Paris and a special train and pomp with royalty took him back to the Prussian capital Berlin for burial. Frederick William II King of Prussia 1786- 1798 liberalized the country to develop the economy and allowed Jews rights. Meyerbeer was educated in Hebrew studies by a Haskala supporting private tutor, and he remained a Jew all his life. 1814-1815 His first opera launch in Vienne was badly timed as Beethoven Fidelio had just had its premier. He spent 9 years in Italy and there took on the name Geocoma from Rossini. He was commissioned to write 2 operas for La Scala 1820. 1923 Rossini invited him to Paris, Where the put on Italian Opera. his music influence Belzan and Alexander Duma pere used some of his ideas in the Count of Monty Cristo. In France he produced operas in French. Robert and Clara Schumann were such anti-Semites and spoke against him while Franze Liszt who wrote piano compositions based on Meyerbeer’s grand operas and went out of his way to defend his honor. Mendelsohn exhibited many examples of anti-Semitism embarrassed of having a Jewish grandfather. Richard Wagner was such a prominent musician and an anti-Semite that critics wouldn't contradict him of what he said about Meyerbeer’s music, he knew how to use antisemitism of others to promote his aims and music. Meyerbeer's got the reputation of music in bad taste.

1895 Palestine a small orchestra was set up in Rishon le Tzion that played music by Halevy Meyerbeer Mendelsohn Mozart Wagner etc. A concert was also give in 1914 to celebrate 50 years since Meyerbeer death.

1910 Shulamit Ruppin founded an orchestra 1923 Mordechai Golinkin and opera conductor from St. Petersburg arrived to set up a Hebrew Temple of art. Before leaving Russia he and Feodor Chaliapin had given a benefit concert to be able to found an opera company in Jerusalem and operas were played at the Jaffa Eden cinema. Operas were translated into Hebrew including Anton Rubinstein’s Die Maccabaer and Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots(Hebrew by Aharon Ashman) A total of 17 different operas were played till the company went bankrupt in 1927. It got no government subsidy. Both Herbert Samuel and Alfred Mond gave good reviews others criticized the bad Hebrew. 1947 An American Edis de Philippe founded the Israel National Opera. Placido Domingo who sang in it said that they did not do Meyerbeer and in it was never do in it 31 years. Edis de Phillipe died in 1979 and the opera company soon after. 1985 New Opera Company came into being. Between Jan Peerce 1950 and until Parvarotti in 1992 Meyerbeer was not played Toscanini conducted Wagner at the opening of the IPO before he became associated with Hitler’s Nazism. Mahler’s symphonies were largely neglected till Leonard Bernstein brought them to New York now they are listened to as much as Beethoven. Max Bruch was not Jewish but the Nazi treated his works with suspicion. Both Rossini and Verdi had great praise for Meyerbeer's work.

Note the book has a lot of information on the actual operas and when they were played but I see music as part of history not the, history of music.

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Who by fire Leonard Cohen in the Sinai by Matti Friedman 2022  Free Sample 23/7/23

Leonard Cohen arrived in Israel in October 1973 at the Sinai front soon after playing to half a million people at the Isle of Wight festival which was bigger than Woodstock. He was 39years old. Events inspire artist like Guernica inspired Picasso in the Spanish Civil War and the 5th Symphony was composed by Beethoven during the Napoleonic wars.

Israel judgement was clouded by the 6 Day War victory of 1967 and allowed itself to sink into arrogance and complacency. After suffering 2600 fatalities the soldiers managed to turn the war around. After the war Israel was in many ways a different country. Cohen language was formed out of the Hebrew Bible as a child growing up in a Montreal synagogue the grandson of a learned Rabbi. He called Israel his "myth " home.

1973 When he came for the Yom Kippur War .Each concert was a pure artistic transmission, no money changed hands or tickets sold. Most of the soldiers didn't speak English but poetry when, good can communicate before it is understood. and unlike Woodstock everyone was sober. Many asked "Where are your parents from?" would say they escaped from the Holocaust. Israelis of this first generation are not a minority, not religious not exactly Jews but creatures sprung form sunlight and salt water. 

