Mario Stoppani had been a World War I ace before working at the Ansaldo aircraft company. He was subsequently employed by the Cantieri Riuniti Dell’Adriatico (CRDA) aircraft company as a test pilot. In the early 1930s, he gained several long‐distance seaplane distance and altitude records (Bruschina, Mecchia, & Turrini, 2000; Mencarelli, 1971). These included a long‐distance seaplane flight between Monfalcone, Italy, and Mitsiwa, Eritrea, in 1934, and Berbera, Italian Somaliland, in 1935.

These attempts were flown with Enrico Corradin and Casimiro Babbi, respectively (“A Record Seaplane Flight,” 1934, “New Record Flight by Seaplane,” 1935). Enrico Comani, his copilot on the flight to Brazil in 1937, was an expert in flying without external visual clues, relying only on instruments (known today as Instrument Flight Rules or IFR). The 1937 record attempt, achieved using a seaplane imaginatively registered as I‐LAMA, earned both pilots a national medal for valor (“Distance Record Attempt by I‐LAMA: Route Meteorological Conditions,” 1937).

However, the two aviators’ life paths ended in tragedy in the same waters they had crossed. After the successful record attempt, on February 2, 1938, Stoppani, Comani, and three other crew members were en route back to [Fascist] Italy. During a flight segment of the flight between Natal, on the Brazilian coast, and the island of Fernando de Noronha, in the South Atlantic, a double‐engine failure and fire on their three‐engined seaplane led to a successful ditching attempt in stormy waters.

Mario Stoppani was the only survivor (Rossi, 2006): He was rescued by a Lufthansa seaplane (“Record Breakers’ Crash in the Atlantic,” 1938).

As with other long‐distance attempts by [Fascist] aviators in the 1930s, Stoppani and Comani’s feat was celebrated by the régime’s highest echelons. Achille Starace, secretary of the fascist party, forwarded the following telegram to the pilots:

The party gerarchi, meeting at the Palazzo del Littorio, have asked me to extend to the brave pilots Stoppani and Comani, and to their crew, sentiments of admiration and comradely joy for the brilliant victory which they have conquered for fascist aviation [ala fascista]. Achille Starace. (Starace to the Cabinet of the Ministry of Aeronautics, December 30, 1937)

The attainment of the record was couched in ideological terms which pitted fascism’s espousal of speed and power over the “compromises” which had been made by the previous, French recordholders. French pilots had achieved the record barely 2 months earlier, on October 25–26, 1937.

Major Gianni Bordini, writing in Sapere magazine, celebrated the fact that the CANT Z.506 seaplane used by Stoppani and Comani had not been modified (as the French aircraft had been) to gain range at the expense of speed. Rather, the attempt had been flown “on a bomber aircraft which had not been modified, except for the installation of auxiliary fuel tanks” (Bordini, 1938).

Regardless of the fact that the two modifications which the seaplane actually underwent were the construction of an apposite cockpit and, in all probability, the removal of heavy defensive armament (thus increasing range), the flight was contrasted to French use of aircraft heavily modified for record‐breaking purposes.

This contrast implied Italian technological superiority in flying faster, nonmodified aircraft: “This approach, which differs substantially from that espoused by the French, is the cause of recent conquests by Italian aviation. These conquests can be defined by the most important aeronautical concepts: speed, load, range, altitude” (Bordini, 1938).

The speed of the [Fascist] “three‐engined bomber seaplane” was also noted in The Times (“4,375 Miles in a Straight Line,” 1937), which similarly contrasted it to the slower French aircraft. However, in turn, Stoppani’s record attempt was superseded by [Luftwaffe] aviators in March 1938 on a route from Devon, Great Britain, to Caravelas, Brazil (“Devon to Brazil in 43 Hours,” 1938).

[…]

Pedrazzi was also aware of the propaganda potential of depicting flight as a modern activity pitting individuals and machines against nature’s previously insurmountable obstacles. The environment of flight, and the landscapes glimpsed from above, were at times described and couched in a language that evidenced not only a sense of fear of nature but also a sense of distance and elevation from nature’s grasp through technology.

For example, on describing clouds, Pedrazzi stated that “Cloud formations often take the shape of horrific voids and infernal shapes, and sometimes they look like azure, dreamy landscapes” (Pedrazzi to Il Resto del Carlino, December 30, 1939). The aeroplane made possible the witnessing of these cloudscapes and ensured that they could be safely traversed. Furthermore, the potential for a tragic end to the flight was a reminder of the risks inherent in pushing the boundaries of aviation.

