Timothy B. Higgins
Side by Side
Farewells to two who trained together and entered the towers together Sept. 11
October 5, 2001 NEWSDAY
Paper fell in a strange blizzard from a darkening sky Sept. 11 as Terry Hatton led the men from Rescue Co. 1 into the World Trade Center's north tower.
"Brother, I'm afraid this day we may die," he told a friend as they entered.
An hour later, the order came to evacuate the teetering building, but Timothy Higgins and the men from Squad 252 kept heading up the stairs. They said they were on their way to help Hatton.
"We'll meet you," Higgins shouted over his shoulder through the din to another firefighter they passed.
They buried the two men yesterday, eulogizing Hatton at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan and Higgins at the Church of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Lake Ronkonkoma, with uncannily similar words. Their bodies, found a day apart last weekend only yards from each other in the remains of the last burning building they entered, were carried to their graves on the backs of fire engines.
The two decorated fire captains had learned their dangerous business together as young men in the same elite Brooklyn rescue company.
"We were all guys with 100-percent attitude, all aggressive," said Richard Evers, a retired member of Rescue Co. 2 who in the early 1980s helped school them in the array of saws, ropes, scuba gear and other specialized equipment.
They had been handpicked for one of the city's busiest companies, and their captain, Ray Downey, a department legend who also was lost Sept. 11, taught them to press into the flames beyond where others dared to go.
"He'd say, 'You always go farther. You always go farther,'" Evers' wife, Denise, a fire dispatcher, recalled.
Higgins, 43, and Hatton, 41, were different sides of the same coin.
Higgins, who grew up in Freeport and raised his son and two daughters in Farmingville, was always asking for more drills and pestering his elders with questions. He had a knack, Evers remembered, for choosing the right tool for any rescue. Hatton, a Rockville Centre native who lived in Manhattan, was cooler, perhaps, but just as much a perfectionist. He would take rescue tools apart after drills just to see how they worked.
Yesterday, Mayor Rudolph Giu- liani described Hatton, who was married to a mayoral assistant, as City Hall's "resident hero," who seemed to win a medal every week.
"He reminded me of Joe DiMaggio: quiet, self-determined, confident," the mayor said as firefighters from all over the East Coast crowded the aisles and stretched up Fifth Avenue. "He could have been a movie star, but if he had been a movie star, he would've been playing roles like Terry Hatton."
Hatton's wife, Beth Petrone-Hatton, found out she was pregnant with their first child on Sept. 12.
In Lake Ronkonkoma, Higgins' son, Christopher, recalled a man "everyone loved to say they knew." Higgins, who has three firefighter brothers, was renowned for his love of a capella singing, a good party, and most of all the job. He'd crawl between legs to beat other firefighters waiting to get at a blaze, and then he'd turn around grinning. When his voice was heard in the smoke, firefighters said, they always knew things would turn out OK.
"His last hour was his finest," Christopher Higgins said. "He gave himself in an attempt to save others."
Just what happened in those final minutes on Sept. 11 will likely never be known. Handheld radio transmissions within the buildings were heard by few who made it out alive, and those memories are clouded by the confusion of events.
A tool belonging to Higgins' Squad 252 was quickly found in the north stairwell area, said his brother Joseph, of Ladder Co. 111 in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Then a firefighter took him aside to quietly say he'd passed his brother on the 28th floor, headed up to help Hatton.
Joseph, Robert and Matthew Higgins began a 13-day marathon of digging near the stairwell, going home only to sleep for a few hours each day. They found another tool from Squad 252. Late Saturday night, they found Hatton. Late Sunday night, while they were resting, Higgins was found.
"We'd like to die of a heart attack in our sleep at home like everyone else," Timothy Higgins said five years ago in an interview after another line-of-duty funeral.
But for firefighters like Higgins, whose company motto was "In Squad We Trust," some things overcome that desire. "The instinct of a firefighter is to make sure everyone gets out alive - you don't think twice about it," Joseph Higgins said. "The gamble is there. You have to depend on each other."
--Elizabeth Moore and Kathryn Wellin (Newsday)
Sunday, April 18, 2010
PAULA ZAHN Interview With Thomas Von Essen
CNN AMERICAN MORNING WITH PAULA ZAHN
Interview With Thomas Von Essen
Aired August 13, 2002 - 08:48 ET
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Nearly a year after 9-11, memories of the tragedy and the chaos that followed are still fresh in many minds. Three-hundred and forty-three New York City firefighters died in the World Trade Center that morning. They were Tom Von Essen's troops. He was New York's fire commissioner at the time, and he worked side by side with Mayor Rudy Giuliani to bring the city back from disaster.
Now he's written about his experience and his 31-year career with New York's bravest in a new book called "Strong of Heart," and he joins us now.
Welcome back.
THOMAS VON ESSEN, AUTHOR, "STRONG OF HEART": Thank you.
ZAHN: What do you want people to learn from this book?
VON ESSEN: What great people work in the New York City Fire Department, and how hard everybody tried to rescue all of the citizens and civilians that were in that building, and the tremendous effort and great success in that rescue mission. Thousands and thousands of people are alive today, because of what our troops did. I talk a lot about individuals in the story, people who meant a lot to me in the fire department, people who have been injured before and made amazing comebacks to come back to work, like Jimmy Stackpole, great leaders like Fian (ph) and Gansi (ph) and people like that, that are given 30 and 40 years in the department, hard-charging, new people on the horizon, Eddie Garrity (ph), and Terry Hatten (ph) and Patty Brown (ph), just individuals, how wonderful they were and what sacrifice -- what they had given to the department, and I'd like to help preserve that for their family.
ZAHN: I guess the sacrifice must be the hardest part of this equation for you to deal with, because there's still a lot of second- guessing going on about why so many New York City firefighters lost their lives that day.
McKenzie (ph) was commissioned to do this study on what went wrong. As briefly as you can explain, what do you think were some of the biggest errors that were made that day? God knows we had never been through this scenario before, and I think we need to acknowledge that.
VON ESSEN: Right, I think there weren't any errors made by the troops and the chiefs, who did a wonderful job, a fantastic job, the very best they could, under the scenario that, like you said, was the worst that's ever happened. The firefighters and their bosses did a great job.
You can look at procedure, you can look at policies, you can say that we can do a better job at staging areas. We had things like that in place. They broke down because people were trying so hard to get in there and help other people, so they didn't stop at a particular location, get a piece of equipment, find out exactly where to go, things like that, procedural things, but you don't want to criticize heroes for working on their day off and coming in to help people when they didn't even have to.
Nobody would have criticized anybody for not being there if they weren't even working. We had 100 guys who weren't even working that were running in that building trying to help people, and I don't think those kind of things deserve to be criticized. Look at your procedures and fix them for the future if you think they can be improved.
ZAHN: Although you have acknowledged that there's still a war going on between -- in the radio communications field, whether they should have gone from analog to digital, and the union is still sniping at you, and you're not even in power any more. Is that a fundamental problem that needs to be solved, to make New York City firefighters safer?
VON ESSEN: Well, to make firefighters...
ZAHN: And the public?
VON ESSEN: To make firefighters all around the world safer, it would be great if we had technology -- which we don't -- that 300 or 400 people could be talking on a radio that's collapsing around them. They may be on a wrong channel, maybe a receiver isn't hooked up, a receiver is not working, that all of those people would be able to communicate. That technology -- we don't have that ability today. It would be nice if we did. Those radios were working. We have recordings of people on receivers where they were communicating with each other.
Did we communicate with everybody? I don't think so. I think there were a lot of people in the building without radios. I think there were a lot of people who had, you know, jumped on those trucks and didn't have a radio.
So there were lots of people that didn't get the word -- I think -- to evacuate, but we don't know. People shouldn't throw around although these anecdotal criticisms. If you want a real investigation of just the radio issue, you should do that, but they've never done that. I called for a real investigation, stuff like that, last October, but nobody has done it.
The union has done nothing but criticize, but where have they been? It's now August, these radios are still in the closet. They're testing the technology now. Why haven't they been testing that technology all year?
ZAHN: Let's come back to the individual stories of bravery. An audiotape that was just released proved, I think, for the first time to the public and many family members that two of your bravest actually made it to the 78th floor of the south tower.
VON ESSEN: Chief Palmer, a fantastic fire chief, a really knowledgeable guy in radios coincidentally and high-rise firefighting. He took an elevator, I guess, to the 41st and the 40s and walked up the rest, and saw that there wasn't that much fire in the particular area where he was, and he was calling for more people to get up there; we can put this fire out. It kind of shows you the level of calmness and professionalism these chiefs had on the scene, to be able to be in control, to be able to be calmly asking for more help, and a lot of 10-45s, which is a lot of people that were dead that high up, because they had been severely burned, and the need for more firefighters to get up there and help these people that weren't as severely burned that we could get out.
So it's a tribute. I'm surprised that tape was not listened to for so long, because it's helpful, I think, for the families to hear that kind of stuff.
ZAHN: How much do you think of this day that no one could have alerted those firefighters that that building could go any minute?
VON ESSEN: It's horrible to think so many people in the north tower, you know, just didn't know -- or maybe knew, and were so high up, had been helping so many people that they couldn't get out fast enough. Nobody -- and there is no expert around -- you can maybe go to MIT and do an experiment in a laboratory, but we've got the finest fire chiefs in the world and none of them could have predicted in 102 minutes that both those buildings would come down. That, I think, was the biggest shock.
