Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

What’s in My Journal

‘Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Thing, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for Alaska.’
This is part of a poem by the American writer, William Stafford, born 110 years ago today. He is said to have kept a daily journal for 50 years, but the only published extracts available online show the journal to be more a collection of epigrams and political/philosophical thoughts than a personal diary. 

Stafford was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, on 17 January 1914. During the Depression, his family moved around in search of work, and he contributed by doing odd jobs, often on farms. He studied at the University of Kansas, and was drafted into the armed forces in 1941. However, as a registered conscientious objector, he performed alternative service, forestry and soil conservation, until 1946 in the Civilian Public Service camps. While working in California in 1944, he met and married Dorothy Hope Frantz, with whom he later had four children. He received an M.A. also from the University of Kansas in 1947. His thesis - the prose memoir Down In My Heart describing his experience in the forest service camps - was published in 1948.

After moving to Oregon, Stafford taught English at Lewis & Clark College. In 1954, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. He was already 48 when his first major collection of poetry was published, Traveling Through the Dark, which won the 1963 National Book Award for Poetry. Despite his late start, he was a frequent contributor to magazines and anthologies and eventually published 57 volumes of poetry. His poetry often explored themes of peace, mindfulness, and the human experience. He believed in the power of everyday moments and the importance of observing the world with a keen and empathetic eye. His work is said to be characterised by its clarity, simplicity, and a reverence for the ordinary. He died in 1993. Further biographical information is available from Wikipedia and the Poetry Foundation.

According to Wikipedia, Stafford kept a daily journal for 50 years. Although these journals do not appear to have been published in their own right some extracts can be found in Every War Has Two Losers edited by Kim Stafford and published by Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis, in 2003. This can be borrowed digitally from Internet Archive.

‘In editing this unusual book,’ Kim Stafford says in his forward, ‘I have chosen in many instances to represent my fathers unpublished writing exactly as he penned it in the early morning, alone with his thoughts. The language is sometimes very compact, the thought line intuitive, and the effect both intimate and challenging. The poems are represented as he revised and published them, and most of the interviews he had a chance to review. Some of the Daily Writings, however, were never revised, and they live here with you in their native form. I invite you to read these as they were written: attentive, deliberate, in a spirit of welcome as thoughts come forth.’

Here are several extracts from Stafford’s journal as found in Every War Has Two Losers.

25 November 1970
‘When a war looms, the enemy emerges as wrong and a menace. How long before was it wrong and a menace? What was done then? Should more have been done earlier? Could it have been swayed earlier? Were the aggressive people now among those trying to sway earlier?’ 

1 December 1974
‘Divisions among groups bring forward aggressive leaders, whose function requires of them an emphasizing of positive qualities in their own group, a tolerance of distortion in regard to the “enemy,” a temporary using of means ordinarily frowned upon. War leaders are liars.’

11 October 1978
‘Living traditionally, the country life, we cultivate the ground. We know the seed will produce after its kind. Why then do we sow suspicion and hatred in some places? If we show goodwill, honesty, reliability, industry, thrift, cheer, will these tend to produce those qualities in others around us? And the contrary is true too?

But do we have enemies? Whence came their feelings toward us? Can a serenity view and understand?’

12 July 1981
‘You can’t help noticing these days that right hasn’t prevailed.’

12 September 1981
‘The wind you walk against but do not feel is ignorance. Your foolish face has happiness on one side, but the world pressed on the other.’

And, finally, here is a poem penned by Stafford in 1981

What’s in My Journal

‘Odd things, like a button drawer. Mean
Thing, fishhooks, barbs in your hand.
But marbles too. A genius for being agreeable.
Junkyard crucifixes, voluptuous
discards. Space for knickknacks, and for
Alaska. Evidence to hang me, or to beatify.
Clues that lead nowhere, that never connected
anyway. Deliberate obfuscation, the kind
that takes genius. Chasms in character.
Loud omissions. Mornings that yawn above
a new grave. Pages you know exist
but you can't find them. Someone’s terribly
inevitable life story, maybe mine.’

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

This won’t break us

‘The day began with the barber telling me that, as of September 19, we will have to wear a badge bearing the word “Jew,” even six-year-old children. This won’t break us either, even though life will be made more difficult.’ This is from the diaries of Dr. Willy Cohn, born 135 years ago today, who was one of many thousands of Jews executed by the Nazis at Ninth Fort in Lithuania. According to the publisher, the diaries show how the process of marginalisation under the Nazis unfolded within the Breslau Jewish community and how difficult it was to understand precisely what was happening, even as people were harassed, beaten, and taken off to concentration camps.

Cohn was born on 12 December 1888 in Breslau, Poland (though then it was part of the German Empire) into a wealthy Jewish merchant family. He studied history at the universities of Breslau and Heidelberg and married Ella Proskauer in 1913. They would have two children, before divorcing in 1922. He served as a soldier on the Western Front during the war, and won an Iron Cross for bravery. After the war, he secured a position as teacher at Breslau’s Johannesgymnasium in 1919, remaining there until 1933. During this time, he wrote several books, including biographies of Karl Marx, Robert Owen and Friedrich Engels. He married Gertrud Rothmann in 1923 with whom he had three children.

After being forced into retirement for ‘political reasons’ in 1933, Cohn became a board member of the Jewish Museum in Breslau, and he lectured at the Jewish Theological Seminary also in Breslau. However, as the persecution of Jews in Germany grew worse, he and his family began to consider emigration. They visited Palestine in 1937, but there seemed no employment prospects especially for Cohn who was not healthy enough for physical labor. By the time they wanted to flee, at the start of the Second World War, it was too late - the Nazi regime had begun its reign of terror, Wikipedia explains, and no longer allowed emigration. The Cohns and two of their children were arrested in November 1941, and deported to German-occupied Lithuania. A few days later, they were shot in Ninth Fort, together with 2000 other Jews from Breslau and Vienna.

Cohn’s life story stands out and is now remembered because of the diaries he kept all his adult life. These were found (along with a 1,000-page memoir in Berlin) in 1945. Excerpts from the diaries, in the original German, were first published in 1975, as was the memoir in 1995. Then, in 2005, the diaries were published in a fully annotated version, as edited by Norbert Conrads. This latter edition was translated into English by Kenneth Kronenberg for publication as No Justice in Germany: The Breslau Diaries, 1933-1941 (Stanford University Press). 

From the publisher’s blurb: ‘With great immediacy, the diaries of Willy Cohn, a Jew and a Social Democrat, show how the process of marginalization under the Nazis unfolded within the vibrant Jewish community of Breslau - until that community was destroyed in 1941. Cohn documents how difficult it was to understand precisely what was happening, even as people were harassed, beaten, and taken off to concentration camps. He chronicles the efforts of the community to maintain some semblance of normal life at the same time as many made plans to emigrate or to get their children out.’

From the translator’s note: ‘Willy Cohn was a complex individual: an Orthodox Jew and a socialist; an ardent Zionist and a staunch German patriot; a democrat but an admirer of Nazi resolve and sometimes even policy; a realist and an idealist often not up to grappling effectively; generous to a fault but also occasionally petty and stubborn. These and other contradictions within his personality, and the wealth of detail that poured from his pen, give us a unique view of a disorienting and frightening time in Germany.’

Here are several extracts.

17 December 1938
‘The first evening of Hanukkah. This morning I worked on my box of manuscripts and threw a few things out. This is the time of year when it makes sense to burn things. Delved into decades well before mv birth, when my father built his beautiful store with iron determination! Life smiled on us German Jews back then.

Went to synagogue, Shabbat afternoon service; first day of Hanukkah. The men’s section was very full, and we all proudly sang the old song of the Maccabees, which has been heard for more than two thousand years and will hopefully be heard for another two thousand. I firmly believe in the future of our people, and in its healthy inner life force. The Jews who pray in our synagogue, and who returned from the Buchenwald camp, all said the Birkat Hagomel, the prayer of deliverance.

Spoke with Tischler, the classifieds representative, and he told me that the Famlienblatt has been liquidated, that Schatzky sold it. How many Jewish livelihoods are now finished as a result; there will be no renewal of Jewish intellectual life in Germany now that all of the major sources of income have been blocked.

Celebrated Hanukkah in the evening with all three daughters. Trudi held Tamara in her arms. It is my most fervent hope that my family will celebrate this day next year in Erez Israel, in freedom. Whether I can still accomplish that, with all the efforts needed to get ready! Tamara will be five months old day after tomorrow! Susannchen knows all of the verses of “Ma’oz Tzur.”

This morning I sent both of my big girls to see Mother. Ruth was able to get half a chicken, and we sent a bar of soap along as well. Unfortunately, I can’t do much; I’m short on money right now myself, and I don’t know how we are going to get through this. I don’t want to ask anyone, either. It is very difficult for a father when he is unable to do what he would like to do, but of course that is also happening to innumerable Jews right now. I think that few of us Jews wall escape this mouse trap. Sometimes, a person must push his thoughts aside and bear in mind all of the good things that he has!’

