Lecture 2.1.

”Construction on Auschwitz”

Modulation: The Method of Raymond Roussel

Construction on Auschwitz II (Birkenau) began in October 1941 to ease congestion at the main camp. It was designed to hold several categories of prisoners, and to function as an extermination camp

(Extermination camps were two types of facilities that Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany refers to Germany

Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, IPA: [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant]), is a country

In political geography

Political geography is the field of human geography

Human geography, is a branch of geography

Geography is the study of the earth and its features, inhabitants, and phenomena[1]. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes (276-194 B.C.).

Eratosthenes of Cyrene (Greek Eρατοσθένης; 276 BC - 194 BC) was a Greek mathematician, poet, athlete, geographer and astronomer. His contemporaries nicknamed him "beta" (Greek for "number two") because he supposedly proved himself to be the second in the ancient Mediterranean region in many fields.

…Human geography, is a branch of geography… that focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape human interaction with the environment, with particular reference to the causes and consequences of the spatial distribution of human activity on the Earth's surface.

… Political geography is the field of human geography… that is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political

Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions. Most commonly it is generalized as "who gets what, when, why, and how." Politics consists of "social relations involving authority or power[2]" and refers to the regulation of a political unit[3], and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.[4]

A policy is a deliberate plan of action to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s). The term may apply to government, private sector organizations and groups, and individuals.

… that is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political… processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. Conventionally political geography adopts a three scale structure for the purposes of analysis with the study of the state

state (plural states)

1. Any sovereign polity. A government. 20C, Albert Einstein, as quoted by Virgil Henshaw in Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist (1949) “Never do anything against conscience even if the state

demands it.”

2. A political division of a federation retaining a degree of autonomy, for example one of the fifty United States. See also Province.

3. A condition. A state of being. A state of emergency.

4. Pomp, ceremony, or dignity. The President's body will lie in state at the Capitol.

5. (computing) The stable condition of a processor during a particular clock cycle.

6. (anthropology) A society larger than a tribe. A society large enough to form a state in the sense of a government.

… Conventionally political geography adopts a three scale structure for the purposes of analysis with the study of the state… at the centre, above this is the study of international relations (or geopolitics),

Geopolitics is the study that analyzes geography, history and social science with reference to spatial politics and patterns at various scales (ranging from the level of the state to international). The term was coined by Rudolf Kjellén

Johan Rudolf Kjellén (13 June 1864, Torsö

Torsö is the biggest island of the lake Vänern.

Vänern [IPA: 'vɛːnæɳ] is the largest lake in Sweden and the third largest lake in Europe. It is located in the counties of Västra Götaland

The county is the second largest (in terms of population) of Sweden's counties and it is subdivided into 49 municipalities (kommuner). Its population of 1,500,000 amounts to 17% of Sweden's population. The capital and governmental seat of Västra Götaland County is Gothenburg.

and Värmland.

Värmland County was formed in 1779, when it was separated from Närke and Värmland County.

– 14 November 1922, Uppsala)

Uppsala is the site of the oldest university in Scandinavia, founded in 1477. Carolus Linnaeus, one of the renowned scholars of Uppsala University, lived in the city for many years, and both his house and garden can still be visited.

Carl Linnaeus (Carl Linné, Latinised as Carolus Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, May 13, 1707[5]– January 10, 1778) was a Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of nomenclature. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy." He is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology (see History of ecology).

Ecology is generally spoken of as a new science, having only become prominent in the second half of the 20th Century. Nonetheless, ecological thinking at some level has been around for a long time, and the principles of ecology have developed gradually, closely intertwined with the development of other biological disciplines. Thus, one of the first ecologists may have been Aristotle or perhaps his student, Theophrastus, both of whom had interest in many species of animals. Theophrastus described interrelationships between animals and between animals and their environment as early as the 4th century BC (Ramalay, 1940).

His two surviving botanical works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, were an important influence on medieval science. There are also surviving works On Moral Characters, On Sensation, On Stones, and fragments on Physics and Metaphysics.

Carolus Linnaeus,

August Strindberg wrote: "Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist".

Uppsala Cathedral is built in the Gothic style and is one of the largest in northern Europe, with towers reaching 118.70 metres.

… Johan Rudolf Kjellén

was a Swedish political scientist and politician who first coined the term "geopolitics".Kjellén completed gymnasium in Skara in 1880 and matriculated at Uppsala University the same year. He completed his Ph.D. in Uppsala in 1891 and was a docent there from 1890-1893. He also taught at Gothenburg University from 1891 and was professor of political sciences and statistics there from 1901 until he received the prestigious Skyttean professorship of Eloquence and Government in Uppsala in 1916. A conservative politician, he was a member of the Second Chamber of the Swedish parliament 1905-1908 and of its First Chamber 1911-1917.

