Usuari:J bullanga/proves
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Varsòvia
[modifica]Varsòvia (en polonès Warszawa) és la ciutat més gran de Polònia i la seva capital des de l'any 1596, quan el rei Segimon III Vasa va traslladar-hi la capitalitat des de Cracòvia. Varsòvia és també la seu de la Presidència de la República, del Parlament i de la resta de les autoritats centrals. La metròpoli se situa a la riba del riu Vístula, lleugerament a l'est del centre del país, i la seva població s'estima en 1,8 milions d'habitants, de manera que és la novena ciutat més gran de la Unió Europea.
Varsòvia és coneguda internacionalment per haver donat el seu nom a la convenció de Varsòvia (1929), al pacte de Varsòvia (1955), al Tractat de Varsòvia (1970) i a la Rebel·lió de Varsòvia (1944).
El centre històric de la ciutat, completament destruït arran del Rebel·lió de Varsòvia el 1944, va ser reconstruït meticulosament després de la guerra, i el 1980 va ser declarat Patrimoni de la Humanitat per la UNESCO com a "exemple destacat de reconstrucció gairebé total d'una seqüència històrica que s'estén des del segle xiii fins al segle xx."
La ciutat és la seu de nombroses indústries (manufactureres, de l'acer, d'enginyeria elèctrica, de l'automòbil, etc.) i comprèn 66 institucions d'estudis superiors (incloent-hi la Universitat de Varsòvia, la Universitat Tecnològica de Varsòvia, l'Escola Superior de Negocis i l'Acadèmia Mèdica), i més de 30 teatres que inclouen el Teatre Nacional, l'Òpera i l'Orquestra Filharmònica Nacional.
The metropolis stands on the Vistula River in east-central Poland and its population is officially estimated at 1.8 million residents within a greater metropolitan area of 3.1 million residents, which makes Warsaw the 7th most-populous capital city in the European Union. The city area measures 517.24 square kilometres (199.71 sq mi), while the metropolitan area covers 6,100.43 square kilometres (2,355.39 sq mi). Warsaw is an alpha-global city, a major international tourist destination, and a significant cultural, political, and economic hub. Its historical Old Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The city rose to prominence in the late 16th century, when Sigismund III decided to move the Polish capital and his royal court from Kraków. The elegant architecture, grandeur and extensive boulevards earned Warsaw the nickname 'Paris of the North' prior to the Second World War. Bombed at the start of the German invasion in 1939, the city withstood a siege, but was largely destroyed by the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, the general Warsaw Uprising in 1944 and the systematic razing by the Germans in advance of the Vistula–Oder Offensive. Warsaw gained the new title of Phoenix City because of its complete reconstruction after the war, which had left over 85% of its buildings in ruins.
In 2012, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Warsaw as the 32nd most liveable city in the world. In 2017, the city came 4th in the "Business-friendly", 8th in "Human capital and life style" and topped the quality of life rankings in the region. The city is a significant centre of research and development, business process outsourcing, and information technology outsourcing. The Warsaw Stock Exchange is the largest and most important in Central and Eastern Europe. Frontex, the European Union agency for external border security as well as ODIHR, one of the principal institutions of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have their headquarters in Warsaw. Jointly with Frankfurt and Paris, Warsaw features one of the highest number of skyscrapers in the European Union.
The city is the seat of the Polish Academy of Sciences, National Philharmonic Orchestra, University of Warsaw, the Warsaw University of Technology, the National Museum, Zachęta Art Gallery and the Warsaw Grand Theatre, the largest of its kind in the world. The Old Town, which represents examples of nearly every European architectural style and historical period, was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1980. Other main architectural attractions include the Royal Castle and the iconic King Sigismund's Column, the Wilanów Palace, the Palace on the Isle, St. John's Cathedral, Main Market Square, as well as numerous churches and mansions along the Royal Route. Warsaw is positioning itself as Central and Eastern Europe's chic cultural capital with thriving art or club scenes and restaurants, with around a quarter of the city's area occupied by parks.
Etimologia[modifica]
[modifica]El nom Warszawa ve del possessiu del nom Warsz, és a dir Warszewa, Warszowa. Segons les llegendes el nom ve d'un pescador pobre, Wars, i d'una sirena, Sawa.
