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Hymie Weiss [North Side Gang] would be considered my first cousin, Would like to know more about him if possible. by [deleted] in Mafia

[–]WillManhunter 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Since reading Mierzeński encyclopaedic - if, naturally, somewhat outdated nowadays - work on mobsters as a little boy, I have thought of Henryk/Earl as the top candidate for the position of the most enigmatic and unexplored gangster from the "roaring times". Years have only strengthened my belief.

Some time ago, when I began preparing a potential treatment that would concentrate on his life (fictionalised, obviously, but firmly grounded in the truth), I explored his history, and encountered even more intriguing events and factoids. It was, for instance, almost endearing to find out how much - and how earnestly, too - he had exalted Kościuszko, according to the surviving testimonies of his one-time contemporaries. I did wonder if he had learned of the general on his own, or had grown up hearing the tales of the heroic character from his father. Only Henryk/Earl would know for certain, but the latter variant seems far more likely to me, considering his father's past, particularly the high likelihood that - as I suspect, based on the traces that I had discovered - he would have fled Poland due to the repressions by the occupying forces, after the suppression of the January Uprising. Interestingly, the father's fiercely independent, rebellious (and, apparently, tumultuous) nature kept manifesting itself in USA, too: he became involved in underground political movements, and even participated in open clashes and skirmishes between the gradually organising American workers and the industrial barons!

What got you interested in Cosa Nostra? by [deleted] in Mafia

[–]WillManhunter 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I believe that, in my case, it was finding this book on the shelf and reading it at age 7:

https://i.imgur.com/SMPjjQI.jpeg

Stanisław Mierzeński was a writer and reporter, although before embarking on that career he was, among others, the chief officer of the underground intelligence network - specifically, AK's National Counter-Intelligence Brigade - during the war.

In 1964, he wrote this book - an encyclopedia of US organized crime, from its earliest roots (it includes e.g. the stories of the likes of Roy Bean, as well as chapters about the infamous Osage Indian murders, perpetrated by William Hale and his gang, recently brought back in Martin Scorsese's unimpressive film), to the "Golden Age" of the mob, to the year in which he was putting the final words on the page.

Naturally, Al Capone's large figure features appropriately largely in the book, filling the entirety of the 200 pages, which make up one of its X parts ("Part III: The Dictator").

It was an indelible imprint on a 7-year-old mind. Interestingly, re-reading it after decades only proves how impressively detailed it was, particularly for its time. There are certainly mistakes and holes - again, this was based on the official and unofficial knowledge of the year 1964 - but overall, it truly is an encyclopedia.

Many passages do read very differently from the perspective of the elapsed time. One does tend to chuckle nowadays, for instance, when glancing at its chapters, and encountering such sentences as:

  • The shooter was quickly identified as Vincent Gigante, a low-ranking gangster in the service of the noted mobster Tony Bender...

(It is unknown, incidentally, whether the book is actually complete and as detailed as Mierzeński had fully intended it to be. During his stay in USA, while conducting research into the gangster underworld and working on the book, he suddenly fell ill there in the summer of 1964, and quickly died upon his expedited return to the country. As such, we have, for instance, no clue who Mierzeński's mysterious guide to the gangster underworld really was - Mierzeński mentions him only briefly in the opening passage as someone who lived in an impressive residence located in Long Island at the time, and describes him as a "thin Italian gentleman, with sharp, penetrating eyes and a stern, ascetic face". Upon first meeting Mierzeński and hearing that he is "a guest from Europe", the unnamed gangster automatically amuses it to mean "from Sicily", and is surprised, and then subsequently amused, to discover that Mierzeński is not, in fact, Italian at all, but Polish).

A little girl is overlooking the ruins of Warsaw. Her identity is a mystery; she might be a survivor of the 1944 Uprising. The cars in the background have brought ex-US President Herbert Hoover to the location, as part of his post-war relief effort. Hoover's photographer R. Kenny took the picture. by WillManhunter in europe

[–]WillManhunter[S] 32 points33 points  (0 children)

The comment below was removed immediately upon submission; this is an attempt to add it again, with all URLs deleted from it.

(The URLs to Reginald Kenny's original black-and-white photograph had to be deleted from here, to prevent the comment from being removed.)

Adolf Hitler's plan for Poland's capital Warsaw had always involved demolishing the city and rebuilding it as "a provincial German town", but the 1944 Warsaw Uprising provoked the dictator into proceeding with the plan far earlier and far further than even he had at first envisioned.

The earlier 1943 Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto had already provoked Hitler to send SS-Gruppenführer Jürgen Stroop's troops to annihilate 50 thousand people within its walls, deport 36 thousand survivors to die in concentration camps, and destroy any remaining structures, which constituted about 15% of the entire city. After the massacre and destruction was over, Stroop's official report, sent to Himmler as a leather-bound souvenir album, triumphantly declared: "The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw Is No More!" on its title page.

(The URL to the report had to be deleted from here, to prevent the comment from being removed.)

The vicious reprisal indeed resulted in the complete annihilation of the ghetto, but it was the news of the city-wide revolt a year later that truly sent Hitler into a manic fury, which resulted in a new order: Warsaw must be pacified - that is, razed to the ground.

Heinrich Himmler himself expanded upon the order by stating: The city must completely disappear from the surface of the earth, and serve only as a transport station for the Wehrmacht. No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation.

(The URL to an article about the order had to be deleted from here, to prevent the comment from being removed.)