18 December 1938
‘I don’t think I have yet noted that Curt Proskauer returned home from Buchenwald. His health seems to have been badly affected by it. I called him yesterday.

I went to see Czollak to greet him after his return from Buchenwald. He was in bed because of a nail-bed infection; other than that, thank G’d, he did not look too bad. He is very impractical about his emigration plans. I will help him to the extent I can. Urbach, in Jerusalem, is treating him and Daniel very decently. We have to help each other through these times!’

19 December 1938
‘Unfortunately, Trudi has to make the rounds of the police this morning about Ruth’s passport. First the district station, and then headquarters. She doesn’t want me to do it. The matter of Ruth’s identity card seems to be going smoothly; she will pick up her passport tomorrow. I don’t expect any other problems either. I am always quite anxious whenever one of my children’s emigration approaches. But it is not helpful, and I just have to get through it. We must fight against every sort of failure.’

22 July 1939
‘Yesterday was a horrible day. Terrible upsets, with Trudi as well. Arrangements for additional payments to the Palestine Trust Office so that we can at least take Tamara with us. To the bank, where I spent an hour negotiating; then came Dr. Latte, whom we had selected as our foreign currency advisor. We found a possible way out, namely if we can use the boys’ money that was placed in blocked accounts, we may be able to take Susanne with us. I cannot even imagine separating from the child.

Regarding yesterday, I must add that I was summoned to the Gestapo in the morning in the context of a so-called “street action.” They wanted my families personal information to the extent that they are registered in Breslau, and then he asked, “When are you emigrating?” I told him that my son had applied for me. “How long could that take?” I replied, “A few months.” “You can go home now," he said. The whole matter took a few minutes.’

2 September 1939
‘Thank G'd, the first nightly blackout went without incident. Sat on the balcony. There was a nice breeze, and I could see the darkened city. Toward evening, Trudi returned from shopping with the news that the airport in Warsaw had been bombed, and that Pless, in Polish Upper Silesia, had apparently been leveled. In the morning we will hear what is true and what is not.

I didn’t attend synagogue in the evening, nor did we light the Kiddush candles. Lay awake in bed thinking about Wölfl. We are completely cut off, and our thoughts alone connect us. It is sometimes difficult to turn them off. Emotionally, in fact, I have lost all hope that our emigration to Palestine might succeed. One has to consider the loss of money that would make possible such a transfer. But it makes no sense tearing my hair out about that now; all I can do is live from hour to hour. At this moment, I have no idea how the other powers will respond to the German-Polish war.

From a Jewish perspective, I can say the following about the situation. The Aryan population is surely not well disposed to us, and if Germany suffers failure in Poland, we can almost certainly expect pogrom-like assaults. Today on the street for the first time I heard two older men make an anti-Semitic remark: “The Jews must get out.” It wasn’t aimed at me, but that makes it all the more characteristic.’

6 September 1941
‘Yesterday a lovely and quick letter from Wölfl dated August 20, full of warmth. He asks about each and every one of us; a boy on whom we may rely.’

7 September 1941
‘No newspaper to be had yesterday. Paper is in such short supply that newspapers are quietly sold out. A number of streetcar lines won’t be running in the morning as of this Sunday. There is a shortage of personnel! I think that Germany’s situation continues to be very unfavorable, even though the newspapers report victories each day.’

8 September 1941
‘The day began with the barber telling me that, as of September 19, we will have to wear a badge bearing the word “Jew,” even six-year-old children. This won’t break us either, even though life will be made more difficult. In spite of it all, we will have to try not to lose our nerve. All of these measures show how increasingly bad Germany’s situation is, and how the people’s rage is being vented on the most helpless part of the population! This trumps the Middle Ages! Each violation carries a fine of 500 marks or one month in jail! In addition, travel by Jews has been banned throughout the Reich, and the obligation to report to the Gestapo tightened.

Worked in the Cathedral Archive and did some excerpting for Germania Judaica! Nonetheless, these matters coursed around my mind! Director Engelbert told me that I may continue to work there despite the badge. He is a man of great character, far different from Walter, the archivist, and Mother Huberta. Mother Innocentia is also a person with a large spirit.

9 September 1941
‘Dictated a considerable piece of my memoirs yesterday afternoon; I have now written more than 1,000 pages. I also wrote a lengthy letter to Wölfl! Given current circumstances, it is hard to find the right words. I was exhausted by evening. I went for a walk, but I am very unnerved by the decree about the yellow badge! I read it this morning!’

Sunday, November 26, 2023

I feel shocked and ashamed

‘The atomic bomb was used yesterday for the first time on the Japs. I must say I feel shocked and ashamed. Nobody knows what the effects of it, indirect or direct, will be on the area. I don’t think posterity will think it was a very creditable action.’ This is from the war diaries of Oliver Charles Harvey, first Baron Harvey of Tasburgh, born 130 years ago today. At the time, Harvey was Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, and he wrote his diaries believing their future value would lie in their “hotness”, in providing immediate impressions and atmosphere.

Harvey was born on 26 November 1893 at Rainthorpe Hall, near Norwich, the only son of Sir Charles Harvey, second baronet, landowner, and his second wife, Mary Anne Edith. He was educated at Malvern College and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He served throughout the First World War in the Norfolk regiment, in France, Egypt, and Palestine, and was mentioned in dispatches. In 1920, he married Maud Annora (with whom he had two sons); and that same year he joined the Diplomatic Service, advancing to Second and then First Secretary with stints in Rome, Athens and Paris. Between 1936 and 1943 he was - in two different stretches (1936–1938 and 1941–1943) - private secretary and confidant to Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required) has this assessment: ‘As private secretary to the foreign secretary, and as a convinced anti-appeaser, Harvey interpreted his duties widely, often proffering advice on matters of policy in terms critical of the prime minister and of his interference in foreign affairs. After Eden's resignation in February 1938, Harvey continued to offer unofficial advice to his former chief. His personal relations with Eden's successor, Halifax, were good but unenthusiastiic .[. . .] it was no surprise that when Eden returned to the Foreign Office in December 1940 he took the first opportunity of reappointing his old private secretary, although Harvey was by now well above the rank normal for the post. [. . .] 

From then on Harvey was closely involved in all the complicated issues which beset the Foreign Office during the war. He accompanied Eden on three trips to Moscow, the first at the dramatic moment when the Germans had been halted a bare 20 miles away in December 1941, and once to the United States. He was closely involved too in the controversies over the employment of Darlan and Giraud, the struggle over the recognition of the national committee of de Gaulle, the difficulties with the exiled Polish government, and the like. In all these questions his advice was forward looking, realistic, and on the side of the new forces which he believed would emerge in the open at the end of the war.’

After the war, Harvey served as Deputy Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1946 to 1948) and as Ambassador to France (1948 to 1954). On retirement, in 1954, he was created a baron, and he succeeded his half-brother as fourth baronet. Though attending the House of Lords, he rarely took part in debates. He died in 1968. Further information is also available from Wikipedia and The Peerage.

From 1937 through the Second World War, Harvey kept detailed diaries. These were edited by his son John Harvey and published by Collins in two volumes: The Diplomatic Diaries of Oliver Harvey 1937-1940 (1970) and The War Diaries of Oliver Harvey 1941-1945 (1978). Digital copies of both can be borrowed at Internet Archive

In the first volume, Harvey explains how he came to keep a diary, and why. ‘I was appointed Private Secretary by Anthony Eden shortly after he became Foreign Secretary. I came over from Paris, where I had been Head of the Chancery, arriving in January 1936 on the day King George V was dying, the end of another chapter. It was some time before I began my diary. Owing to pressure of new work, I was too busy to think of it, but as time went on it seemed to me that it might be valuable to set down day by day the course of events and our first reaction to them as they struck us at our particular centre of things. The diary was thus written down “hot” at the time, sometimes hour by hour, rarely a few days or a week or so after the events, and it has in no case been written up or adjusted subsequently. Indeed, its whole value, if it has a value, lies in its “hotness”, in the immediate impression and atmosphere. I am the first to recognise how many of the first reactions and impressions and judgments were proved wrong and would be admitted wrong by myself now, but that is not the point. This is how we saw things at the time.’

And here are several extracts from the second volume.

13 July 1941
‘I drove down to Frensham this morning with A.E.’s box. He greeted me with the news that Winston had been on the telephone five times over a government reconstruction. He wished to send Duff to Far East as coordinator à la Lyttelton, Brendan Bracken to M. of I R.A.B. to Ministry of Education and Dick Law to be Undersecretary at F.O. A. was against Duff going to Far East and thought it preferable to make no change at M. of I. but to see how new arrangement worked there. He said he would miss R.A.B. who was good with the House of Commons and took a lot of work off his shoulders, but he had always wanted Dick - though latter suffered from diffidence and lack of authority. I said I was sure this would be a good change and it was important to bring Dick on. Anyway we get rid of Chips [Channon]! I think A.E. feels R.A.B. was useful in keeping Munichers in Parliament in order. He also wondered whether he should have had a Labour Under-Secretary - but who? I think this is the best arrangement and Dick deserves the opportunity.

