Joel Brand (1906–1964) was a rescue worker, born in Transylvania and raised in Germany, who became known during the Holocaust for his efforts to save Hungary's Jews from deportation to Auschwitz. A leading member of Budapest's Aid and Rescue Committee, which smuggled Jews out of occupied Europe, Brand was approached in April 1944 by Adolf Eichmann, the German SS officer in charge of the deportations. He proposed that Brand broker a deal between the SS and the United States or Britain, in which the Nazis would exchange one million Jews for 10,000 trucks for the Eastern front and large quantities of other goods. Historians believe the SS intended the deal as cover for peace talks that would exclude the Soviet Union. Whatever its purpose, the proposal was thwarted when the British arrested Brand in Turkey and alerted the media. The failure of the negotiations, and the wider issue of why the Allies were unable to save the 435,000 Hungarian Jews sent to Auschwitz, was bitterly debated for decades. Brand said shortly before his death: "An accident of life placed the fate of one million human beings on my shoulders. I eat and sleep and think only of them." (Full article...).
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Brand
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1260:
The Livonian Order suffered its greatest defeat in the 13th century in the Battle of Durbe against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Durbe
1814:
The Carabinieri (modern Carabiniere pictured), the national military police of Italy, was founded by Victor Emmanuel I as the police force of the Kingdom of Sardinia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carabinieri
1878:
At the conclusion of the Congress of Berlin, the major powers in Europe signed the Treaty of Berlin, redrawing the map of the Balkans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Berlin_(1878)
1962:
In an unprecedented action, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dismissed seven members of his Cabinet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives_(1962)
2008:
War in Afghanistan: Taliban guerrillas attacked NATO troops near the village of Wanat in the Waygal district in Afghanistan's far eastern province of Nuristan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wanat
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
tardigrade: Sluggish; moving slowly. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tardigrade
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Energy is eternal delight; and from the earliest times human beings have tried to imprison it in some durable hieroglyphic. It is perhaps the first of all the subjects of art. --Kenneth Clark https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kenneth_Clark