Photoshop Restoration of Photos from Antartica Expedition, 1914 - 1917

Recently, the Antarctic Heritage Trust found some 100 year old photographic negatives from a famous expedition to Antartica, 100 years ago. These were 22 never-before-seen cellulose nitrate negatives discovered inside Captain Robert Falcon Scott's last expedition base at Cape Evans on Ross Island in Antarctica.

The negatives were recovered by the Ross Sea Heritage Restoration Project, which is conserving items from Captain Scott's hut. Conservators carefully separated the negatives, which had become fused together, then developed them to produce 100 year old pictures never seen before. The photos, which are damaged from their century-old ordeal, are from Ernest Shackleton's 1914-1917 Ross Sea Party. This party was stranded for awhile on Ross Island after its expedition ship, SY Aurora was torn from its moorings. Read more about it here and see the pictures here.

My contribution: restoring one of the photographs with Photoshop, just for fun.

Here is the original, taken from aboard the ship Aurora.  The Photoshop restoration is below.

Nazi Helmet Primed for Paint

The more I read and learn about the Nazis, the more I dislike them.  But they did wear some really cool helmets.

My helmet, purchased from Europe, has now been stripped of paint and rust, and today I primed it with Rust-Oleum Rust Transformer.  This stuff is supposed to neutralize any remaining rust by chemically changing it to something inert, over which you can safely apply paint.

I found a place where I could spray paint the helmet -- no, not the kitchen table, the backyard garden!  I put it on a flat, aluminum paint pan and started spraying.  Of course, my first efforts created drips, so I had to use steel wool to wear those drips away, then respray.  If you aren't used to spray painting, you must learn patience, one thin coat at a time, to avoid drips.  After drying, I lightly rubbed with fine grade steel wool to smooth the surface.

Tomorrow it will be time to apply the olive green paint (some call it field gray).  The primer coat gave me some valuable practice today.  Once I finish that, I can apply military decals and the inner liner and chin strap.  When Halloween arrives, I can wear the helmet and go to the party as a Democrat.  Har har!

Nazi Helmet Restoration Progress: the Stripped Helmet

I have spent several days this week stripping my German M40 of paint and rust.  The pre-restoration helmet is here.  The stripped helmet is at the left.  (The M40 designation refers to the year the model was created.  World War I helmets included the M16 and M18, and more modern helmets were the M35, M40 and M42.  The differences in the last three models are subtle.)

I notice that the rust remover dissolves the rust, but leaves behind a dark mark where the rust used to be. This can be ground off, but I have neither the time nor patience to do that, and, it isn't necessary.

Next step:  priming the helmet.  I am going to use a Rust-Oleum product that supposedly turns rust into something else that can be painted over.  If any small amounts of rust remain, the Rust-Oleum should kill it and prevent more rust from forming.  I'll give it two coats.

The question is, where can I spray paint my helmet with the primer and later the paint?  I suppose the kitchen table is out of the question.

I have a nice work bench in my garage.  Unfortunately, it is covered with storage boxes.  Maybe I can remove them temporarily.  I have to paint the helmet when my wife is gone for the day, probably on a shopping trip to San Jose.  Otherwise, I will have to paint it under an extreme barrage of nagging, warnings of doom and destruction, and loud verbal expressions of angst, fear, horror and disaster.

A Follow Up on Claims Made by Pro-Hitler Film

The film I reviewed in my prior post (Adolf Hitler:  the Greatest Story Never Told) made some very controversial claims.  Here's a brief follow-up on two of those claims.

Update:  I added a piece about the Allied treatment of the Russian Cossacks, who fought Stalin with Germany.

The film alleges that Russian Cossacks, who fought with German troops, were lied to and tricked or forced into being repatriated to Russia, where they were executed.
This Wikipedia article establishes the truth of this claim.  However, the Cossacks were not fascists, they were anti-communists, tired of the harsh conditions of living under Stalin's communism.  Because of an agreement at Yalta before the end of the war, the allies turned the Cossacks over to Stalin to meet their fate.  This clearly stinks in the history books.

Eisenhower Deliberately Starved German POWs?
One of the claims was that General Dwight D. Eisenhower deliberately allowed nearly a million German POWs to die from starvation and exposure.  This claim was first made by a Canadian author, James Bacque, in his book Other Losses (1989).

I haven't ready an books on the subject, but I very much doubt that this is true, based on my intuition alone. Stephen E. Ambrose refuted Bacque in a New York Times article in 1991, and later wrote a book about it. Other authors have written books to rebut Bacque, and a raging debate continues via books and articles.  German POWs did die in POW camps just after the war, due to a massive influx of German soldiers surrendering to the Allies in order to avoid becoming prisoners of Russia (who used POWs for slave labor and worked and starved the great majority of them to death).  The POW camps right after the war were thus overcrowded and food scarce (despite Bacque's claims to the contrary).  However, any deaths resulting therefrom were not intentional.  The U.S. Provost Marshall put the number of deaths at 15,285, a far cry from the 900,000 claimed by Bacque.  Nevertheless, this debate will go on indefinitely.

There Is No Evidence That The Holocaust Ever Happened?
This claim is the easiest to refute.  There were actually records and documentation of the mass murder of Jews by gassing them, and numerous witnesses to the atrocity, many of whom testified at the Nuremberg trials of German officers for war crimes.  An excellent discussion and refutation of Holocaust Denial can be found at the Jewish Virtual Library at this link.

