Adapted from a story by Rod Ohira
Fritz Vincken owns a bakery just outside of downtown Honolulu. He dispenses warmth and a smile along with hot buns and fresh bread to his loyal customers. Fritz has lived in the Hawaiian islands for many years now, and when he first arrived he was enchanted by the kindness and goodwill of the Islands' people. When asked, however, he admits that for him, the ideal of aloha was first learned long ago - when he was a lad of twelve.
The setting was on the other side of the world from Hawai'i, on a harsh winter night in the Ardennes Forest near the German-Belgian border. It was December, and two months had passed since Hubert Vincken brought his wife and his son Fritz to a small cottage in the Ardennes Forest for their safety. The family's home and its eighty-eight-year-old bakery in Aachen (Aix-La-Chapelle) had been destroyed in a bombing raid.
"We were isolated," Fritz recalled. "Every three or four days, my father would ride out from town on his bicycle to bring us food. When the snow came, he had to stop." His mother was concerned that their food was in very short supply, as the war seemed to be moving closer to their cottage of refuge.
By late December the cottage was no longer out of harm's way. German troops surprised and overwhelmed the Allies on December 16, turning the Ardennes Forest into a killing field.
On Christmas Eve, Elisabeth and Fritz tried to block out the distant sound of gunfire as they sat down to their supper of oatmeal and potatoes.
"At that moment, I heard human voices outside, speaking quietly," Fritz remembered. "Mother blew out the little candle on the table and we waited in fearful silence.
"There was a knock at the door. Then another. When my mother opened the door, two men were standing outside. They spoke a strange language and pointed to a third man sitting in the snow with a bullet wound in his upper leg. We knew they were American soldiers. They were cold and weary.
"I was frightened and wondered what in the world my mother would do. She hesitated for a moment. Then she motioned the soldiers into the cottage, turned to me and said, 'Get six more potatoes from the shed.'"
Elisabeth and one of the American soldiers were able to converse in French, and from him they learned news about the German offensive. The soldier and his comrades had become separated from their battalion and had wandered for three days in the snowy Ardennes Forest, hiding from the Germans. Hungry and exhausted, they were so grateful for this stranger's kindness.
A short time later that evening, four more tired soldiers came to the cottage. However, these men were German.
"Now I was almost paralyzed with fear," Fritz recalled. "While I stood and stared in disbelief, my mother took the situation into her hands. I had always looked up to my mother and was proud to be her son. But in the moments that followed, she became my hero."
"Frohliche Weihnachten," Elisabeth said to the German soldiers, wishing them Merry Christmas. She then invited them to dinner.
But before allowing them in, Elisabeth informed them she had other guests inside that they might not consider as friends.
"She reminded them that it was Christmas Eve," Fritz said, "and told them sternly there would be no shooting around here." These soldiers, still mere boys, listened respectfully to this kind and mature woman.
The German soldiers agreed to store their weapons in the shed. Elisabeth then quickly went inside to collect the weapons from the American soldiers and locked them up securely.
"At first, it was very tense," Fritz said.
Two of the German soldiers were about sixteen years old and another was a medical student who spoke some English. Although there was little food to offer, Elisabeth knew that everyone must be very hungry. She sent Fritz outside to fetch the rooster he had captured several weeks earlier.
"When I returned," Fritz recalled, "the German medical student was looking after the wounded American, assuring him that the cold had prevented infection.
"The tension among them gradually disappeared. One of the Germans offered a loaf of rye bread, and one of the Americans presented instant coffee to share. By then the men were eager to eat, and Mother beckoned them to the table. We all were seated as she said grace.
"'Komm, Herr Jesus,'" she prayed, 'and be our guest.'
"There were tears in her eyes," Fritz said, "and as I looked around the table, I saw that the battle-weary soldiers were filled with emotion. Their thoughts seemed to be many, many miles away.
"Now they were boys again, some from America, some from Germany, all far from home."
Soon after dinner, the soldiers fell asleep in their heavy coats. The next morning, they exchanged Christmas greetings and everyone helped make a stretcher for the wounded American.
"The German soldiers then advised the Americans how to find their unit," Fritz said. "My mother gave the men back their weapons and said she would pray for their safety. At that moment, she had become a mother to them all. She asked them to be very careful and told them, 'I hope someday you will return home safely to where you belong. May God bless and watch over you.'"
The soldiers shook hands and marched off in opposite directions. It was the last time Fritz or his mother would ever see any of them.
Throughout her life, Elisabeth Vincken would often say, "God was at our table" when she talked of that night in the forest.
Fritz eventually came to live in Hawaii and continued to carry this childhood lesson of brotherhood in his heart. He realized that being kind to one another and seeing beyond differences is a un iversal value, but he was surprised to discover that Hawai'i actually had a word for this ideal - aloha. When he thinks of aloha, he remembers that night long ago when everyone was welcome at the table.
~*~*~*~*~*~
For a theatrical version of this story, watch the Hallmark movie "Silent Night" with Linda Hamilton, who portrays Elisabeth Vincken.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
The Gold and Ivory Tablecloth (aka "The Holocaust Tablecloth")
by Howard C. Schade
At Christmas time men and women everywhere gather in their churches to wonder anew at the greatest miracle the world has ever known. But the story I like best to recall was not a miracle -- not exactly. It happened to a pastor who was very young. His church was very old.
Once, long ago, it had flourished. Famous men had preached from its pulpit, prayed before its altar. Rich and poor alike had worshipped there and built it beautifully. Now the good days had passed from the section of town where it stood. But the pastor and his young wife believed in their run-down church. They felt that with paint, hammer, and faith they could get it in shape. Together they went to work.
But late in December a severe storm whipped through the river valley, and the worst blow fell on the little church -- a huge chunk of rain-soaked plaster fell out of the inside wall just behind the altar.
Sorrowfully the pastor and his wife swept away the mess, but they couldn't hide the ragged hole.
The pastor looked at it and had to remind himself quickly, "Thy will be done!" But his wife wept, "Christmas is only two days away!"
That afternoon the dispirited couple attended the auction held for the benefit of a youth group. The auctioneer opened a box and shook out of its folds a handsome gold and ivory lace tablecloth. It was a magnificent item, nearly 15 feet long. but it, too, dated from a long vanished era. Who, today, had any use for such a thing? There were a few halfhearted bids. Then the pastor was seized with what he thought was a great idea.
He bid it in for $6.50.
He carried the cloth back to the church and tacked it up on the wall behind the altar. It completely hid the hole! And the extraordinary beauty of its shimmering handwork cast a fine, holiday glow over the chancel. It was a great triumph. Happily he went back to preparing his Christmas sermon.
Just before noon on the day of Christmas Eve, as the pastor was opening the church, he noticed a woman standing in the cold at the bus stop. "The bus won't be here for 40 minutes!" he called, and invited her into the church to get warm.
She told him that she had come from the city that morning to be interviewed for a job as governess to the children of one of the wealthy families in town but she had been turned down. A war refugee, her English was imperfect.
The woman sat down in a pew and chafed her hands and rested. After a while she dropped her head and prayed. She looked up as the pastor began to adjust the great gold and ivory cloth across the hole. She rose suddenly and walked up the steps of the chancel. She looked at the tablecloth. The pastor smiled and started to tell her about the storm damage, but she didn't seem to listen. She took up a fold of the cloth and rubbed it between her fingers.
"It is mine!" she said. "It is my banquet cloth!" She lifted up a corner and showed the surprised pastor that there were initials monogrammed on it. "My husband had the cloth made especially for me in Brussels! There could not be another like it."
For the next few minutes the woman and the pastor talked excitedly together. She explained that she was Viennese; that she and her husband had opposed the Nazis and decided to leave the country. They were advised to go separately. Her husband put her on a train for Switzerland. They planned that he would join her as soon as he could arrange to ship their household goods across the border. She never saw him again. Later she heard that he had died in a concentration camp.
"I have always felt that it was my fault -- to leave without him," she said. "Perhaps these years of wandering have been my punishment!" The pastor tried to comfort her and urged her to take the cloth with her.
She refused. Then she went away.
As the church began to fill on Christmas Eve, it was clear that the cloth was going to be a great success. It had been skillfully designed to look its best by candlelight.
After the service, the pastor stood at the doorway. Many people told him that the church looked beautiful. One gentle-faced middle-aged man -- he was the local clock-and-watch repairman -- looked rather puzzled.
"It is strange," he said in his soft accent. "Many years ago my wife - God rest her -- and I owned such a cloth. In our home in Vienna, my wife put it on the table" -- and here he smiled -- "only when the bishop came to dinner."
The pastor suddenly became very excited. He told the jeweler about the woman who had been in church earlier that day. The startled jeweler clutched the pastor's arm. "Can it be? Does she live?"
Together the two got in touch with the family who had interviewed her. Then, in the pastor's car they started for the city. And as Christmas Day was born, this man and his wife, who had been separated through so many saddened Yule tides, were reunited.
To all who hear this story, the joyful purpose of the storm that had knocked a hole in the wall of the church was now quite clear. Of course, people said it was a miracle, but I think you will agree it was the season for it!
True love seems to find a way.
At Christmas time men and women everywhere gather in their churches to wonder anew at the greatest miracle the world has ever known. But the story I like best to recall was not a miracle -- not exactly. It happened to a pastor who was very young. His church was very old.
Once, long ago, it had flourished. Famous men had preached from its pulpit, prayed before its altar. Rich and poor alike had worshipped there and built it beautifully. Now the good days had passed from the section of town where it stood. But the pastor and his young wife believed in their run-down church. They felt that with paint, hammer, and faith they could get it in shape. Together they went to work.
But late in December a severe storm whipped through the river valley, and the worst blow fell on the little church -- a huge chunk of rain-soaked plaster fell out of the inside wall just behind the altar.
Sorrowfully the pastor and his wife swept away the mess, but they couldn't hide the ragged hole.
The pastor looked at it and had to remind himself quickly, "Thy will be done!" But his wife wept, "Christmas is only two days away!"
That afternoon the dispirited couple attended the auction held for the benefit of a youth group. The auctioneer opened a box and shook out of its folds a handsome gold and ivory lace tablecloth. It was a magnificent item, nearly 15 feet long. but it, too, dated from a long vanished era. Who, today, had any use for such a thing? There were a few halfhearted bids. Then the pastor was seized with what he thought was a great idea.
He bid it in for $6.50.
He carried the cloth back to the church and tacked it up on the wall behind the altar. It completely hid the hole! And the extraordinary beauty of its shimmering handwork cast a fine, holiday glow over the chancel. It was a great triumph. Happily he went back to preparing his Christmas sermon.
Just before noon on the day of Christmas Eve, as the pastor was opening the church, he noticed a woman standing in the cold at the bus stop. "The bus won't be here for 40 minutes!" he called, and invited her into the church to get warm.
She told him that she had come from the city that morning to be interviewed for a job as governess to the children of one of the wealthy families in town but she had been turned down. A war refugee, her English was imperfect.
The woman sat down in a pew and chafed her hands and rested. After a while she dropped her head and prayed. She looked up as the pastor began to adjust the great gold and ivory cloth across the hole. She rose suddenly and walked up the steps of the chancel. She looked at the tablecloth. The pastor smiled and started to tell her about the storm damage, but she didn't seem to listen. She took up a fold of the cloth and rubbed it between her fingers.
"It is mine!" she said. "It is my banquet cloth!" She lifted up a corner and showed the surprised pastor that there were initials monogrammed on it. "My husband had the cloth made especially for me in Brussels! There could not be another like it."
For the next few minutes the woman and the pastor talked excitedly together. She explained that she was Viennese; that she and her husband had opposed the Nazis and decided to leave the country. They were advised to go separately. Her husband put her on a train for Switzerland. They planned that he would join her as soon as he could arrange to ship their household goods across the border. She never saw him again. Later she heard that he had died in a concentration camp.
"I have always felt that it was my fault -- to leave without him," she said. "Perhaps these years of wandering have been my punishment!" The pastor tried to comfort her and urged her to take the cloth with her.
She refused. Then she went away.
As the church began to fill on Christmas Eve, it was clear that the cloth was going to be a great success. It had been skillfully designed to look its best by candlelight.
After the service, the pastor stood at the doorway. Many people told him that the church looked beautiful. One gentle-faced middle-aged man -- he was the local clock-and-watch repairman -- looked rather puzzled.
"It is strange," he said in his soft accent. "Many years ago my wife - God rest her -- and I owned such a cloth. In our home in Vienna, my wife put it on the table" -- and here he smiled -- "only when the bishop came to dinner."
The pastor suddenly became very excited. He told the jeweler about the woman who had been in church earlier that day. The startled jeweler clutched the pastor's arm. "Can it be? Does she live?"
Together the two got in touch with the family who had interviewed her. Then, in the pastor's car they started for the city. And as Christmas Day was born, this man and his wife, who had been separated through so many saddened Yule tides, were reunited.
To all who hear this story, the joyful purpose of the storm that had knocked a hole in the wall of the church was now quite clear. Of course, people said it was a miracle, but I think you will agree it was the season for it!
True love seems to find a way.
Monday, December 13, 2010
This Should Offend Everyone
There were 3 good arguments that Jesus was Black.
1. He called everyone brother
2. He liked Gospel
3.He didn't get a fair trial
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Jewish.
1. He went into His Father's business
2. He lived at home until he was 33
3. He was sure his Mother was a virgin and his Mother was sure He was God
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Italian.
1. He talked with His hands
2. He had wine with His meals
3. He used olive oil
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was a Californian.
1. He never cut His hair
2. He walked around barefoot all the time
3. He started a new religion
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was an American Indian.
1. He was at peace with nature
2. He ate a lot of fish
3. He talked about the Great Spirit
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Irish.
1. He never got married..
2. He was always telling stories.
3. He loved green pastures..
But the most compelling evidence of all ~3 proofs that Jesus was a Woman.
1. He fed a crowd at a moment's notice when there was virtually no food
2. He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it
3. And even when He was dead, He had to get up because there was still work to do
Can I get an AMEN!?!
1. He called everyone brother
2. He liked Gospel
3.He didn't get a fair trial
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Jewish.
1. He went into His Father's business
2. He lived at home until he was 33
3. He was sure his Mother was a virgin and his Mother was sure He was God
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Italian.
1. He talked with His hands
2. He had wine with His meals
3. He used olive oil
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was a Californian.
1. He never cut His hair
2. He walked around barefoot all the time
3. He started a new religion
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was an American Indian.
1. He was at peace with nature
2. He ate a lot of fish
3. He talked about the Great Spirit
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Irish.
1. He never got married..
2. He was always telling stories.
3. He loved green pastures..
But the most compelling evidence of all ~3 proofs that Jesus was a Woman.
1. He fed a crowd at a moment's notice when there was virtually no food
2. He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it
3. And even when He was dead, He had to get up because there was still work to do
Can I get an AMEN!?!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Random Chanukah Thoughts
I wish that I could celebrate Chanukah, and other Jewish holidays too. I suppose that there is nothing really preventing me from doing it except my own ignorance of the holiday and laziness. Despite my belief that we have Jewish heritage, we’re Protestant and have never observed the holiday. I know some about it but not nearly enough to celebrate it properly. There is a Messianic Synagogue in town and we have attended it and could probably celebrate it with them, but the last few Saturdays have been too hectic to visit.