As the aeroplane flew over the crash site of I‐ARPA, the journalist and his crew members reported that

We turn our thoughts to our fallen comrades, and salute them in Roman fashion. It seems to us as though the three powerful engines of the Savoia‐Marchetti take on a deeper roar, as if they too were providing a background for this time of sadness. However, flight is victory and we cannot serve the will of those who have fallen if we don’t follow their example. (Pedrazzi to Il Resto del Carlino, n.d.)

At the same time, when crossing paths with an aeroplane returning from Brazil to [Fascist] Italy, salutations were exchanged between the two craft, “with words singing hymns to fascism, and greetings to the Duce from Italian hearts” (Pedrazzi to Il Resto del Carlino, n.d.). The mid‐air encounter was clearly described in propagandistic tones. What is interesting to note, however, is the fact that Pedrazzi chose to highlight the meeting of two [Fascist] craft, on routes which were not devoid of traffic, however scarce.

In what almost feels like a scene out of Starship Troopers, these widely celebrated, record‐breaking flights that emphasized speed, load, range, and altitude were still of little use to science, did not last long on the record books, and cost several lives… I have no further comment.

cross‐posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1695905

Quoting Why Didn’t the Press Shout?: American & International Journalism During the Holocaust, page 341:

On September 1, 1938, citing public safety, the government forbade “foreigners of the Jewish race to establish permanent residence on Italian soil, in Libya, on it Italy’s Aegean possessions” and on September 7 revoked the “concession of Italian citizenship to Jews contracted after January 1, 1919,” and gave them six months to leave the country.

(Confusingly, some sources such as Katy Hull’s The Machine Has a Soul: American Sympathy with Italian Fascism conflate these days and suggest that Rome issued the time limit on ‘foreign’ Jews on September 1st, but apparently it was really September 7th; you can see from the above how the confusion resulted.)

The law applied to at least 7,000 people (possibly as many as 10,000), but only 3,720 of them had left by March 1939.

Quoting Gene Bernardini’s 1977 article The Origins and Development of Racial Anti‐Semitism in Fascist Italy:

[Mussolini’s] decision to formulate a policy which would weld together racism and anti‐Semitism was purely voluntary and flowed naturally from the confluence of Italy’s imperial policies, the ideological tenets of fascism, and Italian national interests as enunciated by the Duce. It was not, as some observers believed, imposed upon Mussolini by official German pressure.¹⁰

From Klaus Voigt in Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule, page 185:

Until the enactment of the racial laws, Fascist Italy had granted admission to Jewish refugees from territories under [the Third Reich]. Their situation then suffered a drastic setback with the decree of September 7, 1938, which threatened with expulsion the great majority of Jews who had entered Italy as immigrants or refugees after 1918 if they did not leave the country within six months.

The expulsion, however, proved impracticable: by the time the deadline expired, approximately one half of the 9,000 Jews affected by the decree, 4,500 of whom were refugees from Germany and Austria, were as yet without visas to another country and therefore unable to leave Italy. Until August 1939, Jews could still enter Italy with a tourist visa, which enabled them to remain in the country up to six months. When authorities realized that 5,000 mostly destitute people had used this kind of visa only to flee [the Third Reich’s] persecution, it was suspended.

After that, and until May 1940, entry into the country was allowed only on a transit visa in order to board a ship in an Italian harbor. When [Fascist] Italy entered the war in June 1940, the border was closed to Jews. After Yugoslavia’s defeat, this ban was extended to include the territories annexed by Italy.¹¹

I would like to talk more generally about antisemitism in Fascist Italy. Many summarize Fascist Italy pre‐1938 was a period of ‘relative tolerance’ for Jews, but this summary leaves a lot unsaid. Benito Mussolini made antisemitic remarks even before the 1930s (though he was usually careful when and where to say them). For example, quoting from Giorgio Fabre in Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule, page 60:

Mussolini in Il Popolo d’Italia on June 4, 1919, published his famous piece (“The Accomplices,” “I complici”) against Jewish Bolshevik leaders whom he claimed had been financed by Jewish American bankers[.]

Other Fascists were also quite tolerant of antisemites. Pages 60–1:

Preziosi’s magazine, La Vita Italiana, was transformed into an anti‐Semitic publication, this took on for the Fascist movement and then for the National Fascist Party (PNF) a heavily anti‐Jewish significance, which was reinforced when the magazine was joined by another anti‐Semitic periodical, the Rivista di Milano. Robert Michels, sharp‐eyed as usual, pointed this out immediately in December 1922.¹⁹ Nor was he the only one to do so.

