“Fire Water Burn” is a song by American rock band Bloodhound Gang, released as the first single from their second album, One Fierce Beer Coaster (1996). The chorus (of the song) is derived from “The Roof Is on Fire” by Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three, yet sung considerably slower. The song was remixed for the CD single by God Lives Underwater. It charted on two US Billboard charts, reaching number 18 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart and number 28 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. The song was more successful abroad, reaching number two in Norway, number four in the Netherlands, number five in Iceland, and the top 10 in Denmark, New Zealand, and Sweden; it has gone Platinum in the latter two countries.
The Dublin and Monaghan bombings were a series of coordinated bomb attacks that took place on May 17, 1974, during the Troubles in Ireland. These attacks are considered the deadliest in the history of the conflict, resulting in the highest number of casualties on a single day. 34 people were killed that day, 33 civilians and an unborn child.
The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a loyalist paramilitary group from Northern Ireland, claimed responsibility for the bombings in 1993. It had launched a number of attacks in the Republic since 1969. The month before the bombings, the British government had lifted the UVF’s status as a proscribed organisation.
On its 50th anniversary a poem to remember those who were killed.
In Memory of Dublin and Monaghan
On streets where laughter used to flow, In Dublin’s heart and Monaghan’s glow, A shadow fell, a sorrow’s tide, When lives were taken, dreams denied.
The bustling city paused in fear, As blasts of hate drew loved ones near, To comfort, mourn, and to defend The memories of those who’d never mend.
Talbot, Parnell, Leinster streets, Echoed cries and hurried feet, In Monaghan, where peace was sought, The cruel hand of violence wrought.
Innocent voices lost to time, Silent now, like bells that chime, In hearts that break and eyes that weep, For all the promises they’d keep.
Yet from the ashes, courage grew, In acts of love, in skies of blue, We honor those who’ve gone before, With hope for peace forevermore.
May memories light the darkest night, And bring us strength to stand and fight, For justice, truth, and healing’s hand, United in this fragile land.
Let us remember, let us care, For every soul no longer there, In Dublin’s heart, in Monaghan’s grace, We see their light in every place.
Though time may pass, we won’t forget, The lives once lived, the tears still wet, We vow to keep their spirits near, In every song, in every tear.
One of the sources I use for my blog, concerning the Holocaust, is JoodsMonument.nl (Jewish Monument). I often see the name Tröblitz mentioned as the place of death. When I looked into it I noticed that the majority of people who died there, did so after April 23, 1945, shortly before the end of the war in Europe, There were also a big number who died after the end of the war. This made me wonder why that was.
Between 6-10 April 1945, days before the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, three trains were sent from the camp with some 7,000 Jews on board, bound for the Terezin ghetto. The first train was liberated by the Allies. The second train reached Terezin on 21 April, and the third, later known as “The Lost Train”, never reached its destination. After a journey of approximately two weeks, the train was stopped on a destroyed bridge on the Elster River. On 23 April, it was liberated by the Red Army on the outskirts of the German village of Tröbitz. The train carried over 2,500 Jewish prisoners, including men, women, and children, mostly from Hungary, Poland, and the Netherlands.
The train meandered through Germany for nearly two weeks. It was a harrowing journey; many prisoners died due to the horrendous conditions, lack of food and water, and disease. On April 23, 1945, the train finally halted near the village of Tröbitz in Brandenburg.
The Soviet Red Army discovered the train , having overrun the area and liberated the surviving prisoners. They found a horrific scene with many dead and dying prisoners. The survivors were severely malnourished and suffering from typhus, which had spread rapidly among the weakened prisoners.
