It's About Coalitions Not Purity, Part Twenty

First published in November 2012


I will use "George Bush (Sr.)," or just, "George Bush," rather than George H.W. Bush.

George Bush came to the presidency with much, but not all, of the Reagan coalition intact. There was little inkling of the world-changing events that would take place within just a short time in Bush's presidency. Mikhail Gorbachev's liberal reforms in the Soviet Union gave hope to the people of the communist-run states of eastern Europe for reforms in their countries too. With Bush in office just a few months, protests in China took place, with large crowds gathering in the capital of Beijing, in Tiananmen Square. A visit to China by Gorbachev only added to the obvious desire of people in communist countries to have more freedom, as reporters worldwide reported on his visit. This stirred the people of eastern Europe and the Chinese protesters. The gatherings and protests continued, and the Chinese leaders declared martial law, but troops dispatched to various locations were blocked by huge crowds of protesters and the army forces withdrew. The government then decided to use force to restore its hold on the country. Large numbers of troops were sent and protesters again tried to block their deployment, but this time troops, often in armored vehicles, opened fire, prompting a violent response from some protesters. Eventually the troops and the Chinese government regained control and the square was cleared. In the next few days protests elsewhere in China subsided. While actual figures are unknown, apparently hundreds of protesters were killed, with many more wounded, and government forces seem to have suffered something near fifty deaths.*

Meanwhile in Poland in 1989, the Solidarity Movement was legalized and a system of somewhat competitive elections was set up. Solidarity won an overwhelming victory. The Soviet Union of Gorbachev made no move. Within about a year Poland had shifted from a communist nation to a free nation. Similar happened in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and East Germany, where German citizens literally began to tear down the wall that had been put up in the early 1960s by the communists to stop the loss of population to (then) West Germany.** In Rumania matters were more confrontational for a time, and some protesters were killed, but eventually the army joined the revolution and the communist government was overthrown. Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife were quickly tried by the army and executed. By 1990 the Soviet Union itself began to come apart, as its various components began to split off. By late 1991, the Soviet Union was no more.

George Bush and his administration offered public support to protesters during all of these historic times, but the President also kept the United States out of direct intervention, and there was no talk of "boots on the ground," although Bush, the U.S. and its allies were more involved in the Middle East at that time. Bush and Gorbachev worked together to reconcile the former opponents.

Next... "Bush's Popularity Soars, Then Plummets"  

* I was in Germany when the violent outbreak occurred, staying in, get this, a Chinese government-owned hotel in downtown Frankfurt (on Niddastrasse). The German manager and I had been friends for several years, dating back to when he managed a different hotel right down the street from the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) in downtown Frankfurt. The anxiety among the Chinese employees and guests at the hotel was evident and the faxes were flying fast and furious between Frankfurt and China, as they tried to get information on their loved ones at home.

** As already mentioned, I was in Germany around mid 1989, and if someone, including the relatives I visited, had told me that East and West Germany would be on their way to reunification in a matter of months, I'd have asked, "Seid ihr verrückt geworden?" ("Have you gone crazy?")

WORD HISTORY:
Gulf-The ultimate origins of this word are uncertain, but it goes back to Greek "kolpos," the original notion of which was "bent, curved," which then led to the additional meaning "bosom," and thus to the meaning "water surface between curved land area;" that is, "gulf." Latin borrowed the word from Greek as "colfos" with that meaning, and Old French, a Latin-based language, had "golfe." English borrowed the word from French in the 1300s and it has since taken on the extended meaning, "gap," often in reference to ideas, as in "The gulf between the two countries for an agreement was wide."  

History of Ghettos, Part Three/Final

No series of three articles can cover such an extensive subject as the history of ghettos, and no single article can begin to cover the terrible confinement of Europe's Jews in ghettos by the Nazis during World War Two. By the time World War Two started in September 1939, Germany, which included Austria since March 1938, had seen its Jewish population decline since Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, as many Jews had emigrated. Those who hadn't left were soon to experience an even worse nightmare of Nazi rule. Unfortunately too, some Jews who had left Germany simply crossed nearby borders into countries soon to be overrun by Hitler's armies, which were then followed by Heinrich Himmler's SS units. The Nazi and Soviet conquest of Poland* gave Germany nearly half of Poland, including many Polish Jews, but a part of Poland's substantial Jewish population remained out of Nazi control in Soviet occupied eastern Poland. That all changed beginning in late June 1941, as Hitler sent his forces against his former Soviet ally. Hitler's armies achieved multiple penetrations of Soviet lines and quickly captured the Soviet-occupied part of Poland. Not only that, many Jews lived in the western areas of the Soviet Union, including Lithuania, White Russia, and the western Ukraine, all areas brought under Nazi domination.