Frozen Hell: The Russo- Finnish War of 1939-40 by William R. Trotter 2000 270pg

 The Winter War 9/8/21

Between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladogo lies the Karelian Isthmus.

1703 May Peter the Great selected the swampy, bug infested Delta to build a new Capital St. Petersburg.

More than 100,000 died during the 10 years to build this city and now a quarter million Russians and 25,000 Fins died because Leningrad was so close to the Finish border.

1809 Finland was under Swedish suzerainty  till then. Military service was a favorite rout of young Finns in the Tsarist army. Finland as a part of the Russian Empire 1809–1917. Nicholas II in 1894  appointed Bobikov as Governor of Finland and after that Finns could be conscripted unwillingly. 

Sibelius’s Finlandia roused nationalist fever and in 1904 Bobikov was assassinated on the steps of the Senate in Helsinki.

1915-1916 Finns got professional military training in Germany.

1917 Finish parliament assumed responsibility for their affairs and Lenin who lacked troops recognized Finnish neutrality. With German help the Reds in Finland surrendered  and the 1920 treaty of Tartu a state of peace was formally recognized between the USSR and Finland. 

The White Finnish Government had allowed both Russian Whites and the British Navy to attack Bolshevik on the Finnish coast.  In the Petsamo region the Finns gave the British Empire consortium a nickel mining concession.  Both the Soviets and Germany supported Scandinavian neutrality

1931 Finland’s various Communist parties were outlawed, and by 1932 Finland’s flirtation with fascism was over.

The Finns felt Stalin's demands were a start for further appeasement.  General Mannenheim tried to make the politician see the truth. Stalin wanted land as a buffer zone. Such a concession would surrender the Mannerheim line making Finland more vulnerable to attack.  Leningrad was the cultural heart of the communist state and revolution as well as a major industrial center.

1939 Nov 26 First shots fired.

Gustav Mannenheim was a Swedish aristocrat in Finland and went to the Finnish corp of Cadets, but was expelled from the corps for AWOL so he crossed the border to the Tsars Cavalry School and became a lieutenant in 1889. He fought in the Russo- Japanese war. Later was sent on a 9000 expedition to collect information on the topography of the southern border and in that time he went to Lhasa and met the Dalia Lama.

He fought in WW1 and hurt his leg and was in Odessa to recovery while the unit he was in was wiped out.

He returned to Finland when the Bolsheviks took over in Russia. He was “The Bloody Baron" against Red supporters  in Finland  80,thousand  were rounded up and put in a concentration camp. 10 thousand died in 6 months and 8 thousand were executed by firing squad as part of the White Terror. His defeat of the Bolsheviks got him an Iron Cross from Kaiser Wilhelm II.

1920 he set up the Mannenheim Child Welfare and became chairman of Finnish Red Cross. 

1931 became chairman of the Finnish Defense council and in 1939 when he said they should give in to Stalin’s demands was asked to retire but the war started before he stepped down and appointed commander in chief.

He was born Swedish speaking was fluent in Russian and French, could converse in English , Polish, German but only started learning Finnish at the age of 50.

The Finnish campaign was an embarrassment to the Russian officer class and 50 years later there is very little of it written in Russian print. Russia planned to solve the war in 12 days; she had the equipment to have her own version of a blitzkrieg. In the Red army using individual innicitive could lead to going to a gulag, and fighting was overseen by inexperienced party ideologues. Into some of the densest forest without accurate maps with heavy useless amour and their tanks were not painted to suit the environment. Merekovs troops had to clear out the Finns in 2 weeks before the subarctic winter could ruin the timetable

The Finns were made up of troops from local areas similar to what they knew from childhood. 

Mannenheim set ups his headquarters in Mikkeli (St.Michael) from where he had run the war against the Reds.

