New book about General Ulysses S. Grant’s order to expel Jews from the war zone in the Civil War

I was vaguely familiar with the order given by General Ulysses S. Grant, during the American civil war, which called for the Jews to be expelled from the war zone.  Now a new book is coming out which will give the details of this historic order; you can read about the book here.

This quote is from the website about the book:

In the middle of the Civil War, on December 17, 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Orders No. 11, which called for the expulsion of “Jews as a class” from the Department of the Tennessee – a vast area stretching from Mississippi to Illinois. The order was revoked almost immediately by President Lincoln, and its direct effects on the country’s small but growing Jewish community were limited. Yet the unprecedented decree had enormous unintended consequences, not just for Grant but for American Jewry. The effects, in fact, continue to reverberate today.

When I read about the new book, I immediately thought about  Heinrich Himmler’s famous speech at Posen on October 4, 1943:

…”The Jewish people are being exterminated.” every party member says. “Of course, it’s in our program, elimination of the Jews, extermination, we’ll do it all right.” Among all those who talk like this, no one has witnessed it, no one has seen it through. Most of you will know, however, what it means to see 100 corpses lying together, or 500, or 1,000. To have stuck it out and at the same time to have remained decent – aside from a few exceptions succumbing to human weakness – that has made us tough. This is an unwritten and never-to-be-written page of glory in our history, for we know how difficult it would be for us if today under bombing raids and the hardships and deprivations of war – if we were still to have the Jews in every city as secret saboteurs, agitators, and inciters. If the Jews were still lodged in the body of the German nation, we would probably by now have reached the stage of 1917-18.”

The phrase “the stage of 1917-18″ is a reference to World War I.  The Nazis blamed the Jews for Germany’s loss in World War I.

This quote from the Jewish Virtual Library explains why General Grant issued an order to expel the Jews during the Civil War:

In 1862, in the heat of the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant initiated one of the most blatant official episodes of anti-Semitism in 19th-century American history. In December of that year, Grant issued his infamous General Order No. 11, which expelled all Jews from Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi:

“The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department [the "Department of the Tennessee," an administrative district of the Union Army of occupation composed of Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi] within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.

“Post commanders will see to it that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters. No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application of trade permits.”

The immediate cause of the expulsion was the raging black market in Southern cotton. Although enemies in war, the North and South remained dependent on each other economically. Northern textile mills needed Southern cotton. The Union Army itself used Southern cotton in its tents and uniforms. Although the Union military command preferred an outright ban on trade, President Lincoln decided to allow limited trade in Southern cotton.

To control that trade, Lincoln insisted it be licensed by the Treasury Department and the army. As commander of the Department of the Tennessee, Grant was charged with issuing trade licenses in his area. As cotton prices soared in the North, unlicensed traders bribed Union officers to allow them to buy Southern cotton without a permit. As one exasperated correspondent told the Secretary of War, “Every colonel, captain or quartermaster is in a secret partnership with some operator in cotton; every soldier dreams of adding a bale of cotton to his monthly pay.”

In the fall of 1862, Grant’s headquarters were besieged by merchants seeking trade permits. When Grant’s own father appeared one day seeking trade licenses for a group of Cincinnati merchants, some of whom were Jews, Grant’s frustration overflowed.

A handful of the illegal traders were Jews, although the great majority were not. In the emotional climate of the war zone, ancient prejudices flourished. The terms “Jew,” “profiteer,” “speculator” and “trader” were employed interchangeably. Union commanding General Henry W. Halleck linked “traitors and Jew peddlers.” Grant shared Halleck’s mentality, describing “the Israelites” as “an intolerable nuisance.”

In November 1862, convinced that the black market in cotton was organized “mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders,” Grant ordered that “no Jews are to be permitted to travel on the railroad southward [into the Department of the Tennessee] from any point,” nor were they to be granted trade licenses. When illegal trading continued, Grant issued Order No. 11 on December 17, 1862.

Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life.” Let’s give her a medal!

There is a big controversy in America about the fact that the wife of Mitt Romney was a stay-at-home mom. Hilary Rosen, a political consultant who advises the Democratic National Committee, said on CNN Wednesday night that Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life.”  Ann Romney is the mother of five children.  She responded on her Twitter account, writing:  “I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work.”