Thanks to my Mom, I first learned about Chanukah when I was a teenager. She had heard about it from my Grandma. Actually, the word “Chanukah” wasn’t mentioned at all; we called it the story of the Maccabees. Where Grandma picked up the story of the Maccabees, I don’t know, but early on in my parents’ marriage, she shared the story with my Mom. Then later on Mom passed it on down to me. When I started doing research about Judaism I learned that Chanukah was the result of the Maccabees. Not only that, I discovered that Chanukah was not the Jewish version of Christmas, as I had thought. It was a holiday that proceeded Christmas by several hundred years.
I wish my church, and all Christian denominations, observed Chanukah and the other Jewish holidays. I mean there is more of a Scriptural basis for the Jewish holidays than there are for the Christian ones. Jesus really wasn’t born on December 25; the 25th was originally a pagan holiday and the early church replaced that holiday with “Jesus’ birthday.” Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas and I do my best to remember Christ at this time of year. But I think adding Chanukah and the other Jewish holidays to our “Christian” calendar would increase our understanding of the Bible and the Jewish roots of our religion.
Whenever I study about Judaism, I feel closer to Christ. He was a Jew; He celebrated Chanukah, Purim, Passover, Rosh Hashanah, etc. I think Chanukah ought to be as respected and as valued as Christmas. Whenever I spot a menorah in someone’s window, I think “right on.” It’s something to be proud of and I wish that I could share in that pride.
Oh well, maybe we can celebrate it next year. Have a Happy Chanukah!
Thanks to my Mom, I first learned about Chanukah when I was a teenager. She had heard about it from my Grandma. Actually, the word “Chanukah” wasn’t mentioned at all; we called it the story of the Maccabees. Where Grandma picked up the story of the Maccabees, I don’t know, but early on in my parents’ marriage, she shared the story with my Mom. Then later on Mom passed it on down to me. When I started doing research about Judaism I learned that Chanukah was the result of the Maccabees. Not only that, I discovered that Chanukah was not the Jewish version of Christmas, as I had thought. It was a holiday that proceeded Christmas by several hundred years.
I wish my church, and all Christian denominations, observed Chanukah and the other Jewish holidays. I mean there is more of a Scriptural basis for the Jewish holidays than there are for the Christian ones. Jesus really wasn’t born on December 25; the 25th was originally a pagan holiday and the early church replaced that holiday with “Jesus’ birthday.” Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas and I do my best to remember Christ at this time of year. But I think adding Chanukah and the other Jewish holidays to our “Christian” calendar would increase our understanding of the Bible and the Jewish roots of our religion.
Whenever I study about Judaism, I feel closer to Christ. He was a Jew; He celebrated Chanukah, Purim, Passover, Rosh Hashanah, etc. I think Chanukah ought to be as respected and as valued as Christmas. Whenever I spot a menorah in someone’s window, I think “right on.” It’s something to be proud of and I wish that I could share in that pride.
Oh well, maybe we can celebrate it next year. Have a Happy Chanukah!
Sunday, November 21, 2010
What are you thankful for this year?
I am thankful for my family and for being close to them. So many people my age aren't close to their parents or siblings, and I am. Several years ago God surely worked a miracle in our family and we have been close ever since.
Your turn? What are you thankful for?
Your turn? What are you thankful for?
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Priceless Cheesecake
Meandering through BooksAMillion, I pick up several items in consideration of purchasing them. At last I buy them and then treat my Dad to doublefudge cheesecake at Joe Mugs, the little coffee shop adjacent to the bookstore. Here is a list of the items that I bought with the approximate costs, tax included.
A present for my sister’s birthday = $15.00
A “Gone With the Wind” Calender for my secret pal = $16.00
“Failure to Launch” DVD = $7.00
“The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,” by Anne Bronte = $6.00
And the cheesecake with my Dad = Priceless.
A present for my sister’s birthday = $15.00
A “Gone With the Wind” Calender for my secret pal = $16.00
“Failure to Launch” DVD = $7.00
“The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,” by Anne Bronte = $6.00
And the cheesecake with my Dad = Priceless.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
New Layout!
Hey all, check out my new layout. Created none other than by my genius sister! Isn't it fantastic? Thanks Mack!!!
Friday, October 22, 2010
Stuff and Nonsense
It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve written on this blog. In reality, we have been without the Internet for a couple of weeks. Surprisingly enough I did not self-destruct. Yesterday when I was able to check my e-mail I had like 140 e-mails and I ended up deleting like 98% of them. I have a lot of writing-related research to catch up on. So I’ll be glad when I can get back into the swing of things.
I finished my little writing hiatus last month and have resumed working on my newest project. The old project that I had been working on for the past seven years is now on the shelf indefinitely. It is chock-full of historical inaccuracies, its no wonder that no one would take me on as a client. At first I was devastated but now I look back on it as a lesson that needed to be learned. That story will always be the darling of my heart and someday it will appear in print (after much revision, of course).
In the mean time, as I have mentioned earlier, I am working on a new novel. It’s the story of two couples and their stories, separated by sixty years. If ever published, it will probably be categorized as a romance. At least I hope that it’s not predictable or cliché. When I was younger I always assumed that I would try and be published in the Christian market. But my current story wouldn’t fit in that mold. Some of the characters curse, smoke and drink wine (gasp!). I have discovered that working on this newest novel is quite liberating for me. I was so limited in my last project.
With this one I feel like I am embarking on a journey into the great unknown. And it is thrilling.
I finished my little writing hiatus last month and have resumed working on my newest project. The old project that I had been working on for the past seven years is now on the shelf indefinitely. It is chock-full of historical inaccuracies, its no wonder that no one would take me on as a client. At first I was devastated but now I look back on it as a lesson that needed to be learned. That story will always be the darling of my heart and someday it will appear in print (after much revision, of course).
In the mean time, as I have mentioned earlier, I am working on a new novel. It’s the story of two couples and their stories, separated by sixty years. If ever published, it will probably be categorized as a romance. At least I hope that it’s not predictable or cliché. When I was younger I always assumed that I would try and be published in the Christian market. But my current story wouldn’t fit in that mold. Some of the characters curse, smoke and drink wine (gasp!). I have discovered that working on this newest novel is quite liberating for me. I was so limited in my last project.
With this one I feel like I am embarking on a journey into the great unknown. And it is thrilling.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
My Thoughts on “Sister Wives”
For those unaware, “Sister Wives” is a new reality TV show on TLC featuring a man who is living with three sisters and has children by all of them. It promotes a polygamist lifestyle and glorifies it. Technically, as of this moment, none of them are married however they consider themselves married and live as if they do.
As a Christian I was extremely appalled by the previews of this show. Naturally I believe in heterosexual marriages. However, in my opinion, this show is not only offensive to Christians but to anyone who considers traditional marriage and family the norm. I know, I know, this is America and as Americans they do have the freedom to live however they please. Still, my beef is that everybody is okay with it.
I mean, where are all the feminists and why aren’t they complaining about this show? A man with three wives, a possible new girlfriend on the way… am I the only one who finds that degrading towards women? The feminists freak out about the Duggar’s having nineteen children and raising them as they do, but they suddenly all fall silent about this whacked-out situation.
This man thinks it’s perfectly fine to be with three different women out in the open and is proud of it. He is tired of having to hide his lifestyle and has decided to come out as a polygamist. It’s just as disgusting as a married man with two girlfriends on the side, and the women all happen to be related and they live as one big happy family. Oh please, this is revolting. What ticks me off more is that this man and his three wives teach their children that their lifestyle is okay. Is it okay for a man to have three wives? Or a woman to have three husbands?
No, its not. Sorry, I’m politically incorrect enough to say it, even if the rest of you aren’t.
What are we teaching this generation of young ladies? That it’s okay to be first in a man’s life, or second, or third, or fourth, but that it’s okay as long as it’s done in the name of love? That we should be defined merely as sexual objects rather than by our minds, hearts and souls? Aren’t we worthy of better?
Please recommend this if you agree. Thank you.
As a Christian I was extremely appalled by the previews of this show. Naturally I believe in heterosexual marriages. However, in my opinion, this show is not only offensive to Christians but to anyone who considers traditional marriage and family the norm. I know, I know, this is America and as Americans they do have the freedom to live however they please. Still, my beef is that everybody is okay with it.
I mean, where are all the feminists and why aren’t they complaining about this show? A man with three wives, a possible new girlfriend on the way… am I the only one who finds that degrading towards women? The feminists freak out about the Duggar’s having nineteen children and raising them as they do, but they suddenly all fall silent about this whacked-out situation.
This man thinks it’s perfectly fine to be with three different women out in the open and is proud of it. He is tired of having to hide his lifestyle and has decided to come out as a polygamist. It’s just as disgusting as a married man with two girlfriends on the side, and the women all happen to be related and they live as one big happy family. Oh please, this is revolting. What ticks me off more is that this man and his three wives teach their children that their lifestyle is okay. Is it okay for a man to have three wives? Or a woman to have three husbands?
No, its not. Sorry, I’m politically incorrect enough to say it, even if the rest of you aren’t.
What are we teaching this generation of young ladies? That it’s okay to be first in a man’s life, or second, or third, or fourth, but that it’s okay as long as it’s done in the name of love? That we should be defined merely as sexual objects rather than by our minds, hearts and souls? Aren’t we worthy of better?
Please recommend this if you agree. Thank you.
Monday, August 16, 2010
The Nature of Christians
You have to work hard to offend Christians. By nature, Christians are the most forgiving, understanding, and thoughtful group of people I’ve ever dealt with. They never assume the worst. They appreciate the importance of having different perspectives. They’re slow to anger, quick to forgive, and almost never make rash judgments or act in anything less than a spirit of total love... No, wait—I’m thinking of golden retrievers!
Monday, July 26, 2010
“Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,” by Eric Metaxas
Who better to face the greatest evil of the 20th Century than a humble man of faith?
About the Author:
Eric Metaxas grew up in Danbury, Connecticut, and graduated Yale University in 1984. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery.” His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Atlantic Monthly, and he has appeared as a cultural commentator on CNN and Fox News. He is the founder and host of Socrates in the City, the acclaimed Manhattan speaker’s series on “life, God, and other small topics.” Eric lives in New York City with his wife and daughter. His website is ericmetaxas.com.
Book Description:
From the New York Times best-selling author of Amazing Grace, a groundbreaking biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the greatest heroes of the twentieth century, the man who stood up to Hitler. A definitive, deeply moving narrative, Bonhoeffer is a story of moral courage in the face of the monstrous evil that was Nazism. After discovering the fire of true faith in a Harlem church, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany and became one of the first to speak out against Hitler. As a double agent, he joined the plot to assassinate the Führer, and was hanged in Flossenberg concentration camp at age 39. Since his death, Bonhoeffer has grown to be one of the most fascinating, complex figures of the 20th century. Bonhoeffer presents a profoundly orthodox Christian theologian whose faith led him to boldly confront the greatest evil of the 20th century, and uncovers never-before-revealed facts, including the story of his passionate romance.
My Thoughts:
Never has there been a man like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and never will there be again, and “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,” opens a window into the life of this great man. It isn’t a difficult read, but for me, even as a fast reader, it took me four or five days to complete. There is so much information on the man himself, the era and culture, and personal letters- all necessary to flesh out the character of Bonhoeffer. I’ve read my share of books on Bonhoeffer and while they were good, Metaxas’ is fantastic and a must-read for any Bonhoeffer enthusiast, Nazi Germany historian, Christian, and anyone else who requires reassurance that not every German in World War II was evil incarnate.
About the Author:
Eric Metaxas grew up in Danbury, Connecticut, and graduated Yale University in 1984. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery.” His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Atlantic Monthly, and he has appeared as a cultural commentator on CNN and Fox News. He is the founder and host of Socrates in the City, the acclaimed Manhattan speaker’s series on “life, God, and other small topics.” Eric lives in New York City with his wife and daughter. His website is ericmetaxas.com.
Book Description:
From the New York Times best-selling author of Amazing Grace, a groundbreaking biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the greatest heroes of the twentieth century, the man who stood up to Hitler. A definitive, deeply moving narrative, Bonhoeffer is a story of moral courage in the face of the monstrous evil that was Nazism. After discovering the fire of true faith in a Harlem church, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany and became one of the first to speak out against Hitler. As a double agent, he joined the plot to assassinate the Führer, and was hanged in Flossenberg concentration camp at age 39. Since his death, Bonhoeffer has grown to be one of the most fascinating, complex figures of the 20th century. Bonhoeffer presents a profoundly orthodox Christian theologian whose faith led him to boldly confront the greatest evil of the 20th century, and uncovers never-before-revealed facts, including the story of his passionate romance.
My Thoughts:
Never has there been a man like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and never will there be again, and “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,” opens a window into the life of this great man. It isn’t a difficult read, but for me, even as a fast reader, it took me four or five days to complete. There is so much information on the man himself, the era and culture, and personal letters- all necessary to flesh out the character of Bonhoeffer. I’ve read my share of books on Bonhoeffer and while they were good, Metaxas’ is fantastic and a must-read for any Bonhoeffer enthusiast, Nazi Germany historian, Christian, and anyone else who requires reassurance that not every German in World War II was evil incarnate.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
A Christian Writer’s Woes
I’m not like most Christian writers. From what I have observed they write strictly to glorify God and while I admire that, I don’t do as they do. I love God and intend to serve Him for all of my days on earth and in heaven, but when I put pen to paper (or finger tips to keyboard) my mind is full of dialog, characters, description and plots. I think of Him off and on, but when I am scribbling or typing away, my thoughts are more focused on how attractive I can make this particular scene.
While I intend to craft a novel in such a way that points to Jesus as the Answer for all mankind, when I write it is to satisfy myself. It is the workings of an imaginative mind, the musings of a lonely heart, and the outpourings of an uncommunicative soul. You know, I can’t even recall ever asking God if it was His will for me to be a novelist. I just always assumed that since I have that kind of gift that I was destined to write. I fanaticize about the day when I can walk into any bookstore and find my works on the shelves next to other literary greats.
I rarely pray before I create a new story, character or anything of the sort. Usually I just put it all down and at some later date I talk to the Almighty about it. Sometimes the ideas come so fast that I want to flesh them out before I forget them. Sometimes I feel that words alone can’t describe how I feel about still being unpublished and I ask the Holy Spirit to relate my pain to the Lord.
Writing is really the only thing I know how to do. And do well. I have a few other gifts but the passion for them isn’t there. Whether I ever see my works in print, I have to write. It is an obsession; it is like breathing to me.
While I intend to craft a novel in such a way that points to Jesus as the Answer for all mankind, when I write it is to satisfy myself. It is the workings of an imaginative mind, the musings of a lonely heart, and the outpourings of an uncommunicative soul. You know, I can’t even recall ever asking God if it was His will for me to be a novelist. I just always assumed that since I have that kind of gift that I was destined to write. I fanaticize about the day when I can walk into any bookstore and find my works on the shelves next to other literary greats.
I rarely pray before I create a new story, character or anything of the sort. Usually I just put it all down and at some later date I talk to the Almighty about it. Sometimes the ideas come so fast that I want to flesh them out before I forget them. Sometimes I feel that words alone can’t describe how I feel about still being unpublished and I ask the Holy Spirit to relate my pain to the Lord.
Writing is really the only thing I know how to do. And do well. I have a few other gifts but the passion for them isn’t there. Whether I ever see my works in print, I have to write. It is an obsession; it is like breathing to me.