The Finns had a defense Navy of 13 thousand men but Turku harbor was icebound at this time.

O W Kuusman was to be Stalin puppet government to be head of Finland and he signed a treaty giving Stalin every concession he asked for.

Tanks attacked without infantry and got stuck on the defense rocks, and brave Finns could attack bombs to the soft underbellies or attack them with. The Finns supply of guns and weapons were limited and they had to use all sparingly. Thousands of civilians of the Karelian isthmus had to be evacuated and their homes destroyed so as not to provide the enemy with shelters. Buoyance charges were set to blow up the ice below the tanks, which began to avoid the lakes which is what the Finns wanted. The Finns laid large stretches of cellophane on the lakes so they looked unfrozen. From the border to the Mannenheim line was 12 to 30 km with troops and obstacles set up. 

 

4 days before Christmas was Stalin birthday he was not happy. Long slow trains, windows covered were arriving in Leningrad full of maimed, starving, frostbitten Red Army troops. They swamped the hospitals and the schools were used for the overflow. Voroshilov said "you are the one to blame you killed the best Generals. 3 quarters of the experienced professional leadership had been purged.

Samyon Timoshenko with Georgi Zhukov his chief of staff were appointed to take over. 2,600 medals were awarded to the earlier troops. New tanks were brought in including 43 tons tanks with 76mm guns. Tanks were no allowed to outrun the infantry and massing artillery to fire on concrete blockhouses.  Russian forces could be rotated when fatigued the Finns could not.  The Russians broke through with heavy fighting on 16 Feb 1940

The Finns were hoping to hold out till the spring thaw turning the advance area into quagmire giving them a greater negating position.

 

There were 8 thousand Swedish volunteers and 800 Norwegians and Danes. From fascist Hungary a battalion came. 350 Finnish Americans arrived via a Norwegian port. Sweden wanted to help but her neutrality was very precarious. Fascist Italy gave a lot of moral support

In NY Mayor le Guardia held a "Help Finland" rally. Both Stokowski and Toscanini conducted benefit concerts all of Sibelius music. 

 

From refusing to meet Stalin’s demands Finland paid a high price, they lost the Karelian Isthmus and the Rybachi peninsula. The 105 day war, 24,923 Finns killed and 43557 wounded.  420,000 Finns lost their homes. The entire population at this time was under 4 million.

5000 Russain POW were repatriated and sent to a Gulag by the White Sea, many interrogated and then shot. Russia lost perhaps 270 thousand men and 300 thousand were wounded. The Soviets reviewed the role of political commissars and reduced their authority in battle.

In the Continuation War Finland fought on the side of the Nazis. Thinking that Germany would be the winner and they could regain their lost land. Mannenheim only allowed them to advance to the old border.  Both the Germans and the American believed that Russia would collapse under the Germans in about 90 days, having seen the example of the Red Army ciaos.

1944 Mannenheim Became President of Finland. He died in 1951

Marshal Timoshenko later showed Khrushchev they had detailed maps of the Mannenheim line made before the war by the intelligence dept. but nobody bothered to ask for them. 

 This book is full of details of every battle  fought which I moved over to try understand the historical significance.

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Unfinished Business - The Jews of Finland   article Haaretz October 8th 2010

Finland was a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire and Jew after 25 years of Russian military service, married and raised their children there

In the Finish Civil War 1918 the Red Guards were defeated. Here the German Imperial Army was involved and defeated the Reds in Helsinki before the main Finish White forces reached there, this was 1) the Civil War. Jews were granted civil equality in 1917and a law of religious freedom came in 1922.

In the 2) Winter War 15 Jews were killed fighting and 1000 civilians died in the bombarded towns.  Hitler saw the contribution of the Finns in the 3) Continuation War as part of Operation Barbarossa.  Between 1941 and 1944 8 Jews died on the battlefield.

After an Armistice with the Soviet in Sept1944 in the north of the country they fought against the Germans  and this is called) the Lapland War.  In total 300 Jews took part in all the wars.

