Friday, January 20, 2023

Wednesday, January 20, 1943. Senseless deaths.

Attila Peschauer, Hungarian Olympic fencer and gold medalist in 1928 and 1932, is commonly thought to have died in the Davidovka concentration camp in Ukraine where Hungarian Jews had been deported by Nazi Germany, an act which required cooperation of Hungary.


It's commonly misunderstood by those in the West that all the victims of the Holocaust were gassed in camps, which is far from true, and in the few camps whose names are in common circulation in the West.  In reality, bullets and starvation were the most common means of death and most of the killing took place in the Poland, Ukraine and Belorussia in those areas where they were occupied by the Germans.

While, as noted, it's been commonly thought that Peschauer died in a concentration camp, and may even have been ordered into execution by a fellow Hungarian serving the Germans, some recent information is that he actually died in a Soviet POW camp.  The irony here would be that Hungary was a German ally during World War Two.  This might actually be more likely as while Hungary was repressive towards its Jewish citizens, it didn't deport those who actually held Hungarian citizenship, that being done to Jews who lived in areas that Hungary took in after it invaded the Soviet Union.

By this point in the war, it should be noted, countries like the Kingdom of Hungary should have been seriously reconsidering their role in the war as, at least to an astute advisor, there was no way for them to come out on the winning side.  Of course, they were also captive to their earlier decision to side with the Germans.

The Luftwaffe bombed the Sandhurst Road School in a daytime raid of the London suburb of Catford, killing 41 school children. By this point in the war, Luftwaffe raids over the UK were increasingly rare.  Six teachers were also killed.  Eleven of the German aircraft were downed by Typhoons.

The Red Army continued to advance, with the New York Daily Post noting that the Germans were now back on their 1941 line as a result.  The British took Homs and Tarhuna in Libya.  The Germans advanced in Tunisia.  Chile broke diplomatic relations off with Germany, Italy and Japan.

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