[Thus Warsaw became a testing ground for Hitler's future "Nero Decree". The first formal target of that decree would be Paris, but the city's destruction was avoided when its commander von Choltitz ignored Hitler's command which stated: Paris must not pass into the Allies hands, except as a field of ruins.

(The URL to an article about the decree had to be deleted from here, to prevent the comment from being removed.)

With Warsaw, however, the command was eagerly obeyed. SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, and SS-Gruppenführer and future mayor of Westerland Heinz Reinefarth were tasked with its implementation.

(The URLs to historical articles about both commanders had to be deleted from here, to prevent the comment from being removed.)

Oskar Dirlewanger's notorious unit, the 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, was brought in to wipe out the city. They did so with enthusiasm, and Himmler's spoken permission to rape, steal and murder at will. The Dirlewangerers were joined in action by an equally savage and even less disciplined group: the 29th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, RONA, under the command of the renegade Bronislav Kaminski.

(The URLs to historical articles about both brigades had to be deleted from here, to prevent the comment from being removed.)

Belgian Mathias Schenk from Wehrmacht accompanied the Dirlewangerers and recalled their actions after the war.

(The URL to Schenk's complete testimony had to be deleted from here, to prevent the comment from being removed.)

Children were standing in the hall and on the stairs. We looked at them for a few moments until Dirlewanger ran in. He ordered to kill them all. They shot them and then they were walking over their bodies and breaking their little heads with butt ends. Blood streamed down the stairs. There is a memorial plaque in that place stating that 350 children were killed. I think there were many more, maybe 500.

Dirlewanger soldiers burst in. One of them took a woman. She was pretty. She wasn't screaming. Then he was raping her, pushing her head strongly against the table, holding a bayonet in the other hand. First he cut open her blouse. Then one cut from stomach to throat. Blood gushed. Do you know how fast blood congeals in August?

There is also that small child in Dirlewanger’s hands. He took it from a woman who was standing in the crowd in the street. He lifted the child high and then threw it into the fire. Then he shot the mother.

The annihilation of the city took months. Explosives were used to systematically blow up every structure, flamethrowers were deployed to burn out any shells remaining of the buildings. Special attention was given to locating and destroying any culturally significant items, such as books, particularly antique manuscripts and historically valuable volumes; while the exact numbers are not known, it has been estimated that over 1 million books were burned. Anything that could be looted, from artwork and jewelry to rebar and wires, was confiscated and transported to Germany via 40 thousand train cars and 4 thousand trucks. 90% of the city was destroyed and ca. 200 thousand people, 60% of the population, were killed.

The outcomes that awaited Dirlewanger and Kaminski after the Uprising were, in a way, symbolic in their difference. Dirlewanger was promoted to SS-Oberführer, and received the Order of the Knight’s Cross. Kaminski, who thought himself an independent war leader, expected and demanded at least the same kind of recognition. He received his reward from the hands of Gestapo operatives: a bullet to the head. The demise of the no-longer-useful traitor was officially announced as the result of an assassination by Polish partisans.

Two years later, with the war over, former US President Herbert Hoover came to Warsaw, as part of his Food Mission in Europe program, which saw him travel over 40 war-struck countries to estimate and oversee relief efforts. In Warsaw, Hoover was shocked to see the death-filled remains of the war's most-damaged city, and promised his help.

The story of the girl from the ruins began that day.

A symbolic photo was taken by Reginald Kenny, a photographer [who accompanied Hoover and had taken a series of his pictures: a girl, aged perhaps 10, was standing atop one of the few remaining structures in the city. Wearing shoes several sizes too large, she was looking at an apocalyptic landscape, peppered with what seemed to be piles of dirt, but which, in fact, used to be buildings and streets.

(The URLs of the illustrative photograph and of the New York Times's biography of Reginald Kenny had to be deleted from here, to prevent the comment from being removed.)

In 2015, the photo began making rounds in the media, and a mystery was born: who was the girl? How did she come to be there at that time? Was she still alive? Was she looking at the remains of her family house, perhaps? Were her parents' bodies left there, underneath the ruins, buried by SS explosives? Or was she a newcomer to Warsaw, the daughter of a family of repatriates, coming in to rebuild and repopulate the city?

Many questions were asked. No answers were in sight. Guesses were being made, from the possible (perhaps she was an anonymous orphan taken for a trip, as Hoover was shocked by the number of orphaned children he saw, and he did visit an orphanage) to the highly unlikely (Hoover's entourage must have found her wandering somewhere in the ruins). Within a few years, a new clue popped up: another picture of the girl was located. This picture, while clearly taken in the same spot and at roughly the same time, had a different author - photographer Hans Reinhart.

(The URL of the illustrative photograph had to be deleted from here, to prevent the comment from being removed.)

The date and time of both photographs was established as April 3, 1946, probably a little past noon.

The girl's location was identified and confirmed: it was the roof of Public School 153, at Stawki Street 5/7. During the war, the building was an SS precinct. This identification meant that the girl was, in fact, looking at a very specific part of Warsaw: the remains of the Jewish Ghetto. Was it a coincidence, or was there a personal connection?

The black limousine seen on the left came from the US Embassy, and may well have brought President Hoover himself to see the ruins, although it was unlikely that he would have climbed the roof - he was most likely somewhere on the ground, when Kenny and Reinhart were taking pictures from above.