I was in the North Tower, and Chief Downey, said to me, these buildings can come down, calmly, professionally. The second building had just been hit, the South Tower was hit. So he knew that eventually they could come down, but there was no panic in his voice, there was no, boss, let's get everybody out of here, we've only got 10 minutes. It wasn't like that. They never dreamed that in an hour and 42 minutes both buildings would have collapsed.
ZAHN: You talk about a lot of this in "Strong of Heart" and the personal journey you've taken since September 11th. And Commissioner Von Essen, we appreciate you sharing parts of your story with us this morning.
VON ESSEN: Thank you.
ZAHN: Continued good luck to you. Good luck with the book.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Interview With Thomas Von Essen
Aired August 13, 2002 - 08:48 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Nearly a year after 9-11, memories of the tragedy and the chaos that followed are still fresh in many minds. Three-hundred and forty-three New York City firefighters died in the World Trade Center that morning. They were Tom Von Essen's troops. He was New York's fire commissioner at the time, and he worked side by side with Mayor Rudy Giuliani to bring the city back from disaster.
Now he's written about his experience and his 31-year career with New York's bravest in a new book called "Strong of Heart," and he joins us now.
Welcome back.
THOMAS VON ESSEN, AUTHOR, "STRONG OF HEART": Thank you.
ZAHN: What do you want people to learn from this book?
VON ESSEN: What great people work in the New York City Fire Department, and how hard everybody tried to rescue all of the citizens and civilians that were in that building, and the tremendous effort and great success in that rescue mission. Thousands and thousands of people are alive today, because of what our troops did. I talk a lot about individuals in the story, people who meant a lot to me in the fire department, people who have been injured before and made amazing comebacks to come back to work, like Jimmy Stackpole, great leaders like Fian (ph) and Gansi (ph) and people like that, that are given 30 and 40 years in the department, hard-charging, new people on the horizon, Eddie Garrity (ph), and Terry Hatten (ph) and Patty Brown (ph), just individuals, how wonderful they were and what sacrifice -- what they had given to the department, and I'd like to help preserve that for their family.
ZAHN: I guess the sacrifice must be the hardest part of this equation for you to deal with, because there's still a lot of second- guessing going on about why so many New York City firefighters lost their lives that day.
McKenzie (ph) was commissioned to do this study on what went wrong. As briefly as you can explain, what do you think were some of the biggest errors that were made that day? God knows we had never been through this scenario before, and I think we need to acknowledge that.
VON ESSEN: Right, I think there weren't any errors made by the troops and the chiefs, who did a wonderful job, a fantastic job, the very best they could, under the scenario that, like you said, was the worst that's ever happened. The firefighters and their bosses did a great job.
You can look at procedure, you can look at policies, you can say that we can do a better job at staging areas. We had things like that in place. They broke down because people were trying so hard to get in there and help other people, so they didn't stop at a particular location, get a piece of equipment, find out exactly where to go, things like that, procedural things, but you don't want to criticize heroes for working on their day off and coming in to help people when they didn't even have to.
Nobody would have criticized anybody for not being there if they weren't even working. We had 100 guys who weren't even working that were running in that building trying to help people, and I don't think those kind of things deserve to be criticized. Look at your procedures and fix them for the future if you think they can be improved.
ZAHN: Although you have acknowledged that there's still a war going on between -- in the radio communications field, whether they should have gone from analog to digital, and the union is still sniping at you, and you're not even in power any more. Is that a fundamental problem that needs to be solved, to make New York City firefighters safer?
VON ESSEN: Well, to make firefighters...
ZAHN: And the public?
VON ESSEN: To make firefighters all around the world safer, it would be great if we had technology -- which we don't -- that 300 or 400 people could be talking on a radio that's collapsing around them. They may be on a wrong channel, maybe a receiver isn't hooked up, a receiver is not working, that all of those people would be able to communicate. That technology -- we don't have that ability today. It would be nice if we did. Those radios were working. We have recordings of people on receivers where they were communicating with each other.
Did we communicate with everybody? I don't think so. I think there were a lot of people in the building without radios. I think there were a lot of people who had, you know, jumped on those trucks and didn't have a radio.
So there were lots of people that didn't get the word -- I think -- to evacuate, but we don't know. People shouldn't throw around although these anecdotal criticisms. If you want a real investigation of just the radio issue, you should do that, but they've never done that. I called for a real investigation, stuff like that, last October, but nobody has done it.
The union has done nothing but criticize, but where have they been? It's now August, these radios are still in the closet. They're testing the technology now. Why haven't they been testing that technology all year?
ZAHN: Let's come back to the individual stories of bravery. An audiotape that was just released proved, I think, for the first time to the public and many family members that two of your bravest actually made it to the 78th floor of the south tower.
VON ESSEN: Chief Palmer, a fantastic fire chief, a really knowledgeable guy in radios coincidentally and high-rise firefighting. He took an elevator, I guess, to the 41st and the 40s and walked up the rest, and saw that there wasn't that much fire in the particular area where he was, and he was calling for more people to get up there; we can put this fire out. It kind of shows you the level of calmness and professionalism these chiefs had on the scene, to be able to be in control, to be able to be calmly asking for more help, and a lot of 10-45s, which is a lot of people that were dead that high up, because they had been severely burned, and the need for more firefighters to get up there and help these people that weren't as severely burned that we could get out.
So it's a tribute. I'm surprised that tape was not listened to for so long, because it's helpful, I think, for the families to hear that kind of stuff.
ZAHN: How much do you think of this day that no one could have alerted those firefighters that that building could go any minute?
VON ESSEN: It's horrible to think so many people in the north tower, you know, just didn't know -- or maybe knew, and were so high up, had been helping so many people that they couldn't get out fast enough. Nobody -- and there is no expert around -- you can maybe go to MIT and do an experiment in a laboratory, but we've got the finest fire chiefs in the world and none of them could have predicted in 102 minutes that both those buildings would come down. That, I think, was the biggest shock.
I was in the North Tower, and Chief Downey, said to me, these buildings can come down, calmly, professionally. The second building had just been hit, the South Tower was hit. So he knew that eventually they could come down, but there was no panic in his voice, there was no, boss, let's get everybody out of here, we've only got 10 minutes. It wasn't like that. They never dreamed that in an hour and 42 minutes both buildings would have collapsed.
ZAHN: You talk about a lot of this in "Strong of Heart" and the personal journey you've taken since September 11th. And Commissioner Von Essen, we appreciate you sharing parts of your story with us this morning.
VON ESSEN: Thank you.
ZAHN: Continued good luck to you. Good luck with the book.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Monday, April 12, 2010
Louis Robert Coatney's The Katyn Massacre:
A dozen interesting looking news articles about the Katyn massacre, found on a bibliography on a research page, part of the wonderfully compelling contribution of Louis Robert Coatney---his thesis on the topic is superb. However, I can't get much response on the internets hasn't. Suppressed? I'd say so.
"Just wanted to save them here and say hi.
Nataliya Lebedeva, "The Tragedy of Katyn," International Affairs (Moscow), June 1990, p. 100.
William Echikson, "Katyn: The `Blank Space' Soviet Leader Did Not Fill," Christian Science Monitor, 12 July 1988,
"Purging Stalin: Revisionists Are out to Bump up the Number of Stalin's Victims" Alexander Cockburn Recounts the Millions," New Statesman & Society, 3 March 1989,
Louis R. Coatney, "Sunday, April 24th: A Day to Remember Katyn," Juneau Empire, 21 April 1988
Charles J. Gans, "Polish Official Raises Issue of World War II Massacre," Juneau Empire, 11 March 1988
Andrew Tarnowski, "Poles Challenge Soviets to Open Files on Katyn Massacre," Washington Times, 23 March 1988
John F. Burns, "Soviet Union Irked by Nordic Visitors: Some in an Antinuclear Group Boycott Rally over Link to World War II Massacre," New York Times, 1 August 1982
Norman Stone, "Katyn: The Heart of Stalin's Darkness," Sunday Times [London], 15 April 1990
Katyn Photographs Found in U.S. Archives." Times (London), 18 July 1989,
Norman Stone, "Katyn: The Heart of Stalin's Darkness," Sunday Times [London], 15 April 1990
Thomas S. Szayna, "Addressing `Blank Spots' in Polish-Soviet Relations," Problems of Communism, November-December 1988
"Katyn Memorial: Cover up," The Economist, 25 September 1976, 26-7;
and Who's Who, 1993: An Annual Biographical Dictionary (New York: St. Martin's, 1993),
John Darnton, "Polish Dissidents Quietly Mourn Wartime Massacre," New York Times, 4 May 1980
"Almost Certainly by Russia," The Economist, 25 September 1976, Joseph O. Douglass, Jr.,
"Soviet Strategic Deception," in Raymond S. Sleeper,
Mesmerized by the Bear: The Soviet Strategy of Deception (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1987 Nixon Sees Khatyn, A Soviet Memorial, Not Katyn Forest
"Just wanted to save them here and say hi.
Nataliya Lebedeva, "The Tragedy of Katyn," International Affairs (Moscow), June 1990, p. 100.
