A QUESTION OF HONOR by Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud contains a subtitle; The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II. The book itself is more than raising the reader’s consciousness as to the heroic work of Polish pilots during the war. It is a wonderful narrative that encompasses the plight of Poland that historically has been in the crosshairs of Germany and Russia resulting in its disappearance as a nation in 1795, only to reappear after World War I. The authors develop the poignant story of the Polish flyers in the context of Polish history. They tell the personal stories of these men and their role in saving the British during the Battle of Britain. They emerge as heroes until Poland became an obstacle of “Big Three” diplomacy during the war and its conclusion. There is really nothing new in terms of the duplicitous and disingenuous behavior of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the war as he tried to implement his vision of a postwar Europe by playing into the hands of Joseph Stalin. Winston Churchill emerges as a willing, if at times, reluctant cohort in FDR’s game. All the familiar topics are discussed in detail including the murder of Polish officers by the Soviet Union at the Katyn forest, the failure to assist the Polish Home Army in its attempt to throw off the Nazi yoke in Warsaw in 1944, and the failure of the British to honor and support those who had assisted them when they were in dire straits in 1940. The book is well researched and brings to its pages a story that during the war and well into the Cold War was buried for fear of upsetting the Soviet Union. This is a story that needs to be told and the truth about the plight of Poland during and after the Second World War provides insights into the behavior of the major personalities who were responsible for events.
Author: szfreiberger
A MAN WITHOUT A BREATH by Philip Kerr
Philip Kerr’s latest Bernie Gunther novel, A MAN WITHOUT BREATH is set in the Smolensk region of the Soviet Union in the spring of 1943. The ninth in the Gunther series the story involves the usual twists and turns of Kerr’s approach to the World War II noir, this time using the Soviet massacre of Polish officers in 1940 at the Katyn Forest as background. Kerr weaves in the NKVD, Abwehr, and German SD. Many of the characters are historical figures such as Joseph Goebbels and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. The historical background is accurate as Kerr weaves in a love interest for Gunther and a number of other subplots. On the whole the book is a good read, though not up to Kerr’s usual quality. The snappy and sarcastic Gunther is ever present, but this time is a bit too preachy. The story is believable, that an NKVD agent has wormed his way into the good offices of Field Marshall Guenther Hans von Klug and tries to block the investigation of the Katyn massacre and provide intelligence for the Soviet Union as the Battle of Kursk was about to begin. The story revolves around a series of murder investigations and if you are a fan of this series I think you will enjoy it.
A GRAVE IN GAZA by Matt Rees
In 1984 I was studying at Hebrew University and I traveled to the Gaza Strip. I was shocked at the living conditions and the poverty I was exposed to. Reading Matt Rees’ mystery A GRAVE IN GAZA brought back memories of that visit. Rees presents the second installment of his Omar Yussef mysteries. Instead of the byzantine politics of the West Bank, we are presented with a similar environment in Gaza, but it seems deadlier. The dichotomy of Palestinian culture with its emphasis on family values and caring for others is juxtaposed to the villainous nature of politics in the Gaza Strip. As in his first book Rees blends contemporary movements ranging from rival “security” factions, the smuggling of weapons into Gaza from tunnels dug under its border with Egypt, the role of the United Nations, and of course the corrupt nature of Palestinian politics.
The story itself reflects the goodness of certain characters, but it also reflects the sadness of what life has become in Gaza since 1948. People’s lives are at the mercy of political factions and they do not have much control over their daily lives. Though Israel no longer physically occupies Gaza, the rule of Hamas which interestingly Rees does not really delve into much, and the ever present fear an incident that will spark another Israeli retaliatory strike or invasion is on everyone’s mind. If you enjoy a good mystery with numerous twists and turns carried out by a politically “unsophisticated” main character, who lets on much less than he is aware of, then A GRAVE IN GAZA will be a satisfactory read.