The newspaper of the small and democratic Republican Party (the party inspired by Giuseppe Mazzini) made a very similar comment.²⁰ The symbolic climax in this anti‐Jewish operation came a little later, on March 1, 1923, when the anti‐Semite Pantaleoni was appointed senator under the first Mussolini‐led government and at Mussolini’s wish.²¹ For the very first time in Italy, a party had an official or semiofficial anti‐Semitic wing.

When something similar had happened before the war in the Nationalist Association — a small “nationalist association” which, after the war, set up a real influent party — the “association” had split in two.²²

Mussolini himself impressed a personal anti‐Jewish mark upon Fascism: his devastating hostility against the Jewish political élite, first and foremost against the élite of the socialist or communist “enemy.” Michels’s intuition, that anti‐Semitism was the result of a struggle within the socialist leadership, was borne out by Mussolini’s course of action after he left the socialist party and founded a movement that was in some respects a competitor of the former.

Take heed to the following! Pages 61–2:

Although this article is similarly anonymous and is not included in his Opera Omnia (Collected Works), it can nevertheless be attributed to Mussolini.²⁴ It is dated September 1, 1921, and in it Mussolini commented on the Zionist conference at Karlsbad, which had been attended by Dante Lattes and other Italian delegates. Alluding to them, Mussolini wrote that there were “Jews who are fed up with living [in Italy], which is something that does not trouble us in the least.”

The “anonymous” writer of Il Popolo d’Italia then added, “If Italian — so‐called Italian! — Zionists were to move elsewhere and take with them the whole pack of Treveses, Modiglianis, Musattis, Momiglianos, Sacerdotis (Genosse), Passiglis and that fine Mr. Ottolenghi who has regaled Italy with several strikes of the postal service, it would afford us great pleasure to expedite this ‘exodus.’”²⁵

For us anti‐Zionists, the fact that Fascist Italy initially supported Zionism while also tolerating antisemitism is unsurprising. After all, surely any fervent antisemite would prefer that Jews leave his country as soon as possible rather than stay in it!

True, both Fascist Italy and the Third Reich would later oppose mainstream Zionism, but it was not so much Zionism per se that bothered them as it was the British Empire, which held Palestine at that time and came increasingly in conflict with the Fascist empires:

Mussolini’s anti‐Zionism, Vital explained, was not directed against Zionism as such, but against England. “If an agreement is ultimately signed with England, the City in London will give him [Mussolini] a loan, and then Mussolini will change tack on anti‐Zionism”.⁹⁹

(Source.)

Thus the Fascists later suggested easier alternatives to Palestine, most infamously Madagascar, but also Ethiopia. Keep in mind that the original Zionists themselves proposed their own alternatives to Palestine, such as Patagonia and Uganda.

It is also helpful to examine the Jews who joined the PNF (the subject of the book Italy’s Fascist Jews: Insights on an Unusual Scenario), as this helps illuminate how Fascist antisemitism manifested in subtler ways. Page 63:

[A]s a matter of fact, no Jew had ever held a truly leading post in the party. Gino Arias, the famous nationalist economist, who was a Jew and would receive the party membership card on May 1, 1923, was in fact invited to the momentous Fascist congress held in Naples on October 25, 1922.³⁰ But he was quite definitely only a guest. Mussolini himself wrote an extremely chilly and disconcerting letter concerning his invitation, saying that his participation was “not impossible.”³¹

Margherita Sarfatti’s situation, around that time, was in many ways similar. Maybe she was indeed Mussolini’s mistress. And in any case, her being a woman complicated things. In January 1922, when she had in fact a post of some importance, as the editor of the cultural review Gerarchia (of which Mussolini was the editor in chief), her name did not appear. She officially appeared as “direttore responsabile” (that is solely as the person legally responsible in front of authorities) only in February 1925.

(Emphasis added in all cases. It may be useful to compare this to the Nixon régime: a Zionist circle that had some token Jews but manifested antisemitism anyway.)

Thus we see that antisemitism was present in Fascist Italy even before it evolved into a systematic phenomenon in the late 1930s. Indeed, one could argue that Fascism, even at its most tolerant, could not help but be antisemitic, because it was an ultranationalist phenomenon whereas Jews have almost always been a very international people. See how Libyan Jews fared under Fascism for a good example of pre‐1930s Fascist antisemitism.

Click here for other events that happened today (September 7).

