Munitions Factory Research Articles

The Public Nature of Private Industry in Confederate Georgia

During the Civil War the Confederacy undertook a remarkable, state-mandated industrialization which made possible a protracted war against one of the world's preeminent industrial powers. The new nation encouraged manufacturing in two ways. First, the Confederacy embraced direct state ownership of indispensable industries, especially ordnance and munitions factories. Second, Richmond promoted private enterprise with numerous official goads and incentives. This article concentrates on the latter process within one relatively industrialized Deep South state. At first Georgia entrepreneurs took full advantage of government inducements to build a robust private industrial economy. But the government exercised an extraordinary degree of control over this "private" sector. Confederate jurisdiction over labor sources and transportation meant that businesses were thoroughly dependent on the government. As companies showed themselves unable or unwilling to meet state demands, the government denied them access to workers and railcars and invoked its prerogative to impress supplies and whole businesses. Through these means the Confederacy came to dominate private industries almost as fully as government shops. [End Page 27]

Two Borrowings in Pat Barker's Regeneration

Pat Barker amply acknowledges indebtedness to other works in the writing of her World War I trilogy. In the "Author's Note" that follows each volume she refers readers to books that form the background of fictional episodes and characterization. In the note to Regeneration (1991) she refers, among other works, to W. H. R. Rivers's posthumously published Conflict and Dream (1923) and Lewis Yealland's Hysterical Disorders of Warfare (1918); in the note to The Eye in the Door (1993) she refers to Sheila Rowbotham's Friends of Alice Wheelan (1986); and in the note to The Ghost Road (1995) she recommends to readers no fewer than six scholarly studies of Wilfred Owen. "Fact and fiction are so interwoven in this book," she writes in the note to Regeneration, "that it may help the reader to know what is historical and what is not."1 Indeed, much of the appeal of her novels rests not only in the stories they tell (or retell) but in the information they provide on such topics as conditions in the trenches, treatment (or non treatment) of shell shock, experiments in nerve regeneration, female employment in munitions factories, early twentieth-century anthropology, and homophobic paranoia during World War I. The author's notes do not provide an exhaustive list of the backgrounds to Barker's novels. Such a list would be long, given the author's immersion in her period and extensive knowledge of the literature of World War I. Even if a comprehensive list had been compiled, it would not have included, one may surmise, works read, absorbed, and forgotten, or works in which actual reported episodes became occasions for Barker's creative elaborations in fiction. In this essay I examine two possible borrowings in Regeneration, one from Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That (1929) and the other from Edmund Blunden's Undertones of War (1928). The first concerns Burns, the officer who suffers from chronic vomiting, a condition caused by his having been hoisted in the air by an exploding shell and landing head-first in the gas-filled, rupturing belly of a German corpse. Barker based her description of Burns's condition on a case described by Dr. Rivers in his "The Repression of War Experience" (Lancet, 2 February 1918), and [End Page 63] she cites the article in her "Author's Note." As with other patients at Craiglockhart Hospital, such as the historical Siegfried Sassoon and the fictional Billy Prior, Burns develops a close relationship with Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, the character based on the real neurologist and social anthropologist. Rivers goes so far as to stay with Burns at Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast, where he is able to foil Burns's attempt to kill himself. Earlier, Burns tells Rivers that while in the trenches he used to go out on patrol every night: You tell yourself you're setting a good example, or some such rubbish, but actually it's nothing of the kind. You can't let yourself know you want to be wounded, because officers aren't supposed to think like that. And, you see, next to a battle, a patrol is the best chance of getting a good wound. In the trenches, it's shrapnel or head injuries. On patrol, if you're lucky, it's a nice neat little hole in the arm or leg. I've seen men cry with a wound like that. ... Cry for joy. Anyway, it wasn't my luck. Bullets went round me, I swear they did.2 This account may find its germ in Goodbye to All That, in the episode in which Graves, having returned to his regiment, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, earns the Colonel's praise for his successful completion of a night patrol. Graves writes: After this I went on patrol fairly often, finding that the only thing respected in young officers was personal courage. Besides, I had cannily...

