Knot School

Research Paper: Allied Resistance to the Nazis.

2011-01-04T01:00:00.000-08:00

The Second World War began in September 1939 when Britain & France declared war on Germany over Germany’s invasion of Poland. Poland was the last of several German invasions. Germany had already annexed Austria & part of Czechoslovakia. By the end of 1940 Germany controlled a great part of western Europe including France, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Denmark, Norway & parts of Russia. Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria & Italy were allied with Germany. In Europe only Switzerland remained officially neutral & unoccupied. Britain stood alone against the implacable German invasion.

During the war years Britain was led by a man of great rhetoric, Winston Churchill. His. motto was, “Never, never, never give up.” He considered German policy, “a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime.” His aim was: “Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.” Yet despite his fine rhetoric, his high ideals & his commitment Britain & her allies might still have lost the Second World War if it were not for a dedicated band of men & women who have come to be known collectively as *The Resistance*.

The title is misleading. It suggests that the Resistance was highly organised & united but in fact, although it did become more organised where the allies dropped spies & resistance fighters into occupied territory, most of the resistance began in small ways & could be found in the unlikeliest of places: even the ghettos & concentration camps of Germany itself. This paper will look at the varying ways people in all the occupied territories found to resist German dominance & the impact their resistance had on the war itself.

The term *Resistance* has come to suggest a type of guerrilla warfare involving fighting, petrol bombs, or hand to hand combat but the reality was quite different & there were many different types of resistance. The subtlest was waged within Germany itself. Business men like Schindler, who disagreed with German policy, worked secretly against the Nazis in a number of different ways. Schindler, for example, collected & protected a band of Jews to work his factories & when his factories were forced to make equipment for the German war machine many items were sabotaged despite Schindler being arrested twice for collaborating with the Jews. This sort of sabotage greatly aided the war effort by crippling Germany from within.

Sabotage was a favourite technique because many people in the resistance had no access to weapons & so could not fight openly. However, even in the concentration camps where prisoners were forced to make munitions for Germany’s army & the punishment for *mistakes* was instant death, many people risked their lives by deliberately sabotaging
equipment: hammering in screws instead of screwing them in, badly set rivets, electrical connections not properly tightened or simply working very slowly.

Again, in a situation where many people died all the time, people worked hard to encourage each other to live, offering hope in whatever small ways they could through sharing food [forbidden], holding religious services [forbidden], by covering for other prisoners who were ill or unskilled. In this way just staying alive was a form of resistance.

Germany had a policy of extermination for several racial groups ~ mostly non~arayan such as the Jews & the Gypsies. Initially many of these people were herded into walled ghettos in some of the larger cities under German control such as Warsaw, Lodz, Kovno. They were forbidden to practise their religion, their culture, to educate their young, to keep a diary, or take photographs ~ yet many people did all these things leaving behind a record of life in the ghettos as their small act of defiant resistance against German regulations. However life in the ghettos was very hard & large numbers of people were routinely rounded up & sent to the concentration & death camps. This created crisis situations where many young people felt that as they would die anyway it was better to die resisting than go passively to a certain death & the ghettos saw several bloody uprisings. The Warsaw Revolt in 1943 is the most famous but there were at least 40 other ghetto uprisings. The Cracow uprising in 1942 saw 20 SS officers killed but in every case the Nazis then liquidated the ghettos & any survivors were sent to the death camps such as Treblinka. These uprising held the implicit threat of civil war & diverted military strength from Germany’s main war effort.

Even within Germany & amongst the Germans not everyone supported Hitler. In July 1944 an officer named Von Stauffenberg attempted to blow Hitler up in his “wolf’s Lair” ~ his command post on the eastern front. The attempt failed & the plotters were executed but such attempts were part of the wider resistance to German control.

In the occupied territories the Resistance developed in 3 main ways: There were the Partisans, secret armies who lived in hiding & fought the Nazis with weapons; there were the ordinary people who carried on their everyday lives, may even have worked for the Nazis, but helped the Partisans or worked as a link in an underground railroad smuggling Jews to safety; & then there were members of the SOE [special operations executive] who were trained in Britain & then parachuted behind enemy lines. Each of these separate groups did important work in undermining & sabotaging Germany’s power.

