We met long time friends in Berkeley Wednesday at the Magnes Collection. While looking at the pictures in the current exhibit, I couldn't help but think about Gaza and Ukraine.
The photographer was:
"Roman Vishniac (1897–1990), a Russian-Jewish modernist photographer, [who] lived and worked in Berlin from 1920 to 1939. On the eve of the Second World War, he extensively documented Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe. After fleeing Nazi Germany, he found safety in New York City and became a US citizen in 1946. The Roman Vishniac Archive, which The Magnes acquired in 2018, also includes thousands of photographs taken after World War II in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East." [From the Exhibit and also the Magnes Collection website]
Some of the pre-war pictures were up, but the main exhibit was of pictures Vishniac took in Berlin in 1947. That's two years after the war in Germany ended. Much of the debris has been swept up and carted away, though some still likes in piles. People walk, seemingly calmly, in front of bombed out buildings.
Berlin and Dresden were both bombed heavily in WWII by the US and British air forces.
"On February 15–16, important war industries were hit, including the large Siemensstadt area, with the centre and south-western districts sustaining most of the damage. This was the largest raid by the RAF on Berlin. Raids continued until March 1944.[25][26][27]These raids caused immense devastation and loss of life in Berlin. The November 22, 1943 raid killed 2,000 Berliners and rendered 175,000 homeless. The following night, 1,000 were killed and 100,000 made homeless. During December and January regular raids killed hundreds of people each night and rendered between 20,000 and 80,000 homeless each time.[28] Overall nearly 4,000 were killed, 10,000 injured and 450,000 made homeless.[29]"
"The bombing of Dresden was a joint British and American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 772 heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city.[3] The bombing and the resulting firestorm destroyed more than 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) of the city centre.[4] Up to 25,000 people were killed.[1][2][a] Three more USAAF air raids followed, two occurring on 2 March aimed at the city's railway marshalling yard and one smaller raid on 17 April aimed at industrial areas."
We could add to this the atomic bomb in Japan, and stories about Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. There were/are battles and massacres in the former Yugoslavia, in various parts of Africa, in South America.
The United Nations was supposed to help end such wars, but it's structured so that the large powers have veto power over crucial decisions. Certainly the arms dealers play a huge role in all these wars, though there were wars before capitalist corporations took over the technology of killing.
We also have to figure out how and why psychopaths find their way to power and control of militaries and the budgets to arm them. Is there a way to overcome this?
Is all this simply embedded in our DNA?
[This post fits into the series I'm doing on the Israeli-Gaza war, though it's not part of 'plan' I had for those posts. You can link to those posts at the Israel-Gaza war tab just below the orange header above. Here's the same link.]
Jakob here. You asked: 'Is all this simply embedded in our DNA?' Your answer might be found in the delight you mentioned of your grand-children to a visit to the USS Pampanito...
ReplyDeleteI know that I've grown to resist all means to war, but as a child, I knew all the stats of German WWI air aces (while a friend knew those of the Allies). I read military histories, the great (and not-so-great) campaigns and military exploits in Near-Asian civilisations.
As a young man, and now still as an older adult, I came to philosophy, history, the arts and the humanities. It took 'growing up'. Maybe too many of us simply don't.
Congratulations - you got an actual name, not just anonymous. The sub visit may have been a factor that reinforces the idea of war, but they did seem more interested in the idea of how all those men fit in there, how they slept in rotation, and the showers. Not sure the idea of the sub being a weapon of war was something they thought about.
DeleteYes. I loved 'readiness for war' stuff when I was young and I still brush up on armaments now, and your grand-kids are just fine. As to my name, I type it each time here and as of this week, Jakob is my British passport name!
ReplyDeleteI'll say a bit about our lives here as I figure some readers might know us. I found close relations of my paternal grandfather in Norway this past year. We visited and we're going back to see eveyone & other cousins in Sweden. Then, off to a HUGE choir festival in Lithuania, and to see some friends there.
Another bit of an update: Our decision to move to (northern) Ireland was a very good one. Much happier living here. One can live in the wrong place. Good to be living among people who understand and agree the need of Palestinians to re-establish their homeland.
But that's another topic, isn't it? Best to you and all there in snowy Alaska.