Ler Ferreira de Castro 40 Anos Depois
Mais informações: www.cm-sintra.pt
2.1.13
A Idade do Gelo 4: Deriva Continental (2012)
Título original: Ice Age: Continental Drift * Realização: Steve Martino, Mike Thurmeier * Argumento: Michael Berg (screenplay), Jason Fuchs * Elenco: Ray Romano, Denis Leary and John Leguizamo
1.1.13
É a Vida! (2010)
Filme simpático para dias nhó-nhós.
Título original: Life as We Know It * Realização: Greg Berlanti * Argumento: Ian Deitchman, Kristin Rusk Robinson * Elenco: Katherine Heigl, Josh Duhamel and Josh Lucas
31.12.12
O Ditador (2012)
Desta feita, representa um ditador de um fictício pais árabe, que, na sequência de uma tentativa de assassinato, se vê perdido em Nova Iorque destituído de qualquer elemento identitário e tenta ainda assim retomar o poder. Pelo meio ficam críticas explicitas ao modo como lidamos com esterotipos, o desconhecimento que possuímos sobre determinadas culturas e regiões, o papeis sociais e as grandes instituições internacionais, que supostamente regulam ou medeiam os grandes estados e os seus interesses.
Título original: The Dictator * Realização: Larry Charles * Argumento: Sacha Baron Cohen e Alec Berg * Elenco: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris e Ben Kingsley
30.12.12
Se isto é um homem, Primo Levi
Por onde começar um registo da leitura deste livro que certamente ficará na memória até ao resto dos meus dias? Talvez explica-lo explicará o seu impacto.
Se isto é um homem é o relato do autor italiano Primo Levi da sua experiência no campo de extermínio de Auschwitz-Birkenau, desde a sua captura no final de 1943 até à sua libertação no final de Janeiro de 1945. O seu regresso a Itália será posteriormente retratado no livro A Queda, a cuja leitura me dedicarei certamente ainda este ano.
Este não é então um livro ficcional. No entanto, a veracidade do seu relato parece ficar sempre aquém da realidade, mas como o autor explica: seria necessária uma nova linguagem para explicar o que o homem teve coragem de fazer ao homem naquele local (e de certo em muito outros).
Além da descrição do funcionamento de vários aspectos de Auschwitz-Birkenau, o mérito deste relato chocante é instigar-nos à reflexão. Sem procurar emitir juízos, leva-nos a ponderar as circunstâncias das nossas acções, sobretudo quando essas são situações extremas. Noções e valores como bem/mal, justiça/injustiça, identidade (nome, possessões), sanidade, sobrevivência (fome, sede, fadiga extrema), humanidade/animalidade, liberdade e silêncio são pois apresentadas e explicadas, mas nunca julgadas, pois ninguém pode julgar sem passar pela mesma experiência.
Ler atentamente este relato faz-nos relativizar acontecimentos da nossa vida. Lê-lo em período de festas natalícias faz-nos ponderar os excessos. Lê-lo tem um impacto indelével cuja repercussão não posso ainda determinar. Lê-lo obriga-nos a olhar para o nosso íntimo. Lê-lo deveria ser obrigatório, pois o seu registo de aniquilação e morte é uma lição de vida.
29.12.12
Todas as nossas preocupações são válidas, mas questiono-me frequentemente sobre o peso das preocupações dos homens ao redor dos tempos e do mundo. Entre termos de abdicar de luxos e bens de consumo e ter de racionar comida ou não saber sequer quando será a próxima, há uma grande distância. Apesar dos contratempos, sou ainda uma privilegiada: tenho um tecto, comida na mesa, um trabalho que gosto, um hobbie cansativo mas compensador, acesso a informação e possibilidade de escolher (errado). Tomara todos!
28.12.12
As crianças em Auschwitz
The fate of child and youth prisoners was no different in principle from that of adults (with the exception of the children in the family camps). Just like adults, they suffered from hunger and cold, were used as laborers, and were punished, put to death, and used as subjects in criminal experiments by SS doctors.
At the end of 1943, separate barracks were set up for children above the age of 2. These did not differ in any way from the barracks assigned to adults. The camp authorities did not even distribute milk or appropriate food rations for infants, thus sentencing them to starve to death. Only the children in the camp hospital were a little better off—the prisoner nursing and medical staffs tried to provide them with additional blankets, food, clothing, and medicine.
The hardest thing was trying to help the Jewish children who were at risk of selection for the gas chambers.
The extermination of children in Auschwitz and their transfer to other camps, especially in the final stages, ensured that few of them survived until liberation.
The available records indicate that there were at least 700 children and youth prisoners, including about 500 under 15, in Auschwitz when the Soviet soldiers arrived. More than half of these children were Jewish.
The liberated children were badly exhausted. Many of them ended up in the camp hospitals organized by the Soviets and the Polish Red Cross on the grounds of the main camp immediately after liberation.
