AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Neighbour municipalities are Kangasala, Lempäälä, Nokia, Pirkkala, Vesilahti, Hämeenkyrö, Orivesi, Pälkäne and Ylöjärvi.
The population of Tampere was 215,144 in 2011.
Tampere was started in 1779. At 1800's, Tampere became to be a notable industrialized city and one of the biggest cities in Finland.
Asikkala
Asikkala is a municipality of Finland. It is in the province of Southern Finland and the region of Päijänne Tavastia. The downtown of Asikkala is called Vääksy. It has a canal, Vääksyn kanava. Asikkala has an area of 756.2 km². 192.29 km² of it is water.
Asikkala is on the coast of the lake Päijänne. As of 31 May 2013, 8,444 people live in the municipality.
Lordi
Lordi is a Finnish heavy metal band, which is famous for their monster costumes and songs like "Would You Love a Monsterman?", "Hard Rock Hallelujah", "Devil Is a Loser", "Blood Red Sandman", "This Is Heavy Metal" and "Sincerely with Love".
Lordi was started in 1992 by Mr. Lordi. Its original members were Mr. Lordi (vocals), Kita (percussion), Amen (guitar), G-stealer (bass) and Enary (keyboards). The first single was "Would You Love a Monsterman?" in (2002). It was also included in the band's album "Get Heavy". Their music and style has been compared to the American groups Kiss and Twisted Sister.
CD-R
A CD-R (also called Compact Disc Recordable) is a compact disc that can be recorded once. When people record a compact disc, they put either music or data on it.
A compact disc that can be recorded multiple times (and erased) is the CD-RW.
When you put data onto a CD, it is called "burning" a disc. A laser "burns" pits into a dye layer on the disc, making them transparent. These transparent pits can later be read back by the CD drive or audio CD player as data or music.
There are three types of dye used in CD-R discs. The most common is phthalocyanine, and it is usually light green. CMC Pro (formerly Taiyo Yuden) uses cyanine dye. It is usually teal or dark green. Verbatim uses phthalocyanine dye on some discs, and AZO dye on others. AZO dye is usually dark blue or blue-ish silver. The metal layer on the disc is usually made of silver. Archival discs and some professional audio discs use a gold top layer. Verbatim UltraLife discs have a silver main layer, and a gold upper protective layer, providing the reflectivity of silver and the chemical stability of gold. Early cyanine discs could decay and become unplayable within a few years. Recent cyanine discs have preservatives added to the dye to prevent this from happening. AZO and phthalocyanine dyes do not need preservatives and do not decay easily.
The Truman Show is a 1998 American comedy-drama movie. It is directed by Peter Weir and was written by Andrew Niccol. The main star of the movie is Jim Carrey.
The movie is about a young man called Truman Burbank who lives in a fictional town called Seahaven. The whole town fits into a dome shape and Truman can be seen all over the world on television. He has been on the reality show since he was born. He was the one out of six unwanted babies to be in the show. He does not realise until later that the town he is living in is made-up. Christof is the creator of the show and some would call him a villain, because of the human rights abuse of Truman. He is in charge of making everything go right and cannot afford to lose Truman.
Krill
Krill are small shrimp-like crustaceans about an inch or so long, found in all the oceans of the world. In areas with nutrients, they occur in huge swarms, with more than 10,000 krill per cubic meter. They feed on phytoplankton and to a lesser extent zooplankton.
Krill are ecologically very important, because they are near the bottom of the food chain. They make up the largest part of the diet of many animals. In the Southern Ocean, one species, the Antarctic krill, "Euphausia superba", makes up an estimated biomass of over , roughly twice that of the human race. They are eaten by many animals, including whales, seals, penguins, birds, fish, squid, and whale sharks. Of this, over half is eaten by each year, and is replaced by growth and reproduction.
Most krill species make large vertical migrations. They are distinguished from other crustaceans such as true shrimp by their externally visible gills.
The order Euphausiacea is divided into two families, Bentheuphausiidae and Euphausiidae. the first has one species, the second has 85 species. Well known species are the Antarctic krill ("Euphausia superba"), Pacific krill ("Euphausia pacifica") and Northern krill ("Meganyctiphanes norvegica").
Except for "Bentheuphausia amblyops", krill are bioluminescent. They have organs called photophores which emit light. The light is made by an enzyme-catalysed chemiluminescence reaction. A luciferin (a kind of pigment) is activated by a luciferase enzyme. Krill probably get this substance as part of their diet, which contains dinoflagellates. Krill photophores are complex organs with lenses and focusing abilities, and can be rotated by muscles. The exact function of these organs is not known. The possibilities include mating, social interaction or as a form of camouflage to compensate for their shadow against the overhead light.
Subaru is a car company that is part of a larger Japanese company called Fuji Heavy Industries, who also makes other things like buses and airplanes. Subaru builds cars in Japan and also builds cars in the state of Indiana.
Their cars are known for having all-wheel drive, which means that the engine drives all four wheels, instead of just the wheels in the front or in the back. They also have boxer engines, which means that the pistons and the cylinders in the engine fire left to right instead of up and down or at an angle.
The name Subaru is a Japanese word for a star cluster in the sky named Pleiades, and the company logo has the stars in its picture in the same place as they are in the sky.