1948, 28 Finnish Jews volunteered to fight in the Israeli army machal and most returned to Finland afterwards. Today in Finland the Jewish community is about 1000 souls. 

400 thousand Finnish- Karelians had to flee when the area was occupied by Russia that is about 10% of the population.

During the war Finland handed over 2000 Russian POWs to the Germans about 60 Jews amongst them.  Had Germany won the war the Finnish Jews would have ended up like other European Jewry.

Many Helsinki Jews were Swedish speaking. There were never Jewish workers in Finland and never radical left of anti- Zionist Jews like in Poland.

1971 Max Jacobson was Finland Ambassador to the UN.  In 1939 his father Jonas Jakobson invited Jabotinsky who visited  Finland.

 

 

Odessa: Genius and death in a City of Dreams by Charles King 2011 282pg

 A very different Russian City  5/8/21

The history of Russia is of people moving away from the control of the regime, but as they moved the regime court up with them and eventually got to Alaska. Odessa was in New Russia and had a long free period before the Tzarist law clamped down on it.

1876 Mark Twain saw Odessa and considered that it could be a US well run city with a multinational population. Only a few years later there was horrific anti-Semitic violence at that time a third of the population was Jewish. This ended up with the holocaust with the planned killing by the help of Nazi ally Romania.

Languages spoken Yiddish, Greek, and Italian were the core with a Russian veneer over it.

1794 it was founded and nurtured intellectuals and artists like Alexander Pushkin, Isaac Babel. 

The Dnieper, Bug and Danube river run into the Black Sea, and the origin population were Greco Scythian tribes.  Italian towns and cities flourished built on Greek foundations and there were Tartars, Circassians, Georgians and other peoples, with  sailors from Genoa and Florentine financiers and adventurers like Marco Polo passed through.

The Tartars were the remnants of Genghis Kahn’s empire.

Before it became Odessa it was Khadjibey and parts were ceded to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

1453 The Ottomans marched into Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire melted away and they also took the Balkans. Khadjibey citizens didn't know that they were Ottoman subjects.

1690 Peter the Great tried to get the area for Russia without success.

1768 to 1774 Catherine the great in a series of wars took the area and massive ship building program was started.

Under George III of England 13 colonies were lost while Catherine was colonizing the Black Sea.

Potemkin engineered the coup and Catherine deposed her husband the ineffective Tsar Peter III. Potemkin established Black Sea arsenals along the coast and Sebastopol which remains the seat of the Black Sea port. Germans, Albanians and Greeks were given privileges to establish trading ports like Kerson and Nikolayev.

1787 the Ottomans wanted the return of Crimea. The Russians hastily pressed and army including Jewish lancer.

In the Russian navy John Paul Jones the American hero volunteered but never spoke a foreign language and was not very effective he ended up in Paris inpecuniary.  Jose Ribas an Italian noble from Naples that was under the bourbons dynasty, also fought for Russia and became an admiral in their navy, he translated for Jones and is mentioned in a Lord Byron poem.

1795 the town called Khadjibey is named Odessa after Odysseus, the main road De'ribas'ovskaya name after Ribas. Founded 3 years after Washington, DC. As an organized city, with a theater and public schools. He became the Mayor of Odessa . 1801Tsar Paul who was unpopular died in a palace coup and regicide he was followed by Nicholas 1 who wanted to drag Russia into modernity. The Napoleonic wars resulted in a demand for all Black Sea grains.

Armand duc de Richelieu the grandson of Cardinal Richelieu who had been Louis XIII chief minister fled the revolution eastwards and 1803 named administrator of Odessa by the Tsar.

1812 large scale plague cholera, whereas in the Rhineland Jews were blamed for the infectious outbreaks, egalitarian Odessa took steps to deal with this.  Italian was the lingua franca and street signs were put up in Russian and Italian a tradition that lasted long after Richelieu who retired in 1814.