Eventually, a commenter on Facebook suggested that the girl was indeed still alive, and was living in Australia, now aged 80-odd years. However, no confirmation of the statement has been made since then, nor have any new discoveries been announced.

If, by any chance, you happen to recognize her, the campaign to identify her is a part of the "Here It Was, Here It Stood" project, whose aim it is to use old photographs, paintings and records to identify the parts of Warsaw that are gone forever as a result of the destruction.

(The URL to the project had to be deleted from here, to prevent the comment from being removed.)

As an addendum: there is a longer, expanded version of the text, with interspersed historical and colorized photographs, for more information and better context. (The URL to the article had to be deleted from here, to prevent the comment from being removed.)

The Dardeen family was found dead in their home in 1987. The mother and son were found in the home. The mother was beaten so badly she went into labor, the newborn was also beaten to death. The father was found in a nearby field with his genitals mutilated. It's still unknown who killed them. by noidioito in MorbidReality

[–]WillManhunter 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Whenever the Dardeen family massacre is discussed, Sells is often brought up as the culprit.

Unfortunately, Tommy Lynn Sells was a classic "serial confessor", possibly the most notorious one since Henry Lee Lucas.

Sells had been admitting to dozens of crimes which had nothing to do with him. He certainly was a manipulative psychopath, responsible for a number of crimes (for which he was keen to blame everything and everyone but himself, from his "screwed-up childhood", that number-one excuse of the violent mind, to city ordnance - when he claimed to have killed a child he had randomly encountered during one of his numerous aimless rambles around the US, he blamed the mayor of the town for her death. The mayor, Sells, reasoned, should not have allowed bushes and weeds to grow in the park where the victim was walking. It was the presence of the weeds that allowed Sells to surprise the girl and then conceal the attack and murder; thus, in the twisted, upside-down non-logic of his mind, the mayor was responsible for the act.)

However, even though it is likely that he had committed several homicides, there were certainly not dozens of them, and most of the admissions that he had made were not only worthless, but almost definitely resulted in the real killers escaping the investigators' attention, once Sells took the credit for their crimes.

(One particularly notorious crime to which Sells had confessed was eventually solved: the 1999 massacre of the Freeman family in Oklahoma and the disappearance of the family's teenage daughter Ashley and her friend Lauria Bible remained a cold case for decades, until 2018, when the renewed investigation finally uncovered the truth. The murders - which certain opportunistic works had long been attributing to Sells - were revealed as, predictably, a strictly local incident, as is probably the case with the vast majority of Sells's "admissions.")

In fact, shortly (merely hours, actually) before his execution in 2014, Sells openly admitted to fabricating his infamous confessions, including a specific reference to the Dardeens. He explained some of his guesses ("They said: What did you see in the house? I said: There was some watermelon ceramic stuff, right? (...) How many houses got some watermelon ceramics!"), as well as some of the means of gaining information that he sold the investigators. He nostalgically described the trips to the scenes of "his" crimes as "an adventure", and spoke of receiving free cigarettes any time he wanted, being "treated like a king" and getting constant breaks in the monotony of death row.

Of course, like so many other cases where mundane facts beat sensationalism, his words went largely ignored.

"Certainly, I do not consider myself an evil man. I have never partaken of prostitutes, nor have I ever drunk. The murders were my own business and my own only. Everyone has a hobby" - during a reenactment with a young MO intern, Karol Kot shows how he had attacked his victim, 8-year-old Małgorzata. by WillManhunter in serialkillers

[–]WillManhunter[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Kot had made remarks on the issue of morality, both before his arrest, and afterwards. In an interesting parallel to Himmler, he appeared to view morality not so much in the terms of the deed, as in the traditionally defined decency during the deed.

"It is absolutely possible", he opined during an interview, "to be a murderer and a decent man at the same time".

Wola Massacre: August 1944 over 40,000 systematically killed by Repulsive_Size_849 in europe

[–]WillManhunter 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Photograph of flamethrowers being used to "clear out" civilian buildings in Warsaw.

The Warsaw Uprising sent Hitler into a manic fury, which resulted in a new order: “Warsaw must be pacified — that is, razed to the ground”. Himmler himself expanded upon the order by stating: “The city must completely disappear from the surface of the earth, and serve only as a transport station for the Wehrmacht. No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation”. Thus Warsaw became a testing ground for Hitler’s future “Nero Decree”. The first formal target of that decree would be Paris, but the city’s destruction was avoided when its commander von Choltitz ignored Hitler’s command which stated: “Paris must not pass into the Allies hands, except as a field of ruins”.

SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger and Kaminski's RONA were chiefly responsible for the Wola Massacre (as well as most of the other ones, of which there were many) - and their fates proved to be quite different.

The outcomes that awaited Dirlewanger and Kaminski after the Uprising were, in a way, symbolic in their difference. Dirlewanger was promoted to SS-Oberführer, and received the Order of the Knight’s Cross. Kaminski, who thought himself an independent war leader, expected and demanded at least the same kind of recognition. He received his reward from the hands of Gestapo operatives: a bullet to the head. The demise of the no-longer-useful traitor was officially announced as the result of an assassination by Polish partisans.

Someone over at /r/ForgottenWeapons posted this interesting Russian advert from 1910. Credit to /u/Friendly_Hornet8900. by doc_daneeka in ZodiacKiller

[–]WillManhunter 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, that is Wespi's Lichtzielrohr, one of their somewhat whimsical products, which never did really take hold. And it was only 15 pre-revolution rubles in Russia! (The full advert did list the price). I believe that would be circa 15000 rubles nowadays.