Monday, July 19, 2010
What is the number one thing on your bucket list?
Get published (c'mon, you had to know that was like #1 on the list).
Monday, July 12, 2010
What are 3 books you've read that you've greatly enjoyed and recommend to others and why?
1. The Bible. It's God's #1 Best Seller.
2. "Redeeming Love," by Francine Rivers. Can't describe how much I love this book and why. Just read it and you'll understand.
3. "The Shack," by William P. Young. Its Christianity in a nutshell.
Now, I command you to go forth and read all these books. :~)
2. "Redeeming Love," by Francine Rivers. Can't describe how much I love this book and why. Just read it and you'll understand.
3. "The Shack," by William P. Young. Its Christianity in a nutshell.
Now, I command you to go forth and read all these books. :~)
Sunday, July 4, 2010
140 Days of Prayer with Charles Stanley
The best way to rescue America is to get on your knees and pray for God's intervention. Even if you don't want to commit officially, at the very least keep this country in your prayers. God is America's only hope.
http://www.intouch.org/resources/140-days-of-prayer
http://www.intouch.org/resources/140-days-of-prayer
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
The Write Stuff
I’m currently on a summer-long break from writing. For the last several years I have obsessively devoted myself to one novel and have placed it on the throne in the place of God. I was so wrapped up in my own desires I couldn’t hear God’s Voice and what He wanted of me. Not only that, I had fallen into a bad place where I envied my writer peers and begrudged them for their successes. I had lost my first love. Anyway, a few weeks ago I had finally accepted the fact my beloved novel wasn’t going to be published and must be placed on that proverbial shelf. Then I started to ask the good Lord what He wanted. No answer except that I needed to spend some time focusing on Him rather than myself. And that it might be beneficial for be to take a break from writing.
Its already been two weeks and I feel much better than I did and I’m not as stressed as what I had been. I have been tempted to work on a couple newer projects but am resolved to stick with my pact. I think that when I do return to writing in September, the quality of my work will be better and the writing won’t be as forced. The new stories will be better for it. The first one is a novella set in 1915 in my beloved state of Indiana, and a comedy. The second one is a new holocaust story that is set both in 1943 and 2003. Both are primarily written in the third person, which is a challenge for me; I usually narrate my novels in the first person.
I can’t stop writing altogether; writing is like breathing to me. I intend to write entries for my blogs, I write often in my personal journal, and there are some books and movies that I’d like to do reviews on.
Well, that’s all for now.
Its already been two weeks and I feel much better than I did and I’m not as stressed as what I had been. I have been tempted to work on a couple newer projects but am resolved to stick with my pact. I think that when I do return to writing in September, the quality of my work will be better and the writing won’t be as forced. The new stories will be better for it. The first one is a novella set in 1915 in my beloved state of Indiana, and a comedy. The second one is a new holocaust story that is set both in 1943 and 2003. Both are primarily written in the third person, which is a challenge for me; I usually narrate my novels in the first person.
I can’t stop writing altogether; writing is like breathing to me. I intend to write entries for my blogs, I write often in my personal journal, and there are some books and movies that I’d like to do reviews on.
Well, that’s all for now.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The Proverbial Shelf
That’s where I placed my epic novel.
I had been working on it for seven years, devoting myself wholly to it. It is where I placed all my hopes and aspirations, my dreams and goals. I really thought that someone would notice how valuable it was and snatch it up. It has become like a child to me. I created it, loved and nurtured it, spent years bragging about it and showing it off to anyone who would listen.
I adore the characters, and have watched them evolve into their present state. They are like imaginary friends of mine who speak to me often and beg me to show them to the world.
The plot is unique and unlike anything else out there. It is a reflection of life at the worst and the best. It is the age-old story of good versus evil, and though evil claims a number of battles, good wins the war.
The style is fresh and to the best of my knowledge, it has never been attempted before. The best way to describe it is to say that it’s a cross between Melody Carlson’s “Diary of a Teenage Girl Series” and Scholastic’s historical “Dear America series”.
Whether it ever appears in print or not, it will live in my heart and mind forever. I live in hope that someday someone else might take an interest in it.
For the most part I’m disappointed, depressed and in desperate need of chocolate.
I had been working on it for seven years, devoting myself wholly to it. It is where I placed all my hopes and aspirations, my dreams and goals. I really thought that someone would notice how valuable it was and snatch it up. It has become like a child to me. I created it, loved and nurtured it, spent years bragging about it and showing it off to anyone who would listen.
I adore the characters, and have watched them evolve into their present state. They are like imaginary friends of mine who speak to me often and beg me to show them to the world.
The plot is unique and unlike anything else out there. It is a reflection of life at the worst and the best. It is the age-old story of good versus evil, and though evil claims a number of battles, good wins the war.
The style is fresh and to the best of my knowledge, it has never been attempted before. The best way to describe it is to say that it’s a cross between Melody Carlson’s “Diary of a Teenage Girl Series” and Scholastic’s historical “Dear America series”.
Whether it ever appears in print or not, it will live in my heart and mind forever. I live in hope that someday someone else might take an interest in it.
For the most part I’m disappointed, depressed and in desperate need of chocolate.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
The Entry Without a Title
I'd like to blog something but can't think of anything to say. My writing is in limbo right now. As of last month, the novel I have been working on turned seven, meaning that it is seven years old. I suppose its not realistic for me to continue working on it, but I can't let go. I love it too much to give up on it. I've read blogs by agents and editors, and writers too, that advise an aspiring author to move on to other projects. Tell that to Jane Austen, who spent sixteen years waiting for her beloved "First Impressions" (a.k.a. "Pride and Prejudice) to be published. Now, I'm not comparing my novel to "P&P" but I'm just as attached to the story as Austen was. I pray to God that someday, someone might realize who valuable my story is. I did finish a first draft of another project a couple of months ago and I've set that aside for a little while. I'm now working on something new; another holocaust novel. But I don't have the devotion to these newer projects that I do my seven-year-old one.
There is a quote somewhere by some other author that a piece of work must sit for nine years or so until it can be published. Well, if that's the way it is, I have two years more to wait! Part of my problem is that I've submitted it to anyone one and everyone who I thought might be interested. I should have been more particular. I have to find someone who falls head-over-heels in love with my novel. Someone - editor or agent- who can be as passionately devoted to it as I am. And I must learn humility. I'm afraid that in the past few years I've acquired an inflated ego about myself and my God-given talents. On top of that I continually take Jesus off His throne and place my own wants before others.
On the positive side, I've lost weight. Last November I was nearing 180lbs and so far I've lost nearly 13lbs. So, yay for me!
All for now.
There is a quote somewhere by some other author that a piece of work must sit for nine years or so until it can be published. Well, if that's the way it is, I have two years more to wait! Part of my problem is that I've submitted it to anyone one and everyone who I thought might be interested. I should have been more particular. I have to find someone who falls head-over-heels in love with my novel. Someone - editor or agent- who can be as passionately devoted to it as I am. And I must learn humility. I'm afraid that in the past few years I've acquired an inflated ego about myself and my God-given talents. On top of that I continually take Jesus off His throne and place my own wants before others.
On the positive side, I've lost weight. Last November I was nearing 180lbs and so far I've lost nearly 13lbs. So, yay for me!
All for now.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Tuesday Tag Along
Here's how it works:
Create a new Tuesday Tag-Along blog post. Include the Tuesday Tag-Along button by copying and pasting the code above. (You are also welcome to copy and paste these instructions in their entirety, or any portion of this Tuesday Tag-Along blog post!)
Add your blog name and the URL of your TTA post to the MckLinky below.
Follow Twee Poppets, the hostess blog listed in the first slot. Twee Poppets will follow you back! (Note: If you want Twee Poppets to follow you back, you MUST leave her a comment saying that you are a new follower and leave a link to your blog!)
If you can, please follow the blogs in the three slots before you (e.g., if you're number 20, follow numbers 19, 18, and 17). This is not mandatory, but it will help ensure that everyone who signs up gets a few new followers!
Follow as many other blogs as you want. The more you follow, the more that will follow you back! Be sure to tell them that you're following from Tuesday Tag-Along! You may also want to leave a link to your blog so they can return your follow more easily.
When you get a new follower through Tuesday Tag-Along, be sure to follow them back! It's just common courtesy. :)
The weekly Tuesday Tag-Along MckLinky opens every Monday night at 8:59pm Pacific Standard Time (that's 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time), and the TTA blog post will be posted well in advance of that time. The MckLinky will be open to add your blog until 11:59pm Tuesday night. You then have all week long to visit blogs and return follows!
There is a new list every week. The link you enter one week will not carry over to the next week's MckLinky. Please link up again each week to join in the fun!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
“The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister,” by Nonna Bannister
For half a century, a terrible secret lay hidden, locked in a trunk in an attic…
Book Description:
“The Secret Holocaust Diaries” is a haunting eyewitness account of Nonna Bannister Lisowskaja Bannister, a remarkable Russian-American woman who saw and survived unspeakable evils as a young girl. For half a century she kept her story secret while living a normal American life. She locked all her photos, documents, diaries and dark memories from World War II in a trunk. Late in life she unlocked the trunk, first for herself, then for her husband, and now for the rest of the world.
Nonna’s story is one of suffering, torture, and death- but also of incredible acts of kindness that show the ultimate triumph of faith and love over despair and evil. “The Secret Holocaust Diaries” is in part a tragedy, yet it’s also an unforgettable true story about forgiveness, courage and hope.
My Thoughts:
Unlike the secular market, rarely is there a non-fiction book in the Christian market about the Holocaust, which makes “The Secret Holocaust Diaries,” a rare book. From the very beginning Nonna is a young girl who shows much conviction and courage in the face of evil. There are some graphic descriptions, which would probably be too much for anyone under fifteen, but this is a story that would be fine for older teens. The way the book is organized, it can be a little confusing but with some patience it is worth the while. Through out the story is the subtle faith of Nonna and her family, that provides her with the strength to survive the Nazi’s death machine. Her diary/memoir would make a fine TV movie for Hallmark or Lifetime.
For more information on Nonna, her book and her family, check out her website: The Secret Holocaust Diaries
Monday, May 10, 2010
“The Lord Is My Shepherd: The Psalm 23 Mysteries,” by Debbie Viguie
Being a church secretary seemed like such a boring job… until the bodies started piling up.
Author Bio:
Debbie Viguie’s love for writing brought her from working as a church secretary to a successful career writing supernatural fiction. She is the author of “Midnight Pearls,” “Scarlet Moon,” and “Charmed: Pied Piper,” and the young adult “Sweet Seasons” series. She also is co-author of the New York Times best-selling “Wicked” book series. Debbie graduated from the University of California at Davis, where she majored in English. She and her husband, an attorney, live in Hawaii. For more information about Debbie Viguie and her books, visit her website: http://www.debbieviguie.com.
Book Description:
As church secretary Cindy Preston prepares for the Easter service, she literally stumbles across a dead body in the sanctuary. A prominent church member has been stabbed to death in the locked church. With whispers and suspicions surrounding the members of the congregation, Rabbi Jeremiah Silverman next door, helps Cindy search for the truth. As Easter Sunday draws near, the pressure mounts when the killer leaves clues that more deaths should be expected. Fighting against time, the rabbi and the church secretary work together, learning more about each other and their faiths as they seek to expose the truth. But what secret is the rabbi hiding?
My Thoughts:
Finally, a book in the Christian market that isn’t dripping with unrealistic romantic mush! I am not a big fan of fictional murder mysteries (I like to watch TV shows and movies on the subject) because on the whole they’re more about romance than the mystery. “The Lord is My Shepherd,” follows Cindy Preston and Rabbi Jeremiah Silverman from the moment they discover the first body, onto the friendship that develops between them as well as the developments of the case, to Easter Sunday when the murder is solved. Despite the suspicion of others, Cindy and Jeremiah maintain a platonic friendship that could evolve into something more, but with both being devoted to their faiths, it won’t be likely unless one of them has a change of heart. Another thing I liked was that Cindy wasn’t out to convert Jeremiah and his congregation; the faith aspect of the book was subtle, but more genuine than most of the Christian fiction that is out there.
Author Bio:
Debbie Viguie’s love for writing brought her from working as a church secretary to a successful career writing supernatural fiction. She is the author of “Midnight Pearls,” “Scarlet Moon,” and “Charmed: Pied Piper,” and the young adult “Sweet Seasons” series. She also is co-author of the New York Times best-selling “Wicked” book series. Debbie graduated from the University of California at Davis, where she majored in English. She and her husband, an attorney, live in Hawaii. For more information about Debbie Viguie and her books, visit her website: http://www.debbieviguie.com.
Book Description:
As church secretary Cindy Preston prepares for the Easter service, she literally stumbles across a dead body in the sanctuary. A prominent church member has been stabbed to death in the locked church. With whispers and suspicions surrounding the members of the congregation, Rabbi Jeremiah Silverman next door, helps Cindy search for the truth. As Easter Sunday draws near, the pressure mounts when the killer leaves clues that more deaths should be expected. Fighting against time, the rabbi and the church secretary work together, learning more about each other and their faiths as they seek to expose the truth. But what secret is the rabbi hiding?
My Thoughts:
Finally, a book in the Christian market that isn’t dripping with unrealistic romantic mush! I am not a big fan of fictional murder mysteries (I like to watch TV shows and movies on the subject) because on the whole they’re more about romance than the mystery. “The Lord is My Shepherd,” follows Cindy Preston and Rabbi Jeremiah Silverman from the moment they discover the first body, onto the friendship that develops between them as well as the developments of the case, to Easter Sunday when the murder is solved. Despite the suspicion of others, Cindy and Jeremiah maintain a platonic friendship that could evolve into something more, but with both being devoted to their faiths, it won’t be likely unless one of them has a change of heart. Another thing I liked was that Cindy wasn’t out to convert Jeremiah and his congregation; the faith aspect of the book was subtle, but more genuine than most of the Christian fiction that is out there.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
First They Came for the Jews
by Martin Niemoller
First they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
First they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
I Believe...
I thought I'd share this poem that I found on the internet. It was written during WW2, on the wall of a cellar, by a Jew in the Cologne concentration camp.
"I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love,
even when there's no one there.
And I belive in God,
even when he is silent.
I believe through any trial,
there is always a way
But sometimes in this suffering
and hopeless despair
My heart cries for shelter,
to know someone's there
But a voice rises within me, saying hold on
my child, I'll give you strength,
I'll give you hope. Just stay a little while.
I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love
even when there's no one there
But I believe in God
even when he is silent
I believe through any trial
there is always a way.
May there someday be sunshine
May there someday be happiness
May there someday be love
May there someday be peace...."
- Unknown
"I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love,
even when there's no one there.
And I belive in God,
even when he is silent.
I believe through any trial,
there is always a way
But sometimes in this suffering
and hopeless despair
My heart cries for shelter,
to know someone's there
But a voice rises within me, saying hold on
my child, I'll give you strength,
I'll give you hope. Just stay a little while.
I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
And I believe in love
even when there's no one there
But I believe in God
even when he is silent
I believe through any trial
there is always a way.
May there someday be sunshine
May there someday be happiness
May there someday be love
May there someday be peace...."
- Unknown
Friday, April 23, 2010
Sisters Reunited with the Jews They Saved From the Nazis
http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9501b&L=poland-l&T=0&P=13577
Cesia Miller looked at the pages of Reader's Digest and realized almost immediately that the story in front of her was about the two sisters who had saved her life all those years ago.
