Curious George: The Documentary!

Curious George turns 75 years old this year, and filmmaker Ema Ryan Yamazaki has created the first-ever mixed-media documentary about Curious George: Monkey Business. 

The question is: Are you aware of the epic background of the creators of Curious George? Let's just say it involves a narrow escape from the Nazis and the Shoah (Holocaust) on makeshift bicycles across Europe with the yet-to-be-published Curious George manuscript in tow! 

If I've piqued your interest, make sure you donate a few dollars to the Kickstarter in support of the documentary: http://bit.ly/curiousgeorgedoc. Ema Ryan Yamazaki tells the story of Hans and Margret Rey in this exciting look at one of Asher's favorite characters. 

Not only are you supporting the telling of a vital part of history and the background of one of the world's most beloved monkeys and his creators, you'll also get some exclusive Curious George swag in the process. 

Support Monkey Business: http://bit.ly/curiousgeorgedoc

Joseph and Ethel: Part I of a Love Story

So my plans for Los Angeles fell apart in a quick instant, so I had to rejigger my entire plan, which means that I'm now in Lincoln, Nebraska, and on my way to Chicago. Why? Because I can. 

I left Denver on Friday morning en route to Omaha, where I arrived just in time for Shabbat at everyone's favorite Nebraska Orthodox synagogue (okay, so it's the only). I stayed Saturday night with an amazing old friend Melanie (we once took a trip to Kansas City to stay with her very cool sister and the trip, being on Halloween, included me reading what should have been scary stories but were pretty lame, overly long stories) and her husband in Omaha. Then, yesterday morning, I took off back to Lincoln where I surprised my dad for Father's Day.

While hanging out with my dad, he brought out the scrapbook that his mother, my Grandma Ethel Edwards, kept during the war. The book, which only spanned a few years from 1943-45, included gobs of Western Unions, wedding greetings, Valentine's cards, and more. It's a little time capsule of the relationship of two people that I never knew, and that, more importantly, my father barely knew.

Ethel Louise Nelson and Joseph Francis Edwards in San Antonio circa 1944.

It's funny, because when I look at them they look so Jewish to me. Is that weird? Or did everyone look Jewish in the 1940s?

My father was born on August 6, 1953.

Ethel died eight years later of lung cancer on January 20, 1962. Joseph died three years later of a heart attack on August 17, 1965. My father had just turned 12 years old 11 days before.

Joseph was 47 when he died. Ethel was 39; she died on her birthday.

Let's just say my father had a rough childhood and leave it at that.

In the scrapbook are oodles of Western Unions from Joseph to Ethel talking mundanely about the weather or modes of travel, but in a romantic, funny way. There's even an entire conversation that was recorded as it happened (not sure what this is called) between Joseph and Ethel's sister (Helen). It's a really funny conversation to read. It also expresses the modesty of dating during that era.

One of the peculiarities of their communications during this time (Joseph was being moved around while he was active duty, they married on October 3, 1943, and Joseph eventually was sent to France in late 1944) is some of the language that Joseph uses. He frequently refers to 88s and 73s.

January 1, 1943 -- this is almost 70 years old! Eeep!

"Maybe it's the weather?" my dad suggested.

"Nah, that's insane," I said. "Maybe it's some kind of military lingo?"

My dad was able to clear up a lot of the weird military lingo in the letters and Western Unions, but not this one. After some digging, and with the knowledge that Joseph was a technician involved in radios, I discovered that 88s and 73s is radio speak!

According to Wikipedia, for amateur radio users, 73 means "best regards" and 88 means "hugs and kisses." (Oddly enough, amateur radio websites kvetch about those who add -s to the end of 73 or 88 as being grammatically incorrect. I'd like to think Joseph was a pro at the radio speak, however.)

Seriously? Aw. Big squishy puppy kisses aw! My dad never knew his father as a romantic, but boy do these Western Unions and cards really paint a different picture.