Fuji Heavy Industries in 1954 built a car called the Subaru P-1. It was named by the person who was CEO, Kenji Kita. From 1954 to 1997 the company designed and built other vehicles including the tiny 360 (1958), the Sambar (1961), the 1000 (1965), the R2 (1969), the Leone (1971), the Domingo (1983), the Alcyone (1985), the Legacy (1989), the Impreza (1993), the Sambar EV electric van (1995), and the Forester (1997).
A giraffe ("Giraffa camelopardalis") is a mammal which lives in Africa. Giraffes have an even number of toes and are the tallest land animals. Giraffes and Okapi are the family "Giraffidae," and are the only extant giraffids.
Giraffes have a very long neck and long legs. Giraffes are the tallest land animals on Earth, with necks that can be up to 2-2.4 m (6.6-7.9 ft) in length. Fully grown giraffes stand tall, with males taller than females. The tallest recorded male was and the tallest recorded female was tall. The average weight is for an adult male and for an adult female. Maximum weights of and having been recorded for males and females, respectively. They have a long black tongue, up to 45 cm in length. This they use to wrap around leaves and pull them off trees.
Their fur has a light yellowish tan or off-white colour with brown or russet patches. No two giraffes have the same pattern. The different sub-species have different coat patterns. Both male and female giraffes have small horn-like stumps on their head, which are covered with skin. The horns are called ossicones. These come from the cartilage displaced from their skull as it develops. These are fur-covered bumps on their skulls, unlike the horns of other animals.
Giraffes are found in parts of Africa. They live on the savannah, which is the African grassland, or in light woodland. They do not live in thick forests where it is difficult to see predators (such as lions) approaching.The temperature is normally around 70 degrees. Most giraffes live either in East Africa or in Angola and Zambia in southwestern Africa.
Giraffes eat mostly leaves from tall trees, which they can reach because of their long legs and long necks, as well as fruit. Their rough tongue allows them to eat the acacia leaves protected by thorns. They can go without water for weeks. Like all mammals, giraffes have only seven bones in their necks.
Giraffes live alone or in loose groups. Young male giraffes foa single baby, which is called "calf". Giraffes give birth while standing, so the baby falls down 2 metres. Giraffe calfs are already 2 m tall and weigh 50-55 kg. The calf stays with its mother for 1½ years. Young giraffes become mature when they are 4 years old, and they are fully grown when they are 6 years old. Giraffes can live to 25 years old, and in captivity they can live 35 years.
Giraffes use their feet to kick predators away, and mature male giraffes use their head and necks to fight for dominance at mating time. These long necks, are, in fact, used as a weapon during the male on male intra–sexual battle that is also referred to as a spar. The females, who receive little to no aid from their partners in raising the calves, prefer the males that are victorious. Those with the longer and stronger necks will reproduce more frequently and keep their genes in the giraffe population for longer compared to the males with shorter, weaker necks.
There are about nine different subspecies of giraffe, with only small differences between them. When giraffes of two different sub-species breed, the young are called hybrids (mixed breeds). Of the nine sub-species of giraffe, only one, the Rothchild's, is endangered.
Giant isopod
Giant isopods are big crustaceans that live at the bottom of the ocean. They can grow up to 45 cm long and weigh up to 1.7 kg. Currently about 9 different species are known. Giant isopods usually eat dead whales, fish and squid. They may also be active scavengers, and hunt slow-moving prey, such as sea cucumbers, sponges, nematodes. Perhaps they even catch live fish. They live in depths between 170m to about 2200m. Over 80% can be found between 365 m and 730 m  of depth. They probably prefer a muddy or clay ocean floor environment, and lead solitary lives.
Elementary algebra
Elementary algebra is the most basic form of algebra taught to students. It is often one of the next areas of mathematics taught to students after arithmetic. While in arithmetic only numbers and operators like +, −, ×, and ÷ occur; in algebra, variables (like "a", "x", "y") are used to stand for numbers. This is useful because:
These three are the main strands of elementary algebra. Elementary algebra is often used in many other subjects, like science, business, and building. Abstract algebra, a much more advanced topic, is generally taught late in college.
If an equation has only one number that is unknown it is sometimes easy to solve. The unknown number is called "x":
To solve a simple equation with one unknown amount add, subtract, multiply, or divide both sides of the equation by the same number in order to put the unknown amount, x, on one side of the equation. Once x is by itself on one side, use arithmetic to determine the amount on the other side of the equation. For example, by subtracting 4 from both sides in the equation above:
getting:
Dividing both sides by 2:
It may help to think of this equation as a see-saw or balance, what you do to one side, you must do to the other and your main aim is to get "x" by itself.
formula_10 has the following components:
1 : Exponent (power), 2 : Coefficient, 3 : term, 4 : operator, 5 : constant, formula_11 : variables
Kesälahti
Kesälahti is a municipality in Finland. It is part of the North Karelia region. There are almost 2,700 people living in Kesalahti.
Kesalahti is the southernmost municipality of North Karelia. It was officially founded in 1873. The area of the municipality is 582.67 km². 195.42 km² of it is water.
Kesälahti is advertised as a popular summer destination for families enjoying camping. The Puruvesi lake shores host three active camping grounds with cabins,¨and tent and trailer lots to let. The name of the municipality can be translated as 'summer bay'.
The current mayor is Jorma Turunen.
Hummovaara, Kesälahti (centre), Marjoniemi, Purujärvi, Salokylä, Sarvisalo, Suitsansaari, Totkunniemi, Varmonniemi, Villala
Eckerö
Eckerö is a municipality in the Åland Islands, Finland. As of March 2006, there are 926 people living in Eckerö.