Hilary Rosen was trying to make the point that Mrs. Romney doesn’t know anything about the economy because she was never in the work place.   I think it is the other way around.  Ann Romney was reading books, watching the news on TV, and listening to her husband talk about the economy, while she was “not working a day in her life.”  She is probably more informed than mothers who work outside the home and have no time for anything else.

In Nazi Germany, the role of a mother was highly respected.  In fact, a German mother was given a medal for raising children.  As the mother of five boys, Anne Romney would have been given a medal for her service to her country.

Medal given to mothers in Nazi Germany

Hitler’s birthplace in Braunau am Inn, Austria

The parents of Adolf Hitler are in the news currently because their tombstone has been removed and hauled off. It has probably been smashed to pieces already. I blogged yesterday about the cemetery in Leonding, Austria where the bodies of Hitler’s parents now lie in an unmarked grave.  A reader of my blog commented that Hitler’s birthplace might be next on the list of places to be destroyed.

When I visited Austria a few years ago, I went to the small town of Braunau am Inn where Hitler was born.  As soon as I entered the town, I went to a bookstore and asked  for directions to the house where Hitler was born.  The clerk looked at me as though I were someone from outer space and then said that he could not tell me.  I asked for a map that would show the location, and I was told that there is no such map.

I started walking down the main street until I saw a stone monument in front of a building.  I recognized the golden granite as a stone from the Mauthausen quarry which I had just visited.  This must be the place!

Granite stone in front of Hitler's birthplace in Braunau am Inn in Austria

The photo above shows Salzburger Vorstadt in the historic town of Braunau am Inn (Braunau on the Inn river). This is the street where Hitler was born on April 20, 1889.  In the background, the building with the tower is the gatehouse into the town.  Hitler’s birthplace is the building on the right.

While I was taking these photos, the locals who were passing by, gave me a big smile of approval.  As far as I could tell, I was the only American tourist in the town that day.

Braunau am Inn has a population of about 17,500 people. This was formerly a walled town; it is located on the south bank of the Inn river which separates Austria and Germany. The street was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Strasse after the Anschluss of Germany and Austria on March 12, 1938.

Building where Adolf Hitler was born is unmarked except for a large granite stone

The photo above shows the yellow three-story building in Braunau am Inn which was the Gasthof zum Pommer or Gasthof des Josef Pommer at the time when Hitler was born there. The original address of the building was Salzburger Vorstadt 219 when Adolf Hitler was born here at 6:30 p.m. on April 20, 1889, Easter Sunday.  A Gasthof is also called a Gasthaus.  A Gasthaus is a small hotel that has a restaurant and a bar on the ground floor.  The local Gasthaus used to be the hangout for the men in the town — the women were at home, having a Kaffeeklatsch.

The house where Hitler was born is unmarked, except for a large stone of Mauthausen granite which was placed on the corner in 1989, the 100th anniversary of Hitler’s birth.

The granite stone in front of Hitler's birthplace

The English translation of the words on the stone are: “For peace, freedom and democracy, never again Fascism, millions of dead admonish.”  

Tombstone on grave of Hitler’s parents has been removed…

Grave stone for Hitler's parents has been removed from cemetery in Austria

I was shocked to read this on the website of Carolyn Yeager:

The tasteful headstone that marked the resting place of Alois and Klara Hitler in the Leonding churchyard since before WWI. It was removed Wednesday by timid German-Austrian Catholics in service to Jewish hatred and Jewish desire to obliterate history they don’t like because it does not serve their interests. This gravestone in the cemetery near Linz, Austria makes Adolf Hitler seem all too human.

My photo of cemetery in Leonding, Austria. Grave of Hitler's parents is on the right

My photo of gravestone of Hitler's parents

I love German cemeteries.  The graves are like tiny flower gardens.  As Beatrix Potter famously wrote: You will not find a faded leaf  Or blighted blossom there.  The grave of Hitler’s parents was quite modest.  Nothing ostentatious.  I can’t believe that anyone would dishonor Alois and Klara Hitler, who never did anything wrong.  It’s not their fault that their son grew up to be Adolf Hitler. They were long dead before little “Adi” became the Chancellor of Germany.

Apparently, this grave site will now be used to bury someone else. Grave sites are leased for 10 years and the lease must be renewed every 10 years. This is commonly done in Germany and Austria where bodies are buried on top of other bodies after a few years.  The grave stone for Hitler’s parents is now gone, but that won’t keep people from visiting the former grave.