1927 by Bill Bryson
If you are looking for a whirlwind journey through America during the summer of 1927 Bill Bryson’s ONE SUMMER, AMERICA, 1927 is for you. If you are interested in the minutiae of the period and want to be entertained by some of the most important and amazing characters of the twentieth century this is a book that will be a wonderful read. As a historian who is very familiar with most of the subject matter I found very little that was new. There are neither citations nor footnotes and the only attempt at providing the reader any source material is a chapter by chapter brief bibliography of the most important secondary sources on a particular subject. A part from this issue the book should prove to be very satisfactory to the general reader.
Bryson’s goal is an attempt to present the historical importance of the summer of 1927. This he achieves as he discusses the “many notable names of that summer—Richard Byrd, Sacco and Vanzetti, Gene Tunney, even Charles Lindbergh—[who] rarely encountered now, and most of the others [who] are never heard at all. So it is worth pausing for a moment to remember just some of the things that happened that summer: Babe Ruth hit sixty home runs. The Federal Reserve made the mistake that precipitated the stock market crash. Al Capone enjoyed his last summer of eminence. The Jazz Singerwas filmed. Television was created. Radio came of age. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed. President Coolidge chose not to run. Work began on Mount Rushmore. The Mississippi flooded as it never had before. A madman in Michigan blew up a school and killed forty-four people in the worst slaughter of children in American history. Henry Ford stopped making the Model T and promised to stop insulting Jews. And a kid from Minnesota flew across an ocean and captivated the planet in a way it had never been captivated before.” (427-8)
It was that kid from Minnesota, Charles Lindbergh who seems to be Bryson’s central character. Though the book begins with a gruesome murder on Long Island dubbed the Sash Weight Murder case involving a Mr. and Mrs. Albert Snyder whose story disappears and reappears throughout the book, a device Bryson uses with all of his characters. Once the reader’s interest is enjoined, Bryson presents one of his major themes, the history of American aviation. Through the eyes of Charles Lindbergh and other aviators the author recounts the trials, tribulations and overwhelming success of the flyers of the period. We are presented with intimate details as Lindbergh prepares and carries out his historical flight from New York’s Roosevelt Field to Paris. Bryson dissects Lindbergh’s life as tries to cope with his popularity, which he did not seek, and a personality that came across as awestruck but was much more complicated. Lindbergh’s role in the launching of the American aviation industry is not in doubt as was his hero status that soon became tainted in the 1930s as he was linked to pro-Nazi views and he pursued an extremely isolationist platform before the United States entered World War Two. The development of eugenic theory receives coverage and it is interesting to explore these extreme racial views that were widely accepted in the 1920s and juxtapose them to those of Charles Lindbergh.
The second most important character Bryson presents is that of Babe Ruth. The author’s discussion of the “Great Bambino” uncovers no new details of his life and baseball career. Bryson intertwines a history of Broadway Theater in his discussion as the owner of the New York Yankees, Jacob Ruppert purchases Ruth’s contract in 1920 from Harry Frazee, the owner of the Boston Red Sox who was more of a theater impresario and needed the money to help pay off some of his loan payments. The reader is treated to details of figures such as Al Jolson, Clara Bow, Oscar Hammerstein, the theater sensation, Show Boat and many others. It is part of Bryson’s technique to bring up a character or topic and then fit in a number of other areas of interest that he spins off from. So with Ruth we get the burgeoning entertainment industry with the first “talkie” film, The Jazz Singer, the rise and fall of prohibition, the growth of organized crime centering around Al Capone, and the race situation in America that grew increasing nativist in the United States and allowed the author to extrapolate on immigration and anarchism resulting in the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti that summer. Speaking of executions, the reader is offered a mini-biography of Robert Elliot who developed the electric chair execution process making it less tortuous for its victims. In fact, Elliot became so popular that most federal prisons competed for his services and he had the responsibility of executing most if not all of the major criminals of the era.
The summer of 1927 was also part of a period of cultural change. We learn that the Book of the Month Club came into being the year before and was soon followed in 1927 by the Literary Guild. Tabloid journalism reached new levels that summer as new magazines and newspapers appeared. America seemed to be reading much more and Bryson does not neglect the likes of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others who influenced America’s literary culture.
