The Postcard
A carte postale that was published by Azur. The card was printed in France. The image is a glossy real photograph.
The card was posted in Nice on Saturday the 13th. August 1955 to:
Mrs. J. E. Jones,
'Willowfield',
Bagillt,
Flintshire,
N. Wales,
Great Britain
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Friday.
Dear Mr. & Mrs. Jones,
Just a line from Nice to let
you know that I did come
here.
It's been glorious sightseeing,
or sailing on the Mediterranean.
Regards,
Gladys P."
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France and the capital of the Alpes-Maritimes département. Located in the French Riviera, on the south east coast of France on the Mediterranean Sea, at the foot of the Alps, Nice is the second-largest French city on the Mediterranean coast.
The city is nicknamed Nice la Belle, which is also the title of the unofficial anthem of Nice, written by Menica Rondelly in 1912.
The area of today's Nice contains Terra Amata, an archaeological site which displays evidence of an early use of fire.
Around 350 BC, Greeks of Marseille founded a permanent settlement and called it Nikaia, after Nike, the goddess of victory.
The natural beauty of the Nice area and its mild Mediterranean climate came to the attention of the English upper classes in the second half of the 18th century, when an increasing number of aristocratic families took to spending their winters there.
The city's main seaside promenade, the Promenade des Anglais owes its name to early English visitors to the resort.
The clear air and soft light have particularly appealed to notable painters, such as Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse. Their work is commemorated in many of the city's museums, including Musée Marc Chagall, Musée Matisse and Musée des Beaux-Arts.
Nice has the second largest hotel capacity in the country and is one of its most visited cities, receiving 4 million tourists every year. It also has the third busiest airport in France, after the two main Parisian ones.
Palais de la Méditerranée
Hyatt Regency Nice Palais de la Méditerranée is a nine-storey luxury casino hotel complex located on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.
It was built in 1929 by architects Charles and Marcel Dalmas, and partly rebuilt and modernized in 1990, a year after two of its façades were classified as historical monuments. It contains 187 rooms and twelve suites.
The Palais was built for the American millionaire Frank Jay Gould. According to Insight Guides:
"It epitomised 1930's glamour with
a casino, theatre, restaurant and
cocktail bar".
It was originally a major centre for the arts in Nice, and national and international art exhibitions were held there.
The original hotel closed in 1978. The main Art Deco façade on the Promenade des Anglais and the façade on Rue du Congrès were classified as historical monuments in 1989. These were retained when much of the original hotel was demolished in 1990, to make way for a fully modernized hotel, with hotel rooms, apartments and a casino.
The hotel has 187 rooms, 12 suites, and a restaurant, bar and conference rooms on the third floor, which is the main floor of the building. The rooms on the 4th. floor all have large balconies.
The Terrorist Truck Attack
On the 14th. July 2016, a truck was deliberately driven by Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel into a large crowd of people on the Promenade des Anglais. The crowd were watching a fireworks display in celebration of Bastille Day.
The attack, which had taken months to plan, resulted in the deaths of eighty-seven people, including ten children. The perpetrator was shot dead by police near the Palais de la Méditerranée. Another 202 people were injured, with 52 in critical care and 25 in intensive care.
Christophe Lion was the only survivor from a family group who had travelled to Nice from the French border area near Luxembourg, according to French media.
His wife Veronique Lion, 55, and her 28-year-old son Michael Pellegrini, a professor of economics, were killed along with Veronique's parents Francois and Christiane Locatelli, aged 82 and 78, and Christophe's parents Gisele Lion, 63, and Germain Lion, 68 - a total of six family members.
Paris tobacconist Timothe Fournier, 27, died protecting his heavily pregnant wife, Anais. She described how he pushed her out of the path of the lorry before being struck down himself:
"He was a young dreamer,
but he was always there for
his wife and future child".