Felix L. Sparks
[modifica]Plantilla:Short description Plantilla:Infobox officeholder Felix Laurence Sparks (August 2, 1917 – September 25, 2007) was a Brigadier General in the United States Army who, during World War II, commanded the 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, one of the first Allied forces to enter Dachau concentration camp and liberate its prisoners. He later served on the Colorado Supreme Court.[1]
Early life
[modifica]On August 2, 1917, Sparks was born in San Antonio, Texas, as the oldest of five children. His father worked in a copper mine, and he grew up fairly poor and spent his days hunting to ensure his family could eat. In 1931, the company that his father worked for closed due to the Great Depression. In 1933, his parents sent him to Arizona to live with his uncle.[1]
Sparks spent a while traveling around by hopping trains and looking for work but was incapable of finding a job due to the Great Depression. As a result, he joined the military in San Francisco.[1]
World War II
[modifica]Sparks trained in Honolulu and made a job out of developing photo films for other soldiers, then left to do three years of law school, before he was called back into active duty, and sent to Fort Sill in Oklahoma where he joined the 157th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division, nicknamed the Thunderbirds. They were known for being one of the most diverse groups because they allowed Native Americans and Mexican Americans to join the infantry, and the group was not segregated, unlike most other regiments.
He was temporarily put in charge of company J, also known as the "Jailbird Company" due to its concentration of soldiers who had gone AWOL. He was in charge of getting them to pass their live-fire test, and his support led to the passing. Colonel Charles M. Ankcorn made Sparks his adjutant, a job that he did not enjoy as he wanted to fight.
When he was in law school, he met a woman named Mary Blair, and the two began to date. He proposed to Mary in 1942, and she would get pregnant soon after. The two traveled together for a short time until he was shipped overseas; Mary was still pregnant when he shipped out, meaning Felix would not get to meet his son until almost three years later. In July 1943, he took part in Operation Husky (the Allied invasion of Sicily). While in Sicily, there was an opening for a command position in company E; he requested Ankcorn allow him to take the position, but Ankcorn denied the request. Approximately a week later, a livid Ankcorn confronted Sparks about company E failing their live fire test and told him that if he could get them to pass the test then he could be permanently transferred to company E. Sparks eventually discovered the company's struggles were related to animosity aimed at their previous captain, and he would successfully help them pass.
Later, he was the only survivor of his unit in the Battle of Anzio. He took part in Operation Dragoon, which liberated southern France and advanced very quickly. He also took part in the hostilities in the Vosges and in the Battle of Aschaffenburg. The television show The Liberator[2] was based on his command of the 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment. In a ten-year active duty army career, Sparks rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
Liberation of Dachau
[modifica]On the morning of 29 April 1945 Sparks was issued an order to secure the Dachau concentration camp and make sure that no one entered or exited the camp after it was surrendered. He was not particularly happy with the order because he felt it was sidetracking his Regiment from their objective of reaching Munich. After companies L and K had cleared the majority of the surrounding area of most German resistance Lt. Col. Sparks tasked Lieutenant William Walsh of I Company with leading this "mopping up" mission[3] to Dachau and accompanied the men towards the camp. Neither Sparks, nor any of his men knew anything of the horrors they were about to endure.
Upon arriving at the camp Lt. Col. Sparks was unsure how much resistance they would encounter so instead of going straight to the entrance of the camp, he sent some men over a side wall of the camp and ordered others to follow a spur of railroad tracks which led into the camp. What they discovered deeply disturbed the majority of them as there was a train stopped on the tracks with a destroyed locomotive and several dozen wooden box cars. Inside each one of the box cars were the remains of dead civilian prisoners, entirely wasted away to skin and bones from starvation, piled atop one another like cord wood, over 2,000 of them in total. It was noted that some of these prisoners were lying dead alongside the train, seemingly with their heads bashed in by the butt of a rifle.