The suffering continued for the survivors of the transport even after the liberation. The seriously ill stayed for the time being in the train, which was moved again on April 24, 1945, to the block post of the Hansa mine at track kilometer 108.9. From here the shortest route led to the Nordfeld in Tröbitz where an inadequate field hospital had been set up. Another 26 people who had since died were buried here near the railway embankment. The mining community of Tröbitz, which had about 700 inhabitants at the time, was suddenly confronted with about 2,000 starving, critically ill people who had to be helped quickly. Many residents helped and members of the Red Army took measures to alleviate the people’s distress and prevent the typhus epidemic that had broken out on the train from spreading. The Russian occupation forces opened their temporary headquarters in a building on the main street of Tröbitz for this purpose. But the Russians also evicted the German residents of Tröblitz from their homes to make room.
The survivors of the transport who were still strong enough formed a committee. This arranged the distribution of the food brought by the Red Army, accommodation in the Nordfeld (a former barracks camp for forced laborers), and burials in various cemeteries. The field hospital was run by Soviet doctors. Jewish doctors, until then prisoners themselves, helped in the care and treatment of the sick. Some of them became ill themselves and died, as the plaques with names at the Jewish cemetery in Tröbitz show. Girls and women from the village were employed as nurses. One of the women who survived said the following about the makeshift hospital.
“The ‘hospital’ was incredibly dirty and neglected. The weakened people lay on the floor in a large room and no one knew where to get mattresses or beds.”
It took eight weeks for the typhoid epidemic to be brought under control. During that period, 320 more men, women and children died. They died not only from typhus but also from the suddenly available food. Their bodies were no longer able to withstand this after months of famine. The deceased also included 26 residents of Tröbitz who had been infected by typhoid fever, including the mayor.
Following are the stories of some of the victims.
Ruth Lichtenstädter Born in Berlin, 23 September 1922-Died in Tröbitz, 11 May 1945. Reached the age of 22 years.
Ruth Lichtenstädter was one of those who died of typhus. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery, next to the general cemetery in the village of Tröbitz. The graves, with their heads turned away from the wall of the general cemetery, were numbered in three rows. Ruth Lichtenstädter is buried in the first row, grave no. 35.
Andries Bloch was born in Amsterdam, on 28 July 1895. Died in Tröbitz, on 24 April 1945, reaching the age of 49.
André Felix Blok studied medicine in Amsterdam and sat for his medical finals on 5 July 1922. He practiced as a General Physician and lived with his family at Sarphatistraat 88-huis in Amsterdam. He also had his practice here. Before the family was deported, the doctor managed to hide numerous photos, letters, drawings, documents, his patient administration, a painting, and several objects behind a fireplace in his home. Apparently, in a great hurry, Andries Bloch hid his personal belongings behind the mantelpiece in 1943 before his departure for Westerbork. They would lie there unnoticed for more than sixty years.
In Memory of the Lost Transport
Through forest shadows and fields they rode, On tracks of steel, their heavy load, In twilight’s grip, where hope seemed far, They journeyed ‘neath a dying star.
Cries of anguish, whispers of pain, Lives entwined in sorrow’s chain, Children’s laughter, silenced cries, Echoed beneath indifferent skies.
The train, a ghost, through night it crept, With dreams of freedom harshly swept, Upon the winds of war’s cruel breath, It carried souls to the edge of death.
Yet in the darkness, sparks of light, The will to live, the strength to fight, Though bodies weakened, spirits high, They reached for stars in the blackened sky.
When dawn broke through with crimson hue, The end of torment came in view, By Tröbitz village, they found rest, The weary, the lost, the hopeful blessed.
In fields where wildflowers now bloom, Their memories dispel the gloom, A silent testament to grace, In every petal, every trace.
We honor you, with hearts sincere, Your courage, pain, we hold dear, In our remembrance, you live on, Your legacy, a steadfast dawn.
For those who suffered, those who passed, In solemn memory, we stand steadfast, Your journey’s end, a sacred part, Forever etched within our heart.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
Since the initial awards banquet on May 16, 1929, in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel’s Blossom Room, over 3,000 statuettes have been presented.
Yes, it is about the Oscars, on May 16 1929 the first Academy Awards were held, and the very first Best Actor award went to Emil Jannings.