Das Haus des Führers - Michaelsbergstrasse 16, Leonding, Austria

The photo above shows Adolf Hitler’s boyhood home, which is located across the street from the cemetery in the town of Leonding, Austria.  Leonding is located 5 kilometers (3 miles) southwest of Linz, Austria. Adolf Hitler moved there with his family in November 1898 when he was 9 years old. He lived with his family in this house at Number 16 Michaelsbergstrasse for seven years.

I took a taxi from Linz, Austria to Leonding and told the driver that I wanted to visit Hitler’s boyhood home.  The driver dropped me off on Michaelsbergstrasse a few yards from the house.  I had seen photos of the house, so I knew which house it was. As I started walking across the street to the house, an elderly couple spoke to me, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying because Austrians speak a dialect that is different from the High German that I learned in German class.  They seemed to be angry that I was walking towards this unmarked house; they were probably trying to tell me that I was treading on dangerous ground.  I was the only person there who was looking at the house.

Obama grovels before the Jews at AIPAC conference, but it wasn’t enough

This morning, I listened to President’s Obama’s speech at the annual AIPAC conference.  He started off by mentioning that Dan Shapiro, our ambassador to Israel, is learning Hebrew, and lauding Shimon Peres, who was born in a shetetl in Poland.  Then he rattled off a list of things that “destroy freedom” including gas chambers.  Obama said “we share human values with Israel.”  He got a round of applause after he said that “our support for Israel is bi-partisan and that is the way it should stay.”

Then he spent about half of his speech defending his record of support for Israel.  He specifically said “I have kept my commitment to Israel.”  and “Israel’s security is sacrosanct.”  And finally, his best line:  “There should be no doubt that I have Israel’s back.”

Towards the end of his speech, Obama mentioned his “great uncle who liberated Buchenwald.”  That is not quite correct:  On my scrapbookpages website, I wrote here about Obama’s great uncle, Charles T. Payne, who was a member of Company K, 355th Infantry Regiment, 89th Infantry Division.  He was taken to see Ohrdruf, a sub-camp of Buchenwald, on June 6, 1945, two days after the first American soldiers arrived at the abandoned camp, so technically he cannot claim the honor of being a “liberator” of Ohrdruf, and certainly not a liberator of Buchenwald.  As anyone, who knows anything about the Holocaust knows, Buchenwald was “liberated” by the prisoners themselves at 3 p.m. on April 11, 1945, a couple of hours before any American soldiers arrived.   But I digress.

Shortly after Obama finished his speech, Naftali Bennet was interviewed on Fox News.  Bennet was not happy with Obama’s speech.  He wants Obama to take “decisive action” against Iran.  He wants “immediate paralyzing sanctions against Iran, not in June — now!”  Bennet pointed out that Israel bombed the nuclear facility in Syria several years ago and it has not been re-built.  Bennet wants a “plausible threat to Iran.”  He wants “sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank now!”

Obama said, in his speech: “I firmly believe in the opportunity for diplomacy.”  What the Jews want is military action against Iran, not diplomacy, as Naftali Bennet pointed out. This speech could cost Obama his re-election.  All of the Republican candidates for the nomination are “sabre rattling” except for Ron Paul, who has no chance of being the Republican candidate.

9/11 Memorial ceremonies…

On Sunday, September 11th, I watched the 9/11 Memorial ceremonies on Fox News all day.  Memories of 9/11 ten years ago came flooding back: On that day, I had gotten up at 6 a.m. as usual (9 a.m. Eastern time) and immediately turned on the TV set in my bedroom. I was horrified to see the South Tower at the World Trade Center with a gaping hole in it and black smoke pouring out. The tower had been hit by American Airlines Flight 11 at 8:46 a.m. Eastern time. I thought at first that the plane had hit the tower accidentally.

As I watched in horror, at 9:03 a.m. Eastern time, I saw the North Tower hit by Flight 175. A big red ball of fire appeared on the opposite side of the tower and I knew that this was a deliberate attack: World War III had started.  I expected that attacks in other cities would quickly follow.  I called my daughter, woke her up, and told her not to go out of the house because we were at war and anything could happen.