‘Munition Factories … Turning Out a Constant Supply of Living Material’: White South African Elite Boys' Schools and the First World War

‘Munition Factories … Turning Out a Constant Supply of Living Material’: White South African Elite Boys' Schools and the First World War

Equipping Leviathan: Ordnance Factories of British India, 1859-1913

The ordnance establishment of British India was rightly regarded as the fourth arm of defence by the British. Especially after the 1857 mutiny, they understood that fire-power generated by the artillery and advanced small arms actually led to victory against numerically superior ‘rebels’. Instead of depending on imports from Britain, which were not only time-consuming, but costly and also intermittent, the colonial state decided to lay the foundation of an industrial base for manufacturing military stores. This was in anticipation of future military threats. Neverthless, several factors hampered the expansion and modernization of the arms and munitions factories. This article, based on some hitherto unused sources, is the first attempt to chart the evolution of the ordnance factories until the Great War.

‘a fine university for women engineers’: a Scottish munitions factory in world war I

In a tiny village in south-west Scotland, a model factory was established during World War I, not just to produce munitions ‘for the duration’, but with the expressed intention of continuing as ‘a fine university for women engineers’. In an attempt to keep the enterprise going after the War, the factory was converted to the manufacture of motor cars. The Galloway – ‘a car made by ladies for others of their sex’ – was the result. This article considers the factory as a focal point for a network of material conditions and discursive claims within which the women of the Galloway Engineering Company sought to shape new technologies in their own terms, and so establish a permanent place for themselves in that masculine world.

‘a fine university for women engineers’: a scottish munitions factory in world war I

‘a fine university for women engineers’: a scottish munitions factory in world war I

The hydrogeochemistry of the Lake Waco drainage basin, Texas

The origin of surface water chemistry in highly impacted drainage basins must be investigated on a drainage-basin scale if the causes of the pollution are to be elucidated. This study characterizes and deciphers the surface water chemistry of a nutrient polluted river system in central Texas. Four tributaries of the Lake Waco reservoir were chemically characterized temporally and spatially in order to gain a complete understanding of the nature and origin of dissolved solids being transported into the lake. Temporal chemical variations measured at the base of each of the drainage basins are repetitive and seasonal. The most periodic and well-defined variation is exhibited by nitrate concentrations although many of the other solutes show seasonal changes as well. These temporal chemical changes are controlled by seasonal precipitation. During rainy seasons, the shallow aquifer is recharged resulting in stream discharge that is high in nitrate, calcium, and bicarbonate. When the shallow flow system is depleted in the summer, stream waters are dominated by deeper groundwater and become rich in sodium. Spatial variations in the chemistry of South Bosque surface waters were characterized using the snapshot technique. The spatial distribution of nitrate in surface waters is controlled by fertilizer application to row crops and the location of a munitions factory. The concentrations of naturally derived solutes such as Ca+, Na+, Cl−, and SO4 −2are controlled by underlying lithologies.

Remapping the home front: locating citizenship in British women's great war fiction

World War I witnessed the unprecedented involvement of British civilians in the realities of waging battle. With the battlefields just across the Channel, soldiers could quickly return home on leave and women could easily go to the front as nurses or observers. And British citizens faced the new and too frequently consummated threat of enemy air raids. In this text, Debra Rae Cohen explores how such developments influenced four women writers - Violet Hunt, Rose Macaulay, Stella Benson and Rebecca West - in producing new kinds of war stories told from women's perspectives: stories from the home front. Cohen focuses particularly on how Hunt, Macaulay, Benson and West negotiated wartime rhetoric in their novels. Despite the porousness of the border between war and home, propaganda efforts strove to depict the home front as a place of safety and enclosure. It was a place where women kept the home fires burning - even if the fires they were stoking were in munitions factories. Cohen examines how each of the writers responded to such depictions and demonstrates that despite their general support for the war effort, the authors resisted simplistic representations of women's roles. Primed by the growing prewar suffrage movement and new ideas about women's place in the public sphere, each author explored such questions as: how could women resist the passive manipulation by wartime propaganda?, and how could women find positions as emerging citizens within the parameters of war? In answer, these writers created fantasy spaces and enclosures within their novels for interrogating the discourses of war. Their project of remapping became the battle over women's place. their visibility and anonymity during the war, and their control over self-representation.

