The first known case of a "modern" letter bomb was the Swedish bombmaker Martin Ekenberg in August 1904. He built a bomb and sent it to a factory owner in Stockholm called Karl Fredrik Lundin. The bomb exploded but nobody was seriously injured. He sent a total of four bombs until 1907 before he was discovered.
There had been many injuries caused by letter bombs. A very famous letter bombmaker is Ted Kaczynski, the so-called "Unabomber", who sent a series of letter bombs between 1978 and 1995, killing three people (all men) and injuring 23. One package, however, exploded onboard an airplane, which could have killed all the passengers and personnel, but it only caused an emergency landing. He stopped sending bombs after the New York Times accepted to publish a text he had written called "Industrial Society and its Future".
Unfortunately for him, his brother recognised the writing style and alerted the police, which ultimately captured Kaczynski and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The bombs were very well made and had no evidence from the sender, but typically of letter bombs, they are too small to case significant damage, and in most cases did not even kill the person who opened the package (this was also the case with Ekenberg, who failed to kill a single person). For this reason, and because most important government departments X-rays packages, the method is not very efficient.
Another
Several government agencies have used letter bombs to target persons outside their jurisdiction. One victim of a letter bomb was German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who was sent a letter bomb by the so-called Stern gang and Israeli politician (and later Prime Minister) Menachem Begin in the 1950s.
Begin's reasons, as he explained, was that Adenauer and all Germans were responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews during the Holocaust, although Adenauer had been imprisoned by the Nazi regime which committed these crimes. The same group also sent several bombs to US President Harry S. Truman. The South African apartheid regime used letter bombs, including to activist Ruth First, who died when opening one in 1982.
Drancy internment camp
Drancy internment camp was a concentration camp in France during its occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II. It was organised in 1941 to collect French Jews and particularly foreign Jews who had escaped to France before the invasion by the Germans. After that, they were put on railroad carts and sent east, to concentration camps, from which most did not return alive. Nearly 70,000 people were rounded up, including resistance fighters, Roma people, and others considered "undesirable". Until 1943, the camp was administered by French police under German supervision. After this, the French were removed and replaced by German SS men led by Alois Brunner, which increased the efficiency of the deportations.
When the camp was liberated in 1944, about 1,500 people remained. Brunner was later tried (in absence) and sentenced to death, but remained at large until his death in 2010.
History of the Jews in Europe
Jews have lived in Europe for thousands of years, and their dispersal and relations with governing authorities and peoples have changed greatly. Originally, in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire, there was a Jewish minority which had varying rights and relations with the Romans. After the Roman-Jewish wars in the first and second centuries and the destruction of the Temple, Jews were expelled from Palestine, which greatly increased their numbers in Europe (and North Africa and Asia). In the Middle Ages, with the spread of Christianity and Christian anti-Semitism, conditions were generally bad, and Jews were forbidden from integrating (mingling) with Christians, working most jobs and were often secluded to particular parts of cities, called ghettos. They were allowed to do certain jobs that Christians were not allowed to, such as lending money to people for interest, which was a necessary part of modern economies but considered foul or bad for Christians. This made several Jews wealthy but also increased resistance and persecutions.
Jews were eventually welcomed in Poland, whose king declared the Statute of Kalisz to protect them. For example, Christians could not testify against Jews for committing crimes, which commonly had led to unjust accusations and punishments. For many Christians, however, this protection increased their resistance. Many Jews, so-called "Ashkenazim", gathered in Eastern Europe because of this, however. In Spainand Portugal under Muslim rule, the so-called Al Andalus period, Jews were generally accepted although they could not take part in the government. After Christian rule was re-established on the Iberian peninsula, Jews were rejected and persecuted if they stayed. Some sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire, which was then relatively tolerant to Jews and Christians and allowed them to have their own courts and laws, as long as they payed taxes and did not resist Ottoman rule.
After the Renaissance and the Early Modern Period, Jews were integrated increasingly and permitted to live openly as Jews in more and more countries. After the French Revolution, France and other European countries affected by French rule through Napoleon I introduced secular laws aimed at abolishing religion in the public sphere and assimilating Jews, i.e. treating them more openly as citizens and members of the public, who could believe whatever they wanted privately and still be members of the community. Other Jews began to discard their religion too, or integrated willingly into the larger community, such as by becoming Christians, like British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's father, Isaac d'Israeli. Many European countries had restrictions on Jews until the 19th and 20th centuries, however, such as banning them from certain professions or holding public offices. Many Jews became prominent scientists or public intellectuals, however, such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein. Only one hundred years before, this would have been impossible.