JF Ptak Science Books

The Terrible Situation of Ukrainian "Displaced Persons" at the End of WWII

JF Ptak Science Books  

The pamphlet Plight of Ukrainian DPs : a few typical letters of many being received daily from Europe describing the tragic plight of Ukrainian displaced persons whom the Soviets would forcibly repatriate and doom to enslavement, persecution or death, was published in 1945 or 1946 (but not later than 26 March 1946). It carries a terrific burden over its 31 pages, describes the "plight" of Ukrainian "DPs" at the end of WWII. "Plight" is a very weak word for their situation, as is the term designated them, "DP" or "displaced person". These people--several million of them—from what I understand had been slave laborers, taken by the Nazis in the advance through Central Europe, and sent to work in German factories and fields. Many were theoretically and sub-practically paid a wage, though in general much of that went to providing themselves food and clothing and such that enabled them to work. These people were known as Ostarbeiter (Eastern Laborer), and at the end of the war many were repatriated to their country of origin. Of the 3-5 million Ostarbeiter, about 2.5 million remained alive at war's end, with the vast majority--over 2 million--being from the Ukraine. This pamphlet details some of the terrible accounts of Ukrainians being repatriated to the Soviet Union and being treated as plagued outsiders, criminals, and worse, some simply executed, while hundreds of thousands of others were sent on for "re-education", with many winding up in the Gulags. It was a terrible position to be in--the slave returned home after the war to be treated as a criminal, and slave again.

In general interest I've made digital images of the pamphlet, reproduced in its entirety, below:

A Really, Really Greater New York--Filling in the East River, Redux.

JF Ptak Science Books   Old Post 1470 expanded and updated.  

Eleven years ago on this blog (May 2011) I wrote about the fantastical idea of Dr. T. Kennard Thomson for expanding NYC land and wharf area by reclaiming parts of the NYC harbor and filling in the East River, among many other things.  I came across another pamphlet by Thomson, though this one was almost entirely filled with favorable reviews for his spectacular sci-fi-ish speculations and aspirations.  The newer (1918) pamphlet did offer a part I and part II to the plan--that is listed below following the the first illustration:

And the glorious side-by-side spectacular:

Long ago on this blog I wrote a post on  Herman Soergel's  plan for extending the landmass of the countries around the Mediterranean Sea by damming the straits of Gibraltar, lowering the sea and irrigating the Sahara--an original, interesting but not very good idea, filled with briney cultivation and racial politics. In the past on this blog I've written about other city plans--and in particular, for New York City--that have involved floating Manhattan into the harbor, or filling up large chunks of the Narrows, or floating the city on an enormous anti-gravity platform, and so on. Some of those plans were real, some science fiction, and some were plainly beyond both.  The plan presented above is another monster, but at least this one could work, if not for the doing of it, and the expense. And the will.

But the bottom line, according to the engineer doing the thinking on this project, Kennard Thomson, would supposedly net the city a cool billion dollars after everything was said and done, and that would be 1916 dollars--that was equal to about 5% of the American GDP (!) in 1916, which would be about $400 billion in terms of 2010 GDP.  I'm not sure how Thomson came up with this very big/very round number, though it must have been done for effect--I can just imagine him standing before a smokey room filled with civil engineers talking about his massive plan for enlarging NYC and throwing out the billion-dollar figure, watching the cigars glow red in exhaled disbelief.

Thomson did know what he was talking about--he was a busy (and "leading" according to the NYT) Manhattan civil engineer of stature, working on the Canal Barge and being the principal engineer for the Municipal and Singer buildings, for example--and his project seems to be well within the scope of possibility.  Their sensical aspects however are, well, questionable. 

Here's the story--around 1911, while examining proposals to repair and extend New York's wharves, Thomson came upon the idea--a magnificent, fabulous idea--of adding new wharves by adding new lands to the city.  In short, the overall plan was to fill in the East River (!!) and reclaim the new land for city living,  dam Hell Gate,  construct a New East River (from Flushing to Jamaica Bay),  extend the tip of Manhattan Island from the Battery to within a quarter-mile of Staten Island (!), create a new 40-square-mile island between Sandy Hook and Staten Island, extend the Jersey shoreline, add two new Manhattan-sized appendages to the east shore of Staten Island, and more.  All of this would be connected by various new bridges and roads and tunnels, as well as a 6-track elevated railway that would circumnavigate the city.  The purpose of all of this would be to add 100 miles of new docks, an enormous amount ("50 square miles of reclaimed land") of new land and the capacity for NYC to house 20+ million people, all of which would be worth a billion dollars. 

Thomson really meant "really" in the title for the proposal. There have been reclamation projects undertaken in New York Bay since then of course, and I think that virtually all of what Thomson talked about could be done.  I think it would be a very interesting project for a class of some sort to undertake an estimation of what such a thing would cost today (and I would guess to duplicate the idea in real terms now would take up a sizable chunk of the GDP).  Maybe all of this will make sense at some more future point.