The Terrorist Knife Attack
Nice has since suffered a further terrorist attack. On the morning of the 29th. October 2020, a woman and a man were killed by a terrorist with a 12-inch knife inside the Basilica of Notre-Dame. The woman aged 60, who had gone to the Basilica to worship, was found decapitated near the font of the church. The murdered man was the Basilica's church warden, 55 year-old Vincent Loquès, father of two.
The third victim - 44 year old mother of three Simone Silva managed to escape, and staggered to a nearby bar where she succumbed to her injuries. Her final words were:
"Tell my children I love them".
Armed police stormed Notre-Dame and shot the suspected terrorist, wounding him. The suspect was taken to hospital. Nice mayor Christian Estrosi said the attacker kept shouting "Allahu Akbar" even after he had been shot.
The terrorist was Brahim Aoussaoui, a 21 year old Tunisian migrant who had arrived in Europe by boat on the Italian island of Lampedusa 39 days earlier on the 20th. September. He had arrived in Nice the night before the attack.
The Basilica attack came amid heightened security fears in France due to the ongoing row over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
France provoked the ire of Iran and Turkey by taking a tough line in defending the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
On the 28th. October 2020, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani warned that the row over the cartoons could lead to violence and bloodshed. He said:
"It's a surprise that this would come
from those claiming culture and
democracy, that they would somehow,
even if unintentionally, encourage
violence and bloodshed.
Westerners must understand the great
Prophet of Islam is loved by all Muslims
and freedom-lovers of the world.
Insulting the Prophet is insulting all
Muslims.
Insulting the Prophet is insulting all
prophets, human values, and amounts
to undermining ethic".
Samuel Paty
Samuel Paty, aged 47, was beheaded by 18-year-old freedom-lover Abdullah Anzorov on the 17th. October 2020 after Samuel used the cartoons to teach his students about the importance of free speech. An image he showed to students was the same one published by Charlie Hebdo that sparked the attack on the magazine's offices that killed 12.
Anzorov followed Paty as he left the school, having paid two students, aged 14 and 15, around €300 to identify him. Using a knife 30 centimetres (12 in) long, Anzorov killed Paty and beheaded him in the Rue du Buisson Moineau in Éragny-sur-Oise near the school where Paty taught, at approximately 5:00 p.m.
In addition to decapitating Paty, Anzorov inflicted a number of wounds to his head, abdomen, and upper limbs. Witnesses told police they heard the killer shout "Allahu Akbar" during the attack.
Minutes after the murder, an account named @Tchetchene_270 (French: Chechen 270), identified by prosecutor Jean-François Ricard as belonging to Abdullah Anzorov, posted on Twitter an image of Paty's severed head.
The image was seen by many of Paty's students.
The photo was accompanied by the message:
"In the name of Allah, the most gracious,
the most merciful, .. to Macron, leader of
the infidels, I executed one of your
hellhounds who dared to belittle Muhammad,
calm his fellow human beings before a harsh
punishment is inflicted on you."
Minutes later, Anzorov was confronted by police about 600 metres (660 yd) from the scene in Éragny. Anzorov shot at the police with an air rifle and tried to stab them with a knife. In response, the police shot him nine times, killing him. On Anzorov's phone, they found a text claiming responsibility and a photograph of Paty's body.
French police announced that there were more than 80 messages on social media from French people supporting the attacker, with Anzorov being described by some individuals as a 'martyr.'
Paty, a history and geography teacher, is being seen as a champion of free speech by many in France after his brutal death. He was posthumously given the Legion d'Honneur - France’s highest award - and French president Emmanuel Macron insisted:
"We will not give up our cartoons".
The mayor of Nice said after the Notre-Dame attack:
"Enough is enough. It's time now
for France to exonerate itself from
the laws of peace in order to
definitively wipe out Islamo-fascism
from our territory."
Eva Bartok
So what else happened on the day that Gladys posted the card?
Well, on the 13th. August 1955, Eva Bartok married German actor Curd Jürgens.