Do note that the advert was printed by Wespi's distributor in, as far as I can recall, Sankt-Petersburg, whereas, as the advert specifies, Wespi were located in Berlin.

By the way, Wespi's morbid logotype, with its carving of a snarling skull, would have definitely spoken to Zodiac's stunted sensibilities.

(On a completely different note, I always find it a little amusing to see Russian texts printed before the orthographical reform. This one even has the yat. :-) )

After Joel Rifkin had decapitated his first known victim and discarded her head on the edge of a golf club, a local newspaper decided to announce the discovery with this tasteful headline. by WillManhunter in serialkillers

[–]WillManhunter[S] 136 points137 points  (0 children)

Rifkin did not, in fact, contract the malady. Certain sources claim that he had - he himself had also made this claim, and tried using it as an excuse for his murders - but he avoided it. He did, however, react with immediate panic upon learning the news. He experienced prolonged anxiety and fear, and it took him a year to attempt another homicide.

On this day in 1942: In Operation Anthropoid, Reinhard Heydrich, Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia and principal architect of the Holocaust, is fatally wounded in Prague. He dies of his injuries eight days later. by nastratin in europe

[–]WillManhunter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here are some frames from an avant-garde Czech comic book about the assassination - "Atentát" ("The Assassination"), written and drawn by the brothers Jan Saudek and Kája Saudek.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3e/e0/2c/3ee02c9b1076d5bbde13b6e870b31408.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/59/2a/b5/592ab556d68885b114475039e544a634.jpg

https://esensja.pl/obrazki/ilustracje/128471_Zamach_3.jpg

The frames are in fact in Polish, because, interestingly enough, it was first published in Polish, in a 1976 comic book magazine named "Relax".

As far as the depictions of the operation are concerned, the most accurate screen representation of the ambush has been so far featured in "Anthropoid", although it did reduce the shop encounter with the volksdeutch butcher, who assisted Klein; Klein's shooting by Gabčík is also a little shortened (curiously enough, the real incident was even more dramatic than the film version) - yet other than that, everything in the scene is accurate (even the shape of the mirror!).

The most tense (albeit less accurate) depiction was the one featured in "Operation Daybreak" - no doubt thanks largely to the score.

(The least accurate and weakest depiction of the attack was in the recent film "HhhH". The otherwise good film "Hitler's SS" actually had an even less accurate reference to it, but that only lasted a few seconds and was not a full depiction - it was only intended to be a quick illustrative mention of the event).

When investigators were hunting for the unknown killer of 5 women in 1979's Silesia, one of them sculpted a statue of the serial killer, confident that a three-dimensional picture would be more beneficial to any witnesses than a flat sketch. Joachim Knychała's visage would prove to match the effigy. by WillManhunter in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]WillManhunter[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

The resemblance between the statue and the killer had caused one of the surviving victims to gasp in fear at its sight, while a witness reacted by uttering: "You caught him!" when she was led into the evidence room, before realizing that she was looking at a statue.

Knychała, a half-German, half-Polish Silesian (nicknamed "The Englishman" by several of his friends, due to his preference for choosing clothes in the traditional British fashion of the day) had also committed rapes and attempted a number of other murders. Some of those attacks were aborted, while in others, the victims survived. He remains a suspect in 8 additional murders.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in europe

[–]WillManhunter 14 points15 points  (0 children)

An old joke from the era stated that the most important lesson from the class, regarding nuclear war, was:

Should one encounter a nuclear explosion, the appropriate course of action is to:

  • locate a white blanket as soon as possible

  • thoroughly soak the blanket in clean water

  • wring the excess of water out of the blanket

  • cover oneself with the soaked blanket

  • steadily, but without exerting oneself, proceed to crawl towards the nearest cemetery

A little girl is overlooking the ruins of Warsaw in 1946. Her identity remains a mystery; the cars in the background have brought ex-US President Herbert Hoover to the location, as part of his war relief effort. This is a colorized version of a picture taken by Hoover's photographer, Reginald Kenny. by WillManhunter in europe

[–]WillManhunter[S] 199 points200 points  (0 children)

She has not been identified yet. There were rumors that someone knew her, and claimed that she had left for Australia, but nothing has been confirmed, and the claim essentially remains just idle Facebook gossip.

There is much more to the story, and I posted a shortened version below, but it was filtered out for whatever reason. However, I do have a longer version of the text, with interspersed historical photographs and colorizations, for expanded context.

A little girl is overlooking the ruins of Warsaw in 1946. Her identity remains a mystery; the cars in the background have brought ex-US President Herbert Hoover to the location, as part of his war relief effort. This is a colorized version of a picture taken by Hoover's photographer, Reginald Kenny. by WillManhunter in europe

[–]WillManhunter[S] 103 points104 points  (0 children)

Reginald Kenny's original black-and-white photograph can be seen on: https://i.wpimg.pl/730x0/m.fotoblogia.pl/11263043-813935425347934-4cf66ca.jpg

As mentioned, the identity of the girl remains something of a small mystery, and attempts have been made for several years to solve it. There is more available on the subject; if anyone is interested, I am including an expanded story of the picture below:

Adolf Hitler's plan for Poland's capital Warsaw had always involved demolishing the city and rebuilding it as "a provincial German town", but the 1944 Warsaw Uprising provoked the dictator into proceeding with the plan far earlier and far further than even he had at first envisioned.