The Partisan groups were the most militaristic. They were usually small groups working independently of each other, often competing with each other in terms of food, space, shelter. They were armed & their focus was on blowing up or burning down Nazi headquarters; damaging roads, bridges, railways which interrupted the supply of food & arms to the German army; disrupting Nazi government; ambushing weapons, telephone lines & sometimes even the army itself. While they were too small & disorganised to actually defeat the Germans they were important in a number of different ways. Possibly most importantly they gave people hope by demonstrating that the Germans could be resisted. Their activities

were very disruptive. One mission by a small group of partisans in the Rudnicka Forest blew up a train with all its ammunition & 50 soldiers. In the Nalibocka Forest there were about 20 000 such partisans.

The British formed the SOE to send money, people, weapons & other supplies into the occupied countries to aid the local resistance. One of the most important jobs the SOE did was network an underground railway that helped allied soldiers escape from occupied territories: airmen shot down; camp escapees; Jews on the run. They provided forged papers, money, clothing, maps & compasses. They also provided radio communications that allowed information to flow between the occupied countries & the allied governments.

The French Resistance also published small anti German newspapers & was responsible for facilitating the rapid advance of allied troops after the D~Day invasion of Normandy by providing intelligence about the German lines. After the Normandy invasion the para~military component of the French Resistance was organised more formally until numbers reached about 400 00 in October of 1944.

As the French Vichy government collaborated with the Nazis & the Germans had established an exchange rate that was no more than organised extortion there was soaring inflation & general unrest amongst the French population. Francoise Marcot, a French historian, has estimated there were 200 000 Frenchmen active in the Resistance with a further 300 000 actively complicit, or about 2% of the population. Many of the men had been rounded up for German labour camps but the disparate resistance groups, semi~legitimised by De Gaulle who was opposed to the collaborative Vichy government & set up an alternative regime, were coordinated by Jean Moulin under the National Council of Resistance. It was this aspect of the Resistance that helped make the D~Day invasion so successful, the 2nd Armored [French] practically annihilating the 9th Panzer division [German] & badly damaging several other units as well & allowing the allied forces to move almost unimpeded into occupied territory.

On April 9th 1940 Denmark was invaded & although German restrictions were far more lenient in Denmark than in other occupied countries resistance groups were in operation as early as April the 13th, with information being relayed to Britain. This trend continued throughout the occupation with cell groups becoming more active in sabotage & the conveying of military intelligence. The Danes were particularly active in hiding & protecting Danish Jews.

Holland is particularly interesting. Noted for its primarily non~violent resistance, at it’s height it had 60 000 illegal caretakers hiding 300 000 Jews & other illegals, setting up

counter~intelligence networks & providing key support for allied troops. Holland is unique for its overt passive Resistance to Nazi control in a series of strikes; striking firstly against the removal of Dutch Jews in 1941, then the general strike in 1942, the doctors’ strike in 1942, the April~May stike of 1943 & the Railway strike of 1944. No other country so blatantly refused to co-operate with their occupiers. About 2000 Dutchmen managed to escape to England, including Van der Stok, the most decorated Dutch soldier in history & one of only 3 survivors of the *Great Escape* [which was made into a movie starring Steve McQueen]from Stalag Luft III. The exiled Dutch government broadcast from London & was listened to illegally all over Holland & there was a huge illegal printing press with over 1100 titles.

The largest Resistance movement was the Yugoslav Partisans. Although this group fought as guerrilla soldiers for the first 3 years of the conflict their aim was for a communist state & by 1944 this guerrilla force was an organised army of 800 000 men & women organised into 4 field armies with 52 divisions who fought as a standard army. Amongst their ranks they had many veterans of the Spanish civil war who were experienced in modern warfare & their ranks were formed around an ideology rather than ethnicity. As well Yugoslavia was responsible for a “slow but steady” trickle of downed allied airmen & prison escapees back to Britain. Germany’s occupying force implemented such severe restrictions on the Yugoslavian populace the Partisans found unparalleled support for their activities & Germany found itself unable to control large areas of its newly acquired territory. There was a general breakdown of law & order within the whole country for a considerable period of time ~ a state of affairs that drew German attention away from other war zones.

Poland too had its *Underground State* dedicated to the continuance of autonomous Polish government for its *government in exile* & small groups of para~militants dedicated to the overthrow of German occupation of Polish territory.

