First Romanian king; stunning Peles Castle

Romania united in 1859 and became a nation in 1877. First Prus­sian Prince Carol (1839-1914) of Hohenzollern became King Carol I of Romania from 1881. In 1873 when Carol visited the location where the beautiful castle now stands, he loved the stunning Carpathian Mountains scenery. So he quickly bought land in a small vil­lage Sinaia. Why there? Sinaia Monast­ery had been founded by Pr­ince Mich­ael in 1695, used as the roy­al res­id­ence until Peles was built.

                          

Peleş Castle in Sinaia

Under Charles’ control, 300 people laboured endlessly on Peles for two years. In 1875, the impressive castle was fin­ish­ed, spread­ing across 3,200 square ms. Sev­er­al teams of European architects and de­signers had to work throughout the years, including archit­ects Joh­an­nes Schultz (1873-83) and Karel Liman (1896-1924). The summer cas­tle was de­sign­ed in a Neo Ren­ais­­sance style combining features of cl­as­sic European styles - decorated by JD Heymann (Hamburg), August Bembe (Mainz) and Bernhard Ludwig (Vienna).

Carol planned the royal res­idence and hunting pre­serve for summer each year, the name coming from the Peles Creek that passed through the court­yard. Peles sat on a his­t­or­ic medieval road that connected Tran­syl­vania and Wallachia. A rail­way line was soon built to Buch­arest (122 km) and many aristo­cr­atic families moved their summer homes nearby.

He was the first King of Romania, from 1881 until his death. One of the most imp­ortant polit­ical figures in Romania’s his­tory for his successes, Carol refin­ed his passion for archit­ect­­ure. The Sov­ereigns’ Gate opened into the cast­le, and a mon­u­men­t­al marble stair­case went to the Hall of Hon­our, the official recep­tion space with walnut panelling and stat­ues. The ties bet­ween the Rom­anian and other royal families att­racted big names to the cast­le eg Austro–Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph, in 1886. Carols’ wife, Queen Elizab­eth, was a patron of the arts and de­signed rooms sp­ec­ific­ally for artists, mus­icians and writers’ enter­t­ain­ment.

                            

Peles Castle Piano Room

  
The dec­or­ations in each of the 160 rooms were given themes, with the finest examples of Eu­r­opean art, Murano crystal chandeliers, German stained-glass and Cor­doba leather-cov­er­ed walls. Many of the rooms were decorated to resemble the various world cultures eg the 1906 Mus­ic Room’s carved teak Indian furniture was gifted by a Maharajah. It contained a 1621 harpsichord from Antwerp, upright piano and organ

Given his military background, King Carol had a solid knowledge of weapons. The Great Armory Room hosts fine col­lect­ions of 4,000+ arms and ar­mour. Mainly C14th-17th from Western and East­ern Eur­ope and Asia, they were collected in 1903. Note the German armour of the C16th or 17th, and a full armour for the horse and knight.

                               

Welcome inside the front door

Due to its remarkable archit­ecture and exhibits, The Royal Library-Great Salon was special. It impress­ed with ceiling carved from linden wood, gilt, large chandeliers and Italian neo-renaissance decor­ations. See rare books with leath­er covers and gold emboss­ing and look for a secret door behind a bookshelf for the king to hide.

Peles’ architects drew in­sp­iration from classical styles like German and Italian Renais­s­ance, and Fr­ench Baroque eg the German stained glass and painted mur­als on the castle exter­ior. The interior, espec­ially the main hall, is beau­t­if­ully decorated with sculpt­ed wood & stained glass windows, sym­bols of elegance and royalty.

Great Moorish Salon

Wiki

Carrara marble was everywhere eg terraces decorated with royal st­at­ues, so the cas­tle could be an imp­res­sive residence fit for its pol­itical and cult­ural functions. Moor Hall was by painter and sculptor Charles Lecompte du Nouy, having Spanish-Moorish elements with a marble fount­ain.

The castle's 60-seat Theatre Hall and royal box were decorated in Louis XIV style, while the ceiling paintings and decorative fre­sc­oes were designed by famous Austrian art­ists Gustav Klimt and Fran­tz Mat­sch. And handmade silk embroideries adorned the ceil­ing and walls of the Turk­ish Salon. The horology exhibition had 50 different clocks from the private royal collection: grand­fathers, pendulum table clocks, fireplace clocks, al­arm clocks, poc­ket wat­ch­es etc. And pieces that belong­ed to Queen Marie, Carol II and King Mich­ael, mostly dating to the C19th. These collections of dispar­ate int­er­ior decorat­ion styles probably reflected King Carol’s eclectic tas­te.

                       

Theatre Hall, Peles Castle

From the start Peles was one of the most tech­nologically adv­an­ced palaces and expensive in Europe. It was the first European cas­tle fully supplied by locally produced el­ectrical po­wer, had its own 1884 power plant, cen­t­ral heating system in 1897, central vacuum sys­t­em, elev­at­or for the royals, hot and cold running water.

Besid­es Peles Castle, other buildings were erected, such as the royal stables and Foisor Hunting Lodge. And King Carol I’s successor, King Ferdinand built a smaller castle, Pelisor, on Peles grounds. Pel­isor was de­s­ign­ed in the art nouveau-style by the Czech architect Karel Liman from 1893-1914.

Peles remained a royal residence until 1947 when, after the forced ab­dication of King Michael I, Peles and the other royal propert­ies were taken by the Communist govern­ment. In 1948 the whole estate was closed, and art works went to Bucharest’s Art Mus­eum. The comm­unist government opened the castle as a tourist attract­ion, decl­ar­ed it the National Peles Museum in 1953 and kept it open until 1975.