After examining 180 children aged 6 months to 14 years, a forensic medical commission reported that the majority of them were suffering from diseases acquired in the camp. 60 percent showed vitamin deficiency and overall weakening of the organism, and 40% of them had tuberculosis. All of the children were underweight by 5 to 17 kilograms, despite the fact that the majority of them had been transported to Auschwitz in the second half of 1944, and had spent only a few months there.
At the end of 1943, separate barracks were set up for children above the age of 2. These did not differ in any way from the barracks assigned to adults. The camp authorities did not even distribute milk or appropriate food rations for infants, thus sentencing them to starve to death. Only the children in the camp hospital were a little better off—the prisoner nursing and medical staffs tried to provide them with additional blankets, food, clothing, and medicine.
The hardest thing was trying to help the Jewish children who were at risk of selection for the gas chambers.
The extermination of children in Auschwitz and their transfer to other camps, especially in the final stages, ensured that few of them survived until liberation.
The available records indicate that there were at least 700 children and youth prisoners, including about 500 under 15, in Auschwitz when the Soviet soldiers arrived. More than half of these children were Jewish.
The liberated children were badly exhausted. Many of them ended up in the camp hospitals organized by the Soviets and the Polish Red Cross on the grounds of the main camp immediately after liberation.
After examining 180 children aged 6 months to 14 years, a forensic medical commission reported that the majority of them were suffering from diseases acquired in the camp. 60 percent showed vitamin deficiency and overall weakening of the organism, and 40% of them had tuberculosis. All of the children were underweight by 5 to 17 kilograms, despite the fact that the majority of them had been transported to Auschwitz in the second half of 1944, and had spent only a few months there.
in en.auschwitz.org
27.12.12
A Solução Final
It is not known when Hitler formed the intention of the “final solution of the Jewish question” on the scale of the European continent. The conference in Wannsee on January 20, 1942 considered only the details of the undertaking: the methods for organizing the deportation and ensuring the cooperation of the civilian administration. Overall, the plans called for the murder of 11 million Jews living in Germany, the occupied territory, the states opposed to the Third Reich, and the allied and neutral countries.
The first killing center set up in occupied Polish lands was the camp at Chełmno on the Ner; Jews brought in from the ghettos in the Wartheland were being killed there from December 1941. Three more camps, somewhat larger, were opened at Bełżec, Sobibor, and Treblinka (in what was known as “Aktion Reinhard”) somewhat later, between March and July 1942.
In Auschwitz, the murdering of prisoners in gas chambers began even earlier, when 575 sick and disabled prisoners were sent to their deaths at the euthanasia center in Germany at the end of June 1941. At the beginning of September, the SS used Zyklon B gas in the cellars of block 11 to kill about 600 Soviet POWs and another group of patients from the camp hospital. Soviet POWs and Jews brought from Upper Silesia were killed in the gas chamber in crematorium I over the following months. It was probably at the end of March or in April 1942 that the Germans began killing sick prisoners and Jews in a provisional gas chamber in Birkenau (the so-called “little red house”). The tempo of atrocities increased in June and July 1942, with transports of Jews sent to Auschwitz being subjected to systematic “selections” during which SS doctors sentenced people classified as unfit for labor to death.
At the same time, the Germans set about liquidating the ghettos in occupied Poland. July 22, 1942, when the deportation of Jews from Warsaw to the death camp in Treblinka began, is regarded as a symbolic date. A decided majority of the Polish Jews were killed in a little over half a year, after which the SS began liquidating the Aktion Reinhard camps. However, the last great death camp—Auschwitz—remained in existence until the beginning of 1945. It was mainly Jews from Western and Southern Europe, from the liquidated labor camps, and the ghettos in Sosnowiec and Łódź, who died in the gas chambers there.
The first killing center set up in occupied Polish lands was the camp at Chełmno on the Ner; Jews brought in from the ghettos in the Wartheland were being killed there from December 1941. Three more camps, somewhat larger, were opened at Bełżec, Sobibor, and Treblinka (in what was known as “Aktion Reinhard”) somewhat later, between March and July 1942.
In Auschwitz, the murdering of prisoners in gas chambers began even earlier, when 575 sick and disabled prisoners were sent to their deaths at the euthanasia center in Germany at the end of June 1941. At the beginning of September, the SS used Zyklon B gas in the cellars of block 11 to kill about 600 Soviet POWs and another group of patients from the camp hospital. Soviet POWs and Jews brought from Upper Silesia were killed in the gas chamber in crematorium I over the following months. It was probably at the end of March or in April 1942 that the Germans began killing sick prisoners and Jews in a provisional gas chamber in Birkenau (the so-called “little red house”). The tempo of atrocities increased in June and July 1942, with transports of Jews sent to Auschwitz being subjected to systematic “selections” during which SS doctors sentenced people classified as unfit for labor to death.
