Show "Memorial Pictures"

Herman

The Image Stimulator
Location
The Netherlands
Name
Herman
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I really don't know what the Jewish text says, please help to translate, thanks.

Text by Peter Schoof I have translated:

In the night from 17 to 18 November 1942 the last 30 people of the 57 Jewish members community started the death trip to Auschwitz Birkenau.
No one returned.

Here started:
"Grand Pa's first long trip
and his last train"

(Peter Schoof 2008)
 
Memorials at Slapton Sands

Slapton Sands was used for live training by American troops from late 1943 until just prior to D Day in 1944. To facilitate this training the local population was ordered to evacuate at short notice in November 1943.
The first memorial is the one erected by the Americans to thank the locals for their part in this operation.

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Much of the training involved the practice of amphibious landings and DD Sherman tanks were developed for that purpose. This one was recovered from about 1/2 mile offshore by a local hotelier in 1984 and was preserved in memory of the American soldiers who lost their lives during training, particularly in the ill fated Operation Tiger on the night of 27/28 April 1944.

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Barrie
 
Royal air Force

Text translated by myself:

Early morning November 6, 1940 :

An airplane from the Royal air Force crashed nearby this place.

The airplane was on it's return fligt from bombing Magdenburg.

The entirely crew did not survive the crash.

They were buried at the cementary in Ootmarsum.

Let's remember

Pilot Colin James Ray Walker
Sergeant Douglas Owen Cole
Sergeant Kenneth Emm
Sergeant Kenyon Shefford Gowland

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German War Memorial, Tirana Park, Tirana, Albania

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GWM-4874 by ...olli..., on Flickr

Canon A520 f4 1/160 9.8mm

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GWM-3870 by ...olli..., on Flickr

Canon A520 f5.5 1/20 23.2mm

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GWM-3867 by ...olli..., on Flickr

Canon A520 f4 1/60 11.8mm
 
Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Tirana Park Memorial Cemetery, Tirana Park, Tirana, Albania

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TPM-0962 by ...olli..., on Flickr

Canon A520 f4 1/250 5.8mm

Albania was occupied by the Italians and then the Germans during WW2. The leader of the communist partisans was Enver Hoxha. He was supplied with weapons and money by the allies and eventually allied forces joined them to drive out the German army. Hoxha came to power after the end of the war and refused to acknowledge that he had received any assistance, claiming that he and his partisans had defeated the Germans unaided. In order to maintain this fiction Hoxha had the bodies of British and Commonwealth military personal exhumed and reburied in an unmarked grave.

Hoxha went to inflict his own bizarre and barbaric version of communism on Albania until his death in 1985. As was normal for communist rulers, Hoxha was buried in a splendid grave, capped with a granite slab marked with his name, with an eternal flame and an honour guard. When communism collapsed a few years later, the Albanians exhumed his body and reburied him in an unmarked grave.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission approached the new Albanian authorities requesting permission to establish a memorial to the men who had died during the war. Permission was granted and the memorial in the picture was created in Tirana Park not far from where the men had been reburied by Hoxha. While they were looking for a suitable centrepiece for the memorial they came across a red polished granite slab you can see in the image. You will probably have guessed by now, but this was the very polished granite slab that had sealed the grave of Enver Hoxha. Now it stands in memory of those whose memories were deliberately erased by Hoxha while Hoxha lies in an unmarked grave. In the picture below if you look closely just above the middle of the three plaques you can just see the edge of a couple of holes drilled into the granite. This is where Hoxha's name was once attached.

Every year on Remembrance Sunday the British Embassy organises a ceremony at the Memorial. The week before the German Embassy organises a ceremony at the German Memorial (pictured in my previous post) which stands close by. Both were very moving occasions and after each we all walked down the hill and had a drink together.

I've heard some great stories on my travels but the story of this block of granite is still the best.

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TPM-0973 by ...olli..., on Flickr

Canon A520 f4 1/400 13.8mm
 
Some very nice photos so far, heres one from me, which perhaps doesn't have as much impact or contrast as some of the others, but I like the feeling of calm my photo has as a result.

Taken in Bolton (UK)

They all have meaning and impact Vince, no matter how simple, and all serve to remind us what we shouldn't forget.

Barrie
 
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