Pres Nicolae Ceaușescu closed the entire estate in 1975-90, making it a State Protocol Area, limited to 1] mil­itary per­sonnel and 2] visiting heads of state. Fortun­ately the museum curators fri­ght­en­ed the President, saving Peles from military damage and from the Ceaus­escus. After the 1989 Romanian Revol­ut­ion, the cas­­tle became a heritage site and re-opened as a mus­eum with c400,000 visitors an­nually. Peles Museum has guides for those wanting historic tours.

Passionate about art, King Carol had collections covering c60,000 art objects. Additionally the ceramics collection held tiles and porcel­ain taken from the greatest C19th centres, was established by Queen Marie from 1914-27, and later pieces were purchased by the Museum. The wealth of artwork includes thousands of paintings and scul­ptures.

                              

Peles Castle gardens and statues

All photo credits: effitimonholiday

 

Polish chess team, world champs 1924-39

My parents thought Russians were the most intelligent, and my in-laws thought Czechs were most cultured. So thanks to Culture.pl for these Polish data, totally new to me. 

In Interwar years, chess was very popular in Poland. It was endorsed by key political figures as a pastime that Polish citizens could adopt eg Marshal Józef Piłsudski prime minister (1926). Chairman of Poland’s Chess Association, Piłsudski also valued Jews because the Jewish communities promoted chess. But the first chess Olympiad was held in 1927 in London, won by Hungary. Poland was excluded, because the regulations still barred professionals.

Rubinstein vs Tartakower 1927

Teodor Regedzinski (1894–1954) played for Poland at 5 Interwar Olympiads, winning 5 medals. He had German roots and collaborated with the Nazis in the war, to provide security for his wife and son. So he was imprisoned by the Polish authorities after war ended.

Poland was a chess power in the Interwar era! All the Olympiads they participated in pre-WW2 ended with Poland being on the podium (except for 1933). There were many other competitors in Poland till 1939, but because the majority were Jewish, most were handed over to the Germans or shot; Poland’s chess prowess disappeared.

The July 1930 Hamburg Olympiad was the first where pros could play, against 17 other nations. Poland sent Akiba Rubinstein, Ksawery Tartakower, Dawid Przepiórka, Kazimierz Makarczyk, Paulin Frydman. The biggest rivals were Hungary & Germany. The Poles beat Hungary and drew with Germany, Poland winning 1.5 points over Hungary (win 1 point, draw .5, loss 0). Poland’s best player was Rubinstein (1880–1961), and the fine Hamburg victory remained Poland’s best-ever Olympic chess triumph!

Polish team, Chess Olympiad in Hamburg, 1930

(L) Frydman, Tartakower, Rotmil, Rubinstein, Makarczyk, Przepiórka, 

Culture.pl

In mid-1930s, Rubinstein’s depression worsened and he could no longer play competitively. Rubinstein was being taken care of by his wife, who’d opened a diner in Brussels. Despite being Jewish, the family survived the Holocaust; his wife died (1954) and Rubinstein died (1961) in Antwerp.

Ksawery Tartakower (1887-1956) was born in Rostov-on-Don in a Polish-Austrian Jewish family. Dad taught him chess but his parents tragically died in a 1911 pogrom, so he moved to Vienna to study Law. Ksaw was more drawn to chess, and after successes in 1909-13 tournaments, he chose chess over Law. In WWI he was in Austria’s army then moved to Paris. Post-war he played well in many tournaments and wrote chess theory for French and German press.

By 1920s he was a top 10 players globally. When Poland’s Chess Association started in 1926, Tartakower represented Poland. He was 2nd best of the 1930 team, winning 12 points in 16 games. In the 1930s Tartakower represented Poland at 6 chess Olympiads, winning gold medal in Hamburg, plus 2 silver and 2 bronze medals. And he won a silver in 1939 in Buenos Aires. He was still there when WW2 started, but he chose to go home. Too old to join with the Polish Army in France, he joined the French Foreign Legion. Tartakower survived and later, distrustful of Communist Poland, became a French national. He played for France at 1950 Dubrovnik chess Olympiad, and died in Paris in 1956.

Dawid Przepiórka (1880-1940) was born in Warsaw, son of a real estate owner. Young Dawid discovered chess in a Warszawski newspaper and fell in love. After dad’s death, Dawid inherited his parent’s tenement houses, becoming wealthy himself. In 1905 he moved to Göttingen then Munich to study maths. But he left uni, being more drawn into the chess world. In 1910 he married Melania Silberast in Munich, had 2 children & moved to Warsaw.

In 1924, Przepiórka came 2nd in a tournament in Gyor Hungary and 2 years later won a Munich tournament. 1926 also saw Poland’s 1st chess championship in Warsaw, with Dawid crowned winner. He was Poland’s 3rd strongest player at Hamburg’s Olympiad, taking 9 points in 13 games.

From 1928-33 Dawid became chess journal Świat Szachowy’s editor-publisher. As well as representing Poland in Hamburg, he competed at the 1931 Prague Olympiad. Alas Przepiórka lost to USA’s Israel Horowitz in a game that should have drawn, so Poland won the silver medal instead. Later he played a major role in sorting Warwaw’s 1935 chess Olympiad as head of the Technical Committee, winning the 1937 Golden Cross of Merit, a key Polish state award.

In WW2, Przepiórka stayed in Occupied Warsaw near a chess coffeeshop, filled with players playing after the Nazis closed official chess clubs. In Jan 1940, the Nazis raided and gaoled all of the clients, incl Przepiórka. Some were later freed but Jewish Przepiórka was shot and his wife and children also died. The Golden Cross of Merit protected no one.

Casimir Makarczyk (1901-72) was born in Warsaw and attended Michał Kreczmar Middle School alongside noted literary Poles eg Leopold Tyrmand. In 1915 his family moved to St Petersburg where Kaz learned to play chess. Then he returned to Warsaw in 1918 where he began studying Law. But financial problems ended his education in 1922. He worked in a bank and edited chess sections in newspapers, while studying philosophy. In 1926 he editor at Świat Szachowy then worked at Ministry of Public Works

In 1927 he won silver at the Warsaw championship and bronze in Łódź. This streak granted him a place on the Polish team at 1928’s chess Olympiad in The Hague. Then he represented Poland at 5 chess Olympiads in the Interwar period, winning 1 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze medals. He was Poland’s 4th best player in the 1930 golden team in Hamburg, winning 7.5 points from his 13 games.