Instructions were sent to Cripps last night to sign Anglo-Soviet Declaration - we expect news of it at any minute.

The Polish-Soviet conversation on Friday went fairly well. Maisky agreed to most of the Polish points. The trouble is that half the Polish Government here is violently anti-Russian. There is also an ugly snag in the Polish political prisoners whom the Poles want released and who are believed to have been “liquidated”. A.E. is using all pressure to bring them together.

There was a last-minute hitch last night over Syrian armistice, Dentz refusing to treat with us if Free French were also included. But this seems to have been got over and we hear French plenipotentiaries crossed our lines early this morning.

Meanwhile things don’t look too bad. Russians are doing far better than was expected and must have badly delayed German programme. The Russian Mission here are getting on very well with our staffs. But I still wish it were possible to do more to help them than bombing in the West.

A most important thing is how well A.E. and the P.M. get on. Latter, I think, really trusts him and listens to him, headstrong though he is. He apologised to A.E. for being so tiresome over his personal telegrams to Stalin. He is an eternal schoolboy.’

3 July 1942
‘P.M. made, as usual, a great speech yesterday and on the whole seems to have won the sympathy of the House. All were rather overawed by the issues being fought out in Africa and slightly ashamed of themselves.

A.E. dined with P.M. afterwards. He told me this morning he found the P.M. “in the greatest heart” and planning to go off at once to Egypt himself by aeroplane! He told A.E. he had got the King’s permission as well as that of Attlee and Bevin. A.E. and Bracken did their best to shake him out of such a mad idea which, tho’ admittedly most heartening to the troops, would only hinder General Auchinleck. P.M. was like a naughty child. He went on to say to A.E. he had prepared his political testament which he would leave behind. “You may like to know what is in it. You are in it.”

Battle yesterday still uncertain. Very hard fighting round Alamein. Late last night our most secret sources said that Rommel was talking of making “one more attempt” to take the place today. That is encouraging.’

28 July 1945
‘I had just gone home last night when Bob Dixon rang up to say would I come back to F.O. at 9 as Mr. Bevin (who had been appointed F.S.) wanted to be given an idea of the Potsdam Conference before starting off the next morning.

We all met at 9 in the empty and gloomy office. Mr. B. very genial and friendly. I congratulated him. He said “commiserate rather”. He had only known at 4.45 that he was to be F.S. - up till then he had thought he was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer which he would have rather liked. “However, I didn’t mind taking this”. The election itself had been the surprise of his life. He was so sure the Tories were in that he had taken a little cottage in Cornwall for the holidays.’

We went over the doings of the Conference. I asked him whether he and Mr. Attlee proposed to carry it on. He said he hadn’t had a talk with A. yet but believed the idea was that the latter would return on Sunday but that he himself should stay on. He was ready to do so and to stay as long as the Soviets and U.S. wished. He thought it wouldn’t be at all desirable that we should propose an adjournment. He would leave that to the others.

Earlier in the day, A.E. had had a farewell tea-party in the Ambassador’s waiting room at the Office. He called me to his room later to say goodbye. Poor man, he had heard while at Potsdam of the discovery of the aeroplane in the jungle with the bodies of his son and the crew. But otherwise he seemed well and not much concerned at the Government’s defeat. He was worried about Winston, and wished he could get him away and out of the House. He would like now to be Leader of Opposition himself and mould the Party as he wants it. But he fears Winston will stay on and get everything wrong. I begged him to give himself a rest, saying that for him personally it couldn’t have been better. He could never have stood another Government as No. 2 to Winston and as Leader of the House plus the F.O. Now he could make a complete recovery. He was worried about the Garter which Winston had offered to recommend him for. He was reluctant to accept it. He thought it would rather diminish him in the public eye.’

7 August 1945
‘The atomic bomb was used yesterday for the first time on the Japs. I must say I feel shocked and ashamed. Nobody knows what the effects of it, indirect or direct, will be on the area. I don’t think posterity will think it was a very creditable action.

I’ve seen no more of Mr. Bevin, but those who were at Potsdam were extremely pleased with his performance there. He says he wants to improve Anglo French relations, thank goodness!

I’m afraid Winston and A.E. had latterly become quite exhausted. They could no longer look at the problems properly or read the papers about them. It had become mere improvisation. Bevin, we hope, will really devote his mind to foreign policy, read the papers, and not divide up his time with other duties.’

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Important not to be duped

‘For my part, I consider it important above all not to be duped. That’s what I peacefully strive for. I know the deep wretchedness of our generation and the ones that follow, and I have tried, with what means I have, to provide a small cure. I recognize that I can do nothing. Lacking either enough intelligence for problems that are too great or enough simplicity for problems that are so hugely simple they defy mathematics, I would nevertheless reserve the right to laugh and comfort myself with scorn, precisely applied. English generosity; American civilization.’ This is the French writer Jean Giorno starting - exactly 80 years ago today - a diary in which he would extemporise on his literary, social and political thoughts providing, once published, ‘a unique window into one of French literature’s most voracious and critical minds’.

Giorno was born in 1895 in Manosque, southeastern France, to humble parents - his father was a cobbler and his mother a laundry woman. He left school at 16 to work in a bank (though he continued to read widely) before being called up for military service on the outbreak of war. The experience - not least at the Battle of Verdun - turned him into an ardent pacifist. In 1919, he returned to the bank, and a year later, married a childhood friend, Élise Giono, with whom he had two children. After publishing poetry, he produced, in 1929, his first novel, Colline, which won the Prix Brentano. He left the bank the following year to devote himself to writing. Two more novels - influenced by Virgil and Homer - followed: Un de Baumugnes (1929) and Regain (1930).  Together with Colline they made up the so-called Pan trilogy.

Throughout the 1930s, Giono wrote novels and pamphlets much influenced by his belief in pacifism. He joined a group of like-minded thinkers - with Lucien Jacques and Henri Fluchère - who gathered in the hamlet of Contadour, and whose pacifist writings were published as the Cahiers du Contadour. In 1939, on the outbreak of the new war, he was briefly imprisoned as a Nazi sympathiser. After the war, in 1945 he was held captive by a communist band of Resistance fighters who again accused him of collaboration with the Nazis. Many French writers blacklisted him, but a vigorous defence by author André Gide helped re-establish his reputation.

In the post war years, Giorno adopted a new style, more concise, concentrating on storytelling, in novels such as Le Hussard sur le toit (1952) and Le Bonheur fou (1957). Outside of France, he is probably best known for his short fable The Man Who Planted Trees first published in 1953. In 1954 he was elected to the Académie Goncourt. He died in 1970. Further information is available at Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica and The New York Times.

During the latter part of the war, Giono kept a detailed diary - starting on 20 September 1943. Subsequently, in 1995, this was published by Gallimard as Journal de l’Occupation; but it was not translated into English, by Jody Gladding, until 2020 when it was published by Archipelago as Occupation Journal. Some pages can be freely read at Googlebooks, and some extracts can be read in The Paris Review.

Here is the publisher’s blurb, followed by the first entry in the diary (taken from the  Penguin Random House website).

‘Written during the years of France’s occupation by the Nazis, Jean Giono’s Occupation Journal reveals the inner workings of one of France’s great literary minds during one of the country’s darkest hours. A renowned writer and committed pacifist throughout the 1930s – a conviction that resulted in his imprisonment before and after the Occupation – Giono spent the war in the village of Contadour in Provence, where he wrote, corresponded with other writers, and cared for his consumptive daughter. This journal records his musings on art and literature, his observations of life, his interactions with the machinery of the collaborationist Vichy regime, as well as his forceful political convictions. Giono recounts the details of his life with fierce independence of thought and novelistic attention to character and dialogue. Occupation Journal is a fascinating historical document as well as a unique window into one of French literature’s most voracious and critical minds.’

20 September 1943
‘There is such confusion in people’s minds that, even among the best of my acquaintances, no one knows how to conduct himself according to the simple rules of nobility and grandeur anymore. In the fellowship of the Contadour, R. B. was a comrade who seemed to me capable of understanding and applying those rules on all occasions. He was clear-sighted and bright, and if it worried me knowing that he regularly spent time with reserve officers, I imagined that his social position demanded it (teaching at the teachers’ college). His convictions, if he was expressing them honestly, were pacifist and humane. He could not retain his integrity in the tangle of propaganda. It’s hard for me to imagine that this is the same man now mixed up in arms drops, who runs off and distributes machine guns to young men hidden in his county. I know - if I take into account the terrible worries eating at his heart - (his love for M., his crazy son) there are certainly excuses for his desire to escape at any cost his life’s inconceivable misery. All the same, I was hoping he would escape in the direction of nobility.

