Hmmm

For a long time I have been embarrassed to say that I had not seen Judgement at Nuremberg.  Judy of course was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but as we know, Oscar is political and usually wrong.  1954. Now may I say that even Judy would agree that Oscar was right in awarding Rita Moreno the win that year.  1962 was no 1954.  Moreno's WSS role was the standout and Moreno is just one brilliant woman and actress, but I digress.
Shocking.

Anyway...I finally watched JAN and wow.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
What a movie.
Yes, Judy is incredible.  And the whole film is incredible.  I also read the book form of the script written by Abby Mann because, man.  This is one powerful story.  By the way, Mann grew up in East Pittsburgh!
One review I read of it asks the question, if the Axis powers had one the war, would the United States have been on trial for the bombings of Dresden and Tokyo and for the dropping of the atomic bombs. 
Other questions asked by the defense attorney:

Where is the responsibility of the Soviet Union...
who signed in  the pact with Hitler...
enabled him to make war?
Are we now to find Russia guilty?

Where is the responsibility of the Vatican...
who signed in the concordat with Hitler...
giving him his first tremendous prestige?
Are we now to find the Vatican guilty?

Where is the responsibility of the world leader Winston Churchill...
who said in an open letter to the London Times in            
'Were England to suffer a national disaster,
I should pray to God...
to send a man of the strength of mind
and will of an Adolf Hitler.'
Are we now to find Winston Churchill guilty?

Where is the responsibility of those American industrialists...
who helped Hitler to rebuild his armaments,
and profited by that rebuilding?
Are we now to find the American industrialists guilty?

No, Your Honor.

Germany alone is not guilty.

The whole world is as responsible for Hitler as Germany."


This blew me away because SILENCE IS VIOLENCE as we see today in the murders of so many African Americans.  Police remain silent.  Politicians remain silent (at best, MANY speak hateful, vile lies).  And most embarrassingly to me, pulpits remain silent. 

We all have the blood of 8 million Jews on our hands.  We all have the neck of George Floyd under our boot. 

WE MUST ACT FOR JUSTICE AND LIFE! 
WE MUST STAND FOR LOVE AND BE PEACE MAKERS NOT PEACE KEEPERS!  Because the "peace" we are protecting when we say "all lives matter" and "stop the looting" and "cant't we just be peaceful and kind" is not a peace.  It is signing a pact with evil like the Vatican did in 1933.

We must wake up and remember we were ALL created in the image of God and the only way to grow into God's likeness is to act like Jesus did.  Jesus was political. 
Jesus was killed by the state because He spoke out for the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed.  Following Jesus does not mean "peace keeping" it means PEACE MAKING and that is dangerous, dangerous work. 

Not My Side

Shadow on the Mountain has nothing to do with My Side of the Mountain, which I couldn't get through to save my life.  SOTM was super good.  It is set in Norway after the Nazi occupation and it really asks some good questions and doesn't answer them, which is just what a great book with do, because there are no answers for some questions.  At least not easy ones.  I had forgotten Snow Treasure also takes place in Norway during the same time and I just read my adult take on that and I liked SOTM so much more. It was interesting to me to get some insight into why/how someone could side with the Nazis.  It still blows my mind.  The horror of it all.  But, for example, Aksel became a Nazi sympathizer because he was attempting to right the wrong of his father's death at the hands of the Russians.  So his hatred for the Russians led him to more hate and so on and so on.  It shows that hate begets hate and violence begets violence.  Ah and it is just awful because it still happens today.  SOTM was based on the real story of Erling Storrusten.

