Born this day ... Ingeborg Rapoport

(Very) loose translation: This is to certify that Miss Ingeborg Syllm has written a doctoral thesis on the influence of adrenaline, pilocarpine, calcium, potassium, and barium on surviving guinea pigs' small intestine on the basis of a sample of healthy animals and those suffering from diphteria. I would have accepted her doctoral thesis if the laws on ancestry had not made it impossible for Miss Sylm to receive her doctorate.
Prof. Dr. R. Degkwitz, Head of University Children's Clinic Hamburg
30th of August 1938



Ingeborg Rapoport was born on 2nd of September 1912 in Cameroon, at that time a German colony. Soon after she was born, her family moved to Hamburg - her father was Protestant, her mother Jewish. Ingeborg was raised as a Protestant which did not make things easier for her. She studied medicine and was a doctoral student in 1938 when she was not allowed to submit her doctoral thesis or to conduct a thesis defence. She was denied the doctorate degree. The same year, she left Germany for the US where she completed her studies, started working as a neonatalogist and became head of the paediatric department. Due to reactions to her "un-American" activities, i.e., handing out copies of the "Daily Worker" in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Cincinnati, she moved back to Europe where she established the first clinic of neonatology in Berlin, at the Charité. Ingeborg Rapoport submitted her doctoral thesis in 1938 and could finally defend it before the University of Hamburg faculty committee in May 2015 - at the age of 102. An injustice righted after 77 years (via). Happy birthday, Ingeborg.



Her former professor Rudolf Degkwitz (1889-1973), Head of University Children's Clinic Hamburg, by the way, was suspended from work for six months for openly communicating a critical stance in the early 1930s. He continued criticising antisemitism, children's "euthanasia", the killing of people with disabilities and refused to make the Nazi salute. In 1944, he was sent to prison for seven years for criticising the regime but could escape in 1945. That year, that marked the official end of Nazi terror, he started working again as a head physician in a hospital and advocated "cleaning" the hospital from all the doctors that had actively supported Nazi Germany and were working there again. He did not succeed, was opposed, left Germany for the US and only returned to Germany shortly before his death (via).

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images via and via

When photographers start crying ...

“For the first time in my life I saw my colleagues - photographers and journalists - crying because of the situation.”
Georgi Licovski



"It was really terrible, really terrible."
Georgi Licovski



Licovski has seen much in his life. Born in Macedonia, he has been working as a photographer for the European Pressphoto Agency since 1991 when the Balkan crisis, the Kosovo crisis, the Albanian humanitarian catastrophe and the Macedonian war started (via). When talking about his recent assignment, he told TIME that spending the day taking pictures of refugees crossing the border of Greece to Macedonia made him cry for the first time while working. (via)



The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14(1):
Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.



Vivian Maier, Barbara Bordnick, Philippe Halsman, paparazzi and Eli Wallach taking pictures. Normal situations, none of them crying. There is nothing normal about war or not granting asylum. Licovski's photograph of asylum seeking children at the Greek border: link



photos (Vivian Maier) via and (Barbara Bordnick) via and (Philippe Halsman and family) via and (paparazzi) via and (Eli Wallach) via

"Europe fails when egos prevail."

"Europe for me is and always has been a community of values. This is something we should be and yet are too seldom proud of. We have the highest asylum standards in the world. We will never turn people away when they come to us in need of protection. These principles are inscribed in our laws and our Treaties but I am worried that they are increasingly absent from our hearts.



When we talk about migration we are talking about people. People like you or I, except they are not like you or I because they did not have the good fortune to be born in one of the richest and most stable regions of the world. We are talking about people who have had to flee from war in Syria, the ISIS terror in Libya and dictatorship in Eritrea.

And what worries me is to see the resentment, the rejection, the fear directed against these people by some parts of the population. Setting fire to refugee camps, pushing back boats from piers, physical violence inflicted upon asylum seekers or turning a blind eye to poor and helpless people: that is not Europe.

Europe is the pensioners in Calais who play music and charge the phones of migrants wanting to call home. Europe is the students in Siegen who open up their campus to accommodate asylum seekers who have no roof over their head. Europe is the baker in Kos who gives away his bread to hungry and weary souls. This is the Europe I want to live in. (...)

What we need, and what we are sadly still lacking, is the collective courage to follow through on our commitments – even when they are not easy; even when they are not popular.

Instead what I see is finger pointing – a tired blame game which might win publicity, maybe even votes, but which is not actually solving any problems.

Europe fails when fear prevails. Europe fails when egos prevail.(...)"