The mood that existed that fateful summer of course is approached politically and economically through the lives of Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge, Mayor “Big Bill Thompson of Chicago and others. We see the lassaiz-faire capitalist approach of Hoover as he responds to the disaster that befell Middle America as the Mississippi River overflowed its banks in what John Barry describes in his book, RISING TIDE: THE GREAT MISSISSIPPI FLOOD OF 1927. The reader witnesses decisions by economic leaders worldwide that will contribute to the collapse of the Stock Market shortly thereafter and the role, or lack of a role of government in policing the titans of Wall Street. In fact had Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1927, not a century earlier, instead of writing a book entitled DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, it may have been entitled, UNCONTROLLED LARGESS IN AMERICA. The reader is presented the expanding manufacturing industry as new appliances, entertainment vehicles, and other inventions that enhanced the home appeared.
Bryson does include some of the most outrageous occurrences of the times. My favorite was in discussing prohibition, under pressure from the Anti-Saloon League led by Wayne Wheeler the government put poison in random liquor bottles to enforce laws against drinking. Bryson quoting the book, EATING IN AMERICA “that 11,700 people died in 1927 alone from imbibing drink poisoned by the government.” (161). A further example that struck me was the acceptance of certain racial views by prominent figures of the period. Herbert Hoover was a strong believer in eugenics and even Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, former president, William Howard Taft, and the liberal Louis D. Brandeis voted in favor of sterilization in Buck v. Bell.
If you are a practitioner of trivial pursuits, circa the 1920s, it would enhance your game by reading Bryson’s journey through that age. All in all I reiterate this nook is an entertaining and at times fascinating look at the period for the general reader and I am certain as with all of Bryson’s works it will be a commercial success.
A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA by Anthony Mara
What is a constellation of vital phenomena? According to Anthony Marra’s character in his new novel of the same name it is an “organization, irritability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation,” all words that conform to a remarkable set of individuals set in Chechnya from 1994 through 2004, a period of rebellion and warfare on the part of the Chechen people against the now truncated Russian Empire. A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA is Marra’s first novel and he has produced a marvelous book that carries the reader on an emotional roller coaster as each character is carefully crafted as the narrative unfolds. The story immerses the reader in the Chechen civil war as the Chechan people jealous of other former Soviet Republics that have gained their independence fight for their own following collapse of the Soviet Empire by 1994. The fictional characters are improbable recreations, who perhaps on a more psychological level than one might expect, try to navigate the psychic and physical minefield that their lives evolve into. The narrative brings together Muslim rebels, Russian Federal troops and a remarkable cast of characters centered in the village of Volchansk’s Hospital No. 6.
As one begins reading, the works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn come to mind. The Soviet Gulag appears in part as the Landfill that brings about the death of so many Chechens and other nationalities who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The character of Khassan emerges as the institutional memory of the Chechan people. A historian who tries to write a complete history of Chechnya is thwarted repeatedly as he must past the muster of several editors as Soviet history evolves through the 1970s to the 1990s. Through the travails of Khassan we peer into the inner workings of Soviet publishing as there is little consistency as to what can be read by the public. As each General Secretary dies, from Brezhnev through Chernenko, the editors keep altering their standards pertaining to how conservative or liberal the prevailing winds of change might be. Once the Berlin Wall comes down Khassan refuses to publish until Chechnya’s battle for sovereignty is included. For Khassan who eventually publishes part of his work, “everything did change, faster than his fingers could type.” (80) Khassan uses his writing as a means of escapism from a dysfunctional family torn apart by the Chechan Wars as he interacts with the other characters in the story.
Marra creates numerous relationships and themes for the reader to think about. Obviously wars cruelty is paramount, but within the context of never ending war the relationship between father and son is explored in all its dimensions. Khassan’s son becomes an informer resulting in the shunning of the family by the rest of the village; this creates a crisis his father must learn to cope with. The dichotomy between childhood and adulthood is seen as one relating to wisdom, trying to determine which has more despite the age differential. The relationship between sisters, one a successful surgeon and another tries to find herself as she emerges from drug addiction, slave prostitution and battles other demons. The friendship between two men who love the same woman and the daughter that is born from this triangle leads the reader on a journey as the characters try and understand their feelings and what they have become. Finally the relationship between a man and a woman reflected in a number of emotional unions that transverse the novel will finally become clear at the end of the narrative.