Zyklon-B Was Used to Disinfect Clothes, Bodies and Buildings of the Typhus Germ.  This argument is used by Holocaust deniers to explain away the cyanide based poison, Zyklon-B, which was used to kill several million Jews.  In fact, Zyklon-B cannot kill anaerobic bacteria such as the Typhus bacterium, and would be useless against the disease.  It can only kill aerobic (oxygen breathing) organisms, like people.

Who Produced the Film "Adolph Hitler:  the Greatest Story NEVER Told"?
I do not know who produced this film, but it seems to bear the ideologies of the Institute For Historical Review (IHR).  Wikipedia describes IHR as follows:

The Institute for Historical Review (IHR), founded in 1978, is an organization whose primary purpose is to disseminate views denying key facts of Nazism and the genocide of Jews and other victims. It is considered by many scholars as the world's leading Holocaust denial organization. 

All of this reading and research leads from one thing to another.  I reject Holocaust denial as a credible position on history, based on the documented facts.  However, one thing I do not understand is why Jews were so hated in Europe in the 1930s?  This hatred seems to be re-emerging in the here and now.  This bears some serious study, but where do I start?

Pro-Hitler Propaganda? See the film "Adolph Hitler: the Greatest Story NEVER Told"

Adolph Hitler

I get on these kicks.  My latest is World War II.  I watched the whole series "The Unknown War," on Hulu Plus, made in the 1970's for television, and narrated by Burt Lancaster.  It contains a lot of interesting facts about the war in the east, but is way too complimentary to Stalin and the Soviet Union for my tastes.  The major fact I took away from the series was that the Russian soldiers, partisans and civilians fought heroically against the Nazis with seeming indifference to their own lives.  They were virtually unstoppable.  Hitler didn't win a single major battle -- or if he did, the Russians soon came back and retook what was lost, like they did at Sebastopol.  The Russians liberated their homeland with incredible effort and sacrifice -- that I do not doubt.  They even kept going and liberated several other east European countries as well.  Unfortunately, when the war was over, they didn't leave.  One totalitarian power was substituted for the other.  Burt Lancaster seemed not to notice.

After that I came across another film with an incredible title:  "Adolph Hitler:  the Greatest Story NEVER Told."  It is a Nazi apologia, and almost six hours long.  You can watch it for free on the internet here.  I'm sure you have the time and will get right on it.

Now I believe in watching such documentaries with an open mind, but not a gullible one.  I decided to sit through the whole thing to see what I might learn.  I did indeed find it interesting.  I learned something about why those Russian fighters were so adamant about winning.  There were NKVD squads in back of the line of infantry, and anyone who retreated would be shot.  Furthermore, anyone who surrendered was automatically considered a traitor, and either shot or sent to a forced labor camp.  The film discussed one Russian nurse who was captured by the Nazis, and when the Russian troops liberated her prison camp, they arrested her.  For surrendering, she was given six years in the gulag and exiled to Siberia for life.  

This pro-Hitler film made a good case for Hitler in the early part of his career.  The World War I Treaty of Versailles was grossly unfair to Germany, saddling them with total blame for the war, onerous reparations and stripping away part of German territory and ceding it to other countries.  Sudentland was one, incorporated into Czechoslovakia in 1919.   Likewise, the Polish Corridor, the port city of Danzig, had been given to Poland, separating Germany geographically from its province of East Prussia.  Hitler, as well as the majority of Germans, hated the Treaty of Versailles and felt they had been royally screwed.  (I agree with their position.)  The Treaty resulted in high unemployment, raging inflation and poverty for millions of Germans.  An unjust peace bore the seeds of a new war to come.

Hitler wanted to unite all Germanic peoples under the protection of Germany, and he wanted German territory returned.  He invaded Czechoslovakia to take back the Sudentland, peacefully annexed German-speaking Austria (and most Austrians approved).  The allied powers fumed a bit but did nothing.  Finally, there was the Polish Corridor and Danzig, and the Poles were mistreating the Germans living there.  He invaded Poland to get back these territories and to protect Germans there, and frankly, I can see his point.  However, this automatically resulted in Britain and France declaring war on Germany.  Germany offered to negotiate, but Churchill would have none of it. [Update:  I have subsequently learned that Hitler was concerned with more than the Polish Corridor and Danzig.  His SS troops committed atrocities against Polish civilians and murdered a lot of Jews.]

The film describes some bad behavior on the part of the Allies, alleging that German POWs were deliberately starved by Eisenhower, who refused to feed them, killing many thousands of men.  I find this hard to believe, and will need to read some corroborating accounts before I do.  Ike never struck me as one to commit war crimes. [UPDATE:  I have looked into this claim and have decided it isn't true.  See my follow up post here.]

The film claims that Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union was actually a preemptive strike, that Stalin had been moving west, gobbling up small countries, and that he planned to invade Europe.  Hitler beat him to the punch.  True story?  It is indeed plausible, considering the expansionist nature of Stalinism, and several other authorities tend to corroborate this claim.  What Burt Lancaster didn't mention, quite a few Russians welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Communism, and many joined the Nazis to fight Stalin.  The Cossacks were one such group.  Now another case of the Allies acting badly: after the German defeat, the Cossacks surrendered too.  British troops lied, telling the Cossacks they were to be moved to the west by train, away from Russia.  After boarding the trains, the Cossacks were then sent east, back to Russia, where they were all executed.  They would never have boarded the trains had they known the truth.  The Allies were therefore complicit in mass murder.  