Kjellén was inspired by the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel, who published his book Politische Geographie (political geography) in 1897, popularized in English by American diplomat Robert Strausz-Hupé, a faculty member of the University of Pennsylvania.

Robert Strausz-Hupé (25 March 1903 - 24 February 2002) was a U.S. (Austrian-born) diplomat and geopolitician.

Friedrich Ratzel (August 30, 1844, Karlsruhe, Baden – August 9, 1904, Ammerland) was a German geographer and ethnographer, notable for coining the term Lebensraum ("living space").

(German for "habitat" or literally "living space") was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany.

The name "Adolf" comes from Old High German for "noble wolf" (Adel=nobility + wolf). Hence, one of Hitler's self-given nicknames was Wolf or Herr Wolf – he began using this nickname in the early 1920s and was addressed by it only by intimates (as "Uncle Wolf" by the Wagner) up until the fall of the Third Reich. The names of his various headquarters scattered throughout continental Europe (Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Wolfsschlucht in France, Werwolf in Ukraine, etc.) reflect this. By his closest family and relatives, Hitler was known as "Adi".

In Hitler's book Mein Kampf, he detailed his belief that the German people needed Lebensraum ("living space", i.e. land and raw materials), and that it should be found in the East.

The book is heavily influenced by Gustave Le Bon’s 1895 The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind[6], which theorized propaganda as an adequate rational technique to control the seemingly irrational behaviour of crowds.

Gustave Le Bon (May 7, 1841 – December 13, 1931) was a French social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist. He was the author of several works in which he expounded theories of national traits, racial superiority, herd behaviour and crowd psychology.

Particularly prominent is the violent anti-Semitism of Hitler and his associates, drawing, among other sources, on the fabricated Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The text was popularized by those opposed to Russian revolutionary movement, and was disseminated further after the revolution of 1905, becoming known worldwide after the 1917 October Revolution. It was widely circulated in the West in 1920 and thereafter. The Great Depression and the rise of Nazism were important developments in the history of the Protocols, and the hoax continued to be published and circulated despite its debunking.

For example, Hitler claimed that the international language Esperanto was part of a Jewish plot and makes arguments toward the old German nationalist ideas of “Drang nach Osten” and the necessity to gain Lebensraum (“living space”) eastwards (especially in Russia).

The name derives from Doktoro Esperanto, the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book of Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887[7]. The word Esperanto means 'one who hopes'.

Ludvic Lazarus Zamenhof (born Eliezer Samenhof, December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917) was an ophthalmologist, philologist, and the inventor of Esperanto, a constructed language designed for international communication.

Although no country has adopted the language officially[8], it has enjoyed continuous usage by a community estimated at between 100,000 and 2 million speakers for over a century. By most estimates, there are approximately a thousand native speakers[9].

Drang nach Osten is connected with the medieval German Ostsiedlung. This "east colonization" referred to the expansion of German culture, language, states, and settlement into eastern European regions inhabited by Slavs and Balts.

Scholars such as Roman Jacobson and others link the name with the Slavic forms sláva "glory", "fame" or slovo "word, talk" (both akin to slusati "to hear" from the IE root *kleu-).

Roman Osipovich Jakobson, (Russian, Роман Осипович Якобсон), (October 11, 1896 – July 18, 1982) was a Russian linguist and literary critic, associated with the Formalist school. He became one of the most influential linguists of the 20^th century by pioneering the development of structural analysis of language, poetry, and art.

Thus slověne would mean "people who speak (the same language)", i.e. people who understand each other, as opposed to the Slavic word for foreign nations, nemtsi, meaning "speechless people" (from Slavic němi - mute, silent, dumb). For example, the Polish word Niemcy means "Germans" or "Germany", as do the Serbo- Croatian word Nemci/Nijemci and the Bulgarian word Nemtsi.

It was the stated policy of the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Polish, Russian and other Slavic populations, whom they considered inferior, and to repopulate the land with Germanic peoples. The entire urban population was to be exterminated by starvation, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and allowing their replacement by a German upper class.

In society, the elite are a small collection of people, such as the upper class. Members of the elite are often protective of their group to which they belong and do not welcome newcomers, such as the Nouveau riche.

It is generally used to emphasize that the persons were previously part of a lower economic or social class, and that the acquisition of wealth has provided the ability to do or to have things that were previously out of their reach.

… geopolitics) and below it is the study of localities. The primary concerns of the sub-discipline can be summarised as the interrelationships between people, state, and territory.

… In political geography … and international politics, a country is a political division of a geographical entity, a sovereign territory, most commonly associated with the notions of state or nation and government.

A political division is a geographic region accepted to be in the jurisdiction of a particular government entity. On the large scale, a political division is typically a country, while administrative divisions including states, counties, cities, and others can also be defined.