Many of the men & women in the underground resistance groups performed amazing acts of personal sacrifice & bravery. Witold Pilecki deliberately allowed himself to be captured & sent to the infamous Auschwietz concentration camp. His reports back to Britain via the Polish underground were the first verifications of the holocaust. Berthe Fraser, twice betrayed to the Gestapo, worked tirelessly for the underground & only escaped execution because the D~Day troops happened to storm her prison. Wing Commander Edward Yeo

Thomas was heavily involved in the French Resistance & although captured escaped from prison. Australian, Nancy Wake, nick~named *the White Mouse* by the Gestapo, is one the most decorated women of the Second World War for her efforts in the French Resistance. She became the NAZIs number one most wanted agent with a reward of 5 million francs on her head & caused them considerable grief. Violette Szabo was another & only 23 when

executed by the Gestapo ~ just one of many men & women, betrayed, tortured & executed by the Germans in their efforts to thwart the Resistance.

At considerable risk to their own personal safety the men & women who participated in the Resistance during WWII made a considerable contribution to the eventual success of the allied forces by forwarding accurate army intelligence to British headquarters, by creating unrest & conflict in German occupied territory, by sabotaging German troops, equipment & headquarters ~ & failing all else by a form of passive resistance by aiding allied forces, working slowly, sabotaging equipment & in the case of Holland creating worker’s strikes that brought the economy to a temporary halt. As the allied troops regained occupied territory they were aided & sometimes joined by the para~military troops of the Resistance who already knew the territory & the movement of the German troops within it. This greatly facilitated allied troop movement & reduced their loses. Without the courage & bravery of the Resistance the Allies might never have won the Second World War.

Bibliography:

Cobb,Matthew ~ The Resistance: the French fight against the Nazis, Simon & Schuster, London,2009

Humbert, Agnes ~ Resistance: a Woman’s Journal of Struggle & defiance in Occupied France. Bloomsbury,Edingburgh,2008.

McKenna, V ~ Carve her Name with Pride ~ Pen & Sword, Lond., 2008

Shuter, Jane ~ Resistance to the Nazis, Heinemann, Hong Kong, 2002

Wake, Nancy ~ the White Mouse. Chivers, N.A. 1988

http://assets.cambridge.org/97805210/03582/sample/9780521003582ws.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_movement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_resistance

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262551/Famous-British-WWII-spy-The-White-Rabbit-survived-Gestapo-torture-honoured-blue-plaque.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_resistance

Movies: Schindler’s List; The Pianist

Science when no~one is a scientist.

2009-10-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious. Alfred North Whitehead

This week we have been concentrating on science. Specifically we have been concentrating on how to write a scientific report. This necessiates an experiment. We don't do experiments. We don't like them. They are messy & yucky & necessitate doing things that make us wish we hadn't & let's face it, a reasonably intelligent child living in the sort of environment Ditz does knows what worms do. Heck, I know what worms do & I'm not the most observant of naturalists. Besides, who was going to handle the worms? Not me. Definitely not Ditz. So we concentrated on how to write up her report.

A science report has a particular format that is new for Ditz & it was the format I wanted Ditz to become familiar with rather than worrying overmuch about the actual experiment.

Now before all the purists jump up & down I would like to point out I grow vegetables. Vegetables necessitate a compost heap. My compost heap has worms. Every few days Ditz or I take out our scraps & bury them in the compost heap. When we spade up a load of soil we get worms; lots & lots of worms & you'd have to be a lot blinder than I am not to cotton on to the fact that worms don't like the light. The wetter my soil the closer to the surface the worms so I figured we had all the prerequisites for the experiment already covered & went from there. No girl handling of things wet, dirty & squirmy. Eww!

Now Ditz & I quite like science ~ on our terms. We are happy to observe but don't ask us to actually *do* anything. Our experiments never *do* what we know full well they are meant to do so we leave that for the people who can actually make that sort of thing work ~ which is why we went with what the master scientist was already accomplishing without any input from us at all.

Up until this point Ditz has got away with a pretty picture nicely labeled but the powers that be suddenly cottoned on to the fact that Ditz was doing grade 9 Science & still doing this & requested, very nicely, she use a scientific format. Absolutely guaranteed not to make Ditz a happy Ditz.

One of Ditz's strengths as a writer is that she is concise. This stems back to her *I hate writing* days. She can be terse to the point of unintelligibility. I figured that this would work in her favour given the nature of Science reports & all. Um, yeah, well. Hm.

