Auschwitz Liberation and so called fake photos

On Jan 27, the liberation of Auschwitz, in Poland, liberated by the Russians, is commemorated. Were the photos of Auschwitz 'fake'. I believe they were the real people, in the real place, taken later. Like wedding photos taken a day later.  They are not 'fake'. The people and clothes and event were real.

In January the camp was filled with snow, says Anne Frank's childhood friend, and posthumous stepsister, Eva.

Fake? That's too strong a word. But this isn't new knowledge as far as I am concerned. When I visited Auschwitz, on the coach we were shown a film and stills. Our multilingual guide told us (the English translation being less detailed and clear than the Polish and German) that during liberation, the surviving children were weak, some too sick to stand, and distressed, and distressing to look at, unable to stand in an orderly group for photos.

The children spent several weeks or months, at first in recovery centres, and with families. Some did not recover for years, if ever. They were too scared to go out in the light, or go into a street with people in uniforms and dogs.

When enough children were physically and mentally healthier, able to travel, fatter and fitter, as shown in these photo, they were taken back to the camp, dressed in the camp uniforms, to be photographed as a group.

Child survivors of Auschwitz, not on the snowy day of Liberation, but, after being taken by their Russian liberators to recuperate, were returned to put their prison clothes on again for a reunion photo commemorating their liberation.

I took this well known photo from Wikipedia.

This was so the Russians could have a record of the people and the place, and the fact that the Russians had liberated it.

So the photos are of children liberated, but not on the day of liberation. The dates are not what you think, if you think that photo of children was taken on the day of liberation.

My understanding is that it was a later re-enactment or reunion celebrating and recording their release.

As for identifying people and place - everything was chaotic. I have enough trouble trying to identify my family photos taken any time earlier than last week. And those old photos from the fifties and forties.

It has taken years of research to date photos, verify the places they were taken, and the people. The archives have lots of real time photos which were not released postwar, because they show the dead and dying. At first some photos and films were released, but it was quickly found that relatives would go to the cinema and see the dead bodies of family members.

This was not only distressing for the relatives who burst into tears, or fainted or screamed, but also caused chaos and upset to everybody in the cinema. Many of the photos are still not released because they are too distressing for people still alive today and their descendants, more so even than for people in general.

On Facebook, my friend Georgia, from Harrow and Harrow Writers, said she was skeptical about articles from the Mail because years ago their attitude was ....

Useful Websites
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-7933509/Anne-Franks-step-sister-claims-photos-showing-liberation-Auschwitz-FAKE.html
Poland
https://www.pot.gov.pl/en/information-about-the-polish-tourism-organisation/polish-tourism-organisation-international-offices
https://poland.pl/tourism/
Krakow
https://www.visitacity.com/en/krakow
https://www.muzeumkrakowa.pl/branches/oskar-schindlers-factory
Auschwitz
https://www.viator.com/Krakow-tourism/d Anne Frank
https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/CAICnOLtC0lDLg?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_victims_and_survivors_of_Auschwitz

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Planning a trip to Vietnam, north or south or both?

Fascinating country. Just as the UK had Boadicea fighting the Romans, and Elizabeth I, Vietnam has its female military heroines, including two sisters.

In modern times the country was split between the communists backed by the Russians in the North, and the American-backed regime in the South.

The Chinese influenced the language before the Roman alphabet was adopted. Also expect to see noodle soup. China is the northern neighbour, which explains the past influence and invasions, as well as the modern business influence and incoming tourists.

The French left behind their breakfast habits of coffee and bread.

The temperature varies from north to south.
Christmas is a good time to go if you don't want the weather too hot, too cold or too wet.

Problems
A What will it cost?
B How long need I go?
C Which sights should be on my list?
D Which ones should be my priority?
E Can I combine my trip with the capital of Cambodia, or Laos?

A One price quotation I saw was for 10 days, about US$1000, per person, sharing, with dinners, not flights from the USA, but includes internal flights. Various extras such airport /country taxes and evening dinners - might be some museum entry fees. Extras for single person room or upgrade of hotel.
B
C The capital, Hanoi. In the North. to east to the coast.
Fly south to
The old capital, Hue.
See the city of lanterns.
Ho Chi Minh City. See the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, big, solid, square; you might see only the outside depending on the time of year.)
The tiny tunnels with narrow entrances, used by the ultra-slim communists invading the South.

The famous rocks in the water -

D Choose your favourites. Mine are:
Crazy House
Bottle Temple

Sources
tripadvisor
vietnam tourist board
wikitravel
wikivoyage

Author
Angela Lansbury

Albanian alphabet and pronunciation and views on life

Story
I met an Albanian at Toastmasters. Smiling and good looking. Always smiling. I like Albanians.

He was a builder. Then I met another man. He was a plumber.

He asked me, "What do you do."

I said, "I am an author, and I teach English, and I'm learning other languages.

I asked the plumber, What's your language."

He said,"It's Albanian."

Hm. For once I was lost for words.