Excerpts taken from Jean-Claude Juncker's beautiful call for collective courage (via NewEurope)

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photograph via

Quoting Desmond Tutu

"Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?"
Desmond Tutu



"And every human being is precious."
Desmond Tutu

"We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity. There is not just one planet or one star; there are galaxies of all different sorts, a plethora of animal species, different kinds of plants, and different races and ethnic groups. God shows us, even with a human body, that it is made up of different organs performing different functions and that it is precisely that diversity that makes it an organism. If it were only one organ, it would not be a human body. We are constantly being made aware of the glorious diversity that is written into the structure of the universe we inhabit, and we are helped to see that if it were otherwise, things would go awry. How could you have a soccer team if all were goalkeepers? How would it be an orchestra if all were French horns?"
Desmond Tutu




"I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this. I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place."
Desmond Tutu



"Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another."
Desmond Tutu



::: A must-see(!!): Desmond Tutu in the Craig Ferguson Show: watch...
   Part 1/4
   Part 2/4
   Part 3/4
   Part 4/4



photos via and via and via and via and via and via and via

Schweigeminute

"It seems like I have found the right words for this situation, which is no words at all."
Raoul Haspel

Austrian visual artist Raoul Haspel very recently released "Schweigeminute", one minute of silence to call for a peaceful protest against the Austrian refugee policy and to support the people who are currently staying in the "massively overcrowded Traiskirchen refugee centre south of Vienna" (it was built to house 1.800 people and is now home to more than 4.500) (via and via).
The track comprising 60 seconds of total silence costs 99 cents and can be downloaded via Google Play Store or Amazon. It has been played by several radio stations in Austria and Germany and, according to iTunes Austria, has become number one. All proceeds will help the people in Traiskirchen who were forced to leave their homes (via).

"My personal short-term goal is that tonight in Traiskirchen... people don't have to sleep in wet beds without shelter with their kids having not enough food, water, warm jackets or toilet paper.(...) This is unworthy of our European idea and our self-understanding as human beings."
Raoul Haspel

The refugee camp in Traiskirchen has been highly criticised by its mayor, by the Austrian Human Rights League, by the United Nations Refugee Agency, by Amnesty International, ... (via). According to the latter, Austria is violating a range of conventions on human rights in Traiskirchen (via).

"Mouvement pour la liberation des femmes" captured by Magnum photographers

In France, two circles developed independently. One was created in 1967 as a subgroup of the social-democratic women's organisation "Movement of Democratic Women". The other one developed in the intellectual and political climate of the new University of Paris-Vincennes and appeared in the course of 1968. Both groups finally met in summer 1970, the year they declared "Women's Liberation: Year zero". In fact, the event (a demonstration in Paris in August 1970) they planned together was retrospectively regarded as the birth of the French women's movement (Schulz, 2014).



Above: Simone de Beauvoir at a Women's Liberation demonstration in Paris in 1971, photographed by Gilles Peress



Above: Women's Liberation demonstration in Paris in 1971, photographed by Gilles Peress



Above: Women demonstrating for the right to work in Paris in 1975, photographed by Jean Gaumy




Above: Women's Liberation, May 1st & Women's March & Feminist Movement newspaper "Le Torchon brûle", 1971, photographed by Martine Franck



Above: Yvelines, Versailles, French Conference For Women's Liberation, 1970, photographed by Henri Cartier-Bresson

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- Schulz, K. (2014). Feminist Echoes of 1968: Women's Movements in Europe and the United States. In: Gilcher-Holtey, (ed.) A Revolution of Perception?: Consequences and Echose of 1968. 124-147, Berghahn Books
- photographs via and via and via and via and via and via and via; copyrights by the respective owners, for more see

Vincent Price About Prejudice

“In art, religion, and politics the respect must be mutual, no matter how violent the disagreement.”
Vincent Price

Vincent Leonard Price (1911-1993) communicated his socio-political stance when he concluded the episode "Author of Murder" of the series "The Saint" on NBC Radio on 30 July 1950. Price called racial and religious prejudice a form of poison and asked US-Americans to actively fight against it (via).



Ladies and gentlemen,
poison doesn’t always come in bottles. And it isn’t always marked with the skull and crossbones of danger. Poison can take the form of words and phrases and acts: the venom of racial and religious hatred. Here in the United States, perhaps more than ever before, we must learn to recognize the poison of prejudice and to discover the antidote to its dangerous effects.
Evidences of racial and religious hatred in our country place a potent weapon in the hands of our enemies, providing them with the ammunition of criticism. Moreover, group hatred menaces the entire fabric of democratic life. As for the antidote: you can fight prejudice, first by recognizing it for what it is, and second by actively accepting or rejecting people on their individual worth, and by speaking up against prejudice and for understanding. Remember, freedom and prejudice can’t exist side by side. If you choose freedom, fight prejudice. (transcript via)

These words are even more beautiful listening to them (1 minute): LISTEN



photographs of Vincent Price cooking and eating via and via; a 50th anniversary edition of Vincent and Mary Price's "A Treasury of Great Recipes" published in 1965 will be released this September - much to the joy of countless chefs since it is regarded as "one of the most important culinary events of the 20th century" (via)