1923: Fascist Italy cofounded the International Criminal Police Commission along with over a dozen other anticommunist countries.
1940: As the Kingdom of Romania returned Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria under the Treaty of Craiova, the Luftwaffe began the Blitz, bombing London and other British cities for over fifty consecutive nights.
1942: Axis marines were forced to withdraw during the Battle of Milne Bay.
1943: The German 17th Army began its evacuation of the Kuban bridgehead (Taman Peninsula) in southern Russia and moved across the Strait of Kerch to the Crimea.
1945: Axis forces on Wake Island, which they had held since December 1941, surrendered to U.S. Marines, and around the same time that the Berlin Victory Parade of 1945 was held.

Kiswani noted that more than 10,000 Palestinian women and children are illegally detained in […] prisons right now and that just a few days ago, occupation forces launched a ground invasion against a refugee camp in the West Bank, killing and injuring hundreds of people. “This has been our reality for over 76 years,” Kiswani said. “It is our responsibility to put an end to the genocidal state.”

People flooded the New York streets with a march of more than 50 blocks that ended in Washington Square Park. Following the protest, WOL and Healthcare Workers for Palestine held a fundraiser for Palestine to help raise funds for Doctors Against Genocide.

Eventbrite took down a notice about the fundraiser. Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, shut down the Instagram account of WOL in early February. In early July, Meta also shut down the Instagram account of the Samidoun Palestinian Political Prisoner Network, and in the last week shut down the accounts for Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, and NYU’s People’s Solidarity Coalition.

Despite Meta’s attempts to destroy the ability of these groups to organize support for Palestine and to expose the U.S. rôle in the genocide, they continue to find alternative means to build this solidarity movement with Palestine that brings thousands into the streets since Oct. 7.

Netanyahu knows that the ongoing battle in Gaza has not extinguished the Palestinian people’s steadfastness and resistance, and today it is intensifying in the West Bank. If things continue as they are, I believe the situation will escalate to a point where neither Netanyahu nor his supporters can contain it.

The only way to stop this aggression is for Netanyahu to accept the initiative presented and approved by the [Hamas] movement. Otherwise, the world must see that the “israelis” are overstepping their bounds, and there must be a complete and decisive stop to the aggression.

The Palestinians are doing their part in defending themselves, putting the entire world in front of a significant question regarding the seriousness of the world in stopping the ongoing genocide. Today I compare the world’s outcry over the killing of six “israeli” captives — whom we wanted to return alive so that our prisoners could return to their families — to the world’s silence over the massacre of 50,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, as if nothing happened.

Are the lives of six “israeli” captives more valuable to the world than the lives of 50,000 Palestinians? This raises questions about all the humanitarian values, the values of freedom, justice, equality and human rights that some claim to uphold but only cry out for when the victim is “israeli.”

The enemy clearly intends to declare the West Bank a battlefield, and the map Netanyahu presented did not include the West Bank and Al-Quds but rather depicted the entirety of Palestine as part of the occupation entity.

This means that the plan Netanyahu and his government devised to seize the West Bank is still entrenched in the minds of this government, and they are committed to it. Declaring the West Bank a battlefield means that he has failed to eliminate the resistance, which he thought he could succeed in within hours or maybe a day or two.

The military operation in the northern West Bank was not expected by “israel” to last as long as it has or for the resistance to perform so effectively. Moreover, they did not expect the resistance to mobilize in other parts of the West Bank as happened in Al-Khalil. The West Bank is now mobilizing, and resistance is escalating and advancing.

The crime “israel” is committing by declaring the West Bank in a state of war does not necessarily mean the fighting will stop. I recall that during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, everything “israel” did did not stop the resistance; instead, it accelerated and led to the withdrawal of the occupation from Gaza. Perhaps the confrontation in the West Bank will also push for additional withdrawals in this phase.

We will not compromise, and we will not be broken. We mourn the martyrs of our steadfast and resilient West Bank, which is writing a new epic of heroism and sacrifice in the face of the arrogance of the despicable occupation, which has launched its aggression on the cities and camps of the northern West Bank, hoping to break the resolve of the resistance, deluded in its ability to uproot the revolution and struggle of our people in the occupied West Bank.

We stand with our brothers, comrades and heroic fighters from all Palestinian factions and the entire heroic people of our nation. We especially mention the fighters of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the Jenin Brigade, the Nablus Brigade, the Qalqilya Brigade and all the resistance formations that are emerging successively in all areas of our blessed West Bank, expressing the true spirit of our people in confronting the occupier and its ultimate decision to respond to the occupation’s aggression everywhere, regardless of the consequences and no matter how great the sacrifices.