Stay tuned for more cuteness shared between Joseph and Ethel during 1943 and 1945, including some one-of-a-kind souvenirs from early 1945 in France. These things are wartime artifacts. It seems that my grandfather landed in Paris just after the liberation. Awesome!

Note: I've been trying to trace my grandfather's path during World War II for years. It would be a lot easier if his military paperwork had not gone up in flames during a fire in the 1950s in the Missouri facility that held his documents. So, from here, I have to piece together where he was stationed (Alabama, San Antonio, Cincinnati, and so on). It's quite the fun time. 

Unlikely BFFs: West Germany and Israel

I've become utterly fascinated (as I often do with academic topics) with the "special" German-Israeli relationship that came about in the wake of World War II and the Shoah, as I mentioned in yesterday's post. I had no idea that there was such a relationship, and when I heard about it and started reading about it, the relationship seemed absurd. After all, Germany was responsible for the destruction of so much of world Jewry. How, so soon after the war ended, could Israel develop a mutually beneficial relationship with a country that had acted, well, evil?

German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer

Before World War II was even over, American Jewish organizations were calling for reparations from Germany to the Jewish people (Nahum Goldmann of the WJC was the first). There was no necessarily formal effort, and as the war came to a close, the U.S. wanted no part of an endorsement or push for Germany to pass funds to Israel as it became a state in 1948. The situation for West Germany (as the state was split into Communist East and Democratic West) was one that sought expiation of guilt, but also the rehabilitation of the state's reputation in the West following the tragedies of WW II. For Israel, by 1950, the state was in a dire situation: unemployment was high, there were bread lines, they were recovering still from the 1948 war, and they needed financial support and arms. And in the U.S.? Anti-German sentiments ran rampant among the Jewish and Jewish Zionist communities. How quickly that changed ...

For West Germany, there was one country and one people that could rebuild their reputation and for Israel, there was one country that owed them -- big time. Thus enters the "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" situation that defined Israel-West Germany relations.

(As an interesting aside ... David Ben-Gurion, in the autumn of 1950 actually wanted to retroactively declare war against West Germany for their inability to step up to the idea of reparations. Luckily, his foreign ministry said "no way, Jose.")

In 1951, the Israeli government sent a letter to the four occupying powers in Germany demanding restitution -- $1 billion from West Germany and $550 million from East Germany. The Western powers responded by recommending direct talks, which Ben-Gurion later endorsed, but the Soviets didn't answer until a year later, saying the only way Israel would get reparations was if there was a united Germany with a peace treaty. Of course, this wasn't going to happen, so East Germany stayed out of reparations situation.

In April 1951, there was a meeting in Paris where talks began between Israel and West Germany. The result over the next year were violent protests in Israel, with outcries about taking "blood money" and acknowledging the Nazi party from the right (Herut) and the left (Mapam). Officials in West Germany also spoke out privately and publicly about the deal, suggesting that the country should focus on rearming and repaying its wartime debts. However, the illustriously awesome Chancellor of West Germany, Konrad Adenauer, held firmly to his belief that both morally and politically, the deal was best for everyone involved -- for Adenauer, the influence of American Jews was huge, and to please American Jews, who were largely Zionistic, you had to give a little love to Israel.

(Another amusing aside ... In March 1952, West German Finance Minister Schaffer suggested an international loan from the U.S. Jewish community to finance West German restitution payments, believing it would limit Israel's direct claims on their generosity ... genius idea. No one would figure that one out, right.)

Signing of the Luxembourg agreement. Surprised there's not more press!

Finally, in September 1952, Adenauer and Foreign Minister Moshe Sharrett signed the Luxembourg Agreement for $3.45 million (marks) to start in 1953. By 1957, Shimon Peres (IDF) and West German Defense Minister Strauss met to discuss a "secret military cooperation" to exchange a large amount of arms, for free. There were no formal diplomatic or defense ties between West Germany and Israel, because West Germany feared (rightly so) that if they were open about their relationship with Israel that the Arab nations would endorse Communist East Germany, so things were on the down low until around 1964 when "someone" revealed to The New York Times and another paper that there were armaments being transferred. Talk about story of the year.