On that day in 2001, I watched the Fox News coverage the whole day; Rick Leventhal was reporting from the site of the attack.  Footage from his original coverage was replayed on Sunday 09.11.11.   

American schools prepare children for the day when China will be the world’s greatest super power

It won’t be long before China surpasses America as a super power.  In preparation for that day, which is not far off, American elementary schools are now offering “immersion programs” in Cantonese and also Mandarin, which is the official language of business in China.  The Chinese immersion classes start as early as kindergarten.  In California, the Sacramento City Unified District began offering Chinese-English immersion classes for students in 2010.

In the first year of an immersion program, elementary school children in the Sacramento area will have classes in which 80% of the instruction is in a Chinese language and 20% in English, but over the next five years, the percentage will be 50-50 between English and Chinese. Instruction in Mandarin Chinese will begin in the fourth grade. The students in these classes will be Asian and non-Asian; there is a waiting list to get into these classes.

Way back in the 1800s in the USA, there were “German schools” in Missouri and Wisconsin which taught elementary school classes in both German and English.  This was at a time when many households in America spoke only German and students entered kindergarten knowing only German, which was the language spoken at home.  During World War I, there were many American soldiers who spoke fluent German, which they had learned at home.  By the time that America was fighting Germany in World War II, there was still one in four Americans who could speak German.  This came in handy when America occupied Germany.  As a result of years of occupation, the German people now speak English better than most Americans.

Meanwhile, young people in China are learning American culture.  They are being introduced to Harry Potter, American junk food, and Anne Frank.  When I visit my TCM Chinese doctor twice a week, I read the magazines in the waiting room.  In some of the Chinese magazines, half of the articles are in Chinese and the other half are in English.  I’m learning about ancient Chinese customs and history, while the Chinese-Americans in the waiting room are reading about how China is rapidly becoming Americanized.

Where will it all end?  I don’t know, but I’m making friends with as many Chinese-Americans as I can.  As for language, I’m still trying to learn German.

New YouTube video about 9/11 by Anthony Lawson

“The most Colossal Lie ever told.”

 

Does Michele Bachmann have a shot at the presidency?

Does Michele Bachmann have a chance of becoming the next President of the United States?  In a word — No!  She can’t speak Yiddish!  On a recent Fox News TV show, she mispronounced the word Chutzpah!  Scroll down to see the video of her egregious mistake.

Her official photo shows an American flag in the background.  Where is the photo of her with the flag of Israel in the background?

Official photo of Michelle Bachmann

President Barack Obama with the flag of Israel

George W. Bush pledges his loyalty

In an interview with Jenna Mitelman on the last day of AIPAC Policy Conference on March 24, 2010, Michelle Bachmann said this:

“I have been a long time supporter of Israel. The first time I went to Israel was the day I graduated from high school. I spent a summer working on Kibbutz Be’eri near Beer Sheva in 1974. I’ve been 4 times in Israel – 3 times as a Member of Congress. I loved Israel – from the moment I first landed.”

But has she ever been to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Israel? If so, where is the photo?

President Barack Obama at Yad Vashem

George W. Bush at Yad Vashem

As you can see from the photos above, a visit to Yad Vashem is required.  If Michele Bachmann wants to become President of the United States, she should make the visit to Yad Vashem as soon as possible.  And she should be dressed in a dowdy, matronly dress, not in any of her fashionable outfits that show off her fantastic figure. (Did she really have 5 children?)

This YouTube video shows how serious it was for Michele Bachmann to mispronounce a Yiddish word.  This is inexcusable for a woman who spent time on a kibbutz.

The War on Terror: What caused it and how did it start?

I have been in shock (literally) since President Obama announced on TV a week ago that Osama bin Laden had been killed.  It has been 10 years since 9/11 and I have forgotten a lot of the details about what caused Osama to attack America and our subsequent War on Terror.  I had to look it up on the Internet and I found this explanation for the attack on America on Wiki Answers:

…. is it surprising that Bin Laden started a 10 year terror campaign to get US troops out of Saudi Arabia as a result of Saudi dissidents being tortured for opposing the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia following the carnage of the gulf war in which the US government was accused of not only massacring fleeing Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait but also air strikes that collaterally killed Iraqi children and babies in the gulf war where US bombs killed 200,000 Iraqis, destroyed 20,000 Iraqi homes, leveled schools and hospitals.