With millions of Jews now under their control, the Nazi leaders forced Jews into numerous ghettos, often in Poland, or in other eastern European areas. A section of Warsaw was the largest Nazi-created Jewish ghetto in Europe, being established in late 1940; that is, well before Hitler launched his attack on the Soviet Union. This ghetto contained some 400,000 Jews, but occupied an area of less than one and a half square miles. The internal affairs of the ghetto were under a Jewish Council (German: "Judenrat"), and Jewish leaders, for a time, tried to cooperate with Nazi officials, and a whole system of Jewish administration was set up, including the operation of hospitals, schools, and music performances. To add to the terrible congestion, some Gypsies were also sent into the ghetto. Gypsies were another group targeted by the insane and evil Nazi racial theories. Food was chronically in short supply and disease was rampant, with many thousands of people dying within the ghetto. Perhaps as many a quarter of a million ghetto inhabitants were sent to and murdered in the infamous Treblinka extermination camp during 1942.** As the remaining Jews learned from Polish and Jewish Resistance fighters the fate of the former inhabitants of the ghetto, they chose to fight. Various weapons were smuggled into the ghetto by the Resistance, and during the first part of 1943 Jewish resistance to the Nazis intensified, but the Nazis had all of the firepower, and the "Warsaw Uprising" ended with thousands dead, and tens of thousands sent to be murdered in nearby Nazi extermination camps. The area of the ghetto was essentially leveled.

The Polish city of Lodz lies about 85 miles southwest of Warsaw. It was in an area of Poland that was annexed to Germany by Hitler after the conquest of Poland. It was then renamed "Litzmannstadt" by the Nazis.*** The city contained more than 200,000 Jews, besides a substantial Polish majority, and a relatively small German minority. The Nazis erected a fence with barbed wire around a portion of the city in the spring of 1940, sealing off the area, thus beginning the actual "Lodz Ghetto," with between 150,000 and 175,000 Jews and some Gypsies. Similar to Warsaw, a Jewish Council ruled the ghetto, and in Lodz, the leader of the council cooperated with the Nazis, even manufacturing goods for Hitler's armies. The council administered the ghetto, enforcing  its policies with its own Jewish police force.**** With Jews working long hours seven days a week, and with limited rations, disease and starvation overran the population, and perhaps 40,000, or even as many as  50,000, people died as a result. Gradually the Nazis emptied the ghetto of people unable to work in the war industry there, including children, and they were sent to nearby extermination camps and murdered. By the summer of 1944 the ghetto was emptied of its Jewish and Gypsy population.

As I noted, there were numerous ghettos set up by the Nazis, but too many to cover in this article. For those interested in reading more, you might want to search for Vilnius Ghetto in Lithuania or Theresienstadt in (then) northern Czechoslovakia, for example. Also, you can check out the Jewish Virtual Library website.

* Hitler and Stalin had agreed upon a conquest and division of Poland in a pact signed in August 1939.

** Treblinka was located some 55-60 miles northeast of Warsaw.

*** Karl Litzmann was a German general in World War One who led German forces to a major victory over the Russian army in the Lodz area in late 1914. He later became a Nazi official and he died in the mid 1930s. Lodz was renamed by the Nazis in his honor, but of course, the city's name reverted to "Lodz" after the Nazi defeat. 

**** The policy of collaboration with the Nazis was obviously very controversial, and the Nazi authorities granted better food and supplies to Jewish leaders than to other Jews. The Jewish leader later died in Auschwitz. Some Jewish survivors credited his efforts to work with the Nazis and to produce war goods for keeping the ghetto's population from early annihilation (probably true), while other survivors felt his own strict enforcement policies were essentially as bad as the Nazis.  

WORD HISTORY:
Barrio-This word meaning "a Spanish speaking district or quarter of an American city," or "a ward or district of a city" in Spanish speaking countries, goes back to Semitic "brr," which had the notion of "open land area." This gave its Arabic offspring "barri," with the same basic meaning. The Arabic speaking Moors, a term generally applied to North African Berbers, invaded and conquered much of Spain beginning in the 700s A.D. They brought the term with them and it was borrowed into Spanish as "barrio," then with the meaning "suburb, district outside a city proper," which tied in with the original sense of "open area."  American English borrowed the word prior to 1850, and it later came into even greater use when it was applied to the Spanish-speaking area of Harlem in New York City, also known as "Spanish Harlem."

