Celebrating Liberation: The Commemoration and Instrumentalisation of the End of the Second World War in Contemporary Czech and Slovak Politics

This article draws on Marxist theories of crises, imperialism, and class formation to identify commonalities and differences between the stagnation of the 1930s and today. Its key argument is that the anti-systemic movements that existed in the 1930s and gained ground after the Second World War pushed capitalists to turn from imperialist expansion and rivalry to the deep penetration of domestic markets. By doing so they unleashed strong economic growth that allowed for social compromise without hurting profits. Yet, once labour and other social movements threatened to shift the balance of class power into their favor, capitalist counter-reform began. In its course, global restructuring, and notably the integration of Russia and China into the world market, created space for accumulation. The cause for the current stagnation is that this space has been used up. In the absence of systemic challenges capitalists have little reason to seek a major overhaul of their accumulation strategies that could help to overcome stagnation. Instead they prop up profits at the expense of the subaltern classes even if this prolongs stagnation and leads to sharper social divisions.

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The bombing of British cities in the Second World War

STORIA URBANA ◽

10.3280/su2018-158002 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 11-33

Author(s):

Richard Overy

Keyword(s):

Second World War ◽

World War ◽

Second World

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Zabiegi likwidujące skutki obrzezania wykonywane w Warszawie w czasie drugiej wojny światowej. Wstępna próba opisu zjawiska

Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały ◽

10.32927/zzsim.366 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 437-446

Author(s):

Maria Ciesielska

Keyword(s):

Second World War ◽

Tissue Preparation ◽

World War ◽

Medical Practitioners ◽

Reconstruction Surgery ◽

Repair Operation ◽

Manual Treatment ◽

Operating Technique ◽

Almost All ◽

Second World

Men’s circumcision is in many countries considered as a hygienic-cosmetic or aesthetic treatment. However, it still remains in close connection with religious rites (Judaism, Islam) and is still practiced all over the world. During the Second World War the visible effects of circumcision became an indisputable evidence of being a Jew and were often used especially by the so-called szmalcownicy (blackmailers). Fear of the possibility of discovering as non-Aryan prompted many Jews hiding on the so-called Aryan side of Warsaw to seek medical practitioners who would restore the condition as it was before the circumcision. The reconstruction surgery was called in surgical jargon “knife baptizing”. Almost all of the procedures were performed by Aryan doctors although four cases of hiding Jewish doctors participating in such procedures are known. Surgical technique consisted of the surgical formation of a new foreskin after tissue preparation and stretching it by manual treatment. The success of the repair operation depended on the patient’s cooperation with the doctor, the worst result was in children. The physicians described in the article and the operating technique are probably only a fragment of a broader activity, described meticulously by only one of the doctors – Dr. Janusz Skórski. This work is an attempt to describe the phenomenon based on the very scanty source material, but it seems to be the first such attempt for several decades.

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Finnish refugee children’s experiences of Swedish refugee camps during the Second World War

MIGRATION LETTERS ◽

10.33182/ml.v12i1.254 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 28-37

Author(s):

Merja Paksuniemi

Keyword(s):

Well Being ◽

Second World War ◽

Refugee Children ◽

Refugee Camps ◽

World War ◽

Daily Routines ◽

Decisive Importance ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Camp Life ◽

Second World

This article seeks to demonstrate how Finnish refugee children experienced living in Swedish refugee camps during the Second World War (1939–1945). The study focuses on children’s opinions and experiences reflected through adulthood. The data were collected through retrospective interviews with six adults who experienced wartime as children in Finland and were evacuated to Sweden as refugees. Five of the interviewees were female and one of them was male. The study shows, it was of decisive importance to the refugee children’s well-being to have reliable adults around them during the evacuation and at the camps. The findings demonstrate that careful planning made a significant difference to the children´s adaptations to refugee camp life. The daily routines at the camp, such as regular meals, play time and camp school, reflected life at home and helped the children to continue their lives, even under challenging circumstances.

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Three hundred years of House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) persecution in Germany

Archives of Natural History ◽

10.3366/anh.2007.34.2.307 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 34 (2) ◽

pp. 307-317 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

J. SEITZ

Keyword(s):

Rural Areas ◽

House Sparrow ◽

Bird Species ◽

Passer Domesticus ◽

Second World War ◽

Population Increase ◽

World War ◽

Large Numbers ◽

Urban And Rural Areas ◽

Second World

Modernization of agriculture, economic development and population increase after the end of the Thirty Years' War caused authorities in many parts of Germany to decree the eradication of so-called pest animals, including the House Sparrow. Farmers were given targets, and had to deliver the heads of sparrows in proportion to the size of their farms or pay fines. At the end of the eighteenth century German ornithologists argued against the eradication of the sparrows. During the mid-nineteenth century, C. L. Gloger, the pioneer of bird protection in Germany, emphasized the value of the House Sparrow in controlling insect plagues. Many decrees were abolished because either they had not been obeyed, or had resulted in people protecting sparrows so that they always had enough for their “deliveries”. Surprisingly, various ornithologists, including Ernst Hartert and the most famous German bird conservationist Freiherr Berlepsch, joined in the war against sparrows at the beginning of the twentieth century, because sparrows were regarded as competitors of more useful bird species. After the Second World War, sparrows were poisoned in large numbers. Persecution of sparrows ended in Germany in the 1970s. The long period of persecution had a significant but not long-lasting impact on House Sparrow populations, and therefore cannot be regarded as a factor in the recent decline of this species in urban and rural areas of western and central Europe.

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