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Powerful Images

I ran across an article several months ago that immediately captured my attention. It was a photograph that sent chills down my spine. I said to myself, “Now that’s a very powerful image.”

I thought about the story behind the photograph and decided to write a blog about powerful and iconic images from World War II. Unfortunately, we can only include twenty-five photographs in this blog. However, there are hundreds if not thousands of other photographs that would fit into the theme of this blog. If interested, you can check out various web sites listed below to view some of the other photographs we did not include.

Please be warned that some of the images included in this blog are very disturbing.

We begin our photographic journey with the Hanukkah menorah in the window. It is the image that inspired me to write this blog.


Did You Know?

Did you know that nearly all forty of the original Washington D.C. boundary stones are hidden in plain sight? The capital city of the United States was originally a ten-mile by ten-mile diamond shape. These stones marked the boundaries of the city, and they are the oldest federally placed monuments in the United States.

Chart showing the original boundary milestones of the District of Columbia. Map by Fred Woodward (c. 1906). PD-Expired copyright. Wikimedia Commons.
Chart showing the original boundary milestones of the District of Columbia. Map by Fred Woodward (c. 1906). PD-Expired copyright. Wikimedia Commons.

Andrew Ellicott was hired to chart out the new city, but the surveyor needed an assistant to read the stars to ensure the markers were placed accurately. Benjamin Banneker, an African American, was recommended to Ellicott. He questioned the competence of a Black man who had no formal schooling or scientific training. Faced with no alternatives, Ellicott hired the amateur astronomer to work alongside him. For six nights, Banneker lay on his back to record the stars and with those calculations, the first marker stone was placed at Jones Point. (You can see the stone through a window in the seawall of the 19th-century Jones Point Lighthouse.)

Benjamin Banneker, astronomer and city planner. Illustration by Charles Henry Alston (c. 1943). U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
Benjamin Banneker, astronomer and city planner. Illustration by Charles Henry Alston (c. 1943). U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.

The stones are one foot square and three feet high. They were placed one mile apart and each is numbered according to its quadrant and location. Each side bears the inscription of either “Virginia” or “Maryland” depending on its border state. Other information inscribed on the sandstone markers were the words “Jurisdiction of the United States,” a mile number, the date the stone was erected (either 1791 or 1792), and a magnetic compass variance for the stone’s location. Thirty-six stones remain in their original place (some in severe deterioration as sandstone is not the best material for posterity) while three are replicas and one is represented by a simple plaque.

Boundary stone Northeast No. 2. Photo by anonymous (c. 1907). PD-Expired copyright. Wikimedia Commons.
Boundary stone Northeast No. 2. Photo by anonymous (c. 1907). PD-Expired copyright. Wikimedia Commons.

Thomas Jefferson was secretary of state at the time, and he went on record as saying he did not believe Black and enslaved people were of the same standards as White people in terms of brains and physical abilities. Clearly, Jefferson had never met Mr. Banneker.

Boundary stone NE 2 between the District of Columbia and Takoma Park, Maryland. Photo by Bruce Anderson (August 2010). PD-CCA-Share Alike 2.0 Generic. Wikimedia Commons.
Boundary stone NE 2 between the District of Columbia and Takoma Park, Maryland. Photo by Bruce Anderson (August 2010). PD-CCA-Share Alike 2.0 Generic. Wikimedia Commons.

The Hanukkah Menorah

Hanukkah menorah on the windowsill of the Posner’s home in Kiel, Germany.
Hanukkah menorah on the windowsill of the Posner’s home in Kiel, Germany.

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Cynthia: World War II Mata Hari

“She Used the Bedroom the Way James Bond Used A Beretta.”

That was the headline of a 2016 Daily Mail article (and a 1963 Time magazine article), and it grabbed my attention (just like any good headline should).

“She” was American-born Betty Pack a.k.a. “Cynthia,” one of British Secret Intelligence Service’s (SIS) and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) most productive spies during World War II.

Cynthia used her charm, beauty, and intelligence to extract top secret and vital information from diplomats, military personnel, and any man targeted by SIS and MI6. Cynthia’s weapon wasn’t a gun. It was sex, and her office was a bed, divan, blanket, or any other suitable platform. After seducing a Polish foreign office official, she said, “Our meetings were very fruitful, and I let him make love to me as often as he wanted, since this guaranteed the smooth flow of political information I needed.”

So, who was this dangerous woman and why do we remember Mata Hari from World War I but not Cynthia from the second world war?

Betty Pack. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). Reprinted with the permission of the Baltimore Sun Media Group/Courtesy Harper Collins.
Betty Pack. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). Reprinted with the permission of the Baltimore Sun Media Group/Courtesy Harper Collins.

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