The hardest part of this film to swallow is the story of the Jewish concentration camps.  It claims there were no death camps, no Holocaust, and presents testimony of one or two Jewish survivors to that effect.  It also presents the research of a Jewish scholar who studied the Holocaust, and claims he can find no reliable evidence that it happened - no written orders, no buildings that could have served as gas chambers.  Okay, we are entering the Holocaust Denial Zone, and my antennae shot up.  

So how did all those millions of Jews die?  What caused those huge piles of dead bodies at Auschwitz and Dachau?  They died of Typhus (yeah, right). There was a lot of that going around, I guess, but the German guards were strangely immune.  Zyklon-B, the chemical allegedly used to gas Jews to death, was really only a disinfectant, for sanitizing buildings and clothes against the Typhus epidemic.  [Update: This claim is refuted by the fact that Zyklon-B has no effect on an anaerobic bacterium like Typhus.  It only kills aerobic organisms, like humans.]  Sure, they burned the bodies, but only to prevent the spread of the disease.  Hogwash.  There were many Jewish survivors of the camps who witnessed such atrocities.  Further, I remember seeing documentaries that claim the Nazis kept meticulous records on the numbers they killed.  What happened to those?  The film doesn't say.

Other than gas, the Nazis simply shot a lot of Jews, and had the foresight to photograph and film a lot of it.  None of this was mentioned or explained in the film under discussion.  

I would like to see more research on the Holocaust, what records do exist to prove it.  Of course, there was Auschwitz commander Rudolph Hoss, whose testimony at Nuremberg described the gassings, but according to the film, he was beaten and his family threatened unless he lied about it.  This doesn't ring true either.  For what possible purpose could the Allies have in fabricating such monstrous atrocities?

The film ends by praising Adolph Hitler, claiming he was a truly great man.  I remain unconvinced [I am being sarcastic].  Call me a skeptic.  Note:  A rebuttal of Holocaust Denial can be found at this link.  I have read through this website, and it refutes convincingly the Holocaust denial elements of "Adolf Hitler, the Greatest Story NEVER Told."

UPDATE:  I have been watching a lot of documentaries about the Third Reich, and there is no doubt that Hitler was a lunatic. Several German plots to assassinate him failed.  Hitler was an evil man who had not an ounce of empathy for other humans.  Once he took power, he executed leaders of other political parties, a beloved German general whom he saw as a potential rival, and many of his own followers in "the Night of the Long Knives."

My German Helmet and the Nazi Invasion of Russia In 1941

Reproduction German Helmet of WW II

My reproduction German helmet arrived this week.  The color is perfect, a kind of gray-green.  It is heavier than my uncle's German police helmet.  I tried it on, and was immediately aware of the weight.  No doubt German soldiers developed strong neck muscles wearing these.  Holding the helmet, I am aware of the cold steel, the heavy weight, and the smell of the leather liner.

Okay, so now I have a German helmet.  What do I do now, invade Poland?

Nah, I'll just keep it as a historical reference as I study the history of World War II, one of my interests.

I have been watching a documentary series from 1974, "The Unknown War," narrated by Burt Lancaster.  It is all about the Nazi invasion of Russia, Operation Barbarossa, which began in 1941.  According to the series narration, Hitler intended to destroy the Soviet Union and exterminate its populations, and then incorporate the lands into Germany.  The Russians had ample reason to fight like fanatics, as surrender was not an option.

The series covers great battles such as the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, Leningrad and Kursk.  Due to Nazi encirclement of major Russian cities, millions of Russians starved to death rather than surrender.  Around 20 million Russians died, of war wounds, starvation and freezing in the bitter winters.  Nevertheless, the Nazi invasion failed.  Hitler all but exhausted his military resources in his obsessive desire to destroy Russia.  Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers died or surrendered, and many thousands of tanks and aircraft were lost in Hitler's vain effort.  There's no telling how WWII might have turned out, had Hitler not invaded Russia, and wasted so many German lives and assets, instead of directing those assets against the allied forces.  Russia had a formal peace agreement with Germany and would not have fought with the allies, absent the 1941 invasion.

Earlier this week, I watched "Escape From Sobibor," based on the true story of 600 Jewish prisoners in a Nazi extermination camp, who rebelled against their captors, killing eleven German guards and officers before opening the gates and fleeing, in mass, into the nearby forest.  About half survived the surrounding mine field and machine gun fire, and most of those were later captured and executed.  About 50 of the prisoners eluded capture and survived the war.

There is no escaping the fact that the Nazis were entirely evil.  If ever there was a just and necessary war, it was the allied war on the fascist powers of World War II.  It is instructional to study the depths of depravity to which men and nations can descend.  The goal, as always, is to learn how we might prevent such tyranny from happening again.

Nazi Helmets and the German Army

German Helmet in "Apple Green"

The recent 70th D-Day anniversary caused me to post pictures of German soldiers and their families, from wallets that my uncle took off of dead German soldiers after D-Day.  I also posted pictures of some Nazi artifacts that he brought back, including a black Nazi helmet.  This inspired my interest in Nazi artifacts and history, and made me want to own more of such artifacts.

I love the black helmet that uncle brought back from Normandy, still well preserved after seven decades, but the helmet is not a combat helmet.  It is a civilian police helmet.  It is in the standard M-34 Nazi helmet shape, but the steel is is a lighter gauge, and it has a different kind of vent holes.  Why my uncle picked this helmet among the thousands available, I do not know.  In any case, I have always wanted a Nazi battle helmet.  Why?  Just curiosity, I suppose, or a desire to own a piece of history.  In any case, I have been scouring the internet for sources of such helmets.  A well preserved German army helmet can be prohibitively expensive, so I have been looking for bargains.