There were the names, Stefania and Helena Podgorska, and the story of how the young girls had saved so many during the German occupation of Poland. It told of how they had hidden 13 Polish Jews for two years in a single room and a cramped attic, of how they had scrounged for food and risked their lives so often to keep them all alive.
It had to be them, Miller thought, the ones she had been seeking for almost 50 years -- the teen-ager and her 7-year-old sister who somehow hid the 13 until the Russian army arrived near the end of World War II.
"It has been like trying to find a rock in the ocean," Miller said. "But it was a thrilling end. I read the story on Sunday
and couldn't wait for Monday so I could call Reader's Digest."
Miller read the story of the Podgorska sisters late last summer. What has happened since then is a story of reunion, joy, memories and tears.
The culmination of all this will occur today when the two sisters -- one now living in a Boston suburb, the other a doctor in Poland -- will be honored at a luncheon sponsored by the Martyrs Memorial of the Jewish Federation Council of Los Angeles.
It will mark the first time the sisters have been honored together, the first time Helena has ever been to any kind of
ceremony dedicated to her. And it will bring together six of the 15 people who for two years were crammed into the sisters' tiny apartment with no running water.
The story of the Podgorska sisters is well known to Holocaust scholars. In the late 1950s, a tree was planted in Israel in their honor. Stefania, the older sister, last year shared a podium with President Clinton at the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
The story begins in 1942 during the German occupation. Stefania, then 16, found herself working in the Polish city of
Przemysl. Her father had died before the war began, and her mother and brother had been pressed into German labor camps.
Stefania started by smuggling food into the city's Jewish ghetto to the family that had once been her employer. Then came the day she decided to hide the first of the Jews, a young man who had escaped from a train headed for the death camps. His name was Max Diamant. In later years, he would change his name to Josef Burzminski and he would become Stefania's husband of 50 years.
As time passed, Diamant asked Stefania to hide others, and still others heard about the haven and showed up at the doorstep. German nurses were in the apartment next door, and there were long periods of absolute silence among those hiding in the cramped attic. Each knock at the door brought another surge of fear.
Stefania's task each day was to gather enough food for her wards without arousing suspicion. Helena often acted as a courier because a young child was less likely to draw attention to herself.
When money ran out, Stefania and others took to knitting sweaters as a way of raising cash. When the Russians finally entered Poland near the war's end, all 13 left their hiding place for the first time and scattered to points around the globe.
In 1957, Stefania and Josef immigrated to Israel, where he opened a dental practice in Tel Aviv, while Helena remained in Poland to study medicine. In 1961, the couple moved to New York and later to the Boston suburb of Brookline, raising two children along the way.
Cesia Miller went in another direction but eventually found her way to New York, and then Los Angeles. Though a child at the time of the German occupation, she never forgot the two sisters. When she traveled to Israel in 1970, she tried to find them there. But Diamant was by then Burzminski and there was no trail to follow.
When she was in Poland a decade ago, Miller again launched a search, but found nothing. Helena by then was married and working as a radiologist in Warsaw.
There were two times when Miller, who lives in West Los Angeles, could have have seen Stefania on television. The first was at the dedication of the Holocaust museum; the second was an appearance by Stefania and Josef last year on Oprah Winfrey's TV show. Miller missed the first event and never watches daytime television.
Ironically, her daughter, Sharon, did see the "Oprah" show but did not make the connection. Neither the town nor the number who had been saved were mentioned, so she had no reason to think the people on the screen had anything to do with her mother.
Meanwhile, in Brookline, Stefania began working on her memoirs, which would eventually grow to 350 typed pages.
"I wanted people to know about helping one another, not to kill but just to be human beings," said Stefania in recalling why she began writing the memoir. "People should learn to live together."
On the Monday after Miller saw the article in Reader's Digest, she did, indeed, find Stefania in Brookline.
"That's you, really you?" asked Miller.
"Yes," Stefania replied.
"I found you," said Miller.
"You found me and I found you," she replied.
Since that time, one thing has led to another. An anonymous benefactor donated a round-trip ticket from Poland to the United States, and Helena has been here for the last three weeks.
The Burzminskis, both now retired, have been here as well. Their son, Ed, lives in Los Angeles and they will visit for the next two months.
Another of the group flew in over the weekend from Germany for the occasion.
On Monday, Stefania and Josef were having lunch, talking about the past. The only thing they didn't want to discuss was the actual time of hiding. They had done it enough, including telling their story in detail as part of research for a proposed movie about the sisters.
Then Josef spoke fondly of Stefania, of all the years they had spent together.
"She put her life in jeopardy to save my life. That was a good test," he said. "She's not only a good wife, she's a friend."
Cesia Miller looked at the pages of Reader's Digest and realized almost immediately that the story in front of her was about the two sisters who had saved her life all those years ago.
There were the names, Stefania and Helena Podgorska, and the story of how the young girls had saved so many during the German occupation of Poland. It told of how they had hidden 13 Polish Jews for two years in a single room and a cramped attic, of how they had scrounged for food and risked their lives so often to keep them all alive.
It had to be them, Miller thought, the ones she had been seeking for almost 50 years -- the teen-ager and her 7-year-old sister who somehow hid the 13 until the Russian army arrived near the end of World War II.
"It has been like trying to find a rock in the ocean," Miller said. "But it was a thrilling end. I read the story on Sunday
and couldn't wait for Monday so I could call Reader's Digest."
Miller read the story of the Podgorska sisters late last summer. What has happened since then is a story of reunion, joy, memories and tears.
The culmination of all this will occur today when the two sisters -- one now living in a Boston suburb, the other a doctor in Poland -- will be honored at a luncheon sponsored by the Martyrs Memorial of the Jewish Federation Council of Los Angeles.
It will mark the first time the sisters have been honored together, the first time Helena has ever been to any kind of
ceremony dedicated to her. And it will bring together six of the 15 people who for two years were crammed into the sisters' tiny apartment with no running water.
The story of the Podgorska sisters is well known to Holocaust scholars. In the late 1950s, a tree was planted in Israel in their honor. Stefania, the older sister, last year shared a podium with President Clinton at the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
The story begins in 1942 during the German occupation. Stefania, then 16, found herself working in the Polish city of
Przemysl. Her father had died before the war began, and her mother and brother had been pressed into German labor camps.
Stefania started by smuggling food into the city's Jewish ghetto to the family that had once been her employer. Then came the day she decided to hide the first of the Jews, a young man who had escaped from a train headed for the death camps. His name was Max Diamant. In later years, he would change his name to Josef Burzminski and he would become Stefania's husband of 50 years.
As time passed, Diamant asked Stefania to hide others, and still others heard about the haven and showed up at the doorstep. German nurses were in the apartment next door, and there were long periods of absolute silence among those hiding in the cramped attic. Each knock at the door brought another surge of fear.
Stefania's task each day was to gather enough food for her wards without arousing suspicion. Helena often acted as a courier because a young child was less likely to draw attention to herself.
When money ran out, Stefania and others took to knitting sweaters as a way of raising cash. When the Russians finally entered Poland near the war's end, all 13 left their hiding place for the first time and scattered to points around the globe.
In 1957, Stefania and Josef immigrated to Israel, where he opened a dental practice in Tel Aviv, while Helena remained in Poland to study medicine. In 1961, the couple moved to New York and later to the Boston suburb of Brookline, raising two children along the way.
Cesia Miller went in another direction but eventually found her way to New York, and then Los Angeles. Though a child at the time of the German occupation, she never forgot the two sisters. When she traveled to Israel in 1970, she tried to find them there. But Diamant was by then Burzminski and there was no trail to follow.
When she was in Poland a decade ago, Miller again launched a search, but found nothing. Helena by then was married and working as a radiologist in Warsaw.
There were two times when Miller, who lives in West Los Angeles, could have have seen Stefania on television. The first was at the dedication of the Holocaust museum; the second was an appearance by Stefania and Josef last year on Oprah Winfrey's TV show. Miller missed the first event and never watches daytime television.
Ironically, her daughter, Sharon, did see the "Oprah" show but did not make the connection. Neither the town nor the number who had been saved were mentioned, so she had no reason to think the people on the screen had anything to do with her mother.
Meanwhile, in Brookline, Stefania began working on her memoirs, which would eventually grow to 350 typed pages.
"I wanted people to know about helping one another, not to kill but just to be human beings," said Stefania in recalling why she began writing the memoir. "People should learn to live together."
On the Monday after Miller saw the article in Reader's Digest, she did, indeed, find Stefania in Brookline.
"That's you, really you?" asked Miller.
"Yes," Stefania replied.
"I found you," said Miller.
"You found me and I found you," she replied.
Since that time, one thing has led to another. An anonymous benefactor donated a round-trip ticket from Poland to the United States, and Helena has been here for the last three weeks.
The Burzminskis, both now retired, have been here as well. Their son, Ed, lives in Los Angeles and they will visit for the next two months.
Another of the group flew in over the weekend from Germany for the occasion.
On Monday, Stefania and Josef were having lunch, talking about the past. The only thing they didn't want to discuss was the actual time of hiding. They had done it enough, including telling their story in detail as part of research for a proposed movie about the sisters.
Then Josef spoke fondly of Stefania, of all the years they had spent together.
"She put her life in jeopardy to save my life. That was a good test," he said. "She's not only a good wife, she's a friend."
Saturday, April 17, 2010
A Hero's Kiss Goodbye
http://fountainheadzero.com/2008/12/heros-kiss-goodbye.html
Too often in life, extraordinary people pass away and leave a legacy behind worthy of the world’s notice but never receive it. They lived lives that many of us could only dream of, lives that are so rich in history and experience that they are what good books is made of. Pain, sorrow, anguish all mixed together with joy and happiness—that is what makes for an extraordinary life.
Mr. Alex Kiss was this kind of man. He died over the weekend in White House, Tennessee—a tiny little town nestled among beautiful hills that serve as footnotes of time and mystery. He was just a boy in Hungary when the dawn of World War II threatened to change his life forever. When Hitler rounded up young men to serve in the Nazi Youth, Mr. Kiss and his best friend were among them. Thus began his legacy…
I cannot imagine being swept into a movement anything like the Nazi Youth. When I was a child, life was more carefree than what should have been allowed. But to be forced to learn to hate and fight in the way that the Nazis did…is unthinkable. Mr. Kiss and his best friend were handed a gun and a uniform. They were sent out on patrols that I imagine started out innocent enough. The grown men probably offered them their first cigarette on a blistery dark night as they stood nervously clinging to their guns. They would have learned how to use swear words correctly in the rough and tumble military world they were falling into. The hate was all around them. The Jews were bad. They were the root of all evil, the cause of all the world’s problems. They must be held at bay. They must be killed.
I cannot imagine…
Alex Kiss saw hate in its raw form: unadulterated, unleashed, unrestrained and ugly. Eventually, the thin veil fell away and revealed the true intent of what the Nazi Youth was being trained to do. They were to kill—murder their fellow citizens.
Alex was only a boy when he witnessed what the heart of man was capable of. Being drug from their homes, Jewish men were stripped of their clothes in the town square for all to see. In the frigid temperatures, buckets of water were poured over their heads. Some passerby’s mocked the men and ridiculed them. Others tried not to hear the blood-chilling cries of the wife who begged the Nazis to stop only to be silenced by the slap of a hand or crushed by the butt of a rifle. Children cowered, much like Alex Kiss did—confused and afraid of what was happening before their eyes. The nightmare was only finished when the poor Jewish man froze to death, naked, exposed and left lying in the town square.
“Sich in Reih und Glied aufstellen!”
I cannot imagine what must have raced through Alex’s mind as he and his best friend held innocent Jews by gunpoint. His heart must have raced, afraid of what would happen next as Jewish men, women, and even children were lined up along a river. I am sure he stared into the eyes of a boy just like him—eyes wide with fear—heart pounding like mad.
“Feuer!”
When the shots were fired, he flinched. The echo shook the earth and birds exploded from the trees. The world slowed and spun around him as the bodies fell lifeless into the water. Rich, velvety blood was caught up in the rushing ripples that washed over the dead. Tears hung from his lashes as Alex’s breath caught in his throat. What kind of world had he been born into?
It was during the night that he and his best friend decided that they had to escape. They would not become monsters. They refused to kill innocent men and women. They could not watch another child be killed ever again. But it was risky. Anyone caught fleeing would be shot on sight.
“We’ll run.” His friend’s voice was hushed, his eyes serious. “We’ll run and never stop…never look back. Do you hear me?” Alex barely nodded. “If we hear gunshots, we won’t stop. No matter what, Alex, don’t stop!”
It was a dark night with pristine snow casting an eerie look over the land. The men were on patrol when Alex and his friend slipped away. Taking a deep breath, they stared ahead, looked one last time in each other’s eyes where a silent pact shone…
…And then they ran.
The German shouts only made Alex’s legs pump harder, his heart racing. “Keep running!” His friend commanded…
…And then the shots rang out.
Alex flinched, heard a hollow thud in the snow behind him, but he never stopped running. Silent tears slid down his cheeks. His best friend, his co-conspirator in boyhood mischief…was gone.
Over the last many years, Mr. Alex Kiss was just an old Hungarian man to most people in White House, Tennessee. He was a nice man that made friends easily. A member of the White House Methodist Church, he would often visit the church office during the week. This was where he waited for his wife to pick him up for Chemo treatments. He was dying of cancer, but no one would have known it by the life that radiated from him.
He came to the church office to sit a while and talk about nothing in particular with the pretty lady that worked there. She happens to be my Aunt. If you knew her, you would understand why it was the place Alex would want to be before the dreaded Chemo. My Aunt is vivacious, to say the least. She’s easy to talk to, and when you spend time with her, the world doesn’t seem so serious.
On one of these visits, my Aunt’s eight-year-old son happened to notice a strange tattoo on Mr. Kiss’s arm—a faded line of numbers. Like most nosey young boys, Corey asked why he had such a funny tattoo. Alex’s answer came in the form of a story; a story about his best friend and how Alex was captured and imprisoned in a concentration camp. He told him about his days in the Nazi Youth…and the evil that one man sowed in an entire generation of young boys.
Perhaps they were stories that some may deem inappropriate to tell to an eight-year-old boy, but Corey looked at Mr. Alex like one would look at a superhero. Even though Mr. Alex told his stories with tears pouring down his cheeks, to Corey, Mr. Alex was a hero.
Some people die and the world never knows. Though Mr. Alex’s stories may never be read in a thrilling novel, be seen on the silver screen, or grace the headlines of the media—they will forever be hidden in the heart of my cousin Corey. Alex Kiss was his superhero with a legacy that will forever haunt his boyish heart.
May there be more men that live and breathe lives worthy of such boyish praise.
Too often in life, extraordinary people pass away and leave a legacy behind worthy of the world’s notice but never receive it. They lived lives that many of us could only dream of, lives that are so rich in history and experience that they are what good books is made of. Pain, sorrow, anguish all mixed together with joy and happiness—that is what makes for an extraordinary life.