1823 Mikhail Vorontsov as a child went to London as his father was the Russian ambassador there bought up estates near Odessa and was appointed Governor of New Russia.

1814 Greek patriots set up Philika Hetairia to rally for Greek independence from the Ottomans. Dozens of secret societies could operate in Odessa freely.

1821 Moldova and Wallachia sparked a Christian uprising against the Ottomans in Balkans wars.

1827 Russia joined in a destroyed the Ottoman - German fleet in the Battle of Navarino.

1840s by this time the city had over 100 schools and private schools and 5000 students, founded by Greek , German , Jewish and Armenian communities.

1854 Crimean War Britain and France against Russia.

Odessa was a magnet for Jews from other parts of Eastern Europe and Russia. Till the Nazi's it never had a Jewish Ghetto or distinct Jewish quarter but wealth rather than religion and ethnicity determined your neighborhood. By the 1860 there were 17000 Jews about a quarter of the population.  90% of the grain traders were Jewish. From the Pale, Jewish migration to other parts of the Russian Empire was prohibited. This Yiddish speaking community had no great Rabbis, learned scholars or mythical preachers.

 Mendel Mocher-Sforim1836 to 1917, born in Minsk and got to Odessa in 1881 part of the Haskalah. Because of the Russian Government lax enforcement on residency restrictions also resulted in Jewish enlightenment here not the Judaism of the Pale. Maskilim made their way to Odessa especially from Brody, Galicia. 

1772 Galicia became part of Austria and Brody was a free city except from many taxes and in Odessa they established private schools that taught also Russian math’s, geography bookkeeping. The maskilim took control Jewish affairs and their shul brought about new cantorial lithergies.

Between 1790 and 1830 there were 5 separate outbreaks of plague.

1847 France Liszt gave a series of piano recitals and Nikolai Gogol had a premier of his new play "The Inspector General" in Odessa.

1908 Ilya Mechnikov at was a university of Odessa and he later shared with Paul Erlich the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine.

1860 Ratzvet The first Russian- Jewish periodical in the whole Empire.

1880 2/3 of registered merchant and traders were Jewish, 3/4 of public houses, 2/3 veterinarians and pharmacists 

1871 1881 pogrom’s against the Jews at a time when the city’s population was exploding and more peasants were moving into the city, laws with  a retreat from the liberalism. Resulting in emigration and utopian movements of Zionism and Russian social democracy.

1903 Kishinev pogroms in Maldavia.

1935 Jabotinsky wrote The Five in Odessa in Russian which was translated into Yiddish in the 1940s but only in 2005 to Hebrew. Which portrays this movement against liberalism. In the Moldovanka neighborhood he organized a storeroom in a house with revolvers, crowbars and kitchen knives for Jews to fight back next time.

The Russo Japanese war meant that the grain markets in the Far East dried up. This caused a decline in the importance of Odessa to the Empire and the world. However many soldiers and sailor came through the city to take ship to the battle in Japan.

1905 Mutinous Battleship Potemkin

Shalom Aleichem, the Jewish Russian historian Simon Dubnov and Leon Pinsker all lived near each other. Isaac Babel the writer's  father had a warehouse in Moldavanka , Odessa was brought up on Talmudic reasoning and later moved to St. Petersburg where he worked for Maxim Gorky. It was only found out during Gorbechov's glasnost that he was shot in a Stalin Gulag in 1940.

1890s The Odessa Committee was set up to support Jewish settlers in Palestine. It helped to establish Rehoboth and Hedera and rehabilitate Mismar Hayarden, It was run by Leon Pinsker. It had as many as 4000 members and supported Hoveve Tzion and closed in1913.

1911 -1913 2 Balkan Wars. Sergei Eisenstein was not from Odessa but is known for the Odessa steps even though the real massacre did not take place there.

1921 After the revolution Chaim Bialik was hounded by the authorities he was a great pioneer of Hebrew poetry and came to Palestine.

