Why I Write

I opened last week's episode with a quote from Mila 18. I got a number of emails about it, about Leon Uris, and even about Holocaust books in general. Since my old, beat-up paperback disintegrated (literally) in the last move, I downloaded a copy into my Kindle reader. I read almost all of Shabbat afternoon, most of Sunday morning, and finished it this morning.  

By the time I finished, I could barely breathe. I was in the bunker with them all. I was crawling in the sewer pipe. I wept because I knew Deborah Bronski would die and her brother, the great Ulany warrior, Andrei Androfski, would never come out of the ghetto alive. I wept because Alexander Brandel, Wolf's father, would never know if his journals made it out of the ghetto with Chris DiMonte.  I desperately wanted to know what happened to those characters who did survive....Wolf Brandel, Rachel and her brother Stephan Bronski, Gabriela Rak....but there are no sequels and that is left to our imaginations. 

I know these are not real people; they are the figments of Uris's imagination, but that doesn't stop me from mourning their loss, along with the losses of the real men, women, and children of the Warsaw Ghetto. I wonder if I would have had the strength to send my boys through the sewers, or hide them in bunkers, or starve myself to feed them as so many parents did. 

Mordechai Anielewiscz

The story of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto is history. It happened. It lasted from April 19th, 1943 until the last skirmish on June 5th, 1943. Longer than anyone in the ghetto thought they could last. The excruciating description of the revolt as told by Leon Uris is perilously close to reality. 

I know Andrei Androfski is modeled on Mordechai Anielewicz, and I knew that, even when I was 17 years old and standing in front of his statue at the kibbutz named for him, Yad Mordechai. Knowing that he was just 7 years older than me, just 24 years old when he died, terrified me. Would I have been brave enough to be one of his fighters? Or would I have marched silently into the gas chambers with so many others?

I also know that Alexander Brandel was loosely based on Emanuel Ringelblum who kept the Oyneg Shabbos archive.

The fate of Ringelblum's archives is only partially known. In September 1946, ten clay-covered tin boxes were found in the ruins of Warsaw. Although they were damaged by water, the contents of the boxes were able to be salvaged by conservators. In December 1950, two additional milk cans were found in a cellar of a ruined house at 68 Nowolipki Street. The second archive was not only found in much better condition than the first, but also contained a larger variety of artifacts. Among them were copies of several underground newspapers, a narrative of deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto, and public notices by the Judenrat (the council of Jewish leaders), but also documents of ordinary life, concert invitations, milk coupons, and chocolate wrappers. The archival treasure provides insight on the daily lives, struggles, and sufferings of Polish Jews living in a pivotal area during the Holocaust.

Despite repeated searches, the rest of the archive, including the third milk can, has yet to be found. It is rumoured to be located beneath what is now the Chinese Embassy in Warsaw.                                                from Wikipedia

These were real people who died fighting not because they thought they could win, but to restore honor to all Jews..the ones the world saw as sheep led to Nazi slaughter. Anielewicz and his girlfriend, Mira Fuchrer, were caught in the bunker at Mila 18 on May 8, 1943, along with about 120 other resistance fighters. Surrounded with no way to get out, they committed suicide rather than be taken alive and risk exposing others. 

There are no comparisons in this country at this time that bear any resemblance to what the Jews and other minorities experienced in the Holocaust. NONE. Not even migrants in detention centers. Not even Portland.

However....and gee, isn't there always a however?

Uris's book came out in 1961. I think a lot of people, non-Jews in particular, were just beginning to grasp the enormity of what had happened in Europe. A novel does that job rather well; it brings the tragedy into some kind of popular culture focus. For some people, that's a prelude to figuring out reality. 

I think that function of popular culture is highly underrated; social media has kinda proved that point. People believe what they read, even if it's as moronic as instructing them to "hold your finger down anywhere in this post and 'copy' will pop up. Click 'copy' " to see more stuff on FaceBook. "But I saw it on the internet" may be a punchline, but too many people are getting all their news from memes instead of established non-biased news sources and journalists. There are reliable and respectable sources. You can find them. 