The Diary and Despatches of a Military Attaché in Warsaw 1938-1939 by Edward Roland Sword Elizabeth Turnbull Andrzej Suchcits (review)

366 SEER, 8I, 2, 2003 Because she has worked in the archives of the Academy of Sciences, and has also looked in detail at three specificprojects involving the image of Ivan IV (V. I. Kostelyev's multi-volume novel, IvanGroznyi, A. N. Tolstoi'splay of the sametitle,and SergeiEizenshtein'sfilm),Perrieisableto showhow representations of Ivan'simage, and of the main achievementsof his reign,were debated at several levels. The immediate needs of Stalinistpropaganda, for example duringthe annexation of the Balticrepublics,are reflectedin artisticpriorities (theemphasison Ivan'sBalticcampaignswas a featureof Kostelyev'swork,for instance). The depiction of Ivan's mental turmoil in Eizenshtein'sfilm, more famously,angered Stalinso much that he intervenedpersonallyin the process of its censorship. But Perriearguesthat the original impetus to recreate Tsar Ivan IV involved no detailed blueprintsfrom the Kremlin. Instead, following broad general guidelines that encouraged patriotic explorations of national heroes, individual writers assumed the task of creating a new Ivan for themselves,with mixed and occasionallyunsuccessfulresults. Perriemakesit clearthatby the time of Stalin'sdeath the image of Ivan had come to stand for Stalin in the minds of many Soviet writers. To praise the Tsarwas tantamountto patriotism,to criticizehim was to commit covertantiStalinism . The point is emphasized by a brief account of Ivan's fate as a historical figure in the decades after Stalin's death. But Ivan became a surrogatethrough a seriesof processesthat had little to do with officialpolicy. Indeed, the original intention of the analogy, especially at the time of the Ezhovshchina, was probably to draw attention to Stalin's cruelty (Stalin himselfappearsto have believed that Ivan had been insufficientlybrutalin his slaughterof potential opponents). It was only in the later 1930s that the image of the cruel Tsar was reappropriatedin the service of modern dictatorship. The results occasionally raised eyebrows even among Stalinist historians. Kostelyev's notion of the 'people's Tsar', for instance, was too sycophantic (and incredible)even forreviewersin the I940s. In all, then, this lively and intelligent study adds to the growing literature that documents the interactionsbetween leadershipand creativeintelligentsia in the shapingof Stalinistdictatorship.Itwillprove usefulto anyone interested in Stalinism,history-writing,or the artsand literatureof the Soviet era. Department ofHistorical Studies CATHERINE MERRIDALE University ofBristol Sword, EdwardRoland. TheDiaryandDespatches ofa Military Attache' inWarsaw I938-I939. Edited by Elizabeth Turnbull and Andrzej Suchcits. Polish Cultural Foundation, London, 2001. I52 pp. Glossary of Personalities. Index. k78.oo(paperback). JUST when we felt that no more can be added to our knowledge and understanding of British foreign policy towards Poland on the eve of the Second WorldWar,a smallvolume of personalpapersonce more remindsus how complex was the picturein I939. Lieutenant-Colonel Roly Swordacted as Britishmilitaryattacheto Warsaw fromJune 1938untilthe German invasionof Polandin September 1939. This REVIEWS 367 was of course the critical period beginning with the German decision to destabilizeCzechoslovakia,the Munich Conference and the Polishoccupation of the Teschen region. In I939 Germany became belligerent towards Poland and finally, unprovoked, attacked in the early hours of I September I939. Sword was well briefed when he came to Poland and as a resultwas able to send back to London reportswhich, as we now know, gave the ForeignOffice all the information it needed in making the ultimate decision to commit Britain to the defence of Poland. In June 1939 he accompanied General Ironside duringhis fact-findingvisit to Warsawand was privyto detailsof the military and financial talksbetween the Poles and the Britishduring the last months of peace. Throughout, in spite of incapacity caused by a duodenal ulcer, he travelled extensively throughout Poland and generally kept himself remarkablywell informedof Poland'sstateof militarypreparedness. What the reader of the present volume will notice is how perceptive were Sword's conclusions. His reports, which the BritishAmbassador Sir Howard Kennard despatched directlyto the ForeignOffice, and which were based on extensive travels through Poland, visits to munitions factories and contacts with the Polish militaryestablishmentand other militaryattaches, invariably concluded with a warning that Poland would not be able to resist singlehandedly a German attack. That is not to suggest that Sword was not impressed with the determination of Poles to defend their freedom, and the economic progresswhich had been made afterthe Munich Conference. The establishment of Central Industrial Zone and extensive investment into the building of ammunition factories...