We call on the masses of our people in Al-Quds, the West Bank and in the 1948 occupied Palestine to escalate the anger and continue to respond to the brutal zionist aggression against our people wherever they are.

Let the noble guns speak, let the swords, daggers and knives be sharpened, and let all popular and military means be activated to curb the aggression and defend Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa.

Now is the time to respond and strike the enemy’s fortresses everywhere. Today, all the sons of our people are mobilized to defend the homeland and sanctities and to teach the occupier harsh lessons in the fervor, anger and latent abilities of our people, ready to avenge and make the occupier pay dearly.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and the Palestinian resistance will remain true to the trust placed in them by their people, a solid fortress, a strong and influential support and a sword and shield for the homeland and sanctities. True to the promise made to the martyrs and prisoners, we are an army for Al-Quds and Palestine, with a clear direction, our rifles aimed and our fingers on the trigger.

We will continue our struggle and jihad against this criminal enemy until it is removed from the blessed land of Palestine. Greetings to the souls of our martyrs who ascend every day across the homeland, drawing with their blood the roadmap toward liberation and return.

Greetings to the noble wounded, and greetings to the heroic free prisoners enduring behind bars, challenging the might of the jailer, with a promise of victory and relief. Greetings to all our people in Al-Quds, the West Bank, Gaza, the 1948 occupied Palestine and in exile in the diaspora.

Now, we will finish this discussion with the internationalist solidarity shown to the Palestinian people. Before we arrived at the July 19th festival, we saw a park called “Parque Palestina,” which is beautifully lit and has a Palestinian flag flying alongside the FSLN and Nicaraguan flag. This park was recently built as a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle against the Zionist entity [in the Middle East].

On the night of July 19, this solidarity was brought to the fore as we learned that the honored guest speaker of the night was none other than Palestinian freedom fighter Leila Khaled. The honor of being able to hear this valiant, militant member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was too much. But in the midst of the excitement, it was beautiful to hear her discuss the longstanding solidarity that the Sandinistas have shown with the Palestinian people.

We know that Patrick Argüello, a close comrade of Khaled’s, was with her during an operation to hijack a plane in 1970 to demand the release of Palestinian hostages held by the Zionist entity. He was Nicaraguan and a Sandinista who was martyred by Israeli security forces. Thus, the Sandinistas have not only shown symbolic and material solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, but Nicaraguan blood has been shed in the valiant struggle for Palestinian national liberation.

In his speech, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega condemned the U.S. backing of the Zionist entity’s genocide in Palestine and emphasized that these two struggles — of Nicaraguans and Palestinians — are intertwined. It was a beautiful moment to hear tens of thousands of Sandinistas chanting “Viva Palestina!” and showing solidarity with Leila Khaled and the Palestinian people.

To end this article, I would just say that going to visit Nicaragua on this delegation was a life-changing experience. It was very important, because it allowed me to see through a lot of the [neo]imperialist propaganda that targets the Sandinista Revolution and the presidency of Daniel Ortega. Where I was supposed to find a dictatorship, I found a society in which the people are the leaders, where the popular masses are in struggle against [neo]imperialism and are building their nation.

That is why the United States continues to wage war against Nicaragua — because they are afraid of the power of the masses. They know that with the Sandinista Revolution, the masses are in power, and they will refuse to be exploited by U.S. corporate capital. Truly, it was amazing to speak to Nicaraguans and learn about the importance of the revolution and its manifestation in everyday life. I cannot wait to visit this beautiful nation again and still feel reinvigorated and even more dedicated to the anti-imperialist struggle after my time in the land of Sandino.

Some enemy prisoners were killed directly by live bullets from the occupation. Netanyahu and his team do not care about the prisoners. When Netanyahu was asked to choose between Philadelphia and the prisoners, he said, “Philadelphia is more important than the prisoners,” and this is publicly known.

Netanyahu displays bravado and attempts to portray false heroics here and there. These six were directly killed by the occupation and were also targeted in bombings and other actions, as were many before them. I provide here an example of one of them, an “israeli” youth who holds U.S. citizenship.

This young man, for purely humanitarian reasons requested by his family and through the intervention of many people via the Qatari brothers, asked for assurances about his life. We responded for humanitarian and political reasons, to push toward progress in concluding a real deal. We handed the Qatari brothers a video of this young man speaking with his mother and father.

The young man addressed the “israeli” government. After this video, and before some time, Al-Qassam announced that they had lost contact with him and those guarding him, clearly indicating that he was subjected to a direct strike by the “israeli” occupation. Since that day, nothing was known about his life, and today he was found dead with a group of others, which is clear evidence that the occupation targets these individuals.