At the same time, the Germans set about liquidating the ghettos in occupied Poland. July 22, 1942, when the deportation of Jews from Warsaw to the death camp in Treblinka began, is regarded as a symbolic date. A decided majority of the Polish Jews were killed in a little over half a year, after which the SS began liquidating the Aktion Reinhard camps. However, the last great death camp—Auschwitz—remained in existence until the beginning of 1945. It was mainly Jews from Western and Southern Europe, from the liquidated labor camps, and the ghettos in Sosnowiec and Łódź, who died in the gas chambers there.
in en.auschwitz.org
26.12.12
A Grande Marcha
From January 17 to 21, the Germans marched approximately 56 thousand prisoners out of Auschwitz and its sub-camps in evacuation columns mostly heading west, through Upper and Lower Silesia. Two days later, they evacuated 2 thousand prisoners by train from the sub-camps in Świętochłowice and Siemianowice. The main evacuation routes led to Wodzisław Sląski and Gliwice, where the many evacuation columns were merged into rail transports. From the sub-camp in Jaworzno, 3,200 prisoners made one of the longest marches—250 km. to Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp in Lower Silesia.
The evacuation columns were supposed to consist only of healthy people strong enough to march many score kilometers. In practice, however, sick and enfeebled prisoners also volunteered, since they thought, not without reason, that the Germans would kill those who remained behind. Underage prisoners—Jewish and Polish children—set out on the march along with the adults.
Along all the routes, the escorting SS guards shot both the prisoners who tried to escape and those who were too physically exhausted to keep up with their fellow unfortunates. Thousands of corpses of the prisoners who were shot or who died of fatigue or exposure to the cold lined both the routes where they passed on foot or by train. In Upper Silesia alone, about 3 thousand evacuated prisoners died. It is estimated that at least 9 thousand, and more probably 15 thousand Auschwitz prisoners paid with their lives for the evacuation operation. After the war, the travails of the evacuated prisoners came to be known as the “Death Marches.”
One of the few extant Nazi documents referring to the Death Marches is an SS report from March 13, 1945 on the arrival in the Leitmeritz (Litomierzyce) camp in Bohemia of 58 prisoners evacuated from the Auschwitz sub-camp of Hubertushütte, mentioned above. The report states that 144 other prisoners (mostly Jews) “died” (verstorben) en route.
Massacres of prisoners took place in some of the localities along the evacuation routes. At the Leszczyny/Rzędówka train station near Rybnik on the night of January 21/22, 1945, a train carrying about 2.5 thousand prisoners from Gliwice halted. On the afternoon of January 22, the prisoners were ordered to disembark. Some of them were too exhausted to do so. SS men from the escort and local Nazi police fired machine guns through the open doors of the train cars. The Germans then herded the remaining prisoners westward. After they had marched away, more than 300 corpses, of prisoners who had been shot or who had died of exhaustion or exposure, were gathered from the grounds of the station and its surroundings.
Many Polish and Czech residents of localities along or near the evacuation route came forward to help the evacuees. For the most part, they gave them water and food, and also sheltered escapees. People in various localities were honored after the war with the Israel Righteous among the Nations of the World medal for helping escapees survive until liberation.
The evacuation columns were supposed to consist only of healthy people strong enough to march many score kilometers. In practice, however, sick and enfeebled prisoners also volunteered, since they thought, not without reason, that the Germans would kill those who remained behind. Underage prisoners—Jewish and Polish children—set out on the march along with the adults.
Along all the routes, the escorting SS guards shot both the prisoners who tried to escape and those who were too physically exhausted to keep up with their fellow unfortunates. Thousands of corpses of the prisoners who were shot or who died of fatigue or exposure to the cold lined both the routes where they passed on foot or by train. In Upper Silesia alone, about 3 thousand evacuated prisoners died. It is estimated that at least 9 thousand, and more probably 15 thousand Auschwitz prisoners paid with their lives for the evacuation operation. After the war, the travails of the evacuated prisoners came to be known as the “Death Marches.”
One of the few extant Nazi documents referring to the Death Marches is an SS report from March 13, 1945 on the arrival in the Leitmeritz (Litomierzyce) camp in Bohemia of 58 prisoners evacuated from the Auschwitz sub-camp of Hubertushütte, mentioned above. The report states that 144 other prisoners (mostly Jews) “died” (verstorben) en route.
Massacres of prisoners took place in some of the localities along the evacuation routes. At the Leszczyny/Rzędówka train station near Rybnik on the night of January 21/22, 1945, a train carrying about 2.5 thousand prisoners from Gliwice halted. On the afternoon of January 22, the prisoners were ordered to disembark. Some of them were too exhausted to do so. SS men from the escort and local Nazi police fired machine guns through the open doors of the train cars. The Germans then herded the remaining prisoners westward. After they had marched away, more than 300 corpses, of prisoners who had been shot or who had died of exhaustion or exposure, were gathered from the grounds of the station and its surroundings.
Many Polish and Czech residents of localities along or near the evacuation route came forward to help the evacuees. For the most part, they gave them water and food, and also sheltered escapees. People in various localities were honored after the war with the Israel Righteous among the Nations of the World medal for helping escapees survive until liberation.
in en.auschwitz.org
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