Emil Jannings was a theater actor who went into films. He starred in the 1922 film version of Othello and in F. W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh, as a proud but aged hotel doorman who is demoted to a restroom attendant. Jannings worked with Murnau on two other films, playing the title character in Herr Tartüff and Mephistopheles in Faust. He eventually started a career in Hollywood. In 1929 he won the Oscar for two films, The Way of All Flesh and The Last Command.
The strange story of Jannings began in Rorschach, Switzerland, with his birth on 23 July 1884. His father Emil, a well-to-do American businessman from St Louis, died when the future actor was a child. His mother, Margarethe, moved the boy, who was christened Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz, to Görlitz, in the far east of Germany. Jannings ran away from home at 16 to become a sailor but quickly decided that he wanted to be an actor.
With the advent of sound in cinema, Jannings faced challenges due to his thick German accent and subsequently returned to Europe.
Back in Germany, during the 1930s and 1940s, Jannings worked extensively in films produced under the Nazi regime, a collaboration that tainted his legacy in the post-war years.
After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Jannings continued his career in the service of Nazi cinema. In Nazi Germany, he starred in several films that were intended to promote Nazism, particularly the Führerprinzip by presenting unyielding historical characters, such as Der alte und der junge König (The Old and the Young King, 1934), Der Herrscher (The Ruler, 1937) directed by Veit Harlan, Robert Koch, Ohm Krüger (Uncle Kruger, 1941) and Die Entlassung (Bismarck’s Dismissal, 1942).
Jannings also performed in his famed role in The Broken Jug directed by Gustav Ucicky. Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels named Jannings an Artist of the State (Staatsschauspieler)
The shooting of his last film, Wo ist Herr Belling? was aborted when troops of the Allied Powers entered Germany in Spring 1945. Jannings reportedly carried his Oscar statuette with him as proof of his former association with Hollywood. However, his active role in Nazi propaganda meant that he was subject to denazification, effectively ending his career. Allegedly as Allied troops marched into Berlin in 1945, Jannings ran through the bombed-out city, his shimmering Oscar thrust in front of him like a sword. “Don’t shoot,” he shouted, “I have won an Oscar!”
In the same period, Dietrich became a US citizen and an influential anti-Nazi activist, spending much of the war entertaining troops on the front lines and broadcasting on behalf of the OSS. Dietrich particularly loathed Jannings for his Nazi ties, and would later refer to her former co-star as a “ham.”
According to Susan Orlean, author of Rin Tin Tin: The Life and The Legend (Simon and Schuster, 2011), Jannings actually was not the winner of the first best actor vote, but the runner-up. While researching her book, Orlean discovered that it was in fact—Rin Tin Tin, the German Shepherd dog, one of the biggest movie stars of his time, who won the vote. The Academy, however, worried about not being taken seriously if they gave the first Oscar to a dog, chose to award the Oscar to the human runner-up.
After the war with his reputation stained by his work with the Nazi government, he never worked as an actor again. He was de-nazified in 1946 and took Austrian nationality one year later.
He was portrayed by the German actor Hilmar Eichhorn in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009). In it, Jannings died a fictional death, shot and then engulfed in flames along with Adolf Hitler.
He died in 1950, aged 65, from liver cancer. He is buried in the St. Wolfgang cemetery. His Best Actor Oscar is now on display at the Berlin Filmmuseum.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
May 14, 1940, marks a significant day in the history of Rotterdam, as it was the day the city was bombed during World War II.
During the early stages of the German invasion of the Netherlands, the Dutch army attempted to defend Rotterdam, but they were ultimately unable to prevent the Germans from advancing. As a result, the city was subjected to a devastating bombing raid by the German Luftwaffe.
The bombing of Rotterdam on May 14, 1940, resulted in widespread destruction, with large parts of the city center being reduced to rubble. The attack caused thousands of casualties and left tens of thousands homeless.
