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Charles Coward
Charles Joseph Coward (30 January 1905 – 1976), known as the "Count of Auschwitz", was a British soldier captured during the Second World War who rescued Jews from Auschwitz and claimed he had smuggled himself into the camp for one night, subsequently testifying about his experience at the IG Farben Trial at Nuremberg. He also smuggled at least several hundred Jewish prisoners out of concentration camps. Biography Coward joined the Army in June 1924 and was captured in May 1940 near Calais while serving with the 8th Reserve Regimental Royal Artillery as BQMS, Battery Quartermaster Sergeant. He managed to make two escape attempts before even reaching a prisoner of war camp, then made seven further escapes; on one memorable occasion managing to be awarded the Iron Cross while posing as a wounded soldier in a German Army field hospital. When in captivity he was equally troublesome to his captors, arranging several acts of sabotage while out on work details. Finally in December 194 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Password Is Courage
''The Password Is Courage'' is a 1962 British comedy-drama war film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, based on John Castle's 1954 World War II memoir of the same name. Written, produced, and directed by Andrew L. Stone, the film stars Dirk Bogarde, Maria Perschy, and Alfred Lynch. It is a lighthearted take on the true story of Sergeant-Major Charles Coward, written under the pseudonym John Castle by Ronald Charles Payne and John Williams Garrod. Plot Sergeant-Major Charles Coward (Dirk Bogarde) is a senior British NCO incarcerated in the prisoner of war camp Stalag VIII-B. He encourages his fellow inmates to escape, and tries to humiliate the German guards at every opportunity. When he was being transferred to Stalag VIII-B, the injured Coward escaped from a forced POW march, finding refuge in a French farmhouse and barn that is soon requisitioned by a German army unit needing to set up a field hospital. Inadvertently thought to be a wounded German soldier, Coward is taken to a hospit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IG Farben
Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate (company), conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies—BASF, Bayer, Hoechst AG, Hoechst, Agfa-Gevaert, Agfa, Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron, and Weiler-ter-Meer, Chemische Fabrik vorm. Weiler Ter Meer—it was seized by the Allies after World War II and divided back into its constituent companies. IG Farben was once the largest company in Europe and the largest chemical and pharmaceutical company in the world. IG Farben scientists made fundamental contributions to all areas of chemistry and the pharmaceutical industry. Otto Bayer discovered the polyaddition for the synthesis of polyurethane in 1937, and three company scientists became List of Nobel laureates, Nobel laureates: Carl Bosch and Friedrich Bergius in 1931 "for their contributions to the invention and development of chemical high pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The March (1945)
"The March" refers to a series of forced marches during the final stages of the Second World War in Europe. From a total of 257,000 Allies of World War II, western Allied prisoner of war, prisoners of war held in Germany, German military prison camps, over 80,000 POWs were forced to march westward across Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany in extreme winter conditions, over about four months between January and April 1945. This series of events has been called various names: "The Great March West", "The Long March", "The Long Walk", "The Long Trek", "The Black March", "The Bread March", and "Death March Across Germany", but most survivors just called it "The March". As the Soviet Army was advancing on the Eastern front (World War II), Eastern front, German authorities decided to evacuate POW camps, to delay liberation of the prisoners. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of German civilian refugees, most of them women and children, as well as civilians of other nationalities, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Łambinowice
Łambinowice (german: Lamsdorf) is a village in Nysa County, Opole Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Łambinowice. It lies approximately north-east of Nysa and south-west of the regional capital Opole. Łambinowice was the location of ''Camp Lamsdorf'' which served as a prisoner of war camp during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, and First as well as Second World Wars. When the area became Polish, the camp was maintained as ''Camp Łambinowice'' and served as a forced labour and resettlement camp for Germans. Village First mentioned under the name of Lambinowicz in 1273, the town shared the fate of the Upper Silesia and the land of Opole throughout the ages. Much damaged by the wars of the 17th century, most notably the Thirty Years' War, it lost much of its meaning as a centre of commerce and was reduced to but a small village. Camp German Empire In 1864 a large military training ground was establis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.5 million, making it the 22nd most densely populated country in the world and the 6th most densely populated country in Europe, with a density of . Belgium is part of an area known as the Low Countries, historically a somewhat larger region than the Benelux group of states, as it also included parts of northern France. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi, Liège, Bruges, Namur, and Leuven. Belgium is a sovereign state and a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. Its institutional organization is complex and is structured on both regional ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Cross Parcel