Belinda J. Davis, Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics, and Everyday Life in World War I Berlin. Chapel Hill, N.C. and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. 384 pp. $55.00 cloth; $24.95 paper; Susan R. Grayzel, Women's Identities at War: Gender, Motherhood, and Politics in Britain and France During the First World War. Chapel Hill, N.C. and London: University of

The term “home front,” as distinct from “war front,” is so familiar today that we tend to forget that the concept is less than a century old, a coinage of the First World War. Ironically, it was the very collapse of the familiar boundaries between military and civil sectors of society that prompted the invention of a term that purported to differentiate clearly between the “battle front” and the “domestic front.” In a war in which all sectors of society were directly or indirectly affected by the military conflict, the distinction between the actual combatants on the front lines and their fellow citizens in the factories, on the farms, and in the shops becomes, at times, difficult to determine. The novelty of appending the modifier “home” or “domestic” to the military term “front” captures the essence of “total war.” The First World War was fought not only in the trenches of northeastern France, but in the urban bread lines and the munitions factories, and in every town subjected to the aerial bombardments that literally demolished any real distinction between military and civilian life.

Digital Passage: The Rhizomatic Frontiers of the ZKM

Now filling the cavernous space of a renovated, turn-of-the-century munitions factory, the ZKM (Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany, www.zkm.de), has quickly established itself as Europe’s premier digital design and exhibition space. Launched in 1989 as the European center of new media research and production, the ZKM moved into its permanent home, in October, 1997, as a nationally sanctioned site for the production and exhibition of digital and electronic arts. The ZKM houses an extensive media library, a media theatre, the Institute for Visual Media, the Institute for Music and Acoustics, as well as two expansive exhibition spaces, the Media Museum and the Museum for Contemporary Art. These various institutes and spaces collaborate to bring together artists, performers, designers, programmers, scientists, and media specialists for the development of new interactive art projects. The ZKM has produced a wide array of complex, interactive installations by international artists-in-residence, an exciting series of artistic CD-Roms and critical commentaries, an innovative series of intermedia acoustic performances, and cutting-edge exhibitions that combine the most recent developments in digital art with historical corollaries from the collection of the Museum for Contemporary Art.

戦時・戦後期日本の地方機械産地

In Japan after World War I, the population of the big cities increased with the growth of the heavy and chemical industries in urban areas, resulting in a widening of gaps in regional development. During the 1930s, the government urged factories to relocate from the cities in order to narrow the gaps. Moreover, the government assisted in the evacuation of munitions factories, above all the strategically important machine shops, to avoid air strikes during the Pacific War.Although not as many machine shops dispersed geographically as the government had anticipated, the agglomeration of small-to-medium-sized machine shops did accelerate, and the experience of learning by making various types of machines was acquired by many local cities as a result. Machine production increased remarkably in these local cities after World War II, enabling regional small-to-medium-sized shops to contribute substantially to the Era of the High-Speed Growth in the 1960s.

高度経済成長期の水島における工業都市化とロカリティの変容

Recently, studies of industrial spaces have taken several perspectives. For example, a Locality study, especially in the United Kingdom, studies not only economic aspects but also social and political aspects.This paper discusses the changing locality of the industrial city of Mizushima, Okayama pref. which was industrialized in a period of high economic growth. The indicators of a locality study are working and social trends, and the results of elections. However it is difficult to use same indicators for a Japanese industrial city, because locality research may be unique to English cases. Pollution problems, which had been a special topic of debate in local politics, are used as the indicator for industrialization. The topics of members of the assembly, which are recorded in proceedings, are important pointers to the change from an agricultural and fishing village to an industrial city.When it was an agricultural and fishing village (pre-modern period) there were such developments as a new rice field at Mizushima located beside the mouth of Takahashi-river. These are the bottom of industrial area, now. During World War II, a munitions factory was constructed on land reclaimed from the Takahashi river. Air raids destroyed most of the factories. After the war, Okayama pref. decided to invite many large companies. Machine, petrochemical, and steel manufacturing plants began operations. The resulting industrial complex made Mizushima an industrial city.In terms of social structure, old leaders retained power until the agricultural and fishing villages combined to form Kurashiki city. Kojima city and Tamashima city also combined to form part of Kurashiki city. In those areas, old industries supplied a large part of employment. Therefore, it has taken time to change urbanize communities while increasing the population through the inflow of workers for large factories.Secondly, to clarify local politics, there has been debate on pollution problems. Incidentally, labor movements, which are thought to be important in a locality study, did not have much influence on the pollution problems in Mizushima. The first pollution problems occurred with fish and crops. So farming and fishery organizations claimed compensation for damage. Furthermore, pollution problems harmed human health as industrial spaces grew. From the 1960's to the 1970's most Japanese industrial cities had anti-pollution movements, as was the case in Mizushima. There were neighborhood associations and working organizations forming anti-pollution organizations. These spread to form a network organization in Mizushima. Eventually, the anti-pollution movement was restricting to patients with diseases caused by pollution and their supporters. These changes can be seen in the proceedings about pollution problems.At the beginning of the period with pollution problems, there were debates about industrial change, damage to local people, and policy between parties. After pollution problems increased, this topic was shared by all of the inhabitants of Kurashiki city. The debate concentrated on pollution problems, regardless of resident or party or occupation. This led to an administrative policy for the pollution problem. Then pollution damage gradually decreased. The debate moved from pollution to environment problems, which also contains protection of nature, in the latter period. There was much debate by members of the assembly in a local reformist party, and residents of Mizushima were very concerned about improving the environment of living spaces affected by pollution problems.In conclusion, industrialization and urbanization in Mizushima not only involve construction of factories and increase of industrial labor, but urbanization also refers to the living environment sought by local residents.

