tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63432596459430581042024-11-01T10:37:36.436+00:00MicaletA sort of a diaryMichael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.comBlogger267125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-41311852916901531942015-01-25T14:21:00.001+00:002015-02-14T18:00:57.940+00:00British Artists and the Spanish Civil War
Pallant House Gallery in Chichester is currently staging a superb exhibition on the response of British artists to the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), under the title 'Conscience and Conflict'. There are paintings, drawings, posters, banners, photographs, leaflets, flyers, even a historic film sequence for which the sound has unfortunately been lost.
Many of the leading artists and Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-37600357724247755392014-12-23T19:05:00.000+00:002014-12-23T19:05:23.938+00:00End of Year Report 2014
Dear friends and relatives,
http://bit.ly/michaeljan2014
What we've been up to this year. It's on Google Drive - let me know if you have any problems reading it. You can print it off if you want to - it's 8 pages including photos; you can also zoom in to see at least some of the detail in the pictures. If you read it online, there's also links to some of our websites and photo collections,Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-76487885266141610442014-12-10T22:15:00.000+00:002014-12-10T22:19:08.563+00:00I think we need to talk
I met Cousin Joan yesterday. Well, Third Cousin Joan. She came across me online a few months ago, but this was the first time we had met - she lives in Israel, and was coming over to London for a couple of days, so I hopped on the train and went up to see her.
She had just started delving into her family history, and did a Google search for her great-grandmother, Bajla Frankenstein. Go on, Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-50273985148338358902014-09-16T17:42:00.000+01:002014-09-26T15:14:39.518+01:00Double Cousin Report
Me, Danka and Gerald
During my recent trip to Poland I went to Gdansk to see my cousins Gerald and Danka. Our mothers, Marie and Lily, were sisters, born 18 months apart in London in the early 1920s.
Lily and Marie, 1923
Gerald was one of the first cousins I knew - he was born a few months after me, towards the end of World War 2. I was apparently an inquisitive child, and I amMichael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-31087725130273696442014-09-04T14:47:00.001+01:002014-09-04T15:24:38.109+01:00Heroes of the Ghetto
Szmul Zygelbojm Square
Several hundred thousand people were forcibly crammed into the Warsaw Ghetto, and then, after 18 months of terror and starvation, all but a few were transported to their deaths. We know little about their lives in the Ghetto, nor where, when or how most of them died. There are few individual accounts, and few individual memorials.
The City of Warsaw has honoured Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-71297517863671446982014-09-03T00:01:00.000+01:002014-09-03T00:01:02.902+01:00The Figurski brothers
A chilling moment on my recent visit to Warsaw. This is a memorial tree at the notorious Pawiak prison, where the Nazis held, tortured and murdered thousands of political prisoners, both Jews and non-Jews, during the course of the War. The Figurski brothers, Marian and Wladyslaw, were killed there on the day I was born.
The Pawiak Prison (Wikipedia)
Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-71510729211948241902014-09-01T20:12:00.001+01:002014-09-04T14:52:51.069+01:00Ghetto streets
This is where you have to use your imagination. The buildings of the Warsaw Ghetto, as much of the rest of the city, were totally destroyed during the crushing of the Ghetto Uprising in 1943 and the Warsaw Uprising the following year. The post-War rebuilding largely retained the street plan, though many streets have been re-purposed.
This was Nalewki Street, one of the busiest commercial Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-69867185082579989472014-09-01T15:55:00.002+01:002014-09-01T15:55:37.164+01:00The Footbridge of Memory
Chlodna Street ran straight through the heart of the Ghetto, but Jews were not allowed to use it. The Ghetto was thus divided in two, and in order to get from one part to the other, Jews had to use this wooden bridge. The street itself is for Gentiles, the tram too.
The walls which form the boundary of the Ghetto are some 3 metres high. The Nazis used Jewish forced labour Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-61958227366613064702014-09-01T13:30:00.000+01:002014-09-01T13:30:33.359+01:00The Collection Point
The Umschlagplatz - 'Collection Point' - was where the Nazis gathered the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto for deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp. From July to September 1942, some 300,000 were deported.