A sovereign is the supreme lawmaking authority, subject to no other. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau saw a fundamental divide between society and human nature. Rousseau believed that man was good when in the state of nature (the state of all other animals, and the condition humankind was in before the creation of civilization and society), but is corrupted by society.

in Book III, Chapter III of his 1763 Treatise Of the Social Contract, argued that "the growth of the State giving the trustees of public authority more temptations and means to abuse their power, the more the Government has to have force to contain the people, the more force the Sovereign should have in turn in order to contain the Government," with the understanding that the Sovereign is "a collective being" (Book II, Chapter I) resulting from "the general will" of the people, and that "what any man, whoever he may be, orders on his own, is not a law" (Book II, Chapter VI) - and furthermore predicated on the assumption that the people have an unbiased means by which to ascertain the general will. Thus the legal maxim, "there is no law without a sovereign."

A territory (from the word 'terra', meaning 'land') is a defined area (including land and waters),considered to be a possession of a person, organization, institution, animal, state or country subdivision.

A nation is a form of self-defined cultural and social community. One of the most influential doctrines in Western Europe and the Western hemisphere since the late eighteenth century is that all humans are divided into groups called nations.

Like most primates, humans are social by nature. However, humans are particularly adept at utilizing systems of communication for self-expression, the exchange of ideas, and organization. Humans create complex social structures composed of cooperating and competing groups, ranging in scale from small families and partnerships to species-wide political, scientific and economic unions.

A government is "the organization, that is the governing authority of a political unit," "the ruling power in a political society," and the apparatus through which a governing body functions and exercises authority. "Government, with the authority to make laws, to adjudicate disputes, and to issue administrative decisions, and with a monopoly of authorized force where it fails to persuade, is an indispensable means, proximately, to the peace of communal life." Statist theorists maintain that the necessity of government derives from the fact that the people need to live in communities, yet personal autonomy must be constrained in these communities.

… country in Central Europe.

Rather than a physical entity, Central Europe is a concept of shared history which contrasts with that of the surrounding regions. Immediately to the east and southeast lie regions which had for longer periods been under the Ottoman Empire and Imperial Russia, with relics of a strong Hellenic cultural influence (eg. Cyrillic descending directly from Greek).

The Ottoman Empire, also called Osmanic Empire or Osmanian Empire or Uthmaniyah Empire (1299–1922) (Old Ottoman Turkish: عثمانیه†عالیه†دولت†Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Late Ottoman and Modern Turkish: Osmanlı Devleti or Osmanlı İmparatorluğu), was a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Turkish-ruled state.

The Russian Empire was a natural successor to the Tsardom of Muscovy.

The Grand Duchy of Moscow (Russian: Великое княжество Московское) was a medieval Russian polity centered on Moscow between 1340 and 1547. The Grand Duchy of Moscow, as the state is known in Russian records, has been referred to by many Western sources as Muscovy. However, this term is also sometimes applied to the Tsardom of Russia. The Grand Duchy of Moscow was the successor to the Principality of Moscow and the predecessor of the Tsardom of Russia.

Though the empire was only officially proclaimed by Tsar Peter I following the Treaty of Nystad (1721), some historians would argue that it was truly born when Peter acceded to the throne in early 1682.

The Treaty of Nystad was signed in 1721 in the Finnish town of Uusikaupunki (which is called Nystad in Swedish). It ended the Great Northern War

… in Central Europe.The territory of Germany covers 357,021 km. and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate.

The north temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Cancer (at about 23.5 degrees north latitude) to the Arctic Circle (at approximately 66.5 degrees north latitude). The south temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Capricorn (at approximately 23.5 degrees south latitude,) to the Antarctic Circle (at approximately 66.5 degrees south latitude.)

… Nazi Germany refers to Germany from the start of Adolf Hitler's government in 1933 until the beginning of denazification in 1945.

Denazification in Germany was accomplished through a series of directives issued by the Allied Control Council, seated in Berlin, beginning in January 1946.

allies the 26 nations that fought against the Axis in World War II and, with subsequent additions, signed the charter of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945.

"Denazification directives" identified specific people and groups and outlined judicial procedures and guidelines for handling them. In this period the country was governed by the National Socialist German Workers Party, or "Nazi Party" (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei),

The general membership of the Nazi Party, known as the Parteimitglieder, mainly consisted of the urban and rural lower middle classes. 7% belonged to the upper class, another 7% were peasants, 35% were industrial workers and 51% were what can be described as middle class. The largest occupational group were medical doctors.

and by Adolf Hitler as chancellor in 1933, and from 1934 onward as Führer ("Leader").

Due to its excessive use in Nazi Germany, the isolated term Führer is usually avoided in modern Germany. However, Führer is still used as a part of many compound words, e.g.

