Kuttekoven 2014 • Miracles Making • 20240707

Miracles Making… behind the scenes : Kuttekoven (Borgloon, Belgium), Jan 26, 2014. Filming Simon Gronowski’s talk in Clee Castle, and afterwards interviewing Mrs. Mia Valkeneers who recounted her childhood experience with the escapes from Transport XX in Kuttekoven.

Filming Simon Gronowski’s talk in Clee Castle, Kuttekoven, Jan 26, 2014 | Miracles•Media | 20240707_02 | TakeNode 2ecf8775-017b-4ea4-a019-a7b47aaf1a8a

Then, with a select company of some 10 residents of Kuttekoven, we went to the former train track, and while it started to rain — and one of the women bravely assisted me by holding my umbrella while I was recording on video – Simon spoke about his escape at that very spot at the track – the spot we had discovered two years earlier, Jan. 2012.

Still film Simon Gronowski’s talk in Clee Castle, Kuttekoven, Jan 26, 2014 | Miracles•Media | 20240707_03 | TakeNode b72f0ee1-0524-408a-9852-d06c2d4e090f

Later, that night while driving home (a ca 2 hour drive to Holland) – I was no longer thinking about perhaps paying Max De Vries a visit – the former resistance fighter, who had become 100 y old that month. But, by serendipity, when I crossed the town, Wellen, were Max lived, I briefly noticed , through the pouring rain, the road sign were Max lived, and in a reflex turned into that street, stopped somewhere – it was raining too hard for me to be able to look up Max’s house number in my papers – so I just rang a bell of one of the houses, and this turned out to be a neighbour, living 2 houses away from Max’s place. For 15 minutes (I really needed to continue that difficult ca 2 hours rainy night drive home) I was in the cosy kitchen talking with Max at the kitchn table and his wife Nicole, and congratulated him being 100 (no images made). Max passed away October 2014.

Citation info : Kuttekoven 2014 | Miracles Making | Miracles•Media | 20240707

Strange Fruit | 20240706

Kuttekoven track to Auschwitz… Right after the site where Simon Gronowski escaped from the 20th convoy, ‘Transport XX’, the railway bed of this former so-called ‘Fruitspoor’ (Fruit Track) crosses the village of Kuttekoven, with – on the horizon – the Church of Saint John the Baptiser , currently with the expo ‘Witzwart’ (Whiteblack) – aka Land(es)capes from the 20th Convoy – by the local photographer Jo Struyven.
Filmed Sunday early afternoon, January 26th, 2014, while scouting the place for a reportage with Simon Gronowski later that day.

Watch film at Miracles•Media or Miracles•Media’s Substack … https://substack.com/@michelvanderburg/note/c-61114479

Citation info : Strange Fruit | Miracles•Media | 20240706 | TakeNode d929ede7-817f-476d-854c-4c358012ec82

Escape | Miracles Docs #4 | 20240705

Kuttekoven (Borgloon), Belgium. Sunday, January 26th, 2014. At nightfall, Simon Gronowski recounts to people of Kuttekoven, his daring escape – helped by his mother Chana Kaplan that rainy night of April 19, 1943 – from the 20th deportation train to Auschwitz, at this very spot on the railway track bed (of the so-called ‘Fruitspoor’) where it enters the village of Kuttekoven.

Watch film at Miracles•Media – link
https://miracles.media/2024/07/05/escape-miracles-docs-4-20240705/

Open Memory | Miracles Docs #3 | 20240523

Open Memory , Cologne, May 2010. Transport XX (left) and Transport Z (right) in front of the with Cologne Cathedral. Still : Open Memory | Miracles Docs #3 | Miracles•Media | 20240523

From May 8th to May 24th, 2010, the memorial installation “Open Memory” was on display in a prominent location in Köln (Cologne, Germany) — in front of the Hohenzollern Bridge, at the left bank of the Rhine river, parallel to the railway tracks of the Cologne Central Station (Köln Hauptbahnhof), with the Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) in the background.

It consisted of 26 large canvases on which portraits of more than 1,500 people were depicted. This open-air exhibition was intended to commemorate three events that occurred during this period: the end of the Second World War in Europe on May 8th and 9th, 1945, the 70th anniversary of the attack by the German Wehrmacht on the Benelux countries and France, and the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the Sinti and Roma from Cologne and the Rhineland (Western Germany).

The Museum La Coupole had created six canvases with photographs or silhouettes of 351 Sinti and Roma from Northern France and Belgium, deported with “Transport Z” in January 1944 from Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen, Belgium to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.