In our modern mechanical world, it’s clearly very tempting to embrace the cause of a religious war. It must give one the impression, despite everything, that he is a thinking being. And, after the fate dealt to man in 1930-1940, it must suddenly be so invigorating that it’s difficult to resist. But the quest for the Grail made the knights-errant gallop in a straight line. Even Don Quixote walks straight. Today it seems as though the Grail has shattered and they are chasing all the scattered bits of it in every direction. They charge blindly, noses in the air, radios behind them in the saddle, newspaper helmets fastened securely on their skulls. Those who have donned secret papers, clandestine publications, think they are wearing the most magical helmets of all. Not a single head remains bare.

For my part, I consider it important above all not to be duped. That’s what I peacefully strive for. I know the deep wretchedness of our generation and the ones that follow, and I have tried, with what means I have, to provide a small cure. I recognize that I can do nothing. Lacking either enough intelligence for problems that are too great or enough simplicity for problems that are so hugely simple they defy mathematics, I would nevertheless reserve the right to laugh and comfort myself with scorn, precisely applied. English generosity; American civilization. 

Last week, there was an assassination attempt here against the head of the militia. He was returning from the cinema with his family when an armed stranger shot at him. Ch. shot back and killed his assailant. At which point a sort of impromptu legend started. The assailant, who had come from Marseille to kill Ch. (it seems he confessed before dying), was a miner from the north of France, his children had been killed in a bombardment, and his wife, I don’t know what, something terrible, I dare say, no doubt raped by the Uhlans. He became the hero. Almost everyone attended his funeral, Dr. G. and his wife prominently at the head of the line. Dr. G. is a perfect and pure careerist, an opportunist, an ambitious man who dreams of a seat on the district council. That’s clear to everyone here. But he was much admired behind the hearse. Of course Dr. G. is not a Communist, he made two or three million in a few years (he arrived here very poor), and is an admirable specimen of the ordinary materialist. He’s only trying to position himself for the next wave of “honors.” That’s nothing. It’s only that no one thought to explain this in a simple way. The man from Marseille was really only a paid assassin. Because why - even as martyr and hero - especially as hero - why come to assassinate Ch.? The back wheel of the wagon. Ch. is not exactly anyone important. At present, it’s simply personal accounts being settled. And personal business being conducted (Dr. G.). All that is fine, I’m not asking Dr. G. or the assassin or Ch. to be Lancelot of the Lake or Percival, I only ask that no one tries to make me believe they are.

Wonderful weather, exhilarating wind coming from the sheep plateaus. Cool and crisp, and those earth tones and bruised sky that announce autumn. The sound of the bell that rings at noon undulates in the wind like a cracked whip. The air is delicious to breathe. I am going to start writing again. These days. I need a serious discipline for mind and body.

Plans for Fragments d’un Paradis. Never forgetting that after Don Quixote (I must begin the discussion with myself on this book. In Doré’s illustrations, Don Quixote resembles my beloved father, but embittered. My father was good and gentle, clearly readable in his entire body), never forgetting that Cervantes finished his life writing the The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda. I am anxious for Jacinto G. to send me this book in Spanish; I’m going to try to learn enough Spanish to read it. 

Fragments must be an adieu to the poetic (as Don Quixote is an adieu to grandeur - and not a satire on chivalry. What pettiness! Imagine Cervantes wanting to mock chivalry! And he would finish his life writing (with the most careful attention to the form and spirit of it) a novel of Chivalry! No, he wanted to say a melancholy farewell (hence Don Quixote’s madness) to grandeur). Fragments must say farewell to the poetic, to lyricism, to the “lie” without which there is no art, by which I mean the subjective. Goodbye to romanticism, on the threshold of 1616, when truth, exactitude, the slice of life will be extolled (you’ll see) (but Maupassant was lying (was interpreting), but Gide lies (happily), but Eugène Dabit suffered and died for not knowing how to lie, that is, for not having the strength (first of all, the physical strength) to stomach “spectacles” in order to express them in the end as Van Gogh expresses a wheat field and a cypress. Because they know and he knew (E.D.) what it is that interests me, which is not the cypress or the wheat field. It is the cypress + Van Gogh and the wheat field + Van Gogh. The mark. To leave his mark). Because how could he have been in step with Communist times?

Finishing the third act of Voyage without proving anything. Having wanted to demonstrate a slowing of the action in the second part of Act 1, an act I am not at all happy with. Writing the text for Virgil that Corrêa wants and immediately afterwards (before the end of the year if possible), I hope to begin Fragments. Because if I wrote Le Voyage for the theater, it’s so that I might finally have a little peace financially (I must speak a little about my legend one of these days, and in particular about my “wealth” (in 1940, living on 20,000 for the whole year, nine people, and actually giving the figures) because what Vlaminck says about me he says relying on legend alone, journalistic and cinematographic legend). (I am not suspicious enough of visitors. Too nice.) Tino Rossi aside, of course. Because he’s not completely wrong. There is a little of that. But I believe (I may be wrong. I don’t dispute it) I believe that’s all there is. Writing Fragments for my own pleasure, as I like, at my own pace (which is slow), taking the most pleasure possible in the writing.

Yesterday evening, Uncle did not return. Believed it to be the usual fit of drunkenness and expected to hear the doorbell during the night. This morning I realized that he had still not come home. It was Charles I heard having coffee. I wondered if Uncle might be dead in the pavilion, a stroke or from hanging himself. Suicide is a possibility with this hideous, horrible, arrogant, worthless but sensitive man who has turned everyone against him. Has made everyone detest him, even his own daughters, and yet, sometimes, a burst of grandeur, I thought to myself . . .  this morning I went to see, to have a look in the pavilion with its door left open. I looked in the linden tree. Charles had the same thought. My mother, too. Charles went to look out the windows. He was not there, he told me. Then, later, while I was writing, I heard him coughing and clearing his throat below in the garden. He’d only gone on his usual binge. Too often (always) I judge others according to myself. I believe that’s what happened over the twenty years with Lucien Jacques as well.’

Monday, August 7, 2023

A life spent hunting

Today marks the 170th anniversary of the death of Colonel Peter Hawker. A military man by profession, his main love was hunting, and, somewhat remarkably, he left behind a diary in which he recorded - from his teens to his old age - daily kills totalling nearly 18,000 birds. In his own lifetime, he published - anonymously - diary extracts about his military service in Portugal, under Wellington, during the Peninsular War.

Hawker was born in London in 1786, and was educated at Eton. Like his father and other forefathers, he entered military service, through the purchase of a commission in the 1st (Royal) Dragoons, switching after a couple of years to the 14th Light Dragoons, making captain when still only 17. He saw active service in the Peninsular War, but was obliged to retire after being wounded at Talavera, southwest of Madrid, and became a lieutenant-colonel in the North Hampshire militia.

Hawker was married twice, the first time in 1811 to Julia Barttelot by whom he had two sons and two daughters (although the elder son died in infancy). He was married for the second time in 1844 to Helen Susan the widow of Captain John Symonds. His family home was at Longparish, Hampshire, but he also had a cottage at Keyhaven on the Hampshire coast. He was a very keen sportsman, to say the least, and wrote the very popular, and much re-published, Instructions to Young Sportsmen. He also devised technical innovations for certain sporting guns, and, thanks to a great passion for music, invented hand moulds for the piano. He died on 7 August 1853. Further information can be found at Wikipedia and the New Forest Explorer website.

For most of his life, and starting young, Hawker kept a diary. From this, he selected extracts and published them anonymously in 1810 as Journal of a Regimental Officer during the Recent Campaign in Portugal and Spain under Lord Viscount Wellington (i.e. during the Peninsular War). This book is introduced by two short paragraphs called an ‘Advertisement’ which state: ‘The contents of the following pages (never intended for the public eye) were hastily noted down amidst the scenes attempted to be delineated; and the author’s sufferings from a wound have precluded him the possibility of afterwards correcting them. This candid statement will, it is hoped, plead for inaccuracies and frivolous incidents; and those persons who are most able to criticise will no doubt have the liberality to consider the disadvantages under which this narrative makes its appearance.’

After Hawker’s death, his family is said to have destroyed large parts of the diary, nevertheless extracts, particularly focusing on his sporting activities, were published, some forty years later, in two volumes: The Diary of Colonel Peter Hawker (Longmans, Green and Co., 1893). These (volumes one and two), and Journal of a Regimental Officer, are available online at Internet Archive.

The second volume of the diaries published in 1893 concludes with a list of the game Hawker recorded as having shot: from 1802-1853, he claimed 17,753 kills in all; over 7,000 partridges, 575 pheasants, 1329 ox-birds, 2,211 wigeon, 1,327 Brent geese, 2,116 snipes, as well as many other birds. Four types are distinguished by his having shot only one each in his life: stock-dove, Eider duck, avocet, hoopoe.

Here are a number of extracts, the first few (1802-1804) from the beginning of volume one; several in 1829 from the end of volume one; and several more from the end of volume two. They show an extraordinary preoccupation with hunting - from his teens to his deathbed.

27 June 1802
‘Arrived at Longparish House.’

September 1802
‘Altogether killed 200 head of game this month.

