Good News story about the Successful Campaign for Car Boot (trunk) Security

I read about the couple who were locked in the boot of their car. 

Afterwards it took a long campaign to persuade manufacturers that it was both desirable to install a luminous escape device, and affordable for the car manufacturers.

The trunk release for escape is luminous so it can be seen in the dark.

Next Safety Warning Needed

Now it's time for campaigns to install warning devices when babies children, adults or pets are locked in cards in the heat, left unattended and apparently forgotten for hours. This should happen to new cars in 2025. (see next post).

You might have a car from before then.

Suggestions include

Leave your phone or shoe beside the baby or child which you will take with you.

Set an alarm on your watch if leaving a baby or child in the car for just five minutes. Then if you are distracted, you will be reminded to return on time. 

Offload the baby into its carrycot indoors, ideally into the charge of a trusted adult, before fetching the luggage. 

Send a photo of the baby in the car to next of kin if leaving the baby for a few seconds, eg at a garage, so if you fell ill or were abducted your family would be alerted to rescue the baby.

Lock the car at a garage (called gas station in the USA) and take the key, so nobody can leap into the driving seat and drive off with the baby.

Before locking and leaving a car, always look all around your car for forgotten babies, pets, bags, jackets, valuables. 

Do not leave empty bags and jackets in cars. You may know that there is nothing valuable in your bag or jacket. But a thief in a hurry does not know that until after they have driven off or smashed the window to grab it. .At that moment they might be enraged with disappointment and damage the car or threaten you or the car occupant.

Let's end this good news story on a happy note. My favourite karma story is about the would be thief who opened a car boot and was confronted by a hiding terrorist with a machine gun.

Useful Websites

https://www.wikihow.com/Escape-From-the-Trunk-of-a-Car

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13604819/family-carjacked-gunpoint-locked-trunk-save-lives.html

https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/rear-occupant-alert/

Please share links to your favoutie posts.

They fought back! Account of the Ecape From Sobibor: the books, films and research into Every Name Counts!

Sobibor, mother and child statue.

 I bought a book on the escape from Sobibor. I saw the film. (Americans say movie.) Now I find that Wikipedia has a completely detailed account of the organization of the escape and chief people concerned.

I then discovered a Facebook page. Finally, I found Every Name Counts, a project inviting students and adults to help recording victims' names from documents in archives.

Useful Websites

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

http://www.sobibor-memorial.eu/pl

https://www.facebook.com/Majdanek.Memorial

https://arolsen-archives.org/en/learn-participate/exhibitions-campaigns/everynamecounts/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nazi_concentration_camps_by_name

From the wiki article on Sobibor

Further reading

• Bialowitz, Philip; Bialowitz, Joseph (2010). A Promise at Sobibór. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-24800-0.
• Blatt, Thomas (1997). From the Ashes of Sobibor: A Story of Survival. Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0-8101-1302-2.
• Freiberg, Dov (2007). To Survive Sobibor. Gefen Publishing House. ISBN 978-965-229-388-6.
• Novitch, Miriam (1980). Sobibor, Martyrdom and Revolt: Documents and Testimonies. Holocaust Library. ISBN 0-89604-016-X.
• Ticho, Kurt (2008). My Legacy: Holocaust, History and the Unfinished Task of Pope John Paul II. Muzeum Pojezierza Łęczyńsko-Włodawskiego. ISBN 9788361393207.
• Zielinski, Andrew (2003). Conversations with Regina. Hyde Park Press. ISBN 0-9750766-0-4.
• Walsh, Ann Markham (2016). Dancing Through Darkness. Cable Publishing. ISBN 978-1-934980-07-1.
• Wewryk, Kalmen (2008). To Sobibor and Back: An Eyewitness Account. Muzeum Pojezierza Łęczyńsko-Włodawskiego. ISBN 9788361393160.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sobibór extermination camp.

• Stichting Sobibor, the Dutch Sobibor Foundation
• Collection of interviews , from NIOD
• Sobibor Museum
• Nooit Voltooid Verleden Archaeological and testimonial documents
• Sobibor entry at the Holocaust Research Project
• Kurt Ticho testimony
• Toivi Blatt testimony
• Esther Raab testimony

• Liberation of Auschwitz - 60th Anniversary (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
• Holocaust Encyclopedia - Auschwitz (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
• Virtual Reality panoramas of Auschwitz and Birkenau (Interactive Virtual Reality panoramas of Auschwitz and Birkenau)

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is teacher of English. (Advanced English and English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language, French and other languages, an aspiring polyglot.)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Member of many toastmasters  speaker training clubs, and speaking contest judge.

Angela Lansbury, the author of 20 books including Wedding Speeches & Toasts, and Quick Quotations, has lived in the USA, Spain and Singapore. 

