At The Moderate Voice, Shaun Mullen writes that “I have broken what for me has been a cardinal rule in recent days in using Nazi analogies when writing about the Bush administration’s embrace of torture as well as a deafening lack of response from most Americans to this and other outrages not unlike the Germans who failed to speak out about the excesses of the Third Reich.”

Here’s the comment I appended to his post: (more…)

It is difficult to review a work that one not only knows is unfinished, but also one that reads that way. Such has never been a stronger case than with Irene Nemirovsky’s ‘novel’ Suite Française. The book has been marketed as a novel when really it is two unfinished novellas, and according to the appendix in the back of the book, Nemirovsky was intending to make the final book contain five parts but unfortunately she was sent to die in the Auschwitz death camp in 1942 before she was able to finish it. Her daughter, Denise Epstein, then kept the manuscript for 64 years, not really reading it and assuming the notebook was only scribblings of everyday observations. When she finally opened it, however, she found it was something of a narrative structure, albeit one that was in desperate need of revision and never got it. (more…)

I have to say that I was pleasantly pleased after having read Diane Ackerman’s latest non-fiction book, The Zookeeper’s Wife. This is my first time reading anything of hers, and I was also surprised to find that she has talent as a poet. I say ‘surprised’ because more often than not, those who claim to have written poetry really don’t succeed at it very much at all, but Ackerman, who has a nature bent to her work, possesses both literary quality and a good sense of historical and scientific background, which makes this book work. The story is about a Polish married couple named Jan and Antonia Zabinski who also run the zoo in Warsaw. Set during World War II, what we get is not just a war story of Jews hiding in the zoo from the Nazis, but also we are shown how the animals were affected during this period. (more…)

I just finished reading Diane Ackerman’s The Zookeeper’s Wife that talks about a Polish couple who hides Jews in their Warsaw Zoo during the war. It’s non-fiction, and I’ll have a review up soon enough.

Tonight is the Ken Burns documentary–The War, which I plan on watching. Anyway, going back to the subject line, one of the things she spoke about in the book was an anti-Semitic children’s book called The Poison Mushroom. I remember seeing this book behind glass at the Holocaust Museum. The front image is that of a mushroom with a face on it with an overly large nose. In the book, the German children are all drawn cute and blond, while the Jews are ugly, have mean faces and huge noses. (more…)

H/t Holly

Reuters reports:

Dutch airline KLM will probably seek an independent investigation into whether it flew Nazi fugitives to Argentina after the Second World War, the national airline said on Tuesday.

Questions over KLM’s past surfaced last week after a Dutch television documentary claimed to have discovered archive documents showing the airline played an active role in helping suspected war criminals flee Germany.

A good decision by KLM. If the famous and big Dutch company helped Nazis to flee Europe after WW2, it has to be open about it, admit it, take responsibility, apologize, and compensate when / if possible.

If the documentary makers are proven to be right, it will hurt KLM’s image (rightfully) quite severely. KLM is one of those view big companies the Dutch are very proud of. If true, that attitude towards KLM might change (a bit). Of course, it would also hurt KLM’s image abroad.

It is quite amazing that there is still so much unknown about World War II: there are - I am sure - companies that worked with the Nazis but who have never been held responsible for doing so. There are still many dirty secrets out there regarding this period in Europe’s history.

Today the Dutch, that’s me (among others=, celebrate our liberation. For five years we were ruled and oppressed by the Nazis. Many Dutch, Jews and non-Jews alike, were murdered by the Germans; those who dared to resist were often tortured until they ratted out other members of the restistance and, after that, they were killed, executed. In 1945 the suffering ended: the allied forces, especially the Canadians, the Brits and the Americans liberated the Netherlands, they came in with tanks, they flew over with airplanes, they handed out candy, especially chocolate, they were welcomed with flowers and joy by a population almost starved. The last couple of months before the liberation were the most difficult months of the occupation: the Germans deliberately let the Dutch starve. There was virtually no food; many Dutch walked for days, literally days, to find enough food to survive for a couple of days more. Women walked for a week, falling down, getting up again, begging to farmers to give some food, anything, after that they would go home again where their husbands (if not taken away by the Nazis) were waiting with their children. The way home was perhaps even more difficult: the Germans could just take away the food the women had so much difficulty to find. Quite often they did and, in such cases, time and especially important energy we waisted making it more difficult if not impossible to survive.

While my people were starving the brave American, Canadian and British forces were fighting and dying in Europe, mostly France of course, in an attempt to stop before mentioned suffering as soon as possible. They died en masse but kept on fighting, to liberate people they never saw before. For this they, the generation of normal men who became heroes, deserve our eternal gratitude. To them, and to their sons and daughters I say, for the entire Dutch people, ‘thank you. We can never repay what you did for us, we can never do what you did for us; what you did, what you were willing to do for us is beyond words. All of you are heroes. May God bless you.’

Wartime Encounter is a little book (only 147 pages long) written by Harm de Blij, which tells, in the words of Peter Gould, “of a time, place and circumstance that must never be forgotten.” This time: the second world war. The place the Netherlands. The circumstances: occupied by one of the most ruthless, brutal forces / ideologues the world has ever seen; the Nazis.

De Blij was only five years old when the war started, 10 when the Germans capitulated. Before the war, the De Blij family was – in essence – one happy family. Little Harm was constantly surrounded by music (his parents were both gifted musicians), love and – in a good way – quiet. They lived in Schiedam, close to, even a suburb of, the Netherlands’ second largest city of Rotterdam.

This idyllic childhood comes to an abrupt end by the sounds of Nazi airplanes flying over, dropping bombs on Rotterdam: destroying the inner city completely – only the Church remained standing – and killing as many Dutch citizens as possible. The destruction caused the Netherlands, whose forces fought back passionately up till that time, to surrender.

Life changed instantly: the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, in which Harm’s father played, was not to assemble for a long time to come. Some members were killed May 14. Others were not allowed to play in the orchestra any longer because they were Jews (the persecution had begun). Financial problems forced the De Blij’s to move.

De Blij describes how life changed, not just for him, but for the Dutch people as a whole: opposition was oppressed, signs of patriotism forbidden, Jews were persecuted, those who helped Jews were arrested, and, finally, one could not trust anyone outside of one’s immediate family.

With a sad undertone De Blij describes how he was not allowed to talk to anyone about family affairs. The NSB (Nationalist Socialist Union) came into existence, existing out of traitors and Nazi collaborators. Many an NSB member spied on his own neighbors. Not only did they spy themselves, they also used their children. Children have, as De Blij explains, the tendency to brag about their parents when those parents do something patriotic, say being active in the resistance. So, NSB members told their children to tell them whenever when of their classmates brags about such activities by his or her father and / or mother. As De Blij writes “many a father was taken away” because children said too much.
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