Christian Makarczyk joined the Polish resistance in WW2 and Warsaw Uprising. As a result he was taken into a German camp near Dresden & liberated in 1945. He returned to Poland, settling in Łódź where he was an aide at the Logic Dept of Lodz university. Non-Jews survived! In 1948, he became Poland’s new chess champion at a Kraków tournament, then won the Łódź title in 1949. In the 1950s, he was withdrawing from public chess life, dying much later.

Paulin Frydman(1905-82) was born into an educated Warsaw Jewish family. His uncle Szymon Winawer was a noted chess player, the uncle who introduced the lad to the game. Frydman took a liking for chess and when he was only 16, Czyn Journal published his chess puzzles. In 1922, he joined the Warsaw Society of Chess Supporters and at 19 won second place at their championship. He also medalled at Poland’s first championship in 1926, securing a place in Poland’s 1928 Olympiad team at the Hague.

Frydman then represented Poland at 8 Interwar Olympiads, taking 3 bronzes, 3 silvers and 1 gold - his chess career reflected the great strength of Polish chess pre-WW2, Frydman’s golden years. And he won Warsaw’s contests 5 times and came second in the 1935 Nationals.

At Buenos Aires’ 1939 Olympiad he won 13 points in 17 games, contributing largely to the team’s silver medal. Frydman stayed in Buenos Aires when war broke out, joining in Argentinian competitions until 1941. Then he ran a chess salon at Rex Coffee House Buenos Aires, creating a good income. Frydman’s life there was close to famous Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. Frydman died in Buenos ires

Mieczyslaw Najdorf (1894-1954) was a Polish Jewish chess player in the later 1930s, a vital figure in Olympic teams. In 1939 he chose to stay in Argentina after the 1939 Olympiad. Post-war he won the status as a top player anywhere, before making headlines creating new world records in Blind Chess, playing 45 opponents simultaneously! Having survived the war, Najdorf later retained his excellence.

A simultaneous chess game with Dawid Przepiórka
Society of Chess Lovers in Kraków, 1927

Culture.pl

Like other great Jewish competitors in Poland pre-WW2, most lived in a huge, educated community (30% of Warsaw) that had supported Poland’s 1930 gold-winning team. Antoni Wojciechowski (1905–38), one of the best Poles of that era, represented Poland at Munich’s 1936 Olympiad in great games. His style was risky and very entertaining for viewers. Sadly he died pre-war from pneumonia.

It’s accurate to say that Poland was a chess power in the Interwar era. All the Olympiads they participated in pre-WW2 ended with Poland being on the podium (except for 1933 Folkestone). There were many other competitors in Poland till 1939, but because the majority were Jewish, most were handed over to the Germans or shot; Poland’s chess prowess disappeared.

1956 - what a year!

 Budapest Oct-Nov 1956

BBC History Magazine asked historians to select history’s most dramatic year. I expected them to select 476 AD, 1215, 1492, 1914 and 1933, but in my opinion 1956 was by far the most dramatic. Historian George Goodwin also selected 1956 and specified the events that changed the world.

1956 marked  a watershed year, one when we began to see the post-war world that was under challenge. It was a time when austerity and cult­ural deference were being replaced by the triumph of American-style mass consumer culture. The 1956 Suez Crisis, when Britain along with France and Israel invaded Egypt to recover control of the Suez Canal, was arguably one of the most significant episodes in post-WW2 British history. It led to periodic changes of national direction! France, in contrast, was already beginning the process of European consolidation: the negotiations to create the European Community of 1957’s Treaty of Rome were effectively decided in 1956.

Further to the east, the Soviet grip on its European conquests seriously faltered for the first time, as it violently suppressed the Hungarian uprising. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators swarmed through the streets, tearing down statues of Stalin, ripping the Communist emblem from Hungarian flags and dodging the gunfire of the secret police. This bloody revolt against the rulers of the Hungarian People's Republic and its imposed policies led to Soviet tanks entering Budapest. The crisis lasted for 12 days, after which the Soviet leadership agreed to a ceasefire and a reformist government under Imre Nagy took over in Budapest. 2,500 Hungarians had died and 250,000 fled as refugees, mainly through Austria (including my sister in law in Melbourne).

The USA's supreme court’s ruling against bus seg­reg­ation was Rev Martin Luther King’s first great civil rights victory. See a famous photo where Martin Luther King was welcomed by his wife Coretta after leaving court in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956. King was found guilty of conspiracy to boycott city buses in a drive to desegregate the bus system, but a judge suspended his fine (pending appeal).

Rev and Mrs Martin Luther King Jr
outside the courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama 1956

The Anglo-American focus on individual expression and liberation, which dominated the following decades, was highlighted by John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. And the re-election of the conservative US President Eisenhower could not mask the growth of the free spending, rebellious teenagers with a James Dean poster on the wall and rock and roll on the jukebox – a phenomenon echoed across the English speaking world.

Elvis Presley entered the US music charts for the first time, with Heartbreak Hotel. Rock Around the Clock was a 1956 mus­ical film featuring Bill Haley and His Comets in cinemas every­where. It was one of the major box office successes of that year. The Platters hits throughout 1956 included The Great Pretender, My Prayer, You've Got the Magic Touch, One In A Million and You'll Never Know, changing the life of every teenager in the world. 1956 was a good time to be a university student.