Umschlagplatz (Wikipedia)
Along the walls of the memorial are inscribed hundreds of Jewish names, to commemorate those who were sent to their deaths from here. The names are Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-13156236527340923832014-09-01T11:09:00.000+01:002014-09-01T11:12:05.194+01:00A visit to the Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw is a big, bustling, modern city, full of people, shops, traffic and imposing buildings. However, visiting for the first time, I found myself drawn day after day to the vestiges of the Ghetto, where the Nazis effectively imprisoned over a quarter of a million Jews during the Second World War.
The area designated as the Ghetto was a compact part of the old centre of the city, which had Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-8910516270727575262014-06-05T22:14:00.000+01:002014-09-01T11:13:05.811+01:00Ghetto Wall
A metal plaque draws a line through the cobblestones to mark where the Wall of the Warsaw Ghetto stood from 1940-1943. One of many chilling spots you keep coming across as you walk the streets of the city.Today people cross this line without noticing, deep in contemplation or conversation; children play in the park, cyclists cycle and dog-walkers walk their dogs. Back then it was a line of lifeMichael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-22792224707919577032013-10-15T15:40:00.000+01:002013-10-15T15:40:27.526+01:00A herd of gurdies
Cousin Mira's partner Ray with old gurdy-buddies Sam Palmer, Nigel Eaton and Cliff Stapleton, heads still buzzing after the Blowzabella do on Saturday.Ray didn't play with BZB, but he will be playing the hurdy-gurdy solo for the live orchestral soundtrack to the 1927 silent film 'Napoleon' at the Festival Hall on 30 November. At least, that was his excuse for not coming to our DansezMichael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-50526176667474731202013-10-15T15:23:00.000+01:002013-10-15T15:24:46.851+01:00Cousin Report #27
There I was, at the Blowzabella do the other night, pretty much minding my own business, soaking up the music and sipping down the London Pride, when I was accosted by this woman asking "are you Michael"?
Well I couldn't really deny it, especially when she said "surname Shade?", and I'm glad I didn't because it turned out to be my distant cousin Mira. We had never met, though we did have aMichael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-3415473067281166892013-10-15T15:04:00.000+01:002013-10-15T15:04:29.373+01:00BZB 35 - hit by a Wall of Sound
Blowzabella held their 35th Anniversary do at Cecil Sharp House on Saturday. A packed dance workshop in the afternoon, a four-hour music session in between times, and a non-stop 3-hour Wall of Sound in the evening, with a mix of old and new repertoires all unashamedly for dancing, which we did, unashamedly.In the photo Jon Swayne and Paul James sing on the pipes, Jo Freya swings on the Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-47784161107435836792013-02-10T18:28:00.000+00:002013-02-10T18:28:04.642+00:00Le Potager du RoiWhile we were in Paris last summer, we went over to Versailles to see 'Le Potager du Roi', the King's Kitchen Garden, built for Louis XIV in the 17th Century. It's a few hundred metres from the palace - they must have needed a good few wheelbarrows to get all the produce into the kitchen every day! Nowadays they sell most of it in the little shop by the entrance. Only a few photos this time, as Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-62654308336552191962013-02-10T16:46:00.001+00:002013-02-10T17:13:39.958+00:00Jardin du Prieuré d'Orsan
A couple of years ago we visited the Jardins du Prieuré d'Orsan, in central France. As usual I took loads of photos, but I didn't get round to uploading them until today, prompted by Monty Don's French Gardens programme the other night on BBC2.