Who Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

That's not the title of the book I read.  I read The Plot to Kill Hitler:  Dietrich Bonhoeffer:  Pastor, Spy and Unlikely Hero.  As of now there is no Who Was book about him, but I hope there will be! 
Patricia McCormick has written many books but I have only read Sold, which was just exceptional, so I need to read more from her.  Read this that she wrote last fall.  It is very powerful about another man's evil actions. 
Bonhoeffer might have felt that he committed evil acts, but I was thinking about Hitler when I wrote that sentence!
This book was so good in that it raised questions for me and answered questions.  I really want to know more about Bonhoeffer and especially his relationship with Karl Barth, another theologian I admire.  But Bonhoeffer and Barth get into it here.  McCormick says that Barth criticized Bonhoeffer for his role in the plot against Hitler.  At least that's what it sounded like to me.  But other places say that Barth was mad at Bonhoeffer not because he thought Hitler shouldn't be opposed or thwarted, but that Bonhoeffer was kind of a coward for running away from the Nazis and being safe back in the US, while others were dying in Europe.  I want to look into this more. Barth was very anti-Hitler, but the way that McCormick described his conversation with Bonhoeffer, having not known anything else, I would have assumed that Barth was more "live and let live" when it came to Hitler.  Again, that is just me, not having known anything, but this is a book for kids, so it just worries me because the readers might not know about Barth and the Confessing Church and so forth. 

Extremely Well Done

What Was the Holocaust?  Is one of the best in the What Was/Is series and it is the best book I have read for students this age on the unspeakable horrors of the Nazis and the Holocaust. 
The introduction of the book said it best in that the book would tell what the Holocaust was and who was murdered and who committed such crimes, but it would not explain why because there really is no way to explain such evil. 

Powerful

The Tattooist of Auschwitz was an excellent witness to the Holocaust.  Very moving.  It is also based on a true story.  It is sad to think that Lale Sokolov felt that he could not talk about his experience for so long because he feared that he would be called a traitor and a Nazi collaborator.  It seems to me that there is no way that anyone could accuse him of this. 
Once again we hear the horrors of the concentration camps and the ways in which human beings were treated as things.  Horrifying.  Incredible that this is also a love story.  He never would have considered himself a hero, I bet.  But he sure was. 

Proof

17 Carnations:  The Royals, the Nazis and the Biggest Cover-Up in History is proof that even the "biggest cover-up in history" can be made really, really dull.  And I thought it was interesting that no mention was made about Wallis's famous family. 

Unspeakable

are the horrors that we inflict upon one another.  What the Night Sings by Vesper Stamper has written an important and incredible book that gives insight into something that I, ashamedly, never thought about- what did Holocaust survivors go through after the concentration camps were liberated.  Here is a really good article from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

The Shame of a Nation

Hitler's American Model:  The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law was an eye-opening, but sadly, unsurprising book.  That's not a criticism of the book, it is a criticism of our country.  I used to be such a patriot.  I used to get upset with people who bough foreign cars.  I quoted Schurz constantly, "“My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”   I sang this song at karaoke and to myself as well.  And then I grew up.  After reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, I started to question everything.  And then the election of 2016 happened and everything changed.  And I am ashamed.  And I am sad. 

After Reading

The Nazi Hunters, I wanted to read in more detail about the trial of Eichmann and what this beast of a man had to say for himself so I read The Eichmann Trial.  Deborah E. Lipstadt was sued by this complete a#shat because she called him out for being a Holocaust denier.  Even though some people told her not to go to court to defend herself because this a#shat was so moronic and stupid, she was brave and did.  I want to read more from Lipstadt for sure.  I think this would be a 3 and 1/2 stars for me. 

Justice is Served

The Nazi Hunters:  How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi  was a good book.  It was.  It just is so hard to read about the horror of what the Nazis did.  But it is important to never forget.  It was just amazing to me, horrifyingly amazing that this man Eichmann was such a beast.  And really didn't have any guilt.  And his sons.  Well, not his youngest son.  Oh man.  They just made me sick.  And wow, to learn about Argentina's role in all of this.  It was just so deeply disturbing.  The only criticism I have is from the stand point of how this book compares to other nonfiction for the same age and having read Steve Sheinkin and Susan Campbell Bartoletti and Jim Murphy, I just couldn't help but compare the writing and so forth to their books and so that is why I gave it only 3 stars, but really it should be 3.5. 

3.5

Almost Autumn is one of those books that I couldn't give a 4 or 5 to, but I would recommend.  It was a very good book.  I just had a hard time staying interested and I think that was because of the way it was written, in this case translated, because it was originally written in Norwegian.
The brutality and the unbelievable horror of the Holocaust never fails to make one sick, right?  And it is especially powerfully awful when the characters just don't understand yet what is going on, just how evil things are going to be.  In this book we get a look at the treatment of the Jews in Norway, about which I knew nothing.

What Does This Mean?