Instances of uncertainty in killing jack snipes: The first thirteen shots I had at these birds this year I killed without missing one; have since fired eight shots at one jack and missed them all.’

26 January 1803
‘Sketch of a bad day’s sport: Being in want of a couple of wild fowl, I went out with my man this morning about ten o’clock. The moment we arrived at the river 5 ducks and 1 wigeon flew up; we marked the former down, and just as we arrived near the place it began to snow very hard, which obliged us to secure our gunlocks with the skirts of our coats. No sooner had we done this than a mallard rose within three yards of me. I uncovered my gun and made all possible haste, and contrived to shoot before it had gone twenty yards, but missed it, which I imputed to the sight of my gun being hid by the snow. My man fired and brought it down, but we never could find it; and another mallard coming by me, I fired and struck him, insomuch that before he had flown a gunshot, he dropped apparently dead, but we were again equally unfortunate notwithstanding our dogs were with us. While we were loading, the 3 remaining ducks came by, a fair shot. Having reloaded, we went in search of them, but could not succeed. On our road home, coming through the meadow, the wigeon rose in the same place as before. I shot at it, and wounded it very much; we marked it down and sprung it again; it could hardly fly, from its wounds. Unluckily, my gun missed fire, and my man was unprepared, thinking it had fallen dead. We marked it into a hedge; before we had reached the place we spied a hawk that had followed it; from the same place the hawk was, the wigeon flew out of the hedge close under my feet. I fired at it, but, owing to agitation, had not taken a proper aim; however, a chance shot brought it to the ground; my dogs ran at it; it flew up again, but could not rise to any height, but continued to clear the hedges, and we never could find it again. To add to our misfortunes, we both tumbled into deep water.’

4 June 1803
‘Left Longparish House to join the 14th Light Dragoons on the march at Hythe.’

1 September 1803.
‘Folkestone. 4 partridges and 1 landrail. I went with Major Talbot and his brother: we were out from half-past four in the morning till eight at night, and walked above five hours before we saw the first brace of birds. Major Talbot killed a brace, and his brother 1 bird; a brace of birds and 1 rabbit were shot between us by means of firing at the same instant.’

18 February 1804
‘Left Folkestone to be quartered at Dover, till further orders.’

6 March 1804
‘Left Dover for Romney.’

3 May 1804
‘Romney. Went out in the evening, saw several very large shoals of curlews, but could not get near them; just as it grew dusk I laid myself down flat on the sands: every flock assembled into one prodigious large flight, and pitched within ten yards of me. I put them up with the expectation of killing not less than twenty, and my gun missed fire.’

14 June 1804
‘Romney. Shot an avoset (swimming). This is a bird rarely to be met with but on the Kentish coast. The above is its name in natural history; it is here known by the name of cobbler’s awl, owing to the form of the beak, which turns up at the end like the awl.’

1 September 1804
‘Romney. In a bad country we had never been in before Major Pigot and I bagged nine brace and a half of birds, exclusive of several we lost. We sprung one covey too small to fire at; Major Pigot picked out the old hen and I the cock, and bagged them both. There were sportsmen in almost every field. In the course of the day, my old dog Dick caught 8 hedgehogs.’

23 November 1804
‘Marched from Romney to be quartered at Guildford.’

2 December 1804
‘Left Guildford to stay a week at home at Longparish House.’

21 April 1829
‘After having been more or less unwell ever since I came to town, and several days confined to my bed and the sofa, I this day completed several repairs and improvements to the locks and breechings of my large gun, and got all safe away from the hornet’s nest which Joe Manton’s manufactory was in while he was in gaol, and this billet beset by ‘Philistines.’ His men worked under and for me, and had to keep an incessant eye lest anything should happen on the premises. No other workmen in London could have done such a job well to my fancy.’

28 April 1829
‘Longparish. I caught 24 brace of trout in a few hours, though the cold weather still continued.’

8 June 1829
‘London. The best Philharmonic ever known, and a duet between Sontag and Malibran considered the best piece of singing ever heard in this country.’

7 July 1829
‘Longparish. Took two hours’ fishing this evening, and killed 25 large trout.’

9 July 1829
‘Made a droll trial of a new-stocked duck gun, which was well done by my carpenter Keil. I knocked down, in seven shots, 6 bats and 1 moth. A duck at dusk flight may therefore know what to expect.’

10 July 1829
‘Fished and killed 20 very large trout indeed, and I then left off, not wanting any more fish to-day.’

20 April 1853
‘I may venture to say that I am getting on (though of course very, very slowly) towards the chance of recovery, for which prospect I have to thank Sir B. Brodie and an All-wise Providence.

Another remarkable circumstance - and a lucky one for me, who could eat nothing more nourishing than fish - the trout in our river, which were not even eatable when broiled till near July, have come in many months before their time, and ate better than I have known them to be for these last twenty years. One of my fishery tenants, Mr. Macleod, in the first week of March, had killed, in a severe winter’s day, 15 brace with a fly, and he kindly sent me a few as red and as good as salmon. This phenomenon is accounted for by the continued rains flooding all the low lands, and washing down constant winter food for the fish, which, notwithstanding the severe winter that afterwards cut up everything in March and April, never lost their high condition.’

23 April 1853
‘1 have been taken out for the last few days, for short drives in the carriage; but I am now a figure of skin and bone.’

24 April 1853
‘Another circumstance to record - Captain Duff and his friend came to my river to fish, and, in spite of the adverse weather, had a few days’ good sport; and, that is a miracle, every trout was better in season (though in April) than, for these twenty years, I have seen them - even than in June and July, the only time they have hitherto been fit to eat. They were quite red, firm, and full of curd - in short, delicious. Thus my lamentable illness has ‘cut me out of’ the best angling season on record, as well as the use of my new ignition punt gun at Keyhaven, in the finest hard weather we have had there since 1838.’

4 May 1853
‘Winter again; bitter cold gale of wind east by north. As I made but slow progress in the low and water-meadow situation of Longparish, I had made up my mind to forego all the comforts of the mansion for the more healthy air of my dear little cottage on the coast, and therefore I left Longparish for Keyhaven this day, after having passed twenty-five days and nights at the former place, without strength or appetite. We arrived at Keyhaven Cottage about six in the evening, after my very long absence from the 26th of October, 1852, up to this 4th of May, 1853. My good people were all delighted to see me, which they had made up their minds they should never do any more.’

5 May 1853
‘Keyhaven. Stephen Shuttler has done me justice in every possible way in my long absence, and kept everything in the very best order, in spite of awful floods; and then a north-pole winter in spring. N.B. Found the air here far pleasanter than at the other places. Thanks to God for all blessings up to this Holy Thursday — or Ascension Day — for 1853.’

7 May 1853
‘A total change of weather to south by west, and a pouring fall of rain all day; in the afternoon the cock flew round again to the north-east with the most furious increase of cold rain, and a heavy fall of snow - lamentable weather for my poor eyes and limbs. Instead of having a fair chance to breathe the good air here, I’ve been, ever since I entered the cottage, a close prisoner; could not even step into the garden.’

12 May 1853
‘Anniversary of my Douro affair, forty-four years ago. Cold and piercing north-easter, which is comparative luxury to the deadly poison of a white frost, insomuch that I suffered far less to-day, and my eyes got better.’

13-14 May 1853
‘Bitter white frosts again. But two hours’ fine weather on the 14th, when I got the sea air for the first time by being rowed down to Hurst and back. I came home refreshed, but much exhausted; and, on landing, who should be here but old Buckle, just arrived from Scotland. I was, however, not man enough to enjoy his ‘yarn’ as of old.’

18 May 1853
‘A beautiful day. Crossed to Yarmouth, and got driven to Freshwater for the fine sea air, but too weak to walk along the cliffs. Lots of ‘gents’ popping at rock birds and rifling the cormorants, and rookeries being stormed inland. All to tantalise me, like the gents having good sport angling the other day in view of my windows at Longparish, and I too ill to go out.’

26 May 1853
‘I sailed to Yarmouth, and got Butler’s excellent phaeton to the high lighthouse, and returned by Groves’s Hotel; but was so weak I could not enjoy my old paradise, Alum Bay, as before. The lighthouse is now kept by a Mr. Henderson, vice Coleraine, and the dangerous occupation of taking the eggs of rock birds is performed by a man named Lane, of the village below, called Weston, whose brother was lately killed in this awful pursuit.’

29 May 1853
‘Sunday. Being too weak to walk, I went in a donkey chaise to morning church at Milford (where, as well as at Longparish, Mrs. Hawker had me prayed for when expected not to recover), to return thanks to God for my escape from death in my long and dangerous illness, through which I had not been in church since the early part of last January, and never expected to be in church again, except on my way to the grave.’

July 1853
‘Longparish. From the 1st I have been so dreadfully ill that I could do nothing. My nights have been as awful as before.’

7 July 1853
‘The thunder and lightning all night caused such oppressive heat that no one could rest in bed. My sufferings could scarcely be conceived.’

