http://thekomisarscoop.com Reports & Analysis by Investigative Journalist Lucy Komisar Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:39:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 http://thekomisarscoop.com/2009/11/art-tells-the-story-of-politics-in-vibrant-sophisticated-buenos-aires/ http://thekomisarscoop.com/2009/11/art-tells-the-story-of-politics-in-vibrant-sophisticated-buenos-aires/#comments Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:14:55 +0000 Lucy Komisar http://thekomisarscoop.com/?p=2274 http://thekomisarscoop.com/2009/11/art-tells-the-story-of-politics-in-vibrant-sophisticated-buenos-aires/feed/ 0 http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/07/climbing-down-a-coal-shaft-and-up-a-castle-keep-in-wales/ http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/07/climbing-down-a-coal-shaft-and-up-a-castle-keep-in-wales/#comments Fri, 27 Jul 2007 11:47:04 +0000 Lucy Komisar http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/07/27/climbing-down-a-coal-shaft-and-up-a-castle-keep-in-wales/ Seeing how both halfs lived - We were descending a into 300-foot-deep Welsh coal mine, hard hats firmly in place, watches and anything else with batteries removed because the law requires it to prevent a spark that could set off flammable methane gas. Our guide, a former miner, grinned and joked. We laughed nervously. If you want a memorable experience, visiting “The Big Pit,” an hour’s drive north of Cardiff, is high on the agenda!]]> http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/07/climbing-down-a-coal-shaft-and-up-a-castle-keep-in-wales/feed/ 1 http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/05/berlin-sculptures-tell-of-women-who-defied-nazis/ http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/05/berlin-sculptures-tell-of-women-who-defied-nazis/#comments Wed, 09 May 2007 14:32:59 +0000 Lucy Komisar http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/05/09/dramatic-berlin-sculptures-tell-little-known-story-of-women-who-defied-the-nazis/ Protest at Rosenstrasse by non-Jewish women saved their Jewish husbands and sons - In a small park just off Karl Liebnechtstrasse in former East Berlin stands an extraordinary group of reddish pink sculptures called "Block der Frauen," the block of women. German sculptor Ingeborg Hunzinger, an artistic refugee from the Nazis, chiseled them to commemorate an extraordinary event that occurred at that site in February 1943. The Nazis had rounded up some 2500 Jewish men and boys, the husbands and sons of non-Jewish women, and imprisoned them at Rosenstrasse 2-4, the Jewish Community Center to gather them for deportation to death. The women found out where the men had been taken and converged there. From 600 the protests grew to 6,000. The guards pointed machine guns at them and threatened to open fire. The women held their ground. After a week, propagandist Joseph Goebbels, who indicated in his diary that he was worried about the protest’s public relations impact in Germany and abroad, ordered that the Jews with Aryan spouses or parents be released. And then the event seemed to vanish from history. Why didn’t we know about this? Why is it still generally believed that no one could challenge the Nazis and live? ]]> http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/05/berlin-sculptures-tell-of-women-who-defied-nazis/feed/ 1 http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/03/avisit-to-the-kgb-spy-agency-opens-door-to-world-of-secrets/ http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/03/avisit-to-the-kgb-spy-agency-opens-door-to-world-of-secrets/#comments Tue, 27 Mar 2007 14:06:51 +0000 Lucy Komisar http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/03/27/a-visit-to-the-kgb-spy-agency-opens-the-door-to-a-world-of-secrets/ Philby, widow of the British spy. Tatiana knew her through Greene, who had written a preface to Philby's memoir. Rufina, or Rutchka, as Tatiana called her, was disarming, referring to Kim as "the spy" and recounting how they'd met in Moscow when a friend couldn't use a ticket to the U.S. Ice Capades. The couple going with her invited Kim. She recalled how depressed he'd been in his Russian exile until the KGB finally gave him a job--training spies to behave as proper Brits so they'd pass easily in England. I asked if she'd been to the KGB Museum I'd heard about. "I've never been there," she said. "I don't know anything about it. I didn't know there was one." That turned out to be far from the truth.]]> http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/03/avisit-to-the-kgb-spy-agency-opens-door-to-world-of-secrets/feed/ 1 http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/03/where-to-stay-in-london/ http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/03/where-to-stay-in-london/#comments Sun, 25 Mar 2007 18:03:10 +0000 Lucy Komisar http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/03/25/where-to-stay-in-london/ Or you can choose to be in Knightsbridge, Chelsea or Kensington, the trendy areas that are minutes from downtown by tube and have the flavor of an upscale Greenwich Village and Upper West Side. I checked out hotels in each of those neighborhoods.]]> http://thekomisarscoop.com/2007/03/where-to-stay-in-london/feed/ 0