WWII | Charlotte's VVeb

Forced Journeys – Sayle Gallery Wartime Works Art Exhibition

19/04/201022/10/2016 by Charlotte J

Martin Bloch's Miracle in the Internment Camp — Martin Bloch’s Miracle in the Internment Camp

Last week the Sayle Gallery on the Isle of Man opened a new exhibition which displays wartime works by German and Austrian internees, marking 70 years since the opening of the internment camps. The artists were thousands of men and women sent to the island during World War II. Some were Jewish refugees, arrested by the British as enemy aliens in May 1940. Others were Germans who had been captured by the British and who expected Hitler to liberate them imminently.

The artists used whatever they had to hand – wallpaper, newspapers, boxes, even a piano; and made anything from collages, to sculptures and paintings. Martin Bloch’s Miracle in the Interment Camp is probably the most renowned; it shows herrings being transformed into mermaids as five men sit at a table.

The exhibition illustrates that even though the freedom and creation of art was being impeded on the continent, even in the desperate conditions of British internment camps, art lived on and even thrived.

Forced Journeys runs until 23rd May 2010

Sayle Gallery, Villa Marina Colonnade, 1-3 Harris Promenade, Douglas IM1 2HN

www.saylegallery.com

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Google Reveals Historic Aerial Images from WWII

24/02/201019/10/2016 by Charlotte J

Google has announced a new set of historical aerial images, taken over European cities during World War II, which have been made available via Google Earth. They can now be compared directly to images from the present day. Images taken in 1943, show the effect of wartime bombing on more than 35 European towns and cities. Imagery for Warsaw, which was heavily destroyed at the time, is available from both years 1935 and 1945.

The Historical Imagery feature gives people a unique perspective on the events of the past using today’s mapping technology. It is hoped that this World War II imagery will enable all of us to understand our shared history in a new way and to learn more about the impact of the war on the development of our cities.

Imagery from 1935 and 1945 for Warsaw in Poland is particularly compelling. The city was amongst those most badly damaged in the war and comparisons with today are striking. Contrast can be seen for example by comparing the imagery of the Historic Centre of Warsaw, a UNESCO World Heritage site, described as an ‘outstanding example of a near-total reconstruction of a span of history covering the 13th to the 20th century’. The Royal Castle of Warsaw for example was completely burned to the ground and subsequently reconstructed, between 1971-1988. Dramatic too is the imagery of the location of the Warsaw Ghetto, supposedly the largest ghetto in Europe between 1940 and 1943.

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Young Hitler: A Non- Fiction Novel

23/02/201019/10/2016 by Charlotte J

How did a lowly World War One veteran, with neither substantial education or wealth, rise to become the most reviled leader in the modern history of Europe?

In this account of the life of young Adolf Hitler, Claus Hant explores his psychology and development. From the heart of pre-war Vienna through to the horrors of the trenches in World War One, we go straight to the source of the forthcoming death and destruction Hitler unleashed decades later on Europe. We follow the young Adolf Hitler from his years in Linz, to his life as a struggling artist in Vienna, to the hellish trenches of World War One and then to an impoverished post-war Munich. The narrative follows the bizarre series of events that culminate in this lonely and eccentric young man becoming ‘The Fuehrer’ of the Third Reich.

Claus Hant has chosen to write this as a ‘non-fiction’ novel, a narrative in which the writer’s imagination assumes a subordinate role and is a facilitator of factual information. All of the major events experienced by Hitler in the book are based upon the latest academic research. Facts that have been known so far only to a small circle of specialised historians are introduced for the first time to a broader audience. With detailed appendices, this is the most accurate and compelling portrait of the young man who became one of the most notorious political leaders of the twentieth century.

Claus Hant is a German scriptwriter and the creator of a detective series that ran on prime time for over a decade and made German TV history with its audience figures: Der Bulle von Tölz. Hant has also written cinema films, his latest being Der grosse Kater, starring Bruno Ganz (Downfall).