Bernard Storch: Holocaust Survivor, Soldier, and Camp Liberator Part II


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Soviet infantry crossing a river in Poland, 1944: WASHINGTON (VR)-- Andrew Hiller resumes his conversation with Bernard Storch, picking up the story when Storch goes into action on the Eastern Front in WWII. Bernard's first combat mission was a qualifed success, 2,000 soldiers were wounded, but the hill was taken. Shortly thereafter, the Germans forced a retreat. Storch says it is the only time his unit ever retreated. 
Bad water, did however, remove him from the field. Dysentery nearly cost him his life. When he recovered, he re-enlisted and was assigned to an infantry unit where he served for the rest of the war. In 1944, he began the push into Poland before reaching Germany. He helped liberate a number of termination camps, wading through ash that he didn't realize was human remains. He says duty kept him going, but what he saw prevented sleep in those days. "They kept a people overnight in a church believe it or not. They got undressed in that church and we found out later after the fact that they had buses there from the christians that they had German buses, they put the people in the bus naked. I was told seventy people... they put seventy people in the bus and would transport them into an area, I don't know how far, but fifteen minutes away they said and by the time they reached that place everybody in the bus was killed." Source: http://sputniknews.com/
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UK failing children on poverty, education

British children are faring worse than those in many other rich countries in terms of child poverty and alcohol abuse, despite the UK rising to the 16th best country for a child to grow up in, according to a new report from UNICEF. VoR's Nima Green reports on the findings.
Sixteenth place is a considerable improvement on UNICEF’s previous report in 2007 when Britain limped in last, but there are several areas in which Britain is still lagging behind. Study areas: UNICEF looked into five areas, including child poverty, health and safety, education, behaviour and housing conditions. The Netherlands is labelled the best place for a child or teenager to grow up in, along with Finland, Sweden and Germany. Countries at the bottom of this year’s league table include the United States, Romania and Lithuania. However, for Britain, the report shows that children here have worse prospects in life in several areas, including a higher percentage of children living in poverty than other European countries like Slovenia and the Czech Republic. Anita Tiessan, the deputy executive director of UNICEF UK, warns that any further progress is under threat, as the Coalition Government’s welfare cuts begin to bite. Failing children: The UK also has the lowest number of 15-19 year olds in further education of any developed nation - a figure of particular concern to many children’s charities. Chris Wellings, who is the head of policy for Save the Children, said that the UK is failing children and young people in a number of crucial ways. Current figures show that there are 2.3 million children in the UK living in poverty. However, UNICEF’s report uses figures up until 2010, and bases their comparisons on each individual country’s relative median poverty line, which varies considerably across the world. James Browne, a senior economist at the Institute of Fiscal Studies, suggests that the picture might not be so bleak for British children in comparison to other countries in the league table. Improving lifestyle choices: Areas that have seen marked improvement include a falling number of under-15’s using drugs, such as cannabis. Martin Barnes, the CE of Drugscope, said that although 17 per cent of young people report using drugs at least once, the number of young addicts is expected to continue to decline. The UK has also seen a fall in young people who are overweight, from more than 15 per cent to a little over 10 per cent, and more children reported an increase in how satisfied they are in life. But despite the drop in drinking levels, the UK also still had one the highest alcohol abuse rates by young people between the age of 11 and 15, which is said to affect about 20 per cent. Chris Wellings from save the children said that many problems facing young people in the UK stem from a perception of a lack of opportunities particularly in poorer communities. Putting children first: UNICEF’s report argues that the UK needs to prioritise youth services, even in a period of austerity, to try and close the gap on nations that are far out-performing this country, like the Netherlands. It’s not yet clear what the impact of the coalition government’s austerity agenda will be on children’s well-being in the UK, though many economists predict that by 2015 there will be an extra 400,000 children living below the poverty line. Nima GreenSource: Article
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Mobile phones turn 40


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Forty years ago Motorola engineer Martin Cooper made the first mobile phone call by calling a competitor at another telecoms company, telling them he was speaking from "a real cellular telephone". VoR’s Daniel Cinna reports on the legacy of Cooper's first call.
The early days: The first mobile phone was around nine inches long, weighed more than a kilogram and the battery lasted for just 20 minutes, but took 10 hours to charge - quite different from what we are used to today. But 40 years ago today, using the first mobile phone, Motorola engineer Martin Cooper made the first mobile phone call. The recipient? His rivals at AT&T in America, to say that he’d beaten them to the discovery, which paved the way to an £800bn mobile telecoms industry. Unheard-of: Dr Mike Short is from the Institute of Engineering and Technology: “It was absolutely amazing because until then there had been police car to police car type communication. But the idea of calling someone on a landline from a radio device was unheard of. It was a major technical breakthrough in the sense that it was portable, even though it was very heavy, and it was able to allow Martin Cooper to ring his rivals and say ‘how does the call quality sound on this call?’” As the first mobile phones went to market, they were aimed mainly at businessmen; costing over £4,500 just for the handset. Mobile revolution: It wasn’t until the 1990s that mobile phones became smaller and more affordable enough for virtually everyone to own. Matt Warman is Consumer Technology Editor at the Daily Telegraph: “What happened since the first phone call in 1973 has been an even bigger revolution than Martin Cooper envisaged. We have seen mobile phones turn into computers, which in 1973 filled entire rooms. We can also do things with a mobile phone that used to require separate devices. The world that the mobile phone has ushered in was almost unimaginable when it was first invented,” he says. Today most mobiles can access the internet and with the rollout of 4G technology, they can access the World Wide Web at speeds previously reserved for computers. Lifestyle companions: However, mobiles are not just being used for sending text messages and voice calls, but to watch television, read books and magazines – and even to monitor blood pressure. Matt Warman, Consumer Technology Editor at the Daily Telegraph says technology in mobile phones is becoming more integrated into our lives: “GoogleNow is the obvious example. It’s an app which looks at what you’re doing and tries to guess what you want to do next. So if you are standing at a bus stop it will sense where you are, that you are at a bus stop and then show you when the next bus is due. What it will start doing increasingly is things like automically checking in for you when you have booked a flight. It will increasingly be able to guess more accurately what it is you want to do.” Google Glass: Many technology experts also predict the rise of wearable technology like Google Glass. It’s a tiny computer mounted onto a glasses frame which connects to the internet. Google Glass reacts to voice commands from the user and projects displays onto a lens. 'Dick Tracy' watch: But such technology is not just reserved for eyewear. Reports in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, say that Apple is working on a “wristwatch-like device that may perform some of the tasks handled by the iPhone”.Exciting news for technology enthusiasts like Dr Mike Short: “I find that very exciting. I can’t predict what the next 40 years will look like, but we will get more choice in terms of services and devices. The devices will take many forms; whether they are small screen or large screen; wearable or inside a machine. The Dick Tracey watch phone is certainly in reach this year.” Too much choice? Experts say the real revolution will not just be wearable technology, but what services like Google Now, as part of a mobile phone, can do for us. But it’s a controversial move. Many are concerned that such so-called services will result in an invasion of privacy and could, in the long term, stop people thinking for themselves.Daniel CinnaSource: Voice of Russia - UK Edition
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