The German Question, Part Nine

While the German-dominated Holy Roman Empire sounded impressive, in fact, it was basically a loose confederation of “states.” As the famous French writer and philosopher Voltaire noted, it was “neither holy, Roman, nor an empire.”* The rulers of some of the states** even took over lands, by agreement or warfare, outside the borders of the empire; thus establishing their own “little empires” beyond the reach of the German emperor, and the feudal structure of the empire. Often religion lay at the root of some of this expansion (of course "power" was undoubtedly the main driving force), as the Germans sought to “Christianize” people living east of the imperial boundaries, and these ventures into other territories were therefore, at times, supported by the emperor. Further, the old "Marches/Marks" (border areas) I wrote about in an earlier segment had been whittled away in places by non-German elements pressuring from the East. The emperor definitely wanted these areas restored to the empire. A fairly large part of eastern Europe was populated, although seemingly sparsely in many areas, by Slavic people of various names; the forerunners of modern Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Serbians, and Croatians. Also, to the northeast, were the Baltic people, the Prussians, Lithuanians, and Latvians, as well as the Estonians.***

The "Teutonic Knights" was an order established in the Middle East by Christians during the Crusades. Initially the knights were established to help and care for Christian pilgrims and soldiers, but they also provided "protection," and from this element, the order became a military force to be reckoned with. It moved from the Middle East to Europe, and eventually led "Crusades" into northern Europe against non-Christian Slavs, Prussians, and Lithuanians. The core of the Teutonic Knights was a relatively small force of knights, but they often took on volunteers and mercenaries to augment their number. The history of the German eastward expansion is extensive and complicated, so suffice it to say that gradually the Teutonic Knights and some of the German princes gradually took over the Slavic dominated areas known as "Mecklenburg" (named after a castle there) and "Pomerania" ("Pommern" in German, but the name is from Slavic and basically means "land/area along the seacoast," as it borders the Baltic Sea). Then came the area known as "Prussia,"**** named after the Baltic people who lived there. A bit further south, a "Crusade" was launched against the Wends (a Slavic people) in the area of the Brandenburg Mark (modern Berlin area), and not only was it successful in recapturing lost territory, it expanded the German dominated area. All of this activity took place during the 1100s, and the recaptured areas and much of the newly acquired areas, were incorporated into the empire.

*While I’ve more or less covered this, it bears repeating that the empire was not “holy,” except that the Pope crowned the German Emperor after his election, technically he was elected as the German "king." He didn’t become “emperor” until the Pope crowned him. Nor was it “Roman,” as it was German-led, but the term “Roman” was used to symbolize that the Roman Empire’s mantle had been picked up once again. And it wasn’t really an “empire,” but a large-scale feudal structure, with the individual constituent states having tremendous power, and the central authority, embodied by the emperor, being relatively weak, with some exceptions.

**As mentioned previously, the rulers of the “states” were collectively known as “the German princes,” regardless of their individual titles; that is, king, prince, archduke, etc., and I will likely use that term often.

*** The Estonians are closely related to the Finns, and even to the Hungarians. Linguistically they do not speak an Indo European language, but rather they speak a language part of another language family, “Uralic.” Some ethnologists (they study “ethnic groups”) and linguists also believe the Estonians, Finns, and Hungarians are related to other peoples who came out of Asia, like the Turks, and that “theory” was more widely accepted until recent decades when it was contested by a number of ethnographers and linguists; so, I’ll say that aspect is “unresolved.”

**** The name "Prussians" outlived the original Baltic (non-German) people, as the province continued to be called "Prussia" ("Preussen" in German--pronounced proy-sen) and the German people who lived there came to be called "Prussians." Actually, the original Prussians were simply absorbed into the German population and ceased to exist. Many German noble families and aristocrats were given/established large estates in areas there, and they came to be called "Junkers" (a contraction from "junger Herr," literally "young master," with the implicit meaning of someone who had control over others and lands). Later, as you'll see, (German) Prussia expanded tremendously beyond its original borders.

WORD HISTORY:
Knight-Not all is known about the history of this word, but it is "assumed" by "some" linguists to go back to the Indo European base "gen/gn," whose Germanic offshoot, "kun," gave us the basis for "kin" (relative). From that developed the word that gave English "knave" (the "kn" was pronounced back then) and German "Knabe," both originally meaning "young male servant." A variant(?) then gave Old English "cniht" (the "cn"="kn" also pronounced back then), which also meant "boy servant," and sometimes even just "boy," and the other West Germanic languages had closely related forms of the word with the same meaning. It wasn't long before it simply came to mean "male servant," with no connection to age, and then simply to "military servant," a meaning that likewise developed in the other West Germanic languages. During the Middle Ages in England, the word came to be applied to "men who gave military service in exchange for land," and later still, "men who were given nobility status in exchange for military service," and by the 1500s, it became a noble title in its own right in England. Its relatives on the Continent didn't develop that last sense, but the notion of "servitude" remained, and German has "Knecht," which still means "servant, bondsman." Further, the servitude idea even gives the German word a meaning of "slave" in certain situations. In English, the verb, meaning "to knight," developed from the noun and the servitude of a man to the grantor or to the king. The other Germanic languages have: German and Low German "Knecht" (servant, farm worker, can also mean slave), Dutch "knecht" (servant, trade worker under a master), Frisian "knjocht" (servant, worker). The North Germanic languages (Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Swedish) do not use forms of the word.