Before I threw the book away I scanned a few images:
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Blitz
Today I came across a book on the Second World War that had no value, but contained some striking photographs of the Blitz. The quality isn't great, but they remind us what people had to endure and starkly depict the terrible waste of life and resources.
Before I threw the book away I scanned a few images:
Before I threw the book away I scanned a few images:
Just back from a weekend in Berlin, which got even more a hammering than London did, plus the poor benighted locals had to deal with an army of marauding Russians. But it's extraordinary how in both cities it's as if it never happened, although a couple of postwar houses in a Victorian terrace is generally a clue that a bomb fell there.
ReplyDeleteHave you come across bombsight.org? A very sobering mapping of everywhere bombs fell in London during the blitz.
I'm curious - what was the book?
Mike, I'm ashamed to say that I can't remember the book's title. I only saw it 24 hours ago.
ReplyDeleteI've seen look at bomsight.org, which is fascinating. You wonder how so much of London managed to survive. I sat with my mum and checked the map against her memories of Richmond during the Blitz. I was struck my how many bombs landed in Mortlake Crematorium - did a few kindly Luftwaffe pilots deliberately drop them in an unpopulated area?
I'm vaguely hoping to go to Berlin next year, circunstances permitting. Would you recommend it?
Berlin is highly recommended, a continuously fascinating place - full of ghosts if you know anything at all of its history, very easy to get round, lots to see, the people absolutely charming (a wild generalisation, of course, but once you discover, ironically enough, that Berlin was always less keen on Hitler than anywhere else in Germany it kind of makes sense).
ReplyDeleter Comments above on Berlin seconded. Get out to Potsdam if you can - a sort of German Versaillese
ReplyDeleteRight, you've made my mind up for me. Thanks for the tip about Potsdam.
ReplyDeleteAmazing it should be of no value.
ReplyDeleteIt's supply and demand. The print runs were huge in the aftermath of the War, so the price has been driven down as the demand gradually falls.
ReplyDeleteI have an English expatriot blog friend living in Berlin. Reports are that the city is very dynamic, lots going on. Not too much morosity. A refreshing change, huh ?
ReplyDeleteThose people in the photos don't look too depressed for people who have lost so much...
Morale was strangely high during the Blitz. The suicide rate was at an all-time low - perhaps because people had a shared sense of purpose. The only time my mother saw her mother cry was when they lost their week's sugar ration.
ReplyDeleteI am sad to say that I've never really given the blitz much thought, though I've read quite a few books about WWII. The blitz was just a phrase I associated with mass evacuations to the countryside (incl. Canada) and in particular, the inspiring stories of British resilience. Never really considered the actual destruction and death toll (40,000+.) What truly brought it into consciousness for me was Kate Atkinson's Life After Life. It's unfathomable how people and cities recover from war.
ReplyDeleteDonna - It feels very real to me because my mother lived through it and her anecdotes have brought the Blitz to life. She recalls going into school after an air raid and watching the classroom fill up, apart from one empty desk, wondering if the missing pupil had been killed by a bomb. She also remembers having her exams interrupted by an air raid siren and the school's efforts to continue in a nearby shelter. I also remember that even as late as the 1970s, there were still bomb sites - gaps in rows of Victorian houses, or patches of wasteland in the middle of a town.
ReplyDeleteThe War bunkrupted Britain and the damage to its infrastructure didn't really recover until the 1980s.