The devastation inflicted upon Rotterdam was a key factor in the Dutch Army’s decision to surrender to the Germans just a day later, on May 15, 1940. This event had profound consequences for the Netherlands and, in the course of World War II, in Europe.
The Dutch military had no effective means of stopping the bombers (the Dutch Air Force had practically ceased to exist, and its anti-aircraft guns had been moved to The Hague), so when a similar ultimatum was given in which the Germans threatened to bomb the city of Utrecht, the Dutch supreme command decided to capitulate in the late afternoon, rather than risk the destruction of another city.
In a galaxy, far, far away where technology and the Force intertwine, a new era dawns. In the wake of the Galactic Empire’s fall, a different threat looms on the horizon: the rise of artificial intelligence. As machines evolve and minds merge with circuits, the balance of power shifts once more. Amidst the chaos, a band of unlikely heroes emerges, bound by destiny and fueled by the hope of a galaxy in turmoil. As ancient secrets resurface, alliances are tested, and the fate of the galaxy hangs in the balance.
The above photo is of the photographer Franz Stapf (Stapf Bilderdienst). Carrying a Leica camera in front of his stomach, in the Nieuwe Kerkstraat, Amsterdam where disturbances took place between WA people and Jews.
It is clear to see he is wearing a Nazi uniform, so how could he have been mistaken for a Jewish victim?
Franz Anton Stapf was not Jewish. He was German. He did not die in a gas chamber but fought on the Eastern Front from the end of 1941. He was a Nazi who took photos for newspapers and anti-Semitic pamphlets in Amsterdam. Stapf survived the war and died in 1977 in Frankfurt.
The photo above was taken by Franz Stapf of weapons used by a Jewish Fighting Squad. It was printed in the Deutsche Zeitung in den Niederlanden on February 18, 1941, with the following caption: The Jews in Amsterdam had equipped themselves with hatchets, hammers and similar objects. They also had firearms. Our picture shows a small selection of the confiscated murder tools.
The photos were published in the NSB newspaper Het Nationale Dagblad, under the title “Jews unmasked,” to wage a smear campaign against Amsterdam’s Jews.
Historians René Kok and Erik Somers of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, discovered that Stapf’s name, that of his wife, two children and a sister, were incorrectly listed as Jewish war victims while doing research for the book, Stad in oorlog (City at war), which was published in 2017. The book is about Amsterdam in the period 1940 to 1945.
They believe that the error resulted from an incorrect interpretation of notes on a record card from the Amsterdam Council of Labor dating from 1950. The Council investigated financial matters affecting Jewish people murdered during the war. Stapf’s card reads, “Afgevoerd” in Dutch. According to Somers, that can be interpreted as “transported” to a concentration camp, or that he was discharged from the administration.
Stapf’s fate was long unclear after the war. In late 1941 he responded to a call for volunteers to fight on the Eastern Front. The rest of his life wasn’t tracked, which meant he was never prosecuted. His name fell under the “missing, don’t know where” category, along with the word “afgevoerd,” which could have certainly led to the wrong assumption that Stapf ended up in a concentration camp, according to Somers.
In 1981 NIOD received about five thousand negatives of photos taken by Stapf.
Stapf left for Germany after Mad Tuesday in 1944. In the municipal administration, it was noted, “Left for Germany.”
His name was listed on a memorial with the names of Jews murdered during the Holocaust. The Hollandsche Schouwburg, which houses the memorial, was told in February 20117 and immediately covered the name with a sticker.
“We are extremely shocked that such a bad man is among them. Terrible. That Nazi must be removed immediately,” said curator Annemiek Gringold.
Gringold contacted the company that created the wall of names in 1993. “It is a cumbersome procedure to remove the name. It has happened once before,” she said
The name, Stapf, also appeared in memory books and is on the list of the Holocaust Memorial Center Yad Vashem in Israel.
I know—to err is human—but this error could have easily been avoided if some research had taken place. Then again to finish the quote “To forgive is divine.”
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
History of Sorts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.