Uncle's German Police Helmet

I notice that EBay does not allow any pictures of Nazi helmets or other artifacts that display the swastika.  This seems rather stupid -- what, are people who see it going to turn into pillars of salt?  Ridiculous.  However, European countries have outlawed the display of any swastikas, so no doubt EBay has to comply with their laws if it wants to do business in Europe.

So far I have bought three helmets.  Ironically, one is another police helmet, authentic and identical to the one I already have.  Another is a reproduction of the M-35 German combat helmet, my favorite model, painted in German field gray, the most typical color. It has the proper liner and chin strap, and I will use it for reference.  A third is an actual German M-40 model helmet, but it was repainted black after the war and used as a civil defense helmet in Czechoslovakia.  It has minor rust spots, the liner is wrong, may have come from another type of helmet.  I intend to strip it of paint and rust, and spray paint it in early war apple green, with double decals, one on each side of the helmet.  I have also ordered a replacement (reproduction) inner liner.

Last night I watched a film about the Battle of Kursk, Russia.  I was interested because Kursk is where "my Nazi," Corporal Franz Schmid, was killed.  Schmid's life and mine intersect only in a very oblique way:  his photo and death notice were in one of the wallets my uncle retrieved at Normandy.  Before last week I had never heard of the Battle of Kursk, but it was an intense fight, probably the greatest tank battle in history.  Hitler, his big fat ego punctured by the German loss at Stalingrad, was eager for revenge on the Russians.  The Battle of Kursk was to reverse his fortunes on the Eastern front, and inflict heavy damage on the Russian army.  However, the Russians kicked his butt in a serious way, largely destroying his armored divisions, and put Hitler into a steadily deteriorating, defensive position.

In my opinion, Adolph Hitler was a fool, a lousy military leader who wasted his splendid military by overreaching (his invasion of Russia was particularly stupid) smashing his armies against the brick wall of impossible goals, in a do-it or die bravado.  They didn't do it, and a great many died.

Famous Crime Cases, Murder, Evidence and Who-Dunnits

I saw my last tax client of the season last night at 8 PM.  He owed.  Told him he was underwithheld.

I left the office shortly after 9 PM and went home, had a cigar and read some more from my latest book interest, one by John Douglas, a famous FBI profiler and expert on crime scene investigation and murder.  Last week I read his latest book, "Law and Disorder," where he analyzes several recent murder cases and gives his opinion on the guilt or innocence of  those convicted of the crimes:  the West Memphis Three:  completely innocent, though they spent 20 years in prison, one of them, the alleged ringleader, on death row. They were recently released.  Others for whom the evidence indicates innocence are Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in Texas for arson and the death of his three children, and Amanda Knox.

I am now reading his book on famous crimes and the evidence for and against the suspects, e.g., Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, executed in 1936 for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby.  The evidence against Lizzie Borden, accused of hacking her parents to death in 1892, is compelling.  Though she was acquitted of the murder, she is the only person who had motive and opportunity to do the crime.  The jury refused to convict in the absence of any direct evidence, and I cannot disagree with their decision.  Her guilt was not established beyond a reasonable doubt.

The evidence against Hauptmann appears overwhelming, but there are still those who argue for his innocence all these years later.  Personally, I believe he was guilty as sin and deserving of his fate.  There was much direct evidence against him.   Douglas believes that Hauptmann was guilty, but had to have been assisted in the planning and carrying out of the crime.  Douglas would not have applied the death penalty.  I disagree.

However, whether you agree or disagree, Douglas's analysis of the facts and evidence of famous cases gives the reader much greater insight into these cases, even though it is impossible to draw any conclusions with certainty so many years later.  Now I am going to get another cup of coffee and read Douglas's dissection of the Zodiac murders in San Francisco during the 1970's.

"Les Miserables": Republicans Man the Barricades Against the Monarchists, 1832

The June Rebellion, Paris, 1832

Yesterday my wife and I went to see the musical version of Les Miserables, a famous novel by French author Victor Hugo, written in 1862.  Over the years, the novel has been presented in plays, operas and films.  Normally, I don't care for musical representations of dramatic historical events.  I prefer to see the famous personages and actors portraying events realistically, rather than singing their way through wars and riots and famines.

The current musical film of Les Miserables was not an exception for me.  Most of the singing was simple tunes to convey daily events of French life in 1832 -- not terribly memorable. The major exception was when Fantine, a poor single mother, resorts to prostitution in order to support her young daughter, Cosette.  Fantine, played by Anne Hathaway, sings "I Dreamed a Dream," a worthy composition.  (Hathaway's version can be heard here, although Susan Boyle did a much better job of it here, creating quite a sensation when she did so.)

I will say that the musical does touch on many, if not all, of the major plot devices of the novel and is a fair representation of Hugo's work.  Further, its attention to authentic historical detail is remarkable.  See here for examples.

French Uniform
Les Miserables

French Uniform,
Actual

Les Miserables has a scene from 1832 when citizens of Paris create barricades in the center of Paris and fight the French National Guard.  Eventually, the rebels are wiped out, after courageously fighting off National Guard attacks.  The National Guard waves the French tricolor flag, but the rebels wave red flags.  This bothered me, because the red flags looked identical to those of the Communist revolutions.  Was this historical fact, or was Hollywood trying to associate this citizen revolt with later Communist revolutions, perhaps to convey upon the latter an undeserved righteousness?  I decided to find out and went to the web to see what was going on in France in 1832 -- and if there was such an incident in real life.  I learned that there was.