All stages of negotiation have shown that Netanyahu is not interested in reaching a deal. Instead of sending his army to kill and destroy an entire area to recover two or three prisoners, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians, he could have retrieved them through a real exchange deal, as we did last November.

In November and December, more than 115 to 125 “israelis” and foreigners returned through negotiations conducted with the desire, will and mediation of Qatar. This is an example of how, if Netanyahu truly wanted a prisoner exchange, we were immediately ready. We have shown great flexibility and made significant concessions to achieve an exchange deal, halt aggression and war, and end the suffering of the people.

The United States is responsible for obstructing the negotiations; it does not want to reach a deal and has withdrawn from its previous commitments. Briefly looking back, since last March there have been indirect negotiations between us, the mediator brothers and the occupation. We stopped at the points of a ceasefire, prisoner exchange, the withdrawal of the occupation and reconstruction.

Our demand for the exchange included high standards, such as 500 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for every soldier and female soldier and 250 for others. When the mediators indicated there would be a significant opportunity if we showed flexibility in the exchange criteria, we immediately responded, reducing from 500 to 50 for the female soldiers and from 250 to 30 for the civilians.

The mediators, including those from the U.S., received this flexibility positively. But what did the occupation do? They disregarded it and began a new maneuver in May. In May, the Egyptian mediator brothers presented a complete agreement, to which we immediately agreed. The next day, what did the occupation do? They stormed the Rafah crossing, which remains closed.

The vaccination campaign will be supervised by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees.

The campaign targets children from 1 day old to 10 years old, and involves administering two drops of the vaccine orally. This vaccine is approved by the World Health Organization, and over 1.2 billion doses have been produced worldwide so far.

According to the plan to be implemented, 640,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip are expected to receive this vaccination, representing over 95% of children aged from 1 day old to 10 years old.

A comprehensive plan has been finalized to ensure the success of this campaign in all governorates and neighborhoods of the Gaza Strip. The campaign will start in the Central Governorate from September 1 to 4, 2024, then move to the Khan Younis and Rafah governorates from September 5 to 8, 2024, and finally to the Gaza and North Gaza governorates from September 9 to 12, 2024.

Dozens of field teams will participate in the vaccination campaign, covering all neighborhoods, alleys and centers in the Gaza Strip, as well as displacement and shelter camps and all locations where children are present in the Gaza Strip. The vaccination campaign is crucial and requires a ceasefire — so that these health teams can perform their duties effectively.

It is also essential to ensure that children and their families are not endangered while traveling from their homes to the vaccination centers and to protect these teams from the constant threat of bombardment by the “israeli” occupation, which continues its genocidal war against our Palestinian people without pause.

See also: Polio vaccination in Gaza proceeds despite war

(Mirror.)

History would be nowhere nearly as potent if it had no archaeology to support it. The various fragments left over from a generation ago can collectively tell a story that a document cannot. These researchers did find a few documents (mostly newspaper fragments), but what was primarily of concern to them were the potsherds, cartridges, glass, coke, coal, trinkets, tools, footwear, bones, and other crap left over when the camp’s employés dismantled almost everything in November 1944.

They analysed 10,034 animal bone fragments. That is correct: they examined over ten thousand bones. Since there was a coast nearby, almost all of these bones were piscine, but they also found avian and mammal bones. Unusually, they even found a few canine bones; somebody at the POW camp ate one fox and one dog, presumably as last resorts.

Even though the prisoners of war were Soviet, in this case their diets might not have been vastly worse than those of the Axis employés. Indeed, these prisoners might have even had access to alcohol, if only for special occasions. In many cases, the Axis scheduled Soviet prisoners for previsible extermination, seeing as how the Western Axis wanted their land and other resources. In this instance, however, the Axis kept these Soviets around for exploitation and presumably did not plan to terminate them until after the war, but we should note that the locals often gave the prisoners spare food out of sympathy.

Very unusually, the most well preserved remnant of this POW camp is a Russian oven, and yes, it was in the prisoner section of the camp. The likeliest explanation is that the employés assumed that it was inculpable and thus not worth the time and effort to dismantle like everything else in the camp, but it is possible that somebody spared it out of pity for an inmate. Receiving insufficient exposure to Axis propaganda, somebody might have grown fond of the prisoners, at least in the same condescending way that somebody feels fondness for a dog.