(An aside that isn't so amusing ... the German New Left and Arab critics argued that the agreement was the result of pressure from the U.S. and that the funds being paid to Germany via the Marshall Plan were being used to pay reparations. Unfortunately, there's no evidence for this, and the U.S. was extremely adamant about staying out of everything, which is why they told Israel and West Germany to talk on their own originally.)

The relationship between West Germany and Israel was so strong that  in November 1956, when Israel invaded Sinai, that Adenauer refused to suspend reparations shipments to Israel at the demand of the United States. Yes, folks, Adenauer was devoted to his relationship with Israel. Good man, right?

The meeting at the Waldorf. "I hear your back itches, need me to scratch it?"

In 1960, Adenauer and Ben-Gurion met at the Waldorf Hotel in New York to discuss a bevy of things about their relationship (as states, of course). It was a huge press moment for the both of them -- Germany looked good because they were doing their moral part to help Israeli infrastructure and Ben-Gurion assured American Jews that the new Germany was not the old Germany. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours!

Between 1963-1965, a few things happened. There were German scientists working in Egypt, which had the world a'flutter

And we all lived happily ever after ... or not. After the 1960s, the relationship between Israel and Germany deteriorated, and even more so after the reunification of Germany. Once Adenauer was out of office, each of the new chancellors seemed more and more disengaged with support of Israel. My focus for my research/presentation is on the 1940s-1960s, so that's where I stop.

I have a few questions about it all, however.

• I mean, Adenauer saw American Jews as having huge "economic" influence in the West, which was one of the many reasons he gave for choosing the Israel reparations plan over paying off debts and rearming. Was he working on the function of stereotypes? Or was he playing to the German people's understanding of the Jews as a financially savvy people? He also played the moral card a lot -- stating that it was Israel's moral obligation to receive reparations and that it was Germany's obligation to pay them out. 

• I also wonder who got the better end of the deal -- Israel or West Germany? The latter got the benefit of the Jewish people's endorsement as being "changed," and after the horrors of the Shoah, that was huge. Beyond huge. Imagine if that hadn't of happened? Would Germany still be fighting for legitimacy today?  On the other hand, Israel wouldn't have been able to support itself financially without the reparations from Germany, and there might not have been an Israel today, at least not a habitable one. 

I honestly can't imagine how many people had to bite their tongues and go with it ... because, really, the war ended in 1945, Israel was established in 1948, and by 1952 Germany and Israel were BFFs. Today, when I think about this, it's absolutely unfathomable. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the issue. Would you have been able to handle this? If you were in Ben-Gurion's shoes, would you have seen the positives over the negatives? Would you have been able to make a decision that in the long term made sense and in the short term was completely mad?

Readings on this topic focused largely on whether the relationship between Germany and Israel was bilateral or trilateral (influence of U.S. Jews), the role of the Holocaust in the creation of Israel and its influence on the German-Israeli relationship, and whether what exists between the two countries was a special relationship, tied completely to a unique historical and psychological relationship that exists nowhere else -- ever. If you're interested in the readings, let me know, and I can send you PDFs. And if you got this far, mazal tov!

Without Words: The Book Thief

This might be my shortest post ever. I finished reading "The Book Thief," by Markus Zusak, and I'm mostly speechless. I can offer only a series of words to describe the book. After that, I suggest you find the book and read it. Don't be turned off by the first 10 or 15 pages -- keep reading. You'll be entranced and taken by the story. The words?

Beautiful.
Tragic.
Horrifying.
Inspiring.

Have you read this book? Let's talk. I'm curious what your reaction is. There have been a flurry of books from the perspective of the "active" participants of the Shoah, or those who were not "active" but were bystanders during World War II, and I'm intrigued by this. It seems that there's a push for the story of the righteous gentiles and their efforts. In both books I've read recently with this theme, I've felt an undertone of sympathy (note that the other book I'm speaking of is The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy).

Nu?

Hitler as the Messiah: Come Again?