Title. So far so good. Aim. "This is boring. I'm just saying the same thing over again." *sigh* Too true, oh sage. Worded slightly differently but the same. Repetition does nothing for Ditz. Method. Ditz looked at me. I consulted her text. We discus ed what she would have done if our compost was a very large container of worms. Results. Easy~peasy. Conclusion. Ditz rolled her eyes. Worms don't like light ~ which we already knew. Repeat for next experiment.

The next experiment was to grow a plant in a jar. Ditz & I just looked at each other. We've done terrariums. Specifically we've done carnivorous plant terrariums. I remember Ditz being really excited about her terrarium & I made her research the soil requirements of her carnivorous plants before we went out & bought her plants. I could see her thinking that this was plain silly. I tend to agree with her. This is not grounded in reality. It has no useful outcome, not even an aesthetic outcome.

Pity watching Mythbusters doesn't count as her curriculum. She retains more actual scientific fact from watching that show that she ever does from her science text but it is a jolly good thing she is never going to put rocket ships into space. Who knows what would happen!

Christian Light Home Economics curriculum.

2009-09-22T13:04:00.000-07:00

"Home economics should find its way into the curriculum of every school because the scientific study of a problem pertaining to food, shelter or clothing… raises manual labor that might be drudgery to the plane of intelligent effort that is always self-respecting…"Martha Van Rensselaer

I rabbitted on elsewhere about how much I like Menninite curriculum & that we are using the Mennonite Christian Light Education for home economics.

We seem to be managing one unit a term so that is what I will work on for now. Like many others we did not come to home economics cold. Cooking is a survival skill in this house so Ditz has been able to cook since she could be trusted to hold a knife & not cut herself ~ that is to say from about the age of 2 or 3. Yes, we start them early.

So I got some eye~rolling early on. I'm fanatical about pot handles even though all mine are big now. It only takes a moment for a sleeve or an elbow to catch a handle & something hot is spilling all over my always crowded kitchen. Turn your handles. Make it a habit. Ditz whizzed through the safety things. Most of it is common sense. I was really pleased to see a discussion about the different sorts of fires & how to put them out safely. Important & necessary information.

We then moved on to the different sorts of utensils & their various uses. More eye~rolling & some confusion as it is an American curriculum & we're not American but nothing too confusing. Then there was a discussion of common cooking terms. Again Ditz knew most of these but a good check point for those that have escaped her notice.

There was also a discussion of common appliances & their care. This, I think, is brilliant. It discusses things like knowing where your manual is for your stove & fridge [ahem], how to clean it & get the most out of it.

The last theoretical section of unit one is all about measurements. Fractions. I am so not going there. That is what measuring cups are for! lol There is more than one way to skin a cat & neither Ditz nor I are going to strain our brain when such things as measuring cups are in our lives.

Lastly there is a really good practical section of basic recipes: gelatin slad; baked otmeal; Scrambled eggs Mexican; oatmeal choc chip cookies. We will try one or two of these over the holidays but as Ditz has been baking & cooking all on her own for some years now these recipes are a little basic. If she'd never cooked before they'd be perfect.

Overall I was very happy with this curriculum. The foundation is very firm & Ditz breezed through everything except the fractions. The next unit looks at nutrition & that will be excellent as my wanna be vegetarian needs to look at where her protein & iron are coming from if not from red meat.

I've been running a house for years & never knew I had so many gaps in my knowledge!

Pulling it all together.

2009-09-07T02:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.~ Albert Einstein

Sometimes we get a little tunnel vision. Sometimes I think we should do unit studies. We immerse. Submerge. Drown. In whatever topic it is that takes our fancy. At some point it crosses my mind that we have other subjects that haven't seen the light of day in some time.

We drift towards the end of term & I know Ditz has one thorough research paper under her belt, her maths has disappeared somewhere on the overlarge desk we use to hold her resources & which careers further & further out of control the further into a term we go; I have no idea where the science test went ; we looked askance at the experiments then turned the page quickly & I have put of her home ec prac to the holidays when we will actually have time to do it. I do not have a good grip on things at this time of term, especially after the sort of term we've had when we have exhausted ourselves with music.

However things are never as chaotic as they appear at first glance. The work is there; it is merely a question of pulling it all together. Pulling it all together is not something I do well.

We have read our way through the Ottoman Empire, Charlemagne & the Vikings.

We have the scrapbooking pages to prove it. Yes, I know she's grade 9 but we are looking at the BIG picture, rather than focusing on details so much. I want Ditz to have a good overview of the sweeping panorama of history so that she can hang everything on it as it comes along.