When I heard about Blitzed I wasn't sure how to feel.  My dear friend told me about the book, which details the use of drugs; especially methamphetamine, by the Third Reich.  She said that is made greater sense to her.  That otherwise, how could humans be capable of such unspeakable horrors.  And we talked about horrible crimes we had heard of, committed by those under the influence of powerful drugs.
I bought the book right away, needing to see for myself.
This of course, does not excuse nor fully explain the atrocities committed during WW2; nor is it meant to by the author, Norman Ohler.  But Hitler's brain and heart and soul were already so fouled, that the addition of meth to the mix made him all the more toxic.
In a way I felt better about life when reading this.  It is hard to say that though, I mean, reading anything about the horrors of WW2, how can that make one feel "better" so maybe that isn't the word.  I felt I had a more full understanding after reading this, not in that it made me understand how the Nazis could do what they did, but that my thoughts that the world isn't getting worse are correct.  There is a lot of drug use today, but there ALWAYS has been.  Human nature is not getting worse.  It is the same.  There has always been and always will be evil.  We just hear about the evil more now, because of the media.  But we can't let the evil overcome the light.  And it won't.  It won't.  Because just like a pin prick of light slices through the darkness, the good will always, always shine through.  We just have to believe that.  And keep moving forward until the day when He will take us Home.  Until then, we must be vigilant.  Guard each one's dignity, save each one's pride, fight against evil and work for inclusion and acceptance and diversity and freedom and love.

Thought-provoking

The Sunflower:  on the possibilities and limits of forgiveness is a book I won't forget, recommended to me by one of the kindest and most beautiful souls I know.  This is some book.  I listened to it, so I wasn't sure who all of the respondents were, but wikipedia has a nice listing of them, that was very helpful.
Simon was asked by a dying Nazi to be forgiven for the crimes he had committed, well, one specific crime, one that kept him up at night.  Simon refuses to give an answer and he wonders if he did the right thing.
He asks the question, "what would you have done?" and at first, and actually, at second, I am just floored by the people who felt they could answer this question.  Granted, many who did answer the question admitted that they didn't really feel like they COULD answer the question, but they tried.
It just seems to me that I don't know what I would have done if I were Simon in this horrific situation. I can say with certainty that what Simon did was the right thing.  If he had chosen something different, that would have been the right thing, too.  I feel like he had every right to do what he felt led to do, with no comments that I or anyone could make being fair or worthy or moral.
While I have had great respect for the Roman Church in the past, I admit I am troubled by how many Roman Catholics felt the need to vote for now President-Elect Donald Trump because he is "pro-life."  While Mr. Trump may very well be anti-abortion now (he was pro-choice in the past)  he is not pro-life for Muslims, African Americans, Mexicans, and those of the LGBTQ community.
Additionally, I have been very outraged by the Reichskonkordat.  Of the 53 respondents, 10 said "forgive."  Of those 10, half were Roman Catholics, 2 were Tibetan Buddhists, 2 Protestants and one listed no faith.
10 people were "uncertain," among them were 3 Jews, 3 Protestants (one of Jewish ethnicity), 1 Muslim, and 2 who listed no faith.
The 43 others all said to "not forgive."  19 Jews, 3 Roman Catholics, 2 Protestants and 9 who listed no faith.
So 55% of the Roman Catholics said "forgive."
33% of the Protestants said "forgive."
100% of Buddhists said "forgive."
100% of Jews said "do not forgive."
I simply can't say that I would be able to forgive.  There is no way, no way that I could presume to put myself in that horrible, horrible position.  All I can say is that Wiesenthal did the right thing.  Not that he needs my approval, indeed, I think it is even presumptuous of me to say as much.  So instead, I will just pretend that I am at least more "moral" than the Roman Catholics who suggest that Mr. Wiesenthal should have forgiven the Nazi.  (Delusional, yes, but I am angry right now, and at least I know that most priests would forgive me, right?)
I had to give this 3 stars because the "forgive" responses troubled me so very much.  For Wisenthal's part- a 5 all the way.