William Echikson, "Katyn: The `Blank Space' Soviet Leader Did Not Fill," Christian Science Monitor, 12 July 1988,
"Purging Stalin: Revisionists Are out to Bump up the Number of Stalin's Victims" Alexander Cockburn Recounts the Millions," New Statesman & Society, 3 March 1989,
Louis R. Coatney, "Sunday, April 24th: A Day to Remember Katyn," Juneau Empire, 21 April 1988
Charles J. Gans, "Polish Official Raises Issue of World War II Massacre," Juneau Empire, 11 March 1988
Andrew Tarnowski, "Poles Challenge Soviets to Open Files on Katyn Massacre," Washington Times, 23 March 1988
John F. Burns, "Soviet Union Irked by Nordic Visitors: Some in an Antinuclear Group Boycott Rally over Link to World War II Massacre," New York Times, 1 August 1982
Norman Stone, "Katyn: The Heart of Stalin's Darkness," Sunday Times [London], 15 April 1990
Katyn Photographs Found in U.S. Archives." Times (London), 18 July 1989,
Norman Stone, "Katyn: The Heart of Stalin's Darkness," Sunday Times [London], 15 April 1990
Thomas S. Szayna, "Addressing `Blank Spots' in Polish-Soviet Relations," Problems of Communism, November-December 1988
"Katyn Memorial: Cover up," The Economist, 25 September 1976, 26-7;
and Who's Who, 1993: An Annual Biographical Dictionary (New York: St. Martin's, 1993),
John Darnton, "Polish Dissidents Quietly Mourn Wartime Massacre," New York Times, 4 May 1980
"Almost Certainly by Russia," The Economist, 25 September 1976, Joseph O. Douglass, Jr.,
"Soviet Strategic Deception," in Raymond S. Sleeper,
Mesmerized by the Bear: The Soviet Strategy of Deception (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1987 Nixon Sees Khatyn, A Soviet Memorial, Not Katyn Forest
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The Crash of Polish Flight 666 in Smolensk Forest
I'm just joking! Gosh. Can't I have any fun at all?
I'm starting to call this event a greater work of art than even the World Trade Center...um...disasters. You just wait and see if this one doesn't galvanize everybody's attention even more than 9/11 did. Truth is so absolutely beautiful--I can't describe it. Realy, words fail me.
Well, the pictures aren't half bad, although I don't see very much fire anywhere, and who thought up the idea of shooting through mosquito netting? I'm in a good mood so I give it a pass.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is also on his way to Smolensk. In line with the constitution, parliamentary speaker Bronislaw Komorowski has become the acting president. He is expected to announce the date of fresh elections in 14 days.
Polish Foreign Ministry press secretary Petr Paszkowski said the plane crashed some 300-400 meters from the runway after catching the tops of surrounding trees. A Russian security source told RIA. Novosti that "a mistake by the crew during landing maneuvers" is thought to have caused the crash. However, Polish media said that air traffic controllers had advised the pilot not to attempt to land at the airport, suggesting that he turn around and head for Minsk, the capital of neighboring Belarus, as the military aerodrome lacked the necessary navigational equipment to receive planes in heavy fog. © AP
The ministry spokesperson also said that 8 of the dead were crew members. In earlier reports, it was said that some 132 people were on board the plane. Kaczynski was on his way to a ceremony in nearby Katyn to commemorate the memory of some 20,000 Polish officers killed by Soviet secret police during World War Two. The Soviet-made Tu-154 hit trees as it approached Smolensk airport in thick fog. © AP
Russia's Rossiya-24 television aired footage of the crash scene, showing wreckage of the plane scattered across a field with the plane's wing sticking up. The delegation also included the chief of the armed forces general staff and central bank head. The Russian Prosecutor General's investigations committee has opened an investigation into the crash. © AP
A total of 97 people died when a plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and a delegation of senior officials crashed in west Russia on Saturday, Russia's Emergencies Ministry said. © AP
Rescue workers walk around some of the wreckage at the plane crash site near Smolensk, western Russia
© AP
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to head a commission looking into the crash. Putin is currently on his way to the site of the disaster.
I don't know what it is about Russian and Polish men, but I'm starting to get really turned on! They look so stiff and blank, and big!
Polish Army soldiers carry the coffin of late Polish President Lech Kaczynski after a ceremony at the military airport in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday © AP
A steady diet of military men would do the trick, with maybe a little seafood on the weekends.
The Polish plane crash near Smolensk in west Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and other top officials was not caused by any technical problems with the jet, Russian investigators said on Sunday.© AP
The military airbase near Smolensk, Russia
The Polish Armed Forces' guard of honor, the president's twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski, parliament speaker and acting president Bronislaw Komorowski, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, other officials, as well as thousands of Poles, met the plane in the Polish capital. The body was to be delivered to the presidential palace. © AP
The plane was taking Kaczynski and a delegation of top Polish officials to a ceremony to pay tribute to over 20,000 Polish officers who were executed in the Katyn forest and other locations by Soviet secret police in 1940. The officers had been taken prisoner by Soviet forces when the U.S.S.R. invaded Poland during the early days of World War Two. © AP
Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia's Investigative Committee, on Sunday reported to Putin citing preliminary results that the deciphered records confirmed the absence of technical problems with the plane. "The pilot was informed about complex weather conditions and, nevertheless, made a decision on landing," Bastrykin said. © AP
Russian investigators, experts and Polish specialists are jointly investigating the causes of the plane crash. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who heads Russia's government commission investigating the reasons of the air crash, flew back on Sunday to the site of the plane crash to pay last respects to Kaczynski.© AP
The mourning procession with the body of Polish President Lech Kaczynski who died in an air crash arrived on Sunday at the presidential palace as tens of thousands of Poles lined the streets to pay last tribute. © AP
Muscovites are lighting candles and laying flowers near the Polish embassy on Sunday to mourn the victims of the devastating plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and several other top officials.© AP
Kaczynski, his wife and other top officials died Saturday morning as the Soviet-made Tu-154 aircraft carrying them hit the top of trees as it attempted to land at a Smolensk airport in western Russia in thick fog. A total of 96 people on board - 88 passengers and eight crew - died. The burial date has not been defined yet. © AP
I'm starting to call this event a greater work of art than even the World Trade Center...um...disasters. You just wait and see if this one doesn't galvanize everybody's attention even more than 9/11 did. Truth is so absolutely beautiful--I can't describe it. Realy, words fail me.
Well, the pictures aren't half bad, although I don't see very much fire anywhere, and who thought up the idea of shooting through mosquito netting? I'm in a good mood so I give it a pass.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is also on his way to Smolensk. In line with the constitution, parliamentary speaker Bronislaw Komorowski has become the acting president. He is expected to announce the date of fresh elections in 14 days. © AP
Polish Foreign Ministry press secretary Petr Paszkowski said the plane crashed some 300-400 meters from the runway after catching the tops of surrounding trees. A Russian security source told RIA. Novosti that "a mistake by the crew during landing maneuvers" is thought to have caused the crash. However, Polish media said that air traffic controllers had advised the pilot not to attempt to land at the airport, suggesting that he turn around and head for Minsk, the capital of neighboring Belarus, as the military aerodrome lacked the necessary navigational equipment to receive planes in heavy fog. © AP
The ministry spokesperson also said that 8 of the dead were crew members. In earlier reports, it was said that some 132 people were on board the plane. Kaczynski was on his way to a ceremony in nearby Katyn to commemorate the memory of some 20,000 Polish officers killed by Soviet secret police during World War Two. The Soviet-made Tu-154 hit trees as it approached Smolensk airport in thick fog. © AP
Russia's Rossiya-24 television aired footage of the crash scene, showing wreckage of the plane scattered across a field with the plane's wing sticking up. The delegation also included the chief of the armed forces general staff and central bank head. The Russian Prosecutor General's investigations committee has opened an investigation into the crash. © AP
A total of 97 people died when a plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and a delegation of senior officials crashed in west Russia on Saturday, Russia's Emergencies Ministry said. © AP
Rescue workers walk around some of the wreckage at the plane crash site near Smolensk, western Russia© AP
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to head a commission looking into the crash. Putin is currently on his way to the site of the disaster. © AP
I don't know what it is about Russian and Polish men, but I'm starting to get really turned on! They look so stiff and blank, and big!
Polish Army soldiers carry the coffin of late Polish President Lech Kaczynski after a ceremony at the military airport in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday © APA steady diet of military men would do the trick, with maybe a little seafood on the weekends.
The Polish plane crash near Smolensk in west Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and other top officials was not caused by any technical problems with the jet, Russian investigators said on Sunday.© AP
The military airbase near Smolensk, Russia
The Polish Armed Forces' guard of honor, the president's twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski, parliament speaker and acting president Bronislaw Komorowski, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, other officials, as well as thousands of Poles, met the plane in the Polish capital. The body was to be delivered to the presidential palace. © AP
The plane was taking Kaczynski and a delegation of top Polish officials to a ceremony to pay tribute to over 20,000 Polish officers who were executed in the Katyn forest and other locations by Soviet secret police in 1940. The officers had been taken prisoner by Soviet forces when the U.S.S.R. invaded Poland during the early days of World War Two. © AP
Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia's Investigative Committee, on Sunday reported to Putin citing preliminary results that the deciphered records confirmed the absence of technical problems with the plane. "The pilot was informed about complex weather conditions and, nevertheless, made a decision on landing," Bastrykin said. © AP
Russian investigators, experts and Polish specialists are jointly investigating the causes of the plane crash. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who heads Russia's government commission investigating the reasons of the air crash, flew back on Sunday to the site of the plane crash to pay last respects to Kaczynski.© AP
The mourning procession with the body of Polish President Lech Kaczynski who died in an air crash arrived on Sunday at the presidential palace as tens of thousands of Poles lined the streets to pay last tribute. © AP
Muscovites are lighting candles and laying flowers near the Polish embassy on Sunday to mourn the victims of the devastating plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and several other top officials.© AP
Kaczynski, his wife and other top officials died Saturday morning as the Soviet-made Tu-154 aircraft carrying them hit the top of trees as it attempted to land at a Smolensk airport in western Russia in thick fog. A total of 96 people on board - 88 passengers and eight crew - died. The burial date has not been defined yet. © AP'Jewish Victims of the Katyn Massacre:
This article is all bullshit, by the way. Fox is an agent of the something...the devil is as good a guess as any. I leave it here unadorned to let it speak for itself. Truth, on the other hand, can be found in my blog The Nuremberg Trials, as Seen From Above
By Frank Fox EAST EUROPEAN JEWISH AFFAIRS, vol. 23, no. 1, 1993/1350-1674/49-55
Soviet leaders admit Katyn crime'
On 14 October 1992 Rudolf Pikhoya, Chairman of Russia's Archives Commission and a personal envoy of Boris Yeltsin, delivered to the Polish President, Lech Walesa, the rarest of parcels.2 The parcel contained forty-two documents on the Katyn massacre, the cold-blooded killing in 1940 of approximately 26,000 Polish officers and enlisted men by the Soviet security services.
