In case you weren't sure just how much of a disaster Poland went through when their President's plane went down yesterday, here is a who's who of those on the plane.
There were no survivors.
Lech Kaczyński, President
Maria Kaczyńska, First Lady
Ryszard Kaczorowski, last President-in-exile
Krzysztof Putra, vice-Marshal of the
Sejm (speaker of Parliament)
Krystyna Bochenek, vice-Marshal of the Sejm
Jerzy Szmajdziński, former Minister of Defence and intended Presidential Candidate for this year’s election
Władysław Stasiak, chief of the President’s office
Jacek Sasin, deputy chief of the President’s office
Aleksander Szczygło, chief of National Security Bureau
Paweł Wypych, Secretary of State in President’s office
Mariusz Handzlik, deputy Secretary of State in President’s office
Andrzej Kremer, vice-minister of Foreign Affairs
General Franciszek Gągor, Chief of Staff
Jerzy Bar, ambassador to Russia
Andrzej Przewoźnik, major historian
Maciej Płażyński, MP, former Marshal of the Sejm
Przemysław Gosiewski, MP, former minister
Zbigniew Wassermann, MP, former minister
Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, MP, former Minister of Social Policy
Jolanta Szymanek-Deresz, MP, former chief of President’s Office
Aleksandra Natalii-Świat, MP, vice-president of Law and Justice party
Leszek Deptuła, MP
Grażyna Gęsicka, MP
Arkadiusz Rybicki, MP
Stanisław Zając, MP
Edward Wojtas, MP
Wiesław Woda, MP
Sebastian Karpiniuk, MP
Grzegorz Dolniak, MP
Janusz Kochanowski, Ombudsman
Sławomir Skrzypek, President of the Polish National Bank
Janusz Kurtyka, President of the Institute of National Remembrance (state institution for historical research)
Bishop Tadeusz Płoski
and the chiefs of every arm of the Armed Forces.
kthanxbai!
In the late 1800s, some Jews began looking for a solution to the violent Judeophobia (I prefer this term to “anti-Semitism”) in Europe that they had been enduring for centuries. (Concise timelines of Judeophobia are here and here.) It was obvious to people like Theodor Herzl that the Jews needed their own land where they would no longer be persecuted. (Examples of brutal, racist treatment can be seen here and here.) Jews bought more land in Palestine (whenever possible – many Palestinians refused to sell land to Jews), and Russian Jews immigrated there to flee the waves of pogroms, increasing the Jewish presence in Palestine, even before the British issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917. However, the British also promised the land to the Arabs, and had separately made a deal with France to make Palestine internationally controlled. The Arabs revolted against the British (killing Jews as well, just for good measure) in 1936. Although the Arabs weren’t successful in kicking out non-Arabs, this revolt started some cultural shifts – namely, increased hostilities between Arabs and Jews (two groups whose ancient histories had been intertwined in this area for thousands of years), and Britain revoked their promise to give land in Palestine to the Jews.