Mr. Alex Kiss was this kind of man. He died over the weekend in White House, Tennessee—a tiny little town nestled among beautiful hills that serve as footnotes of time and mystery. He was just a boy in Hungary when the dawn of World War II threatened to change his life forever. When Hitler rounded up young men to serve in the Nazi Youth, Mr. Kiss and his best friend were among them. Thus began his legacy…
I cannot imagine being swept into a movement anything like the Nazi Youth. When I was a child, life was more carefree than what should have been allowed. But to be forced to learn to hate and fight in the way that the Nazis did…is unthinkable. Mr. Kiss and his best friend were handed a gun and a uniform. They were sent out on patrols that I imagine started out innocent enough. The grown men probably offered them their first cigarette on a blistery dark night as they stood nervously clinging to their guns. They would have learned how to use swear words correctly in the rough and tumble military world they were falling into. The hate was all around them. The Jews were bad. They were the root of all evil, the cause of all the world’s problems. They must be held at bay. They must be killed.
I cannot imagine…
Alex Kiss saw hate in its raw form: unadulterated, unleashed, unrestrained and ugly. Eventually, the thin veil fell away and revealed the true intent of what the Nazi Youth was being trained to do. They were to kill—murder their fellow citizens.
Alex was only a boy when he witnessed what the heart of man was capable of. Being drug from their homes, Jewish men were stripped of their clothes in the town square for all to see. In the frigid temperatures, buckets of water were poured over their heads. Some passerby’s mocked the men and ridiculed them. Others tried not to hear the blood-chilling cries of the wife who begged the Nazis to stop only to be silenced by the slap of a hand or crushed by the butt of a rifle. Children cowered, much like Alex Kiss did—confused and afraid of what was happening before their eyes. The nightmare was only finished when the poor Jewish man froze to death, naked, exposed and left lying in the town square.
“Sich in Reih und Glied aufstellen!”
I cannot imagine what must have raced through Alex’s mind as he and his best friend held innocent Jews by gunpoint. His heart must have raced, afraid of what would happen next as Jewish men, women, and even children were lined up along a river. I am sure he stared into the eyes of a boy just like him—eyes wide with fear—heart pounding like mad.
“Feuer!”
When the shots were fired, he flinched. The echo shook the earth and birds exploded from the trees. The world slowed and spun around him as the bodies fell lifeless into the water. Rich, velvety blood was caught up in the rushing ripples that washed over the dead. Tears hung from his lashes as Alex’s breath caught in his throat. What kind of world had he been born into?
It was during the night that he and his best friend decided that they had to escape. They would not become monsters. They refused to kill innocent men and women. They could not watch another child be killed ever again. But it was risky. Anyone caught fleeing would be shot on sight.
“We’ll run.” His friend’s voice was hushed, his eyes serious. “We’ll run and never stop…never look back. Do you hear me?” Alex barely nodded. “If we hear gunshots, we won’t stop. No matter what, Alex, don’t stop!”
It was a dark night with pristine snow casting an eerie look over the land. The men were on patrol when Alex and his friend slipped away. Taking a deep breath, they stared ahead, looked one last time in each other’s eyes where a silent pact shone…
…And then they ran.
The German shouts only made Alex’s legs pump harder, his heart racing. “Keep running!” His friend commanded…
…And then the shots rang out.
Alex flinched, heard a hollow thud in the snow behind him, but he never stopped running. Silent tears slid down his cheeks. His best friend, his co-conspirator in boyhood mischief…was gone.
Over the last many years, Mr. Alex Kiss was just an old Hungarian man to most people in White House, Tennessee. He was a nice man that made friends easily. A member of the White House Methodist Church, he would often visit the church office during the week. This was where he waited for his wife to pick him up for Chemo treatments. He was dying of cancer, but no one would have known it by the life that radiated from him.
He came to the church office to sit a while and talk about nothing in particular with the pretty lady that worked there. She happens to be my Aunt. If you knew her, you would understand why it was the place Alex would want to be before the dreaded Chemo. My Aunt is vivacious, to say the least. She’s easy to talk to, and when you spend time with her, the world doesn’t seem so serious.
On one of these visits, my Aunt’s eight-year-old son happened to notice a strange tattoo on Mr. Kiss’s arm—a faded line of numbers. Like most nosey young boys, Corey asked why he had such a funny tattoo. Alex’s answer came in the form of a story; a story about his best friend and how Alex was captured and imprisoned in a concentration camp. He told him about his days in the Nazi Youth…and the evil that one man sowed in an entire generation of young boys.
Perhaps they were stories that some may deem inappropriate to tell to an eight-year-old boy, but Corey looked at Mr. Alex like one would look at a superhero. Even though Mr. Alex told his stories with tears pouring down his cheeks, to Corey, Mr. Alex was a hero.
Some people die and the world never knows. Though Mr. Alex’s stories may never be read in a thrilling novel, be seen on the silver screen, or grace the headlines of the media—they will forever be hidden in the heart of my cousin Corey. Alex Kiss was his superhero with a legacy that will forever haunt his boyish heart.
May there be more men that live and breathe lives worthy of such boyish praise.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The Gold and Ivory Tablecloth
by Howard C. Schade
At Christmas time men and women everywhere gather in their churches to wonder anew at the greatest miracle the world has ever known. But the story I like best to recall was not a miracle -- not exactly.
It happened to a pastor who was very young. His church was very old. Once, long ago, it had flourished. Famous men had preached from its pulpit, prayed before its altar. Rich and poor alike had worshipped there and built it beautifully. Now the good days had passed from the section of town where it stood. But the pastor and his young wife believed in their run-down church. They felt that with paint, hammer, and faith they could get it in shape. Together they went to work.
But late in December a severe storm whipped through the river valley, and the worst blow fell on the little church -- a huge chunk of rain-soaked plaster fell out of the inside wall just behind the altar. Sorrowfully the pastor and his wife swept away the mess, but they couldn't hide the ragged hole.
The pastor looked at it and had to remind himself quickly, "Thy will be done!" But his wife wept, "Christmas is only two days away!"
That afternoon the dispirited couple attended the auction held for the benefit of a youth group. The auctioneer opened a box and shook out of its folds a handsome gold and ivory lace tablecloth. It was a magnificent item, nearly 15 feet long. but it, too, dated from a long vanished era. Who, today, had any use for such a thing? There were a few halfhearted bids. Then the pastor was seized with what he thought was a great idea.
He bid it in for $6.50.
He carried the cloth back to the church and tacked it up on the wall behind the altar. It completely hid the hole! And the extraordinary beauty of its shimmering handwork cast a fine, holiday glow over the chancel. It was a great triumph. Happily he went back to preparing his Christmas sermon.
Just before noon on the day of Christmas Eve, as the pastor was opening the church, he noticed a woman standing in the cold at the bus stop. "The bus won't be here for 40 minutes!" he called, and invited her into the church to get warm.
She told him that she had come from the city that morning to be interviewed for a job as governess to the children of one of the wealthy families in town but she had been turned down. A war refugee, her English was imperfect.
The woman sat down in a pew and chafed her hands and rested. After a while she dropped her head and prayed. She looked up as the pastor began to adjust the great gold and ivory cloth across the hole. She rose suddenly and walked up the steps of the chancel. She looked at the tablecloth. The pastor smiled and started to tell her about the storm damage, but she didn't seem to listen. She took up a fold of the cloth and rubbed it between her fingers.
"It is mine!" she said. "It is my banquet cloth!" She lifted up a corner and showed the surprised pastor that there were initials monogrammed on it. "My husband had the cloth made especially for me in Brussels! There could not be another like it."
For the next few minutes the woman and the pastor talked excitedly together. She explained that she was Viennese; that she and her husband had opposed the Nazis and decided to leave the country. They were advised to go separately. Her husband put her on a train for Switzerland. They planned that he would join her as soon as he could arrange to ship their household goods across the border. She never saw him again. Later she heard that he had died in a concentration camp.
"I have always felt that it was my fault -- to leave without him," she said. "Perhaps these years of wandering have been my punishment!" The pastor tried to comfort her and urged her to take the cloth with her. She refused. Then she went away.
As the church began to fill on Christmas Eve, it was clear that the cloth was going to be a great success. It had been skillfully designed to look its best by candlelight.
After the service, the pastor stood at the doorway. Many people told him that the church looked beautiful. One gentle-faced middle-aged man -- he was the local clock-and-watch repairman -- looked rather puzzled.
"It is strange," he said in his soft accent. "Many years ago my wife - God rest her -- and I owned such a cloth. In our home in Vienna, my wife put it on the table" -- and here he smiled -- "only when the bishop came to dinner."
The pastor suddenly became very excited. He told the jeweler about the woman who had been in church earlier that day. The startled jeweler clutched the pastor's arm. "Can it be? Does she live?"
Together the two got in touch with the family who had interviewed her. Then, in the pastor's car they started for the city. And as Christmas Day was born, this man and his wife, who had been separated through so many saddened Yule tides, were reunited.
To all who hear this story, the joyful purpose of the storm that had knocked a hole in the wall of the church was now quite clear. Of course, people said it was a miracle, but I think you will agree it was the season for it!
True love seems to find a way.
At Christmas time men and women everywhere gather in their churches to wonder anew at the greatest miracle the world has ever known. But the story I like best to recall was not a miracle -- not exactly.
It happened to a pastor who was very young. His church was very old. Once, long ago, it had flourished. Famous men had preached from its pulpit, prayed before its altar. Rich and poor alike had worshipped there and built it beautifully. Now the good days had passed from the section of town where it stood. But the pastor and his young wife believed in their run-down church. They felt that with paint, hammer, and faith they could get it in shape. Together they went to work.
But late in December a severe storm whipped through the river valley, and the worst blow fell on the little church -- a huge chunk of rain-soaked plaster fell out of the inside wall just behind the altar. Sorrowfully the pastor and his wife swept away the mess, but they couldn't hide the ragged hole.
The pastor looked at it and had to remind himself quickly, "Thy will be done!" But his wife wept, "Christmas is only two days away!"
That afternoon the dispirited couple attended the auction held for the benefit of a youth group. The auctioneer opened a box and shook out of its folds a handsome gold and ivory lace tablecloth. It was a magnificent item, nearly 15 feet long. but it, too, dated from a long vanished era. Who, today, had any use for such a thing? There were a few halfhearted bids. Then the pastor was seized with what he thought was a great idea.
He bid it in for $6.50.
He carried the cloth back to the church and tacked it up on the wall behind the altar. It completely hid the hole! And the extraordinary beauty of its shimmering handwork cast a fine, holiday glow over the chancel. It was a great triumph. Happily he went back to preparing his Christmas sermon.
Just before noon on the day of Christmas Eve, as the pastor was opening the church, he noticed a woman standing in the cold at the bus stop. "The bus won't be here for 40 minutes!" he called, and invited her into the church to get warm.
She told him that she had come from the city that morning to be interviewed for a job as governess to the children of one of the wealthy families in town but she had been turned down. A war refugee, her English was imperfect.
The woman sat down in a pew and chafed her hands and rested. After a while she dropped her head and prayed. She looked up as the pastor began to adjust the great gold and ivory cloth across the hole. She rose suddenly and walked up the steps of the chancel. She looked at the tablecloth. The pastor smiled and started to tell her about the storm damage, but she didn't seem to listen. She took up a fold of the cloth and rubbed it between her fingers.
"It is mine!" she said. "It is my banquet cloth!" She lifted up a corner and showed the surprised pastor that there were initials monogrammed on it. "My husband had the cloth made especially for me in Brussels! There could not be another like it."
For the next few minutes the woman and the pastor talked excitedly together. She explained that she was Viennese; that she and her husband had opposed the Nazis and decided to leave the country. They were advised to go separately. Her husband put her on a train for Switzerland. They planned that he would join her as soon as he could arrange to ship their household goods across the border. She never saw him again. Later she heard that he had died in a concentration camp.
"I have always felt that it was my fault -- to leave without him," she said. "Perhaps these years of wandering have been my punishment!" The pastor tried to comfort her and urged her to take the cloth with her. She refused. Then she went away.
As the church began to fill on Christmas Eve, it was clear that the cloth was going to be a great success. It had been skillfully designed to look its best by candlelight.
After the service, the pastor stood at the doorway. Many people told him that the church looked beautiful. One gentle-faced middle-aged man -- he was the local clock-and-watch repairman -- looked rather puzzled.
"It is strange," he said in his soft accent. "Many years ago my wife - God rest her -- and I owned such a cloth. In our home in Vienna, my wife put it on the table" -- and here he smiled -- "only when the bishop came to dinner."
The pastor suddenly became very excited. He told the jeweler about the woman who had been in church earlier that day. The startled jeweler clutched the pastor's arm. "Can it be? Does she live?"
Together the two got in touch with the family who had interviewed her. Then, in the pastor's car they started for the city. And as Christmas Day was born, this man and his wife, who had been separated through so many saddened Yule tides, were reunited.
To all who hear this story, the joyful purpose of the storm that had knocked a hole in the wall of the church was now quite clear. Of course, people said it was a miracle, but I think you will agree it was the season for it!
True love seems to find a way.
Friday, April 9, 2010
The Holocast Wedding Gown
This is a very interesting story.
The Wedding Gown That Made History!
Lilly Friedman doesn't remember the last name of the woman who designed and sewed the wedding gown she wore when she walked down the aisle over 60 years ago. But the grandmother of seven does recall that when she first told her fiancé Ludwig that she had always dreamed of being married in a white gown he realized he had his work cut out for him.
For the tall, lanky 21-year-old who had survived hunger, disease and torture this was a different kind of challenge. How was he ever going to find such a dress in the Bergen Belsen Displaced Person's camp where they felt grateful for the clothes on their backs?
Fate would intervene in the guise of a former German pilot who walked into the food distribution center where Ludwig worked, eager to make a trade for his worthless parachute. In exchange for two pounds of coffee beans and a couple of packs of cigarettes Lilly would have her wedding gown.
For two weeks Miriam the seamstress worked under the curious eyes of her fellow DPs, carefully fashioning the six parachute panels into a simple, long sleeved gown with a rolled collar and a fitted waist that tied in the back with a bow. When the dress was completed she sewed the leftover material into a matching shirt for the groom.
A white wedding gown may have seemed like a frivolous request in the surreal environment of the camps, but for Lilly the dress symbolized the innocent, normal life she and her family had once led before the world descended into madness. Lilly and her siblings were raised in a Torah observant home in the small town of Zarica, Czechoslovakia where her father was a melamed, respected and well liked by the young yeshiva students he taught in nearby Irsheva.
He and his two sons were marked for extermination immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz. For Lilly and her sisters it was only their first stop on their long journey of persecution, which included Plashof, Neustadt, Gross Rosen and finally Bergen Belsen.
Four hundred people marched 15 miles in the snow to the town of Celle on January 27, 1946 to attend Lilly and Ludwig's wedding. The town synagogue, damaged and desecrated, had been lovingly renovated by the DPs with the meager materials available to them. When a Sefer Torah arrived from England they converted an old kitchen cabinet into a makeshift Aron Kodesh.
"My sisters and I lost everything - our parents, our two brothers, our homes. The most important thing was to build a new home." Six months later, Lilly's sister Ilona wore the dress when she married Max Traeger. After that came Cousin Rosie. How many brides wore Lilly's dress? "I stopped counting after 17." With the camps experiencing the highest marriage rate in the world, Lilly's gown was in great demand.
In 1948 when President Harry Truman finally permitted the 100,000 Jews who had been languishing in DP camps since the end of the war to emigrate, the gown accompanied Lilly across the ocean to America. Unable to part with her dress, it lay at the bottom of her bedroom closet for the next 50 years, "not even good enough for a garage sale. I was happy when it found such a good home."
