Relatives of a Russian officer who looted Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's Berlin bunker in 1945 have unearthed the Führer's personal record collection among his belongings.
What they found does not make sweet music to those who still worship the racial quackery of mankind's greatest tormentor. For amid the Wagner and the Beethoven, were works by Jewish and Russian composers - Hitler's greatest enemies - including Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Borodin.
Throughout the 12-year lifespan of the Third Reich, Hitler forbade his followers to listen to anything other than German composers. Even jazz was banned as "negro swamp music" and orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic were forbidden from playing anything other than Teutonic classics. The rest Hitler labelled "sub-human music"
Now the pillaged recordings, taken by a Red Army officer, Besymenski, after Berlin fell in May 1945, show that Hitler was a hypocrite as well as a monster.
Besymenski, himself a Jew, was fluent in German and conducted the interrogation of Field Marshal von Paulus after the Sixth Army was destroyed at Stalingrad in 1943. When Berlin fell, the Russian officer was despatched with others to make an inventory of artefacts in the bunker and Hitler's destroyed Reichschancellery above it.
While his comrades set about recording - and pilfering - the monogrammed silver and swastika-embossed porcelain, Captain Besymenski noticed that many cabinets had special locks and were still sealed.
Years later, he wrote these words: "They were all packed with paperwork indicating they were to be sent to the mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden. Among electrical appliances and things like washing machines, were the records."
According to Alexandra Besymenski, his daughter, her father kept the records as souvenirs and first showed them to her at the family dacha outside of Moscow in 1991. The much honoured history professor and lecturer at the Moscow Military Academy kept them in the loft at the dacha at Nikolina-Gora.
"I stumbled across them as I was looking for a football," his daughter Alexandra told Der Spiegel.
The family thinks that the Russian captain hid the records, which bear the stamp "Führer headquarters" across them, because he did not want to be thought of as a common looter.
Not that it was not common practice for the Soviet military elite to take home the spoils of a war that cost 26 million Russian lives: Marschall Zhukov, the victor of Stalingrad and Berlin, took home 55 classical oil paintings, seven boxes of valuable porcelain and silverware, nine gold watches and 713 silver ornaments pilfered from the castles of Potsdam.
But the records were both a sense of shame and pride for the music-loving Besymenski who died two months ago, aged 86. During his life, he played them for himself and a small clique of trusted friends.
Now Alexandra has revealed the story of how Adolf Hitler's record collection came to be in the hands of his sworn enemy.
The usual Hitler favourites are there; Beethoven's rousing Ninth Symphony, the Flying Dutchman by Wagner, several works by Brahms, Schumann and Mozart.
But the discovery of the recordings of Russians and Jews show that Hitler did not practice what he preached to his people. There are works featuring prominent Jewish soloists, including Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman and the voice of Russian baritone Fyodor Shalyapin on a recording of Mussorgsky's Death of Boris Godunov.
Many of the records are scratched, indicating they were played over and over again while the war that Hitler began cost millions of lives across Europe and the wider world.
"I think my father found it astonishing that millions of Jews and Russians had to die because of the ideology of Hitler and here he was all the time enjoying their art," said Alexandra.
Alexandra said will make a decision over what to do with the collection of several hundred records in the coming months.
Independent
Showing posts with label Russian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russian. Show all posts
August 07, 2007
June 14, 2007
Overcoming barriers to integration
Towns and cities across the UK are expected to be far more ethnically diverse in future.
Most are unlikely to end up resembling the Wood Green district of Haringey in north London, which ranks among the most culturally mixed boroughs in the country.
As a government-appointed commission comes up with new recommendations to improve relations between migrants and local communities in England, what do its residents feel about integration? The commission considers the inability to speak English to be the single biggest barrier to integration.
John Okono, 28, came to the UK from Nigeria - an English-speaking country - three years ago and can see how some of the immigrant friends he has made have become isolated because of a lack of language skills. Mr Okono, who is working as a security guard as he studies for a masters degree, can see himself applying for British citizenship one day.
"Whenever you come to a different country you have to integrate yourself with the culture and speaking the language is a very important part of that," he said.
It is a point not lost on charity worker Patricia Rodgers, who was brought up in Glasgow in the 1960s and 1970s and has lived in Haringey for three years, after a spell in Spain teaching English.
"It's definitely important for people to learn the language," she said. "I have taught it here to a lot of the Polish community and I'm going to start doing it again on a voluntary basis as there's a big need for it."
New shops
The shops of Wood Green, like most suburbs of London, offer clues to the changing make-up of its population.
Greek and Turkish-run grocers sit side-by-side Afro-Caribbean food retailers, Halal butchers and stores selling eastern European provisions. Accommodation advertisements in Polish, Russian and Chinese now appear in newsagent windows.
