raised in Germany, who became known during the Holocaust for his efforts
to save Hungary's Jews from deportation to Auschwitz. A leading member
of Budapest's Aid and Rescue Committee, which smuggled Jews out of
occupied Europe, Brand was approached in April 1944 by Adolf Eichmann,
the German SS officer in charge of the deportations. He proposed that
Brand broker a deal between the SS and the United States or Britain, in
which the Nazis would exchange one million Jews for 10,000 trucks for
the Eastern front and large quantities of other goods. Historians
believe the SS intended the deal as cover for peace talks that would
exclude the Soviet Union. Whatever its purpose, the proposal was
thwarted when the British arrested Brand in Turkey and alerted the
media. The failure of the negotiations, and the wider issue of why the
Allies were unable to save the 435,000 Hungarian Jews sent to Auschwitz,
was bitterly debated for decades. Brand said shortly before his death:
"An accident of life placed the fate of one million human beings on my
shoulders. I eat and sleep and think only of them." (Full article...).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Brand>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1260:
The Livonian Order suffered its greatest defeat in the 13th
century in the Battle of Durbe against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Durbe>
1814:
The Carabinieri (modern Carabiniere pictured), the national
military police of Italy, was founded by Victor Emmanuel I as the
police force of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carabinieri>
1878:
At the conclusion of the Congress of Berlin, the major powers
in Europe signed the Treaty of Berlin, redrawing the map of the Balkans.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Berlin_(1878)>
1962:
In an unprecedented action, British Prime Minister Harold
Macmillan dismissed seven members of his Cabinet.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives_(1962)>
2008:
War in Afghanistan: Taliban guerrillas attacked NATO troops
near the village of Wanat in the Waygal district in Afghanistan's far
eastern province of Nuristan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wanat>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
tardigrade:
Sluggish; moving slowly.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tardigrade>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Energy is eternal delight; and from the earliest times human
beings have tried to imprison it in some durable hieroglyphic. It is
perhaps the first of all the subjects of art.
--Kenneth Clark
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kenneth_Clark>
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