Even prisoners trapped in the most miserable conditions are going to come up with ways to pass the time. The archaeologists found chess sets and other gaming pieces in the ruins, and they found evidence that one of the prisoners likely had an instrument. Of course, there were doubtless cheaper ways to pass the time: singing, joking, spinning yarns, and other ways of socialising, as long as nobody peaked out of a window to tell them to shut up.

As you might have guessed, the Axis employés had more ways to deal with their homesickness and boredom: reading, board games, card games, drinking, cinema, performances, fishing, and of course hunting. The staff also had porcelain ware and other trinkets to create a sense of homeliness. Although it is technically possible that an employé had some innocent and friendly interactions with the prisoners, the class and racial divisions between the prisoners and the staff makes this unlikely.

:::spoiler Click here for events that happened today (September 6). 1915: Franz Josef Strauss, former Axis soldier and educator, was born.
1917: Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, Wehrmacht Major who conspired to murder the Third Reich’s head of state, was born.
1939: South Africa declared war on the Third Reich (around the same time that friendly fire at the Battle of Barking Creek resulted in the British Royal Air Force suffering its first WWII fighter pilot casualty).
1940: King Carol II of Romania abdicated and was succeeded by his son Michael; General Ion Antonescu became the Conducător of Romania.
1944: The Axis lost the cities of Ypres, Belgium and Tartu, Estonia to Allied forces.
1978: Adolf Dassler, bourgeois Fascist, dropped dead.

cross‐posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5592266

Quoting David Olusoga & Casper W. Erichsen’s The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism, introduction then chapter 16:

Eighteen years after the Herero–Nama genocide, Hitler became closely associated with a veteran of the conflict. In 1922 he was recruited into an ultra‐right‐wing militia in Munich that was indirectly under the command of the charismatic General Franz von Epp, who had been a lieutenant during [the Second Reich’s] wars against the Herero and Nama.

As both a young colonial soldier and, later, a leading member of the [NSDAP], von Epp was a fervent believer in the Lebensraum theory, and spent his life propagating the notion that the German people needed to expand their living space at the expense of lower races, whether in Africa or Eastern Europe. It would be an exaggeration to claim that Hitler was von Epp’s protégé, but in the chaos of post‐World War I Munich, von Epp, perhaps more than any figure other than Hitler himself, made the [NSDAP] possible.

It was through von Epp, in various convoluted ways, that Hitler met many of the men who were to become the élite of the party: von Epp’s deputy was Ernst Röhm, the founder of the [Third Reich’s] storm troopers. Via the party’s connections to von Epp and other old soldiers of [the Second Reich’s] African colonies, Röhm and Hitler were able to procure a consignment of surplus colonial Schutztruppe uniforms. Designed for warfare on the golden savannah of Africa, the shirts were desert brown in colour: the [Fascist] street thugs who wore them became known as Brown Shirts.

[…]

In Riefenstahl’s films of the vast Nuremberg rallies of the 1930s, the [German Fascists] appear in the uniforms and symbols of the Third Reich. In these early party gatherings the men filmed shuffling together for the photographers wear a bewildering array of uniforms, hats, insignia, tunics and medals — the symbols and honours of the Reich that had so recently collapsed. Through this muddle of uniforms, the spectrum of various military and paramilitary subcultures from which the [German Fascists] drew their early support is clearly visible.

Alongside the old Prussian generals with their spiked Pickelhaube helmets and ex‐Freikorps commanders proudly wearing their modern Stalhelm is a uniform that is now almost completely unrecognisable: that of the Schutztruppe officers. The desert‐brown tunic and wide‐brimmed hat of the men who had avenged Germany after the Boxer Rebellion and exterminated the Herero and Nama appears time and again in these films.

In the 1920s the uniform was a potent reminder of the painful loss of [the Second Reich’s] colonies and [its] living space. Today the Stalhelm is an instantly recognisable icon of [Fascist] aggression and the Pickelhaube, although rendered slightly comical by historical distance, is firmly associated with the sabre‐rattling militarism of the old Prussian‐dominated Germany of the Kaisers. The Schutztruppe uniform, in its obscurity, is untarnished by any association with [Fascism].

One feature of the Schutztruppe uniform has a direct association with [Fascism], though that connection has been obscured. The brown shirts of the SA, the first symbol of [German Fascism’s] brutality, were surplus Schutztruppe uniforms. They had been manufactured for von Lettow‐Vorbeck’s Schutztruppe units in German East Africa, but as von Lettow‐Vorbeck and his men had been cut off from [the Second Reich] for the entire duration of the war, the uniforms had become unwanted army surplus.