I had mentioned in my Holocaust blog post that I wanted to blog about a really bizarre and sort of horrific thing I saw at the museum in the Propaganda Exhibit. That thing? Here it is:

You might look at this and be like, well, it's horrific because Hitler's in it, and you're putting it on your blog, and that's pretty horrific. But the reality of it is that this painting has a name, and that name is "In the Beginning There Was the Word." Anyone who knows their Christian Bible will recognize this phrase from John 1:1. There are a million paintings of Jesus out there in which he's emanating light, where he is, in fact, the only light in a room of people listening to him speak. Take this one, for example, by Rembrandt, called "Jesus Among his Students."

The crappy thing about that first photo, the image of the Hitler painting, is that you don't really get the full effect of the painting. In person, the thing is huge, wall-size. The room is black, save the light issuing from perfect angles from Hitler's face to those around him.

The shocking/disgusting thing about this portrayal of Hitler, in my mind, is that it's incredibly messianic. Hitler as Jesus, Hitler as the savior of the German people. The Nazis found religion pretty repugnant, despite forcing religious leaders to swear allegiance and all. In fact, in the Nazi's plans for a new, worldwide capital, there wasn't a single church in the building plans. What does that say? It says that the Nazis devalued religion, period.

So why portray Hitler as the messiah? Why depict him as the shining light of German redemption? Aside from the basic reason that for the Nazis and their masters of propaganda Hitler was Germany's only future in crawling out of economic turmoil and the disgrace of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles. But it goes deeper than that. The propaganda artists knew, very well, that they had to play to every last member of the German audience, no matter what they did or didn't believe.

The propaganda machine started small, with basic messages like "Buy War Bonds" and "Bread and Water." The machine really got in motion as it started to change its image, depicting the German as breaking his bonds from the Treaty of Versailles and standing firm in Nationalistic, German values. Still later, and almost in slow-motion ramping up to blunt-force came the blaming of Germany's woes on Jews. Then you had things like this that, well, don't hide their message.

This being a book about the Poisonous Mushroom, which, as you can tell, is a Jew. Surprise? Not really. But beware the poisonous Jew out in the wilderness. This was dished out to kids just as radios were dished out to people -- en masse.

I am fully intrigued and disgusted by Hitler as messiah, however. I'm interested in other depictions of Hitler as messiah, in fact. I'm interested in what the Church thought of those images, too. A simple Amazon book search of "Hitler messiah" produces a bounty of interesting books, including some that cite the Swastika as the new cross -- a new cross for a new messiah.

What do you guys think? Does anyone have experience with this Hitler/Messiah theme? Again, I am horrified/disgusted. Hitler, for all intents and purposes, antagonized Modern Christianity. In Hitler's mind, Christianity was meant to be entrenched in its ancient, almost pagan rituals and understandings.

But seriously. A mushroom?

(Note: As I'm preparing to PUBLISH this, two guys sit down next to me at Starbucks and start discussing Hitler and his secret liquor stash. Weird.)

History Repeats, Repeats, Repeats.

Today marks Yom HaShoah -- Holocaust Remembrance Day. I know the blogosphere will be crawling with posts dedicated to family members lost, to the feelings surrounding the day, to the horror and catastrophe that happened so many years ago, and the continued fear of "what if?"

I'm not melodramatic when it comes to the Shoah, and I don't want my readers to think I'm nuts. But the question of "what if?" is not so far-fetched. Insanity, after all, as Einstein said is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If you think about history, there have been plenty of large-scale attempts at destruction of the Jewish people, going back to the Babylonian Exile and ranging through the first crusades through the Rhine and on into the Holocaust. In between, the world has been peppered with pogroms, blood libel, and just plain killing Jews for the sake of killing them. You'll also recall that during the First Revolt that led up to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, you had Jews (Zealots) killing other Jews en masse.

We're no strangers to death on a large scale.