Her in depth study on Gypsies actually recovers much of the same ground but the larger picture means she understands how her more detail oriented studies fit in. Also into this mix went our Beautiful Feet study of Classical composers. We have read our way through to Beethoven & Schubert, which is a little later timewise but obviously was influenced by what went before. Ditz has actually been quite enjoying this. Not a lot of writing required. Technical writing is still not a Ditz priority but she is reasonably competent.

Science, like math, is one of her weaker subjects. I allow her to do open book exams rather than require she memorise facts. Firstly Ditz is not science oriented so she will never use all the technical language. Secondly, in reality no~one working in a technical field is required to rely on their memory alone. Repetition may allow them to memorise much but they are always able to check their sources. Being able to find information is also a skill, & one Ditz still needs practise with with technical language. We are working on her comprehension with technical stuff but however many times Ditz reads it she still tends to zone out. We do better with science meant for younger grades where Ditz can cut & colour & paste. The trouble with curriculum is it doesn't show all the other science we do & enjoy: cooking [chemistry & physics]; music [physics & biology]; the t.v shows like Myth Busters where someone else does the messy stuff we don't like doing but we get to watch!; DVDs & just general chat about this & that & the other thing. Hard to show that ~ & it's not technical. Nor, for nothing & no~one are we cutting up anything! EEEwwww!English is one of our easier academic subjects. Ditz has always managed the dictations well. Her grammar work has improved out of sight. She writes prolifically for her own creative amusement & her reading level is very high. This term she has read, watched a movie version, studied & is now memorising Demetrius' part for A Midsummer Night's Dream. Yes, she understands it. Yes, she conveys her lines in a meaningful way. No, she rarely needs the footnotes. To all the Sonlight readers, which are actually well below her reading level this year & something I need to look at for next year, she read both The Gift & The Singing, Finnikin of the Rock, several Emily Rhoddas & two different poetry anthologies.

All this is fitted erratically around a music schedule that exhausts me. Apart from lessons, most afternoons see Ditz practising 4 instruments. She tends to do this in short bursts, which is sensible given her attention span, concentrating on one thing. For example, this week's flute practise has been mostly scales because she has a low C & a high F that are quite difficult to hit & need a different technique. Scales are also used to practise various tonguing techniques. Don't ask. Flute sounds wonderful & I was thrilled when Ditz wanted to learn it but the amount of mess & spit is just disgusting! She is starting to sound quite good & getting a real grip on her grade 4 work. I am so pleased we ditched the exams for this year. We just have too much else on.

Guitar is completely self generated. I occasionally play with her, showing her different picking or strumming techniques, but I'm really not very good & it won't take Ditz long to surpass me well & truly. She has been concentrating on the first 3 chords I gave her [G, D & A], nice easy ones that a number of songs I have incorporate, using the chord chart herself & working on her changes. Those are starting to sound quite smooth.

I hope to get most of the term's work tidied up this week as next Monday there is a QPAC performance & that will wipe us for a good part of the week. UGH!

English

2009-08-27T18:45:00.000-07:00

Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends.~ Dawn Adams ~

When it comes to the English component of our studies I lean far more towards an unschooling approach than I dare with something neither Ditz nor I can do ~ such as her maths. The reason for this is simple; Ditz reads & writes prolifically.

Like many homeschool children Ditz reads well above grade level though her world needs to be pretty calm before she can settle peaceably with a book & just read. Just the same she is the heaviest borrower from our island library & we are on intimate terms with our librarian who is always being inveigled to hunt up obscure texts on our behalf.

I rarely limit Ditz's choices. Like me she prefers fantasy. We have just discovered Alison Croggan & the Pellinor Books. The Singing is the last of 4 but that's the one we started with because that was the one on the shelves & not only can we read more than one book at a time, we can read them in any order at all, being, as we are, completely random learners.

These books are definitely YA & not for the faint~hearted, though not, I think, unwholesome. They just deal with one or two themes in a more adult manner than a children's book would. I have enjoyed them immensely ~ & that is how I know Ditz's reading level is shifting up a notch or two because these books are rather more difficult than what she has been reading. A lot of the action is slower & of a psychological nature rather than straightforward action. The vocab is more difficult too. Ditto sentence structure.