They were procured for the SA probably by Gerhard Rossbach, another former Freikorps commander and reputedly [a] lover of Ernst Röhm.

(Emphasis added. For one citation, see Heinz Höhne’s Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf — Die Geschichte der SS. Weltbild‐Verlag, 1992, pg. 27.)

Click here for events that happened today (September 5).

1876: Wilhelm Josef Franz Ritter von Leeb, Axis field marshal and war criminal, stained the world with his life.
1919: Elisabeth Volkenrath, SS officer, arrived to burden humanity.
1937: Llanes fell to the Spanish fascists following a one‐day siege.
1938: Chilean officials executed a group of youths affiliated with the fascist National ‘Socialist’ Movement of Chile after they surrendered during a failed coup.
1941: The Axis absorbed Estonia.
1942: The Empire of Japan’s high command ordered withdrawal at Milne Bay, the Eastern Axis’s first major defeat in land warfare during the Pacific War.
1943: The Axis lost the Lae Nadzab Airport (near Lae in the Salamaua–Lae campaign) to the Western Allies’ 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment.
1953: Richard Walther Darré, Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture as well as Chief of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office, expired.

Quoting David Olusoga & Casper W. Erichsen’s The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism, introduction then chapter 16:

Eighteen years after the Herero–Nama genocide, Hitler became closely associated with a veteran of the conflict. In 1922 he was recruited into an ultra‐right‐wing militia in Munich that was indirectly under the command of the charismatic General Franz von Epp, who had been a lieutenant during [the Second Reich’s] wars against the Herero and Nama.

As both a young colonial soldier and, later, a leading member of the [NSDAP], von Epp was a fervent believer in the Lebensraum theory, and spent his life propagating the notion that the German people needed to expand their living space at the expense of lower races, whether in Africa or Eastern Europe. It would be an exaggeration to claim that Hitler was von Epp’s protégé, but in the chaos of post‐World War I Munich, von Epp, perhaps more than any figure other than Hitler himself, made the [NSDAP] possible.

It was through von Epp, in various convoluted ways, that Hitler met many of the men who were to become the élite of the party: von Epp’s deputy was Ernst Röhm, the founder of the [Third Reich’s] storm troopers. Via the party’s connections to von Epp and other old soldiers of [the Second Reich’s] African colonies, Röhm and Hitler were able to procure a consignment of surplus colonial Schutztruppe uniforms. Designed for warfare on the golden savannah of Africa, the shirts were desert brown in colour: the [Fascist] street thugs who wore them became known as Brown Shirts.

[…]

In Riefenstahl’s films of the vast Nuremberg rallies of the 1930s, the [German Fascists] appear in the uniforms and symbols of the Third Reich. In these early party gatherings the men filmed shuffling together for the photographers wear a bewildering array of uniforms, hats, insignia, tunics and medals — the symbols and honours of the Reich that had so recently collapsed. Through this muddle of uniforms, the spectrum of various military and paramilitary subcultures from which the [German Fascists] drew their early support is clearly visible.

Alongside the old Prussian generals with their spiked Pickelhaube helmets and ex‐Freikorps commanders proudly wearing their modern Stalhelm is a uniform that is now almost completely unrecognisable: that of the Schutztruppe officers. The desert‐brown tunic and wide‐brimmed hat of the men who had avenged Germany after the Boxer Rebellion and exterminated the Herero and Nama appears time and again in these films.

In the 1920s the uniform was a potent reminder of the painful loss of [the Second Reich’s] colonies and [its] living space. Today the Stalhelm is an instantly recognisable icon of [Fascist] aggression and the Pickelhaube, although rendered slightly comical by historical distance, is firmly associated with the sabre‐rattling militarism of the old Prussian‐dominated Germany of the Kaisers. The Schutztruppe uniform, in its obscurity, is untarnished by any association with [Fascism].

One feature of the Schutztruppe uniform has a direct association with [Fascism], though that connection has been obscured. The brown shirts of the SA, the first symbol of [German Fascism’s] brutality, were surplus Schutztruppe uniforms. They had been manufactured for von Lettow‐Vorbeck’s Schutztruppe units in German East Africa, but as von Lettow‐Vorbeck and his men had been cut off from [the Second Reich] for the entire duration of the war, the uniforms had become unwanted army surplus.

They were procured for the SA probably by Gerhard Rossbach, another former Freikorps commander and reputedly [a] lover of Ernst Röhm.

(Emphasis added. For one citation, see Heinz Höhne’s Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf — Die Geschichte der SS. Weltbild‐Verlag, 1992, pg. 27.)