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Apr 17 15 tweets 6 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
This is all that remains of Zoli the Clown, a Jewish little person, once the most famous circus performer in Hungary, who perished, alongside 560 000 other Hungarian Jews, in the Holocaust.

Today, on Yom HaShoah, we should remember him.

This is his story. 1/
Zoltán Hirsch, "Zoli the Clown", was born on 6 Feb 1885, the third child of a family of Jewish merchants. Until the age of three he was treated for Rickets disease due to his small size. Later, his family moved to Pécs, where he became captivated by the world of the circus. 2/ Image
Zoli spent his leisure time at his hometown Pécs’s major entertainment sites, the Schmitt Folk Arena Circus and the Pécs Vaudeville Theatre, where he obsessively attended all the shows and loitered backstage, eager to meet his idols, the acrobats & clowns who worked there. 3/
Zoli was soon noticed by the theatre director Albert Kövessy, who urged him to perform as a sideshow at the 1907 National Exhibition in Pécs. Soon afterwards, Zoli abandoned his apprenticeship at a blacksmith and left his parent's home forever - for a life in the circus. 4/ Image
Zoli re-invented himself as a clown, with unique acts and style: a parody of a boxing-match with a Strong Man, a clumsy cook’s struggle with hungry monkeys, a horseback riding cowboy fighting Indians, a dwarf innkeeper enthusiastically courting a flirtatious giantess... 5/ Image
He soon earned an international reputation as a clown, performing at London's Olympia, Hippodrome, and Queen’s Theatre, at the Moulin Rouge, at St Petersburg's Villa Rodeo, in Latin America and as far afield as South Africa. He became a national celebrity in Hungary. 6/
Zoli's appearances were regularly reported on in the showbiz columns of all the leading Hungarian newspapers. He starred in several silent movies, as well as in some of the famous attractions of interwar Hungary, the Beketow Circus and the Ungarische Lilliputaner Gruppe. 7/ Image
In 1942 the Hungarian authorities promulgated a series of anti-Jewish decrees, which, amongst other things, strictly limited the employment of Jews in artistic professions. As a consequence of this measure, Zoli was fired from his position at Circus Fényes. 8/ Image
Forced to somehow still make a living, the 57 years-old clown self-published an autobiography, "The Great Life of a Small Man". The name Zoli on the cover, not only refers to his short stature, but also denotes the iconic status he enjoyed in Hungary. 9/ Image
Each of the book’s 100 copies, carefully inscribed on the title page "With true love from Zoli", was sold by the author himself, who peddled his book on the streets. Zoli sought to earn his living by bringing joy and laughter to readers amidst increasingly terrible times. 11/ Image
When in March 1944 the German Wehrmacht occupied Hungary, the situation for Jews worsened rapidly. They had to wear yellow stars, many Jewish men were imprisoned, and ghettos were established. Hirsch tried to survive by selling his book, but he was arrested for doing so. 12/
He was also charged with wearing a yellow star that was too small to comply with the Nazi regulations. Ever the clown, the last – heartbreaking - words of his recorded are his joking defense: "I thought, please, a smaller star is enough for a dwarf." 13/ Image
Zoli was imprisoned and soon transported Auschwitz. Since his dwarfism was not of a hereditary or genetic nature, Dr. Mengele (who "collected" dwarfs for experiments) was not interested in him.

Zoli did not survive the camp. He died in the Auschwitz gas chambers in 1944. 14/
The final paragraph of Zoli's book reads:

"I hope that you enjoyed the few stories I had told you, and that you’re all the wiser for them too. And if you come to the circus next time, we’ll meet in person as well...." 15/ Image
".... Until then, please think of me with fondness, because I too think with lots of affection of my young friends.

Good bye.

Zoli."