This was not the first time that a Soviet leader had made a confession of his system's sins. In 1956, at the Twentieth Party Congress, Nikita Khrushchev revealed some of Stalin's crimes. But 'Katyn' was not mentioned in that secret speech. It says something about the lingering ghosts of Stalinism that it took thirty-five more years for another Russian leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to renew the strategy of piecemeal confession. Nevertheless, for five years after his election as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985, he too hesitated to confront the shame identified with the word 'Katyn'. Finally, on 13 April 1990, a year before he was forced out of office, Gorbachev pointed an accusing finger at Stalin and Beria and released the NKVD lists of Polish prisoners and some accompanying documentation, but even then he failed to produce the most incriminating papers.3
This continued reluctance is not hard to understand. For more than half a century a curtain of silence descended over an event unique in the annals of state crimes. In peace time, without any formal charges, contrary to all solemn covenants signed at Geneva, the leadership of the Soviet Union ordered the death of approximately one-half of the officer corps of its Polish neighbour. The secret of this unprecedented horror was bequeathed to successive generations of Soviet leaders. It bound them in complicity and shame. Of all their many lies, this was the most enduring.
1 This article is based primarily on Simon Schochet's paper 'An attempt to identify the Polish-Jewish officers who were prisoners in Katyn' in Working Papers in Holocaust Studies II (Holocaust Studies Program, Yeshiva University, March 1989). Also by the same author is 'An attempt to identify Polish officers of Jewish origin who were prisoners in Soviet camps' in Nowy Dziennik—Przeglad Polski (New York), 21 November 1990. A recent memoir by one of the Jewish officers who escaped the massacre is Salomon Slowes, The Road to Katyn: A Soldier's Story (London 1992).
2 The New York Times, 15 October 1992.
3 'Documentation relating to the NKVD prisoner camps in Kozielsk, Ostaszkov and Starobielsk, obtained from the Soviet authorities on 13 April 1990'.
As the Yeltsin government released the forty-two documents, it accused Gorbachev of having concealed them. A spokesman, Vyacheslav Kostikov, said in an official statement that Gorbachev had known for a long time about 'the real organizers and instigators of the tragedy' because the documents were in the Sixth Division of the Central Committee archives which had become Gorbachev's personal records. According to Kostikov, in an effort 'to delude public opinion,' on 8 March 1990 Gorbachev signed an ordinance, which instructed the Procurator General to continue the Katyn investigations, although Gorbachev 'knew where all the archival documents were and what was in them'. Gorbachev defended himself angrily. He argued that the Katyn files had turned up only in the waning days of the Soviet regime. He revealed that both he and Yeltsin had sat down to read them in the Kremlin on 23 December 1991, two days before he resigned as President. It might have been a scene worthy of Eisenstein's guilt-ridden Ivan the Terrible. 'I said to Boris Nikolayevitch', Gorbachev remembered, 'it is your turn now.' He advised Yeltsin to study the file, and they both agreed that the Polish people must be told.4 But Yeltsin had the last word. In an interview on Russian television he said that Gorbachev refused to testify before the Constitutional Court on the legal status of the Communist Party because he knew he would be asked about the Katyn documents and about his refusal to make them public while he was in office.
What was it about the forty-two documents that made Gorbachev so reluctant to make them public and why did this matter of Katyn acquire such new urgency?
In 1988 reports began to circulate about captured Luftwaffe aerial photographs that showed the process of exhumation by the Russians at Katyn as their forces recaptured Smolensk. The photographs were said to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Soviets not only cruelly put to death many thousands of Polish citizens but also scattered their remains in order to hide the extent of the crime.5 There was additional pressure due to the research done by Nataliya Lebedeva, a prominent Russian historian who had been investigating movements of rail transports for the Polish prisoners following the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1939. The documents released by Yeltsin on 14 October 1992 showed how the pace of investigations increased after the aborted coup of August 1991.
4 The New York Times, 16 October 1992.
5 The author of the present article has just completed a manuscript entitled God's Eye: History Exhumed. It concerns the work of Waclaw Godziemba-Maliszewski, an aerial photography specialist whose analysis of World War II Luftwaffe photographs at the National Archives in Washington has made possible the discovery of burial sites of the victims of Katyn. Godziemba-Maliszewski was honoured for his work by the Katyn Institute in Poland in 1992 and has lectured on this subject in Polish universities.
The Polish Academy of Sciences published facsimiles of the documents with a Polish translation within weeks. A volume entitled Dokumenty ludobojstwa (Documents of Genocide) made clear why it was so difficult for Gorbachev to reveal them.' He had been willing earlier to assign blame to Beria and Stalin. But the documents proved conclusively that it was the leading members of the Politburo who had appended their signatures to the death sentences. If Gorbachev still thought that he could salvage some shred of legality for Communism as a theory and for the Communist Party as an instrument to implement it, the documents shattered that hope. Gorbachev's strategy, alternately audacious and cautious, had been to use and control the explosive elements in his society. But the grudging and gradual opening of the archives was the start of a 'meltdown'— as devastating a symbol for his political career as Chernobyl was for the system as a whole. Moreover, the Katyn documents showed how Gorbachev sought to conceal the facts of Katyn and to delay their release. Even without a coup to depose him, his stewardship was over.
Central among these was an excerpt from the minutes of the Politburo, dated 5 March 1940.7 It was a lengthy memorandum from Lavrenty Beria, head of the NKVD, to Stalin. Scrawled boldly across the first page were the approving signatures of Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, Mikoyan, as well as those of Kalinin and Kaganovich. In the opening sentences Beria set forth the reasons why the Polish officers could not be set free. They were 'counter-revolutionary' elements, engaged in anti-Soviet agitation in their detention camps, 'each of them awaiting liberation' only in order to wage a struggle against Soviet power. He referred to them as 'bitter enemies', filled with hatred for the system. His letter enumerated the ranks and categories of 14,736 officers (among them 295 with ranks of generals, colonels and lieutenant-colonels), and included such 'enemies' as factory owners, landowners and clergymen, as well as those considered spies, partisans and deserters. What Beria did not mention was that the ranks of the Polish prisoners included over 800 physicians, hundreds of educators, lawyers, engineers, members of many professions and clergy of all faiths. There was another shocking revelation. Beria added to this list a further 11,000 Polish commissioned and non-commissioned officers kept in the prisons of Western Ukraine and Byelorussia, making a total of 26,000.
6 Katyn: Dokumenty ludobojstwa (Katyn: Documents of Genocide) (Warsaw, Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 1992).
7 Ibid., 34-41.
At the end of his letter to Stalin Beria announced the alternative to letting the Poles 'go free'. All of them were condemned to death by 'supreme punishment', that is by shooting. The sentences were to be carried out without summoning die condemned to a hearing and without presenting them with any indictments. A 'troyka' of NKVD officials was assigned the carrying out of the order which, to be effective, meant that the Poles were to be kept unaware of their fate until the very last moment.
Jewish officers at Katyn
Included within the 'arithmetic' of Beria's letter to Stalin was a Jewish tragedy which has only recently received its proper hearing and whose dimensions, like those of Katyn itself, are yet to be fully evaluated. Simon Schochet, an historian and survivor of Dachau, has recently made a major contribution to the question of the Jewish victims of the massacre in particular, and to Katyn studies in general. In a paper entitled 'An attempt to identify the Polish-Jewish officers who were prisoners at Katyn', and starting with the list of names compiled by the historian Adam Moszynski, as well as the list compiled by the German investigators in April 1943, he has been able to shed light on one of the less known aspects of the Katyn story.8 In so doing, he has not only honoured the memory of the brave men who were executed but he has provided a powerful impetus to deal justly with one of the most intractable problems of modern Polish history—antisemitism.
8 Schochet, 'An attempt to identify...prisoners in Katyn'.
Even though many of the remains at Katyn and elsewhere were found without sufficient identification, and misspellings and omissions made a correct count difficult, Schochet was able to identify 262 names of Jewish officers from the Kozielsk internment camp alone, about 5 percent of the officer population. The work was not easy and is still incomplete. Schochet has estimated that there were at least 700 and perhaps as many as 800 Jewish officers in the three internment camps which, in addition to Kozielsk, included Starobielsk and Ostaszkov. The presence of many Jewish officers was verified from the names, both first and family, among the dead, although obviously the names of Jews which were of German origin or names of assimilated Jews made a precise count impossible. The religion of the soldiers was not noted on either the Officers' Almanacs or the list compiled by the Germans. The only reference that touched on the Jewish faith was that of Major Baruch Steinberg, Chief Rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces, who was originally imprisoned at Starobielsk and was deported on Christmas Eve 1939 from Kozielsk with a group of clergymen from the other two internment camps. His name appeared on a list of men sent to their deaths on 9 April 1940, being thus among the first victims of the massacre. His remains and those of his fellow clergymen have never been found.