Home was the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. When Lily's niece, a volunteer, told museum officials about her aunt's dress, they immediately recognized its historical significance and displayed the gown in a specially designed showcase, guaranteed to preserve it for 500 years.
But Lilly Friedman's dress had one more journey to make. Bergen Belsen, the museum, opened its doors on October 28, 2007. The German government invited Lilly and her sisters to be their guests for the grand opening. They initially declined, but finally traveled to Hanover the following year with their children, their grandchildren and extended families to view the extraordinary exhibit created for the wedding dress made from a parachute.
Lilly's family, who were all familiar with the stories about the wedding in Celle, were eager to visit the synagogue. They found the building had been completely renovated and modernized. But when they pulled aside the handsome curtain they were astounded to find that the Aron Kodesh, made from a kitchen cabinet, had remained untouched as a testament to the profound faith of the survivors. As Lilly stood on the bimah once again she beckoned to her granddaughter, Jackie, to stand beside her where she was once a kallah. "It was an emotional trip. We cried a lot."
Two weeks later, the woman who had once stood trembling before the selective eyes of the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele returned home and witnessed the marriage of her granddaughter.
The three Lax sisters - Lilly, Ilona and Eva, who together survived Auschwitz, a forced labor camp, a death march and Bergen Belsen - have remained close and today live within walking distance of each other in Brooklyn. As mere teenagers, they managed to outwit and outlive a monstrous killing machine, then went on to marry, have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and were ultimately honored by the country that had earmarked them for extinction.
As young brides, they had stood underneath the chuppah and recited the blessings that their ancestors had been saying for thousands of years. In doing so, they chose to honor the legacy of those who had perished by choosing life.
In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER
It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian peoples looking the other way!
Now, more than ever, with Iraq, Iran and others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.
The Wedding Gown That Made History!
Lilly Friedman doesn't remember the last name of the woman who designed and sewed the wedding gown she wore when she walked down the aisle over 60 years ago. But the grandmother of seven does recall that when she first told her fiancé Ludwig that she had always dreamed of being married in a white gown he realized he had his work cut out for him.
For the tall, lanky 21-year-old who had survived hunger, disease and torture this was a different kind of challenge. How was he ever going to find such a dress in the Bergen Belsen Displaced Person's camp where they felt grateful for the clothes on their backs?
Fate would intervene in the guise of a former German pilot who walked into the food distribution center where Ludwig worked, eager to make a trade for his worthless parachute. In exchange for two pounds of coffee beans and a couple of packs of cigarettes Lilly would have her wedding gown.
For two weeks Miriam the seamstress worked under the curious eyes of her fellow DPs, carefully fashioning the six parachute panels into a simple, long sleeved gown with a rolled collar and a fitted waist that tied in the back with a bow. When the dress was completed she sewed the leftover material into a matching shirt for the groom.
A white wedding gown may have seemed like a frivolous request in the surreal environment of the camps, but for Lilly the dress symbolized the innocent, normal life she and her family had once led before the world descended into madness. Lilly and her siblings were raised in a Torah observant home in the small town of Zarica, Czechoslovakia where her father was a melamed, respected and well liked by the young yeshiva students he taught in nearby Irsheva.
He and his two sons were marked for extermination immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz. For Lilly and her sisters it was only their first stop on their long journey of persecution, which included Plashof, Neustadt, Gross Rosen and finally Bergen Belsen.
Four hundred people marched 15 miles in the snow to the town of Celle on January 27, 1946 to attend Lilly and Ludwig's wedding. The town synagogue, damaged and desecrated, had been lovingly renovated by the DPs with the meager materials available to them. When a Sefer Torah arrived from England they converted an old kitchen cabinet into a makeshift Aron Kodesh.
"My sisters and I lost everything - our parents, our two brothers, our homes. The most important thing was to build a new home." Six months later, Lilly's sister Ilona wore the dress when she married Max Traeger. After that came Cousin Rosie. How many brides wore Lilly's dress? "I stopped counting after 17." With the camps experiencing the highest marriage rate in the world, Lilly's gown was in great demand.
In 1948 when President Harry Truman finally permitted the 100,000 Jews who had been languishing in DP camps since the end of the war to emigrate, the gown accompanied Lilly across the ocean to America. Unable to part with her dress, it lay at the bottom of her bedroom closet for the next 50 years, "not even good enough for a garage sale. I was happy when it found such a good home."
Home was the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. When Lily's niece, a volunteer, told museum officials about her aunt's dress, they immediately recognized its historical significance and displayed the gown in a specially designed showcase, guaranteed to preserve it for 500 years.
But Lilly Friedman's dress had one more journey to make. Bergen Belsen, the museum, opened its doors on October 28, 2007. The German government invited Lilly and her sisters to be their guests for the grand opening. They initially declined, but finally traveled to Hanover the following year with their children, their grandchildren and extended families to view the extraordinary exhibit created for the wedding dress made from a parachute.
Lilly's family, who were all familiar with the stories about the wedding in Celle, were eager to visit the synagogue. They found the building had been completely renovated and modernized. But when they pulled aside the handsome curtain they were astounded to find that the Aron Kodesh, made from a kitchen cabinet, had remained untouched as a testament to the profound faith of the survivors. As Lilly stood on the bimah once again she beckoned to her granddaughter, Jackie, to stand beside her where she was once a kallah. "It was an emotional trip. We cried a lot."
Two weeks later, the woman who had once stood trembling before the selective eyes of the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele returned home and witnessed the marriage of her granddaughter.
The three Lax sisters - Lilly, Ilona and Eva, who together survived Auschwitz, a forced labor camp, a death march and Bergen Belsen - have remained close and today live within walking distance of each other in Brooklyn. As mere teenagers, they managed to outwit and outlive a monstrous killing machine, then went on to marry, have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and were ultimately honored by the country that had earmarked them for extinction.
As young brides, they had stood underneath the chuppah and recited the blessings that their ancestors had been saying for thousands of years. In doing so, they chose to honor the legacy of those who had perished by choosing life.
In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER
It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian peoples looking the other way!
Now, more than ever, with Iraq, Iran and others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Abducted from the Hands of the Aggressor
The Rescue of Jewish Children in Belgium
by Dr. Mordecai Paldiel
On 20 May 1943, just before 10:00 p.m., the doorbell of the Très- Saint-Sauveur convent in Brussels, Belgium rang. Two armed men forced their way in, shouting "Hands up!" They were followed by several other armed men and one woman who stormed the convent, cut the phone lines, and ordered all the nuns to assemble in the Mother Superior's office. The nuns were forced to prepare 15 of their wards—Jewish girls who had been hidden under the guise of Catholic children in need—for a journey. In under an hour, the abductors had taken the children, locked up the nuns in the office, and Sister Marie Amélie (Leloup Eugénie)—the Mother Superior—in an upstairs room. On the way out, to reassure the children, one of the men whispered a few words in Yiddish. Who were these unusual abductors? In September 1942, Cardinal Van Roey, head of the Belgian Catholic church in Malines/ Mechelen, and the Comité de Défense des Juifs (CDJ), a Jewish clandestine rescue organization, encouraged the Mother Superior of the Trés-Saint-Sauveur convent to take 15 Jewish girls into hiding.
For nine months, the girls lived comfortably in the convent, adapting to their new surroundings and attending Christian religious lessons. On 20 May 1943, having received information of the Jewish children, the Gestapo raided the premises. Discovering that three girls were absent, they decided to return the next morning to collect all the children at once. "It is not to kill them," the head Gestapo agent told the Mother Superior sarcastically, "but to unite them with their families." Frantic, Sister Marie Amélie contacted Miss Jeanne (the wartime pseudonym of Ida Sterno, a Jewish activist with the CDJ) for help. She also appealed to Cardinal Van Roey who contacted Elisabeth, the Queen Mother of Belgium, through one of his aides. Elisabeth intervened but failed to persuade the German authorities to alter their plans. Throughout that day, Sister Marie Amélie and her nuns prayed for divine intervention, while simultaneously preparing the children's belongings for the following day's "departure." That night just before 10:00 p.m. their prayers were answered in the form of an unusual abduction. The leader of the raiding party was 23-year-old Paul Halter, a Jewish commander in the Belgian armed resistance.
Earlier that day, he had visited his friend, Toby Cymberknopf. "I found him very upset," Halter recalls. "He informed me that our friend, Bernard Fenerberg, had learned about the Gestapo's visit to the convent and their intent to return to collect the children. We realized that we only had a few hours at our disposal and thus decided to take it upon ourselves to rescue the children."
Halter, Cymberknopf, and Fenerberg, were joined by fellow-Jew, Jankiel Parancevitch, as well as Andrée Ermel and Floris Desmedt from the Belgian resistance. The six waited for dark, knowing the operation had to take place before the 10:00 p.m. curfew.
"We then forced our way in at gunpoint. We locked up the Mother Superior, ripped out the phone line, and tied the nuns to chairs in the convent's office," says Halter.Half an hour after the "kidnapping" one of the nuns managed to reach the window and alert a passer-by who called the Belgian police. The nuns told the police of the kidnapping and the police carried out their investigation until the next morning, before alerting the Gestapo (giving the kidnappers time to escape with the children). When the Gestapo appeared at the convent the next morning at 11:00 a.m. the children were long gone. From the convent, some had been handed over to their parents, four were brought to Halter's home, and others were taken to Cymberknopf's house. That morning, they had all been transferred to safe locations with help from the CDJ. The Gestapo interrogated the Mother Superior, who said she was certain the men had been sent by the Gestapo.
"Did they have a Jewish appearance?"
"No, not at all."
"Were they all armed?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you scream?"
"Scream? We didn't dare; they said they would shoot if we shouted."
Unable to disprove the nuns' story, the Gestapo left and the children were saved. Halter was later arrested and in September 1943 was deported to Auschwitz. Only after the war did he discover that all 15 girls had survived. Years later in 1991, as a participant in the first Hidden Children reunion in New York, he was reunited with several of the girls he saved. Sister Marie Amélie, Mother Superior of Très-Saint-Sauveur, was honored by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations in 2001, as were Andrée Ermel and her parents, Marcel and Céline Ermel (with whom one of the children, Myriam Frydland, was placed). Yad Vashem equally pays tribute to the CDJ, and the four Jews who participated in this rescue operation—a unique episode in the annals of the Holocaust in Belgium.
by Dr. Mordecai Paldiel
On 20 May 1943, just before 10:00 p.m., the doorbell of the Très- Saint-Sauveur convent in Brussels, Belgium rang. Two armed men forced their way in, shouting "Hands up!" They were followed by several other armed men and one woman who stormed the convent, cut the phone lines, and ordered all the nuns to assemble in the Mother Superior's office. The nuns were forced to prepare 15 of their wards—Jewish girls who had been hidden under the guise of Catholic children in need—for a journey. In under an hour, the abductors had taken the children, locked up the nuns in the office, and Sister Marie Amélie (Leloup Eugénie)—the Mother Superior—in an upstairs room. On the way out, to reassure the children, one of the men whispered a few words in Yiddish. Who were these unusual abductors? In September 1942, Cardinal Van Roey, head of the Belgian Catholic church in Malines/ Mechelen, and the Comité de Défense des Juifs (CDJ), a Jewish clandestine rescue organization, encouraged the Mother Superior of the Trés-Saint-Sauveur convent to take 15 Jewish girls into hiding.
For nine months, the girls lived comfortably in the convent, adapting to their new surroundings and attending Christian religious lessons. On 20 May 1943, having received information of the Jewish children, the Gestapo raided the premises. Discovering that three girls were absent, they decided to return the next morning to collect all the children at once. "It is not to kill them," the head Gestapo agent told the Mother Superior sarcastically, "but to unite them with their families." Frantic, Sister Marie Amélie contacted Miss Jeanne (the wartime pseudonym of Ida Sterno, a Jewish activist with the CDJ) for help. She also appealed to Cardinal Van Roey who contacted Elisabeth, the Queen Mother of Belgium, through one of his aides. Elisabeth intervened but failed to persuade the German authorities to alter their plans. Throughout that day, Sister Marie Amélie and her nuns prayed for divine intervention, while simultaneously preparing the children's belongings for the following day's "departure." That night just before 10:00 p.m. their prayers were answered in the form of an unusual abduction. The leader of the raiding party was 23-year-old Paul Halter, a Jewish commander in the Belgian armed resistance.
Earlier that day, he had visited his friend, Toby Cymberknopf. "I found him very upset," Halter recalls. "He informed me that our friend, Bernard Fenerberg, had learned about the Gestapo's visit to the convent and their intent to return to collect the children. We realized that we only had a few hours at our disposal and thus decided to take it upon ourselves to rescue the children."
Halter, Cymberknopf, and Fenerberg, were joined by fellow-Jew, Jankiel Parancevitch, as well as Andrée Ermel and Floris Desmedt from the Belgian resistance. The six waited for dark, knowing the operation had to take place before the 10:00 p.m. curfew.
"We then forced our way in at gunpoint. We locked up the Mother Superior, ripped out the phone line, and tied the nuns to chairs in the convent's office," says Halter.Half an hour after the "kidnapping" one of the nuns managed to reach the window and alert a passer-by who called the Belgian police. The nuns told the police of the kidnapping and the police carried out their investigation until the next morning, before alerting the Gestapo (giving the kidnappers time to escape with the children). When the Gestapo appeared at the convent the next morning at 11:00 a.m. the children were long gone. From the convent, some had been handed over to their parents, four were brought to Halter's home, and others were taken to Cymberknopf's house. That morning, they had all been transferred to safe locations with help from the CDJ. The Gestapo interrogated the Mother Superior, who said she was certain the men had been sent by the Gestapo.
"Did they have a Jewish appearance?"
"No, not at all."
"Were they all armed?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you scream?"
"Scream? We didn't dare; they said they would shoot if we shouted."
Unable to disprove the nuns' story, the Gestapo left and the children were saved. Halter was later arrested and in September 1943 was deported to Auschwitz. Only after the war did he discover that all 15 girls had survived. Years later in 1991, as a participant in the first Hidden Children reunion in New York, he was reunited with several of the girls he saved. Sister Marie Amélie, Mother Superior of Très-Saint-Sauveur, was honored by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations in 2001, as were Andrée Ermel and her parents, Marcel and Céline Ermel (with whom one of the children, Myriam Frydland, was placed). Yad Vashem equally pays tribute to the CDJ, and the four Jews who participated in this rescue operation—a unique episode in the annals of the Holocaust in Belgium.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
A Girl and a Half
Stefania’s Story:
For the last sixteen months of the war in Nazi occupied Poland, 17-year-old Stefania Podgorska and her seven-year-old sister Helena hid 13 Jews in their apartment's attic. It began with sheltering Max Diamant (he later changed his name to Joseph after the war due to prejudice) and later invited his brother and his brother's girlfriend, Danuta. But as time passed, the group multiplied. Despite the constant threat of imprisonment and execution if her thirteen Jewish friends were discovered, Stefania continued to provide them a safe haven. Not only that, she fed, clothed and disposed of their waste the entire time. Even when a young suitor attempted to court her, she turned him away. Towards the end of the war, an empty building from across the street was converted into a makeshift hospital.
One afternoon, two SS soldiers knocked on her door. “You have been ordered to vacate the premises within two hours.” They read to her from an official-looking sheet of paper.