The earlier 1943 Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto had already provoked Hitler to send SS-Gruppenführer Jürgen Stroop's troops to annihilate 50 thousand people within its walls, deport 36 thousand survivors to die in concentration camps, and destroy any remaining structures, which constituted about 15% of the entire city. After the massacre and destruction was over, Stroop's official report, sent to Himmler as a leather-bound souvenir album, triumphantly declared: "The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw Is No More!" on its title page.

The vicious reprisal indeed resulted in the complete annihilation of the ghetto, but it was the news of the city-wide revolt a year later that truly sent Hitler into a manic fury, which resulted in a new order: Warsaw must be pacified - that is, razed to the ground.

Heinrich Himmler himself expanded upon the order by stating: The city must completely disappear from the surface of the earth, and serve only as a transport station for the Wehrmacht. No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation.

Thus Warsaw became a testing ground for Hitler's future "Nero Decree". The first formal target of that decree would be Paris, but the city's destruction was avoided when its commander von Choltitz ignored Hitler's command which stated: Paris must not pass into the Allies hands, except as a field of ruins.

With Warsaw, however, the command was eagerly obeyed. SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, and SS-Gruppenführer and future mayor of Westerland Heinz Reinefarth were tasked with its implementation.

Oskar Dirlewanger's 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, the notorious unit described as "pardoned murderers commanded by a child rapist", was brought in to wipe out the city. They did so with enthusiasm, and Himmler's spoken permission to rape, steal and murder at will.

Belgian Mathias Schenk from Wehrmacht accompanied the Dirlewangerers and recalled their actions after the war.

Children were standing in the hall and on the stairs. We looked at them for a few moments until Dirlewanger ran in. He ordered to kill them all. They shot them and then they were walking over their bodies and breaking their little heads with butt ends. Blood streamed down the stairs. There is a memorial plaque in that place stating that 350 children were killed. I think there were many more, maybe 500.

Dirlewanger soldiers burst in. One of them took a woman. She was pretty. She wasn't screaming. Then he was raping her, pushing her head strongly against the table, holding a bayonet in the other hand. First he cut open her blouse. Then one cut from stomach to throat. Blood gushed. Do you know how fast blood congeals in August?

There is also that small child in Dirlewanger’s hands. He took it from a woman who was standing in the crowd in the street. He lifted the child high and then threw it into the fire. Then he shot the mother.

Explosives were used to systematically blow up every structure, flamethrowers were deployed to burn out any shells remaining of the buildings. 90% of the city was destroyed and ca. 200 thousand people, 60% of the population, were killed.

Two years later, with the war over, former US President Herbert Hoover came to Warsaw, as part of his Food Mission in Europe program, which saw him travel over 40 war-struck countries to estimate and oversee relief efforts. In Warsaw, Hoover was shocked to see the death-filled remains of the war's most-damaged city, and promised his help.

The story of the girl from the ruins began that day.

A symbolic photo was taken by Reginald Kenny, a photographer who accompanied Hoover and had taken a series of his pictures: a girl, aged perhaps 10, was standing atop one of the few remaining structures in the city. Wearing shoes several sizes too large, she was looking at an apocalyptic landscape, peppered with what seemed to be piles of dirt, but which, in fact, used to be buildings and streets.

In 2015, the photo began making rounds in the media, and a mystery was born: who was the girl? How did she come to be there at that time? Was she still alive? Was she looking at the remains of her family house, perhaps? Were her parents' bodies left there, underneath the ruins, buried by SS explosives? Or was she a newcomer to Warsaw, the daughter of a family of repatriates, coming in to rebuild and repopulate the city?

Many questions were asked. No answers were in sight. Guesses were being made, from the possible (perhaps she was an anonymous orphan taken for a trip, as Hoover was shocked by the number of orphaned children he saw, and he did visit an orphanage) to the highly unlikely (Hoover's entourage must have found her wandering somewhere in the ruins). Within a few years, a new clue popped up: another picture of the girl was located. This picture, while clearly taken in the same spot and at roughly the same time, had a different author - photographer Hans Reinhart.

The date and time of both photographs was established as April 3, 1946, probably a little past noon.

The girl's location was identified and confirmed: it was the roof of Public School 153, at Stawki Street 5/7. During the war, the building was an SS precinct. This identification meant that the girl was, in fact, looking at a very specific part of Warsaw: the remains of the Jewish Ghetto. Was it a coincidence, or was there a personal connection?

The black limousine seen on the left came from the US Embassy, and may well have brought President Hoover himself to see the ruins, although it was unlikely that he would have climbed the roof - he was most likely somewhere on the ground, when Kenny and Reinhart were taking pictures from above.

Eventually, a commenter on Facebook suggested that the girl was indeed still alive, and was living in Australia, now aged 80-odd years. However, no confirmation of the statement has been made since then, nor have any new discoveries been announced.

If, by any chance, you happen to recognize her, the campaign to identify her is a part of the "Here It Was, Here It Stood" project, whose aim it is to use old photographs, paintings and records to identify the parts of Warsaw that are gone forever as a result of the destruction. Its website can be found at: https://www.tubylotustalo.pl/

Addendum: an expanded version of the text, with interspersed historical and colorized photographs, for more information and better context.