According to the 2001 Census, about 33% of Haringey's population of 216,000 were born outside the UK. White British people made up 45% of its residents.
Another message from people in Wood Green is that mixing with other residents is the key to becoming a more integrated community.
Emerging from a bagel shop is technician Mohammed Ali Hassan, 45, who came to the UK from Somalia in 2006 and has been granted asylum.
"I've only been here for a year so I don't really have friends of different nationalities yet - but when our children go to school, the parents have meetings and discussions so there integration takes place," he said.
Peter Cercek, 33, a computer worker who arrived from the Czech Republic in 2004, highlights a position communities moving to less diverse areas may find themselves in.
"For the first six months I only knew people from my country, but now I have friends of all different nationalities," he said. "If I lived in a small town I probably wouldn't mix, but there are so many different people it's impossible not to."
Sheraz Ahmed, 26, who came to London from Pakistan just five months ago, is working part-time on a stand selling telephone cards and studying English, ahead of starting an MBA. Friends he has made through work are from Mauritius and Albania, but his housemates are also Pakistani and he says he does not really know any British people.
"It's difficult to mix with other cultures when I've only been here for a short while," he said. "But that's why it's important to speak English."
The comments of student Christopher Lewis, 16, suggest that promotion of a common language more than Britishness is the most effective way to integrate communities in 2007. The UK-born son of Greek immigrants said he was not entirely at ease with being described as British.
"I've friends from Latvia and Africa but at the end of the day families always have tradition. You can socialise but your roots are going to be closer to you than your outside contacts," he said. "Some parts of me are British and some parts are not. The UK is a multi-cultural society now - it is not 'just British' anymore."
BBC
Most are unlikely to end up resembling the Wood Green district of Haringey in north London, which ranks among the most culturally mixed boroughs in the country.
As a government-appointed commission comes up with new recommendations to improve relations between migrants and local communities in England, what do its residents feel about integration? The commission considers the inability to speak English to be the single biggest barrier to integration.
John Okono, 28, came to the UK from Nigeria - an English-speaking country - three years ago and can see how some of the immigrant friends he has made have become isolated because of a lack of language skills. Mr Okono, who is working as a security guard as he studies for a masters degree, can see himself applying for British citizenship one day.
"Whenever you come to a different country you have to integrate yourself with the culture and speaking the language is a very important part of that," he said.
It is a point not lost on charity worker Patricia Rodgers, who was brought up in Glasgow in the 1960s and 1970s and has lived in Haringey for three years, after a spell in Spain teaching English.
"It's definitely important for people to learn the language," she said. "I have taught it here to a lot of the Polish community and I'm going to start doing it again on a voluntary basis as there's a big need for it."
New shops
The shops of Wood Green, like most suburbs of London, offer clues to the changing make-up of its population.
Greek and Turkish-run grocers sit side-by-side Afro-Caribbean food retailers, Halal butchers and stores selling eastern European provisions. Accommodation advertisements in Polish, Russian and Chinese now appear in newsagent windows.
According to the 2001 Census, about 33% of Haringey's population of 216,000 were born outside the UK. White British people made up 45% of its residents.
Another message from people in Wood Green is that mixing with other residents is the key to becoming a more integrated community.
Emerging from a bagel shop is technician Mohammed Ali Hassan, 45, who came to the UK from Somalia in 2006 and has been granted asylum.
"I've only been here for a year so I don't really have friends of different nationalities yet - but when our children go to school, the parents have meetings and discussions so there integration takes place," he said.
Peter Cercek, 33, a computer worker who arrived from the Czech Republic in 2004, highlights a position communities moving to less diverse areas may find themselves in.
"For the first six months I only knew people from my country, but now I have friends of all different nationalities," he said. "If I lived in a small town I probably wouldn't mix, but there are so many different people it's impossible not to."
Sheraz Ahmed, 26, who came to London from Pakistan just five months ago, is working part-time on a stand selling telephone cards and studying English, ahead of starting an MBA. Friends he has made through work are from Mauritius and Albania, but his housemates are also Pakistani and he says he does not really know any British people.
"It's difficult to mix with other cultures when I've only been here for a short while," he said. "But that's why it's important to speak English."
The comments of student Christopher Lewis, 16, suggest that promotion of a common language more than Britishness is the most effective way to integrate communities in 2007. The UK-born son of Greek immigrants said he was not entirely at ease with being described as British.
"I've friends from Latvia and Africa but at the end of the day families always have tradition. You can socialise but your roots are going to be closer to you than your outside contacts," he said. "Some parts of me are British and some parts are not. The UK is a multi-cultural society now - it is not 'just British' anymore."
BBC
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