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Michael Wieck
Michael Wieck (19 July 1928 – 27 February 2021) was a German violinist and author. Wieck's memoir, ''Zeugnis vom Untergang Königsbergs'' (Witness to the fall of Königsberg), was published in 1989. In it he relates his and his partly Jewish family's sufferings under the Nazis and, after the German defeat, under the Soviets. This moving story was translated into English in 2003 under the title ''A Childhood Under Hitler and Stalin: Memoirs of a "Certified Jew"'', and in 2004 into Russian as ''Закат Кёнигсберга'' (Sunset of Königsberg). A revised Russian edition was published in 2015. Biography Wieck was born in Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He was the son of two Königsberg musicians who were widely known before the Nazi era, Kurt Wieck and Hedwig Wieck-Hulisch. They were founders of the popular Königsberger Streichquartett (Königsberg String Quartet). Wieck was a grand-nephew of Clara Schumann (née Wieck). After con ...
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Violin
The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regular use. The violin typically has four strings (some can have five), usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings. It can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and, in specialized cases, by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow (col legno). Violins are important instruments in a wide variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical tradition, both in ensembles (from chamber music to orchestras) and as solo instruments. Violins are also important in many varieties of folk music, including country music, bluegrass music, and in jazz. Electric violins with solid bodies and piezoelectri ...
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Kindertransport
The ''Kindertransport'' (German for "children's transport") was an organised rescue effort of children (but not their parents) from Nazi-controlled territory that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzig. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools, and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust. The programme was supported, publicised, and encouraged by the British government. Importantly the British government waived the visa immigration requirements that were not within the ability of the British Jewish community to fulfil. The British government put no number limit on the programme – it was the start of the Second World War that brought it to an end, at which time about 10,000 kindertransport children had been brought to ...
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Rothenstein (Königsberg)
Rothenstein was first a suburb of and then a quarter of northeastern Königsberg, Germany. Its territory is now part of the Leningradsky District of Kaliningrad, Russia. Rothenstein was located northeast of the Oberteich. It was connected to Maraunenhof by the road Cranzer Allee and to Kummerau by Rothensteiner Straße. A retirement and nursing home opened in Rothenstein in 1914. A munitions explosion at Rothenstein's munitions factory caused the death of 200 workers on 10 April 1920; Friedrich Lahrs and Stanislaus Cauer designed a memorial in the nearby Gemeindefriedhof cemetery to honor the victims. The architect Kurt Frick developed the housing development Siedlung Rothenstein after his return to Königsberg in 1921. Rothenstein was incorporated into the city of Königsberg by 1927. After the Soviet capture of Königsberg during World War II, the NKVD established an internment camp in Rothenstein. Michael Wieck Michael Wieck (19 July 1928 – 27 February 2021) was a Ger ...
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Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in charge of the Soviet network of forced labour camps which were set up by order of Vladimir Lenin, reaching its peak during Joseph Stalin's rule from the 1930s to the early 1950s. English-language speakers also use the word ''gulag'' in reference to each of the forced-labor camps that existed in the Soviet Union, including the camps that existed in the post-Lenin era. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. The camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, a large number of whom were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas or other instruments of extrajudicial punishment. In 1918–22, the agency was administered by the Cheka, follow ...
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Battle Of Königsberg
The Battle of Königsberg, also known as the Königsberg offensive, was one of the last operations of the East Prussian offensive during World War II. In four days of urban warfare, Soviet forces of the 1st Baltic Front and the 3rd Belorussian Front captured the city of Königsberg, present day Kaliningrad, Russia. The siege started in late January 1945 when the Soviets initially surrounded the city. Heavy fighting took place for control of overland connection between Königsberg and the port of Pillau, however by March 1945 Königsberg was hundreds of kilometres behind the main front line in the eastern front. The battle ended when the German garrison surrendered to the Soviets on 9 April after a three-day assault made their position untenable. Beginning The East Prussian offensive was planned by the Soviet Stavka to prevent flank attacks on the armies rushing towards Berlin. Indeed, East Prussia held numerous troops that could be used for this. During initial Stavka plann ...
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Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established in January 1918. The Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations (especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army) of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. Starting in February 1946, the Red Army, along with the Soviet Navy, embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces; taking the official name of "Soviet Army", until its dissolution in 1991. The Red Army provided the largest land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II, and its invasion of Manchuria assisted the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan. During operations on the Eastern Front, it accounted for 75–80% of cas ...
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Königsberg Cathedral
, infobox_width = , image = Kaliningrad 05-2017 img04 Kant Island.jpg , image_size = , alt = , caption = Front (west side) of the cathedral , map_type = , map_size = , map_caption = , location = Kneiphof, Kaliningrad, Russia , geo = , latitude = , longitude = , religious_affiliation = Lutheran, Catholic Russian Orthodox , rite = , region = , state = , province = , territory = , prefecture = , sector = , district = , cercle = , municipality = , consecration_year = , status = Cathedral , functional_status = Former , heritage_designation = , leadership = , website = , architecture = yes , architect ...
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Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Following the Allied victory over the Central Powers in 1918, the RAF emerged as the largest air force in the world at the time. Since its formation, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history. In particular, it played a large part in the Second World War where it fought its most famous campaign, the Battle of Britain. The RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence (MOD), which are to "provide the capabilities needed to ensure the security and defence of the United Kingdom and overseas territories, including against terrorism; to support the Government's foreign policy objectives particularly in promoting international peace and security". ...
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Bombing Of Königsberg In World War II
The bombing of Königsberg was a series of attacks made on the city of Königsberg in East Prussia during World War II. The Soviet Air Force had made several raids on the city since 1941. Extensive attacks carried out by RAF Bomber Command destroyed most of the city's historic quarters in the summer of 1944. Königsberg was also heavily bombed during the Battle of Königsberg, in the final weeks of the war. With the aim of retaliation for German airstrikes on the capital of the USSR, Moscow in 1941, Joseph Stalin ordered the Soviet Air Force to bomb Königsberg. Eleven Pe-8 bombers attacked the city on 1 September 1941. The Soviets did not lose a single bomber in the raid. The Soviet Air Force bombed the city again on 26 July 1942, 27 August 1942 and 15 July 1943. On the night of 28 April 1943, a bomber dropped an 11,000-pounder on the city's area, the largest bomb in the Soviet inventory. No. 5 Group carried out the first RAF attack on Königsberg on the night of 26/27 Augu ...
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History Of Jews In Königsberg
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. History is not complete and still has debatable mysteries. History is also an Discipline (academia), academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the historiography, nature of history as an end in ...
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The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through labor in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland. Germany implemented the persecution in stages. Following Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor on 30 January 1933, the regime built a network of concentration camps in Germany for political opponents and those deemed "undesirable", starting with Dachau on 22 March 1933. After the passing of the Enabling Act on 24 March, which gave Hitler dictatorial plenary powers, the government began i ...
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Anti-miscegenation Laws
Anti-miscegenation laws or miscegenation laws are laws that enforce racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races. Anti-miscegenation laws were first introduced in North America from the late seventeenth century onwards by several of the Thirteen Colonies, and subsequently, by many U.S. states and U.S. territories and remained in force in many US states until 1967. After the Second World War, an increasing number of states repealed their anti-miscegenation laws. In 1967, in landmark case ''Loving v. Virginia'', the remaining anti-miscegenation laws were held to be unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren. Similar laws were also enforced in Nazi Germany as part of the Nuremberg Laws which were passed in 1935, and in South Africa as part of the system of apartheid which was passed in 1948. In the United States, interracial ...
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