Elvis Presley was changing teenagers' lives
Love Me Tender 1956

But George Goodwin omitted one critical 1956 event. The Olympic Games moved to the Southern Hemisphere for the first time ever! Colonial Britain, France and Spain had long understood that the days of empire were over; the dead soldiers from WW2 had been buried and memorial­is­ed, rationing had ended, and economies could start to develop once again. The huge number of baby boomers, who had been born (1946-55) after their fathers were demobilised, filled the primary schools. Millions of migrants, largely from Europe, were shipped to the southern hemisphere where new suburbs were developed with detached houses on large blocks. The eternal cultural cringe was ending.

State budgets were not open ended of course, but neither were the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne full of community conflict, as they had been in other cities. Everyone in Australia wanted the most modern swimming pools, the best athletic tracks and the biggest Olympic Village for the athletes. To this day, people still say the 1956 Games were the crowning achievement of the Melbourne School of Architecture in the post-war period; they were an inspiration to Rome, Tokyo, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro and every other city competing for later Games.

The 1956 Summer Olympics Games, Melbourne

attendance of 1.153 million people over the 15 days.

Until 1956 British and Egyptian governments administered Nth and Sth Sudan as separate colonies. When both areas merged into a single administrative region after political pressure from the north, British colonial administration granted the North most political independence in 1956. In post colonial reconstruction, national political and economic issues ravaged Sudan internally. Northern violence against the southern minorities in the first Sudanese Civil War killed 400,000 civilians & 100,000 soldiers. 

Child soldiers, Sudanese Civil War

blackpast

Polio was a highly infectious disease affecting young children that attacks the nervous system, leading to spinal and respiratory paralysis, and even death. In the 1950s Dr Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine which showed the medical profession that tackling polio epidemics was feasible. In 1956 virologist Dr Albert Sabin developed oral polio medication using live, weakened poliovirus, a key step towards global polio eradication. Salk’s vaccine stimulated immunity without causing illness but only Sabin’s oral polio treatment accelerated global immunisation efforts, making polio eradication a medical revolution for millions of children.

 

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassination ->

Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe was a big book. Happily once we get to 1848, the year of revolutions across Europe, the book became much more balanced and more interest­ing. The 53 million people under Habsburg rule spoke German, Hung­arian, Moravian, Polish, Yidd­ish, Czech, Croatian, Slovakian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Serbian, Ukrain­ian and even Italian. Perhaps this was a recipe for disaster.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863-1914) was born in Graz Austria, oldest son of Archduke Karl Ludwig and Princess Maria of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, and nephew of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph (1867–1916).  These Hapsburg men were rulers of three empires: Holy Roman, Austro-Hun­gar­ian and Spanish. 

Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand
1914, Wiki

Franz Ferdinand was educated by private tutors throughout his youth; he began his military career at age 12 and quickly advanced up the ranks becoming a major general at 31. After the emperor's son Crown Prince Rudolf’s suicide in 1889, Franz Fer­dinand's father­ Karl Ludwig became heir to the throne. At Karl Lud­wig's death from typhoid fever in 1896, Franz Ferdinand was suddenly the heir to the throne.

The young man had served in Hungary. So later, as heir to the throne, he was appointed as the In­sp­ector General of the Austro-Hungarian army. [Remember this below, re 1914].

In 1894 Ferdinand first met Countess Sophie Maria Chotek, daughter of a Boh­em­ian aristocrat, and they fell in love. However marr­iage to a Hapsburg required that he/she be a member of a reigning (or ex-) dyn­asty of Europe, and the Choteks weren’t. But the loved-up Franz Fer­dinand re­fused to marry anyone else, and it took a few years and the intervention of other heads of state, including Pope Leo XIII, before the Emperor agreed to the unacceptable marriage.

But Franz Joseph only agreed with rigorous conditions. This morgan­at­ic marriage demanded Sophie and any future children were not allowed her hus­b­and's throne, titles, priv­il­eg­es or inherited property. The couple married in July 1900. And they had 3 Hohenberg children: Prin­cess Sophie, Duke Maximilian & Prince Ernst. In 1909 Sophie became the Duchess of Hohenberg.

Austria-Hungary was a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual empire of groups antagonistic over religion and politics. The only thing the different ethnic people hated more than each other was the Hapsburg dynasty. Franz Fer­­dinand's public per­s­ona was cold and short-tempered, and ?insane due to in­breeding.

Still, Franz Ferdinand understood that the empire was disintegrating. And he DID propose changing the Austro-Hungarian rule with a triple monarchy of Slavs, Germans and Magyars, each having an equal voice in govern­ment. Naturally this idea was unpopular with the ruling elite.

Royal couple travelling to Sarajevo town hall reception

in their open car, blogpost

The assassination, Traderlife

Franz Ferdinand also consid­er­ed a federal government of 16 states, the United States of Greater Austria. Naturally this idea was in direct conflict with the Serbian nat­ionalists who wanted to break off with Bosnia and Herzegovina to form an independent state. Though he didn’t care much about their nat­ionalist ambitions, Franz Ferdin­and supported greater freedom for self-determination. And he ad­vocated for a careful approach with the Serbs, warning his military leaders that harsh treatment could lead to conflict in the region and with Russia. Correct! Meanwhile he maintained an alliance with Germany.

In 1914, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie accepted an in­vitation by Gen Oskar Potiorek, governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina province. In the capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo, he inspected the imp­er­ial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzeg­ov­ina, annexed by Austria-Hungary (in 1908). The annexation angered Serbian nationalists, who believed the ter­r­it­ories should be part of Serbia. So the Archduke knew all about the ter­­­r­­orism organ­ised by the Serbian nationalist organisation The Black Hand but ignored the warnings. Meanwhile a group of young national­ists plot­ted to kill the Archduke!

