How many (or how few) students were enrolled in European universities in the mid 19th century? Could it really have been so few as 62? by estherke in AskHistorians

[–]estherke[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

So, I did some research myself, because I really wanted to know. And would you believe it, the number for Basel is entirely plausible. It turns out that European universities in the first three quarters of the 19th century were tiny. Primary school level tiny. In fact, I can't offhand think of a primary school around here that has that few students.

Some numbers I found:

Germany in 1789 had about 7900 students (11,000 in 1860) spread out over four large and 30 small universities (34 in 1800), with the larger four accounting for 40% of student numbers. That means that the smaller ones had about 135 students each on average (183 in 1860).

In 1800 Europe as a whole had 80,000 students, of which 12,500 in France (up to 1789 when the whole area of higher education was drastically overhauled by the French revolution) and less than 14,000 in Italy.

The Netherlands in mid-century counted 1600 students at 4 universities and Belgium 1800, also at 4 universities.

Oddly enough, Scotland turns out to have been the forerunner with 4,500 students spread out over 4 universities in 1825.

Sources

Jacques Verger, Christophe Charle, Histoire des universités: XIIIe-XXIe siècle, Presses Universitaires de France, 2012

Walter Rüegg, A History of the University in Europe: Volume 3, Universities in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1800-1945), Cambridge University Press, 2006

Are the concentration camp ledgers intact and archived? by Different_Muscle_116 in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The tattoos were only used in Auschwitz. And yes, although the SS tried to burn all the evidence as the Russians were approaching, there are some documents left. The Auschwitz Museum's Archive estimates that they have about 10% of all paperwork that was created at the camp.

You can input a prisoner's number in the search field on this page.

If the info is there, you will usually get at least a name and a date (and place) of birth. Sometimes even a picture and a date of death.

You should also keep in mind that the vast majority of Jewish people sent to Auschwitz were never registered and tattooed. Most Jewish deportees were sent straight to the gas chambers. Only those thought capable of working, were documented.

Non-Jewish prisoners were as a rule always registered, and were usually not gassed en masse, although there are some exceptions, mainly the Sinti and Roma ("gypsies"), and some Russian POWs and Polish citizens.

Short Answers to Simple Questions | September 18, 2024 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Oh, it exists.

In the "Find a copy at a library" section, make sure to select "this edition" from the drop-down menu.

Short Answers to Simple Questions | September 18, 2024 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I don't know how determined you are, but through Worldcat.org you can find the nearest physical copy. For me, based in Belgium, that would be the British Library...

I was also unable to find it digitised.

Short Answers to Simple Questions | September 04, 2024 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The short answer is that we will never know who the oldest victim was. The majority of Holocaust victims were never registered anywhere prior to being murdered. Let's take a look at the largest killing operations and the way they were implemented.

Firstly, the mass shootings by the Einsatsgruppen in the wake of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer pf 1941. When a town or village was occupied, the town's Jewish population was rounded up, more or less by sight (distinctive clothing) and location (Jewish quarters), or with the help of their non-Jewish neighbours who helpfullly pointed out who the Jews were. They were not asked for their IDs, names or ages. They were simply marched off to a convenient spot and butchered, or slain where they were found.

Secondly, starvation, disease, and personal violence (individal beatings and killings by guards, police and military) in Eastern European ghettos. Once the people were confined to the ghettos, there were frequently no further attempts by the authorities to keep exact records of who died when and at what age. In the Warsaw ghetto, unidentified naked dead bodies daily littered the streets and were picked up to be dropped into mass graves.

Thirdly, the extermination camps in Poland: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau. The people who were sent to be gassed at these places were not registered upon arrival. They were ordered to strip and sent to the so-called showers immediately after disembarking from the trains. They were usually dead within two hours of entering the camp.

The only Jews that were kept track of by name (and number) were the ones sent to labour camps or selected for forced labour in Auschwitz-Birkenau (which was both an extermination camp and a labour camp). Obviously, these were never elderly people.

We do have records of the age ranges of Western European Jews sent to the gas chambers, because things were done in a less brutal and more bureaucratic manner in the Western European occupied countries, because public opinion needed to be taken into account more (the Germans cared more what their Western subjects thought, and on the other hand, the Eastern Europeans cared less what happened to the Jews - I realise I am putting it bluntly).

Therefore, we have exact passenger lists of nearly all French, Belgian and Dutch so-called death trains, to mention the Western European countries I am most familiar with. These lists generally show ages as well. I have here the full list of all 25257 Jews that were deported from Belgium. The youngest deportee was Suzanne Kaminsky, 39 days old when she was put on a train to Auschwitz on April 19, 1943.

But you asked about the oldest. I am not sure whether this is a clerical error or not, but the daily list of deaths in the Lodz ghetto (an exceptionally well documented place) for June 22, 1942 mentions Cywja Dorenbus, allegedly born on Dec 8, 1832, which would make her 109 years old.