Born this day ... Ethel L. Payne

“I stick to my firm, unshakeable belief that the black press is an advocacy press, and that I, as a part of that press, can’t afford the luxury of being unbiased . . . when it come to issues that really affect my people, and I plead guilty, because I think that I am an instrument of change.”
Ethel L. Payne

“Had Ethel Payne not been black, she certainly would have been one of the most recognized journalists in American society.”
The Washington Post, editorial 1991



Ethel L. Payne, "First Lady of the Black Press", was born on 14 August 1911. The first female US-American commentator employed by CBS (via) and first black reporter to cover the Vietnam War (via) was particularly known as "one of the civil rights movement's most visible chroniclers for Afrian Americans". Payne worked for the Defender for more than 25 years (via), a weekly of about 130.000 in the 1920. In the South, only few black US-Americans dared to get it and since it was banned in some towns, its editors collaborated with so-called Pullman porters (via), former slaves who worked on sleeper cars on railroads and who were until the 1960s exclusively black (via). The Pullman porters stored bundles of the Defender in their personal lockers and dropped them off at barbershops and churches along their routes. Ethel Payne happened to be the granddaughter of slaves and the daughter of one of these Pullman porters (via). She passed away in 1991.

"Payne’s journalism invoked none of the angry name-calling fashionable in the news media today. Rather, she brought only one weapon with her when she gained access to the halls of power on behalf of her readers. It was to ask questions that others were not asking. And she got answers." James, McGrath Morris, biographer of Ethel Payne

On 7 July 1954, during a press conference, Ethel L. Payne - then Washington correspondent for the Chicago Defender - asked President Dwight D. Eisenhower a question nobody else had asked before.

- Payne: “Mr. President, we were very happy last week when the deputy attorney general sent a communication to the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee saying that there was a legal basis for passing a law to ban segregation in interstate travel. . . . I would like to know if we could assume that we have administration support in getting action on this?”
- Eisenhower: “You say that you have to have administrative support. The administration is trying to do what it thinks and believes to be decent and just in this country, and is not in the effort to support any particular or special group of any kind.”

A reporter switched the subject but the room remained startled by Eisenhower's brusque reply. After the news conference, Eisenhower stopped calling on Payne. A columnist wrote that Payne's question had irritated the president (via).

“It was just unheard of for blacks to be standing up and asking presidents impertinent questions and particularly a black woman.”
Ethel L. Payne

photographs via and (with soldier in Vietnam) via and (with Kennedy) via

Welcome.TU.code

The Vienna University of Technology was founded in 1815, has more than 26.000 students, and is ranked as one of the best universities (via). Both its real excellence and its mission "technology for the people" (via) are put into practice by the Faculty of Informatics' project Welcome.TU.code. The initiative was launched by researchers, teachers and students to offer computer workshops for young asylum seekers, particularly unaccompanied minor refugees (via).



The workshops keep the teenagers busy who at the same time can acquire computer skills which again are required for a great many jobs. In addition, computer basics are necessary as the internet is often the only medium to stay in touch with the family left behind (via). According to Prof. Hannes Werthner, Head of the Electronic Commerce Group, Institute for Software Technology and Interactive Systems, and Kathrin Conrad, student at the Faculty of Informatics, this project aims to produce positive signals, to welcome these young people in Austria and to set an example by showing that different approaches to integration are possible. This summer, more than 50 teenagers mainly from Afghanistan, Syria, and Somalia take part in five workshops (via). The workshops are led by psychologically trained students who teach in more than ten languages (via).

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photograph via
For more photographs of women in mini skirts at huge computers see

"The new sort of lady author is always photographed in bed and must exercise in a bikini"

In 1969, "model-turned-author" Jeanne Rejaunier published her first novel "The Beauty Trap" which became a bestseller and sold over one million copies (via). The LIFE photo essay "What it takes to be a lady author anymore" showed Rejaunier posing for photographs that capture "how a woman should promote her literary work". The essay contributed her success to her beauty rather than her literary talents: "Just possibly because she smiles so prettily on the book jacket (the back and the front of the book) The Beauty Trap is now in its fourth printing." (via)




Caption from LIFE (above):
"Jeanne Rejaunier is a lady author, as you can plainly see - the new sort of lady author is always photographed in bed."

More captions from LIFE (below):
- "A lady author must swim a little. Jeanne appreciates the water. She lives in a Hollywood apartment and doesn't have a pool of her own yet, but she uses one belonging to a friend whenever she wants."
- "A lady author must commune with nature. There isn't an awful lot of nature to commune with in Hollywood, but Jeanne does her best with a rake and leaves, both borrowed from her apartement house. The Victorian dress is brand-new."
- "A lady author must have her own billboard. There is a special thrill, Jeanne admits, to seeing yourself on a Hollywood billboard. Now that her face is well-known, she often visits bookstores and boosts her novel's sales."
- "A lady author must exercise in a bikini. Writing a minor bestseller is sedentary work, but when promoting one a lithe figure is very useful. This contraption strengthens the stomach muscles and fitures of speech."



photographs via and via and via and via