When the royal train arrived 28th June 1914, a motorcade drove them to the official townhall reception. The royals were in the sec­ond car with the top rolled back, to give the crowds a good view. A Black Hand terrorist agent, Nedjelko Cabrinovic, threw a grenade. Thank­fully the driver saw an object in the air and sped up, causing the grenade to hit the car behind them, damaging occupants and spect­ators. However their driver made a wrong turn and drove toward a young Black Hand Bosnian Serb nat­ion­alist Gavrilo Prin­cip (1894–1918). As the car backed up, Princip fir­ed and shot the royals in their upper bodies. Both died en route to hospital. Ferdinand was buried alongside his wife in Artstetten Castle in Aust­ria. The car in which they were killed is on display at the Museum of Military History in Vienna, along with his bloodied uniform.

The assassination set off a rapid chain of events, giving the Aus­trian hardliners their chance to move against Serbia, ending their independence movement. Of course the situat­ion es­c­al­at­ed. When Austro-Hungary retaliated against Serbia, Rus­sia supported its ally Ser­bia. So Austria needed Germ­any’s as­s­urance that they would join against Russia and its all­ies, France & soon Britain. In July Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the fragile peace between Europe’s great powers collap­s­ed. Then an entangled web of alliances was activ­ated as Russia declared war on Austria-Hungary, Germany declared war on Russia, and France and Brit­ain decl­ared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. By Aug 1914, The War To End All Wars had begun.

Gavrilo Prin­cip arrested at the assassination scene, BBC

When Franz Joseph died in 1916, he was succeeded by his grandnephew Charles I, who reigned until the collapse of the Austrian Empire following its defeat in Nov 1918. The monarchy ended.

Assassin Gavrilo Princip got 20 years in prison because at 19, he was too young for capital punishment in Hap­s­burg law. He was gaoled in Dec 1914, chained to a wall and died of TB in 1918. Of course Princip didn’t know that the Habsburg Empire end­ed in 1918, however others knew. In 1920 Princip and other revolut­ion­ary heroes were exhumed and brought to Sarajevo, then buried in the Holy Archangels Cemetery. 

The Austrian-Hungarian Empire and today’s national boundaries

Pinterest

Saving Jewish orphans Ochberg 1921

I was fascinated by Isaac Ochberg (1879–1938) who was born in Uman in Russia/now Ukraine. With thousands of other Russians, the Ochbergs went to South Africa in 1894 where Isaac became a successful Cape Town businessman.

Isaac Ochberg, March 1921

aish.com

After the old Czarist regime ended in 1917, rival armies were fighting for control. With law and order failing, transport for many thousands of demob'd soldiers ended. Plus vast armies of German ex-POWs tried to make their way home after the Soviets’ Peace Treaty at Brest-Litovsk.

The battles did not start out as particularly anti-Semitic. But owing to the oppression to which they had been exposed for gener­ations, the lives of the impoverished Jews worsened. With famine and typhoid epidemics, ancient horrors surfaced in the misery. Polish and other peasants joined forces with reactionary officers and troops, to kill Jews in pogroms.

Survivors begged their cousins in South Africa for help. A great surge of compassion swept the South African Jew­ish community who would try to save some of the victims, partic­ul­arly children. But would the Union Government create any difficulties in admitting them?  Ochberg quickly met Gen Jan Smuts, prime minister between 1919–24, who gave the children entry visas. Smuts could have sunk the rescue plan in an instant, had he chosen to. His support was essential and warmly welcomed.

A South African Relief Fund for Jewish War Victims was already in place when Ochberg pro­p­osed that the Cape Jewish Orphanage take responsibility for the children. The Relief Fund had to raise £10,000, enough for 200 or­phans. [Sadly 400,000+ destitute Jewish orphans were eventually found]. By Jan 1921 the Un­ion Gov­ernment agreed to give pound for pound to the Pogrom Orphan Fund.

Someone had to go to Europe, so Ochberg made himself respon­sible in Mar 1921. He travelled to Ukraine for a few dangerous months, vis­iting lots of villages in the Polish Ukraine and Galic­ia. Och­berg proceeded from town to town, visiting Minsk, Pinsk, Lodz, Lemberg, Stanislav and Wlodowa etc. When a letter came to him from Port Elizabeth's com­munal leaders, Ochberg answered and expressed his very great thanks for their boxes of second-hand clothing. The gen­er­os­ity displayed by South African Jewry made it possible to rescue the children. Otherwise they would surely have died of st­arvation, disease or Ukrainian pogrom wounds.

At first Pinsk was isolated by the fighting and Ochberg and helpers were thrown on their own resources. The 3 Jewish orph­an­ages in Pinsk had few beds, bedding and clothes - they used flour bags to sleep on. Typhus spread in the orphanage and shells were bursting in the streets. A notorious Ukrainian fanatic descended with his gangs and the pogroms raged for a week. The Federation of Ukrainian Jews did its best to assist but with civil war raging over large areas of Poland and elsewhere, and only a minimum of transport in operation, progress was slow. As order was restored, supplies began to arrive, first from Juedischer Hilfsverein in Berlin, and then from U.S Joint Distrib­ution Committee: cocoa, condensed milk, cooking oil and clothes.

One day the orphans heard that a "man from Africa was coming". He was going to take some of them away with him and give them a new, safe home. Nearly all the orphans had lost both par­ents, many in pogroms, on the Ukrainian border, at Minsk, Pinsk and other places. 

Group passport photo

The Observation Post

Confronting Ochberg was how to make his choice from the vast number of destitute children. He chose 8 children from each orphanage, making a total of 200 for whom he had funds. Since the South African Government had specified that the children must be in good health, of reasonable intel­lig­ence and willing to leave, the cream of each orphanage was selected.

Even though they were scared of being eaten by "African tigers", the children were excited. And when Ochberg appeared, with his gingy hair and welcoming smile, the orphans called him Daddy.

The Polish authorities put many children trav­elling to Warsaw on cattle-trucks. Though their passports carried the usual Polish word Paszport with the Polish Eagle, there were no individual photos. Instead group photos app­eared, some with 30-40 small children sitting in rows.