The street fighting portrayed in Les Miserables was an actual event, known as the June Rebellion.  France had been marked by two major opposing forces since the guillotine executions of Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, in 1793:  the monarchists (or royalists) and various other groups, i.e. the radicals, the socialists, the Bonapartists, the republicans.  The former supported the monarchy, or rule by a king, and the others, rule by a parliament or other form of democratic government (more or less).  The republicans were supported by the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero who supported the United States in its war for independence.

I can't say the republicans were "the good guys," since it is all a bit more complicated (real life often is); but they had a point.  The time for monarchies was passing into history and people were looking for a better alternative.  The French working class in 1832 were angry because of rising prices and food shortages.  In addition, thousands of citizens had died from a cholera epidemic.  Since germs were not understood, conspiracy theories abounded, especially the notion that the Royalists were poisoning the wells to finish off the working class.  All of these factors provided the atmosphere for yet another rebellion against the existing order.  Wikipedia explains:

The republicans were led by secret societies formed of the most determined members of their movement.[4] The secret societies planned to provoke riots similar to those that had led to the 1830 July Rebellion against the ministers of Charles X.[4] The "Society for the Rights of Man" was one of the most instrumental. It was organized like an army, divided into sections of twenty members each (to evade the law that forbade the association of more than twenty persons), with a president and vice president for each section.[4]

The republicans made their move at the public funeral of the popular General Lamarque on June 5. Groups of republicans took charge of the cortege and directed it to the Place de la Bastille. They were reinforced by Polish, Italian, and German refugees, who had fled to Paris in the aftermath of crackdowns on republican and nationalist activities in their homelands, as well as by workers and local youth. They gathered around the catafalque on which the body rested. Speeches were made about Lamarque's support for Polish and Italian liberty, of which he was a strong advocate in the months before his death. When a member of the crowd waved a red flag bearing the words "Liberty or Death", the crowd broke into rebellion and shots were exchanged with government troops.[2]Marquis de Lafayette, who had given a speech in praise of Lamarque, called for calm, but the disorder spread.[7]

An insurrection began which for one night made the insurgents masters of the eastern districts of Paris. However, the rebellion failed to spread. In the night national guard forces were reinforced by 25,000 regular army troops who pacified the peripheral districts of the capital. The insurgents made their stronghold in the Faubourg Saint-Martin, in the historic city center. They constructed barricades in the narrow streets around the Rue Saint-Martin and Rue Saint-Denis. On the morning of June 6 the last rebels were surrounded at the intersection of rue Saint-Martin and Saint-Merry. At this point Louis-Philippe decided to show himself in the streets to confirm that he was still in control of the capital.[8] The final struggle came at the Cloître Saint-Merry (June 5–6),[4], which resulted in about 800 casualties. Anyone who continued to fight was shot immediately. The army and national guard lost 73 killed, 344 wounded; on the insurgent side there were 93 killed and 291 wounded.[1] The forces of the insurrection were spent.[6]

And the red flags depicted in the film?  Apparently, a true representation of historical fact as noted in the above quote.

Conclusions:  The musical film of Les Miserables is true to Hugo's novel as well as to historical fact, an unusual occurrence in Hollywood, to be sure. Now I better understand the forces in play that are depicted in this famous tale.

Update:  I was also curious as to the authenticity of the French uniforms of the time period and discovered that the film's representation was accurate. (I so enjoy authenticity in films about historical events.) I added the above graphics of French soldiers, one as presented in the film, the other as the actual uniform.  See also here, of three actor-soldiers taking a snooze on the set of Les Mis.  More scenes from the film can be viewed here.  Also, there are a couple of books available that illustrate French uniforms from different periods of French history, and actual uniforms on display at the Army Museum in Les Invalides (where Napoleon is entombed) in Paris.

Back From Las Vegas: the Titanic Exhibition

I just got back from my trip to Las Vegas.  I didn't gamble (I don't do that) but wifey and I saw some great shows, including the Titanic Exhibition, the Rat Pack is Back, Taylor Hicks and Cirque Du Soleil, "Love," an aerial acrobatic performance to Beatles' music and imagery.

One night wifey snuck downstairs to the casino and resolved to spend $1 in pennies playing the penny slot machines.  She won $75 and quit while she was ahead.

Cup and Saucer from the Titanic

The only show I really cared about was the Titanic Exhibition at the Luxor Hotel.  Upon entering the exhibition, you are given a card with the facts of one of the passengers, their name, cabin class, and the facts of their voyage.  Mine was of a gentleman traveling third class, on his way to Detroit to take a job open for him there.  At the end of the exhibition, you will confront a large white board listing all of the passengers and crew of the Titanic, and whether they survived the sinking.  I knew mine had undoubtedly died, being a male, third class passenger, who had almost no chance of gaining one of the too-few seats in a lifeboat.

We saw a recreation of  a third class cabin and a first class cabin, as well as a replica of the Grand Staircase, complete with the clock and the cupid figure, the ornamental railings and the white floor with black tile inlays.  There was also a replica of the large round skylight above it, with the decorative iron grill.  It was truly impressive.  We had our photograph taken, standing on the fifth step. (See an example here of some other couple on the Grand Staircase).