The fact that many of the officers were members of professions such as medicine, law and engineering (more than 50 per cent of Poland's prewar physicians were Jewish) accounted for a disproportionate number of Jewish officers compared to their numbers in the general population. Schochet's research has had the quality of detective work as he has sought out every clue in the deaths of people whose remains could not be found or identified. His conclusion was that there were approximately 462 Jewish officers among the prisoner population of Kozielsk and Starobielsk, the composition of the prisoner population at Ostaszkov making it unlikely that there was an appreciable number of Jews among them.9
In August 1990, the year that Gorbachev first made the lists of Polish prisoners and some related documents available to the Polish government, Schochet traveled to Poland to meet with other scholars who were now able to conduct their research in the open. The Russian lists provided to President Jaruzelski on 13 April 1990 were more extensive than any lists previously available. They provided the first names of the prisoners' fathers, which made the identification of the Jewish officers easier.
In November 1990 Schochet published further results of his research. He was able to add more names to the list of Jewish officers murdered by the NKVD in 1940. 10 But while his analysis had revealed some of the factors motivating the NKVD in classifying Jewish officers as members in prewar 'counter-revolutionary' organizations (associations of lawyers, Polish Zionist movement, etc.), his investigations were still far from complete. The almost total destruction of Polish Jewry, and the lack of documentation and corroboration from family members, made his work extremely difficult. Still, Schochet's verified list of approximately 800 Jewish officers was impressive. The largest group was that of doctors, followed by lawyers, engineers, pharmacists and dentists. Most were first and second lieutenants. The highest rank, that of colonel, was held by Jan Wladyslaw Nelken, a psychiatrist."
Schochet's appeals for information in periodicals, newspapers and on Radio Free Europe resulted in his obtaining more materials, including photographs of Jewish officers executed by the Russians. He received six photographs of the Chief Rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces, Rabbi Baruch Steinberg. One photograph in particular was striking. It showed the celebration of the Passover seder led by Rabbi Steinberg. Around the table sat high-ranking officers of various faiths and officials of the Warsaw government.
9 Ibid.
10 Schochet, 'An attempt to identify...prisoners in Soviet camps'.
11 Sunislaw Jankowski, 'The recovered Katyn documents', Nowy Dziennik—Przeglad Polski, 9 May 1991.
The Biuletyn Katynski of the Katyn Institute, an underground organization founded in Cracow in 1978, dedicated its June 1990 issue to Major Steinberg and his fellow Jewish officers. It estimated that Jewish officers comprised 15 per cent of all the Katyn victims, a percentage higher than that of Jews in the prewar Polish population. An issue of the Bulletin published in 1992 carried a biography of Rabbi Baruch Steinberg, largely a product of Schochet's research." Rabbi Steinberg was born in 1897 into a family of rabbis. Of his four brothers three were rabbis and one a doctor. A highly educated man, he not only completed his studies at the Stefan Batory University in Wilno, but also studied Arabic, an interest he continued some years later at the Oriental Institute of the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwow. He volunteered for and fought against the Russian armies in the 1919-20 campaign. In 1928 he was called upon to serve as a rabbi with the rank of captain in the Third Corps District in Grodno. In 1932 he was appointed with the rank of major to serve as the Chief Rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces. He resided in Warsaw and received many commendations for exceptional service.
There were just a few references to Rabbi Steinberg in the contemporaneous accounts of the imprisonment. On 11 November 1939 he had apparently taken part in a secret commemoration of Poland's independence in the prison camp. Schochet's research has given Rabbi Steinberg a posthumous recognition. In 1991 a tablet honouring him was dedicated in Cracow.
An antisemitic leaflet distributed in recent years in Poland referred to Katyn as a crime committed by Zydokomuna, a word used in prewar Poland to connect its Jewish population with Communism.13 Written as a poem, with lines reminiscent of Nazi caricatures, it voiced calumnies that have been part of a long and tragic history of antisemitism in Poland. 'Who killed you and why?', the poem asked and answered: 'It was the kind of "work" that only a Jewish mind could conceive.' Referring to the Katyn massacre and the deaths of thousands of other Poles as 'Operation Cholent' (a Jewish meat dish prepared ahead of time to be served on Sabbath when no cooking is allowed), the poem identified Polish Communist leaders as Jews: 'The Jew has paid you for your hospitality...he has murdered your family.' The Jews are referred to as followers of Satan and as haters of Jesus. The leaflet blamed them not only for the Katyn murders but also for causing the deaths of 300,000 other Poles between 1939 and 1945 and of being responsible since then for despoiling die country, killing the unborn through abortions, and of spreading radioactivity: 'Murderers and saboteurs, to judgment!'
12 Biuletyn Katynski (Cracow), no. 36, 1992, 74-6.
13 A leaflet given to the author on a recent visit to Poland.
Schochet has emphasized that the presence of Jews in the Polish armed forces was not exceptional, and that 'from the days of Berek Joselowicz the first Jewish officer in the Polish army [the Kosciuszko uprising], to the January Insurrection of 1863...to the men who joined Pilsudski's Legion and who fought for Polish independence', there was a tradition of a Jewish presence in the armed forces. The situation regarding Jews changed drastically with Pilsudski's death in 1935, when quotas were instituted for Jews in all universities and professions, including the armed forces. Schochet has explained the motivation for his research: '...the deaths of the Polish Jews who took part in the defence of their homeland have been largely ignored by their fellow Polish citizens and their lives have not been addressed by their fellow Jews.'14
The antisemitism that has besmirched modern Polish history is not likely to disappear overnight. But if there is hope for a change it lies in the work of scholars such as Schochet and those at the Cracow Katyn Institute. Acknowledgment that Polish Jews served side by side and died side by side with their fellow officers is more than a historical fact that needs to be affirmed. It can become a cornerstone on which a more just society should erect the most lasting of monuments, a common memory of a cause in which Poles and Jews struggled and died.
14 Schochet, 'At attempt to identify...prisoners in Katyn
By Frank Fox EAST EUROPEAN JEWISH AFFAIRS, vol. 23, no. 1, 1993/1350-1674/49-55
Soviet leaders admit Katyn crime'
On 14 October 1992 Rudolf Pikhoya, Chairman of Russia's Archives Commission and a personal envoy of Boris Yeltsin, delivered to the Polish President, Lech Walesa, the rarest of parcels.2 The parcel contained forty-two documents on the Katyn massacre, the cold-blooded killing in 1940 of approximately 26,000 Polish officers and enlisted men by the Soviet security services.
This was not the first time that a Soviet leader had made a confession of his system's sins. In 1956, at the Twentieth Party Congress, Nikita Khrushchev revealed some of Stalin's crimes. But 'Katyn' was not mentioned in that secret speech. It says something about the lingering ghosts of Stalinism that it took thirty-five more years for another Russian leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to renew the strategy of piecemeal confession. Nevertheless, for five years after his election as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985, he too hesitated to confront the shame identified with the word 'Katyn'. Finally, on 13 April 1990, a year before he was forced out of office, Gorbachev pointed an accusing finger at Stalin and Beria and released the NKVD lists of Polish prisoners and some accompanying documentation, but even then he failed to produce the most incriminating papers.3
This continued reluctance is not hard to understand. For more than half a century a curtain of silence descended over an event unique in the annals of state crimes. In peace time, without any formal charges, contrary to all solemn covenants signed at Geneva, the leadership of the Soviet Union ordered the death of approximately one-half of the officer corps of its Polish neighbour. The secret of this unprecedented horror was bequeathed to successive generations of Soviet leaders. It bound them in complicity and shame. Of all their many lies, this was the most enduring.
1 This article is based primarily on Simon Schochet's paper 'An attempt to identify the Polish-Jewish officers who were prisoners in Katyn' in Working Papers in Holocaust Studies II (Holocaust Studies Program, Yeshiva University, March 1989). Also by the same author is 'An attempt to identify Polish officers of Jewish origin who were prisoners in Soviet camps' in Nowy Dziennik—Przeglad Polski (New York), 21 November 1990. A recent memoir by one of the Jewish officers who escaped the massacre is Salomon Slowes, The Road to Katyn: A Soldier's Story (London 1992).
2 The New York Times, 15 October 1992.
3 'Documentation relating to the NKVD prisoner camps in Kozielsk, Ostaszkov and Starobielsk, obtained from the Soviet authorities on 13 April 1990'.
As the Yeltsin government released the forty-two documents, it accused Gorbachev of having concealed them. A spokesman, Vyacheslav Kostikov, said in an official statement that Gorbachev had known for a long time about 'the real organizers and instigators of the tragedy' because the documents were in the Sixth Division of the Central Committee archives which had become Gorbachev's personal records. According to Kostikov, in an effort 'to delude public opinion,' on 8 March 1990 Gorbachev signed an ordinance, which instructed the Procurator General to continue the Katyn investigations, although Gorbachev 'knew where all the archival documents were and what was in them'. Gorbachev defended himself angrily. He argued that the Katyn files had turned up only in the waning days of the Soviet regime. He revealed that both he and Yeltsin had sat down to read them in the Kremlin on 23 December 1991, two days before he resigned as President. It might have been a scene worthy of Eisenstein's guilt-ridden Ivan the Terrible. 'I said to Boris Nikolayevitch', Gorbachev remembered, 'it is your turn now.' He advised Yeltsin to study the file, and they both agreed that the Polish people must be told.4 But Yeltsin had the last word. In an interview on Russian television he said that Gorbachev refused to testify before the Constitutional Court on the legal status of the Communist Party because he knew he would be asked about the Katyn documents and about his refusal to make them public while he was in office.