Eva was born Éva Márta Szőke Ivanovics on the 18th. June 1927. Known professionally as Eva Bartok, she was a Hungarian-British actress. Eva began acting in films in 1950, and her last credited appearance was in 1966.
She acted in more than 40 American, British, German, Hungarian, French and Israeli films. She is best known for her appearances in Blood and Black Lace, The Crimson Pirate, Operation Amsterdam, and Ten Thousand Bedrooms.
Eva Bartok - The Early Years
Bartok was born in Kecskemét, Hungary, to a Jewish journalist father and a Catholic mother. As a young child she performed in school productions from the age of six, and later in charity events and performances for wounded soldiers during the Second World War.
Following the outbreak of the war her father stayed in Budapest. Bartok and her mother moved to live in Kecskemét, to the south of the city, where her mother had relatives. Her father visited them on Sundays, but later disappeared without a trace during the Nazi period.
To avoid persecution as the daughter of a Jewish father, the teenage Bartok was forced at the age of 15 to gain protection by marrying Géza Kovács, a Hungarian officer who had Nazi connections.
Kovács disappeared following the occupation of Hungary by the Communists, and Bartok was able to get her marriage annulled on the grounds of coercion of a minor.
Eva Bartok's Acting Career
Following the end of the Second World War, Bartok decided to enter the acting profession, and successfully sat an examination at the Drama Centre in Budapest. One of the examiners was the director of the prominent Belvàrosi Szinhàz theatre, and in 1945 he was impressed enough to offer Bartok a three-year contract.
Eva made her professional debut in a performance of J. B. Priestley's A Conway Család (Time and the Conways) which ran at the Belvàrosi Szinhàz for three months.
She also performed at the Nemzeti Kamara in 1947. Eva then performed in Gáspár Margit's Új Isten Thébában (New God in Thebes) in 1946, followed by Áron Tamási’s drama Hullámzó Vőlegény in 1947.
This was followed by George Bernard Shaw’s Androkles és az Oroszlánok (Androcles and the Lion) and Jean-Paul Sartre’s A Tisztességtudó Utcalány (The Respectful Prostitute).
She first appeared in front of the camera in the 1947 Hungarian film Mezei Próféta which was banned by the Communist censors for political reasons.
Feeling threatened and persecuted by the new Communist regime in Hungary, Eva asked for help from Hollywood-based Hungarian producer Alexander Paal, who had been a friend of her father.
Paal took her to London in 1948. Bartok was later able to smuggle her mother out of Hungary via Austria and Germany to eventually settle her in France.
As one of its producers, Paal was able to arrange for Bartok to appear in the British-Italian drama film A Tale of Five Cities (which was released as A Tale of Five Women in the US). It was filmed in 1948, but due to due to financial difficulties it was not released until 1951.
As Eva's surname would have been an hindrance to Western audiences, she changed her professional name to “Bartok” after the well-known Hungarian composer Béla Bartók.
After divorcing Paal in 1951, Eva was introduced though the Hungarian expatriate community to fellow emigre Alexander Korda, who arranged for her to be put under contract to London Films. She received a small salary of £80 a month, and auditioned for the studio's various film projects.
At the same time Eva undertook English language lessons. To assist in gaining parts on the advice of theatrical publicity agent William Wordsworth, (who later became her third husband) she attracted attention by attending theatre premieres. As she had little money, she made most of her own dresses, displaying a flair for doing much with little.
Bartok came to the attention of an Italian stage producer who was in London looking for an English actress. He asked her to join his company with the provision that she could learn enough Italian in three weeks to perform a monologue in a variety show that incorporated singing, dancing, comedians, magicians, acrobats and novelty acts.
With Korda's permission Bartok flew to Rome to join the show's rehearsals prior to the show opening in December 1951 at the Teatro Manzoni in Milan. The show was a success, and over the following four months there were performances in Florence, Venice, Genoa and other cities, ending with a six-week long run in Rome at the Teatro Quirino.
