Month: May 2018

It bothers me when I see certain people laying a wreath
at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in that these wreath- layers
made damn certain that, in their various times, they would never be
the recipient of such an honor.
Islander.

“Once a jolly swagman sat beside the billabong,
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he sat and waited by the billabong
You’ll come a waltzing maltilda with me

Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda
You’ll come a waltzing matilda with me
and he sang as he sat and waited by the billabong
You’ll come a waltzing matilda with me.

Down came a jumbuck to drink beside the billabong
Up jumped the swagman and seized him with glee
And he sang as he tucked jumbuck in his tuckerbag
You’ll come a waltzing matilda with me

Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda
You’ll come a waltzing matilda with me
And he sang as he sat and waited by the billabong
You’ll come a waltzing matilda with me.

Down came the stockman, riding on his thoroughbred,
Down came the troopers, one, two, three.
“Where’s the jolly jumbuck you’ve got in your tuckerbag?
You’ll come a waltzing matilda with me”

Waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda
You’ll come a waltzing matilda with me
And he sang as he sat and waited by the billabong
You’ll come a waltzing matilda with me.

Up jumped the swagman and plunged into the billabong,
“You’ll never catch me alive,” cried he
And his ghost may be heard as you ride beside the billabong,
You’ll come a waltzing matilda with me.” Banjo Paterson.
Islander.

“Nobody had the energy to bury the dead. Gravediggers were to weak

to hack holes in the frozen ground. When someone died, the corpse

was wrapped in a sheet and taken on a child’s sled to the gates

of the cemetery. Army engineers, summoned from the front,

dynamited pits for mass burials. And sometimes the authorities

discovered that the bodies had pieces of flesh carved from them.

This is the one aspect of the siege not described in Soviet histories

or memoirs. But there were numerous reports from Russian sources

indicating that hunger finally drove some Leningraders to cannibalism.

According to the reports, it was practiced on the dead at first.

Then there were cases of murder for food by starvation-crazed people.

Finally, there were reports of human flesh being sold. Soldiers, the

best fed people in the city, reportedly were killed on their way home

from the front. They started going about armed and in groups.

One rumor had it that children were beginning to disappear, and

parents kept their youngsters off the streets. Other stories spread

that gangs of well-fed cannibals roamed the city; the stories added

terror to all the other anxieties. Anyone who looked healthy was

under suspicion–as were the little meat cakes that could still

be bought for enormous prices in the black market.”

 

“Nobody knows how many people perished that winter in Leningrad.

The official total is 264,ooo. But this figure was laid down during the

Stalinist years, when Leningrad’s sufferings were minimized.

Most Western scholars believe that the number of deaths from

starvation during the entire siege exceeded one million, and that

several hundred thousand more were killed by bombs, shells or gunfire.

By contrast, the United States and Britain together suffered fewer

than 800,00 deaths during all of World War II.”

Excerpts from “Russia Besieged   WWII.” Author Nicholas Bethell,

Publishers, Time-Life Books Inc.

The population of Leningrad at that time was around 3 million.

Islander.