Problem
I don't speak one word of Albanian. He was ahead of me, speaking both Albanian and English, some French, a bit of Greek. He spoke my language fluently. But I was a teacher and could not speak one word of his language.

Answer
I could learn one word from him. I could get a free lesson.

Keep it simple. I asked, "Is it easy to read Albanian, if you speak English? Are the letters the same?"

Tips
"The Albanian alphabet? Yes, the letters are the same. But Albanian has more of them."

That sounds very Alice in Wonderland. I asked, "Please explain."

"The Albanian language has 36 letters, mostly the same as in English, but double letters are counted."

Ch sounds like Russian, looks like Russian, has a cedilla and pronounced ch as in the English word Chance.

SH as in should counts as one letter.

xh - pronounced J as in Jack.
For example:
uncle in English is written in Albanian as - xhaxhi - pronounced judge ee

th - a new letter. "A little th as in thing think, fifth."

dh - "a strong th as in the or this, themselves, leather".

What about sentence structure?

"I am reading a book:
un - i
yam
duke
ledur," says my Albanian friend.

I could not grasp that the first time, let alone remember it. Let's make life easy. I asked, "Which words are the same in both languages?"

"Many Words Are The same:
hotel
taxi
train."

Now, let's try some everyday word,s such as hello and goodbye, and yes and no, and please and thank you.

thank  you - f a l i  m i n d e r e t (sounds longer in Albanian). Sound like Ali but it start f a l i (memory aid for thank you, thank you, Ali, I can't fail FALI; mind / minder / et / tete.
hello
goodbye - l a m t u m i r ë

What does the double dot on the ë mean?
If you click on the sound symbol underneath the word at the bottom of the text box in Google translate you can hear that the ë sound like er, a short version of err.

To type the e with the double dot above, press down the e key on your laptop keyboard; up pops a list of possible accents - see that the one you want is number 4; continue to hold down the e key and with your other hand, your right hand, tap the number four key at the top of the keyboard. Release both fingers and you should see the e with the two dots. If you get an ordinary e, or double ee, you have mistimed it by holding or release one finger. Just try again.

How are you? Ok.
c u ok
mir - ok
t mir - you ok

"You ask about the whole family, your father ok, your mother ok and so on. So you hear, '... mir ... mir ...  mir?' "

They also use OK because they learn English as a second language in school, so no problem speaking to Albanians. They have similar words such as:
stress - stress

What about yes and no?
Yes - po
no - yo

How confusing. Both end with o, and the no starts with a ye like the English yes.

rr (rolled r)
r r u g is road or street

table - same as English and French

Story
My plumber said: "The school teacher of French in Albania made us write everything in French fifty times, but I never learned. If you don't want to learn, you don't learn. It was a communist time and we thought, 'we are never going to use it, so why waste the time?'

"I don't know why they taught it. You would be classed as a traitor if you said anything about foreigners. It was a communist country for forty years. You were scared to say anything. People got sent to prison.

"Now it's a democratic country. You can do anything. Learn anything. Since 1989. We changed then. 1985 or four, I don't remember exactly, the emperor, died. He was a friend of Lenin, Stalin, Tito of Yugoslavia. He was one of them, communist countries, all influenced by Russia or China.

"Now we have no influence from Russia. We don't get on with the Russians.

"We are run by Tony Blair."

What do you mean by that?

"He set the rules for us. The rules, and the borders we use now, were influenced by him.

"Albania is such a small country but an interest for everybody. It's bang slap in the middle of Europe.

"Tony Blair saved the Kosovans from getting slaughtered.  He sent the troops to stop the Serbians - or  rather the European Union, NATO, he sent them to stop the Serbs. In the mix he killed a lot of innocent people, too, but the idea was to stop the Serbs. And they did.

"Greeks, Serbs, they are still with Russia. That's the way it goes in Europe. Greeks and Serbs, friends with Russia. Cos the Greeks are scared of Turks. So they always keep friends with Russia."

"Why didn't you learn Russian at school?"

"Some other schools learned Russian. Other schools had different things. The year I was in school they just started, in around those years when we started to break off, 1986 or 97. I left home when I was 13 to work in Greece. We had no choice. In a communist country we had nothing."

"They controlled everything. They took the land off us. They give us each three thousand square metres as a home owner.

"You were not allowed more than one cow. If you had a second cow, they would take it away.

"You had to work for them. You could have potatoes, small things. They would sell you bread. You have to work for peanuts to buy bread from them. A very strict regime."

"Who benefited?"

"The government. They don't want you to be rich in any kind of sense. They want to control  you. We keep you fed, enough to survive, and that's it.

"If you said something against the leader, you'll be in prison next day. You have spies. Loads of spies. You never knew who was a spy. But if you said something, you would be in prison next day. Even in your extended family, you could not trust anybody. There must have been money involved, something involved. For me the regime was very bad. They never let you thrive. They want to lock you in a cupboard and this is what you are going to do."

One man's view.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, teacher of English and learner of languages.
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