Les Jardins d'Orsan
A couple of years ago we visited the Jardins du Prieuré d'Orsan, in central France. As usual Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-35755113931270726962012-11-23T23:18:00.000+00:002012-11-23T23:30:41.714+00:00A pause for thought
A pause for thought, and more
by Davi Windholz
Nahariya, Israel
translated from the Portuguese original by Micalet
As an activist of the left in the areas of both politics and education, I am regularly in contact with Israeli Arabs and with Palestinians. As a Zionist activist I am regularly in contact with Olim - Jewish immigrants to Israel - whose stance is often opposed to mine. As a Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-81005306331839744712012-08-14T13:43:00.000+01:002012-08-14T13:43:05.101+01:00An Dro The World
Some of Jeudi Matin - the Dansez Français house band - take part in 'An Dro The World 2012' - a mass simultaneous An Dro at the Festival Interceltique at Lorient, Brittany, and around the world, on Sunday 12 August. Everybody had to play, sing and/or dance to the same tune at precisely midnight, French time. Note the soon-to-be traditional Breton instruments - concertina (Elizabeth and Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-59710837683578854962012-08-02T23:26:00.000+01:002012-08-03T14:53:35.319+01:00It's not all Cycling
But it is this week!
It's been Olympic Cycling Week, and I've managed to get to three of the four major road events - the Men's Road Race on Saturday, and the Women's and Men's Time Trials yesterday. And what a wonderful week of sport it's been! The streets and parks have been packed - estimates say over 500,000 were at the Men's race on Saturday, and it must have been similar for the Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-19765539924403483402012-04-25T18:51:00.000+01:002012-04-25T18:51:40.362+01:00It's not all walking
Today is the 80th anniversary of the Kinder Scout Trespass, a mass action whose repercussions led to the formation of the Ramblers' Association, and the creation of the first National Park in the Peak District in 1949. We owe the 'right to roam', which we now take so much for granted, to actions like this.
There's a lovely little 'In Praise of . . . Benny Rothman' in today's Guardian - Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-73665969034887350692012-04-05T23:26:00.003+01:002012-04-05T23:27:58.927+01:00Auntie Margaret
My
Auntie Margaret died two weeks ago, and we had the funeral on Tuesday.
What a day! What a life!! She was 93, the last of her generation in our
immediate family, and had spent the last 75 (seventy-five) years of her
life deeply involved in local politics, trade union activity, and every
international solidarity campaign you could donate a pound - or more
importantly, an hour - to.
Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-30372179423982765942012-04-05T17:43:00.000+01:002012-04-05T17:43:48.428+01:00The Murals of San Isidro
Over last weekend scores of artists were invited to cover the walls of houses in San Isidro, one of the poorest quarters of Orihuela (Spain), with the enthusiastic agreement of the people of the district. All the murals have a Miguel Hernández theme, to do with the man, his poems, or the times he lived through. The project was launched to mark the 70th anniversary of his death, in prison, at Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-40266421856838953002011-09-16T23:29:00.002+01:002011-09-17T00:09:49.845+01:00The World Turned Upside Down
Leon Rosselson sings 'The World Turned Upside Down', preceded by Robb Johnson's 'Red and Green', Tolpuddle, 2009. 'Upside Down' begins at 2:30. See the words.
This song has been in my head for a couple of days now - not that it's ever far away. I was doing a version of our family walk through the Jewish East End with cousin Helen, over from Australia for a brief visit. One of the Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-8786774606349960082011-03-31T02:22:00.001+01:002011-03-31T02:28:18.743+01:00Doing the Census Centenary Celebration Walk
On Sunday a group of cousins got together to do a Census Centenary Celebration Walk, around the bits of the Jewish East End our parents were born and brought up in. Ten of us traced the homes and haunts of our grand and great-grand parents, as recorded in family lore and their 1911 Census returns. Brian and myself, Jenny and Katy, Ralph and Margaret all knew each other; Gerald, Margaret and Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343259645943058104.post-40653228349073496512011-03-24T14:03:00.000+00:002011-03-24T14:03:34.143+00:00"Come on Freddie!"
There goes another piece of my childhood. As an 11-to-12 year-old and onwards, Fred Titmus was my cricket hero because a) he was brilliant b) he was reliable and self-effacing c) he played for Middlesex d) he'd been to my school. I tried to be a spin bowler like him but could neither bowl straight nor turn the ball; I tried to be a quietly effective batsman like him but used to miss the ball Michael Shadehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03769991041294693716noreply@blogger.com0