Eckerö is the westernmost municipality of Finland. Mariehamn, the capital of Åland, is located 35 km away. 95 % of the people in Eckerö speak Swedish as their first language.
Utsjoki
Utsjoki is a municipality in Lapland, Finland. Utsjoki is the only municipality in Finland where most people speak Sami as their first language.
As of February 2005, 1,373 people lived in Utsjoki. The municipalities next to it are Inari in Finland and Karasjok, Tana and Nesseby in Norway. Nuorgam in Utsjoki is the northernmost village in Finland and the European Union.
In the Northern Sami language, the municipality is known as "Ohcejohka".
Savitaipale
Savitaipale is a Finnish municipality in the South Karelia region. As of January 2014, more than 3,700 people lived in Savitaipale.
Savitaipale has an area of 690.78 km². 151.63 km² of it is water. The municipality is on the coast of the Lake Kuolimo. Helsinki is 220 km away. Neighbouring municipalities are Kouvola, Lemi, Luumäki, Mikkeli, Mäntyharju, Puumala and Taipalsaari. The municipality was established in 1639.
Havola, Hyrkkälä, Jokeinmaa, Kaihtula, Karhula, Kaskeinkylä, Kaulio (Kauliala), Kokkola, Korhola, Korpela, Koskeinkylä, Kuivanen, Kunttula, Kurhila (Järviä), Kylliälä, Kärpänen, Laksiainen, Lamminpää, Luotola, Luotolahti, Lyytikkälä, Marttila, Monola, Niinimäki, Paukkula, Peltoinlahti, Pettilä, Purtoismäki, Pöntylä, Rahikkala, Rantala, Ratasalo, Savitaipale, Solkeinkylä, Susivuori, Säänjärvi, Tukiala, Uiminniemi, Valkolanmäki, Virmajärvi, Välijoki
Vantaa () is the fourth largest city in Finland (after Helsinki, Espoo and Tampere). It is part of the Greater Helsinki area. The most important parts of Vantaa are Tikkurila, Hakunila, Koivukylä, Korso, Martinlaakso and Myyrmäki. Tuusula, Kerava, Sipoo, Helsinki, Espoo and Nurmijärvi are neighbour communities and cities of Vantaa.
Vantaa has been a city since 1974. As of April 2014, the population was about 208,800. The current mayor is Juhani Paajanen.
The biggest airport in Finland, Helsinki-Vantaa, is in Central Vantaa.
Finnish and Swedish are the official languages of Vantaa. In 2006 Swedish was the mother language of 3.1 percent of population of Vantaa.
Karstula
Karstula is a municipality in Central Finland. More than 4,900 people live in Karstula.
Karstula is located 100 kilometres from the city of Jyväskylä. The municipality was founded in 1867.
The municipalities next to it are Kannonkoski, Kivijärvi, Kyyjärvi, Saarijärvi and Soini.
Karstula, Oinoskylä, Kiminki, Rantakylä, Vahanka, Vastinki, Kangasaho, Humppi and Aho-Vastinki.
Dimmu Borgir
Dimmu Borgir is a black metal band created in 1993 in Norway. Its name is Icelandic for a "dark castle".
The band's first recordings were in Norwegian, but today, most of the recordings are in English. The newest studio album is "Abrahadabra" (2010). The studio album "In Sorte Diaboli" (2007) entered the Norwegian album chart at No. 1 — the first time a black metal band has ever got to the No. 1 position on a national album chart anywhere in the world. Dimmu Borgir's previous release, "Death Cult Armageddon", as well as Satyricon's "Now, Diabolical" previously reached No. 2 position on the Norwegian album chart.
A week after "In Sorte Diaboli" reached No. 1 on the Norweigan album charts, the album attained No. 43 on The Billboard 200, making them the first Norwegian band since the 80's pop group 'A-HA' to enter the U.S. Top 50.
"In Sorte Diaboli" features the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Strangely, the album has been banned by the UK album charts for questionable reasons.
Kuru or Kurus may be:
Sonata Arctica
Sonata Arctica is a Finnish power metal band founded in 1996 in Kemi.
The band's original name was Tricky Beans. After releasing three demo recordings it was changed into Tricky Means. Afterwards the band adopted its current name.
Before they became as famous and popular as they are, they got attention from metal fans for touring and playing with the band Nightwish.
Sonata Arctica's first music album was "Ecliptica". It was released on November 1999 in Finland and elsewhere in 2000. 30,000 copies were sold in Japan. The newest studio recording is
"Stone grow her name" (2012).
A carpet is a rectangular piece of woven textile.
Generally, carpets are used to make spaces more beautiful and to make walking on the floor quieter. Carpets are warmer and softer than hard floors such as hardwood, tile, or concrete. Carpets may be many different sizes. Rugs and carpets originated in Central Asia, but the idea of machine manufacture was invented in Europe. The oldest known carpet was found in the year of 1947 at excavations in Siberia. So there are two different kinds of things: one is hand-made by traditional methods, and the other woven by machine. This accounts for the very great difference in style and price between traditional rugs and modern wall-to-wall carpeting.
The name "carpet" comes from Old Italian carpita, "carpire" means to pluck. The term "carpet" is used mostly to describe textiles placed on the floor most of the times stretched from wall to wall.
Rugs are smaller in size, often placed over a carpet, and often decorated. In Islam, rugs are used as prayer mats, for people to kneel on when they pray.