What was it about the forty-two documents that made Gorbachev so reluctant to make them public and why did this matter of Katyn acquire such new urgency?
In 1988 reports began to circulate about captured Luftwaffe aerial photographs that showed the process of exhumation by the Russians at Katyn as their forces recaptured Smolensk. The photographs were said to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Soviets not only cruelly put to death many thousands of Polish citizens but also scattered their remains in order to hide the extent of the crime.5 There was additional pressure due to the research done by Nataliya Lebedeva, a prominent Russian historian who had been investigating movements of rail transports for the Polish prisoners following the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1939. The documents released by Yeltsin on 14 October 1992 showed how the pace of investigations increased after the aborted coup of August 1991.
4 The New York Times, 16 October 1992.
5 The author of the present article has just completed a manuscript entitled God's Eye: History Exhumed. It concerns the work of Waclaw Godziemba-Maliszewski, an aerial photography specialist whose analysis of World War II Luftwaffe photographs at the National Archives in Washington has made possible the discovery of burial sites of the victims of Katyn. Godziemba-Maliszewski was honoured for his work by the Katyn Institute in Poland in 1992 and has lectured on this subject in Polish universities.
The Polish Academy of Sciences published facsimiles of the documents with a Polish translation within weeks. A volume entitled Dokumenty ludobojstwa (Documents of Genocide) made clear why it was so difficult for Gorbachev to reveal them.' He had been willing earlier to assign blame to Beria and Stalin. But the documents proved conclusively that it was the leading members of the Politburo who had appended their signatures to the death sentences. If Gorbachev still thought that he could salvage some shred of legality for Communism as a theory and for the Communist Party as an instrument to implement it, the documents shattered that hope. Gorbachev's strategy, alternately audacious and cautious, had been to use and control the explosive elements in his society. But the grudging and gradual opening of the archives was the start of a 'meltdown'— as devastating a symbol for his political career as Chernobyl was for the system as a whole. Moreover, the Katyn documents showed how Gorbachev sought to conceal the facts of Katyn and to delay their release. Even without a coup to depose him, his stewardship was over.
Central among these was an excerpt from the minutes of the Politburo, dated 5 March 1940.7 It was a lengthy memorandum from Lavrenty Beria, head of the NKVD, to Stalin. Scrawled boldly across the first page were the approving signatures of Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, Mikoyan, as well as those of Kalinin and Kaganovich. In the opening sentences Beria set forth the reasons why the Polish officers could not be set free. They were 'counter-revolutionary' elements, engaged in anti-Soviet agitation in their detention camps, 'each of them awaiting liberation' only in order to wage a struggle against Soviet power. He referred to them as 'bitter enemies', filled with hatred for the system. His letter enumerated the ranks and categories of 14,736 officers (among them 295 with ranks of generals, colonels and lieutenant-colonels), and included such 'enemies' as factory owners, landowners and clergymen, as well as those considered spies, partisans and deserters. What Beria did not mention was that the ranks of the Polish prisoners included over 800 physicians, hundreds of educators, lawyers, engineers, members of many professions and clergy of all faiths. There was another shocking revelation. Beria added to this list a further 11,000 Polish commissioned and non-commissioned officers kept in the prisons of Western Ukraine and Byelorussia, making a total of 26,000.
6 Katyn: Dokumenty ludobojstwa (Katyn: Documents of Genocide) (Warsaw, Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, 1992).
7 Ibid., 34-41.
At the end of his letter to Stalin Beria announced the alternative to letting the Poles 'go free'. All of them were condemned to death by 'supreme punishment', that is by shooting. The sentences were to be carried out without summoning die condemned to a hearing and without presenting them with any indictments. A 'troyka' of NKVD officials was assigned the carrying out of the order which, to be effective, meant that the Poles were to be kept unaware of their fate until the very last moment.
Jewish officers at Katyn
Included within the 'arithmetic' of Beria's letter to Stalin was a Jewish tragedy which has only recently received its proper hearing and whose dimensions, like those of Katyn itself, are yet to be fully evaluated. Simon Schochet, an historian and survivor of Dachau, has recently made a major contribution to the question of the Jewish victims of the massacre in particular, and to Katyn studies in general. In a paper entitled 'An attempt to identify the Polish-Jewish officers who were prisoners at Katyn', and starting with the list of names compiled by the historian Adam Moszynski, as well as the list compiled by the German investigators in April 1943, he has been able to shed light on one of the less known aspects of the Katyn story.8 In so doing, he has not only honoured the memory of the brave men who were executed but he has provided a powerful impetus to deal justly with one of the most intractable problems of modern Polish history—antisemitism.
8 Schochet, 'An attempt to identify...prisoners in Katyn'.
Even though many of the remains at Katyn and elsewhere were found without sufficient identification, and misspellings and omissions made a correct count difficult, Schochet was able to identify 262 names of Jewish officers from the Kozielsk internment camp alone, about 5 percent of the officer population. The work was not easy and is still incomplete. Schochet has estimated that there were at least 700 and perhaps as many as 800 Jewish officers in the three internment camps which, in addition to Kozielsk, included Starobielsk and Ostaszkov. The presence of many Jewish officers was verified from the names, both first and family, among the dead, although obviously the names of Jews which were of German origin or names of assimilated Jews made a precise count impossible. The religion of the soldiers was not noted on either the Officers' Almanacs or the list compiled by the Germans. The only reference that touched on the Jewish faith was that of Major Baruch Steinberg, Chief Rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces, who was originally imprisoned at Starobielsk and was deported on Christmas Eve 1939 from Kozielsk with a group of clergymen from the other two internment camps. His name appeared on a list of men sent to their deaths on 9 April 1940, being thus among the first victims of the massacre. His remains and those of his fellow clergymen have never been found.
The fact that many of the officers were members of professions such as medicine, law and engineering (more than 50 per cent of Poland's prewar physicians were Jewish) accounted for a disproportionate number of Jewish officers compared to their numbers in the general population. Schochet's research has had the quality of detective work as he has sought out every clue in the deaths of people whose remains could not be found or identified. His conclusion was that there were approximately 462 Jewish officers among the prisoner population of Kozielsk and Starobielsk, the composition of the prisoner population at Ostaszkov making it unlikely that there was an appreciable number of Jews among them.9
In August 1990, the year that Gorbachev first made the lists of Polish prisoners and some related documents available to the Polish government, Schochet traveled to Poland to meet with other scholars who were now able to conduct their research in the open. The Russian lists provided to President Jaruzelski on 13 April 1990 were more extensive than any lists previously available. They provided the first names of the prisoners' fathers, which made the identification of the Jewish officers easier.
In November 1990 Schochet published further results of his research. He was able to add more names to the list of Jewish officers murdered by the NKVD in 1940. 10 But while his analysis had revealed some of the factors motivating the NKVD in classifying Jewish officers as members in prewar 'counter-revolutionary' organizations (associations of lawyers, Polish Zionist movement, etc.), his investigations were still far from complete. The almost total destruction of Polish Jewry, and the lack of documentation and corroboration from family members, made his work extremely difficult. Still, Schochet's verified list of approximately 800 Jewish officers was impressive. The largest group was that of doctors, followed by lawyers, engineers, pharmacists and dentists. Most were first and second lieutenants. The highest rank, that of colonel, was held by Jan Wladyslaw Nelken, a psychiatrist."
Schochet's appeals for information in periodicals, newspapers and on Radio Free Europe resulted in his obtaining more materials, including photographs of Jewish officers executed by the Russians. He received six photographs of the Chief Rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces, Rabbi Baruch Steinberg. One photograph in particular was striking. It showed the celebration of the Passover seder led by Rabbi Steinberg. Around the table sat high-ranking officers of various faiths and officials of the Warsaw government.
9 Ibid.
10 Schochet, 'An attempt to identify...prisoners in Soviet camps'.
11 Sunislaw Jankowski, 'The recovered Katyn documents', Nowy Dziennik—Przeglad Polski, 9 May 1991.
The Biuletyn Katynski of the Katyn Institute, an underground organization founded in Cracow in 1978, dedicated its June 1990 issue to Major Steinberg and his fellow Jewish officers. It estimated that Jewish officers comprised 15 per cent of all the Katyn victims, a percentage higher than that of Jews in the prewar Polish population. An issue of the Bulletin published in 1992 carried a biography of Rabbi Baruch Steinberg, largely a product of Schochet's research." Rabbi Steinberg was born in 1897 into a family of rabbis. Of his four brothers three were rabbis and one a doctor. A highly educated man, he not only completed his studies at the Stefan Batory University in Wilno, but also studied Arabic, an interest he continued some years later at the Oriental Institute of the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwow. He volunteered for and fought against the Russian armies in the 1919-20 campaign. In 1928 he was called upon to serve as a rabbi with the rank of captain in the Third Corps District in Grodno. In 1932 he was appointed with the rank of major to serve as the Chief Rabbi of the Polish Armed Forces. He resided in Warsaw and received many commendations for exceptional service.