The fragility of life and the inevitability of death permeate each page. As the different characters try to relieve the suffering of others Marra produces scenes that only make the reader wonder if anything can be done to offset the misery that is Chechnya. As the characters seem to hang on to life by a thread even Sonja the stoic hospital surgeon and Ahmed, the “pseudo doctor” come together in a relationship that was difficult to fore see, or how Natasha, Sonja’s sister tries to cope with life’s inadequacies as she struggles to survive her situation. There are many other examples throughout the book that reinforces this theme and it is to Marra’s credit that he weaves them throughout a somewhat confusing chronology that once the reader adapts to enhance the narrative as a whole.
A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA is an exceptional work detailing the travails of war and how people try and adapt and overcome. The topic here is the Chechen Civil War, but it could be any other violent strife that seems to burden the world each day. For a first novel this book reflects mastery of language and character development integrated into an accurate historical setting. Further, the author applies sarcastic humor that tries to humanize the experiences that his characters are faced with. I would conjecture that once you start reading you will not be able to put this book down.
THE TEMPLAR LEGACY by Steve Berry
THE TEMPLAR LEGACY begins Steve Berry’s succession of historical novels featuring his character, Cotton Malone. The story seems at times like a poor man’s Dan Brown story as it evolves with its religious symbolism and nasty characters. It is a well written story beginning in Copenhagen and progressing to the religious sites in France. Malone, a former U.S. Justice Department agent, now a retired bookseller becomes involved in a quest by his former boss and the plot evolves from there. It includes the reemergence of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon or the Brotherhood of the Knights of the Templars. The book has a somewhat overdrawn concept dealing with Christ and some of the the characters are the typical wise cracking types that are common in this genre. There is a serious component and if you are taking a long plane ride it might be a useful companion.
SKELETONS AT THE FEAST by Chris Bohjalian
Novels about aspects of the Holocaust seem to proliferate each year. Some are better than others as they examine various components of Hitler’s war against the Jews that Arno P. Mayer once questioned in the title of his book, Why Didn’t the Heavens Not Darken? Chris Bohjalian’s Skeletons at the Feast is yet another of this genre as he concentrates on the plight of a Prussian aristocratic family that is forced to separate as they move westward to escape being captured by the Soviet army as the Second World War draws to a close. Upon leaving their estate near East Prussia, an area that was once considered part of Poland, the Emmerick family must go their separate ways. Rolf, the father and his son Helmut leave to rejoin the German army on the eastern front to try and stem the tide of the Russian advance as does another son, Werner who has been engulfed in the fighting for months. The remainder of the family trudging west is made up of Mitt, the mother, her daughter, Anna, and a Scottish POW named Callum Finella.
As the novel follows this group westward, Bohjalian develops his characters as they confront numerous hazardous situations as they seek shelter and food. Emmerick family friends and relatives come and go as the movement westward continues as they come in contact with Uri, a Jew whose family probably perished in the extermination camps. Uri takes on a number of different identities as he tries to survive. When meeting the Emmerick family he takes on the persona of a German corporal named Manfred. When he goes off on his own he becomes a Russian called, Barsakov in order to survive. As Uri/Manfred/Barsakov keeps switching identities he develops a severe case of what Erik Erikson called a conflict between identity and role confusion, or an identity crisis. Callum, the POW and Anna seem to fall in love and their relationship evolves throughout the first part of the novel, but hits a roadblock as Uri and Anna meet.
Another thread in the novel involves the travails of Cecile, a Jewish woman trying to avoid the fate of her co-religionists, joins with Jeanne, a much weaker woman as part of a forced march driven by Nazis to deliver slave labor to factories in the western part of the Reich. The three strands that make up the novel, the Emmerick family, Uri, and Cecile all come together towards the end of the story and draws the reader deeper into the history of World War II.
