Cows in front of the Alabaster sea spectacle, May 2022, on top of the chalk cliffs of Ault , Picardy , France.
Citation info : Balcony | Falaise #162 | 20240107 | 1-memo•com | @michelvanderburg | TakeNode f39c5cc4-82e0-4c66-9d16-58e83dc5a64b
Sunset at low tide, 30 March 2022, on the foreshore of the chalk cliffs of Ault , Picardy , France
Citation info : Photo | Falaise #161 | 20240105 | 1-memo•com | @michelvanderburg | TakeNode 176b264c-c072-4052-b015-b14948c81e3f
Silent film — Towards the end of World War I – in the summer 1918 , after the Allies defeated the Germans in the Second Battle of the Marne – large groups of Belgians and French refugees flee in front of the retreating enemy force to the neutral Netherlands.
The Dutch army and Red Cross prepared to receive a possible 100,000 evacuees in the border towns in the south of the Netherlands.
After wandering weeks in the north of France , and next crossing Belgium on foot, the first group of French refugees arrived at the Dutch border October 20, completely exhausted.
At the gate in the electric wire fence at the border to the Netherlands – the so-called ‘Death Wire’ (dutch : Dodendraad ) Dutch soldiers took them over from German escorts.
Some refugees had travelled by tram part of the route crossing Belgium to the belgian border town Molenbeersel.
At the dutch border the refugees were welcomed and ladies from relief committees provide the refugees with food and drinks on the road to Stramproy in the Netherlands.
Within days , thousands of French refugees arrive in the village of Stramproy and are transferred to the city of Weert .
On arrival in the city center of Weert the dutch army registered people and handed out soup and bread.
The weak, the sick, and maternity women were cared for by the Red Cross and taken to an aid post for further care.
The refugees were sheltered the night in buildings like convents and schools in Weert, before being housed elsewhere in the country the following days.
References
Source (video footage) : Belgische vluchtelingen 1e Wereldoorlog. Open Images | Beeld & Geluid (Sound &Vision).
Weert en het einde van W.O.-I. | Jan Henkens | Stichting Historisch Onderzoek Weert | URL http://www.showeert.nl
Rhythmus was a jazz orchestra in the Buchenwald concentration camp in which a total of 23 musicians from 9 different countries played together from 1943 until the liberation. Czech prisoners around Jiří Žák took the initiative to found this orchestra in the summer of 1943.
Among the French prisoners that later joined, were Yves Darriet – the bandleader , who wrote most arrangements , and Robert Widerman – the band’s singer , who made a career as Robert Clary on Broadway after the war.
Two programs are known to have been performed in November 1944 and April 19, 1945, i.e. 8 days after the liberation of the camp (Ref 1) , including compositions by Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton and pieces by Cole Porter, Fats Waller, Glenn Miller and Louis Armstrong. In The Mood was performed even though this music was banned in Nazi Germany.
Ref. 3 – Jazz im KZ Buchenwald – das gab es wirrklich! | weimarer-rendezvous | Sep 25, 2022 https://youtu.be/HX4X7TJ19nQ
„Rhythmus“ – Jazz im Konzentrationslager Buchenwald
At the April 11, 2022 event ‘„Rhythmus“ – Jazz im Konzentrationslager Buchenwald’ — in the Notenbank in Weimar, Germany (Ref 2, 3) — the Big Band and a jazz ensemble of the Hochschule für Musik under the direction of Prof. Gero Schmidt-Oberländer performed 9 or 10 pieces from the programs. In addition biographies of the prisoners in the Buchenwald Jazz Orchestra were made visible using excerpts from their letters and reports.
The French singer Robert Widerman ( Robert Clary ) was shown in a clip (Ref 4) from the documentary film From Buchenwald to Hollywood, The Robert Clary Story (Ref 5). Robert Clary (March 1, 1926 – Nov 16, 2022) survived thanks to several prisoners, including Yves Darriet (pseudonym Jan Rolan, Jean Roland), Claude Francis-Boeuf, and Jiří Žák. (Ref 6)
5. From Buchenwald to Hollywood, The Robert Clary Story by Karen and Richard Bloom and Michel van der Burg | 2023 Edition | 20230202 | URL https://youtu.be/0tKc5T-Sw-E
Net | Falaise #160 | 20230830 | 1-memo•com | TakeNode b26995ea-60ab-4f78-a856-84f9484f4dfe | Low tide at the foreshore of the chalk cliffs of Ault , Picardy , France , March 2022
Douane | Falaise #159 | 20230825 | 1-memo•com | TakeNode 040c3e57-9616-40b6-804e-46ba979c496c |
The Customs Road – Chemin des Douanier – ca 1923 on the chalk cliffs of Ault (Picardy, France), with a distant view at the Normandy chalk cliffs of Le Tréport. This Chemin des Douanier path is part of the several 1000s of kilometers long customs trail along the French coast created in the late 1700s to fight smuggling, illegal trade and fraudulent landings. Postcard made by the Ault photographer Maurice Lévêque. Image edited from scan dated July 21, 1923 in the Archives de la Somme (#8FI2408). Postcard was compared with a recent photo in yesterday’s video post (Falaise #158)
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