She  has several blogs and writes daily on at least two of the following:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

Holiday Reading - Comedy, Tragedy, Tragic-Comedy Or Fun Fiction - packing books, suggestions

Problem
What do you read about the country before you go there? On holiday? When delayed at the airport? On the beach?

Why Misery Memoirs?
A misery memoir, which makes you find your delays and inconveniences pale by comparison?

Write A Novel
In November you can sign up to write your own novel. (Maybe faction - fact turned into fiction to protect you from libel action by your nearest and dearest!

A Good Story
I just reminded my neighbours of the time they took in an umbrella I had delivered, thinking it was a free gift from a catalogue company. Now they say they have no recall of this incident. Luckily we are all on good terms. They just grin and say, "No recollection of this - but it's a great story!")

Prison Memoirs
I like to read true stories. Ideally with a happy end.

However, other people like drama, horror stories, read about the 'Bangkok Hilton' - prison. I frown. Unless you are planning to risk ending up in prison, why subject yourself to such miserable reading!

I must admit, I have read three prison memoirs. They make rivetting reading. They make me think about not carrying anything for anybody else.

Refusing Parcels
I suppose it's a warning not to ever take a parcel for anybody else. I was asked to take a parcel on a ferry by a stranger.  No way. A nuisance. A stress. A danger. I told her to give it to the ferry staff.

Then, good friends ask my family to bring over items from shops.

If you do take a parcel, insist that it is unwrapped because it is going to be unwrapped by the customs officers anyway. And insist that the person who gave it to you puts their name and instructions on it including their signature e.g. wedding gift from John Brown to Auntie Mabel.

How do you refuse? Say you are already overweight. Tell them you are unsure of your direction and time or travel and to send their parcel by air, tracked, instead.

Carrying Books
To save delays, open all wrapped goods, such as those sent by Amazon and carried along with you. Re-seal them so they don't fall apart and are protected, but can be quickly inspected.

Cover paperback books with protective covers, preferably waterproof covers or ziplock bags so your water does not spill onto them.

What do you want to read?
Here's a list I made at Writers' Summer School when I attended an excellent course run by Paul Dodgson at The Hayes, Swanwick, Derbyshire:

Other People’s Houses Core Segal (Kindertransport siblings).

Into the Arms of Strangers.

Writing Autobiography by Laurie Lee

Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall

A million little pieces by James Frey

Clive James Unreliable Memoirs

Jan Morris Conundrum

Beach books
Pick your own comedy or chick lit.

Misery Memoirs
Bad Blood by Lorna Sage.
(My book group read this. The book group organizer said, "A misery memoir - but funny!"

Evocation of The past
Rosie by Rose Tremain.
I read an extract. Not enough action for me. But others like the picture of the past.

Prison And Prison Escape Books
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/apr/11/books-behind-bars-five-best-stories-prison-life-alan-sillitoe-erwin-james

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

How to escape from moving cars, or when trapped in public places, and get rescued after accidents

Problem
You are in a car.
The driver goes off the route planned, or down an unlit remote road, or locks the doors or refuses to stop. How do you get out?

Consider these options and consider which is safest for you in the circumstances.

1 Try to get the driver to stop voluntarily. Say you need the toilet or feel sick.

2 In a public place, pass a note saying call police to the cashier.

3 Know your own car, how to open the boot from inside. If locked in the boot, open the boot from inside. If you do it when parked, you can try to get out. If you are moving, open the lid. The driver won't necessarily know you have done it. Try to attract attention or write a sign, help, call police.

4 If you are in the passenger seat, grab the wheel suddenly to make the car steer off the road where people can see you. People will immediately rush to help to see if anybody is injured.

5 When you have a companion (eg if you were hitch-hiking in a pair, or have broken down vehicle and plan to accept a lift) plan some coded phrases which mean:
I don't trust this person
Let's pretend we have an appointment and need to get out.
Let's run, forwards.
Let's run, backwards.
Let's run to the right.
Let's run to the left.
Let's run in opposite directions so one of us can get help for the other.

6 Don't let children go back to the car in a car park to fetch something alone. At the very least, walk as far as the start of the car park and watch from a distance. Take your camera in case you need to photograph another car or person. Give them a phone and keep yours so you can speak to them and warn them if someobody is following them or too near them.

7 Photograph the number plate of a car before you get into it and email your photo home. Then even if your phone is taken the photo is on your system.

8 If possible, before getting into a vehicle, even the car of a friend of a friend, a friend, a relative, a friend's father, take a photo of the car driver, with or without their knowledge.

9 Photograph your route. If you disappear, either because you were attacked, or your car accidentally veered off the road, searchers will know your direction of travel. This could make all the difference to rescuers finding you fast.

10 Find my phone can also be used to find a missing person.

I have an earlier post about a book which advises on how to avoid kidnap and escape.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.