8-14 July 1853
‘Too ill to get about save by quiet easy drives in the carriage, and to crawl out to look at all the grand repairs outside the house, which are now done. Attended by Dr. Hempsted twice a day, as my sufferings are alarming. We have had incessant wet weather ever since I returned to Longparish, and consequently the heavy water-meadow fogs oppressed me even more than those of London, from which I had retreated on the score of health. To-day, the 14th, Dr. Hempsted went from me to his other patient, the Earl of Portsmouth, for whom he had no hope, and who died this day at one o’clock. Peace to his soul!’


This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 7 August 2013.

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

I also love Kenya

It is 30 years since Dan Eldon - a bright young star of photojournalism - was killed aged only 22 covering events in Somalia that presaged the so-called Battle of Mogadishu later that year. Eldon’s memory has been kept alive by his family through various initiatives, one of which is a website - Dan Eldon: artist, activist, adventurer - which has a lot of information about, and many extracts from, Eldon’s extraordinary, collage-based, journals.

Dan Eldon was born in London in 1970, the son of a British father and American mother. Aged seven, he and his younger sister moved to live in Kenya with their parents. During the 1982 attempted coup and the aftermath, Eldon joined his mother, a journalist at the time, on local assignments, and was soon taking photographs for local newspapers. Aged still only 14, he launched a fund-raising campaign to help save the life of a young Kenyan girl, and a year or so later began supporting a Maasai family by buying their handmade jewellery, to sell on to students and friends.

In 1988, Eldon graduated from the International School of Kenya, winning various awards and being voted the most outstanding student. That same year he went to New York to work on a magazine, but a few months later moved to study in California. Thereafter, and for the next few years, he kept switching his place of study, while regularly dreaming up schemes to get back to Africa, usually by undertaking somewhat wild but charitable adventures. One of these involved the donation of a Land Rover and money to a refugee camp in Malawi, while others involved the purchase of goods in Morocco to resell in the US to fund a charity he had set up.

In April 1992, Eldon joined a film crew in Kenya; then, with the Somali famine raging, he flew to the Somali town of Baidoa, where he shot some of the first dramatic photographs seen in the West. Reuters spotted them, and engaged his services, thus giving his photographs (of the increasingly desperate situation) much wider coverage. During the spring of 1993, he stayed in Mogadishu, and in June one of his photographs made a double-page spread in Newsweek magazine, as well as the covers of newspapers worldwide. By this time he had also published a first book of his photographs, and had set up various businesses - selling t-shirts and postcards, for example - to raise money.

A few weeks later, on 12 July, he raced, with three colleagues, across the city to cover a raid to arrest the warlord General Aidid. Many innocent people were killed in that UN raid, and in the subsequent confusion Eldon and his colleagues, trying to take photographs, were stoned and beaten to death by an angry mob. Further biographical information is available from the Dan Eldon website, and from Wikipedia.

After Eldon’s death and to honour his legacy, his mother Kathy Eldon and sister Amy Eldon Turtletaub founded, in 1998, the Creative Visions Foundation (CVF) to help others like Dan ‘use media and the arts to create meaningful change in the world around them’. To date CVF ‘has incubated more than 100 projects and productions on 5 continents, by providing fiscal sponsorship, mentorship, inspiration, fundraising, connectivity, and step-by-step toolkits for launching projects’. It claims that creative activists under its umbrella ‘have touched more than 90 million people and raised more than $11.2 million to fund their projects’.

One of projects organised by the family has been to set up the website - Dan Eldon: artist, activist, adventurer - and another has been to promote Eldon’s extraordinary journals and notebooks. The website says this: ‘Dan left behind seventeen bound leather journals filled with drawings, writings and photographs which constructed vivid collages of the world he saw. These journals chronicle a child’s journey into manhood, visual editorials on society, and homages to strangers and loved ones. Dan’s images represent his enduring belief that every individual has a creative spark within that can transform their environment for the better. His journals are a celebration of adventure and a testament to live life to its fullest.’

The diaries were first published as The Journey is the Destination: The Journals of Dan Eldon in 1997 by Chronicle Books in San Francisco and Booth-Clibborn Editions in London. The publisher’s blurb stated: ‘This is no ordinary diary; it is an astonishing collage of photographs, drawings, words, maps, clippings, paints, scraps, shards, and trash that reveals his strange and vivid life. The wild trips and weird places, the lovers and late nights, the danger and fun are captured in pages that seem to shiver with passion, opinion, and dark humor. Eldon’s journal holds up a pure mirror to both the sickness of the modern world and the fragile happiness of the human condition, and ultimately, reveals the accidental beauty that only a young artist can truly capture.’

A detailed introduction to the journals by Jennifer New can be found on the Eldon website, as can a generous collection of extracts and images from the diaries themselves. The earliest diaries do contain some text and diary writing, but most of the pages in all the journals are filled to bursting with collages rather than text - but here is one short extract from one of the earliest journals.

22 August 1982
‘I have decided that I am happier this year than any other. I am enjoying life and the people in our class. I have a lighter class load this year. Last year I took French and German and I have dropped German for a year. I also love Kenya (I always have but I still do). I like it less when the weather is bad. We have bought land at the coast where we will build a house which I am looking forward to.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 12 July 2013.

Friday, June 30, 2023

Irreversibly into the abyss

’The Germans play their game cleverly: treason on all sides. Why is it that in no other people drawn into the war is there so much treason as among the Russians? [. . .] The Germans have been able to take good advantage of this characteristic of the “Russian swine.’’ Revolutionary Russia faces the task of either changing its ways or flying irreversibly into the abyss!’ This is from a ‘remarkable’ diary left by Iurii Vladimirovich Got’e, a Russian intellectual and historian, born 150 years ago today.’ 

Got’e was born in Moscow on 30 June 1873 (new style). His father was an upmarket bookseller whose grandfather had founded the family bookshop in 1799, and Got’e was the first eldest son not to take over the business. Instead, he chose to go to Moscow University and pursue a scholarly career in history and philology. Following graduation, he undertook a year of military service, then he taught in schools and from 1903 at the university. In parallel, he worked first for the Archive of the Ministry of Justice before being employed in the library at Rumiantsev Museum, eventually becoming head librarian.

In 1913, Got’e published his doctoral dissertation on the history of local administration. Two years later, he was appointed professor at Moscow University. Over time, he also spent several years teaching at the Geodesic Institute and at the municipal Shaniavski University. From 1919, he switched to teach archaeology, and he participated in numerous excavations in Eastern Europe. His lectures on the region’s pre-history were published in 1925 and 1930. Between 1934 and 1941, he was associated with the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History. Between 1898 and 1930 he was first academic secretary and then assistant director of the Lenin All-Union Library. He died in 1943. There is very little further information about his life freely available online, but see The Free Encylclopedia.

However Got’e did leave behind a set of diaries kept through five years (1917-1922) of revolution, civil war, family tragedy, hunger, and progressively deteriorating living conditions. These were translated and edited by Terence Emmons for publication by Princetown University Press in 1988 as Time of Troubles: The Diary of Iurii Vladimirovich Got’e - see Amazon or Googlebooks to preview a few pages. According to Emmons, Got’e wrote the diary entries on a stool in the doorway of the room in communal quarters where he and his family took refuge after their own apartment had been sequestered in 1919.’ Toward the end, Emmons continues, ‘the entries become noticeably less frequent, mainly because by this time Got’e was afraid to keep the diary at home, but also because of his exhaustion, which was no doubt mingled with awareness that the new regime, having survived the Civil War, the Polish war, and the internal rebellions of 1921, was there to stay: the great uncertainty about the immediate future of the country that had sustained the chronicle for nearly five years had begun to fade.’ 

According to the publisher: ‘Among the few diaries available from inside early Soviet Russia none approaches Iurii V. Got’e’s in sustained length of coverage and depth of vivid detail. Got’e was a member of the Moscow intellectual elite - a complex and unusually observant man, who was a professor at Moscow University and one of the most prominent historians of Russia at the time the revolution broke out. Beginning his first entry with the words Finis Russiae, he describes his life in revolution-torn Moscow from July 8, 1917 through July 23, 1922 - nearly the entire period of the Russian Revolution and Civil War up to the advent of the New Economic Policy. 

This remarkable chronicle, published here for the first time, describes the hardships undergone by Got’e’s family and friends and the gradual takeover of the academic and professional sectors of Russia by the new regime. Got’e was in his mid-forties when he wrote the diary. At first he felt that Bolshevism meant complete doom for Russia, but eventually his ardent patriotism led him to accept the Bolsheviks’ role in preserving the integrity of the Russian state. The diary was discovered in 1982 in the Hoover Institution Archives, in the papers of Frank Golder, to whom Got’e himself had entrusted it in 1922.’

Here are several extracts.