They travelled in overcrowded, dirty trains to Warsaw, each child having a tiny package of clothing sent from overseas. In the middle of Warsaw was a restaurant, belonging to Pan­ya Engel, a kindly Jewish woman who the children adored. For several months the Ochberg orphans stayed in local schools, and Panya Engel and friends worked hard to protect them. Just as it seemed as if most of the difficulties had been overcome, there was a serious outbreak of eye trachoma which held up their departure.

From Warsaw, they travelled by river boat down the Vistula to Dan­zig. There, on the Baltic, they boarded a steamer bound for London, and the other kind people took charge of the orphans. A few of them were again taken ill, and spent the time in London in hospital.

Warm reception awaited the orphans

who came ashore in Cape Town, late 1921.

Observation Post

There was a warm reception when they finally landed in Cape Town in Sept, with huge crowds waiting on the quay for them. So large was the group of children that Cape Jewish Orphanage could no longer house them all, and some went to Arcadia Johan­nes­burg Orphanage instead.

In South Africa, the once-pathetic, poorly dressed children clearly profited from the kindness and instruction they received. There were numerous invit­ations to Jewish homes, and some of the children were adopted. Special English language classes were organised.

Nicholas Winton saved far more children from murder before WW2 and took them to Britain. But Ochberg set the model for humanitarian heroism in taking c190 Jewish pogrom orphans from the Ukraine and Poland to South Africa after WWI. See the honours he received and the formal dedication that was made in 2011.

Read Ochberg Orphans and the horrors from whence they came, David Solly Sandler, 2014

Szeged Synagogue Budapest 1903

Szeged (pop 165,000), 175 ks south of Budap­est, was one of 9 mid-sized cities in a 3-year project called “Rediscover and reveal the conc­eal­ed Jewish heritage of the Danube Region.” It prom­oted Jewish herit­age tourism and education in Hungary, Roman­ia, Sloven­ia, Serbia, Croatia, Germany, Bosnia-Herzeg­ov­ina and Mont­en­egro. Rediscover cost €1.8+ million project, with fund­ing mostly from the European Regional Devel­opment Fund, started June 2018-May 2021. It was realised by partner­ships of local govern­ments, NGOs and Jewish communities in the EU’s Danube Reg­ion, an area along the river to its hinterland, from the Black Forest to the Black Sea.

 Szeged Synagogue

The largest synagogue in Hungary was Dohany St Budapest, designed by the architect Ludwig Förster. Rightly so, since Budapest had a large proportion of the pre-Holocaust Jewish community in Hungary. 

In the Szeged Jewish community office, Jewish Heritage Europe/JHE dir­ector Ruth Gruber met President of the Jewish commun­ity and representat­ives of the municipality engaged in the Redis­cover Project. Budapest architect Lipot Baumhorn (1860–1932) designed 23 syn­agog­ues in the old Hungarian lands, now forming parts of Slov­en­ia, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia and Romania. They included 4 in Budapest.

The domed and multi-turreted New Szeged Synagogue (1903) was very fine indeed. This turn-of-the-century Hungarian blend­ of Art Nou­v­eau and Historicist styles was the Magyar Style. It was Baum­horn’s mag­num opus, built for the 6,000+ Jews who lived in Szeged pre-Holocaust.

NB a new find! The original blueprints and documents for the maj­esti New Syn­ag­ogue were uncovered in 2018 by resear­ch­ers doing the catal­og­uing, indexing and digit­isation of Szeged Community Arch­iv­es. The archives had the draw­ings, plans and documents of Rabbi Imm­anual Löw (1854-1944), Baumhorn and textile designer József Schl­esinger.

Baumhorn designed even the smaller decorative details and the trees to plant in the surrounding garden. He coll­ab­orated with R’ Immán­uel Löw, a published scholar of wildlife and miner­als, and an expert in Biblical symbolism. In Szeged, every painted panel, stained glass, inscription and carving was filled with a symb­olic meaning that Löw analysed. See Upon the Doorposts of Thy House: Jewish Life in East-Central Europe (1994) by JHE director Ruth Gruber .

Windows of Celebrations in the New Synagogue of Szeged was edited by K Frauhammer and A Szentgyörgyi, and published by EU’s Interreg Dan­ube Transnational Programme. It des­cribed the history of making the synagogue’s stained glass windows and the rich symbolism that artist Manó Róth created after close consultation with Baum­horn and with Rabbi Löw. Note the synagogue’s festive cycles in the windows which address­ed even the smallest design details such as colours and patt­erns.

 Synagogue interior renovated

 Structurae

They estimated the cost to fully restore the inter­ior i.e rewiring, fixing plumbing and restoration of the sumptuous decor­at­ion, at c€6.6 million. The government announced in 2014 that it had alloc­ated €3.1 million and the rest of restoration was carried out with funding from the Szeged Synag­ogue Foundation. Thus the lavishly ornate interior of the grand New Synagogue in Szeged was restored in 2016.

 

Central dome 

Reddit

Ark

Pinterest

The multi-million euro restoration of the exterior centred on the en­orm­ous domed building, and included repair of the external towers, roof and facade. The fence preciou stained glass windows incorporating rich Jewish symbolism were repaired, and the Biblical garden designed by Rabbi Löw, who consulted closely with Baumhorn on many facets of the design and lavish decorative elements, was replanted.

The hardback book included a brief history of the construction of the synagogue, with the news­paper report of the inaugural ceremony in May 1903. Even more importantly, the printed book included beautiful photo­graphs of the windows by János Rómer, print­ed on transparent sheets to sim­ul­ate stain­ed glass in Baum­horn’s Szeged mast­er­piece.

Open-air exhibit in Szeged’s cen­tral Klauzal Sq­uare, Oct 2020.

World Jewish Travel

The synagogue, owned by Szeged Jewish community, is a city landmark oper­ated as a tourist attraction with visiting hours and also a cultural venue for concerts and other events.

