sandr020

My entire ancestry comes from Russia, my in-laws all came from Czecho­slovakia and our descendants live in Aus­tr­al­ia and Israel. Thus I no personal connection to Sudan. None­theless the Sudanese have been savaged by racist attacks from Australia’s conservative Federal Government. We need to act! The BBC News 18th Jan 2018 noted that Melbourne is a place of stunning architecture, celebrated lane ways and tree-lined boulevards, of major cultural and sporting events. For seven straight years, Melb­our­ne’s 4.2 million inhabitants enjoy top-level healthcare, infrastructure and education in the World’s Most Liveable City . So why would Australia's Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton say Melburnians were scared to go out to restaur­ants, for fear of violence? And why would his conservative ally, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull , concur? This serene city has reputedly witnessed spor­adic eruptions of youth gang violence. Many of those involved have been African Australians, the Mini...

Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands etc had booming colonial empires, often after long and brutal struggles against local citizens. By the late 19th century, Germany also wanted colonies. We need to start with Germany's unification in 1871. Although the German Empire went on to become a European colonial power unt­il the end of WW1, it might be difficult for the modern historian to see how colonial power entered pub­lic cons­ciousness. Certainly not from Otto von Bismarck and the politicians in the Reichstag who felt they had enough  problems to deal with, inside the new German nation. However it must be noted that there were many geog­raphical assoc­iat­ions and colonial societ­ies in Germany. And there were many German citizens who moved to the colonies, temporarily or for the long term: missionaries, civil serv­ants, military people, settl­ers and merch­ants. In 1884 Bismarck reluctantly changed his mind. In order to protect trade, to safeguard raw materials and ex­p...

Here is a blog post of mine, reposted from 23/12/2008 and now modified. Prof Peter Singer , born safely in Australia straight after the 1939-1945 war, wanted to get to know his late grandfather, David Oppenheim . This was a man who died in the war in 1943, before he could reach a safe place. Luckily for Singer, heaps of documents survived. His aunt, Doris Liffman, had studied some of the letter-based material years earlier for her university degree. These days I ask my students to read Pushing Time Away ( Ecco, 2003), but not because they are necessarily interested in Peter Singer’s task in discovering his own family history. Rather I want them to un­derstand Viennese Jewish intellectual life from the late C19th until 1933. Peter Singer's book with his grandparents' portraits A new golden age of building came to Vienna, based on the grac­­ious Ring­strasse which was created 1860-90: all the city’s great institutions were lo­cated there. Diff­er­ent from the churches and imperi...

Harry Relph (1867-1928) was the 16th child of a very elderly Kent pub­lican. Harry stood only 4’6” high, with dwarfish legs, and was born with six digits on each hand and foot. His deformities were emphasised for public­ity, although he never wanted to be seen as a handicapped person. His earliest prof­essional perform­ance in 1880 was at a the  Rosherville Gardens  Gravesend , a favourite riverside resort. The 12 year old lad made his very first stage appearance with his own black-face comedy act. Harry took his stage name from an infamous English court case against The Tichborne Claimant that lasted from Ap 1873-Feb 1874, when Harry was still a toddler. In this court case, a Wapping butcher’s son called  Arthur Orton  turned up from Wagga Wagga in rural Australia. He pretended he was Roger Charles Tit­ch­borne , lost at sea in Ap 1854, and heir to an ancient Hamp­shire baronetcy. Orton, who weighed 25 stones, did 14 years in gaol. He was re­leased on ticket-of-le...