* Bergführer (mountain guide)

* Fremdenführer (tourist guide)

* Gesch.ftsführer (director)

* Führerschein (driver's license)

* Führerstand or Führerhaus (driver's cab)

* Lok[omotiv]führer (train engine driver)

* Mannschaftsführer (teamster)

* Reiseführer (travel guide book)

* Spielführer (team captain)

* Wanderführer (trekking guide book)

* Zugführer (railway guard, platoon leader [in military context])

To replace Führer, the following terms are currently used:

* Chef ("chief", e.g. Chef des Bundeskanzleramtes)

* Leiter ("leader", often in composites like Amtsleiter, Projektleiter, Referatsleiter, also replaced Führer in Scouting)

* Anführer (rarely used as a specific designation)

Nazi Germany is perceived as a depreciative expression to denominate this period, which is officially the "German Reich" (Deutsches Reich) and later the "Great German Reich" (Großdeutsches Reich). Another popular term is "Third Reich" (Drittes Reich).

Reich has an interesting etymology: it comes from a Germanic word for "king", which was borrowed from Celtic. (See Calvert Watkins, American Heritage dictionary of Indo-European Roots, p.70.) It has cognates in many other languages, all ultimately descended from the Proto-Indo-European root *reg-, meaning "to straighten out" or "rule", also the source of English right. The Sanskrit derived cognates in Hindi are "Raja" meaning King and also the name of an ethnic group: Rajput meaning progeny of Rajas.

…(Extermination camps were two types of facilities that Nazi Germany built during World War II for the systematic killing of millions of people in what has become known as the Holocaust.

World War II involved the mobilization of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history. The war placed the participants in a state of "total war", erasing the distinction between civil and military resources.

Although some may argue that the concept traces back to Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu,

Born c. 544 BC, Possibly in state of Qi

Died c. 496 BC, Possibly in state of Wu

the concept of total war is usually traced back to Carl von Clausewitz.

One of the main sources of confusion about Clausewitz's approach lies in his dialectical method of presentation. For example, Clausewitz's famous line that "War is merely a continuation of politics," ("Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln") while accurate as far as it goes, was not intended as a statement of fact. It is the antithesis in a dialectical argument whose thesis is the point—made earlier in the analysis—that "war is nothing but a duel [or wrestling match, a better translation of the German Zweikampf] on a larger scale." His synthesis, which resolves the deficiencies of these two bold statements, says that war is neither "nothing but" an act of brute force nor "merely" a rational act of politics or policy. This synthesis lies in his "fascinating trinity" [wunderliche Dreifaltigkeit]: a dynamic, inherently unstable interaction of the forces of violent emotion, chance, and rational calculation. Another example of this confusion is the idea that Clausewitz was a proponent of total war as used in the Third Reich's propaganda in the 1940s. He did not coin the phrase as an ideological ideal--indeed, Clausewitz does not use the term "total war" at all. Rather, he discussed "absolute war" or "ideal war" as the purely logical result of the forces underlying a "pure," Platonic "ideal" of war. In what Clausewitz called a "logical fantasy," war cannot be waged in a limited way: the rules of competition will force participants to use all means at their disposal to achieve victory. But in the real world, such rigid logic is unrealistic and dangerous. As a practical matter, the military objectives in real war that support one's political objectives generally fall into two broad types: "war to achieve limited aims" and war to "disarm” the enemy--i.e., “to render [him] politically helpless or militarily impotent." Thus the complete defeat of one's enemies maybe neither necessary, desirable, nor even possible.

… The war placed the participants in a state of "total war", erasing the distinction between civil and military resource. This resulted in the complete activation of a nation's economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities for the purposes of the war effort; a majority of those killed in the war were civilians. From 9 to 11 million of these civilian casualties, including around six million Jews, were systematically killed in the Holocaust.

The term holocaust originally derived from the Greek word holókauston, meaning a "completely (holos) burnt (kaustos)" sacrificial offering to a god. Since the late 19th century, it has been used primarily to refer to disasters or catastrophes.

During World War II extermination camps were built during a later phase of the program of annihilation. Victims’ bodies were usually cremated or buried in mass graves.

The cremation occurs in a 'crematorium' consisting of one or more cremator furnaces or cremation 'retorts' for the ashes. A cremator is an industrial furnace capable of generating 870-980 °C (1600-1800 °F) to ensure disintegration of the corpse. A crematorium may be part of chapel or a funeral home, or part of an independent facility or a service offered by a cemetery.

A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term cemetery (from Greek κοιμητήριον: sleeping place) implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are the place where the final ceremonies of death are observed.

The body burns in the cremator. Modern cremator fuels include natural gas and propane.

