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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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The Ritchie Boys

To all our friends in the United Kingdom and The Commonwealth, Sandy and I would like to express our sadness over the passing of your Queen. She was a great lady and left quite a legacy. The best words we can use to describe her are “strength” and “dignity.” We don’t know anyone in America who would say otherwise.

For those of you who read our recent blog, Blonde Poison (click here to read the blog), you may remember the last image I inserted. It was a picture of a group of men known as the “Ritchie Boys.” One of the men was an author I profiled in the recommended reading section of the blog. Well, one of our readers contacted me with some interesting comments regarding the Ritchie Boys and I thought, “This might make a good blog topic.” So, here you have it.

Did You Know?

Did you know that not all German citizens supported Hitler and the Nazis? While they were in the vast minority, many of them became active resisters. A Berlin couple, Max and Malwine Schindler (1890−1948 and 1887−1973, respectively and no relation to Oscar Schindler), formed an underground network in Berlin disguised as an English-language tutoring service. The purpose of the network was to get Jewish families and political dissidents out of Nazi Germany. The amazing part of the story is that it wasn’t discovered until 2019 when letters and photographs were found in a gardening shed in Australia. Under the cover as English language tutors and coaches, Max and other members visited Jewish families in their apartments. They established ties to liberal British organizations that could provide people to guarantee financial support to the refugees thus allowing the Jews and others to escape to England. These activities occurred during the 1930s as well as after the Nazis began to forcibly remove Jews from Berlin beginning in 1941. At that point, it was impossible to send people to England, so the Schindlers began to hide Jews in their large apartment at Pariser Straße 54.

Despite the testimonies of seven people after the war, the anti-Nazi activities of the Schindlers’ and others like them were quickly forgotten. It was only when the daughter of a former conversation coach who worked with the Schindlers found the cache of letters that documented Max and Malwine’s efforts.

Malwine is buried in an unmarked grave in the Wilmersdorf cemetery while Max’s final resting place is unknown. These are clearly two people who should have been recognized by Vad Yashem as “The Righteous Among the Nations.”

Malwine and Max Schindler after the end of the war. Photo by Frances Newell (c. 1947). Frances Newell/Supplied.
Malwine and Max Schindler after the end of the war. Photo by Frances Newell (c. 1947). Frances Newell/Supplied.

Camp Ritchie 

Somewhere nestled in the Blue Ridge mountains in Maryland is the former army post known as Fort Ritchie. Closed in 1998, the post once held German and Italian POWs between 1942 and 1945. However, it is now widely recognized as the top-secret location for the Military Intelligence Training Center (MITC) that was activated on 19 June 1942. The mission of the MITC was to train servicemen in espionage, counterintelligence, and frontline interrogation. It became America’s first centralized school for intelligence and psychological warfare. The MITC was nicknamed “Camp Ritchie” and almost twenty thousand men were recruited and trained at Camp Ritchie during the three years of its wartime existence. (About two hundred women were recruited.) They became known as the “Ritchie Boys.” Read More The Ritchie Boys