“This residence has been commandeered by the Third Reich. The penalty for noncompliance is death.”
“Two hours! How will I find a place for my sister and me in just two hours?” she cried, but the soldiers merely repeated the orders and left.
For the next hour and a half Stefania ran through every street in town - but she could find nothing that would shelter all fifteen of them. After three years of looting and deprivation, the buildings were in worse shape than ever. There were doorways but no doors; houses without ceilings; rooms filled with the rubble of loose masonry and roofing material.
[In a 1990’s interview Stefania recalls] “Just ruins, nothing more. Almost two hours had gone already. So I came home. I started to cry. I said, ‘How can I leave thirteen people to certain death? I can run out, but these people will be dead…’ There was nothing available, nothing. Only twenty minutes left. I came home. I said nothing. All my thirteen came down to me, with the three children. The pressed against me, so tightly, they looked at me. My decision. Will I leave? My decision. Will I leave them or not?
“All thirteen of them said to me, ‘Run away. You don't have to die with us. We have to, but you don't have to die with us. You cannot help us anymore. Save your life and your little sister and run away, because you still have 10 minutes.’ Joseph pushed me. They said, ‘Run away. Don’t die with us. You cannot help us anymore. What you could do you did, but not now. Save your life and Helena. Go. Run away.’
“And all these people watched me, the children pressed so close I could hear their breathing, my sister too. So I really, I didn't know what to do. I said to them, ‘Well, first of all, come on. We will pray. We will ask God.’ You see, I had a picture which I bought as a little girl, of Jesus and his mother, and it always hung on my wall. And I said, ‘Come on - we will pray. We will ask God.’
“First I knelt, then my sister and all the thirteen after, behind me. And I prayed, and I turned to look. All thirteen were in deep, deep prayer. And I asked God not to let us be killed. Help, somehow. I cannot leave this apartment. I cannot leave thirteen people for certain death. I will be alive if I go, but thirteen lives will be finished - children too, and young people. I asked God, ‘Help, somehow.’
“And again I heard a voice, a woman’s voice. It was so beautiful, so nice, so quiet. She said to me, ‘Don’t worry. Everything will be all right. You will not leave your apartment. You will stay here, and they will take only one room. Everything will be all right. I am with you.’ And she told me, ‘Be quiet. I’ll tell you what to do.’ She said, ‘Send your people to the bunker. Open the door. Open the windows. Clean your apartment and sing.’
“I was like hypnotized. My head was bent down, and I was listening, I was listening and the voice said again, ‘Everything will be all right.’ Then it disappeared. I listened a few minutes more, but nothing more came.
“So I got up and said to my people, ‘Go the attic,’ exactly like the lady told me. I said, ‘I will not move from my apartment. I will stay here, so go to the attic and be quiet, very quiet.’
“And you see, I was completely different. My people looked at me, all my thirteen, and they thought something was wrong with my mind. But I said, ‘Okay now, go out, go to the bunker. Everything will be all right if you stay quiet over there.’
“And I opened the window and the doors, and I cleaned. I started to sing. I don't know how I became so happy. And all the neighbors came, and they said, ‘Miss Podgorska, what happened? Why haven't you moved? The Gestapo, the SS will come. They will kill you. This is war, this is the military. They have no mercy for the enemy - and they are our enemy. Go out. We don't want to see you killed. You're too nice, too young to be dead.’
“I said, ‘I have no place to go.’ They said, ‘Don't you have a friend? Go stay with her.’ I said, ‘No, I will not leave my apartment.’ And they also thought something was wrong with me.
“The janitor's husband came, and he said, ‘Miss Podgorska, I will throw you out. Go out, I don't want to see you be killed - I have no place to bury you.’ And he was serious. … I said, ‘No, I am sorry, I will not move from my apartment.’ And he said, ‘Something is wrong with you,’ but he left.
“I kept singing and cleaning my apartment, and exactly ten minutes past the two hours an SS man came. He was so friendly. He was laughing to me from a few yards away. He came closer to the window and he said - he spoke a little Polish, very broken but he spoke - and he said it was good that I hadn’t moved from my apartment because they would take only one room. This last room, they would take. He said, ‘Very well, you can stay.’”
However, two German nurses moved in, claiming one room as their own. But they were none the wiser of what was going on right over their heads. Months passed and the Russians conquered their village and for them the war was over. All thirteen Jews survived the persecution and were finally granted freedom. When the Russian soldiers realized what happened, they were amazed. Two girls, no, “a girl and a half” saved thirteen lives.
Max/Joseph and Stefania later married, immigrated to Israel and then eventually settled in America. Together they had one son. Stefania wrote down her inspirational story but it was rejected because according the publishers there are just too many holocaust stories out there. However, her story was adapted into a TV movie, called "Hidden in Silence" in 1996. It starred Kellie Martin as Stefania "Fusia" Podgorska, Tom Radcliffe as Max Diamant, Marian Ross as Mrs. Diamant, and Joss Ackland as a factory manager.
Max/Joseph has since passed away, but Stefania still lives in California.
For the last sixteen months of the war in Nazi occupied Poland, 17-year-old Stefania Podgorska and her seven-year-old sister Helena hid 13 Jews in their apartment's attic. It began with sheltering Max Diamant (he later changed his name to Joseph after the war due to prejudice) and later invited his brother and his brother's girlfriend, Danuta. But as time passed, the group multiplied. Despite the constant threat of imprisonment and execution if her thirteen Jewish friends were discovered, Stefania continued to provide them a safe haven. Not only that, she fed, clothed and disposed of their waste the entire time. Even when a young suitor attempted to court her, she turned him away. Towards the end of the war, an empty building from across the street was converted into a makeshift hospital.
One afternoon, two SS soldiers knocked on her door. “You have been ordered to vacate the premises within two hours.” They read to her from an official-looking sheet of paper.
“This residence has been commandeered by the Third Reich. The penalty for noncompliance is death.”
“Two hours! How will I find a place for my sister and me in just two hours?” she cried, but the soldiers merely repeated the orders and left.
For the next hour and a half Stefania ran through every street in town - but she could find nothing that would shelter all fifteen of them. After three years of looting and deprivation, the buildings were in worse shape than ever. There were doorways but no doors; houses without ceilings; rooms filled with the rubble of loose masonry and roofing material.
[In a 1990’s interview Stefania recalls] “Just ruins, nothing more. Almost two hours had gone already. So I came home. I started to cry. I said, ‘How can I leave thirteen people to certain death? I can run out, but these people will be dead…’ There was nothing available, nothing. Only twenty minutes left. I came home. I said nothing. All my thirteen came down to me, with the three children. The pressed against me, so tightly, they looked at me. My decision. Will I leave? My decision. Will I leave them or not?
“All thirteen of them said to me, ‘Run away. You don't have to die with us. We have to, but you don't have to die with us. You cannot help us anymore. Save your life and your little sister and run away, because you still have 10 minutes.’ Joseph pushed me. They said, ‘Run away. Don’t die with us. You cannot help us anymore. What you could do you did, but not now. Save your life and Helena. Go. Run away.’
“And all these people watched me, the children pressed so close I could hear their breathing, my sister too. So I really, I didn't know what to do. I said to them, ‘Well, first of all, come on. We will pray. We will ask God.’ You see, I had a picture which I bought as a little girl, of Jesus and his mother, and it always hung on my wall. And I said, ‘Come on - we will pray. We will ask God.’
“First I knelt, then my sister and all the thirteen after, behind me. And I prayed, and I turned to look. All thirteen were in deep, deep prayer. And I asked God not to let us be killed. Help, somehow. I cannot leave this apartment. I cannot leave thirteen people for certain death. I will be alive if I go, but thirteen lives will be finished - children too, and young people. I asked God, ‘Help, somehow.’
“And again I heard a voice, a woman’s voice. It was so beautiful, so nice, so quiet. She said to me, ‘Don’t worry. Everything will be all right. You will not leave your apartment. You will stay here, and they will take only one room. Everything will be all right. I am with you.’ And she told me, ‘Be quiet. I’ll tell you what to do.’ She said, ‘Send your people to the bunker. Open the door. Open the windows. Clean your apartment and sing.’
“I was like hypnotized. My head was bent down, and I was listening, I was listening and the voice said again, ‘Everything will be all right.’ Then it disappeared. I listened a few minutes more, but nothing more came.
“So I got up and said to my people, ‘Go the attic,’ exactly like the lady told me. I said, ‘I will not move from my apartment. I will stay here, so go to the attic and be quiet, very quiet.’
“And you see, I was completely different. My people looked at me, all my thirteen, and they thought something was wrong with my mind. But I said, ‘Okay now, go out, go to the bunker. Everything will be all right if you stay quiet over there.’
“And I opened the window and the doors, and I cleaned. I started to sing. I don't know how I became so happy. And all the neighbors came, and they said, ‘Miss Podgorska, what happened? Why haven't you moved? The Gestapo, the SS will come. They will kill you. This is war, this is the military. They have no mercy for the enemy - and they are our enemy. Go out. We don't want to see you killed. You're too nice, too young to be dead.’
“I said, ‘I have no place to go.’ They said, ‘Don't you have a friend? Go stay with her.’ I said, ‘No, I will not leave my apartment.’ And they also thought something was wrong with me.
“The janitor's husband came, and he said, ‘Miss Podgorska, I will throw you out. Go out, I don't want to see you be killed - I have no place to bury you.’ And he was serious. … I said, ‘No, I am sorry, I will not move from my apartment.’ And he said, ‘Something is wrong with you,’ but he left.
“I kept singing and cleaning my apartment, and exactly ten minutes past the two hours an SS man came. He was so friendly. He was laughing to me from a few yards away. He came closer to the window and he said - he spoke a little Polish, very broken but he spoke - and he said it was good that I hadn’t moved from my apartment because they would take only one room. This last room, they would take. He said, ‘Very well, you can stay.’”
However, two German nurses moved in, claiming one room as their own. But they were none the wiser of what was going on right over their heads. Months passed and the Russians conquered their village and for them the war was over. All thirteen Jews survived the persecution and were finally granted freedom. When the Russian soldiers realized what happened, they were amazed. Two girls, no, “a girl and a half” saved thirteen lives.
Max/Joseph and Stefania later married, immigrated to Israel and then eventually settled in America. Together they had one son. Stefania wrote down her inspirational story but it was rejected because according the publishers there are just too many holocaust stories out there. However, her story was adapted into a TV movie, called "Hidden in Silence" in 1996. It starred Kellie Martin as Stefania "Fusia" Podgorska, Tom Radcliffe as Max Diamant, Marian Ross as Mrs. Diamant, and Joss Ackland as a factory manager.
Max/Joseph has since passed away, but Stefania still lives in California.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Anne Frank Was Storyteller at Nazi Camp
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/anne-frank-told-stories-to-district-children-at-concentration-camp-survivor-says/19404021?icid=main|main|dl1|link2|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fworld%2Farticle%2Fanne-frank-told-stories-to-district-children-at-concentration-camp-survivor-says%2F19404021
AMSTERDAM (March 17) - Frail, bone-cold and surrounded by death, Jewish teenager Anne Frank did her best to distract younger children from the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp by telling them fairy tales, a Holocaust survivor says.
The account by Berthe Meijer, now 71, of being a 6-year-old inmate of Bergen Belsen offers a rare glimpse of Anne in the final weeks of her life in the German camp, struggling to keep up her own spirits even as she tried to lift the morale of the smaller children.
That Anne had a gift for storytelling was evident from the diary she kept during two years in hiding with her family in Amsterdam. The scattered pages were collected and published after the war in what became the most widely read book to emerge from the Holocaust.
But Meijer's memoir, being published in Dutch later this month, is the first to mention Anne's talent for spinning tales even in the despair of the camp.
The memoir deals with Meijer's acquaintance with Anne Frank in only a few pages, but she said she titled it "Life After Anne Frank" because it continues the tale of Holocaust victims where the famous diary leaves off.
"The dividing line is where the diary of Anne Frank ends. Because then you fall into a big black hole," Meijer told The Associated Press at her Amsterdam home.
Anne's final diary entry was on Aug. 1, 1944, three days before she and her family were arrested. She and her older sister Margot died in March 1945 in a typhus epidemic that swept through Bergen Belsen, just two weeks before the camp was liberated. Anne was 15.
The stories Anne told were "fairy tales in which nasty things happened, and that was of course very much related to the war," Meijer said.
"But as a kid you get lifted out of the everyday nastiness. That's something I remember. You're listening to someone telling something that has nothing to do with what's happening around you - so it's a bit of escape."
In addition to her diary, Frank wrote several essays and fragments of fiction while in hiding, including stories about a fairy and a gnome, though they are usually considered only of historical interest. They have been published as "Tales From the Secret Annex."
The stories she told in the camp were "about princes and elves and those kind of figures," Meijer said. Despite having unhappy twists, the tales were "quite a bit less terrible than what we saw around us. So you thought: they didn't have it so bad. As a child, you think very primitively about that kind of thing."
Around 140,000 Jews lived in the Netherlands before the 1940-45 Nazi occupation. Of those, 107,000 were deported to Germany and only 5,200 survived.
The Meijers and the Franks were acquaintances before the war: members of both families had fled Germany during the rise of Hitler's regime and found a place in the tightly-knit Jewish community in Amsterdam. The Meijers lived on the same street where Anne attended a Montessori elementary school.
The Franks went into hiding in a secret apartment above a canal-side warehouse where Otto Frank, Anne's father, had his business.
The Meijers hid in their own home, boarding up the windows and hanging a sign on the door that read "contagious disease" to discourage visitors. They were caught in early 1944 and deported from the Netherlands that March. Both of Berthe's parents died at Bergen Belsen in January 1945.
Dr. Alan Hilfer, director of psychology at Maimonides Medical Center in New York, said it's plausible that Meijer would have recognized Frank and stored the memory all these years if she knew her before the war and if she met her again at the camp.
A child of six or seven can "form memories reasonably well and hold on to them, though not in the same way as an adult," he said.
Records obtained by The Associated Press from Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial authority, show that Berthe was an inmate of Bergen Belsen for 13 months until it was liberated in April 1945.
Annemarie Bekker, a spokeswoman for the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam said Berthe Meijer has previously been interviewed by museum historians and she had no reason to doubt Meijer's testimony.
"It could very well be true," Bekker said. "We can't confirm it or deny it."
Hannah Pick-Goslar, a childhood friend of Anne Frank who also met her in Bergen Belsen, said she doubted Meijer's recollection was accurate.
"In that condition, you almost died," she said in a telephone call from her home in Jerusalem. "You had no strength to tell stories."
Meijer acknowledged that her recollections of the Frank sisters were fleeting.
She said there were many reasons she had waited until now to tell her story - not least that she was busy growing up, having a career and raising a family. She said a dedication ceremony at Bergen Belsen in 2006 made her realize how few Dutch survivors are still alive, and that there is little record of the impact the camp had on their later lives.
In addition, she suppressed her memories for years, and the horror of the camps have always been a difficult or taboo subject: at the orphanage where Meijer grew up, in polite company afterward, and even among her fellow survivors.
Still, "you remember a lot at age 7," she said. Meijer turned 7 in April 1945.
"You had to take off your clothes because there were lice in them that spread typhus. And you were wrapped in those blankets. And you sat somewhere in a corner half-frozen."