Actual artifacts recovered from the Titanic's debris field included pots and pans, saucers and cups, and ceramic "au gratin" bowls.  These are the bowls found stacked neatly in rows in the sand of the debris field, their wooden storage box long ago eaten away by sea organisms.  The bowls are still perfect, white and unblemished.

Au Gratin Bowls in Titanic's Debris Field

There was a lady's diamond ring, still beautiful and brilliant in the soft lighting, as well as various personal effects, including wallets. dollar bills, coins and clothing, postcards and letters with the writing still visible.  A perfume salesman's fragrance samples were also on display, still smelling sweetly after 100 years, most of which was spent on the ocean floor.  There was a pair of sink faucets from a first class cabin, one marked Hot and the other Cold.

The display has back lighted signs in each room, telling the history of the Titanic, as well as films running showing the building of the Titanic, the retrieval of artifacts, and an illustration of how the ship sank and broke up during sinking.  There is a huge model of the sunken Titanic, showing how it looks today in its watery grave.

One of the diplays is a mock-up of the promenade deck, where you walk on the deck, viewing a black sea at night, the black and moonless sky brilliant with stars, as it was on the night the great ship sank, April 15, 1912.

The most impressive display is the last one, which is a huge chunk of the Titanic itself.  You walk into a dimly lit room and find yourself face to face with a metal wall, actually a piece of the hull, complete with rivets and portholes, still containing glass, though it is broken and much of it missing.  This is the famed "Big Piece," which broke off when the Titanic broke in two.  It was recovered in 1998 and weighs 15 tons.  Viewing it, you feel you are looking at the side of the Titanic, and you are...well, a comparatively small piece of it anyway.

Viewing these artifacts, I felt I was communing with the dead.  Seeing them is a reminder of the terrible loss of human life that occurred when the Titanic sank.   These objects are more than curiosities, they are the bits and pieces of hundreds of human lives.  The mood is somber, respectful and almost reverent.

Consulting the listing of passengers and crew, I learned that my passenger, Frank John Goldsmith of England, had indeed died on the Titanic.  Mrs. Chomper's passenger survived.

Before leaving, we visited the gift shop where I bought a small piece of coal from the Titanic, and two third class coffee cups (exact replicas), white with the dark red insignia of the White Star Line.

You can view a lot of these displays at the links provided above, as well as here and here.

A Walk Through a Graveyard

Yesterday, upon reading about memorials and monuments to the Titanic, I got the same feeling I do when walking through the older sections of a graveyard.  Marble statues of angels, tombstones covered with moss or lichens, the inscriptions wearing away until they are almost unreadable.  You get the impression of other times, of spats on men, horse-drawn buggies, large Victorian hats on women, wrought iron gates, the Gilded Age.  Bones and sepulchers.  Dead people.

It's only by reading accounts, well-written by those who lived though those times, that the imagined odors of must and dust and decay disappear.  Flesh and blood men and women arise in their place in the mind, the dead past takes on the vibrant immediacy of a heart beat.

Reading great books about events like the Titanic, one can feel the engine vibrations beneath his feet, the smell of the smokestacks, the sway of the decks, the chill wind of the Atlantic, the pleasant smell of salt air, the screech of seagulls.

Not to mention the taste of corn from this corny description.  But you get the idea.

Off to work.  I have to get through today and tomorrow and this tax season will be history too.  One that I don't want to come back to life, rhetorically or otherwise.
 

Heroes of the Titanic: Isidor and Ida Strauss

Isidor and Ida Strauss

Lawrence Auster of View From the Right is one of the few bloggers I know who remembered the Titanic today, 100 years to the day after the great ship sank.  He mentions the statue in New York that memorializes two of the brave:  Isidor and Ida Strauss.  This married couple were Jews from Georgia.  Isidor had volunteered for the Confederate Army at the outset of the Civil War, but was refused due to his young age of sixteen.  Later he became co-owner of Macy's Department Store with his brother.

The Strausses had been together since their marriage in 1871.  An officer of the Titanic offered a seat in a half-filled lifeboat to Isidor and Ida, but Isidor refused to go ahead of younger men than himself.  Ida opted to stay with him, and is reported as telling the officer:  "I will not be separated from my husband. As we have lived, so will we die, together."  Another account that I read in the book "A Night to Remember" says that Ida refused Isidor's plea for her to go into the lifeboat without him.  She said, "We have lived together for many years.  Where you go, I go."  Wikipedia says the couple was last seen sitting in deck chairs when they were washed overboard by a huge wave.

A ship called the Mackay-Bennett was sent to the location of the sinking to recover bodies, and Isidor's body was recovered.  Unfortunately, Ida's was not.

Isidor was buried in the Bronx, New York.  His tomb (and the Strauss statue in Strauss Park) can be viewed here.

The video clip (from James Cameron's movie "Titanic") below shows Isidor and Ida in their bed as their room fills with water.  This is fictional and does not line up with eye witness accounts of their demise.  However, I did enjoy the portrayal of Wallace Hartley's string quartet playing "Nearer My God to Thee" on the rapidly flooding deck.  Hartley's body was recovered and he was buried in his hometown in England.  More people attended his funeral than there were residents of the small town.