On 20 other canvases were the portraits of 1,200 Jewish people deported with “Transport XX” in April 1943 from Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen to Auschwitz. This exhibition was created by the Jewish Deportation and Resistance Museum (Kazerne Dossin) in Mechelen. “Transport XX” is the only deportation train in Europe that was stopped by a resistance group.

The exhibition lined the route Roma and Sinti from Köln had to take from May 1940 en route across the Rhine via the Hohenzollern Bridge to the Cologne Fair (Köln Messe) transit camp for deportation to the extermination camps. The route was marked May 6, 1990, by the artist Gunter Demnig (later known for his Stolperstein project) by printing the writing “May 1940 – 1000 Sinti and Roma” on the streets in Cologne, using a wheel for painting with white paint.

The Open Memory installation was presented by : the Jewish Deportation and Resistance Museum (Kazerne Dossin) in Mechelen, Belgium • La Coupole – History Centre in Wizernes, France • NS Documentation Center Cologne • AK Memorial Centers NRW • Yavne Memorial and Educational Center • EL-DE-Haus Cologne.

Film by : Michel van der Burg, thanks to an amateur (2010) slide presentation by A. Lototsky

Upcoming | 20240522

Upcoming Miracles Doc #3 ‘Open Memory’

Citation info : Upcoming | @1MEMO 20240522 | TakeNode d310ec2d-0e7f-4caa-af57-ae6c8d05c817

First Stolperstein | 20240520

First Stolperstein. Installed on 16 Dec 1992 in front of the City Hall in Cologne , Germany.

Over the past 30 years the team of German artist Gunter Demnig installed over 100,000 Stumbling Stones – ‘Stolpersteine’ – across 26 countries in Europe – the world’s largest memorial.

Demnig’s Stolpersteine are small, cobblestone-sized brass memorials for the victims of National Socialism. Set into the pavement of sidewalks in front of the buildings where Nazi victims once lived or worked, they call attention both to the individual victim and the scope of the Nazi war crimes.

The very first Stolperstein, was installed on 16 December 1992 in front of Cologne City Hall , with Heinrich Himmler’s order for the initiation of deportations of all Roma (Gypsies) :

„Auf Befehl des Reichsführers SS vom 16.12.42 – Tgb. Nr. I 2652/42 Ad./RF/V. – sind Zigeunermischlinge, Rom-Zigeuner und nicht deutschblütige Angehörige zigeunerischer Sippen balkanischer Herkunft nach bestimmten Richtlinien auszuwählen und in einer Aktion von wenigen Wochen in ein Konzentrationslager einzuweisen. Dieser Personenkreis wird im nachstehenden kurz als ‚zigeunerische Personen‘ bezeichnet. Die Einweisung erfolgt ohne Rücksicht auf den Mischlingsgrad familienweise in das Konzentrationslager (Zigeunerlager) Auschwitz.“

Notes

Photo : First Stolperstein at the Cologne City Hall, Germany. Photo Jan. 1, 2008, by Willy Horsch, CC-BY .

Citation info : First Stolperstein | 20240520 | michelvanderburg•com

NOS News Photo | 20240517

NOS News • today, 10:09
French police shot dead man who wanted to set fire to Rouen synagogue…

The visible caption on this photo here is ‘ANP’, the in Holland well known almost 100 year old press agency (similar to eg Reuters) distributing news to other professional media like newspapers and our national tv broadcaster .

Annoying … (knowing) you now need to check every news item image (photo/still) of the Dutch national news broadcaster NOS to find out whether that image really is a news photo or actually fake … just an illustration from some archive.

Archive image – ANP | https://www.anp.nl | NOS News Photo | @1MEMO 20240517_2

You need to click this image in the post to be able to read the small print additional caption, this is just an archive image (dutch: archiefbeeld) … no news.

I appreciate the excellent NOS public national news broadcaster in the Netherlands. And, using archive footage may help storytelling in documentary work. However, here, watching the NOS site on an iPad or desktop PC, it’s obvious the design of the site creates a problem , since posting a news item requires using at least one image. With no news photo available , the best alternative here appears to be using text for the featured image.

Else, best, show the notice ‘Archive image’ clearly visible at first glance in the post’s image… (?)

Citation info : NOS News Photo | @1MEMO 20240517 | michelvanderburg.com

Update

Update 20240517 – 1543 CET minor text changes

Update 20240517 – 2217 CET : Noticed that (i) NOS site post has been updated last at 16:18 CET ; and image has been replaced with actual news image (caption : Police investigations at the Rouen synagogue | dutch : Politie doet onderzoek bij de synagoge in Rouen )