17 July 1917
‘The newspapers are a little better. The hope has been kindled since July 15 that at the cost of yielding all of Galicia and complication of the already disgusting Ukrainian question (since, after all, the whole of the Ukraine lying beyond our borders is again in the power of the Germans), at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, the idiots will get smarter. Kerenskii’s efforts to create a genuine coalition government, with the exception of the adventurist Chernov and similar adventurists, ideologue-fools, and maybe charlatans, deserves every sympathy, but isn’t it already too late? Haven’t they been screaming and yelling and confusing the unfortunate Russian - stupid, ignorant, and unprepared for any kind of Rospublic (as Ivan Pavlov from Pochep says) - for too long? The Germans play their game cleverly: treason on all sides. Why is it that in no other people drawn into the war is there so much treason as among the Russians? (1) From ignorance; (2) from the complete absence of a feeling of solidarity and fatherland; (3) from the fact that the leftist ideologues have been courting the minority nationalities for a good hundred years now; (4) from the benighted and anticultural deceitfulness that was remarked already by the foreigners’ narratives of the seventeenth century. The Germans have been able to take good advantage of this characteristic of the “Russian swine.’’ Revolutionary Russia faces the task of either changing its ways or flying irreversibly into the abyss!’

18 July 1917
‘[My] mind turns always to the same (subject). A quiet day without mail. A feeling of complete indifference on the one hand; (on the other] a feeling of regret that a people that could have made something of itself is committing suicide. What will we be - Muscovy, China, or Turkey? Will we have the energy to get on our feet? Although Kerenskii evoked the heavy hammer in the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, we may be only the glass that splinters. In any case, of all the combatant peoples, we have turned out to be the weakest in nerve, and thus Hindenburg’s thought is true - those with strong nerves will win. So everybody but us will win and logically should make peace at our expense: we will answer for all, and especially for our own stupidity, ignorance, and dishonesty. How often we all think: it’s good to no longer be tied to mama’s apron strings! In any case we are not a match for the Germans: they are unquestionably higher than we are in every respect, and most of all in personal endurance and courage; one can hate them, but it is impossible not to respect them.’

15 January 1918
‘A day without newspapers and with a small quantity of rumors; an extremely oppressive frame of mind, all the same. I saw V. F. Kokoshkin; that ebullient man is completely downtrodden and dispirited, and, in truth, he has cause to be. I His impressions from Petrograd: there everyone is even more dispirited than here. The blacks, led by A. A. Vyrubova, are playing some kind of role, but what kind is not clear to him. I have received information in the last few days from other sources as well that these forces are doing something. But to what degree are all these forces, those and others, organized? Isn’t it simpler to think that everything is happening spontaneously, without plan and with a complete absence of any kind of organization, like everything in Russia?’

20 July 1918
‘At the post office I read one of the bolshevik Pravdas - it seems that all is well in the West; if the Kadets are not adopting a German orientation, they are at least gravitating toward an understanding with them; the Czechoslovaks are squeezing the bolsheviks in various places. Everything else remains unchanged. A letter from Malfi - it seems they are leaving for France today. The good and gentle ideologue - but we will still do something. Work in the meadow all day; we all get dog-tired.’

8 April 1919
‘They have taken Odessa, probably because no one wanted to defend it. All the same, the policy of the Allies seems to me completely incomprehensible; now they start something, now they give it up. In regard to the Russian south, however, I do not see things as hopeless. Yesterday I had to undertake a journey to Iaroslavl’ station and to Mashkov Pereulok, whence I brought home twenty-three pounds of bread, four and one-half pounds of salt, and eighteen and one-half pounds of rye; I had an Alpine sack on my back, and two other sacks in my hands; thus the professor strolls around Moscow. The university question is progressively turning into a big mush. The bolsheviks, that is, Pokrovski! and co., have eliminated both of our history departments and replaced them with some kind of fantastic ones; some kind of further meeting is being proposed, but it all comes down to the fact that whatever straightforward appointment they may think up is better than the fiction of cooperation that was offered earlier. Something completely unimaginable is occurring on the streets of Moscow - one great puddle, which is traversed only by those who absolutely must go out.’

Monday, June 12, 2023

People murdered in martyrdom

‘The tombs and graves of people murdered in martyrdom are ever increasing all over the country. Every village and town, every forest abounds with graves looming from a distance as a historical lesson and a warning. Once the living witnesses are gone, then those graves will speak volumes. They will accuse the whole world with an eloquence a hundredfold mightier, of having committed or having failed to act against the crudest of crimes.’ This is from a short prison diary kept by Samuel Golfard, a Polish Jew, before being shot - 80 years ago this month - by the Germans and then buried by a friend in the forest. A fully comprehensive and annotated edition of Golfard’s diary was published in 2015 and is considered to be an important addition to the Holocaust literature, 

Golfard was born circa 1910, and grew up in the Radom district of Poland with three younger sisters. He fled, with one sister Mania, to Volhynia in late 1939 where he found refuge, at least until the German attack on the Soviet Union starting in June 1941. He travelled to Peremyshliany in July where he found shelter with the family of Dr. Jacob Katz (where he met Jacob Litman). Litman described him as social, well-spoken, urbane, suave, and witty, with a lean figure, high forehead, copper-blond hair, moustache, and left-liberal convictions.

Golfard was sent to the Iaktoriv (Jaktorow) labor camp some time in late spring or summer 1942. Mania was able to bribe the Jewish Council to release him from the camp, perhaps by exchanging him with another Jew from the ghetto. Golfard then secured a job as a scrap collector in the early months of 1943 (perhaps for the German Equipment Works). This “privileged” position gave him the opportunity to secretly write a diary. 

After the Peremyshliany ghetto was liquidated in May 1943, Samuel hid at the Nebenlager (labour camp) for three weeks. He secured a gun, and planned to escape to the forests in Czupernosow with Litman. On the eve of their escape, in June 1943, the camp was surrounded by SS and police, and prisoners were forced to line up outside. Golfard pulled out his pistol, and aimed it at the German commander, but the Germans responded with a hail of bullets, killing him and several prisoners nearby. Litman buried Golfard in a nearby forest.

Almost nothing else is known about Golfard other than that revealed through a prison diary that he kept between January and April 1943, and which survived the war. A first English translation of the diary from its original Polish was completed by Litman in 1983. A second translation was completed by Magdalena Norton in 2006. The Diary of Samuel Golfard and the Holocaust in Galicia by Wendy Lower was first published by Alta Mira Press in 2011, largely following the Litman translation, and then reissued in paperback by Rowman & Littlefield in 2015.

In her introduction to the book, Lower states: ‘Through the pages of Golfard’s diary, we can glimpse how a Jew marked for annihilation viewed the outside world and its failure to affect the course of the Holocaust. By expressing his “contempt for the worlds cowardice and heartlessness,” he spoke for other Jews who were just as outraged that the Allies did not intervene to stop the Holocaust. Perhaps Golfard assumed that the Allies should have known better or were morally superior and prepared to act. His view of a post-Holocaust world was not one of reconciliation, but one plagued by vengeance and haunted by the landscape of mass graves. In his diary he wrote on 11 April 1943, “The tombs and graves of people murdered in martyrdom are ever increasing all over the country. Every village and town, every forest abounds with graves looming from a distance as a historical lesson and a warning. Once the living witnesses are gone, then those graves will speak volumes. They will accuse the whole world with an eloquence a hundredfold mightier, of having committed or having failed to act against the crudest of crimes.” ’

‘Golfard’s diary is remarkable’, concludes Alexandra Garbarini, Professor of History and Jewish Studies at Williams College. ‘It is searing, moving, emotional, yet also analytically sophisticated. [It] will make a substantial contribution to several fields of study, including the history of Jewish responses during the Shoah, the perpetration of genocide, and Holocaust literature. Lower has done a beautiful job of framing the diary entries so that the reader gains a broader perspective of the unfolding history. This book is a most welcome contribution to the existing body of published source materials, illuminating a lesser-known dimension of the Holocaust that is at the forefront of recent research being conducted in the field.’ Some pages can be previewed at both Amazon and Googlebooks.

Here are two further extracts.

25 January 1943
‘I am not composing these words for myself. They are intended for those who will survive and who might quickly forget what they had lived through not so long ago. Let these words refresh in their memory the moments of horror, the bloody scenes that took place before their eyes, the black night of savagery. Let it [open?] wounds already healed.

In embarking upon this notebook, I am not motivated by a writer’s ambition. I am subjected to an unspeakable burden by every word; every reminiscence hurts cruelly; contemplating present-day events fills me with despair. I realize that these words will not alleviate my own suffering, but since I do not want to spare others, it is fair to have no regard for myself.

Outside the window there is a shroud of sparkling snow. A dazzling whiteness strikes the eyes. Total stillness reigns, but in my heart a storm is raging. I see beloved faces with a mute reproach in their eye, The image of thousands of murdered - children, boys, and girls - appears before me. Among them I see the tormented face of my dearest sister. With her hand m the sling, she sat cowering in the square among hundreds of other victims. I did not manage to give her a sign. She noticed me briefly, she looked startled and frightened as I was being brutally driven away and was denied the chance to exchange another glance with her.

