Monday, February 27, 2023

Saturday, February 27, 1943. Mining disaster in Montana.

"Freedom of Worship", the second in Rockwell's four freedoms illustrations, ran in the Saturday Evening Post along with an essay on the topic by Will Durant.

An explosion and resulting carbon monoxide poisoning killed 74 minders in Montana's Smith Mine No. 3.  The horrible incident remains Montana's worst mining disaster.


The final arrest and expulsion of Jews from Berlin and other large German cities commenced.

The British landed on the island of Herm in the English Channel, but found that it was not occupied.  Because of their landing spot, residents of the island were not aware that their countrymen had landed.

1943  Bishop Count Konrad von Preysing, Catholic Bishop of Berlin, made another in a series of outspoken attacks on Nazi rule. In a pastoral letter issued throughout Germany he protested against totalitarianism, the execution of hostages and the Jewish persecution, stating "It is a Divine principle that the life of an innocent individual, whether an unborn child or an aged person, is sacred, and that the innocent shall not be punished with the guilty, or in place of the guilty. Neither the individual nor the community can create a law against this."  Bishop von Preysing had gone on record early about his opinions on the Nazis, having declared "We have fallen into the hands of criminals and fools" when they came to power, and in 1940 he'd ordered that prayers be said throughout his diocese for arrested Lutheran ministers.  He'd later go on to decry the German Communist postwar who declared that he was an "agent" of "American Imperialism".  He died in 1950.

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