“Newton was born in Berlin, the son of Klara “Claire” (Marquis) and Max Neustädter, a button factory owner. His family was Jewish. Newton attended the Heinrich-von-Treitschke-Realgymnasium and the American School in Berlin. Interested in photography from the age of 12 when he purchased his first camera, he worked for the German photographer Yva (Elsie Neulander Simon) from 1936. The increasingly oppressive restrictions placed on Jews by the Nuremberg laws meant that his father lost control of the factory in which he manufactured buttons and buckles; he was briefly interned in a concentration camp on “Kristallnacht”, November 9, 1938, which finally compelled the family to leave Germany. Newton's parents fled to South America. He was issued with a passport just after turning 18, and left Germany on December 5, 1938. At Trieste he boarded the “Conte Rosso” (along with about 200 others escaping the Nazis) intending to journey to China. After arriving in Singapore he found he was able to remain there, first and briefly as a photographer for the Straits Times and then as a portrait photographer”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Sigourney Weaver by Helmut Newton, 1995.

Do you think that history is a science? Well, not exactly. First, and foremost, history is the state's “legend of wars”, it’s official regalia. Of course, public historians are not interested in scientific truth – quite the opposite. In this respect, any attempt to present a state’s history as altruistic and benevolent as possible is welcomed and encouraged – as opposed to any revisionism attempts that may be more accurate. In this matter, Chinese have surpassed us all – they revised in highly creative manner (but rather shamelessly) the technology already invented by Europeans, a process that resulted in oldest state on the planet. Here is an interesting paradox: ask any sinologist about the Middle Kingdom during second century B.C., and he will describe it to you in such a vivid manner as if he has been living there all his life – but as soon as you will ask him to describe Chinese history in the 19-20th centuries… let's say, his eagerness will be greatly diminished. However, we will discuss China in a different article, and in the meantime we will try to understand how exactly historic “legend of wars” is formed and functions – based on a specific and well-known example. A great example is Ferdinand Magellan's first voyage around the world.

A military helicopter flies over Tel Aviv after lifting off from the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov), amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, Israel on December 27, 2023. (Photo by Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters)

Victoria of Bulgaria performs during the second semi-final of the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam, Netherlands, May 20, 2021. (Photo by Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters)

Christmas baubles shaped as Santa Clauses wearing protective masks are pictured amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Eichenau, Germany, November 26, 2021. (Photo by Michaela Rehle/Reuters)

8-year-old Fulani boy Suleiman Yusuf drinks milk from a cow belonging to his father cattle near his family's house at Kachia Grazing Reserve, Kaduna State, Nigeria, on April 16, 2019. Kachia Grazing Reserve is an area set aside for the use of Fulani pastoralist and it is intended to be the foci of livestock development. The purpose for the grazing reserves is the settlement of nomadic pastoralists and inducement to sedentarisation through the provision of land for grazing and permanent water as way to avoid conflict. (Photo by Luis Tato/AFP Photo)

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Bolivian sеx workers sit during a Reuters interview before the countrywide, two-week mandatory quarantine to combat the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), decreed by Bolivia's interim government, in El Alto outskirts of La Paz, Bolivia on March 20, 2020. (Photo by Monica Machicao/Reuters)