May 16
[ 2007-05-16 08:00 ]
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| The German SS and
Wehrmacht has ended all resistance in the
ghetto |
| 1943: Germans crush Jewish
uprising |
England have
All resistance in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw has ended after 28 days
of fighting.
In his operational report, the local SS commander, Brigadier Juergen
Stroop, said the uprising began on 19 April when SS, police and Wehrmacht
units using tanks and other armoured vehicles entered the ghetto to take
Jews to the railway station for transportation to concentration camps.
They were repelled by Jews using homemade explosives, rifles, small
arms and "in one case a light machine-gun".
He said his troops were involved in pitched
battles day and night with groups of about 20 or 30 Jews -
both men and women.
"On April 23 Himmler issued his order to complete the combing out of
the Warsaw ghetto with the greatest severity and relentless tenacity. I
therefore decided to destroy the entire Jewish residential area by setting
every block on fire."
The last battle ended with the destruction of the Great Synagogue
today.
They used to board up the windows [of the trams] so you couldn't see
how the Jews were being treated.
People's War
memories.
Jewish leaders had sent their own reports of the
situation during the fighting.
On 28 April the Central Committee of Jewish Labour and the Jewish
National Committee in Poland sent a desperate message to the National
Council of Poland in London.
It said the SS and German Army have laid siege to the ghetto, attacking
the 40,000 remaining Jews with artillery, flame-throwers, high explosive
and incendiary bombs.
They have also planted mines in buildings known to harbouring Jewish
fighters, while German guards block large drain pipes that have served as
escape routes.
"The ghetto is burning," read the message, "and smoke covers the whole
city of Warsaw.
"Men, women and children who are not burnt alive are murdered en
masse." It said the Jews managed to kill or wound about 1,000 of the enemy
and burned down factories and warehouses.
There was an appeal for an immediate response from the Allies. "It is
imperative that the powerful retaliation of the United Nations shall fall
upon the bloodthirsty enemy immediately and not in some distant future, in
a way which will make it quite clear what the retaliation is for."
A second message sent on 11 May said the resistance was nearly
over. |
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| John Gummer tried to
feed his daughter a beefburger to try to convince the
public |
|
1990: Gummer enlists daughter in BSE
fight | Artificially 1969:
The The
government has again attempted to reassure the public that British beef is
safe, despite growing fears over the cattle disease, Bovine Spongiform
Encephalopathy (BSE).
The Minister of Agriculture, John Gummer, even invited newspapers and
camera crews to photograph him trying to feed a beefburger to his
four-year-old daughter, Cordelia, at an event in his Suffolk constituency.
Although his daughter refused the burger, he took a large bite himself,
saying it was "absolutely delicious".
"Beef can be eaten safely by everyone, both adults and children,
including patients in hospital." Chief Medical Officer Sir Donald Acheson
said.
His reassurances were echoed by the government's Chief
Medical Officer, Sir Donald Acheson, in a formal statement to underline
his previous assertions that beef is safe to eat.
He said that after taking advice from leading scientific and medical
experts, he had no hesitation in saying that "beef can be eaten safely by
everyone, both adults and children, including patients in hospital".
The number of cases of BSE in cattle has shot up since the first case
in 1986, and now stands at about 14,000, despite a government policy to
slaughter all infected animals and prevent them getting into the food
chain.
Fears have been mounting that the disease can jump species to cause the
fatal human brain condition, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD).
The rising concern has led to 20 education authorities taking the
decision to boycott beef products, taking beef off the menu in hundreds of
schools across the country.
The Commons Agriculture Select Committee is to carry out an urgent
inquiry into the possible threat to humans from BSE. It will report by the
end of July, and Mr Gummer is to give evidence at its first session.
The Committee's chairman, Conservative MP Jerry Wiggin, is a former
junior agriculture minister.
He said he considered there was no threat to humans from "properly
cooked beef", and criticised local education authorities who had taken it
out of school canteens.
The Labour Party's spokesman on
agriculture, David Clark, however, said the government's handling of the
BSE crisis had been a fiasco
and showed it was incapable of handling sensitive food
issues. |
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| Vocabulary:
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pitched battle:激戰
incendiary bomb:
燃燒彈
fiasco: a complete
failure（大失敗）
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