It is common, especially in the Middle East, for rugs and carpets to be used as wall decoration, and they are designed with decoration in mind. Mass-manufactured carpets in western countries are utilitarian: for hard use on the floor, and usually self-coloured (that is one color over the whole carpet). Traditional rugs from the Middle East are hand-made and may be very expensive by the time they reach shops in the western world.
In some countries carpets are designed in a way to tell stories. They can tell history of family or something important that happened.
Digon
In geometry, a digon is a polygon with two sides (edges) and two vertices. Its construction is degenerate in a Euclidean plane because either the two sides would coincide or one or both would have to be curved; however, it can be easily visualised in elliptic space.
A regular digon has both angles equal and both sides equal and is represented by Schläfli symbol {2}. It may be constructed on a sphere as a pair of 180 degree arcs connecting antipodal points, when it forms a lune.
The digon is the simplest abstract polytope of rank 2.
A truncated "digon", t{2} is a square, {4}. An alternated digon, h{2} is a monogon, {1}.
A great circle the largest possible circle that can be drawn on a sphere, one that divides the surface into equal halves, called hemispheres. It is a circle that has the same diameter as the sphere it was drawn on. These curves are geodesics in the sphere and all have the same circumference, that is, the length of the circle.
There are an infinite number of great circles that can be drawn on any perfect sphere. The longitude lines on a globe all form great circles that pass through the same two points (the North Pole and the South Pole). The Equator is another great circle.
Great Circles can be used to determine the shortest surface distance between two points on a sphere (or on the earth).
A straight line from plane Euclidean geometry corresponds to a Great Circle in non-Euclidean spherical geometry.
John Dalton (6 September 1766–27 July 1844) was a British chemist and physicist. He was born in Cumberland to a Quaker family. He is best known for his discoveries in atomic theory. He also made the first important studies of color blindness.
Dalton's Atomic theory is a scientific theory about atoms. Dalton made the theory to explain why the elements would combine in certain ways The idea of atoms was already known at the time, but not widely accepted. Dalton's theory of atoms was based on actual observation. Before this, ideas about atoms were based more on philosophy.
His theory stated that:
Kauniainen
Kauniainen () is a city in Uusimaa, Finland. It is part of the Greater Helsinki area. Kauniainen has an area 6.0 km² and is fully located within Espoo.
Kauniainen has the lowest local taxation rate in Finland (16,5 %). A lot of rich people live there.
Kauniainen was officially founded in 1920. It became a city in 1972. There are about 8,550 people living in Kauniainen. Most of them (57 %) speak Finnish as their first language. 39 % have Swedish as their mother tongue.
Kauniainen has very good bus and train connections. There is a railway station. Many buses drive through Kauniainen.
Nummi-Pusula
Nummi-Pusula is a former municipality in Finland. It was formed in 1981 from the existing municipalities of Nummi and Pusula. The municipality is in Uusimaa and in the province of Southern Finland. On 1 January 2013, it became a part of Lohja.
Nummi-Pusula has an area of . of it is water. About 6,175 people lived there as of 31 December 2012.
Medicine man
A medicine man is a traditional Native American healer. Healing was only part of their function. Another part of their role was as guardian of their belief system, and their rituals.
A very similar role was played in many other mesolithic and neolithic societies, such as pre-modern Africa and New Guinea. This person, man or woman, might help cure physical, mental, or spiritual health problems. A term such as shaman or witch doctor reflects the supernatural element in such roles.
The basement is the lowest room in some buildings, almost always below the ground. There is another type of basement, called a subcellar. A subcellar is just like a basement, but more below it.
Most basements have lights.
The first famous basements were made sometime in the 1950s. After that, many other kinds of basements were built and made. Later, most basements were used to have washing machines and other items in basements.
Soon, basements were used to contain or save water.
A landfill is a place where waste is kept. Waste is usually buried in landfills, but it may first be sorted to remove any recyclable materials.
Landfills have a bad smell and look bad, therefore are usually located far away from where people live.
Once the waste is crushed into very small pieces, it is buried, but without oxygen, a dangerous gas called methane is created. This process is called anaerobic digestion. In some countries, the methane from landfills is used to generate energy.
Roosevelt Regional Landfill, Roosevelt, Washington.
Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site, Aurora, Colorado.
Columbia Ridge Landfill, Arlington, Oregon.
Pine Tree Acres, Lenox, Michigan.
Human reproductive system
A reproductive system is the part of an organism that makes them able to sexually reproduce. Humans and other animals use their reproductive systems to have sexual intercourse as well as reproduce. The reproductive system is one of the human organ systems.
The illustrations here show only human reproductive systems. Other mammals have similar reproductive systems.
The rectum is a part of the large intestine which forms a part of the gastrointestinal system. The rectum ends in the anus which is the end of the gastrointestinal system. It is where feces or stools are stored temporarily before coming out of the anus.
Body temperature can also be taken in the rectum. Rectal temperature can be taken by inserting a medical thermometer not more than 25 mm (1 inch) into the rectum via the anus. Normal rectal temperature generally ranges from 36 to 38 °C (97.6 to 100.4 °F) and is about 0.5 °C (1 °F) above oral (mouth) temperature and about 1 °C (2 °F) above axilla (armpit) temperature.
County seat
A county seat is the location of a county government, and is usually the largest, oldest, or most central town or city within a county. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the name county town is used rather than county seat.