As well as the synagogue, Baumhorn designed other buildings in Sz­eged, including the Jewish community complex and the ceremonial hall in the cemetery. The municipal government has been the REDISCOV­ER pro­j­ect’s lead partner has been engaged in local projects. These ranged from organising Jewish heritage it­in­eraries and cultural festivald, to planning an ex­hibition marking Lipot Baumhorn’s 160th birthday in 2020. Some pro­j­ects were postponed because of COVID, but a travelling exhib­ition about the Szeged syn­ag­ogue opened in Budapest at Baumhorn’s Páva St Synagog­ue, now part of the city’s Holocaust memorial museum complex. Baumhorn was also honoured with an open-air exhibit in Szeged’s cen­tral Klauzal Sq­uare in Oct 2020. It was all organised by Hungary’s Museum of Archit­ect­ure and Monum­ent Protection Documentation Centre.

Baumhorn also designed Szeged’s Jewish community headquarters building across the street, as well as the chapel in the Jewish cemet­ery. In fact half of the synagogues Baumhorn designed or renovated still stand, including:
1] Budapest’s Dozsa Gy­orgy ut, now a sports hall;
2] domed synagogue Novi Sad Serbia, now a concert hall;
3] Nitra Slovakia, now a concert hall & Holocaust memorial;
4] Lucenec Slovakia in ruins, re­stor­ed as a cul­t­ural centre;
5] Szolnok Hungary is now a con­cert hall and cultural centre, with a memorial bust of Baumhorn in front; and
6] Braşov synagogue Romania 

The Jewish community headquarters building is across the street from Szeged Synagogue.

Historic, cultured, beautiful Old Krakow.

In 1960 my first year in high school, there were 120 students - a few from Russian, German or Romanian parents and 114 from Polish parents. They all wanted to re-visit Poland by 1970, especially to see Warsaw,  Krakow and Lublin.

Town hall tower, 

Visit Krakow

Kraków’s Market Square/Ry­nek in Poland is the centre of the city’s medieval Old Town, designed in 1257 when the town first won its charter. Laid out on a grid, the Old Town and its central square changed little in the centuries that followed. Always active, this 40,000 sq ms grouping of cafés, clubs, music centres, mus­eums, historical landmarks and hotels, shows some love­ly medieval architect­ure. Because the Square is surround­ed by eleg­ant town­houses, each with its own name and history, the import­ant histor­ical, cultural and social sig­nificance is largely intact.

In summer, umbrella shaded cafés sit along its sides, shaded from the sun by the gothic spires of St Mary’s Basilica. The church was consecrated in 1320, having an im­p­osing façade and flanked by two differently sized towers. Its crowning gl­ory is Stoss altarpiece, carved between 1477-89 by German-born sculptor Veit Stoss and placed behind the high altar. And because the church experienced many reconstructions of its exterior and inter­ior over the centuries, only three of the original high, stained glass windows were preserved. In the C18th the church was decorated with Bar­oque aesthetics and the wooden door of the galilee was decorated with sculpted heads of prop­h­ets, apostles, and Polish saints in 1929. In snowy winter, the square is full of Christ­mas markets. Visit the square on each hour when St Mary’s Church bugle calls.

St Mary's towers

Veit Stoss Altarpiece

St Mary's Basilica

At the square’s centre is the long medieval Sukiennice Cloth Hall, Krak­ów’s hist­or­ical hub of trade and commerce in Eastern Europe. Built in the C14th, this huge hall may have been one of the first shopping centres in the world, packed with market stands. The hall was later rebuilt in a Ren­ais­sance style, housing the stalls of local merchants selling handic­rafts, cloth products, amber, lace and woodwork, like oriental imports.

Cloth Hall  

Vecteezy

On the eastern side, the coffee shops are crowded with tourists enjoying the view of the Cloth Hall’s br­oadside and 70 m leaning Town Hall Tower. Established in the C14th, the 70-meter tower is the only part of the for­mer Town Hall that still stands after fires and renovations. At the top is an observation deck, to get a beautiful view of Kraków. Visitors climb the sta­irs up to the 3rd floor through Gothic vaulted rooms which display 1960s photos of Kraków and offer a grand panoramic view over the Main  Squ­are. 

 

The square’s eastern side is home to street entertainers that do their show at the foot of the Basilica’s red towers. There is the small C10th Church of St Adalbert to the south, an old stone structure that is one of the few well preserved examples of early Christian, Romanesque build­ings in Poland. It is next to the middle Gothic arches of the Cloth Hall

Today many of the building façades that line the Main Square have Polish Baroque architecture, despite their med­ieval begin­nings. For example see the Krzysztofory Palace on the N.E corner, now home to the central divis­ion of the Historical Museum of Kraków.

Krzysztofory Palace, now Historical Museum of Kraków 

Krakow-Wiki

Chopin is a national hero and a key cultural figure in the country’s fight for independence and self-identity. Much of the composer’s work was inspired by traditional Polish dance music, and written against a backdrop of national resistance to occupation from neighbouring countries. Although Chopin left Poland when young and spent much of his time in Paris, he was consciously helping to establish a Pol­ish cultural identity. Kraków celebrates the great composer with reg­ular, even lavish concert performances, at the Chopin Concert Hall just off Kraków’s main square.         

Chopin Concert Hall 

Viator

Originally built in C15th, Old Synagogue is the oldest surviv­ing example of Jewish religious architecture in Poland, and one of Kr­aków's important historical monuments. Rebuilt in 1570 by Polish-Ital­ian architect Mateo Gucci with elements of Renaissance and milit­ary architecture added, Old Synagogue is a rare example of a fort­ress synagogue, meant to protect families during a siege. Directly al­ong the synagogue's side is a bit of Kazimierz's original defens­ive walls.

Old Synagogue, 

wiki 

Enclosed by elegant townhouses and Medieval palaces, the square is one of the city’s main meeting points for both locals and tourists, bustling with life. See the picturesque terraces and beautiful horse carr­iages that await their next customer in the Main Market Square.