Horror Stories

There are many horror stories that don't have anything to do with Halloween.  The Holocaust that took place during and before the outbreak of WW2 is one of them.  As Mr. Rogers said, look for the helpers.  That doesn't make the horror any less, but it does offer some hope.
Reading The Boy on the Wooden Box, by Leon Leyson I learned more about the horrors and more about one of the helpers, Oskar Schindler.
I have heard of the movie, Schinder's List, but I haven't seen it.
Leyson was the youngest person on Schindler's List.  He is listed this way: No. 69128, Eisendrehergeh.  He died in 2013, but not before he wrote this incredible book.
I learned more about the horrors of Nazi Germany, including information about the Plaszow camp, which I had not heard of prior to this book.
Schindler was named to the list of the Righteous Among the Nations, which was also new to me.   Fantastic book.  Hard.  But fantastic.

Hitler Youth

Denazification is a term of which I was unfamiliar until reading Projekt 1065:  A Novel of WW2 by Alan Gratz who also wrote Prisoner B-3087.  I read more about former Hitler Youth and I found this article to be of interest, about Melita Maschmann and her Account Rendered memoir.  And this article about Pope Benedict XVI.  And I thought back more to that Pittsburgh Theological Seminary professor who was a Nazi.  He was not a kid though.  So that is different.  Maybe?  How old is "old enough" to know?  Does evil have an age? I just don't know.  I don't know.  I think also about Kurt Waldheim.  And I remember telling a joke to my ninth grade gym teacher, "What is Waldheimer's Disease?"  When you forget you were a Nazi.   I remember being sickened by Waldheim, even then.  It surprised me, but my gym teacher had never heard of him.  I think that was one of those moments when I realized that just because someone is a teacher, doesn't mean they have all the answers.  But that is a topic for another time.
Gratz's book is excellent.  Heart crushing.  But that is life, especially the horrors of it.

WW2 Weekend

This weekend I went to see The Innocents, which was a very, very good film.  I also finished the book Girl in the Blue Dress which was an even better book.  A really, really great book.  Will it win the Printz?  It's on the Printz Watch-List of that little group I follow on goodreads.  That's why I read it.  Again, I am thankful that I am following that group because I tend to be a slacker when it comes to books.  There is one part in GINBD where the main character talks how some people like to read the end of a book to make sure that "everyone turns out okay" and her boyfriend mocks this.  I know what that is like!  As I have shared that I have done that sometimes.  In a book based on a real-life horror like WW2, however, there is no need to read to the end.  I mean, how does anything really "turn out okay" in the face of such hell.
This book is set in Amsterdam in 1943 and tells the story of a young girl who stumbles into the resistance movement when she is ask to help find the whereabouts of a young woman who was previously being hidden from the Nazis.  The book does a little back and forth in time, and it is done very well and the past sheds light on to the present story being told.  The whole book is just...masterful.  Yes, that is the right word.  At the end of the audio there is an interview with the author, Monica Hesse, who is a very accomplished journalist and has proven that she is also an incredible writer of historical fiction.  Many, many thumbs up.

Hard to Swallow

I don't think that it can be said, "another book about the Holocaust" because that connotes that we don't need "another book about the Holocaust," or so it seems to me.  And we do need "another book about the Holocaust."  Because it was so unspeakable and so horrible and so inhumane and so-hard-to-believe-that-a-human-being-could-do-this.  That is why we always need "another book about slavery" and "another book about what we did to Native Americans" and another and another and another.  Because racial hate and crime and violence keep going on and on and on.
Anna and the Swallow Man is a VERY different Holocaust novel.  I am not quite sure, no, I am VERY sure, I didn't understand all of it.  I would love to talk to someone who did understand it.  I know it wasn't meant to be taken literally, all of it anyway, but there was just so much that went over my head.  However, it was so well written and the parts that I did "get" were profound.  So I would very much recommend this, even though I can't say I understood it.

Human Nature

I have talked a lot about human nature.  We do horrible things to one another. And the German and Japanese atrocities that led to WW2 are examples of the very worst, of the most horrific behavior that humans have demonstrated. These are the stories that chill one's soul.  No matter how many times I hear them, I am sickened and shocked in whole new and terrible ways.  It seems ironic, maybe, if that is the right use of the term that Hitler and the Nazis would deem Jews, Gypsies,  homosexuals, persons with exceptional abilities to be "inhuman"  when Hitler and the Nazis behaved in such ways that suggest that they are completely void of any kind of humanness.  Even if humanity is evil, how can people such as these have been SO evil.
Prisoner B-3087 is based on the story of Yanek Gruener who survived unspeakable hell at the hand of the Nazis.  Alan Gratz does a remarkable job doing what must have been a hell to write, but needed to be written.