I had good reasons for seeing the 2017 film On Chesil Beach. Firstly Ian McEwan is one of the most intriguing modern novelists I have read, espec­ial­ly his 2007 novella of the same name! Secondly the brilliant film Atone­ment was based on Ian McEwan's 2001 novella Atonement and starred, amongst others, Keira Knightley and Saoirse Ronan . Thirdly Chesil Beach was set in 1962, a fascinating time that came just before my personal “Golden Era” of 1965-1970. Finally the book was quite rightly shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2007, my best guide for selecting novels to read every year. Author McEwan did the screenplay adaptation, and the film was dir­ected by Dominic Cooke . The newlywed stars on their honeymoon were both anxious virgins. The new wife was Florence Ponting , a talented and ambitious viol­inist, and the new husband was Edward Mayhew . I remember my grand mother talking about the dangers of sex before marriage, but who discussed the terror of sexual intimacy after ...

Thelma Komesaroff (1923-2015) was a student at University High, a selective school in Melbourne that encouraged its students to stay at school, even throughout the Great Depression and the 1939-45 World War. At a time when most girls and some boys were encouraged to leave school at the minimum legal age, Thelma finished Matricul­ation and was offered a place in the prestigious University of Melbourne . Her passion was English and Russian Literature.    Thelma and Les, post  retirement The U niversity did not close during the war, but students whose husbands, fiancés and fathers were recruited into the Armed Serv­ic­es felt obligated to get paying jobs. Thelma married Lieutenant Les Webb­erley (1922-2015) in 1945; she continued working in a city bookshop when Les returned to University after demobilisation, to finish his engine­er­ing deg­ree.  Once their babies were out of napp­ies, Thelma bec­ame a journalist at The Australian Jewish Herald , pub­lished weekly in ...

Bruges (pop 120,000) was founded in the north of Belgium in the C9th by Vikings who settled locally. A town developed around the fort­ress that the Counts of Flanders built in the area and the young settle­ment worked hard to acquire city rights. In fact a very prot­ective city wall was built around Bruges, with solid gates. The settle­ment very quickly became an imp­or­tant har­bour close to the North Sea. Inside the city, the river and canals became the vital communic­ation links. By the C14th Bruges was the starting point of a commercial transport road to the Rhineland; traders from all over came to sell their pro­ducts and to buy Flemish cloth. Markt Place, outdoor coffee shops and sculpture (top) The Beguinage  (second ph oto) Growing from a few North German towns in the late 1100s, the Ger­man Hans­eatic League dominated Baltic maritime trade for three cent­ur­ies along the Northern European coast. Bruges bec­ame a port of even greater importance when it joined the Hanseatic...

As shown in the photo below,  a  toy kangaroo , made of brown velvet and with movable legs, was dated between 1914 and 1918. Pinned to it was a coll­ection of World War I fundraising badges made of mat­er­ials such as brass, enamel and glass. Some of the badges were first issued when the Australian Government wanted to identify and thank the nearest female relatives of members of the Aust­ral­ian forces on active service. Separate badges were issued to signify relatives serving in the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian Imperial Force. Funds went to the repatriation and rehabilitation of sold­iers, the erection of war memorials, and to children and fam­ilies affected by the war in France & Belgium. At school, children learned about Empire, citizenship, national pride and duty. The war rein­forced their lessons and inspired them to contribute. Australian diggers (soldiers) and a kangaroo,  Mena Camp in Cairo,  Dec 1914 Photo credit: Australian Geographic Visi...

In July 1918 Bolshevik revolutionaries, acting on Mos­c­ow’s orders, shot Czar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, four daught­ers (Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia), their son Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich and four servants. Their bodies were taken from the Yekaterinburg cellar, in the Urals, and buried in the forest, yet a rumour got out that the body of the Grand Duchess Anastasia had not been accounted for. Did she hide in the closed cellar? Since 1918 many women have presented them­selves as the missing Anastasia (or another sister). However only Anna Anderson and Eugenia Smith gathered substantial support. Thank you to True Crimes and Curiosities for much of the information . The princesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia Alexander Palace, 1916 Olga, Alexei, Anastasia and Tatiana Under house arrest in  Tsarskoe Selo , 1917 Last known photo of the Romanov siblings A] In 1920 Anna Anderson tried to commit suic­ide and was sent to a mental health centre in Be...