Lt. Col. Sparks' men reacted differently to these disturbing realities. Some began crying in confusion and disbelief, some began vomiting from the sight, as well as the smell of the rotting bodies, and others became angry, violent and sought revenge. In fact Lt. Col. Sparks first became aware of the atrocities when Lieutenant Walsh came running from behind a building chasing a few SS guards threatening them and screaming obscenities at them. Lieutenant Walsh was in such a rage that it allegedly took seven American soldiers to contain and calm him.[4]
The next several hours Lt. Col. Sparks had to contend with not only securing the camp and the remaining 30,000 civilians still living in the 34 barracks, but also the chaotic and unpredictable reactions of his men to seeing such horrors. Among the incidents to take place included when the Americans entered the main camp the imprisoned civilians realized that they had been freed and began whaling out and crying indescribable cries while hugging and embracing their liberators. The civilians wanted to leave the camp immediately, but it was still an active war zone in the immediate vicinity surrounding the camp so, following his orders, Lt. Col. Sparks had to assure them to remain in the camp and that food and medical care was following closely behind them and would soon be arriving.
Some of Sparks' men began seeking revenge on the guards for the things they had witnessed, including four SS officers being brought into one of the train cars and executed, some of the Americans gave weapons to the civilian inmates and allowed them to take their own revenge, including an instance of an SS guard having his head and face bashed in with farming tools to the point he was nearly decapitated. A particularly vicious and sadistic SS Guard was caught in clothes disguised as a civilian and was beaten to death by enraged prisoners with their bare hands. Several SS Guards were still occupying Guard Tower B and were taken out of the tower and shot.
A group of several dozen SS Guards were rounded up in a coal yard and held at bay with a machine gun, with a young Private who had witnessed atrocities manning the gun. At one point another of the men asked to show Lt. Col. Sparks the crematorium he had found and as they were walking away the Private manning the gun began screaming out that the Nazis were trying to escape and opened fire indiscriminately cutting them down. Lt. Col. Sparks had to turn back to put a stop to this, but by the time the shooting stopped more than a dozen Nazis were executed. The Private was crying hysterically and out of control when they pulled him off the gun and Sparks then put a Non-Commissioned officer in control of the gun as he went to investigate the ovens. A later investigation revealed twenty-two machine gun bullets had been fired into the wall that the Nazis were standing in front of in the coal yard.[3]
As this was going on inside the camp, General Henning Linden and elements of the 42nd division had shown up at the front of the camp. En route to the camp Linden and his men had driven straight past several German soldiers who were confused why the Americans were driving straight past them and not stopping to fight.[5] General Linden had brought journalists to the camp so that they could report on the liberation of a concentration camp. Among them were Paul M. G. Levy, a Belgian journalist attached to SHAEF,[6] as well as Marguerite Higgins, a twenty-five year old woman working for New York Herald-Tribune and Sidney A. Olson of Time-Life Magazine,[5] who would tour the camp with Linden.
Upon the arrival of General Linden at the front of the camp the acting commandant of Dachau, SS Lieutenant Wickert, who had been conned into allowing the remaining prisoners to live by an agent of the Red Cross named Victor Mauer, who promised the Commandant his safety when he surrendered, began the process of surrendering the camp to Linden, even though it was Lieutenant Colonel Sparks who had been ordered to secure the surrender. This Lieutenant Wickert had just taken over the day before after the majority of SS officers had abandoned the camp as the Americans advanced through Bavaria. General Linden had seen some of the atrocities prior to the Germans coming out to surrender and upon first meeting them he struck the SS Lieutenant with his swagger stick.
Lt. Col. Sparks eventually got word that another group of Americans was accepting the surrender of the camp and went to the main entrance accompanied by several of his men. As a discussion was going on between General Linden and Lt. Col. Sparks the journalist Ms. Higgins opened the gate to the camp and was immediately overwhelmed by the emaciated civilians who swarmed all over her with many others pouring out the gate. American troops had to fire their weapons into the air to get the situation under control and get everyone back inside the camp.[4] It was following this incident that Lieutenant Colonel Sparks showed General Linden his orders to secure the camp and asked General Linden to leave.