Red Cross parcel refers to packages containing mostly food, tobacco and personal hygiene items sent by the International Association of the Red Cross to prisoners of war during the First and Second World Wars, as well as at other times. It can also refer to medical parcels and so-called "release parcels" provided during World War II. The Red Cross arranged them in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention of 1929. During World War II these packages augmented the often-meager and deficient diets in the POW camps, contributing greatly to prisoner survival and an increase in morale. Modern Red Cross food parcels provide basic food and sanitary needs for persons affected by natural disasters, wars, political upheavals or similar events. More recent catastrophes involving delivery of Red Cross parcels include events in Georgia, Thailand and Great Britain. World War I The Australian Red Cross reported dispatching a total of 395,695 food parcels and 36,339 clothing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Committee Of The Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signatories) to the Geneva Convention of 1949 and its Additional Protocols of 1977 ( Protocol I, Protocol II) and 2005 have given the ICRC a mandate to protect victims of international and internal armed conflicts. Such victims include war wounded persons, prisoners, refugees, civilians, and other non-combatants. The ICRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, along with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and 192 National Societies. It is the oldest and most honoured organization within the movement and one of the most widely recognized organizations in the world, having won three Nobel Peace Prizes (in 1917, 1944, and 1963). History Solferino, Henry Dunant and the foundat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Language
German ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and Official language, official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italy, Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a co-official language of Luxembourg and German-speaking Community of Belgium, Belgium, as well as a national language in Namibia. Outside Germany, it is also spoken by German communities in France (Bas-Rhin), Czech Republic (North Bohemia), Poland (Upper Silesia), Slovakia (Bratislava Region), and Hungary (Sopron). German is most similar to other languages within the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch language, Dutch, English language, English, the Frisian languages, Low German, Luxembourgish, Scots language, Scots, and Yiddish. It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic languages, North Germanic group, such as Danish lan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stalag VIII-B
Stalag VIII-B was a German Army prisoner-of-war camp during World War II, later renumbered Stalag-344, located near the village of Lamsdorf (now Łambinowice) in Silesia. The camp initially occupied barracks built to house British and French prisoners in World War I. At this same location there had been a prisoner camp during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Timeline In the 1860s, the Prussian Army established a training area for artillery at a wooded area near Lamsdorf, a small village connected by rail to Opole and Nysa. During the Franco-Prussian War, a camp for French prisoners of war was established here, which housed some 3000 French POW's. During the First World War, a much larger POW camp was established here with some 90,000 soldiers of various nationalities interned here. After the treaty of Versailles, the camp was closed down. It was reopened in 1939 to house Polish prisoners from the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939. Lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Occupied Europe
German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 and 1945, during and shortly before World War II, generally administered by the Nazi regime, under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.Encyclopædia Britannica German occupied Europe.World War II. Retrieved 1 September 2015 from the Internet Archive. The German Wehrmacht occupied European territory: * as far east as the town of Mozdok in the North Caucasus in the Soviet Union (1942–1943) * as far north as the settlement of Barentsburg in Svalbard in the Kingdom of Norway * as far south as the island of Gavdos in the Kingdom of Greece * as far west as the island of Ushant in the French Republic Outside of Europe proper, German forces effectively controlled areas of North Africa in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia at times between 1941 and 1943. Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forced Labour
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of extreme hardship to either themselves or members of their families. Unfree labour includes all forms of slavery, penal labour and the corresponding institutions, such as debt slavery, serfdom, corvée and labour camps. Definition Many forms of unfree labour are also covered by the term forced labour, which is defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO) as all involuntary work or service exacted under the menace of a penalty. However, under the ILO Forced Labour Convention of 1930, the term forced or compulsory labour does not include: *"any work or service exacted in virtue of compulsory military service laws for work of a purely military character;" *"any work or service which forms part of the normal civic obligations of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