In the U.S. state of Louisiana, counties are called parishes and have parish seats rather than county seats; while in Alaska, counties are called boroughs and have borough seats.
Pacific Islands
Pacific Islands are islands that are in the Pacific Ocean. There are about 20,000 or 30,000 of them. These islands are sometimes called Oceania. The Pacific Islands are in three groups. These groups are Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. People who live on these islands are called Pacific Islanders. These islands can be made by volcanoes or made on coral reefs. The islands made by volcanoes are bigger, and more people can live on them. The islands made on coral reefs are smaller, and fewer people can live on them. One of Oceania's biggest economic advantages are tourism. As many vacationers come to see the wildlife and the beautiful beaches that span the islands. Major countries and territories include Samoa, Hawaii (U.S), Federal States of Micronesia and French Polynesia.
Island countries in the Pacific Ocean, such as Malaysia, Philippines, East Timor, Japan, Taiwan and most of Indonesia are not considered Pacific Islands since they do not lie in any of the three Oceanic regions. People inhabiting those islands, therefore are not Pacific Islanders.
Large intestine
The large intestine is also called the colon or large bowel. It connects the small intestine to the rectum and anus. It is about 1.5 meters long or 5 feet. It is shorter than the small intestine, but its diameter is larger.
Water is absorbed here and the remaining waste material is stored as faeces before being removed by defecation.
Joensuu
Joensuu is a city in Finland. It is the centre of the region of North Karelia. Joensuu has an area of 2.751,13 km² and a population of 73,076 people. 369.3 km² of the area is water.
The Finnish capital, Helsinki is located 437 km away from Joensuu. There is a university in Joensuu.
The municipalities of Tuupovaara and Kiihtelysvaara were merged with Joensuu on January 1 2005.
Tuupovaara
Tuupovaara was a municipality in the North Karelia region of Finland. It was merged with Joensuu on January 1 2005. Before 1913 the place was known as Kovero.
In 2004 there were 2,217 people living in Tuupovaara.
Eimisjärvi, Hartiovaara, Heinäaho, Herajärvi, Hoilola, Kinnasniemi, Kokinvaara, Konnunniemi, Kortevaara, Kovero, Luutalahti, Mannervaara, Pirttijärvi, Revonsonkaja, Saarivaara, Sonkajanranta, Tuupovaara, Öllölä
Urine is a liquid created by the body in the kidneys. It is stored in the bladder and comes out of the human body through the urethra, a tube which leads from the bladder to the urethral meatus ("meatus" is an opening in the body), at the tip of the penis (men) or the vulva (women). Urinating is how the body gets rid of unwanted or unneeded substances in the blood. Urine is the liquid that these substances are put in. After the blood has circulated through the body, its composition has changed, because some substances in the blood have been absorbed by the body, and because the body has released other substances into the blood. The blood has also absorbed substances produced from our food. The liver removes many toxins (harmful substances) and adds other substances that the blood needs (amino acids, proteins, coagulation factors, hormones, etc.). Then the kidneys remove excess amounts of urea, salts, etc. by putting them into the urine. After the blood has passed through the liver and the kidneys, it has the correct composition that the body needs.
Urine is mostly water, and contains mineral salts, and about 2% urea, which is produced in the liver to remove ammonia, which is a very toxic substance. Urea has a very low toxicity, although a continuous high level of urea in the blood (a condition called hyperuremia) can cause disease.
The color of urine normally ranges from colourless to yellow. The yellow color is caused by urobilins, which are produced by the breakdown of hemoglobin, the substance that gives blood its red color. If a person is dehydrated, less urine will be produced (maybe less than one liter per day), and it will be more concentrated. If a person drinks a lot of water, more urine will be produced (maybe as much as two liters per day) and it will be less concentrated.
Urine lets the body get rid of:
Some slang terms for urine are "pee" and "piss".
Rudolf Vrba
Rudolf "Rudi" Vrba (September 11, 1924 - March 27, 2006), was a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia in Canada. His birth name was Walter Rosenberg. In April 1944, he escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp. After escaping, he passed information to the Allies who were fighting the Axis Powers during the Second World War. He informed the authorities about the mass murder that was taking place at the camp.
Joel Brand
Joel Brand (1907 – 1964) was a Jew from Hungary. He helped to save many lives of Jews of Hungary from death. He saved them from being sent to Nazi Germany’s death camp at Auschwitz concentration camp.
Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz was a group of concentration camps run by Nazi Germany during World War II. There were three large camps at Auschwitz, and 3 smaller ones. Auschwitz I was the main camp, which held prisoners from 1940-1945. Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was the largest extermination camp (death camp) run by Nazi Germany during The Holocaust. Auschwitz III (Monowitz) and the subcamps were forced labor camps where prisoners worked as slaves. These camps were established because there were too many Polish prisoners and not enough room in "local" prisons to hold them in.
The Auschwitz camps were in a town in Poland called Oświęcim. ("Auschwitz" is the German name for "Oświęcim.") In German, Auschwitz was called Konzentrationslager Auschwitz (KZ Auschwitz), which means "Auschwitz concentration camp."
The "Schutzstaffel" (SS), led by Heinrich Himmler, ran the death camps and concentration camps in Nazi Germany.
No one knows exactly how many people were sent to Auschwitz, or how many died there. However, historians estimate that between 1940 and 1945, the Nazis sent at least 1.3 million people to Auschwitz. About 1.1 million of these people died or were killed at Auschwitz.