It was about this point that the situation nearly spiralled out of control as at some point General Linden either smacked, or struck one of Sparks' men with a swagger stick. Lieutenant Colonel Sparks then pulled out his sidearm, pointed it at the General and threatened to kill him if he ever touched another one of his men. An aide to General Linden, who himself was a Colonel and also outranked Sparks, threatened Sparks by implying he would see him after the war and fight him. Sparks lowered his weapon and asked, what's wrong with right now?[7] Eventually General Linden agreed to leave, but he threatened Lieutenant Colonel Sparks with a court martial over the incident.[4]
All total there were over 9,000 dead bodies inside the camp and the next day as food, supply and medical units arrived to take over the camp Lt. Col. Sparks forced civilians of the town of Dachau into the camp to assist with burials.[3] The war in Europe was officially over a week later, and soon after General Linden made good on his threat of court martial.
It had been decided by his commanding officer, General Frederick, that Lieutenant Colonel Sparks deserved a break and was to be sent home, however as he was being driven to Le Havre, France to be taken back to the United States he and his escort were stopped by the Military Police who had an arrest warrant for Sparks. His escort, who were still armed despite the war being over, refused to allow Lieutenant Colonel Sparks to be arrested, but turned around and returned to Bavaria where Sparks was to meet with General George Patton.[4] During this meeting with Patton, the boisterous General, who was now the highest American occupation authority in Bavaria, tore up the court martial paperwork right in front of Lieutenant Colonel Sparks and threw it in the trash, having decided that none of the Americans involved with the liberation of Dachau would be subject to disciplinary action or criminal charges.
Post-war years
[modifica]Upon returning to civilian life, Sparks attended the University of Colorado Law School, graduating in 1947. After opening a law practice in Delta, Colorado, he was elected district attorney there, running as the Democratic Party candidate. Following his reelection loss in 1952, Governor Ed Johnson appointed Sparks to fill an unexpired term on the Colorado Supreme Court. At the end of that term, he returned to his law practice in Delta. He was also in the Colorado Army National Guard, notably during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and, between 1968 and 1979, he served as its commander, retiring with the rank of brigadier general.[1]
On September 25, 2007, eight weeks past his 90th birthday, Sparks died in Colorado from complications due to pneumonia.[8]
See also
[modifica]References
[modifica]- ↑ 1,0 1,1 1,2 1,3 «Felix Sparks». echoesandreflections.org. [Consulta: 19 gener 2021].
- ↑ The Liberator, Real Folk Productions, Unique Features, Trioscope, 2020-11-11, <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9308682/>. Consulta: 13 novembre 2020
- ↑ 3,0 3,1 3,2 «Dachau and Liberation – Personal account by Felix L. Sparks Brigadier General, AUS(Retired)». Remember.org by Charles V. Ferree, 03-12-2021.
- ↑ 4,0 4,1 4,2 4,3 «A Fighting Foot Soldier of the 45th». Warfare History Network by Christopher Miskimon, 01-12-2021.
- ↑ 5,0 5,1 «NY's 42nd Infantry Division liberated Dachau 75 years ago». US Army by Colonel Richard Goldenberg, 27-04-2020.
- ↑ Simon, Lluís. «La Volta tindrà una contrarellotge a Banyoles - 01 gen 2020». [Consulta: 23 març 2021].
- ↑ esport3. «Rohan Dennis s'imposa a la crono de Banyoles i Joao Almeida és el nou líder de la Volta», 23-03-2021. [Consulta: 23 març 2021].
- ↑ «Rohan Dennis: 'Estoy contento con la victoria, sobre todo después de tanto tiempo sin ganar'» (en castellà), 23-03-2021. [Consulta: 23 març 2021].
- Beuchner, Emajean Jordan (1991). Sparks. Metairie, LA: Thunderbird Press, Inc.
- Alex Kershaw (2012). "The Liberator: One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau". New York, NY: Crown Publishers.
External links
[modifica]- McClearn, William C. "An Oral History: Felix L. Sparks", The Colorado Lawyer, October 1998
- "DACHAU AND ITS LIBERATION: Personal account by Felix L. Sparks Brigadier General, AUS (Retired)
- Sheeler, Jim. "One Last Honor", Rocky Mountain News, March 10, 2007
- Clips from the 1990 documentary "The Liberation of KZ Dachau"; includes interview with Felix Sparks
- Farragher, Thomas. "Vengeance at Dachau", Boston Globe, July 2, 2001
- Felix Sparks at Find a Grave