Aiming and Intending

Does it matter morally whether a bomber who kills civilians in a raid intends to do so as a means to weakening the enemy or merely foresees he will do so in his attempt to destroy a munitions factory? Does it matter morally whether a nurse who gives a terminally ill patient a lethal dose of painkiller intends to do so as a means to ending the patient's life or merely foresees she will do so in her attempt to alleviate the patient's pain? Those who answer affirmatively rest moral weight on the notion of intending to do something as a means. But giving an adequate analysis of this notion has proved difficult. In ‘Intending as a Means,’ Kwong-Loi Shun criticizes two attempts at analyzing this notion, one which he attributes to Jonathan Bennett and the other which he attributes to Thomas Nagel. Shun thinks both Bennett's and Nagel's analyses identify intending to bring about S as a means with aiming at S and offers examples which he believes show ‘an agent need not aim at what he intends to bring about.’ In making his objection to Bennett and Nagel, Shun introduces his own criterion for intending as a means.

Enzymatic Reduction of 2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene and Related Nitroarenes: Kinetics Linked to One-Electron Redox Potentials

At military bases and munitions factories, 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) is a common soil and groundwater contaminant. Although the reduction of nitro groups in TNT and related nitroarenes has been extensively investigated, few researchers have studied the link between reduction rates and the electrochemical properties of these compounds. In this work, the standard one-electron redox potentials at pH 7 (E1°‘) for six important nitroarenes have been measured by pulse radiolysis. The internally consistent values were −0.253 V for TNT, −0.417 V for 2-amino-4,6-dinitrotoluene, −0.449 V for 4-amino-2,6-dinitrotoluene, −0.397 V for 2,4-dinitrotoluene, −0.402 V for 2,6-dinitrotoluene, and −0.502 V for 2,4-diamino-6-nitrotoluene. The reduction kinetics of these nitroarenes was investigated using a bacterial nitroreductase, NAD(P)H:FMN oxidoreductase that uses NADH·H+ as a cosubstrate. A log-linear relationship was observed between the E1°‘ values and the enzymatic reduction rates for five nitroarenes, suggesting th...

Biodegradation of RDX-contaminated wastes in a nitrogen-deficient environment

A feasible biological treatment process for RDX-contaminated wastes was demonstrated in a bench-scale system, using real wastewater of a munitions factory. The wastewater mixture tested included the nitramine RDX together with high levels of nitrate and various organic solvents such as cyclohexanone and acetone. The purpose of the study was to remove both RDX and nitrate in order to prevent groundwater contamination. A two-stage reactor system including an anoxic stage followed by an aerobic one was tested. The anoxic stage was aimed at removing nitrate by denitrification, using available carbon sources present in the waste mixture. Additional supply of carbon source (acetone) was required to support complete removal of nitrate. Further removal of residual organic was achieved in the aerobic stage together with total mineralization of RDX. Complete removal of nitrate in the anoxic stage was found to be crucial to RDX mineralization in the aerobic stage, since RDX was used solely as a nitrogen source. Additional carbon source (cyclohexanone) was also required in the aerobic stage to assure complete removal of RDX. The treatment scheme tested may be a cost-effective alternative to physico-chemical treatments such as carbon adsorption and UV destruction, commonly applied for explosives-contaminated wastes.