Extermination camps were different from concentration camps. Starting in 1940, the Nazis built about 150 concentration camps and many more sub-camps. However, there were only six extermination camps in Nazi Germany, all in eastern Europe:
In extermination camps, almost everyone was killed right after they got to the camps. The Nazis killed about 3.0-3.5 million people in these death camps. 90% of them were Jewish people.
Every day, Nazi authorities brought many prisoners to Auschwitz on trains. The camp's SS doctors separated these prisoners into three groups. This was called "selection." Selection was how the SS decided which of Auschwitz's camps each prisoner would go to.
Most prisoners sent to Auschwitz were selected for death. This means the SS decided they should be killed right away. Usually, the SS put all children, most women, all elderly people, people who looked sick, and people who looked like they could not work in this group. SS guards brought these people right to Auschwitz's gas chambers and killed them with poison gas. They used a form of hydrogen cyanide, a type of poison gas called a blood agent. They called this poison gas Zyklon B. This gas was a very efficient way of killing the prisoners, and could kill everyone exposed to it within 20 minutes.
Primo Levi, a prisoner who survived Auschwitz, later wrote about what selections were like:
"In less than ten minutes all the fit [healthy] men had been collected together in a group. [I]n [the SS guards'] rapid and summary choice each one of us had been judged capable or not of working usefully for the [Third] Reich... [W]e know that of our [group] no more than ninety-six men and twenty-nine women entered the [camps], and that of all the others, more than five hundred in number, not one was living two days later…"
"Thus in an instant, our women, our parents, our children disappeared. We saw them for a short while as an obscure mass at the other end of the platform; then we saw nothing more."
The SS selected some strong, healthy people to be slave workers. They worked at Auschwitz I; at an IG Farben factory at Auschwitz III; and at munitions factories in the sub-camps. Records say that between 1940 and 1945, about 405,000 people worked as slave laborers, and about 84% of them (340,000) died.
Oskar Schindler, a German business owner, saved about 1,000 Jews from Poland. He sent them away to his factory, and these Jews lived.
SS officials chose a third group of people they could use for special jobs or medical experiments. For example:
Kapos and "Sonderkommandos" made it possible for a small number of SS guards to control tens of thousands of prisoners at Auschwitz. Altogether, about 7,000 SS members worked at Auschwitz.
Auschwitz I was the office for all of the camps in the Auschwitz complex.
The Nazis kept prisoners at Auschwitz from 14 June 1940 until 27 January 1945.
The first prisoners at Auschwitz I were 728 people from Poland. One of these prisoners was Kazimierz Albin. He survived Auschwitz. Later, he wrote about how the first day at Auschwitz began:
"[W]e had to line up in five rows... [SS guard] Frizsch announced: "This is Auschwitz Concentration Camp... Any resistance or disobedience will be ruthlessly punished. Anyone disobeying superiors, or trying to escape, will be sentenced to death. Young and healthy people don't live longer than three months here. Priests one month, Jews two weeks. There is only one way out—through the crematorium chimneys.""
Next were 48 homosexual men from Germany. Then Jews arrived as prisoners.
From 1940-1941, at any time, there were between 13,000 and 16,000 prisoners in Auschwitz I. By 1942, there were 20,000. Most of these prisoners were not Jewish, because most of the Jewish prisoners were sent to Auschwitz II.
At Auschwitz, the prisoners had to put marks on their uniforms to show why they were sent to Auschwitz. For example, Jewish prisoners had to sew two yellow triangles onto their clothes, in the shape of a Star of David. Homosexual people had to sew a pink triangle onto their clothes. The SS also gave each prisoner a serial number and tattooed the number on the prisoners' bodies. The SS never called prisoners by their names, only by their numbers.
The living conditions at Auschwitz I were very bad. Prisoners got very little food. There was no sanitation, which made it easy for diseases to spread. Many prisoners died from diseases, starvation, and freezing to death.
On Sundays, the prisoners had to clean their barracks, and were allowed to shower.
The SS built many types of rooms meant to punish and torture prisoners. These included:
Sometimes, the SS would tie a prisoner's hands behind his back and hang him by his wrists. This would break the person's shoulder joints. The SS would leave prisoners hanging like this for hours or days, sometimes until the prisoners died.
The SS also hung some prisoners by the neck, so they would die a slow and painful death.
The SS tried killing prisoners with Zyklon B for the first time at Auschwitz I, on 3rd September 1941.
In their first test, the SS used Zyklon B on 600 prisoners of war from the Soviet Union and about 250 Polish people. When the gas killed these prisoners, the SS realized that they could kill people much more quickly with Zyklon B than they could by shooting them. They built a gas chamber, where they could kill over 700 people at a time. They also built a crematorium in block 11 of the camp.
From 1941 to 1942, the SS killed about 60,000 people in this gas chamber. After 1942, they made the gas chamber an air-raid shelter for the SS to hide in if Allied planes were dropping bombs nearby.
Today, the gas chamber still exists. It has been re-built, using its original parts. Now, it is a part of the museum at Auschwitz.
On 26th March 1942, the SS sent the first women prisoners to Auschwitz.
From about March 1941 to January 1945, Nazi Dr. Carl Clauberg did medical experiments on many women at Auschwitz. He wanted to find a way to sterilize millions of people as easily and quickly as possible. He tried using X-rays, surgery, and medications to sterilize women prisoners. The Nazis' plan was to get rid of everyone who was not "Aryan." As part of this plan, the Nazis sterilized many people so they could not have children who were not "Aryan."