100 Years Ago Today: The Tragedy of the Titanic (Photos, Videos)

RMS Titanic as She Appeared in 1912 (Colorized by Stogie)

I have been hearing about the Titanic since I saw a movie about it (as a wee child) in 1953.  A great British ocean liner, on its maiden voyage from Southampton  to New York, touted to be "unsinkable," hit an iceberg near Newfoundland and sank two hours later.  There weren't enough lifeboats -- only enough for a third of the 2,223 people on board.  About 1,500 of those people went into the freezing water of the North Atlantic, where they quickly died of hypothermia.  That terrible event happened 100 years ago today, early in the morning of April 15, 1912.

The Titanic story is one of incredible arrogance, lack of foresight, bravery and cowardice, heroism and tragedy.  The Titanic was a beautiful ship, fitted out in luxury and the highest technology of its day.  It had luxury cafes, a gymnasium, a swimming pool, a library, and a wireless telegraph and remotely controlled watertight doors.  Some fool reportedly told the press before the voyage that "God himself couldn't sink this ship."  Apparently, God took that as some kind of challenge.

Titanic Today

Only 710 survivors made it into the lifeboats.  Many of the lifeboats were lowered into the sea half full, because the Titanic didn't seem to be sinking at first, and passengers preferred the warmth of their cabins to what seemed a false threat.  When the ship began to sink at the bow and the list became increasingly steep, pandemonium reigned as many tried to crowd into the remaining lifeboats.  Since it was "women and children first," some men survived only by accident -- by jumping into the water where they were picked up by the half-filled lifeboats.  Two men went over the rail together; one survived and the other did not.  A priest prayed with some passengers on the steeply listing deck; members of the ship's orchestra, led by band leader Wallace Hartley, played music to calm the crowd.  Some say their final song was "Nearer My God to Thee."  Others say it was "Autumn."

They were picked up hours later by the Carpathia, a freighter who sped towards the disaster site in a heroic attempt to save the lives of the Titanic's passengers.  Alas, it was too far away to save anyone but the lifeboat passengers.  The S.S. Californian, within easy reach of the Titanic, could have saved many.  Its crew was puzzled over the meaning of the flares being set off from the Titanic (they were a cry for help), but took no action.  They turned off their wireless and went to bed, totally oblivious to the unfolding disaster.

Today the wreck of the Titanic rests 12,415 feet down on the seabed, slowly rusting away.  Plans are underway to commemorate the tragedy and pray for its victims -- now 100 years after they disappeared into the cold waters of the North Atlantic, along with the luxury ship that will sail on in legend and imagination.

Here is a fairly short video showing scenes from the sunken Titanic, overlayed with images of Victorian era, ghost-like figures walking about the scene, which then clarifies into actual photos of the locations as they looked in 1912.  The film ends with a string ensemble playing "Nearer My God to Thee," very much as it must have sounded when Wallace Hartley's string ensemble played it as the Titanic sank into the sea.  Highly recommended.


Here is a film showing underwater views of the Titanic, with some unusual perspectives.

 

 From the Discovery Channel: Deep Inside the Sunken Titanic:   Part 1 of 2



 Deep Inside The Sunken Titanic, Part 2 of 2

Why I'm Reading "Mein Kampf"

I am reading "Mein Kampf," Adolph Hitler's autobiography and statement of purpose.  Why, is it because I'm a budding Nazi?  Are my secret, repressed proclivities finally surfacing?  Am I practicing goose-stepping around the house with a pot on my head?

Well no.

I just want to know what this man thought and why.  I found a free pdf copy of the book by searching the web, but I bought a Kindle copy of it from Amazon.  The Kindle copy automatically takes you to the last page you were reading when you quit, and that alone was worth the price.

Today antisemitism seems to making a comeback in a big way.  Perhaps this has something to do with the left's embrace of Islam, their fellow hate-America ideologues, the only religion to make Jew hatred and murder official and integral parts of its doctrine.

I became interested in reading Hitler's point of view when I started reading "Berlin Diary" by William L. Shirer. Shirer's book is quite compelling -- through his eyes one can see the Nazi movement in its early days, see Hitler as if he were still alive and making speeches.  It is scary being in Berlin in the late 1930's, seeing the rising peril, the elevation of a madman to the pinnacle of power in Germany.  Everywhere is the tramp of marching, boot-clad feet, Hitler's angry rants echoing over loud-speakers, men and boys in gray and brown uniforms, crowds of people with their arms raised in unison and shouting "Sieg Heil!"

The Nazis were Group-Think in its most extreme and dangerous form.  Now let's see what else I can learn from Mr. Hitler.

Update:  D. Charles, one of the most extreme Islamic apologists I have yet encountered, is ticked because I wouldn't post his last comment in which he calls me a bigot and says I have "lost the argument" (over the innate evil of Islam itself as opposed to extremists misinterpreting Islam).  He says I lost the argument because I have never visited an Islamic country.  This is a total non-sequitur.

Well DC, I have never visited Germany or Japan, but I still hold informed opinions as to the evil of the fascism that once dwelled there; I have never visited North Korea but hold an informed opinion that its government is genocidal and tyrannical.  I can read news reports, see films and videos, read published histories, and listen to eye-witness accounts -- and also read Islam's holy texts and written histories of Muhammad and his deeds.  I do not have to contract cancer to know that it is a horrible and often fatal disease.  Likewise, I do not need direct experience of Islamic evil to know the religion is evil and worthless to humanity.   Your argument and the premise it is built on are extremely weak.

Jew hatred is an intricate, innate part of the religion of Islam.  Quoting a reader at View From the Right:

While looking at the website of the Jewish Virtual Library, I came across the following chilling quote from Ibn Saud, the first king of Saudi Arabia, in 1937.