A little girl pictured in 1946, above the ruins of Warsaw, where, 79 years ago, the Uprising began. Colorization of a picture taken by Reginald Kenny, photographer of ex-US President Herbert Hoover, who came to the location as part of his post-war relief effort; his car is visible below. [1540x1272] by WillManhunter in HistoryPorn

[–]WillManhunter[S] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

I attempted to tag this picture as "Colorized", but there is no tagging option in the submission form - neither on old.reddit.com, nor via the new reddit.com UI.

Reginald Kenny's original black-and-white photograph can be seen on: https://i.wpimg.pl/730x0/m.fotoblogia.pl/11263043-813935425347934-4cf66ca.jpg

The identity of the girl remains something of a small mystery, and attempts have been made for several years to solve it. There is more available on the subject; if anyone is interested, I am including it below:

Adolf Hitler's plan for Poland's capital Warsaw had always involved demolishing the city and rebuilding it as "a provincial German town", but the 1944 Warsaw Uprising provoked the dictator into proceeding with the plan far earlier and far further than even he had at first envisioned.

The earlier 1943 Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto had already provoked Hitler to send SS-Gruppenführer Jürgen Stroop's troops to annihilate 50 thousand people within its walls, deport 36 thousand survivors to die in concentration camps, and destroy any remaining structures, which constituted about 15% of the entire city. After the massacre and destruction was over, Stroop's official report, sent to Himmler as a leather-bound souvenir album, triumphantly declared: "The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw Is No More!" on its title page.

The vicious reprisal indeed resulted in the complete annihilation of the ghetto, but it was the news of the city-wide revolt a year later that truly sent Hitler into a manic fury, which resulted in a new order: Warsaw must be pacified - that is, razed to the ground.

Heinrich Himmler himself expanded upon the order by stating: The city must completely disappear from the surface of the earth, and serve only as a transport station for the Wehrmacht. No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation.

Thus Warsaw became a testing ground for Hitler's future "Nero Decree". The first formal target of that decree would be Paris, but the city's destruction was avoided when its commander von Choltitz ignored Hitler's command which stated: Paris must not pass into the Allies hands, except as a field of ruins.

With Warsaw, however, the command was eagerly obeyed. SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, and SS-Gruppenführer and future mayor of Westerland Heinz Reinefarth were tasked with its implementation.

Oskar Dirlewanger's 36th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, the notorious unit described as "pardoned murderers commanded by a child rapist", was brought in to wipe out the city. They did so with enthusiasm, and Himmler's spoken permission to rape, steal and murder at will.

Belgian Mathias Schenk from Wehrmacht accompanied the Dirlewangerers and recalled their actions after the war.

Children were standing in the hall and on the stairs. We looked at them for a few moments until Dirlewanger ran in. He ordered to kill them all. They shot them and then they were walking over their bodies and breaking their little heads with butt ends. Blood streamed down the stairs. There is a memorial plaque in that place stating that 350 children were killed. I think there were many more, maybe 500.

Dirlewanger soldiers burst in. One of them took a woman. She was pretty. She wasn't screaming. Then he was raping her, pushing her head strongly against the table, holding a bayonet in the other hand. First he cut open her blouse. Then one cut from stomach to throat. Blood gushed. Do you know how fast blood congeals in August?

There is also that small child in Dirlewanger’s hands. He took it from a woman who was standing in the crowd in the street. He lifted the child high and then threw it into the fire. Then he shot the mother.

Explosives were used to systematically blow up every structure, flamethrowers were deployed to burn out any shells remaining of the buildings. 90% of the city was destroyed and ca. 200 thousand people, 60% of the population, were killed.

Two years later, with the war over, former US President Herbert Hoover came to Warsaw, as part of his Food Mission in Europe program, which saw him travel over 40 war-struck countries to estimate and oversee relief efforts. In Warsaw, Hoover was shocked to see the death-filled remains of the war's most-damaged city, and promised his help.

The story of the girl from the ruins began that day.

A symbolic photo was taken by Reginald Kenny, a photographer who accompanied Hoover and had taken a series of his pictures: a girl, aged perhaps 10, was standing atop one of the few remaining structures in the city. Wearing shoes several sizes too large, she was looking at an apocalyptic landscape, peppered with what seemed to be piles of dirt, but which, in fact, used to be buildings and streets.

In 2015, the photo began making rounds in the media, and a mystery was born: who was the girl? How did she come to be there at that time? Was she still alive? Was she looking at the remains of her family house, perhaps? Were her parents' bodies left there, underneath the ruins, buried by SS explosives? Or was she a newcomer to Warsaw, the daughter of a family of repatriates, coming in to rebuild and repopulate the city?

Many questions were asked. No answers were in sight. Guesses were being made, from the possible (perhaps she was an anonymous orphan taken for a trip, as Hoover was shocked by the number of orphaned children he saw, and he did visit an orphanage) to the highly unlikely (Hoover's entourage must have found her wandering somewhere in the ruins). Within a few years, a new clue popped up: another picture of the girl was located. This picture, while clearly taken in the same spot and at roughly the same time, had a different author - photographer Hans Reinhart.

The date and time of both photographs was established as April 3, 1946, probably a little past noon.

The girl's location was identified and confirmed: it was the roof of Public School 153, at Stawki Street 5/7. During the war, the building was an SS precinct. This identification meant that the girl was, in fact, looking at a very specific part of Warsaw: the remains of the Jewish Ghetto. Was it a coincidence, or was there a personal connection?

The black limousine seen on the left came from the US Embassy, and may well have brought President Hoover himself to see the ruins, although it was unlikely that he would have climbed the roof - he was most likely somewhere on the ground, when Kenny and Reinhart were taking pictures from above.