I have never required book reports as such. We tackled our first this year because it was a requirement of our umbrella school but I don't much see the point. Why? Well, because Ditz writes ~ thousands & thousands of words. We do do grammar but the writing is self~generated ~ which means Ditz cares about it & cares enough to deal with things in her own way. Her writing has improved out of sight in the last few years. The child who would write nothing for nobody has several novels under her belt now. Yes, there are editorial problems but these are self~correcting as she matures & seeks to clarify her meaning. I keep my hands off as much as possible.

Now I know there are hordes of good books around that will never cross Ditz's path if Ditz is left to her own devices ~ & I have absolutely no problem with that. Do you know how many college graduates never pick up a book again? How sad is that! My goal is more to have a reader for life, a person who sees books as something to be enjoyed, not drudgery to be endured. My goal is not a destination; it is the journey itself.

And the thing is, one way or another, many of the books considered classics will cross Ditz's path because of the nature of the career she has chosen. An adept in language will never have a problem with comprehension & is far more likely to read the classics for pleasure ~ & if not for pleasure then because her work requires it. If all Ditz had read this term were the Singing & A Midsummer Night's Dream I would be extremely happy. She has read far more books than that for her own amusement: poetry, a dictionary of classical composers, science & history. The day I worry about Ditz English component will be the day she stops reading. Can't see it happening myself. I caught her young.

2009-08-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

GYPSIES ~ research paper.

The people usually referred to as Gypsies were a semi-nomadic people who’s origins can be traced back linguistly to the Sind area of India at the mouth of the Indus river. They migrated into Europe over 400 years in three separate migrations. The Damari went east into Egypt and the Middle East, the Lomavren travelled into Armenia and turkey, the Romany went west into Europe.

The Romany is the group generally referred to as gypsies, a name derived from Egyptian, Egypt once being thought the Gypsy’s original homeland. Their Indian roots go as far back as the sixth century. The first European record of the Romany was in 1290. They are recorded as residing on Mt Athos in Greece in the life of Saint George at an Iberian monastery. The record states the Romany killed wild beasts with magic in Constantinople in 1050.

Why the Romany left India is uncertain. The most plausible theory suggests they were refugees from Mahmud of Ghanzi wars in the early eleventh century and expanded slowly throughout Europe until the decline of Kubla Khan’s empire, finally arriving in Great Britain about 1514.

The Romany remain the most persecuted minority in Europe with governments attempting to forcibly settle the Romanies for reasons of hygiene, crime, safety and education. They have also been forcibly sterilized and had their children removed and placed in institutions & schooled in mental homes but the Romany have always formed a link between peasant and master practising black smithing, tin smithing, lock smithing and as itinerant farm labourers & travelling musicians.

Gypsies are traditionally considered to live in wagons known as vardos. In fact vardos have been in use in Great Britain for only 150 years. They were developed in France in 1810 and first came to great Brittan in 1820 but they were not used as homes to be lived in until 1850. Specialty coach builders took 6-12 months to construct a vardo using oak, ash, pine, elm, and walnut for a cost of £50-150. Newly weds would order their vardo on their wedding and it became their most prized possession ~ painted, decorated with carvings and enriched with gold leaf. The most popular wagons were the Redding or Bowtop wagons.

Wagons were usually ten feet long, six feet wide and nine foot six inches from the ground to the top of the bow. It was pulled by a single horse of fourteen hands and could travel 15 miles a day. The interior held a cast iron stove to the left of the door. The door was often a stable door in two halves. The rear and sometimes the sides had windows. Also at the rear was a raised double bunk for the adults with a smaller bunk underneath for the children. Many wagons use sliding doors to partition off the sleeping quarters. The stove was only in use in bad weather as the Rom preferred to cook over an open camp fire. Vardos always have very big wheels for easy navigation of rough terrain and river fords.

Prior to 1850 gypsies walked everywhere pulling hand carts and slept in benders (tents of hazel twigs covered by canvas) or beneath the tilt of the cart.

Gypsies are known by several different names. Among them are dom rom and lom which all correspond phonetically with the Sanskrit domba and modern Indian dom or dum. These words have their root in the Sanskrit domba which means a man of low cast living by singing and music. In Sindhi it refers to wandering musicians and in Panjabi to strolling musicians.

Ian Hancock, gypsy activist and historian, hi-lights Rom use of the Indian bhairavi musical sale as well as the mouth music known as bol which consists of rhythmic syllables imitating drum strokes. Hungarian Roms have a type of stick dancing called rovliako khelipen which has Indian parallels.