I'm not a journalist. I don't even play one on TV. I don't write news reports, I write opinion. Everyone gets to have one of those. I actively work to support my opinions with links to factual and accurate sources. If a reader counters my source, I check it out and make any and ALL necessary corrections with citation. 

People like me who write blogs and commentary on current events are creating the archive of our modern history. We don't have to all agree, or write the same things, but our voices are preserved in cyberspace whether we want them to be or not. I can still google Ziggy's Joke o'the Day and get results..including his obit. (Go figure.) But his words hang on.

We who are writing and posting about what we see, what we hear, what we feel, are doing important work. We are documenting the changes and shifts taking place on a scale that has never been available before. We are able to read about life on the ground in every corner of this planet. And to be sure, there are places that must have greater exposure than that which they are getting. Whether it's Chevron's refusal to aid Ecuador's environment or the Rohingya genocide , it's the citizen army of reporters and observers that gets the word out. 

Would the Germans have been able to do what they did if there was social media in 1939? I don't know.

When I watch cell-phone video tapes of the Philando Castile and George Floyd murders, I know an entire world is watching in revulsion. When I see news tapes of the demonstrations in Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, and Portland, I recognize the difference between peaceful protest and violence...and I see (as did the rest of the world) the agitators and provocateurs who worked to create violence. Those video tapes provided conclusive proof the "Umbrella Man" was identifiable. Turned out he was a member of the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood. Not exactly the folks Feckless Leader was blaming for violence, is it?

That battle cry is growing, and maybe all those cell-phone cameras and street memorials will finally begin the overdue process of confronting what is wrong with our nation. And that's where We, the Writers, come in. 

As current event bloggers and commenters, we have a sacred duty to We, the People, of the United States to shine spotlights on what we believe important. Not everyone will have the same view, the same opinion, but even that's important. We put our words up on websites in hopes someone will read them and think, "Gee, I need to know more about that."

Truth is relative to point of view. Yes, there are things that are theorems, not theories...like 2+2=4, and people need to breathe oxygen to live. But political opinions and positions are not universal no matter what we want to think. And debate is ultimately healthy. We live in a republic with a government that is elected. Differences are important. We elect, we live with the results of an election, and we elect someone else if we are unhappy. But not everyone is going to agree with everyone else, and that's really okay. 

At this moment, at this crossroads of American civilization, we are facing hard choices about who we are as a people, a culture, and a community. Do we believe everyone is entitled to health care, or is it just for people who work? Are we willing to welcome "natural causes" and "infant mortality" back into our conversation when health care is no longer available to regular people? Do we permit eviction and foreclosure in the middle of a pandemic, and allow our parks to become tent villages to accommodate those who no longer have homes? These really are either/or questions. What are We, the People, prepared to accept as our new reality?

These are the things I wonder about. If people are evicted, where do they go? If health care isn't available, people will die in their homes....if they have them.  Or will it be more like this when the Border Patrol Agents step over the bodies?

Collaborator Forces peer into a doorway past the bodies of Jews killed during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising at Zamenhofa 42 / Kupiecka 18

Federal officers open fire on demonstrators with 'less-lethal' weapons.
July 16, 2020, Portland Federal Courthouse

John Rudoff—Sipa USA

Are we prepared for more of these pictures?

Silence is complicit. Silence permits atrocities. Silence is unacceptable.

We should have learned this lesson 81 years ago. I'm not so sure we have. 

I will continue to write what I see because I don't want a replay of 1939. I don't want to ever write about another kind of holocaust. I don't want that comparison.....EVER. 

No matter your political persuasion, you shouldn't want one, either. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Day

Do your brain a favor. 

Read MILA 18.

If you read it a long time ago, re-read it. 

Then, let me know how the breathing went.