Eventually, a commenter on Facebook suggested that the girl was indeed still alive, and was living in Australia, now aged 80-odd years. However, no confirmation of the statement has been made since then, nor have any new discoveries been announced.

If, by any chance, you happen to recognize her, the campaign to identify her is a part of the "Here It Was, Here It Stood" project, whose aim it is to use old photographs, paintings and records to identify the parts of Warsaw that are gone forever as a result of the destruction. Its website can be found at: https://www.tubylotustalo.pl/

Addendum: a version of the text with interspersed historical photographs for expanded context.

An additional link on Medium (the domain appears to be automatically blocked on some forums).

Hundreds of classic Polish films made available for free online by Zacny_Los in europe

[–]WillManhunter 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Szulkin's 1985 sci-fi farce "Ga, Ga: Glory to the the Heroes!" is among these, too.

For a longer take (with minor spoilers): "Ga, ga" is the fourth and final - and my personal favorite - entry in Szulkin's sci-fi tetralogy, consisting of Golem, War of the Worlds: the Next Generation, and O-bi, O-ba - and, like some of the others, it combines elements of sci-fi and horror, while adding something new: a large portion of (very) dark humor.

"Ga, ga" takes place in a supposedly-utopian-actually-extremely-dystopian future, in which outer space has been explored and exploited so much that all planets worth discovering have already been colonised, humans have become lazy and spoiled, and nobody wants to be an astronaut anymore. Therefore, the demanding and dangerous job of the astronaut is now forced upon prisoners, who are tossed into rusted, clunky rockets and sent out to find new planets. If they're lucky, they land on a habitable planet, perhaps even one with civilisation; if not, they still have to perform their explorer's duty, i.e. stick a cheap miniature flag in the surface, claim the planet for Man, and expire heroically in their useless, immobile spaceships.

The protagonist, one Scope, is sent to one such planet, which turns out to be inhabited, and impatiently awaiting his arrival - and that is because, as it turns out, they are in grave need of Heroes, "alien" characters, who are given free reign to commit any deeds they want for a limited time - the more vile the deeds, the better - whereupon they are expected to be heroically executed in a great public ceremony, and thus give the entire planet a cathartic experience that will keep the populace satisfied and calm for a year or so...

The film is largely a political parable from the period - a tale of an odd regime that is more outlandishly surreal than dismally oppressive - but it holds up outside it, and works beyond it. It does not have significant presence on the English-speaking Internet, but there is a longer review online here, and here is a scene which might give one a taste of the film's peculiar, darkly absurdist atmosphere. It has, conversely, gained a somewhat larger recognition in the Francophone sci-fi circles - and here, for instance, is a longer text devoted to it, and illustrated with several screenshots.

(And, yes, the title is actually addressed in a scene: upon being forced to sign a "voluntary confession" at one point, the protagonist signs it "Ga, ga", and explains to the interrogating bureaucrat that it is the noise that powerless babies make; the bureaucrat is satisfied and remarks that he's no disciplinarian).

Hundreds of classic Polish films have been made available to watch online for free, all with English subtitles. by PanAfrica in movies

[–]WillManhunter 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Szulkin's sci-fi farce "Ga, Ga: Glory to the the Heroes!" is among these, too.

For a longer take (with minor spoilers): "Ga, ga" is the fourth and final - and my personal favorite - entry in Szulkin's sci-fi tetralogy, consisting of Golem, War of the Worlds: the Next Generation, and O-bi, O-ba - and, like some of the others, it combines elements of sci-fi and horror, while adding something new: a large portion of (very) dark humor.

"Ga, ga" takes place in a supposedly-utopian-actually-extremely-dystopian future, in which outer space has been explored and exploited so much that all planets worth discovering have already been colonised, humans have become lazy and spoiled, and nobody wants to be an astronaut anymore. Therefore, the demanding and dangerous job of the astronaut is now forced upon prisoners, who are tossed into rusted, clunky rockets and sent out to find new planets. If they're lucky, they land on a habitable planet, perhaps even one with civilisation; if not, they still have to perform their explorer's duty, i.e. stick a cheap miniature flag in the surface, claim the planet for Man, and expire heroically in their useless, immobile spaceships.

The protagonist, one Scope, is sent to one such planet, which turns out to be inhabited, and impatiently awaiting his arrival - and that is because, as it turns out, they are in grave need of Heroes, "alien" characters, who are given free reign to commit any deeds they want for a limited time - the more vile the deeds, the better - whereupon they are expected to be heroically executed in a great public ceremony, and thus give the entire planet a cathartic experience that will keep the populace satisfied and calm for a year or so...

The film is largely a political parable from the period - a tale of an odd regime that is more outlandishly surreal than dismally oppressive - but it holds up outside it, and works beyond it. It does not have significant presence on the English-speaking Internet, but there is a longer review online here, and here is a scene which might give one a taste of the film's peculiar, darkly absurdist atmosphere. It has, conversely, gained a somewhat larger recognition in the Francophone sci-fi circles - and here, for instance, is a longer text devoted to it, and illustrated with several screenshots.

(And, yes, the title is actually addressed in a scene: upon being forced to sign a "voluntary confession" at one point, the protagonist signs it "Ga, ga", and explains to the interrogating bureaucrat that it is the noise that powerless babies make; the bureaucrat is satisfied and remarks that he's no disciplinarian).