There were just a few references to Rabbi Steinberg in the contemporaneous accounts of the imprisonment. On 11 November 1939 he had apparently taken part in a secret commemoration of Poland's independence in the prison camp. Schochet's research has given Rabbi Steinberg a posthumous recognition. In 1991 a tablet honouring him was dedicated in Cracow.
An antisemitic leaflet distributed in recent years in Poland referred to Katyn as a crime committed by Zydokomuna, a word used in prewar Poland to connect its Jewish population with Communism.13 Written as a poem, with lines reminiscent of Nazi caricatures, it voiced calumnies that have been part of a long and tragic history of antisemitism in Poland. 'Who killed you and why?', the poem asked and answered: 'It was the kind of "work" that only a Jewish mind could conceive.' Referring to the Katyn massacre and the deaths of thousands of other Poles as 'Operation Cholent' (a Jewish meat dish prepared ahead of time to be served on Sabbath when no cooking is allowed), the poem identified Polish Communist leaders as Jews: 'The Jew has paid you for your hospitality...he has murdered your family.' The Jews are referred to as followers of Satan and as haters of Jesus. The leaflet blamed them not only for the Katyn murders but also for causing the deaths of 300,000 other Poles between 1939 and 1945 and of being responsible since then for despoiling die country, killing the unborn through abortions, and of spreading radioactivity: 'Murderers and saboteurs, to judgment!'
12 Biuletyn Katynski (Cracow), no. 36, 1992, 74-6.
13 A leaflet given to the author on a recent visit to Poland.
Schochet has emphasized that the presence of Jews in the Polish armed forces was not exceptional, and that 'from the days of Berek Joselowicz the first Jewish officer in the Polish army [the Kosciuszko uprising], to the January Insurrection of 1863...to the men who joined Pilsudski's Legion and who fought for Polish independence', there was a tradition of a Jewish presence in the armed forces. The situation regarding Jews changed drastically with Pilsudski's death in 1935, when quotas were instituted for Jews in all universities and professions, including the armed forces. Schochet has explained the motivation for his research: '...the deaths of the Polish Jews who took part in the defence of their homeland have been largely ignored by their fellow Polish citizens and their lives have not been addressed by their fellow Jews.'14
The antisemitism that has besmirched modern Polish history is not likely to disappear overnight. But if there is hope for a change it lies in the work of scholars such as Schochet and those at the Cracow Katyn Institute. Acknowledgment that Polish Jews served side by side and died side by side with their fellow officers is more than a historical fact that needs to be affirmed. It can become a cornerstone on which a more just society should erect the most lasting of monuments, a common memory of a cause in which Poles and Jews struggled and died.
14 Schochet, 'At attempt to identify...prisoners in Katyn
A Cached Copy of a Possibly Surpressed London Financial Times Article
Oddly titled, 'DO NOT USE,' Financial Times London
The original went down off-line within 24 hours of posting. Judge for yourself if any juicy tidbits caused it to get slammed.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2ca5c438-44a7-11df-9615-00144feab49a.html
By Jan Cienski in Warsaw and Catherine Belton in Moscow
Published: April 10 2010 15:15 | Last updated: April 10 2010 16:56
Lech Kaczynski, Poland's president, was killed on Saturday morning when the airliner carrying him and a large delegation crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk; there were no survivors, said Poland's foreign ministry.
The 20-year-old Russian-built Tu-154 airliner crashed at 10:56 am local time after clipping some trees as it tried to land in foggy conditions. Television footage from the scene showed the burnt remnants of the airplane scattered among the leafless trees near the military airport on the outskirts of Smolensk.
As well as Mr Kaczynski, 60, and his wife, Maria, the aircraft was carrying a government delegation that included Ryszard Kaczorowski, the former president of Poland's London-based government-in-exile, Slawomir Skrzypek, the central bank governor, Jerzy Szmajdzinski, the presidential candidate of the left-wing Democratic Left Alliance, as well as the senior commanders of Poland's ground, air, naval and special forces, bishops, and other dignitaries.
The dead included 88 members of the delegation.
They were flying to Russia to take part in commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the killing of 20,000 Polish officers by the Soviets in 1940. The best-known murder site, Katyn, where 4,000 Poles were killed, lies just outside Smolensk.
“We stand humbly in the face of fate, which decided in an unfathomable way to link this place with another national tragedy,” said Bronislaw Komorowski, the speaker of parliament, who took over Mr Kaczynski''s duties, as the Polish constitution dictates.
Poland’s central bank is carrying out its regular duties without interruption despite the death of Mr Skrzypek, the bank said in a statement.
The governor’s responsibilities have been taken over by the first deputy governor, Piotr Wiesiolek, the statement added.
The dead also included many of the senior members of the right-wing opposition Law and Justice party that Mr Kaczynski helped found in 2001, except for the president's twin brother, Jaroslaw, who was in Warsaw.
Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, spoke with Mr Komorowski, the Polish speaker of parliament who took over Mr Kaczynski’s duties, by telephone to express the deep sympathy of the entire Russian people for what he called a “terrible unprecedented tragedy”. “Russia shares the deep sorrow and mourning of Poland,” the Russian president told Mr Komarowski.
He said he and the rest of Russia had been deeply shocked by the news and said he was calling for a special government commission to investigate the catastrophe in cooperation with the Polish authorities to be headed by Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister.
“There is nothing to say, one can only deeply sympathise with the families of the dead,” Mr Putin said.
Donald Tusk, the prime minister, has called an emergency session of the cabinet for this afternoon. He also said he was flying to Smolensk, where he will meet with Mr Putin.
“This is my personal tragedy, but we have to continue working. The state will continue to function,” said Mr Tusk.
Memorial religious services were scheduled for Saturday afternoon, and the flag flying over the presidential palace in central Warsaw has been lowered to half-staff. Crowds of people, some of them crying, gathered to lay flowers outside the palace in central Warsaw.
According to Russian media, the conditions at the airport, used mainly be the Russian military, were so bad that a Russian plane carrying a security detail was turned back to Moscow, and controllers recommended that the Polish airliner divert either to Minsk or to Moscow. The airport was reportedly not equipped with modern navigation equipment to help with difficult landings. The aircraft crashed after three failed attempts to land.
Mr Kaczynski began his involvement in the anti-communist opposition in the 1970s, and was a leading activist during the formation of the Solidarity labour union in 1980. Interned during martial law in 1981, Mr Kaczynski one of the leading opposition negotiators during round table talks that led to the end of communist rule in 1989.
He was elected president in 2005, and spent much of his term pursuing policies aimed at strengthening Poland's position against Germany and Russia, and cultivating the memory of Poland's suffering during the Second World War. He had planned to be a candidate in this year's presidential elections.
Under Poland's constitution, new elections have to be held within 60 days in the event of the death of the incumbent.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
The original went down off-line within 24 hours of posting. Judge for yourself if any juicy tidbits caused it to get slammed.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2ca5c438-44a7-11df-9615-00144feab49a.html
By Jan Cienski in Warsaw and Catherine Belton in Moscow
Published: April 10 2010 15:15 | Last updated: April 10 2010 16:56
Lech Kaczynski, Poland's president, was killed on Saturday morning when the airliner carrying him and a large delegation crashed near the Russian city of Smolensk; there were no survivors, said Poland's foreign ministry.
The 20-year-old Russian-built Tu-154 airliner crashed at 10:56 am local time after clipping some trees as it tried to land in foggy conditions. Television footage from the scene showed the burnt remnants of the airplane scattered among the leafless trees near the military airport on the outskirts of Smolensk.
As well as Mr Kaczynski, 60, and his wife, Maria, the aircraft was carrying a government delegation that included Ryszard Kaczorowski, the former president of Poland's London-based government-in-exile, Slawomir Skrzypek, the central bank governor, Jerzy Szmajdzinski, the presidential candidate of the left-wing Democratic Left Alliance, as well as the senior commanders of Poland's ground, air, naval and special forces, bishops, and other dignitaries.
The dead included 88 members of the delegation.
They were flying to Russia to take part in commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the killing of 20,000 Polish officers by the Soviets in 1940. The best-known murder site, Katyn, where 4,000 Poles were killed, lies just outside Smolensk.
“We stand humbly in the face of fate, which decided in an unfathomable way to link this place with another national tragedy,” said Bronislaw Komorowski, the speaker of parliament, who took over Mr Kaczynski''s duties, as the Polish constitution dictates.
Poland’s central bank is carrying out its regular duties without interruption despite the death of Mr Skrzypek, the bank said in a statement.
The governor’s responsibilities have been taken over by the first deputy governor, Piotr Wiesiolek, the statement added.
The dead also included many of the senior members of the right-wing opposition Law and Justice party that Mr Kaczynski helped found in 2001, except for the president's twin brother, Jaroslaw, who was in Warsaw.
Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, spoke with Mr Komorowski, the Polish speaker of parliament who took over Mr Kaczynski’s duties, by telephone to express the deep sympathy of the entire Russian people for what he called a “terrible unprecedented tragedy”. “Russia shares the deep sorrow and mourning of Poland,” the Russian president told Mr Komarowski.
He said he and the rest of Russia had been deeply shocked by the news and said he was calling for a special government commission to investigate the catastrophe in cooperation with the Polish authorities to be headed by Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister.
“There is nothing to say, one can only deeply sympathise with the families of the dead,” Mr Putin said.
Donald Tusk, the prime minister, has called an emergency session of the cabinet for this afternoon. He also said he was flying to Smolensk, where he will meet with Mr Putin.