#YomHashoah #NeverForget 16/ Image

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More from @incunabula

Apr 17
On #YomHashoah: Zvi Kolitz's "Yosl Rakover Speaks to God", set in the last days of the Warsaw Ghetto, a calligraphic manuscript commissioned by a French Jew, with his note on the flyleaf: "To the 26 members of my family who died after deportation 1942-1945". 1/ ImageImage
In "Yosl Rakover", written in Yiddish by Kolitz in 1946 and set In the final days of the Warsaw Ghetto, Rakover, a pious Jew challenges God "And so, my God, before I die, freed from all fear, beyond all terror, [...], I will allow myself to call you to account one last time." 2/ Image
Rakover ends, saying: "I believe in the God of Israel even when he has done everything to make me cease to believe in him" & then, in the seconds before his death: “Sh’ma Yisroel! Hear, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Into Your hands O Lord I commend my soul.” 3/ Image
Read 4 tweets
Apr 1
AN OCCITAN CHARTER

A donation to the Nunnery of St. Pierre-de-Salvétat [Monastère de filles de La Salvetat-les-Montdragon].

Written in Albigensian dialect [langue albigeoise, a local variant of the Languedocien dialect].

La Salvetat-les-Montdragon, Tarn, 7 February 1261. 1/
Salvetat-les-Montdragon. 2/
This Occitan charter first appeared in a Hiersemann catalogue of 1921 and then passed through some distinguished hands, including C.L. Ricketts. But it's stored in an early 20th century (?) folder with a German shelfmark I haven't as yet been able to trace: MS Kast. I No.4. 3/
Read 4 tweets
Apr 1
Runestones can be maps, as well as text. The Ancient Norse used roadside runestones to indicate directions to the nearest church, mead-hall or slaughter-ground. Until the advent of GPS, Swedish motorists still used them on long trips to decide where to stop for lunch.
Of course not all runestones contained useful restaurant directions, but Swedish motoring magazines highlighted those that did, so that motorists could plan their trips accordingly.
As you'd expect, restauranteurs - particular those in remote areas - were keen to get into the act. Here, a local restaurant has rather cheekily posted their carte du jour right next to the runestone.
Read 4 tweets
Mar 31
When we speak of the "Frisian language", we almost always mean West Frisian - but there are two other Frisian language families, North Frisian & East Frisian.

West Frisian has just under half a million speakers, North Frisian has 10000 and East Frisian has about 2000. 1/ Image
West Frisian is spoken in the Dutch province of Friesland. North Frisian is spoken in the German district of Nordfriesland in Schleswig-Holstein. The only surviving variant of East Frisian, Sater Frisian, is spoken in Saterland in the Lower Saxon district of Cloppenburg. 2/ Image
The three Frisian language families are not mutually intelligible. Some linguists consider these three varieties, despite their mutual unintelligibility, to be dialects (or dialect families) of a single Frisian language, whereas others consider them to be separate languages. 3/ Image
Read 12 tweets
Mar 30
Old Prussian - not, as you might expect a Germanic language, but rather a now extinct Baltic one - survives in printed form in three extremely rare Lutheran catechisms printed in Königsberg in 1545, 1545 and 1561 respectively, of which the third is by far the most extensive. 1/
Here is the Lord's Prayer in Old Prussian, from the first of the 3 printed Lutheran catechisms, printed in Königsberg in 1545. 2/
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Read 22 tweets
Mar 26
Abu Bakr Effendi’s "Bayân al-Dîn" written in a modified Arabic script and published in Istanbul in 1877, was the first substantive book printed in the Afrikaans language.

These are, AFAIK, the first ever digitized images of this rare book to have been placed online. 1/
Arabic has been used to transliterate local languages almost everywhere Islam has flourished (as, for the same reasons, has Hebrew).

What's significant about Arabic-Afrikaans though is that its use PREDATED the codification and writing down of Afrikaans by Dutch speakers. 2/
Abu Bakr Effendi's Bayân al-Dîn ['Uiteensetting van die godsdiens' or 'Exposition of the Religion'] was published by the Turkish Ministry of Education in 1877. The Afrikaans transliteration gives a good indication of the pronunciation of the language in the Cape at the time. 3/
Read 18 tweets

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