One of the enduring gypsy legacies is their contribution to the music of the countries they travelled through. As such they often acted as repositories for endangered music. The elements of gypsy music are highly rhythmic with exceptionally chromatic and fluid solos sung a Capella, hand percussion and improvisation. Gypsies tend to play behind the beat using their chest voice rather than their head tones. Hungarian Romanies singing a Capella employ oral basing where the base singers sustain a highly rhythmic and syncopated sound.

The Rom word for band is taraf. A musician is lautari, from the Latin for lute. One of the more famous of the lautari is Papusza, a Polish Rom who became one of the greatest Gypsy singer/poets ever. The Polish poet Jerzy Ficowski heard her, mentored her & got her works published but this alienated her from her Romany community who considered she had betrayed them to the gadjo [non~gypsies]. She was ostracized by the kris [gypsy law court] & spent time in a mental asylum, abandoning her creativity.

Amongst the Rom the idea of cast persists in ritualised ideas of cleanliness, the burning of a dead elder’s caravan with all his possessions and a defunct practice known as lustering where a widow was also burned along with her husband’s wagon on his death. This has obvious parallels with Indian sati. The traditional gypsy tribunal for solving internal disputes, kris, parallels the Indian panchayat.

This idea of cast is also found in ideas that only certain groups can eat together without contamination and utensils are not allowed to touch the mouth. At its most extreme gypsies keep their homes and caravans scruplessly clean adhering to strict rituals of personal purity but will allow their yards and surrounds to accumulate filth because touching another person’s garbage would make them ritually unclean. For the same reason horses are revered and gypsies have been known to keep them inside apartment buildings but dogs and cats, which lick themselves thus taking dirt inside themselves, are viewed as unclean and never kept as pets. Gypsies will have many tubs, each used for a specific purpose, because a pan used for washing clothes cannot be used for dishes, & men’s garments must be washed separately from women’s & none of them can be used for personal bathing.

This idea of ritual purity has contributed to Gypsy alienation within the communities they pass through. Non~Gypsies are, by definition, unclean. Gypsy communities have been slow to adapt to changes within wider communities, holding to arranged marriages, girls marrying shortly after the onset of their menarche, & a distrust of formal schooling. An itinerant lifestyle meant formal schooling was often erratic. As Governments have forced settlement on Gypsy communities this is slowly changing.

Gypsies have suffered a long history of discrimination in every country they have lived in from 400 years of slavery in Romania to being the second largest group persecuted by the Nazis in WWII.

During WWII Hitler rounded up & destroyed the Gypsy communities with the same ferocity as the Jews & the conservative estimate is that as many as 250 000 perished in the gas ovens of Auschwitz and other death camps. Only the Jews suffered greater loses but as the Gypsies were mostly illiterate their story is poorly documented. Like the Jews they were considered to be “non~humans”, work shy, foreigners, & incapable of being useful members of society. As such they were subjected to medical experimentation & atrocities before being exterminated.

Gypsies married to Germans were exempted from the camps but were sterilised & if they already had children the children were sterilised after they turned 12 years old.

The discrimination & suspicion with which Gypsies have been viewed persists. In 1952 Poland began a forced settlement program on its Gypsy population. Other European nations such as Romania, Bulgaria & Czechoslovakia followed this example. As late as 1989 atrocities against Gypsies were being reported but the scattered Gypsy populations are finally becoming politically active on their own account & are lobbying for a voice in the United Nations as “Gypsies”. [Mary Pottanat and Nadia Khan ~ Roma [Gypsy & the Holocaust]. There are now political organisations in place to help Gypsies & lobby on their behalf.

Romani International - Australia Inc. 289 Cross Rd., Clarence Gardens South Australia 5039 AUSTRALIA

Is one such organisation in Australia.

Bibliography.
Fonseca, Isabel ~ Bury Me Standing: the gypsies & their journey, Random House,U.S.A, 1995.

Godden, Rumor ~ The Diddakoi ~ Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, N.S.W., Aust.,1973

Liegeois, Jean~Piere ~ Gypsies; an illustrated History, SAQI, Westbourne Grove, London, 2005

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_people –

www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1191889.htm

www.geocities.com/~patrin/ -

www.romani.org/

www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/gypsies.html

iearn.org/hgp/aeti/aeti-1997/roma-in-holocaust.html

Starting the new year.