She said Margot had asked Anne to tell stories to cheer up the children, and that it was difficult for Anne to summon the enthusiasm.
The last time she saw Anne was in the camp infirmary, but they were both sick and "too weak and sad to even be pleasant to each other," she wrote.
In some ways, Meijer grew up to be the person Anne had hoped to be, a journalist, a columnist and an author, albeit of a popular Dutch cookbook.
In her diary Anne wrote in April 1944: "I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. But, and that is the great question, will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?"
Although Meijer associated with leading Dutch writers and artists, she said she suffered lifelong symptoms of post-traumatic stress, with overwhelming memories and emotions surfacing unexpectedly.
To this day she has a paralyzing fear of crowds and public transportation.
In her book, she wonders about her choices in marrying first a gifted, but alcoholic architect and later one of the Netherlands' most famed journalists - not coincidentally, another Bergen Belsen survivor.
She says she can laugh "through the tears" about having become a culinary expert years after fantasizing endlessly about food while starving at the camp.
She describes how the simple act of cleaning sauce from a pan with her finger can trigger the ambiguously pleasant memory of being allowed to lick one of the camp's enormous cooking vats.
And she proudly shows off a concealed crawl space behind an opening in her cellar where she could hide if need be.
In history books, "the war ends when we were liberated. No. Not for a lot of people," she says.
"Not for the lives of the people who survived those camps or went into hiding or had traumatic experiences because of that war. Those things, they don't go away."
AMSTERDAM (March 17) - Frail, bone-cold and surrounded by death, Jewish teenager Anne Frank did her best to distract younger children from the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp by telling them fairy tales, a Holocaust survivor says.
The account by Berthe Meijer, now 71, of being a 6-year-old inmate of Bergen Belsen offers a rare glimpse of Anne in the final weeks of her life in the German camp, struggling to keep up her own spirits even as she tried to lift the morale of the smaller children.
That Anne had a gift for storytelling was evident from the diary she kept during two years in hiding with her family in Amsterdam. The scattered pages were collected and published after the war in what became the most widely read book to emerge from the Holocaust.
But Meijer's memoir, being published in Dutch later this month, is the first to mention Anne's talent for spinning tales even in the despair of the camp.
The memoir deals with Meijer's acquaintance with Anne Frank in only a few pages, but she said she titled it "Life After Anne Frank" because it continues the tale of Holocaust victims where the famous diary leaves off.
"The dividing line is where the diary of Anne Frank ends. Because then you fall into a big black hole," Meijer told The Associated Press at her Amsterdam home.
Anne's final diary entry was on Aug. 1, 1944, three days before she and her family were arrested. She and her older sister Margot died in March 1945 in a typhus epidemic that swept through Bergen Belsen, just two weeks before the camp was liberated. Anne was 15.
The stories Anne told were "fairy tales in which nasty things happened, and that was of course very much related to the war," Meijer said.
"But as a kid you get lifted out of the everyday nastiness. That's something I remember. You're listening to someone telling something that has nothing to do with what's happening around you - so it's a bit of escape."
In addition to her diary, Frank wrote several essays and fragments of fiction while in hiding, including stories about a fairy and a gnome, though they are usually considered only of historical interest. They have been published as "Tales From the Secret Annex."
The stories she told in the camp were "about princes and elves and those kind of figures," Meijer said. Despite having unhappy twists, the tales were "quite a bit less terrible than what we saw around us. So you thought: they didn't have it so bad. As a child, you think very primitively about that kind of thing."
Around 140,000 Jews lived in the Netherlands before the 1940-45 Nazi occupation. Of those, 107,000 were deported to Germany and only 5,200 survived.
The Meijers and the Franks were acquaintances before the war: members of both families had fled Germany during the rise of Hitler's regime and found a place in the tightly-knit Jewish community in Amsterdam. The Meijers lived on the same street where Anne attended a Montessori elementary school.
The Franks went into hiding in a secret apartment above a canal-side warehouse where Otto Frank, Anne's father, had his business.
The Meijers hid in their own home, boarding up the windows and hanging a sign on the door that read "contagious disease" to discourage visitors. They were caught in early 1944 and deported from the Netherlands that March. Both of Berthe's parents died at Bergen Belsen in January 1945.
Dr. Alan Hilfer, director of psychology at Maimonides Medical Center in New York, said it's plausible that Meijer would have recognized Frank and stored the memory all these years if she knew her before the war and if she met her again at the camp.
A child of six or seven can "form memories reasonably well and hold on to them, though not in the same way as an adult," he said.
Records obtained by The Associated Press from Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial authority, show that Berthe was an inmate of Bergen Belsen for 13 months until it was liberated in April 1945.
Annemarie Bekker, a spokeswoman for the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam said Berthe Meijer has previously been interviewed by museum historians and she had no reason to doubt Meijer's testimony.
"It could very well be true," Bekker said. "We can't confirm it or deny it."
Hannah Pick-Goslar, a childhood friend of Anne Frank who also met her in Bergen Belsen, said she doubted Meijer's recollection was accurate.
"In that condition, you almost died," she said in a telephone call from her home in Jerusalem. "You had no strength to tell stories."
Meijer acknowledged that her recollections of the Frank sisters were fleeting.
She said there were many reasons she had waited until now to tell her story - not least that she was busy growing up, having a career and raising a family. She said a dedication ceremony at Bergen Belsen in 2006 made her realize how few Dutch survivors are still alive, and that there is little record of the impact the camp had on their later lives.
In addition, she suppressed her memories for years, and the horror of the camps have always been a difficult or taboo subject: at the orphanage where Meijer grew up, in polite company afterward, and even among her fellow survivors.
Still, "you remember a lot at age 7," she said. Meijer turned 7 in April 1945.
"You had to take off your clothes because there were lice in them that spread typhus. And you were wrapped in those blankets. And you sat somewhere in a corner half-frozen."
She said Margot had asked Anne to tell stories to cheer up the children, and that it was difficult for Anne to summon the enthusiasm.
The last time she saw Anne was in the camp infirmary, but they were both sick and "too weak and sad to even be pleasant to each other," she wrote.
In some ways, Meijer grew up to be the person Anne had hoped to be, a journalist, a columnist and an author, albeit of a popular Dutch cookbook.
In her diary Anne wrote in April 1944: "I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. But, and that is the great question, will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?"
Although Meijer associated with leading Dutch writers and artists, she said she suffered lifelong symptoms of post-traumatic stress, with overwhelming memories and emotions surfacing unexpectedly.
To this day she has a paralyzing fear of crowds and public transportation.
In her book, she wonders about her choices in marrying first a gifted, but alcoholic architect and later one of the Netherlands' most famed journalists - not coincidentally, another Bergen Belsen survivor.
She says she can laugh "through the tears" about having become a culinary expert years after fantasizing endlessly about food while starving at the camp.
She describes how the simple act of cleaning sauce from a pan with her finger can trigger the ambiguously pleasant memory of being allowed to lick one of the camp's enormous cooking vats.
And she proudly shows off a concealed crawl space behind an opening in her cellar where she could hide if need be.
In history books, "the war ends when we were liberated. No. Not for a lot of people," she says.
"Not for the lives of the people who survived those camps or went into hiding or had traumatic experiences because of that war. Those things, they don't go away."
Friday, March 5, 2010
The White Rose (a.k.a.: Die Weiße Rose)
Movie Description:
The beautiful Lena Stolze stars in this acclaimed feature based on the true story of five German students and their professor who formed a secret society dedicated to protesting the Nazi regime. Known collectively as the “White Rose”, the Munich-based group distributed anti-Hitler literature in a resistance effort which cost them their lives. Initially, the German government refused to allow the film to be shown abroad due to an epilogue which pointedly observed that the legal judgment condemning the White Rose society had never been rescinded. Ultimately, the political controversy surrounding Verhoeven's film directly caused the German government to officially invalidate the Nazi “People's Court” system that sentenced the group to death.
Summary:
The movie opens with Sophie Scholl arriving in Munich on a train, to attend the university with her brother. Upon arrival she meets Hans’ close knit group friends and they kindly throw her a birthday party. Although she enjoys her classes, her newfound friends, she is none the wiser about her brother’s peculiar activities until she stumbles upon this eye opening leaflet written by the clandestine group, the White Rose. Sophie agrees with the leaflet and hangs onto it, and is stunned when she discovers that her brother is one of the authors of it. Despite the group’s opposition to allow her to take part, she forces her way in and runs errands for them, soon becoming a full-fledged member. The movie closely follows the groups escapades, from stealing paper to buying an enormous amount of stamps (which was forbidden and suspicious in the days of Nazi Germany) to the Scholl’s father’s arrest for making a derogatory comment against Hitler.
When the men of the group are sent to the eastern front, they must temporarily suspend their leaflet distribution until they return. Hans and his friends witness the execution of Jewish prisoners and it inspires them to continue their mission no matter what. While Hans is in the east, Sophie works at an ammunition factory and while she is working, she watches with satisfaction and foreign prisoner sabotage her work.
When the students return for the winter semester, they are faced with new challenges. The acceptance of two new members, Professor Huber and Gisela Schertling. The professor makes an excellent contribution of writing his own leaflet, however, there is a confrontation when it is edited. As for Gisela, she listens to a mandatory speech (which the core members of the White Rose skip) of Gauleiter Geisler and when he insults the female students with degrading and lewd comments, a spontaneous protest erupts from the majority of the students there.
With this new development, along with the dismal surrender at Stalingrad, Hans and Sophie decide to make the daring move of distributing the sixth leaflet at the university itself, in broad daylight. Their decision seals their fate. Observed by a custodian, they are reported and arrested, and interrogated. Within five days, they are executed.
My Thoughts:
For when it was made, the White Rose is a good movie but it is also a product of its time. It’s a little cheesy at times, considering the music and some of the melodramatic acting. To me the only convincing actor of the film was Ulrich Turkur who portrayed Willi Graf. He plays a relatively small roll but he is a fine actor. Counting this role, he has acted in three other movies based in Nazi Germany: “Bonhoeffer,” “Amen,” and “Stauffenberg.” Lena Stolze, who portrayed Sophie, did an okay job at displaying Sophie’s youth and enthusiasm; she looked the age and she even looked like the Sophie herself. But at times the character came across as silly as a young teen when she was in fact in her twenties. She failed to capture Sophie’s depth and inner strength. I wish to high heavens that somebody would remake this movie. A few years ago, Angelica Houston was working to bring the story to the big screen once again, but unfortunately it has fallen by the way side. Christina Ricci was slated to star as Sophie, Albert Finney was to be Robert Mohr, and Liam Neeson had a role as well. I think with the release of “Sophie Scholl: The Final Days” over in Germany, Angelica Houston opted not to go through with it. However, I hope (and sometimes pray) that she might revive this project.
Sex/Nudity:
During an argument between Hans and Sophie, Hans is without a shirt and it appears he is about to take a bath. In a scene closer to the end of the movie, Sophie is struggling to get into her sweater just as Hans enters the room.
There are three objectionable scenes that stick out in my mind. The first scene involves Sophie and her boyfriend Fritz, who is on leave and visiting her. As they kiss and are on the verge of sex, Sophie’s blouse is off and her bra is on, he is kissing her upper body. A disagreement prevents them from going any further. The second scene is of Hans and his current girlfriend Traute. They are outside and it is implied they just had sex, she is upset with him and struggling to get into her bra, and her bare chest is partially in view. The third scene is not sexual or romantic. It is when Hans and his friends are on the eastern front; they observe a group of Jewish men who are nude and awaiting their execution. There is one last scene, that isn’t sexual but it appeared odd to me. Days before Hans and Sophie pass out the final leaflet, Sophie goes to Hans when he is in his bed and climbs in beside him, and places her head on his chest. I know it was meant to be innocent, but in this day and age it was strange. Of course it could be possible that over in Europe siblings are more affectionate.
Violence:
I don’t recall much violence, except for one part and no one is physically harmed. On one of their missions at night, the men of the group paint anti-Nazi and anti-Hitler slogans on walls and monuments. They are caught and to get away, one of the members knocks a can of paint onto the head of a Gestapo agent. Also, when protest erupts at the Gauleiter’s speech, the women are forcibly restrained and forbidden to leave. Angered by this action against the ladies, the men of the university burst through the doors and overtake the guards.
Language:
There is one use of the d-word and Sophie and her friend mention the s-word in singing a little ditty. The main language concern of this movie stems from the historic speech by Gauleiter Geisler. He not only states that women do not belong at the university, that they more useful birthing a son for Hitler and goes as far as offering one of his adjutants so that women could have an enjoyable experience.
Religion:
Most of the members of the White Rose were professing Christians, but for the most part of the movie this is downplayed. There is a mention of the famous sermon by Count von Galen. He was a bishop of Munster and was the only clergyman to vehemently and publicly oppose the Nazi regime. Though Hitler and the Nazis had hoped to have von Galen arrested and sent to prison, the bishop could not be touched due to the devotion of his followers. The Scholl’s collected his sermons and passed them out as well. The most obvious reference to faith was close to the end of the movie, before the execution, when Sophie is speaking to her mother. Her mother reminds her of Jesus and Sophie encourages her mother to remember Him too.
For Further References:
Movies:
Five Last Days (Fünf letzte Tage) (1982)- Details the last five days of Sophie Scholl’s life from the point of view of her cell mate, Else Gebel. This movie was actually made prior to “The White Rose” and by a different director. Unfortunately I have never watched it (it is difficult to find) but if you have a chance, I suggest you see it.
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)- In my personal opinion, this is the best movie ever made on Sophie Scholl and the White Rose. It follows the final days of Sophie Scholl’s life; the distribution of the leaflets at the university, arrest, interrogations, trial and ultimately her death. The director and scriptwriter delved into the personal lives of the White Rose members, the transcripts of the interrogations, letters, interviews, biographies, etc. The psychological and intellectual battles between Sophie and Gestapo agent Robert Mohr are superb. I command you to watch this; you’ll walk away a different person.
Books:
“The Rose of Treason,” by James DeVita- A play based on the White Rose group and their activities.
“Sophie Scholl and the White Rose,” by Annette Dumbach and Jud Newborn- (originally titled, “Shattering the German Night”) a newly re-released biography on Sophie Scholl, her life and involvement with the White Rose.
“Ceremony of Innocence,” by James D. Forman- A bio-fiction on Hans Scholl, written in the 1970’s. Although it is entertaining, newly discovered facts on Hans and the White Rose makes this book dated.
“A Nobel Treason,” by Richard Hanser- A fantastic non-fiction book on the White Rose and the personal lives of those involved in the group. Much detail, I highly recommend it.
“Sophie Scholl: The Real Story Behind Germany’s Resistance Heroine,” by Frank McDonough- A new biography on Sophie Scholl, nicely written but I wish it were longer and that it went deeper on her personal life, and reasons for joining the White Rose.
“At the Heart of the White Rose,” by Hans and Sophie Scholl- The diaries and letters of Hans and Sophie Scholl. Although obviously pre-selected and edited, it delves into their hearts and minds and their motives of why the White Rose was formed.
“The White Rose,” by Inge Scholl (originally, “Students Against Tyranny”)- The original book to shed light on the resistance group, written by Hans and Sophie’s older sister, Inge. A must read for any White Rose enthusiast.
“The Short Life of Sophie Scholl,” by Hermann Vinke- A nice biography on Sophie, I wish I could complement it more but it has been awhile since I’ve read it.
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