“This is my personal tragedy, but we have to continue working. The state will continue to function,” said Mr Tusk.
Memorial religious services were scheduled for Saturday afternoon, and the flag flying over the presidential palace in central Warsaw has been lowered to half-staff. Crowds of people, some of them crying, gathered to lay flowers outside the palace in central Warsaw.
According to Russian media, the conditions at the airport, used mainly be the Russian military, were so bad that a Russian plane carrying a security detail was turned back to Moscow, and controllers recommended that the Polish airliner divert either to Minsk or to Moscow. The airport was reportedly not equipped with modern navigation equipment to help with difficult landings. The aircraft crashed after three failed attempts to land.
Mr Kaczynski began his involvement in the anti-communist opposition in the 1970s, and was a leading activist during the formation of the Solidarity labour union in 1980. Interned during martial law in 1981, Mr Kaczynski one of the leading opposition negotiators during round table talks that led to the end of communist rule in 1989.
He was elected president in 2005, and spent much of his term pursuing policies aimed at strengthening Poland's position against Germany and Russia, and cultivating the memory of Poland's suffering during the Second World War. He had planned to be a candidate in this year's presidential elections.
Under Poland's constitution, new elections have to be held within 60 days in the event of the death of the incumbent.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Community Mourns for Loss By Dagmar Fors Karppi
Oyster Bay, as all of the Manhattan Metropolitan area is getting to know the people lost in the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Most of us watched the events as they happened on television. Now we are seeing the depth of the loss as we attend the memorial funerals of those people whose lives were unforgivably ended.
Local people lost in the tragedy include, Christopher Paul Slattery, 31; Timothy Byrne, 36; Brooke Jackman, 23; Bernie Patterson, 45; Michael Taddonio, 39, Edward Papa, 47. At St. Dominic's parishioners also prayed for the familes of: Joseph Kelly, Thomas A. Mahon, St. Dominic Class of '82; Danny Tran, Robert McMahon NYFD; Frank Sedaka; Christopher Ciafardini; Bart Ruggieri; Timothy Haskell NYFD, Squad 18; Thomas Haskell NYFD, Lad 132; Thomas Langone NYPD ESU; Peter Langone NYFD; Timothy Higgins NYFD; Laura Marchese; Thomas Strada, St. Dominic Class of 1978.
Thursday, Sept. 20, there was a large memorial Mass for Christopher Slattery. Friday, it seemed there couldn't be a larger group of mourners at St. Dominic Church, for the service for Timothy G. Byrne St. Dominic Class of 1983, but Saturday, the church was overflowing for the service for Edward Papa. Sunday the Oyster Bay Jewish Center mourners filled the sanctuary, the social room and spilled over outside as they listened to a tribute to Brooke Jackman. There were between 1,000 to 1,500 people in attendance. As we go to press on Monday, the Mahon family is honoring their loss of their son/brother Thomas. The grief appears to be growing as Americans come to grips with the toll of the attack.
At the St. Dominic Memorial Mass for Timothy Gerard Byrne his brother Sean spoke, with his brothers Brian and Christopher standing with him.
Sean Byrne thanked Dan Driscoll, Tim's best friend and Bill Hickey, a friend and co-worker at Sandler & O'Neill for speaking. The company, that was located in the World Trade Tower, lost 67 employees.
On behalf of the Byrne family, Sean offered their deepest sympathy to all the families affected by the tragedy. The wife of the company's CEO was also widowed in the attack.
Mr. Byrne also expressed the family's gratitude of the last few days. He said it shows the quality of the people of Oyster Bay.
He said, "There are thousands of sad stories to tell. Ours is certainly one of them." He described Timmy as 36, the third of 10 children in a family of nine boys and one girl. Timmy rose to become the head of the family when his father died of a seizure in 1986.
Mr. Byrne had asked his mother to characterize Tim, and she had said him, Tim was a very smart, bright little boy, a bundle of energy and his favorite saying was "I can do it." As a toddler, in his playpen, he managed to get out and drag the playpen down the street.
One of his greatest gifts was his ability to connect with people, it made him a part of everyone he met, said Sean.
"This made him a favorite of teachers, friends and friend's parents as well as at college and work," he said.
In his eulogy, his brother Sean Byrne said when he was notified of his father's death, he came home from Maritime College and spoke to Timmy at Syracuse University. "He was crying saying what are we going to do?" Sean said they'd be okay.
Between the phone call and getting home Timmy had a plan. He was a born leader and the other siblings saw that he would take over the role of the man in the family. He continued his own education, getting his degree at Syracuse and then an MBA at St. John's in 1992, with a 3.2 gpa.
Sean told the story of how Tim got into Syracuse. "He was excellent academically and athletically, not without effort: he worked out hard and studied diligently. At the end of his senior year he wanted to show he could play division A football. He wanted to play for Syracuse. He sent a letter to the coach, "And mother sent one, as she did for so many of her children," said Sean.
"He was offered a tryout after the season ended. During the summer Timmy lifted weights and ran six days a week. Out of 35 who tried out, he made the team. It was one of the happiest days for the family," said Sean.
Timmy was the head of the "Byrne Corporation." At one time, he left his NYC apartment to live with the family as a budget strategy. "Knowing how much he loved his apartment, you could see what a selfless human being he was," said Sean.
The family had fireside chats to discuss family issues. "Timmy gave out a Lotus spread sheet to explain 'this is the net net.' Sometimes the fireside chats got hot," he said.
Things changed and he returned to having his own apartment, but he continued to help the family and help with the education of his siblings as they attended college. His brother Colin is a sophomore at Notre Dame on an academic scholarship.
"Without Tim's leadership, guidance, and sense of humor, my family would not be in the position it is today," said Sean.
He said, "The world was a better place with Timmy. If everyone lives out their lives to the fullest and soars to new heights then Tim will go on forever. A hero in living: his passing brought nothing but honor to the Byrne family.
"Tim is in heaven giving my father golf lessons," said Sean. "God Bless American. Thank you for coming."
The first speaker at the service was Timmy's friend Dan Driscoll.
The two met at St. Dominic's. "I believe when someone is as special and unique as Tim, leaves this world, he takes a piece of us with him and we are forever changed - and he leaves a piece of himself here."
He said, "I thought of Tim as a prince. He most definitely was the Prince of his family. I never met a man who brought more peace than Tim, brought more happiness.
"But all sorrow is not what Timmy would want. Tim would have been disappointed if people let his death affect them."
Mr. Driscoll gave a message of hope. He said when thinking of that day, Sept. 11, don't think of it as a day of endings: think of it as day of the beginning of our new life.
Mr. Driscoll said, "I could never keep up with him. He always had 100 things going. Timmy's favorite saying was: "I'm getting it done, John, getting it done. I'm in the trenches getting it done."
He said, "Tim was a mover and shaker and always had a back up plan.
"I'll never stop missing Tim. I'll always have him here in my heart," said Dan Driscoll.
Bill Hickey, a friend and co-worker at Sandler & O'Neill spoke next and said from the first day he started, they became great friends. Tim formed great relationships with people.
The family chose I Was Born to Be an American God Bless the USA to be played as the memorial ended.
The family has established a memorial for Timothy, which will benefit the St. Dominic Playing Field entrance garden. Donations to the Timothy G. Byrne Memorial Fund checks may be made payable to St. Dominic High School.
Oyster Bay High School graduate Brooke Alexandra Jackman of the Class of 1994 was also in the World Trade Center when the hijacked airplanes crashed into the buildings. Brooke worked on the 104 floor of WTC-1 at Cantor Fitzgerald. That company lost 700 employees that day. Brooke was 23.
The Oyster Bay Jewish Center sanctuary was filled and the crowd spread to the social room and spilled outside. The tribute service was heard in all the areas. Her family shared their memories of Brooke. Of the three children, she and her sister Erin, and brother Ross, Brooke was the youngest. Her father Robert Jackman was on the Oyster Bay-East Norwich Board of Education and was able to present her with her high school diploma. They said he was surprised by the number of honors she won that day, she never told them beforehand. She was a perfectionist. They said she never thought of herself as smart - that although she could remember dates and events with great alacrity. Brooke was a great keeper of secrets, said her sister - the two were very close. She had a great relationship with her mom, they traded books and were shopping buddies.
Barbara Jackman said Brooke was able to argue with her dad because they were so much alike. "She had her own opinions," her father said proudly.
Brooke was thrilled to have a sister-in-law, Iris.
Brooke volunteered at a community soup kitchen in Hicksville, at the Henry Viscardi School, and at the Daffodil Cancer Thrift Shop in Oyster Bay.
Susan Diamond sang You'll Never Walk Alone at the family's request.
Her brother said, "The past is not a place we can visit. Brooke, we will cherish you in our hearts, your beautiful smile."
Brooke's family has asked that in lieu of flowers donations be sent to the Brooke Jackman Foundation, P.O. Box 354, Mill Neck, NY 11765. It will be used to benefit children in need.
Mrs. Jackman said Brooke had just been accepted into the Berkley School of Social Work at Columbia University. She had told her mother, "There is more to life than just making money."
Other families in the community are thinking of the others in this tragic time.
Michael Taddonio's family has asked in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Michael Taddonio Memorial Fund, 155 Pound Hollow Rd., Old Brookville, NY 11545.
Christopher Paul Slattery's family has asked in lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made to Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund, the NY Firefighters 9/11 Disaster Relief Fund or the September 11 Fund in conjunction with the United Way.
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