2009-02-06T12:57:00.000-08:00

History: gossip well told. ~Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary

The only subject I really can't stand is math & both Ditz & I struggle terribly with her math. That hasn't always been the case. When she was younger math was her favourite subject & she was pretty good at it too. I breathed this massive sigh of relief because I thought is was one way in which my Ditz was not like me. I was wrong. Her love of math was a passing fad. She's over it now.

We have done no math this week. We have done some science, muddling about somewhere where we finished off last year. Ditz did a bit of bunny hooping so we're neither of us terribly sure where she should be. And we've done some English. English is my strong subject so I don't worry overmuch about what Ditz does or does not do in this area. She reads & I know she writes; I'm always buying her notebooks to write in. I actually believe good readers become pretty good writers by default & Ditz reads very well. Her writing is improving. Plus she went to the library this week on the first day it was open & she borrowed more books than I did, remembering that the child has a literature rich curriculum for History & English & spends big wads of her day reading anyway. You won't hear me complaining about Ditz's reading. About her choice of material maybe, but not her reading. We did History ~ mapwork & more reading.

Wednesday was a write off as that was the day Liddy got home & mum visited & after that Ditz did her audition for choir which was enough to have all her ADD for anything else going full steam ahead. Even with music she has these lapses in concentration & that is her best subject far & away. She seems to breath in information by osmosis without the painful push, shove, drag needed for other subjects.

So we've made it through to the end of our first week of a new school year. The first week is always the hardest after such a long summer break & by the end of next week I hope we'll have all her instruments slotted in & be able to get our schedule running on remote so that I don't have to think about it all the time. It's nice to already have work to show for a week's worth of effort but History is such a breeze it's almost criminal the way we do it though this year I will be pushing Ditz to do several papers as well. She's chosen her first one. Getting her to actually write it is another matter.

2008-12-11T12:52:00.000-08:00

Learning to perform on stage is really learning to live comfortably with fear. ..Isaac Ster

This is Ditz's first certificate. All the years she's learnt music & we never bothered with exams till now. I think there must be easier ways to earn a living but sustenance for the soul is even more important than sustenance for the body. Any way, the proof's in the pudding. Ditz is never going to be a technician but it seems the child can tootle to some purpose.

Flute exams.

2008-11-28T13:34:00.000-08:00

Ditz is taking the AMEB exams [Australian Music Examinations Board] & she is not a happy Ditz. What she is playing is Anderson's Moderato from 26 Kleine Capricen Op. 37, Purcell's Largo from sonata no.1, & Lindsay Aked's See the Rabbit.

She is supposed to have looked at all the other pieces but they do not have to be at performance standard though she is meant to be able to play them. Despite my best efforts she's not much into classical music though she prefers the faster pieces to the Largo. The Largo is the only piece I really like. Naturally.

She is also supposed to know her scales & some biographical information about the composers, be able to tell a major scale from a minor & a major fifth from a perfect 4th ...or something along those lines. I have probably got that all wrong because I never have the least idea what they are rabbiting on about & tired Ditz doesn't have much idea either. Her random guesses become very random. If she's bright eyed & bushy tailed she has no trouble with any of it. Rather her than me. I can think of a few things more nerve wracking but not many.

The QPAC week

2008-11-27T13:40:00.000-08:00

We abandoned academics this week to concentrate on the QPAC Christmas concert. Next week we are concentrating exclusively on flute because Ditz is rehearsing with the accompanist on Tuesday & doing her grade 3 AMBE exam on Friday. I have to keep reminding myself that music is school too.

So what has Ditz learnt this week? That if you make a commitment you show up even if you have changed your mind! It has been a hard, hard week.

That performances are hard work.

That people get irate if you are not prepared.

That city traffic is a nightmare.

That she really, really likes her island home.

She has learnt a little more about Brisbane, which is after all her state capital.

She is appreciating mummy far more & has learnt we are proud enough of what she's doing & how she's managing to brag on her ~ just a little.

She is also learning the most important & practical skill of map reading! She hasn't got it yet & she is enough like her mummy that this is never going to come easily or naturally to her but she is in there trying & sometimes she even gets it right!

We are also into the last few weeks of the actual school year though we will perservere with the math over the break as we have been too pressed for time to sort out the tangle. Time is always in short supply in this house but the math is going to require quiet, uninterrupted, concentrated time. Ditz can't wait to ditch it.

2008-11-26T17:21:00.000-08:00

A little science...

A little geography....

Music...

And history make Ditz's world go round.