A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 2 July 2024 - T for books, Polish heroes, the South of France and Second on the 2nd.

 

Hello lovely ladies,

How are you all? I have arrived back home on Friday and it has taken until today, to feel a bit human again. I was sooo tired.

I have a postcard & stamp for you, a little more about my travels (France) and a 'Second on the 2nd', so, are you sitting comfortably?

My postcard today comes from Poland:

A still-life ( if I can call it that) with books. I have put in my Postcrossing profile that I love books, so here we are.

The stamps are interesting:

I have written about Jerzy Iwanov-Szajnovicz before (stamp top-right) but I will again as it is such a fascinating story.

 Skip it if you've read it already or if you aren't interested.

Wikipedia writes:

Jerzy Iwanow-Szajnowicz was born in Warsaw on 14 December 1911, as the son of the Russian army colonel Count Vladimir Ivanov, and a Polish mother. His parents divorced soon after. His mother married a Greek, Ioannis Lambrinidis, and together they emigrated to Thessaloniki in northern Greece in 1926.

He became an athlete in the G.S. Iraklis Thessaloniki sport club, and a distinguished swimmer: in 1934, he became Greek champion in 100 m freestyle. After becoming a Polish citizen in 1935, he became part of AZS Warsaw's water polo team and of the Polish national water polo team, and was declared Poland's top water polo player in 1938.

He studied in Paris and then returned to Greece.

Below Jerzy second from the left (red arrow) with the his team.

With the outbreak of World War II and the German invasion of Poland, he helped to organize the evacuation of Polish refugees coming to Thessaloniki, and in 1940 was enlisted into Polish intelligence. Fleeing the German invasion of Greece in April 1941, he left the country for the Middle East, to join the exiled Polish forces there. There he was chosen by the Polish intelligence and the SOE for an undercover mission in Greece. On 13 October 1941, the British submarine HMS Thunderbolt (N25) brought him to the coast of Attica near Nea Makri. His subsequent activity in the Greek underground was prodigious: apart from establishing an extensive intelligence network for the Allies reporting on the military and political situation in Greece, on the Greek war industry, now used by the Germans, and on ship and railway schedules, he engaged in numerous sabotage missions. He was responsible for the sabotage of the German aircraft motor repair facilities in the Maltsiniotis plant, which is credited with affecting over 400 engines and causing the crash of several German aircraft due to engine malfunctions, as well as the destruction of two German U-boats, U-133 and U-372, sabotaging the latter and forcing it to surface and be sunk by the RAF off Haifa.

The first time he was caught by the Gestapo, after being betrayed by one of his associates, Konstantinos Pantos, he managed to escape after three days. The Germans then put a reward on him of 500,000 drachmas. He was finally captured after another betrayal on 8 September 1942, and sentenced by a German tribunal on 2 December to a triple death sentence. The proposal of a spy exchange for a German general captured by the British was rejected by the British authorities. He was executed at the Kaisariani shooting range on 4 January 1943. In the seconds before execution he attempted to escape. He was just a few meters from a bush when he was shot, wounded and put back in front of the execution squad.

The other stamp also has a very interesting subject but I have no space to elaborate on that one:

Michał Jankowski or Mikhail Ivanovich Yankovsky (September 24, 1842 – October 10, 1912) was a Polish szlachta nobleman who settled in the Russian Far East after serving a sentence in Siberia for participating in the January Uprising of 1863. After being released in 1868 he settled in the Russian Far-East in Sidemi, Primorsky Krai, in a region now known as the Yankovsky Peninsula where he established a horse-breeding farm, reared deer for their antlers, established ginseng plantations, and became a well-known hunter and naturalist. He collected specimens of fauna and flora for museums and collectors and many species were named after him including Jankowski's bunting.

Let me briefly tell you about the last leg of my travels. My last stop in Italy was Finale Ligure, on the Mediterranean coast, not far from the French border. I think I showed photos of views from my hotel room last week.

This was the view from the communal terrace next to my room:

In the evening I walked through the center of the town, saw lots of churches and old buildings (as you do in Italy), and this is one of them:

Then I stopped to have a drink and a snack:

This is also my 'ticket' to the T-Party, hosted by Elizabeth and Bleubeard.

The next morning I got on the train to Nice and then to Marseille. From Marseille to Narbonne and then on to Perpignan, near the Spanish border. 

Perpignan is lovely. I liked it very much. (See last Friday's post for photos).

 From Perpignan, I got a train to Barcelona (via Port Bou, the border) the next morning. I got there at lunch time. I had to find my way to the bus station. (I had no more travel days left on my rail card). I caught a metro train but got off at the wrong station and still had to walk 18 minutes to the bus station. 

I remembered that near the bus station there were many restaurants. I chose a Chinese restaurant as I spotted a socket by the table near the window and I needed to charge my phone. 

I had Chongqin noodles, Fiercely spicy, mouth-numbing and super aromatic, Chongqing noodles are one of the most popular street foods of China. (The waitress did ask me if I liked spicy)

Now for a post from July 2015, which will be my Second on the 2nd. It is the card that got me into joining you lovely ladies at the T-Party:

A Postcard a day - 14 July 2015

Good morning everyone!,

Today we 'travel' to China, as I'm showing you a postcard I received this week all the way from China. It was sent to me by Zihu.
It depicts a beautiful tea set that is used for the famous tea ceremony. 

Now for the stamp:

It looks like a ship connected to an off-shore drilling station.

That's it from me.

Have a good day and CU tomorrow,

Lisca