What did she think of me? Did she know that I ran to save her. In vain. I distinguished her screams among the cries of others, swollen with despair, and coming from the truck as I, dazed and unaware of what was really going on, desperately begged for help. I reacted with a fierce shriek, which did not seem to come from my mouth. And the cry of my little sister amid that of others faded away into the darkness. But I still hear it. What did she think about on the way! Perhaps the pain in her hand, recently operated on, dulled her fear for her life. Did she know that she was on her way to Zloczów to die a horrible, tortuous death? Could she believe this until the very last moment? My dearest Maniusia [Mania]! Forgive your brother for leaving you on your own, that he did not share your fate. Perhaps if you were with me, it would have been easier for you to die. Mania, I was paralyzed with despair. Even now I am shaken by sobs at the thought that terror robbed me of my will, the will to die together with you.

You had enough time to draw up the balance sheet of your young life. They seized you, leaving your brother in a camp from which there was seemingly no way out, your beloved parents having apparently been murdered in faraway R., your siblings seized and most probably put to death as well. And with all that the terrible pain in your finger.

What had your life been? Full of devotion to our parents, to me. Your patience and angelic goodness did not make life easier for you. After a day’s hard labor you walked barefoot many kilometers to the camp in Jaktorow, bringing me greetings from the world of the living with a forced timid smile. You witnessed how they beat me and tormented me. You lived through hell before you could see me at home. And you underwent all this alone, surrounded by indifference and hostility. When you were no more, people told me that during my stay in the camp you regarded even those who wished me well as foes. You thought that no one should laugh, eat, or walk while your brother suffered.

When they snatched you away from me, you wore a brown silk blouse, the gray jacket that I myself had bought for your birthday before the war, and on your feet - summer clogs. Oh, how cold you must have been.

I must stop writing now. My hand is trembling, and sobs are ripping through my chest. Before me I see only you and the gray pavement. My ears are filled with the sound of your cry for life fading in the misty night.’

2 April 1943
‘Now there is no longer a universal date of good fortune, each day brings us a new tragedy. Yesterday’s “prima aprilis” [April Fools’ Day] passed by under the sign of terrible news.

200 girls from the Szwartz military factory in Lwow were shipped away. The girls wore the “W” emblem, which was supposed to protect them from being killed. The number of victims has been estimated at 1,500.

On Thursday in Zolkiew, 600 Jews were carried off during the so-called Überprüfung (reexamination) administered these days. After a few days, an action was set in motion in which the remaining people were rounded up and murdered in the ghetto.

It seems that the last moment is drawing near. The insanity has again assumed blood thirsty forms. We just received word that a mass murder began in the ghetto of Zloczów and that the executioners may drop in here any minute.

I no longer despair. Despite the fact that from a certain point a new feeling has bloomed in my heart, I abhor life. I no longer mourn for my sisters and parents. I no longer weep over them, just as I no longer lament a friend whom I have lost recently. He luckily died in convulsions, having not regained consciousness. Died a rare civilian death - sick with typhus - at the age of 30.

It was pining for Mania that induced me to write these notes. Now I have in front of me your one and only photograph, the last trace of your existence, since all your things have been stolen. I do not believe in life beyond the grave, but if there is such a thing as an immortal soul that manifests itself in man, your, your soul must be blessed beyond words. You appear to me every day as a moving and acting who substitutes for you and to whom I become attached ever more strongly so.’

Saturday, June 10, 2023

A field of purple lupins

Some 80 years ago today, Philip Mechanicus, a Dutch journalist who had been arrested and imprisoned in the Westerbork transit camp by the Nazis for being Jewish, was writing eloquently in his prison diary about lupins: ‘Around the camp, just behind the barbed wire, there is a majestic field of purple lupins in full bloom. It is a refreshing sight to the eyes of thousands of battered men, women and children who walk the barren streets between the lifeless barracks; a glimpse of nature for those who peer out the fogged windows of the filthy laundry sheds.’ Only very recently have parts of Mechanicus’s diary - which testify to the profound suffering of Westerbork inmates - been published.

Mechanicus was born in Amsterdam in 1889. His family was poor but large - he was the eldest of eight brothers (though three died young). Both his parents worked in the rag trade, but his father was a drunk. Aged but 12, his headmaster helped him get work on the socialist newspaper Het Volk. He rose quickly, from fact checker, to reporter, and by 17 was a member of the editorial board. All the while, though, he continued studying at night classes organised by the Social Democratic Workers’ Party. He did national service with the Dutch military, and thereafter secured a posting on the Sumatra Post in Medan (then in the Dutch East Indies). In 1913, he marred a Jewish woman, Esther Wessel, and they had two daughters.

On returning to the Netherlands in 1919, Mechanicus was employed by Algemeen Handelsblad, where he remained for over 20 years. He divorced Esther in 1922, and three years later married Annie Jonkman. This relationship led to a third daughter for Mechanicus, but it too broke down, with divorce in 1929. In 1941, at the behest of the Germans, Mechanicus was fired from the newspaper, and the following September he was arrested for not wearing the Star of David. He was transferred to Westerbrok transit camp in Drenthe; and subsequently he died in October 1944 at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Although there is a Wikipedia entry on Mechanicus, it is only a very brief one, with a few links.

Mechanicus has been brought to public attention thanks to a book compiled by Nina Siegal - The Diary Keepers - and just published by William Collins (though, bizarrely, I can find no reference to it at all on the publisher’s website). In her book, Siegal has woven extracts from seven Dutch diarists - Jews and Nazis alike - ‘into a braided nonfictional narrative of the Nazi occupation and the Dutch Holocaust’. These diaries - all unpublished - are housed at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genbocide Studies in Amsterdam. Mechanicus managed to write 15 diaries during his time at Westerbork, and to smuggle them out thanks to his ex-wife (though only 13 survived the war).

The publisher says of the new book: ‘Siegal provides the context, both historical and personal, while she tries to make sense of her own relationship to this past. As a “second-generation survivor” born and raised in New York, she attempts to understand what it meant for her mother and maternal grandparents to live through the war in Europe in those times. . . Searching and singular, The Diary Keepers takes us into the lives of seven diary writers and follows their pasts into the present, through interviews with those who preserved and inherited these diaries. Along the way, Siegal investigates the nature of memory and how the traumatic past is rewritten again and again.’ A review can be read at The Washington Post.

Here’s two extracts from the diaries kept by Mechanics as reproduced in Siegal’s book.

29 May 1943
‘I have the feeling that I am an unofficial reporter covering a shipwreck. We sit together in a cyclone, feeling the ship leaking, slowly sinking. Yet, we’re still trying to reach a harbor, though it seems far away. Gradually, I have developed the notion that I wasn’t brought here by my persecutors, but that I took the trip voluntarily to do my work. I’m busy all day long, without a second’s boredom, and sometimes I feel as if I have too little time. Duty is duty; work ennobles. I write a great deal of the day, sometimes beginning early in the morning at five-thirty, sometimes I’m still busy until the evenings after bedtime, summarizing my impressions or experiences of the day.

I play chess a few times a day, read the papers attentively, speak with various people, with doctors, nurses, and other patients. I visit the camp in the afternoon hours, and smoke my pipe. What more does a man need to spend his time in this Gypsy camp?

Chief Rabbi Dasberg was sent back to Amsterdam today. One of my friends also received a letter from his wife, dated Wednesday afternoon, in which she writes that since Sunday she has been imprisoned in the Jewish Council building on Nieuwe Keizersgracht in 

Amsterdam. The children had been left to their own devices all that time. Last night, a transport of about 450 people arrived from Amsterdam. The commander has decreed that, during working hours, Jews are no longer allowed to go for a walk on the middle path of the main street, the Boulevard de Misères, and must only tread along the sides, and very quickly at that. Today, the commander was riding his bicycle and kicked a Jew in his backside, while he was loading a train, saying that as the man had his back turned toward him, he didn’t show the proper respect. That’s not such an easy thing to do.’

10 June 1943
‘Around the camp, just behind the barbed wire, there is a majestic field of purple lupins in full bloom. It is a refreshing sight to the eyes of thousands of battered men, women and children who walk the barren streets between the lifeless barracks; a glimpse of nature for those who peer out the fogged windows of the filthy laundry sheds.

Between the lupines, there are guard towers every hundred meters or so, where military police with grim-looking helmets on their coarse heads and armed with frightful carbines keep watch, ready to shoot anyone who tries to escape. Along the barbed wire, more military police, also with their carbines slung over their shoulders, are patrolling the fences. The lupines are also under strict surveillance: anyone who is not allowed out of the camp to work should not think of picking one of the pretty lupines. Nevertheless, the camp is teeming with lupines. There are bouquets on the rough wood tables in the resident barracks, they are in old tin cans on the windowsills. They add a little color, beauty and fragrance to the dirty beds that are crammed together, to the stench of unwashed clothes and sweaty bodies. Toward evening, when the young men and women return to the camp from the heathland, dusty and sweaty, marching apace, aware of their vigor and unquenchable thirst for life, they carry bunches of lupines, which they picked as a reward for their hard day’s work.’