Life and diary of Anna Frank: Video Game

The life story of Anna Frank whose name became one of the symbols of European Jews’ tragedy during the Nazi time and World War II transformed into video games, one of which was created by young German designer Kira Resari.

That’s how her tragic life looks on a display: Anna is sitting at a table at her shelter in Amsterdam and reading. She needs to go upstairs to bring some potatoes for dinner but she hesitates as it’s dangerous because it’s October 20, 1942. Anna and her family are Jews. Nazis could find them at any time and deport to Germany. “By the example of Anna Frank I wanted people to feel what a person forced to live and interact with six or seven people in a less than 50-square-meters room. Besides, during the game you realize that all your actions have certain and sometimes very serious repercussions because you can’t cancel them,” Resari says. This computer game that only exists as a piIot sample is 25-year-old Kira Resari’s bachelor’s degree work. His teacher gave him the idea. The main moments of Anne Frank’s life story remain unchanged, so it will be impossible to save Anne Frank from deportation. The action develops during one day only. Resari believes that computer games, just like books and films, may touch upon the subjects of the Holocaust and WW2. Swiss publicist Yves Kugelmann, a member of the council of the Anne Frank Foundation, does not quite share his opinion. "We live at an age of technological domination. Ever after the TV appeared people started asking if there was any point in expatiating on this subject and if we have the right to do so. I believe that we have this right. Another problem is how to do this and here a lot of questions remain unanswered." The Swiss publicist believes that it is impossible to communicate the contents of this book in its entirety. "We believe that promoting those events, not only in the case of Anne Frank, is a controversial issue because the equipment is in the limelight anyway. At the same time, the sophistication and the whole point of those texts are lost." Very few people have had a chance to test this game so far, apart from the teachers from Macromedia University for Media and Communication. At present Kira Resari is looking for sponsors. As soon as a sponsor appears the game designer will promote his game as a cultural asset because he says that cultural centres may be interested in his product. Source: Voice Of Russia

Read More........ → October 16, 2013

Confirmed: John F Kennedy did say he was 'a jam doughnut'

Legend has it that US president John F Kennedy made a whopping grammatical gaffe with his iconic declaration "Ich bin ein Berliner" 50 years ago, essentially telling his audience — and the world — "I am a jam doughnut".

The historical lore was that JFK, in his first faltering words of German, was wrong to use the indefinite article "ein" and should have said "Ich bin Berliner" to declare his solidarity with the embattled Cold War city. Not so, says Anatol Stefanowitsch, a Berlin professor of linguistics. "The sentence 'Ich bin ein Berliner' is grammatically absolutely acceptable," he said.  The phrase came up twice in the speech, delivered in Kennedy's broad Boston accent. It was his brainchild and translated into German for him by official interpreters — JFK had written it out phonetically on notecards so he would be understood. Stefanowitsch notes that while "Berliner" is a German word for a filled pastry, the context of Kennedy's declaration made his sentence abundantly clear to the cheering throngs. "The confusion derives from the fact that (in German), you normally express your belonging to a predefined group in a sentence without an article, such as 'Ich bin Student' or indeed 'Ich bin Berliner'," he said. "The sentence 'Ich bin Berliner' is clear and cannot refer to 'doughnuts' because that is not a predefined group," he explained. Stefanowitsch said the construction with the article "ein" is used when a speaker wants to say that he doesn't literally belong to the group, Berliners in this case, but rather wants to express that he has something in common with them. "That is exactly what Kennedy wanted to do — he did not want to claim to actually be a resident of the city of Berlin but rather to say that he shared something with the Berliners, namely their love of freedom," Stefanowitsch said. At the end of his 10-minute address, Kennedy uttered the immortal words: "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner'." So there would have been no blank stares or giggles from the crowd of 450 000 Germans that summer's day? "Kennedy not only delivered a grammatically correct sentence but rather the only sentence that made sense there," Stefanowitsch said. Voice of Russia, iAfrica, Source: Voice Of Russia

Read More........ → July 09, 2013

I was Hitler's food taster, says woman

London: Margot Woelk, now a 95-year-old woman, says she was the "food taster" of Adolf Hitler for more than two years, and had to taste the dictator's food to ensure it was not poisoned. Woelk ate fresh fruit and vegetables including asparagus, peppers and peas, and was one of a dozen women Hitler used to protect himself at his Eastern front headquarters, also known as the "Wolf's Lair", the Daily Mail reported. She was taken there in 1942 when evacuated from Berlin to Gross Partsch -- Parcz in modern-day Poland. Her husband had then gone for fighting. "Of course, I was afraid. If the food had been poisoned, I would not be here today. We were forced to eat it, we had no choice," she said. "Between 11 and 12 o'clock, we had to taste the food, and only after all 15 of us had tried it was it was driven to the headquarters by the SS." "It was all vegetarian, the most delicious fresh things, from asparagus to peppers and peas, served with rice, and salads. It was all arranged on one plate, just as it was served to him," she said. Woelk does not recall tasting any meat, fish or drinks. There was always an hour's delay before Hitler ate his meal so that effects of any poison in the food could be seen in the women. Woelk had to report every day, but was only used when Hitler's personal train was in the station. She lived with her mother-in-law outside the headquarters until an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler's life by Claus von Stauffenberg in July 1944. She was then confined to a school building. When Hitler abandoned the lair in November 1944, an officer helped the woman escape to Berlin. Woelk said she believes the other tasters were shot by the advancing Russians. In 1946, she was reunited with her husband who she had presumed dead. The couple lived together until he died in 1990, the daily said. Source: News-Bullet

Read More........ → February 16, 2013