Removal of nitrate from industrial wastewaters in a pilot plant by nitrate-tolerant klebsiella oxytoca CECT 4460 and arthrobacter globiformis CECT 4500

Two strains, a gram-negative bacterium Klebsiella oxytoca CECT 4460 and a gram-positive, mycelium-forming bacterium Arthrobacter globiformis CECT 4500, tolerant to up to 1 M nitrate, were isolated from the grounds of a munitions factory. Under strict aerobic conditions and with appropriate C-sources, growth of these bacteria took place when the nitrate concentration in the medium was below 150 mM. Optimal growth conditions regarding the culture medium composition for the biological removal of nitrate were established in batch cultures. Then, the system was scaled up to a 40-L pilot plant and operated under continuous conditions in a factory with direct waste streams from dinitroethylene glycol production after appropriate dilution with nontreated groundwaters. The level of nitrate in the effluent was below 0.5% of the initial N-load. Nitrite and ammonium were undetectable and the level of the C-source in the effluent was below 50 mg per L. On the basis of these results, we conclude that the system worked on site satisfactorily. Copyright 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The Myth of the Macho Scotsman: Attitudes to Gender, Work and the Family in the UK, Ireland and Europe

It is a common assumption in everyday conversation that attitudes towards gender are more conservative in Scotland than in other parts of Britain, and that this is particularly true of Scottish men. We expect the inhabitants of Govan to take a more traditional approach to gender roles than those of Islington. This assumption perhaps has two origins. Many of the ideological myths which are central to Scottish national identity are based around rigid and conservative gender hierarchies. Highland clans, tarlanry and kailyard are full of images of men and women occupying quite distinct social positions. Some of the more modern myths which have been contrasted to these, such as the myth of Red Clydeside, are based around gender hierarchies which are no less stark. For example Red Clydeside still evokes images of men involved in industrial struggle: the Clyde Workers Committee, Gallacher or Mac Lean. The role of women in the munitions factories of the first world war, or their leadership of the struggle over housing and fair rents, is given less attention (Melling 1983). As McCrone (1992, p.97) has noted, it is significant that the central ideological figure of nineteenth century Scots egalitarianism 'the lad o' pains' was exactly that; there were no 'lasses o' pains'.

Biodegradation of RDX-contaminated wastes in a nitrogen-deficient environment

A feasible biological treatment process for ROX-contaminated wastes was demonstrated in a bench-scale system, using real wastewater of a munitions factory. The wastewater mixture tested included the nitramine RDX together with high levels of nitrate and various organic solvents such as cyclohexanone and acetone. The purpose of the study was to remove both RDX and nitrate in order to prevent groundwater contamination. A two-stage reactor system including an anoxic stage followed by an aerobic one was tested. The anoxic stage was aimed at removing nitrate by denitrification, using available carbon sources present in the waste mixture. Additional supply of carbon source (acetone) was required to support complete removal of nitrate. Further removal of residual organic was achieved in the aerobic stage together with total mineralization of RDX. Complete removal of nitrate in the anoxic stage was found to be crucial to RDX mineralization in the aerobic stage, since RDX was used solely as a nitrogen source. Additional carbon source (cyclohexanone) was also required in the aerobic stage to assure complete removal of RDX. The treatment scheme tested may be a cost-effective alternative to physico-chemical treatments such as carbon adsorption and UV destruction, commonly applied for explosives-contaminated wastes.

The Horrors of Identification: Reich's "Different Trains"

Fifteen hundred persons had been travelling by train for several days and nights: there were eighty people in each coach. All had to lie on top of their luggage, the few remnants of their personal possessions. The carriages were so full that only the top parts of the windows were free to let in the gray of dawn. Everyone expected the train to head for some munitions factory, in which we would be employed as forced labor. We did not know whether we were still in Silesia or already in Poland. The engine's whistle had an uncanny sound, like a cry for help sent out in commiseration for the unhappy load which it was destined to lead into perdition. Then the train shunted, obviously nearing a main station. Suddenly a cry broke from the ranks of anxious passengers, There is a sign, Auschwitz! Everyone's heart missed a beat at that moment. Auschwitz-the very name stood for all that was horrible: gas chambers, crematoriums, massacres. Slowly, almost hesitatingly, the train moved on as if it wanted to spare its passengers the dreadful realization as long as possible: Auschwitz!l