50th Anniversary of Motion Picture Industry

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Bdufvv_zevE/maxresdefault.jpg

On April 16, 1902, Tally's Theatre opened its doors in Los Angeles, the first theatre to exclusively feature motion pictures.  In 1952, a total of 1753 daily newspapers across the United States featured full or half page ads announcing the 50th anniversary of motion pictures.  Two hundred and fifty Hollywood stars visited communities to promote the event (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=348&dat=19511004&id=hwoFAAAAIBAJ&sjid=fjEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6753,230803&hl=en).

A spokesman for the event explained:  "The purpose of the celebration is to focus unique position the motion picture industry has won in the last 50 years as the centre of each community's entertainment and to call attention to the superior quality of pictures to be released in the coming year."  A contest was held at participating theatres, searching for "the typical American family", with the grand prize of a trip to Hollywood.

The same year, the U.S. Post Office issued a stamp to mark the anniversary, focussing on the unique role that motion pictures played in the lives of American troops.  Far from home and immersed in battle, motion pictures were a welcome diversion for war weary soldiers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdufvv_zevE).

President Truman greets Hollywood stars on the 50th Anniversary of Motion Pictures circa 1952 courtesy http://www.gettyimages.ca/pictures/washington-dc-president-truman-greets-motion-picture-news-photo-514704472.

Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans After the Second World War

"They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner."  

(Potsdam Agreement, Number XII)

The Big Three at the signing of the Potsdam Agreement courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Agreement.

In July of 1945, Prime Minister Attlee, Premier Stalin and President Truman gathered at Potsdam to sign an agreement which would outline the plan for Germany's demilitarization, reparations and punishment of war criminals.  However, a lesser known section of the agreement, number XII, would carve up Germany,more benignly referred to as the "Orderly Transfer of German Populations".  Ethnic Germans living in Eastern Europe including East Prussia, the Sudetenland, Pomerania, Silesia, East Brandenburg, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia, were to be transferred to Germany proper, west of the Polish Corridor.  The Potsdam Agreement clause that stood out for me was:  

"They agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner."

Rob's Oma, part of this population transfer in the five years after the Second World War, was rounded up like cattle.  She was barked at by the Red Army, announcing that she had ten minutes to gather together a few belongings to take with her.  Her daughter on one arm, her nieces and nephew following behind her, they were tossed into a cattle car at gunpoint.  With no toilet, disease spread like wildfire.  At one point, Oma's niece was so hungry she ate a bird's nest.  Their week long train ride across the Polish Corridor was painfully slow:  at night, the train came to a standstill since the conductor could not see the crooked sections of the tracks ahead, bombed by the Allies.  The journey saw the death of dozens of malnourished and diseased expellees in the adjoining cars, whose bodies were piled high at the side of the railroad tracks.  For those who made it to their destination, like Oma, they were now called "d.p.'s", displaced persons.  So much for "an orderly and humane manner'.

Note:  For more information, read Orderly and Humane:  The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War by R. M. Douglas.

The Expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe circa 1945 courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%9350).