In 1943, Heinrich Himmler ordered the SS to create a brothel in Auschwitz. Non-Jewish women prisoners were forced to work in the brothel. Prisoners who were important to the Nazis, like kapos and chefs, were allowed to use the brothel as a reward. Heinrich Himmler also ordered homosexual prisoners to visit the brothel every week. He thought this would 'cure' them of being homosexual.
Johanna Langefeld, Maria Mandel, and Elisabeth Volkenrath were in charge of the women prisoners at Auschwitz.
Criminal Joseph Mengele did medical experiments on many prisoners, especially twins, dwarves, and people with physical disabilities. All of these experiments were very crude and painful. For example, Mengele castrated some prisoners without using any anesthetics. Many women and men died during these experiments.
Mengele was also in charge of Auschwitz's camp "hospital." This was not like a regular hospital. Prisoners who were doctors, like Gisella Perl, worked there. They tried to help prisoners who were sick or hurt, but they had no medications or medical supplies, not even clean bandages or running water. If patients did not get better quickly, Mengele sent them to the gas chambers, or Nazi doctors killed them by injecting them with phenol.
Auschwitz II was Auschwitz's death camp. It was also called Birkenau (pronounced "BEER-kin-now"), which means "the birch wood" (forest). Today, Birkenau is often just called "Auschwitz."
The Nazis began building Auschwitz II in October 1941, because Auschwitz I was getting too crowded. By this time, Adolf Hitler had decided to kill all of the Jewish people. The Nazis called this plan the "Final Solution." Soon after it was built, Heinrich Himmler ordered Auschwitz II to be used as a killing center. Its goal would be to kill every prisoner that was sent there.
Auschwitz II had four gas chambers. The Nazis made the gas chambers look like showers. They convinced prisoners that they were going into the gas chambers to shower. Then they dropped Zyklon B into the gas chambers and killed everyone inside. The dead bodies were burned to ashes in Auschwitz II's four crematoria.
Auschwitz II was the largest death camp run by Nazi Germany during The Holocaust. The SS killed more people at Auschwitz than in any of the other Nazi death camps. The SS built Auschwitz II's gas chambers so that 2,000 people could fit inside at once. This meant they were able to kill about 2,000 people every 30 minutes in the gas chambers.
Auschwitz III was also called Monowitz (pronounced "MOW-no-vitz"). At Monowitz and the 48 subcamps around it, prisoners worked as slaves in the IG Farben factory and factories that made weapons for the German Army.
The IG Farben factory at Monowitz opened in 1941. By October 1942, prisoners had been forced to build the Monowitz camp, so slave workers could live there. IG Farben paid for the camp to be built. This made Monowitz the first concentration camp in history to be paid for and built by a private company.
Between 1941 and 1945, about 35,000 prisoners worked at the IG Farben factory. Seven out of every ten of these prisoners (about 25,000) died from starvation, disease, and being forced to work so hard. The average prisoner lived for only three months after being sent to Monowitz.
Managers at the IG Farben factory were always trying to make the prisoners work harder. Often they threatened prisoners by saying they would be sent to the gas chambers if they did not work harder. Every month, 20% of the slave workers at the factory (one out of every five) died or were sent to the gas chambers.
Until the summer of 1943, Rudolf Höss was the commander of Auschwitz. After him, Arthur Liebehenschel and Richard Baer became commanders of the camp.
After World War II, Höss wrote an autobiography. He gave many details about Auschwitz's camps. At the Nuremberg Trials, he received the death penalty. He was hanged in front of the crematorium at Auschwitz I.
By 1943, many resistance groups had formed inside Auschwitz's camps. These were groups who tried to fight back against the Nazis, any way they could.
Resistance groups helped some prisoners to escape from Auschwitz. These people brought information to the world about the killings happening at Auschwitz.
However, if one prisoner escaped, the SS killed many other prisoners. Sometimes, they brought the escaped prisoners' family members to Auschwitz. The SS did these things so that other prisoners would not try to escape. Overall, about 700 prisoners tried to escape from Auschwitz's three different camps. Of these 700, about 300 were able to escape.
Some of the "Sonderkommando" at Auschwitz fought back against the SS. For example, in 1944, some of the "Sonderkommando" at Auschwitz blew up one of the camp's crematoria.
Also in 1944, members of the "Sonderkommando" secretly took pictures inside Auschwitz. These are the only pictures that show the mass murder that was happening at Auschwitz. Members of the Polish resistance helped sneak the photographs out of the camp.
The Allies got some information about Auschwitz's camps between 1941 and 1944. However, they did not believe that so many people were being killed at Auschwitz. Then two people, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, escaped from Auschwitz. They wrote reports about what was happening at Auschwitz. From these reports, Allied leaders learned the truth about Auschwitz in the middle of 1944.
During 1944, Allied airplanes had taken some photographs of the area, including Auschwitz. However, no one studied these photographs. The first time anyone looked at these photos carefully was in the 1970s.
At one time, the Allies had planned to bomb the camps. However, they decided not to, because they did not want to kill any prisoners. In fact, some planes dropped bombs at nearby military targets. One bomb fell on the camp. It killed 315 prisoners and hurt 1425 more.
People still argue about what the Allies could have done to save more of the prisoners at Auschwitz.