1929 Trotsky who had been at St Paul’s school Odessa left from the city for exile, having gone from revolutionary prophet to disgraced enemy of Stalin.

1937 to 1941   19361 Odessans workers, intellectuals and government officials were arrested and a third of them were shot in the Stalinist purges.

1941 The NKVD headquarters in Odessa was blown up by Stalin's secret police this killed General Ion Glogojano and  the Romanian occupation forces there, this was the area of Romanian, Transnista over 220000 Jews were killed by Romanians on the way to the ghettoes and concentration camps set up in Soviet Russia. There was no large scale removal of Jews from Romania itself but Bessarabia and Transnistia this was something else. In this area the Romanian recruited police amongst the local ethnic Germans.

Gheorghe Alexianu was an obscure professor and Romania Nationalist and he was decorated by the Papal Nuncio for his diligent management overseeing the deportations in this new Romanian province. His job was to Romanize it.

As the Russians fled and  those who knew what to expect of the Germans fled with them. Odessans were spread as far afield as Uzbekistan. Even the trolley cars from Odessa were found to be working in Romania.

1944 with the Soviets pushing westwards the Romanian king Mihai overthrew Ion Antonescu and declared Romania accession to the Allies. Where the Romanians withdrew from Odessa the Germans took over.

Odessa was under occupation for 907 days before the Soviet return, and the former "fascist" enemy Romania became a socialist friend.

 1947 the Soviet, installed the communists and king Mihai was forced to surrender his throne and flee.

1950s synagogues that reopened after the war were closed by the Soviets.

Leningrad held out against the German siege for 2 and a half years, Sevastopol , 9 months  and Stalingrad eventually crushed the German army  and these were considered "hero cities"

Tashkent film Studios became home of filmmakers and actors who evacuated.

 1903 and 1905 As a result of the pogrom’s Jew emigrated to mostly the US and Brighton Beach was just developing and they went there instead of Delancy Street and the Lower East Side. Briton Beach theater which had vaudeville acts and specialized in Yiddish plays with Jacob Adler, Jenny Goldstein , David Kessler, composer Joseph Rumshinsky. After the holocaust further immigrants of Russian speaking Jews  arrived and they are was called Little Odessa.

Wassily Kandinsky the artist and Daniel Oistrakh the violinist were both raised in Odessa.

With the fall of the Soviets the bust of Marx was substituted for the founder Catherine the Great. 

There were up to 70 thousand Jews in the Odessa region in 1989 most emigrated today perhaps 36 thousand left.

_____________________________________________________

Catherine the Great by Henri Troyat 1980 350p This book reads like a novel of a biography 1762 - 1796. Peter the Great who tried to force Russia to Europeanize never succeeded. It took the wife of one of his grandchildren to try again. Catherine was born German of a high class family and she was recruited to marry Peter. Elizabeth Tzarina of Russia was childless and chose her nephew Peter to be the Grand Duke. Peter was a child who never grew up, he never bothered to learn Russian while his wife did. She got to know the powerful politicians and portrayed herself as a devout. Orthodox church goer. Her Children were not fathered by Peter as he was sterile, she had different partners and the help of official to hide a pregnancy that Peter would know was not his. The children were taken away from her by Elizabeth so she hardly knew them, till later. When Elizabeth died Peter created havoc by becoming allies of Prussia disrespecting the church till Catherine's friends staged a coup and the army recognized her as the power holder. During a few years in power she already conquered territory from the Turks taking Crimea, Moldavia Walachia, what became Belarus as well as a large part of Poland. . The Russian Empire reached it biggest during her time. She brought an English doctor to inoculate her against small pox and the rest of the court agreed to inoculations. She built the Hermitage as part of the Winter Palace and bought up collection of art from Europe. She was a patron of the arts and supported leading writers in France including Didoret and Voltaire and bought their libraries to bring to the Hermitage Library. When in 1790s Austria and Prussia were putting down the French rebels Catherine took her share of Poland and it is from those days that Jews were under Russia in the Pale, ----------------------------------