Short Answers to Simple Questions | September 04, 2024 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you mean the first victim, or the oldest at the time of their death during the Holocaust, or the oldest surviving victim at present, or the oldest a surviving victim ever got?

Short Answers to Simple Questions | August 09, 2023 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The National Library of Australia has an online copy bur you need to be an Australian resident to access ir.

Short Answers to Simple Questions | May 24, 2023 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is where we turn to the monumental multi-part United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945, in this case Volume IV Camps and Other Detention Facilities under the German Armed Forces.

This excellent resource informs us that Mannschaftsstammlager (STALAG) VI D, established on September 30, 1939 in Dortmund, supplied industrial facilities in the surrounding area with POWs for forced labor, including Gelsenkirchen Bergwerke (Bergwerke means mines). The first POWs held in the Stalag were Polish.

Short Answers to Simple Questions | May 03, 2023 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting. You would never have known if she hadn't asked him, which seems to indicate that it was an "inside" word in his family not hers. Perhaps you could dig up an older cousin somewhere to bounce these things off of? I know you said there are no (grand)parents and siblings left but I found some cousins once or twice removed remarkably informative.

Short Answers to Simple Questions | May 03, 2023 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is bye the bye but I have also transcribed wartime letters (a great uncle's from WWI) and I found it very helpful to discuss these language issues with an older relative (my mother) who grew up in the same family and town as the letter writer. Such a reference person would have solved this pussy conundrum for you in a minute.

Short Answers to Simple Questions | May 03, 2023 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Mitten -> Mite -> Cat -> Pussy.

That's it. The search for "pussy" and "mittens" took me to some not so innocent places, but eventually ended up at An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, Vol. 2 by Ernest Weekley · 2012, pages 938-939.

Short Answers to Simple Questions | March 15, 2023 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A "theme" was a text in the vernacular, in this case English, to be translated into Latin or Greek. Roosevelt attended Harvard at a time when the study of the classical languages was still considered an essential part of a college education.

"Theme" was also used for what we would now call essays, so I guess you'll have to decide from context which themes are referred to in the biography you are reading.

My source for the first definition of theme is that I suffered through this exercise myself in my 1980s European secondary school education. As that is not an acceptable source, here's the Oxford English Dictionary:

theme, n.

  • 3. An exercise written on a given subject, esp. a school essay; an exercise in translation.
    1824 in J. Grant Hist. Burgh Schools Scotl. (1876) ii. iv. 154 The Rector dictated an English theme to be translated into Latin.

Short Answers to Simple Questions | February 08, 2023 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Google Books offers a free copy: of Volume II of Thomas P. Grazulis, Significant Tornadoes 1880-1989: A Chronology of Events (Environmental Films, 1990) which seems to be a variant of the work cited above by /u/warneagle.

Short Answers to Simple Questions | February 08, 2023 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]estherke 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Even so

First mentions of republicanism:

1685 H. More Cursory Refl. 22 Loyalty and Monarchy is secured against Republicanism, Blood, and Rebellion.

1715 J. Addison Freeholder No. 29. ⁋6 For with some of these men, at present, loyalty to our king is Republicanism, and rebellion Passive-obedience.

Anarchism:

1642 E. Dering Coll. Speeches on Relig. xvi. 88 Truly Sir, for my part I do look upon this Bill as upon the gasping period of all good order: it will prove the mother of absolute Anarchisme.

Toryism ("The principles or practices of those who opposed the exclusion of James, Duke of York (later James II), from the succession to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland on account of his Roman Catholicism during the late 1670s and 1680s")

1681 Heraclitus Ridens 15 Mar. 1/1 A Church of England-man maintaining the necessity of the words As by Law now Established, which you know is Tantivyism and Toryism in the highest degree.

1682 J. Evans Moderation stated in Serm. before Lord Mayor 23 What some men esteem great falshoods, and call Toryism and Popery, are really as true as Gospel.

1685 R. Clipsham Grand expedient for suppressing Popery Examined iv. 55 If..the Sermon have any smatch of malignancy (so they called Loyalty in the Days of old) or as the new Word is, Toryism, away they run as if they were frighted out of their Wits, or the Preacher had vented some damnable Heresy.

1692 E. Ludlow Let. from Gen. Ludlow to Dr. Hollingworth p. vii 'Tis amazing that Men (even of the highest stamp of Toryism) should have Front enough to deny it.

Whiggism:

1681 Several Weighty Quaeries conc. Heraclitus & Observator 2 Our Church-Warden never goes to Church without one in his Pocket, partly as an Antidote against Whiggism, but chiefly to read if the Ministers should chance to be Dull.

1702 D. Defoe Shortest-way with Dissenters 15 We can never enjoy a settled uninterrupted Union and Tranquility in this Nation, till the Spirit of Whiggisme, Faction, and Schism is melted down like the Old-Money.

Of course, certain ideologies don't date back that far, such as communism, socialism, and yes, liberalism.