Books (and worlds) Collide

Like I said back here, reading The Cat Ate My Gymsuit and Hitler Youth:  Growing up in Hitler's Shadow really made me look at TCAMG in a different way.
I've written about Susan Campbell Bartoletti before, when I read The Boy Who Dared.  She is a very incredible author.  I had read Hitler Youth years ago, listened to on those old CD things and I yet I was still sickened and horrified in the same manner hearing it again.
Hitler Youth.

"The weak must be chiselled away. I want young men and women who can suffer pain. A young German must be as swift as a greyhound, as tough as leather, and as hard as Krupp's steel."  That is what Adolph Hitler said about German young people.
Watch this interview that Joan Rivers did with Mr. Rogers in the 80s.  Watch it because it is beautiful, but also listen very carefully to what Mr. Rogers has to say about children.  Look at his face when he talks about having respect for them.

Mr. Rogers couldn't be more different from Adolph Hitler, of course, but again, I happened to see this interview while I was listening to Hitler Youth and the comparison just BAMMED me on the head.
It also got me thinking about when I was back in seminary school.  A professor had just retired before I started there, Eberhard Von Waldo.  He had written my Biblical Hebrew text book.  I had heard that was a soldier in Hitler's army.

After reading this I started thinking about him again, as I have, off and on, since I first heard that a seminary professor was once a Nazi tank commander.

So of course, I took to google.  First, I found a death notice of a different pastor, here.  The obituary says this, "As a student at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, East Liberty, she also came under the influence of the Rev. Dr. Eberhard von Waldo, a former German tank commander in World War II. Because of his strong Christian convictions against the war, he surrendered his command to the Allied troops, made his way to South America, completed seminary and arrived in Pittsburgh."

So when I read that, I thought...oh...okay, I see.  Here was a young man who really faced evil and risked his life to do what was right.

But then I found this, which gives the details of the surrender, "In 1945 the war was essentially over. He was serving on the German western front as the British and American armies were relentlessly pushing toward Berlin and victory. Since there was no fuel available the German tanks were abandoned. Von Waldow was put in command of ground unit of new recruits. I remember the sadness in his voice as he told of very young boys and very old men who were now being forced to serve on the front lines. There was not enough ammunition, and many of the new recruits had no training, and some did not even have weapons. Von Waldow was supposed to use these recruits to stop the oncoming allied forces! As they were on the very front lines waiting for the attack, von Waldow walked up and down his line commanding that no one shoot until his command. His troops were to wait a long a possible as the allied forces advanced until he personally gave the command to attack. Finally, their unit could see the British troops advancing toward them; von Waldow was screaming orders for his men to hold their fire until his command. The Brits kept advancing toward their line. Before any of his men fired their weapons, with the British forces in sight, von Waldow personally stood up, raised his hands and surrendered himself and his whole unit to the British. As he told this story I remember the pain in his voice, but also the pride that he had not caused the inevitable death of those young boys and old men who were under his command."

I don't know, to me they seemed like two very different stories of surrender.

 I found his obit just now.  I just found this, too.  After reading those, I am even more confused, concerned, sickened, even?

I don't know.  I just don't know.  Here is another article I found.

Maybe he did a lot of wonderful things for Jewish-Christian relations.  I am sure he did, right?  I mean, there are many other people who say so.  But man...I just don't know.

My Mistake

I have been seeing Night available on eaudio from the public library for months now, but I didn't check it out because I was sure that I had read it.  I was surprised to find it in the teen section because I was sure that I had read in college.  But then I realized that I had never read night, but had it confused with Man's Search for Meaning.
So night was a painful, horrifying, there-are-no-words-to-describe story of a young boy in a Nazi death camp.  I didn't know that it is the first book in a trilogy.
I just can't really put into words how it feels to read or, as in my case, listen to this book.  I know that there is evil in the world.  But evil to this extent?  It is just nauseating.  There are no words to describe this kind of evil.