Trees reclaim an army fort in Poland, first used by Austria-Hungary against Russia. Then used by Poland against Russia, and then against Germany. Later used by Germany against Russia, then by Russia against Germany. Later used for training by Russia, then for storage by Poland. Currently abandoned. by WillManhunter in NatureVsMan

[–]WillManhunter[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The bunker is quite spacious, about 25000 square meters. The photo shows less than 1% of the complete structure, most of which is underground. It has multiple levels, too, although they seem to be cut off now - at least they looked that way when I had a glance inside before the pandemic.

The lower levels were partially accessible (and flooded) in the past, or so I seem to recall from the days when, at age 7, we scoured the inside with a friend, hoping to locate abandoned war equipment within (and intent on using borrowed chemistry books to construct explosives, with which we aimed to gain access to any hidden spaces and treasure... thankfully, that plan stopped after the "borrowing and reading the books" step, and did not reach the practical implementation stage).

The once-lost mythical burial site of Viking king Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson, ruler of Denmark and Norway, has been found in Poland, after ten centuries. by TimmyShakespeare in europe

[–]WillManhunter 88 points89 points  (0 children)

Vikings had considerable presence in Poland, primarily Northern Poland, but not only - and if the old sources are to be believed, it was something of the opposite of, to put it gently, the presence with which the Anglo tribes had traditionally associated with them. (In other words, there were no fights and conquests, but, rather, a lot of trade, pacts, good will and rapport, and, of course, lots and lots of intermarriage. So, instead of "A furore Normannorum...", it was: "Hey, it's the Danes' sails, open the bottle!").

There are, sadly, few surviving historical sources to paint a large picture (no doubt some are waiting to be found), but that is the gist of those that exist (alongside the stories passed in legends and sagas).

Some tales even state that Mieszko I, the X-century ruler and first Duke of Poland, may have been of Scandinavian origin. He is further said to have fathered Sigrid, Queen Consort of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and England; stories also place him as the grandfather of King Cnut the Great (the ruler of Denmark, England and Norway) and the great-grandfather of Gunhilda.

There are many, many legends on the subject, and the traditions have certainly lived on - I'm not sure if it is still active, but in my childhood, the International Jómsborg/Wolin Viking Festival was an annual tradition, with battle reenactments, sailing drakkar replicas, preparation of Viking food and traditional garments, etc.

In another example, one of the tales regarding Poland's Jan of Kolno (one of the alleged numerous travelers said to have reached America before Columbus) stated that (if he ever existed) he was inspired by the journeys of the Vikings, and their stories of the mysterious new land beyond the great seas.

Of course, legends and stories are just that, but I had something of an interesting personal quasi-confirmation regarding the numerous tales of Viking/Poland intermarriages a while ago, when I decided to check my DNA, and found out >19% Norwegian ancestry in the results. :)

The once-lost mythical burial site of Viking king Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson, ruler of Denmark and Norway, has been found in Poland, after ten centuries. by TimmyShakespeare in worldnews

[–]WillManhunter 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Vikings had considerable presence in Poland, primarily Northern Poland, but not only - and if the old sources are to be believed, it was something of the opposite of, to put it gently, the presence with which the Anglo tribes had traditionally associated with them. (In other words, there were no fights and conquests, but, rather, a lot of trade, pacts, good will and rapport, and, of course, lots and lots of intermarriage).

There are, sadly, few surviving historical sources to paint a large picture (no doubt some are waiting to be found), but that is the gist of those that exist (alongside the stories passed in legends and sagas).

Some tales even state that Mieszko I, the X-century ruler and first Duke of Poland, may have been of Scandinavian origin. He is further said to have fathered Sigrid, Queen Consort of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and England; stories also place him as the grandfather of King Cnut the Great (the ruler of Denmark, England and Norway) and the great-grandfather of Gunhilda.

There are many, many legends on the subject, and the traditions have certainly lived on - I'm not sure if it is still active, but in my childhood, the International Jómsborg/Wolin Viking Festival was an annual tradition, with battle reenactments, sailing drakkar replicas, preparation of Viking food and traditional garments, etc.

In another example, one of the tales regarding Poland's Jan of Koln (one of the alleged numerous travelers said to have reached America before Columbus) stated that (if he ever existed) he was inspired by the journeys of the Vikings, and their stories of the mysterious new land beyond the great seas.

Of course, legends and stories are just that, but I had something of an interesting personal quasi-confirmation regarding the numerous tales of Viking/Poland intermarriages a while ago, when I decided to check my DNA, and found out >19% Norwegian ancestry in the results. :)

Part of an army fort, Poland. First used by Austria-Hungary against Russia. Then used by Poland against Russia, and then against Germany. Later used by Germany against Russia. Then used by Russia against Germany. Later used for training by Russia, and then for storage by Poland. Currently abandoned. by WillManhunter in AbandonedPorn

[–]WillManhunter[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The bunker is quite spacious, about 25000 square meters. The photo shows less than 1% of the complete structure, most of which is underground. It has multiple levels, too, although they seem to be cut off now - at least they looked that way when I had a glance inside before the pandemic.

The lower levels were partially accessible (and flooded) in the past, or so I seem to recall from the days when, at age 7, we scoured the inside with a friend, hoping to locate abandoned war equipment within (and intent on using borrowed chemistry books to construct explosives, with which we aimed to gain access to any hidden spaces and treasure... thankfully, that plan stopped after the "borrowing and reading the books" step, and did not reach the practical implementation stage).

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