Natural gas is often informally referred to as simply gas, especially when compared to other energy sources such as electricity. Before natural gas can be used as a fuel, it must undergo extensive processing to remove almost all materials other than methane. The by-products of that processing include ethane, propane, butanes, pentanes and higher molecular weight hydrocarbons, elemental sulfur, and sometimes helium and nitrogen. Unlike natural gas, propane is heavier than air (1.5 times denser). In its raw state, propane sinks and pools at the floor. Liquid propane will flash to a vapor at atmospheric pressure and appears white due to moisture condensing from the air.

However, coal or coke were used until the early 1960s.

Coke is a solid carbonaceous material derived from destructive distillation of low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal.

Destructive distillation is the process of pyrolysis conducted in a distillation apparatus to allow the volatile products to be collected. The process led to the discovery of many chemical compounds before such compounds could be prepared synthetically. A historically significant example of destructive distillation is tar making.

Tar is a viscous black liquid derived from the destructive distillation of organic matter.

Bituminous coal is usually black, sometimes dark brown, often with well-defined bands of bright and dull material. Bituminous coal seams are stratigraphically identified by the distinctive sequence of bright and dark bands and are classified accordingly as either "dull, bright-banded" or "bright, dull-banded" and so on. 

Modern cremators have adjustable control systems that monitor the furnace during cremation. A cremation furnace is not designed to cremate more than one body at a time, which is illegal in many countries including the USA.

… Victims’ bodies were usually cremated or buried in mass graves.

A mass grave is a grave containing multiple, usually unidentified human corpses. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave. Mass or communal burial was a common practice before the development of a dependable crematory chamber by an Italian named Brunetti in 1873.

The groups the Nazis sought to exterminate in these camps were primarily the Jews of Europe and Roma (Gypsies).

Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who were born to a Jewish family, regardless of whether or not they follow the religion, those who have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent), and people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism, and therefore are followers of the religion. Although the Nazis claimed that the Gypsies were not Aryan, the Gypsy Lore Society (established in 1888 in England) claimed that the Gypsies were the most ancient Aryans and even sought to protect themselves through not mixing with non-Gypsies.

The majority of prisoners brought to extermination camps were not expected to survive more than 24 hours beyond arrival.)

in the context of Himmler's preparations for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question[10].

Himmler’s diaries (1914-18) show that he was extremely interested in war news.

A personal journal or diary is a book for writing discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Such logs play a role in many aspects of human civilization, including governmental, business ledgers, and military records. In more personal diaries, the writer may detail more personal information, like romantic interests and the like.

He implored his father to use his royal connections to obtain an officer candidate position for him. His parents eventually gave in, allowing him to train upon graduation from secondary school in 1918 with the 11th Bavarian Regiment. Since he was not athletic, he struggled throughout his military training. Later in 1918 the war ended with Germany’s defeat. Thus ended Himmler's aspirations of becoming a professional army officer. He was discharged without ever seeing battle. From 1919 to 1922 Himmler studied agronomy at the Munich Technische Hochschule following a short-lived apprenticeship on a farm and subsequent illness. Himmler was pursuing a chaste[11] lifestyle when he became interested in a young girl, the daughter of the owner of a place where he ate. In his diary, he compares his initial encounter with her as like finding himself a sister. Later he experienced rejection when he let her know his true feelings. His difficulty with women persisted throughout his life. His view of them is shown in a diary excerpt: “A proper man loves a woman on three levels: as a dear child who is to be chided, perhaps even punished on account of her unreasonableness, and who is protected and taken care of because one loves her. Then as wife and as a loyal, understanding comrade who fights through life with one, who stands faithfully at one’s side without hemming in or chaining the man and his spirit. And as a goddess whose feet one must kiss, who gives one strength through her feminine wisdom and childlike, pure sanctity that does not weaken in the hardest struggles and in the ideal hours gives one heavenly peace.”

Many people know the Birkenau camp simply as "Auschwitz"; it was larger than Auschwitz I, and more people passed through its gates than did those of Auschwitz I.

Brzezinka - village located in the Lesser Poland region of Poland, gmina (county) of Oświęcim (Auschwitz), at the confluence of the rivers Vistula and Soła, at the very center of the Vistula Valley, 240 meters above sea level.

Lesser Poland lies in the upper confluence of the Vistula river and covers a large upland, including the Świętokrzyskie Mountains, Lesser Polish Upland, Sandomierz Valley, and Lublin Upland.

The Vistula has its source in the south of the country, at Barania Góra (1220 m high) in the Beskidy Mountains where it starts with the White Little Vistula (Biała Wisełka) and the Black Little Vistula (Czarna Wisełka).

Barania Góra is a mountain in southern Poland. With 1,220 metres it is the second highest mountain of Silesian Beskids and the highest mountain of the Polish part of Cieszyn Silesia.