My "what if?" comes with the additional "people don't learn and continue the path of destruction aimed at the Jewish people?" I don't think it's so outlandish. It's why I don't understand why there are Jews who presently don't think about or support the State of Israel. Worse comes to worse, I'm cutting a rug and b-lining to Israel.

I've often said that the Shoah is probably the hardest thing for a convert to connect to when it comes to Jews and Judaism. There are converts who discover long-lost lineage stepping back to the Shoah, family members who went into hiding for fear of death at the hands of Nazis or others because they were Jewish. Generations later, the truth comes out and a grandchild or great-grandchild returns to the family roots. For those of us with no roots, however, it's difficult. But I'm marrying into a memory.

Tuvia's grandmother (as well as her two surviving sisters) experienced the atrocities of the Shoah, losing their parents and other siblings, as well as other relatives, while suffering the horrors of Auschwitz and other camps. They survived, but at a cost that is unbelievably great. One sister had her physical and emotional abilities disabled, another spoke out about her experiences and Tuvia and I plan on watching the video, which we ordered from the Shoah Project, this evening -- he's never seen it. His grandmother doesn't talk about/remember her experiences during the war, despite being a teenager. I know it's horrifying, and it's almost like the affect of the car accident -- you just want to know and hear the details, to know what family went through. I want to know their story, so our children and their children will not forget what happened. The moment we forget, that's when insanity kicks in.

History, after all, repeats, repeats, repeats.

Be well and today, if only for a moment, think about the sheer volume of those killed. Think about those 6 million Jews who died, as well as those 2-3 million Soviet POWs, 1.8-2 million ethnic Poles, 1.5 million Romani, 200,000 disabled, 80,000 Freemasons, 5,000-15,000 homosexuals, and 2,500-5,000 Jehovah's witnesses that were killed for being exactly who they were.

Suggested reading: I recently finished a book called "The True Story of Hansel and Gretel" by Lousie Murphy, which is a fictional account of two small children, dropped by their father and step-mother at the edge of a forest in Poland while running from the Nazis. The children end up in a village, taken in by a "witch" (who, as it turns out, was a gypsy!), and the parents join the resistance. The story is woven wonderfully, with vivid imagery and a horrific tale about what went on in the village of the woman who harbored these children until the liberation. If anything, the book is graphic and ultimately apologetic to the Polish cause. Portions of the book feel forced (an incident post-war by a Pole lashing out at a Jew, for example), but overall it's a vivid and horrifying tale of what could have gone on in the story of any child left to the mercy of a kind, gypsy soul. The apologetic nature of the book bothered me, and it was pretty blunt in its representation of the Poles as purely victims. For me, with the story "Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne" by Jan T. Gross always clear in my mind, I find it difficult to relate to the "victimless" Polish village.

Grandfather Would be Dismayed.

My mother sent me a story yesterday, and I didn't manage to open it today. I thought it was probably something irrelevant and "funny" since those tend to be the e-mails I get from her (forwards and what have you). But this e-mail contained a story about the Ozarks chapter of the Pearl Harbors Survivors disbanding.

My grandmother was the lone person who voted against disbanding. I can't imagine how alone she must feel now.

When the group -- started by my grandfather -- began, there were more than 100 members. This was in the 1980s. Today, there are 17 survivors in that chapter, and the youngest is just a hair over 80. Only nine members were at this final meeting; I'm guessing the rest were physically/mentally unable to attend. Thus, nine of the 100 made the decision to disband the chapter.

It's strange to me thinking about World War II how many stories were never told, will never be told. The WW II generations are dying, and there isn't enough time to capture all that's there. Add in that so many of the survivors of camps, the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, etc. are in such advanced age that memories are not what they once were. Truths are not necessarily facts -- but the embellishments are what make the memories worth listening to all the while.

There's a video on the site, but I can't get it to load. If I do, I'll post it.

I just wanted to mention this. It's one of those sad realizations that as time goes on, the events that shape our world do indeed fade away sometimes with those who saw them with their own eyes. I imagine that in 60 years, this is what will be happening to my generation when it comes to 9/11. It's weird to think about. It's really sobering.