To Bohjalian’s credit he appends his sources in his acknowledgement section citing major historians such as Max Hastings, Jan T. Gross, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Eric A. Johnson, and Daniel Mendlesohn. The source material lends authenticity to the narrative and what the individual characters had to cope with. The firebombing of Dresden, specific battles on the eastern front, and German hopes that the western allies would eventually turn against the Soviet Union are among the many accurate historical events that took place during the war presented by the author.
The final course of the journey will produce surprises and tears on the part of the reader. The brutality of humanity that is expressed throughout the novel reminds us what good can emerge from people even if they are desperate. Bohjalian seems to encapsulate much of human emotion as he brings the journey of his characters to a conclusion and an ending to the book that will surprise the reader.
THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS by M.L. Steadman
In her first novel, THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS, M.L. Steadman zeroes in on everyday individuals who must confront their emotions that consistently pull them in opposite directions, resulting in a conflicted decision making process that puts enormous pressure on their interpersonal relationships. Staged in post World War I Western Australia Tom Shelbourne, a survivor of the not too distant battlefields of Europe is appointed the light house master on Janu Island. Before he leaves to assume his new position he meets Isadore Graysmark, a girl ten years his junior, and begins a long range relationship that culminates in their marriage two years later. Their bond is very strong and they must overcome three miscarriages which greatly tests their love for each other.
The drama unfolds one day as a boat comes a shore on the island containing a body of a man, and a two year old baby who is very much alive. Here moral issues come to the fore as to whether to keep the baby or report what has occurred. Because of Isadore’s state of mind, Tom against his own better judgment agrees to keep the baby and bury the body on the island. Tom and Isadore begin to raise the baby they name Lucy, touching off an intricate and powerful novel that contains many fascinating characters that will touch the emotions of all readers.
The narrative is a timeless story of human tragedy and compassion, as in life we are forced to make many serious choices that profoundly impact others. Stedman does a marvelous job detailing the lives of her characters and how they confront life’s obstacles and the decisions they reach. Tom, who is obviously suffering from Post-traumatic stress syndrome relating to his experiences in the Great War, must come to terms with his own ghosts and the emotional needs of his wife. His ethical journey is central to the story and his voyage is one that is torturous and leads the reader to question many of the values and gifts that life provides all of us. Stedman’s novel engrosses the reader immediately as you feel for each character and the dilemmas they must cope with. I recommend THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS, and I would guess, as I experienced, the reader will reach a point in the book where you will not be able to put it down.
THE MONUMENTS MEN by Robert M. Edsel
One of the hidden stories of World War II was the work of a group of American soldiers and their allies who worked tirelessly to save, track down, and recover the cultural treasures stolen by the Nazis. Most of these individuals were a part of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section (MFAA) of the United States Army during the war. At a time when Hollywood is releasing a major film on their work in a few weeks I can only hope that the portrayal of these unselfish and hard working people measures up to Robert M. Edsel’s THE MONUMENTS MEN, which chronicles their amazing accomplishments. Edsel tells the story of nine individuals who are representative of the 350 Monument Men who were part of the American effort to save the world’s cultural heritage from the Nazis. These individuals include their recognized leader Lieutenant George Stout, Second Lieutenant James J. Rorimer who was able to locate massive amounts of seized works of art, Rose Valland, a French woman who worked with the resistance whose knowledge of what was seized in France was encyclopedic, Captain Robert Posey, Captain Walter Hancock, and Jacques Jaujard, the director of the French National Museum. Obviously there are many other heroes, but Edsel concentrates on those mentioned. As the war progressed the Germans would steal massive amounts of art as they conquered each nation. They looted museums, archives, churches, homes, in the name of the Thousand Year Reich. By the end of the war the Allies “discovered over 1000 repositories in southern Germany alone, containing millions of works of art and other cultural treasures.” The members of the MFAA worked diligently to locate, preserve, and return their findings to their countries of origin. These included “church bells, stained glass, religious items, municipal records, manuscripts, books, libraries, wine, gold, diamonds, and even insect collections.” (400) Nazi theft was based on Adolf Hitler’s dream to make Berlin, the new Rome; and his birthplace, Linz, Austria the new Aachen of European culture. The goal of his minions was to build and stock his Fuhrermuseum by pillaging the museums and private art collections throughout Europe.