A mountain is generally steeper than a hill, but there is no universally accepted standard definition for the height of a mountain or a hill although a mountain usually has an identifiable summit. Mountains cover 54% of Asia, 36% of North America, 25% of Europe, 22% of South America, 17% of Australia, and 3% of Africa. As a whole, 24% of the Earth's land mass is mountainous. 10% of people live in mountainous regions. Most of the world's rivers are fed from mountain sources, and more than half of humanity depends on mountains for water.

Polish culture has been influenced by both Eastern and Western influences. Today, these influences are evident in Polish architecture, folklore, and art. Poland is the birthplace of some world famous individuals, including Pope John Paul II, Marie Skłodowska Curie, Kazimierz Pułaski, Nicolaus Copernicus and Frederic Chopin. Silesian Beskids

* Skrzyczne (1,257 m) - the highest mountain

* Barania Góra (1,220 m) - the highest mountain of the Polish part of Cieszyn Silesia

* Czantoria Wielka (995 m) - the highest mountain of the Czech part of the range

* Stożek Wielki (978 m)

The historical boundaries of the region are identical to those of the former independent Duchy of Cieszyn. Currently, most of Cieszyn Silesia forms one of the euroregions, the Euroregion Cieszyn Silesia.

The Beskids are approximately 600 km in length and 50-70 km in width. There are many tourist attractions, including historic wooden churches and the increasingly-popular skiing resorts.

Bartek is an ancient oak tree in Poland. It grows in Zagnańsk near Kielce in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains. Its age, long estimated at up to 1200 years, has recently been established at 625 years, with a corer used to extract a sample for proper counting of the growth rings. There are three older oaks in Poland, though none so famous as Bartek.

… Oświęcim. Jews, invited by Polish kings to settle in the region, had already become the majority of the population in the 15th century. Oświęcim also became one of the centres of Protestant culture in Poland. The town was destroyed by Swedish troops in 1655.

By the time of the construction of the first railroad station in 1856 the station was on Brzezinka's territory, but later it was transplanted to nearby Oświęcim (Auschwitz). It's a large village, with several roads. It predominantly consists of village style housing. Two major factories are found there: Maszyn Górniczych "Omag", which in the 1930's, called Spółka Akcyjna Zjednoczenia Fabryk Maszyn i Samochodów "Oświęcim" (Auschwitz United Machinery and Automobile Manufacturing Inc.) which produced the "Oświęcim-Praga" which won a Monte Carlo Rally and the Polinova Company (popularly known as Papownia).

It was the site of imprisonment of hundreds of thousands, and of the killing of over one million people, mainly Jews but also large numbers of Poles, and Gypsies, mostly through gassing.

There is no commonly accepted definition of the Poles.

Birkenau had four gas chambers, designed to resemble showers, and four crematoria, used to incinerate bodies. Approximately 40 more satellite camps were established around Auschwitz. These were forced labor camps and were known collectively as Auschwitz III. The first one was built at Monowitz and held Poles who had been forcibly evacuated from their hometowns by the Nazis. The inmates of Monowitz were forced to work in the chemical works of IG Farben.

IG Farben (short for Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG, "syndicate of dyestuff corporations", and also called I.G. Farbenfabriken). The founding of IG Farben was a reaction to Germany's defeat in World War I.

World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War and the War To End All Wars, was a global military conflict which took place primarily in Europe from 1914 to 1918.

IG Farben held a near total monopoly on chemical production, later during the National Socialist (Nazi) regime, including manufacturing Zyklon B.

Zyklon B was originally developed as a pesticide by Fritz Haber, a German Jew who emigrated in 1933.

This was a poison commonly used at the time for delousing, which became notorious as the lethal agent in the gas chambers of the death camps of Auschwitz and Majdanek.

Located in German-occupied southern Poland, it took its name from the nearby town of Oświęcim (Auschwitz in German), situated about 50 kilometers west of Kraków and 286 kilometers from Warsaw.

Unlike many other Nazi concentration and extermination camps, Majdanek is not hidden away in some remote forest or obscured from view by natural barriers, nor was it surrounded by a "security zone." The camp's name derives from a Lublin district called Majdan Tatarski, and was given it in 1941 by the locals, who were aware of its existence. The original German name of the camp was "Konzentrationslager Lublin" (Concentration Camp Lublin).

The company was a major user of slave labour.

Slaves cannot leave an owner, an employer or a territory without explicit permission (they must have a passport to leave), and they will be returned if they escape.

Before the war the dyestuff companies had a near monopoly in the world market which they lost during the conflict. One solution for regaining this position was a large merger. IG Farben consisted of the following major companies and several smaller ones.

* AGFA (Aktien-Gesellschaft für Anilin-Fabrikation), Berlin

1940 Agfacolor negative-positive color material is used for the first time for a feature film "Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten" (Women are the better diplomats) by the German UFA production company.