While speaking to a British colonel, H.R.P. Dickson, he said, "Our hatred for the Jews dates from God's condemnation of them for their persecution and rejection of Isa (Jesus) and their subsequent rejection of His chosen Prophet." He added, "that for a Muslim to kill a Jew, or for him to be killed by a Jew, ensures him an immediate entry into Heaven and into the august presence of God Almighty."

[Auster responds]:   This statement by Ibn Saud shows that it is not "radicals" alone who hate us "infidels" and want to conquer us. It is mainstream Muslims. And it did not start with the establishment of Israel in 1948, or Khomeini taking over Iran in 1979, or the U.S. keeping troops in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s to ward off a possible invasion by Saddam Hussein, or the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It started with Muhammad, and it is mainstream and universal among Muslims.

Oh, and one more thing, D.Charles: I kicked your butt like a soccer ball and we both know it.

The Enemies Change But Liberals Stay the Same

I'm what Rush calls a "seasoned citizen." I have grandkids. So I have seen a lot of politics in my lifetime. It's interesting to notice the parallels between today and times past.

During the Cold War, the Russians were often threatening and bellowing and promising to destroy us. Every time they launched some new aggression, it was said to be a response to ours. What was theirs was theirs and what was ours was negotiable. They made lots of missiles and so did we.

Conservatives saw the Soviet's ultimate goal as world domination and the destruction of capitalism everywhere. Since the communists were violent, untrustworthy and aggressive, conservatives believed in a strong military and advanced weapon systems. The latter were to act as a military deterrent to Soviet aggression.

Liberals on the other hand, saw the Cold War as some big misunderstanding. Somehow, we and the Soviets had come to inadvertently distrust one another. They were just like us, shared the same values of peace and prosperity. We had to show the Soviets that they had nothing to fear from us, that we meant them no harm.

Liberals believed that if we would disarm and destroy our nuclear stockpiles, the Soviets would soon follow suit. But liberals went further than that, they convinced themselves that it was our fault the big misunderstanding happened in the first place. It was because we supported some undemocratic regimes, or interfered in communism's internal affairs -- by supporting opposition groups, or spying on them, or boycotting their goods. If and when communism failed, it was because of our subversion, not because communism just doesn't work.

Conservatives pointed to the bloody history of Soviet communism, the planned starvation, the mass murders, the totally ruthless rulers, the complete lack of human liberty. In fact, communism was a double whammy: not only did it reduce populations to the point of starvation, it also removed all liberty.

The ruthless history of communism, the millions dead, all were there to see and study. But liberals didn't want to see or to know. Facts disturb happy thoughts. They wanted to believe that they could control the unhappy situation by accepting blame and paying penance. Conservatives thought that liberals were naive and self-delusional. Conservatives thought that liberals wanted to commit national suicide and take the rest of us with them.

Today, the new enemy is Islam. It, like communism, is a strong ideology, something believed on faith rather than fact. Like the communists, the Muslims believe they have not only the right but the duty to make the rest of the world just like them. So they attack New York, London, Madrid, Mumbai and Beslan, and kill many strangers who caused them no harm. This is nothing new for Islam; they have been attacking nations and peoples for 14 centuries, all for the same religious reasons: to force the world to submit to the will of Allah.

Today liberals are the same. They make excuses for the Muslims the same way they once made excuses for the Soviets. It's all a big misunderstanding; it's all our fault. All we have to do is show them we mean them no harm; if we make major concessions, they will come to trust us and follow suit. Let them build a monument to our destruction on the site where the first strike occurred. This will assure them that we mean them no harm.

The more things change the more they stay the same.
....

Auschwitz Famous Sign "Arbeit Macht Frei" Stolen, Recovered in Pieces

Disgusting.  Punks in Poland stole the famous sign over the entrance to the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz.  The sign was fabricated by Jewish inmates of the prison and read "Arbeit Macht Frei," or "Work Shall Set You Free."  Polish police recovered the sign, but it was cut into three pieces by the thieves, perhaps to make it easier to carry and conceal.  Three men are being questioned by the police.

The U.K. Telegraph has the story here.

Colorizing a Black and White Photo

I am fascinated by past generations, the people who lived before us in this great nation. It ties in with my interest in history. I love to browse antique shops, where amidst the musty-smelling junk I sometimes find some an interesting artifact, a small window into the past.

Old photos are a favorite, just common photos of ordinary people. It's interesting to see what kinds of fashions they wore, what kinds of hairstyles. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, men often wore detachable collars held on to their shirts by brass studs. Some of those detachable collars look weird to us today - they could be very tall and look quite uncomfortable. Even more so when they were made of celluloid, a stiff paper-like material that was quite flammable. It could be dangerous smoking a cigar while wearing one of those!

I sometimes colorize old black and white photographs using Photoshop, just to see what the person would look like in the here and now. The results can be stunning. It's like breathing life into the old photos. Take for example this photo of a young woman graduate from New Haven, Connecticut, circa 1910. Colorizing her makes her seem more lifelike, more in the present. The past, after all, was not in black and white; only the photos were.

Bottom photo: a young businessman circa 1900. Note the high celluloid collar.

In Photoshop, you colorize a black and white photo, not by painting it, but by changing the color balance. Using the magic wand tool, you can select one area of the photo, say the face, and change the color balance by turning up the red. Each different area has to be cordoned off digitially, then colorized by changing the color balance.

It's also a great technique for restoring modern color photos that have faded.