Directly next to the Sukiennice stands Poland’s most eminent scribe: Adam Mickiewicz, and a huge, striking bronze statue of Polish C19th romantic poet on the square's eastern side. Ironically this much loved bard never visited the city un­til after his death when his remains were transferred to the Wawel Cath­edral crypt, but this didn’t stop the statue from bec­om­ing one of Krak­ów’s best loved monuments.

Citizens used to witness many public events in the square, including royal cer­emonies and public executions. Even now grim tour­ists might want to see the very grim set of metal neck chains dis­played on St Mary’s side door, used to punish philand­ering women. But the worst was during German occup­ation when the square was renamed Adolf Hitler Platz and Nazi rallies attended by Der Führer himself happened.

Kraków’s medieval market square is one of the few places in the city that can chronicle Kraków’s history concisely; from its medieval origins, through its horrid C20th conflicts, to a vibrant modern European city. No wonder its buildings and history made the square a perfect choice for UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1978. Its population is now 770,000.

St Florians Gate

Polish Gothic tower, focal point of Kraków's Old Town.

Polish musician Szpilman/Adrien Brody in The Pianist

Władysław Szpilman (1911-2000) was born in Sosnowiec Poland into a cultured family. He showed an early talent for the piano, training in Warsaw, then in the 1920s continuing in Berlin. In the most exciting art and musical environment anywhere, Weimar Germany, Szpilman studied piano and composition at the Ber­l­in Acad­emy of Arts, working with Franz Schreker. When the Nazis took power in 1933 he returned to his family in Warsaw and worked as a pianist for Polish Radio. By 1939, he had composed many popular songs and classical works, and became quite famous.

Szpilman and his parents pre-war, elegantly dressed

In Your Pocket

This promising musical career was stopped by Germany's invas­ion of Poland, Sept 1939. Szpilman & his family were driven into the War­saw ghetto, along with thousands of other local Jews. To prot­ect them from starvation, Szpilman played piano at Café Nowaczesna Sienna St, a happy gathering place for Nazis, while thous­ands outside were starv­ing. He also worked at other cafés and night­clubs, possible bec­ause Szpil­man had strong connections to many other artists in the ghetto. Ironically Café Nowaczesna had once been frequented by the Jewish elite.

Tragically in mid 1942, when packed deport­ations from the gh­etto began, Szpilman saw his relatives and friends being sent on trucks but managed to keep his immediate family safe. Alas they too were finally put on board for transport to The East, Treblinka. As they were boarding the train, an unknown hand pulled him away to safety, and he watched as his family was sent to the gas chambers.

Jewish families being deported from Warsaw Ghetto

by German soldiers, Yad Vashem

Warsaw deportees put on the cattle cars

by German soldiers, Wiki

Unable to leave the ghetto due to the constant threats, Sz­pilman relied on the kindness of colleagues to live. In the following months, Warsaw was largely destroyed; Szpilman barely survived, moving from destroyed buildings.

After months of a hungry life, it was in winter 1945 that Szpilman met the German officer who saved his life. The film’s cl­osing scenes involved Szpilman's meeting with Capt Wilm Hosenfeld who accidentally found the hiding place.

Once the war ended, Szpilman returned to Polish Radio and to composing. He also gave concert performances as a soloist and mem­ber of chamber ensembles. He stopped touring in 1986 to devote him­self to composing, and died in Warsaw in 2000. By then Szpilman was a very popular musician of post-war Poland. But until his biography was published in German and English, and espec­ially Roman Polanski’s great film, Szpilman was virtually unk­n­own in the West.

Szpilman at Polish Radio after WW2

In Your Pocket

The Pianist (2002) told the true story of acclaimed musician Wl­ad­ys­­law Szpilman, who strugg­led to keep his family alive in WW2 but failed. Directed by Roman Polanski, filmed in Poland and released in 2002, the drama was inspired by the autobiography, The Pianist: Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw 1939-45, and followed the radio station pianist as he went on a terrible journey in the Warsaw Ghetto once it was sealed off in Nov 1940.

 What music was used in The Pianist film? Polanski’s screen adaptation demanded a melancholy soundtrack to match its sombre themes, and no one suited better than Romantic composer, Frédéric Chopin. Approp­riately, Szpilman had often shared his love of Chopin with list­en­ers while working on air, so many of Chopin’s master­­pieces featured in the film, played on the soundtrack album by Polish classical pianist and Chopin Competition winner, Janusz Olejniczak.

Did young American method actor star Adrien Brody really play the piano in The Pianist? Polanski made Brody practise the piano for four hours a day, until he could master passages from some of Chopin’s finest works. Brody also made a lot of personal sacrifices to live the life of the tragic Polish pianist. To embody a man who had lost everything, Brody left his girlfriend and went on a severe diet, losing 14 ks. Despite ha­v­ing very little energy, starving himself to experience the des­per­ation that comes with hun­g­er, Brody persisted with his piano lessons. There was an empti­ness that came with starving that he hadn’t experienced.

actor Adrien Brody, playing piano in the film

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Brody also spent time self-educating on the Holocaust, even though his maternal grandmother was a Hungarian Jew. “I was depressed for a year after The Pianist. And I don’t suffer from depression generally, but this was mourning. I was very dist­urbed by what I embraced in making that film, and of the awareness that it opened up in me. I gave up my apartment, sold my car, dis­con­nected the phones and left. I took two bags and my keyboard and moved to Europe.”

The film won the Palme d’Or at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. At the 2003 Academy Awards, The Pianist won Oscars for Best Director (Roman Polanski), Best Adapted Screenplay (Ronald Harwood) and Best Actor (Adrien Brody), and was nominated for Best Picture.

This was called Roman Polanski’s strongest and most person­ally felt movie, given that as a child Polanski survived the Kraków ghetto and lost beloved family in the camps.