* Cassella, Frankfurt

* BASF (Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik), Ludwigshafen

BASF was founded in Mannheim, Germany, by Friedrich Engelhorn in 1865 for the production of dyes. In 1867, research into synthesis of the dye indigo was successfully concluded. Until this time, indigo was extracted from plants and was expensive.

Indigo is the color on the electromagnetic spectrum between about 420 and 450 nm in wavelength, placing it between blue and violet. Color scientists do not usually recognize indigo as a significant color category, and generally classify wavelengths shorter than about 450 nm as violet

Industrial production meant that the price could be cut drastically, and one effect was to make jeans affordable work clothes.

Jeans can be worn very loose in a manner that completely conceals the shape of the wearer's lower body, or they can be snugly fitting and accentuate the body, specifically the buttocks. Historic photographs indicate that in the decades before they became a staple of fashion, jeans generally fit quite loosely, much like a pair of bib overalls without the bib. Indeed, until 1960, Levi Strauss denominated its flagship product "waist overalls" rather than "jeans".

* Bayer, Leverkusen

It is well-known for its original brand of aspirin.

* Aspirin should be avoided by those known to be allergic to ibuprofen or naproxen.

* Caution should be exercised in those with asthma or NSAID-precipitated bronchospasm.

* It is generally recommended that one seek medical help if symptoms do not improve after a few days of therapy.

* Caution should be taken in patients with kidney disease, peptic ulcers, mild diabetes, gout or gastritis; manufacturers recommend talking to one's doctor before using this medicine.

* Taking aspirin with alcohol or warfarin increases the chance of gastrointestinal hemorrhage (stomach bleeding).

* Children under the age of 12 are discouraged from using aspirin to control cold or influenza symptoms as this has been linked with Reye's syndrome.

* Patients with hemophilia or other bleeding tendencies should not take salicylates.

* Some sources recommend that patients with hyperthyroidism avoid aspirin because it elevates T4 levels.

* Aspirin is known to cause hemolytic anemia in people who have the genetic disease glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (G6PD), particularly in large doses and depending on the severity of the disease.

* People living in tropical-weather countries should discontinue use while symptoms or suspicion of Dengue Fever exist, due to an irreversible syndrome relating aspirin and that disease.

* Farbwerke Hoechst (now Sanofi-Aventis), Höchst

* Chemische Werke Hüls, Marl (founded in 1938)

* Chemische Fabrik Kalle, Biebrich

Prisoners were transported from all over German-occupied Europe by rail, arriving at Auschwitz- Birkenau in daily convoys. Arrivals at the complex were separated into four groups: One group, about three-quarters of the total, went to the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau within a few hours; they included all children, all women with children, all the elderly, and all those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor not to be fully fit. In the Auschwitz Birkenau camp more than 20,000 people could be gassed and cremated each day. At Birkenau, the Nazis used a cyanide gas produced from Zyklon B pellets, which were manufactured by two companies who had acquired licensing rights to the patent held by IG Farben.

Cyanides are produced by certain bacteria, fungi, and algae and are found in a number of foods and plants. Cyanide is found, although in small amounts, in apple seeds, mangoes and almonds. In plants, cyanides are usually bound to sugar molecules in the form of cyanogenic glycosides and serve the plant as defense against herbivores. Cassava roots (aka manioc), an important potato-like food grown in tropical countries (and the base from which tapioca is made), contains cyanogenic glycosides.

The two companies were Tesch & Stabenow, of Hamburg, who supplied two tons of the crystals each

month, and Degesch, of Dessau^[12], who produced three-quarters of a ton. The bills of lading were produced at Nuremburg. A second group of prisoners were used as slave labor at industrial factories for such companies as IG Farben and Krupp.

The Krupp family, a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments.

Though steel had been produced by various inefficient methods long before the Renaissance, its use became more common after more efficient production methods were devised in the 17th century.

David McCallum as Steel and Joanna Lumley as Sapphire.

With the invention of the Bessemer process in the mid-19th century, steel became a relatively inexpensive mass-produced good.

The process is carried on in a large ovoid steel container lined with clay or dolomite called the Bessemer converter. The capacity of a converter was from 8 to 30 tons of molten iron with a usual charge being around 15 tons. At the top of the converter is an opening, usually tilted to the side relative to the body of the vessel, through which the iron is introduced and the finished product removed. The bottom is perforated with a number of channels called tuyères through which air is forced into the converter. The converter is pivoted on trunnions so that it can be rotated to receive the charge, turned upright during conversion, and then rotated again for pouring out the molten steel at the end.

Currently, every army of an internationally recognized country (except those who rely on others for defense, such as Andorra, and those that do not have a true army, such as the Vatican City) has adopted assault rifles as the main infantry weapon.

The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp in modern times, merged with Thyssen AG in 1999 to form ThyssenKrupp AG, a large industrial conglomerate.