In 1951 A Tale of Five Cities was finally released in the UK. It was seen by actor-producer Burt Lancaster and director Robert Siodmak, who were visiting England looking for an actress to play opposite Lancaster as his romantic interest, Consuelo in the upcoming production of the comedy-adventure film The Crimson Pirate.
Impressed by Bartok's performance and appearance, they telegraphed her in Italy asking her to attend a screen test. Bartok, by now wary of countless unsuccessful auditions, replied “No test. Send script.” To her surprise she was offered the role, and was asked to report for location shooting on the island of Ischia. In total she spent over three months in 1952 working on the project.
Also in 1952 Bartok appeared alongside Richard Todd in The Venetian Bird.
The success of The Crimson Pirate brought Bartok numerous role offers, though most were either in “B” movies or German language movies.
In 1953 Bartok made her first German film Rummelplatz Der Liebe (Circus of Love), starring opposite actor Curd Jürgens. Their on-screen chemistry led to a demand for more collaborations, which came one after another in rapid succession.
In 1955 Bartok acted on stage in The Lovers, at the Opera House in Manchester, England. Directed by Sam Wanamaker. It was an adaptation and translation of Émile Zola's novel, Thérèse Raquin.
In 1955 Bartok published a novel, Fighting Shadows, and in 1959 an autobiography, Worth Living For.
In 1957 Bartok appeared in the musical Ten Thousand Bedrooms, opposite Dean Martin. The movie was filmed in Italy and in Hollywood, and for a time Eva resided in Los Angeles.
Following that production her best known roles were in The Doctor of Stalingrad which was released in 1958, and in 1961's It Can't Always Be Caviar, opposite O. W. Fischer.
Eva Bartok's Later Husbands
Eva acquired British citizenship through her third marriage to English theatrical publicity agent William "Bill" Wordsworth in 1952. Wordsworth was the great-great-grandson of the poet of the same name.
That marriage fell apart, with him claiming that she had deserted him within a month of their marriage to move to Rome to make a movie in 1952, but the divorce was not finalised until the 7th. March 1955, with Bartok not contesting Wordsworth's application.
Eva met the British aristocrat David Mountbatten, 3rd. Marquess of Milford Haven at a London dinner in 1952. They embarked on a high-profile relationship that lasted for several years.
Romaine, Marchioness of Milford Haven, cited Bartok in her divorce petition. Mountbatten was prominent part in the London demi-monde of the 1950's, which brought together a colourful mix of aristocrats and shadowy social climbers such as osteopath Stephen Ward.
Eva's relationship with Mountbatten ended after she began a relationship with German actor Curd Jürgens when they acted in a movie together in Germany. Amidst great media interest, she married Jürgens on the 13th. August 1955 in Schliersee, Germany. It was Jürgens's third marriage. They divorced on the 6th. November 1956. Shortly after her marriage to Jürgens had ended, Bartok gave birth to a daughter Deana in London on the 7th. October 1957.
Three decades later, Bartok claimed Deana's biological father was actually Frank Sinatra as a result of a very brief affair in 1956 with him following the breakup of Sinatra's marriage to Ava Gardner. Bartok had first met Frank Sinatra at a party while she was in Hollywood in 1955 while appearing in the film Ten Thousand Bedrooms, alongside Dean Martin. Sinatra never acknowledged that he was the father.
In 1980 Bartok married her fifth husband, the American producer Dag Molin, and lived with him in Los Angeles until their divorce in 1983.
Eva Bartok - The Later Years and Death
Bartok had been introduced to the philosophy of the Subud sect while being treated for ovarian cancer in the late 1950's. As her career declined in the mid-1960's she became more and more involved with the sect, and ended up spending three years studying with the sect near Jakarta, Indonesia. She later taught its philosophy in a school she opened in Honolulu.
In the last years of her life, she lived as a permanent paying guest in a small London hotel. Eva died at the age of 71 on the 1st. August 1998 at St. Charles's Hospital in London.