By late 1944, the Red Army was close to Auschwitz. The SS blew up the gas chambers at Birkenau to hide what they had done. They also destroyed many other buildings and records. On 17th January 1945, the camps' SS guards started to leave Auschwitz. They forced more than 58,000 prisoners to march west to the cities Gliwice or Wodzilaw. At the arrival of these cities they were transported by trains to concentration camps in Germany. They left behind only those who could not march. About 38,000 prisoners died on the forced march.
On 27th January 1945, the soldiers in the Red Army's 322nd Infantry reached Auschwitz. They found and freed about 7,500 prisoners.
Nobody knows exactly how many people died at Auschwitz, or other Nazi camps. The SS kept records, but they destroyed most of them.
Historians have used many different ways of estimating how many people died at Auschwitz. For example, they have studied what witnesses at the Nuremberg Trials said. Some people who survived Auschwitz also helped to estimate how many people died there.
Still, many different people and governments have disagreed about this:
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum says that these are "the best estimates of the number of victims" at Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945:
A few years after World War II ended, the government of Poland decided to rebuild Auschwitz and put a museum there. They repaired some of the camps. Sometimes they made very small changes from the original setup.
The museum has many parts and exhibits. They include:
In 1947, the museum was opened for the public. Later, people scattered the ashes of Auschwitz's victims between the huts where the prisoners lived. They see the entire area as a gravesite.
In 1979, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Association (UNESCO) made Auschwitz a World Heritage Site.
Also in 1979, Polish Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass at Auschwitz II.
In the 1980s, Pope John Paul II made two people who were killed at Auschwitz into Catholic saints:
In 2005, the United Nations made 27 January the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. They chose 27 January because it is the day that the Red Army freed Auschwitz.
On 27 January 2005, the European Parliament marked the anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation with a minute of silence. The European Parliament also passed a resolution saying that the murder of about 1.5 million people at Auschwitz's camps was terrible. The Parliament said they passed the resolution partly because of “the disturbing rise in antisemitism, and especially antisemitic incidents, in Europe, and for learning anew the wider lessons about the dangers of victimizing people on the basis of race, ethnic origin, religion, social classification, politics or sexual orientation."
After World War II, the communist governments of the Soviet Union and Poland put up a memorial sign at Auschwitz. The sign said 4 million people died at Auschwitz. After the fall of the communist government in Poland in 1989, the sign was changed to say that 1.1 million people died there. People who try to deny the Holocaust use this difference to claim that the Holocaust was propaganda. However, the Holocaust is a fact of history, and the SS killed at least 1.1 million people at Auschwitz.
Starting in 1989, the Polish government and media argued that it was not fair to use the name "Polish death camps" to describe the Auschwitz camps. They said this name made it seem like Poland ran the death camps. In fact, Nazi Germany had taken over Poland, and the Nazis ran the death camps. In 2006, the Polish government asked UNESCO to change the name of the World Heritage Site at Auschwitz. They wanted UNESCO to change the name from "Auschwitz Concentration Camp" to "Former Nazi German Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau". The Polish government thought this would avoid misleading the public and would show that Nazi Germany ran the camp, not Poland. In 2007, UNESCO agreed, and changed the site's name to "Auschwitz Birkenau: German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)."
The Polish government had allowed filming at the sites for two movies, and a TV series. However, in some cases, they did not allow filming inside the camps. In February 2006, Poland refused visas to some researchers from Iran who wanted to visit Auschwitz. They did this because the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has denied the Holocaust, and even said that it is "a myth."
In 1984, the Carmelites opened a convent near Auschwitz I. Jewish groups protested, and the Carmelites removed the convent in 1993.
In 1987, after Pope John Paul II beatified Edith Stein, Catholic people put up a cross near the gas chamber. After some time, a Star of David appeared at the site. Many religious symbols appeared. Finally, people removed all of them.
In 1988, the Carmelites put up an 8-meter (26-foot) tall cross outside block 11 at Auschwitz. Jewish groups protested, saying that most of the people killed at Auschwitz were Jewish. By 1998, 300 smaller crosses had appeared. Finally, people removed the smaller crosses. However, the larger cross is still there.
Savukoski
Savukoski (Inari Sami: Suovâkuoškâis, Northern Sami: Suovvaguoika) is a Finnish municipality in the Province of Lapland. As of 2005, 1,326 people lived there. The area is 6,496.64 km². The municipality was founded in 1916.
Nearby municipalities are Pelkosenniemi, Salla and Sodankylä. The villages in Savukoski include Kuosku, Martti, Nousu, Seitajärvi, Savukoski, Tanhua, Lunkkaus, Viitaranta, Värriö, Rovala and Ruuvaoja.
Employers: Metsähallitus, Veljekset Karjalainen and Metsänhoitoyhdistys. In 1967, phosphorus was found in the area. It is planned to open a phosphorus mine after 2015.
One third of area is national parkland: Urho Kekkonen National Park, Värriö Strict Nature Reserve and Maltio Strict Nature Reserve.
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Friedrich Dürrenmatt (January 5, 1921 in Konolfingen, canton of Bern; † December 14, 1990 in Neuchâtel) was a writer and philosopher from Switzerland.
Dürrenmatt was the son of a protestant pastor. He was always interested in drawing. He went to school until 1941, afterwards he studied philosophy, sciences (deep point physics) and German literature at the University of Bern. He dropped studies in 1946, when he published his first written work.