So my publisher wants me to focus my blog more on the interesting aspects of being a writer – at least some of the time. I will certainly have some unique tales to share with you about beresheet – the beginning – 18 years ago when I joined the Crime Writers and was a member of PEN. But I am not yet sure where to start and how much to share – so as I sit here at the computer, at 4:55 a.m. I think I’ll take a pass on those topics for this blog – maybe something good will pop into my head for the next one.
Two books that I have read, unexpectedly, are what I will share with you today.
Unscripted: Deborah Coyne
In my former life, I was once a guest of Prime Minister Trudeau at a dinner honouring Margaret Thatcher. Let me tell you – that woman was stunning. Her complexion was like a soap ad and her eyes just shone.
I had seen Pierre Trudeau from a distance when I was a kid –seriously – I was seventeen years old and my first husband and I went down to Maple Leaf Gardens to listen to him speak – a century ago. But when he walked up to me at the Thatcher dinner, and I looked into those eyes…wow. He was the sexiest man, despite his so-so physical attributes that I had ever met. When he took my hand and kissed it, I thought I would pass out. He made me feel as if I was the only person in the room. I never forgot it and even as I write about it now, I am once again like a teeny bopper with a big smile on my face.
So Coyne’s book really ticked me off. I will take a pass on comments about her writing skills – I found very few.
Interesting that females are the ones who usually snitch about their affairs with old and famous men. It is opportunism, for sure. Debra Coyne is no better than the Italian bimbos singing about Berlusconi. Can anyone really believe that she is leadership quality? If it hadn’t been Trudeau that she went after, no one would care who she has sex with. It is none of our business. Perhaps someone might ask her if humiliating her young daughter just to try and win the leadership of the Liberals (isn’t that what McGuinty is?) makes its own statement about her values? So sad.
Flags Over The Warsaw Ghetto: Moshe Arens
I was in the Temple Library putting away some books when the box fell off my step ladder and out drop three new books. What a drag. I climb down, bend over (bad at my age), and climb back up. I put two books away and then I dropped the last one, again. I climb down, bend over and notice that the book is lying upside down, open somewhere in the middle. I pick it up, flip it over, and have a look at page 187. And the world stops, for me,
These are the words that I read:
April, 1943
“We will all fall here. Those in battle, weapons in hand, and those as vain victims. But it is important that the memory our battle will be retained, that the world will know that there was a battle. A tough bloody battle.
And sometime…some place, if you were to meet my comrades, tell them that not for a moment did I doubt that Hitler’s Germany would be defeated – not I, nor my comrades. We are fighting for our people and shall die for them.
We believe that a Jewish State , there in that distant land, will arise in a struggle with our enemies.
During a far-off period of slavery, when the Roman legions trampled almost the entire ancient world, and the whole world kneeled before them, only one small Roman province, Judea, took up arms to fight for freedom and in defense of the honour of man, against a world of injustice. That is the reason that Judea is inscribed in the history of man as a symbol of the fight for the spirit of man.
Maybe, some day, after many years, when the history of the struggle against the Nazi conquerors is written, we, who have risen up to fight back will also be remembered. Who knows, perhaps we will become, like small Judea in its day when it fought mighty Rome, the symbol of man’s spirit that cannot be suppressed.
That is the essence of our fight for freedom – the right to live and the right to exist.”
Signed…Leon Rodal – age 23 – one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising – he died in battle two days after writing this note.
I try never to read about bad stuff – even though I know it exists. The Holocaust included. But this letter hooked me and I had to know what really happened back then. I often wondered how so many thousands of people could just walk along, quietly, and climb into cattle cars taking them to the gas chambers, or in the Ukraine, especially the Ukraine, walk along quietly to the edge of a pit and stand there until some pigface shot them in the back of the head. No fighting back. No taking a few with you on your way out. But it was too unpleasant to think about so I just pushed it away. Of course, if anyone ever looks at me funny with anti-semitism on their lips, or does something that denigrates my Judaism, I am immediately in the attack mode. But that is another story for another day.
So I had to read the book. Unlike most stories about the Holocaust, this was almost a text book on how to plan and then stage an uprising. It was a compelling documentary – I wanted to know who were the guys and the girls who decided to fight back – how did they get the weapons – did anyone help them…and of course, the most important question of all – where were the prominent, older community leaders still in Warsaw?
And of course, the answer has been right there since the beginning of our history.
”Za shtill. Be quiet. Why did we allow ourselves to be led like sheep to the slaughter? The Germans promised us that only a few of us would be transported to Treblinka. They also said that it is a ridiculous lie that our people are being gassed – Treblinka is just a work camp. They said that it is only the revolutionaries in our group, and the Communists, who are making up these stories – they just want to scare us”.
So as long as the Germans were successful in deceiving most of the Jews with the promise of a chance of surviving the war and that only some of the Jews were destined for deportation (those who didn’t cooperate) then the Warsaw population wouldn’t join the resistance and would follow orders to buy themselves more time. When they finally realized that it had all been bullshit, it was too late. 270,000 Jews were deported from Warsaw and gassed in Treblinka in l943 – 55,000 were murdered in cold blood in Vilna.
Sad, eh? How often in our history have we rationalized and kept quiet in the face of subtle and sometimes not so subtle anti-semitism? How often have some of our self-designated leaders gone along with rationalizations just to avoid a hassle? Too often. But not all of us are so quick to za shtill. I am proud to be one of them.
Anyhow, now that I have shared this with you, it is done. Next blog will be a lot more upbeat, and the talk will be about other writers I have met, including some rude ding dongs who really do believe their own self-published press clippings.
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