Family participation in a business can strengthen the business because family members are very loyal and dedicated to the family enterprise. However managing a family business, and particularly succession planning, can present some unique problems. Often family interests conflict with business interests, for example hiring a family member who is less competent than a non-family member or keeping an underperforming family member in a position when their performance is hurting the company. Psychologists are often consulted to help families successfully manage issues that affect both the family and the business. An example of the conflict that can arise is demonstrated in a story, about Stew Leonard's Supermarket in Connecticut, about a family business owner whose son's performance was deemed unsatisfactory by his supervisor. The father told the supervisor that he would take care of it. The father asked his son to come to the family home for a talk in the hot tub. When they were settled in the tub the father put on a hat which he said was his 'Boss' hat and told his son that he was fired. He then removed that hat and put on another calling it his 'Father' hat. Then he said: "Son, I'm very sorry to hear that you lost your job. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Isaak Lambert Thyssen, (c. 1685 – 1773), married firstly bef. 1720 Johanna Wirtz (d. c. 1728), married secondly at Laurensberg, August 24, 1730 Anna Maria Charlier (d. c. 1738), married thirdly at Aachen, c. 1740 Mechtild Deutz (b. Aachen, February 26, 1701). He had issue.

At the Auschwitz complex 405,000 prisoners were recorded as slaves between 1940 and 1945. Of these about 340,000 perished through executions, beatings, starvation, and sickness. Some prisoners survived through the help of German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who saved about 1,100 Polish Jews by diverting them from Auschwitz to work for him, first in his factory near Kraków and later at a factory in what is now the Czech Republic. A third group, mostly twins and dwarfs, underwent medical experiments at the hands of doctors such as Josef Mengele, who was also known as the “Angel of Death”.

Mengele, whose health had deteriorated for years, died on February 7, 1979, in Bertioga, Brazil, where he accidentally drowned or, in another version, suffered a stroke while swimming in the sea.

February 7 - Supporters of Khomeini take over the Iranian law enforcement, courts and government administration; the final session of the Iranian National Consultative Assembly is held.

Bertioga is a Brazilian town of the state of São Paulo in the Baixada Santista. The population in 2004 was 35,759. However, because it neighbors resort towns, its population fluctuates greatly with the seasons. The population density is 72.68/km. and it has an area of 492 km.. The more northern parts are dense forests and are virtually unpopulated. The municipality was created in 1995. Prior to that it was considered a suburb of Guaruja.

He was buried in Embu das Artes under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard," whose ID-card he had used since 1976.

Its curious history brought it an unexpected specialization as a city for artists. This has paid tourism dividends to the city.

The fourth group was composed of women who were selected to work in "Canada", the part of Birkenau where prisoners' belongings were sorted for use by Germans. The name "Canada" was very cynically chosen. In Poland it was - and is still - used as an expression used when viewing, for example, a valuable and fine gift. The expression comes from the time when Polish emigrants were sending gifts home from Canada. The camp was staffed partly by prisoners, some of whom were selected to be kapos (orderlies) and sonderkommandos (workers at the crematoria). The kapos were responsible for keeping order in the barrack huts; the sonderkommando prepared new arrivals for gassing (ordering them to remove their clothing and surrender their personal possessions) and transferred corpses from the gas chambers to the furnaces, having first pulled out any gold that the victims might have had in their teeth. Members of these groups were killed periodically. The kapos and sonderkommandos were supervised by members of the SS; altogether 6,000 SS members worked at Auschwitz. By 1943 resistance organizations had developed in the camp. These organizations helped a few prisoners escape; these escapees took with them news of exterminations, such as the killing of hundreds of thousands of Jews transported from Hungary between May and July 1944. In October 1944 a group of sonderkommandos destroyed one of the crematoria at Birkenau. They and their accomplices, a group of women from the Monowitz labor camp, were all put to death. It was also not uncommon that if one prisoner escaped, selected persons in the escapee's block were killed. When the Soviet army liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, they found about 7,600 survivors abandoned there.

January 27, 1951 - Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with a one-kiloton bomb dropped on the Frenchman Flats.

More than 58,000 prisoners had already been evacuated by the Nazis and sent on a final death march to Germany. In 1947, in remembrance of the victims, Poland founded a museum at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp. By 1994, some 22 million visitors — 700,000 annually—had passed through the iron gate crowned with the motto "Arbeit macht frei".

In 1872 the German-nationalist author Lorenz Diefenbach used the expression, "Arbeit macht frei," as the title for a novel, causing the expression to become well-known in nationalist circles.

Diefenbach was a member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, and was friends with Jacob Grimm.

"'All gone' was already on the poor mouse's lips; scarcely had she spoken it before the cat sprang on her, seized her, and swallowed her down. Verily, that is the way of the world." It is just the way life is.