Edsel tells the story of the Monument Men by interspersing Nazi documents and letters from these men home to their families throughout the narrative. What we learn early on is that Nazi leaders from Hitler on down, especially Hermann Goring and Alfred Rosenberg issued orders, not only for entire collections, but specific paintings that they wanted for themselves. These men were in charge of the ransacking of Europe and were in competition with each other and other Nazi officials to acquire as much of Europe’s cultural heritage as they could. The chapter that describes the German seizure of Michelangelo’s Madonna provides insight into how the Nazis operated as they continued to steal and loot art treasures even after the war had turned against them.
Edsel does an excellent job personalizing the stories of each of the Monument Men he writes about. The MFAA were not an army unit, but groups of individuals who worked together on a daily basis. These men were scattered throughout the American army, with individuals being attached to different army groups, i.e.; Robert Posey, from rural Alabama was attached to Patton’s Third Army; James Rorimer, a rising curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, was attached to the United States Seventh Army. These men were given a broad mission to locate and preserve as much of Europe’s treasures as they could as they fanned out into France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. When Walker Hancock, a sculptor from St. Louis entered Chartres he found the cathedral almost destroyed by the Germans. Hancock and a demolitions expert were able to locate twenty-two sets of explosives and defuse them to save as much of the cathedral as possible. We follow George Stout, an expert in the then obscure field of art restoration as he helps locate a Dutch mountainside tunnel at Maastricht that served as a Nazi Repository for the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam. Included in this repository was Rembrandt’s Night Watch. Edsel provides an interesting description how the Louvre Museum was emptied before the war by French officials. The Mona Lisa was taken out on a stretcher and transported by ambulance. However once the Germans took Paris in June, 1940, Hitler who believed he was entitled to the spoils of war, and his henchmen went to “great lengths to establish new laws and procedures to ‘legalize’ the looting activities that would follow.” (117) the Germans took whatever treasure they desired and Hitler wanted to use these art objects as collateral in negotiations.
Edsel recounts the difficulties the Monument Men faced in carrying out their mission. They had no central office to report to and a structure in place to supply them. They did not possess any useful communications equipment and seemed at times to operate in a vacuum. Cameras would seem to have been a necessity, but very few were available and none were new. Transportation was a nightmare as no vehicles were assigned to them, though one of them was able to abscond with a Volkswagen mini-bus, whose engine was shot and did not have a windshield! When the landing at Normandy took place it took weeks and sometimes few months for all of them to cross the English Channel into France. Their work was not considered a priority for many officers and they had no one in the rear echelon to plead their case. Despite these challenges they were able to do a remarkable job that Edsel describes in detail.
Perhaps the most interesting relationship that existed was between Rose Vallard and James Rorimer. Vallard was a curator at the Louvre who was in charge of the Jeu de Paume, a structure that was built as an indoor tennis court by Napoleon III, but had been converted to exhibition space for foreign contemporary art. During the war the Nazis used the Jeu de Paume “as their clearinghouse for the spoils of France. For four years, the private collections of French citizens, especially Jews, moved through its galleries like water flowing downhill to the Reich.” (177) It was a very efficient operation and Vallard observed it all. She made copious notes about what was taken, where things were stored, and how objects were transported, including their destination. Vallard had ties to the French Resistance, particularly her friend and compatriot, Jacques Jaujard. James Rorimer was assigned to Paris and developed a relationship with Vallard. It took time to build trust between the two, as Vallard who was the key to recovering vast amounts of art, was suspicious of everyone. Once they were able to gain respect for each other Vallard’s work enabled Rorimer to locate 175 repositories alone in the territory of the Seventh Army, as well as numerous others, including the cache at Mad Ludwig II of Bavaria’s castle at Neuschwanstein.
The stories that Edsel tells in many cases are unbelievable. When Robert Posey suffers from an impacted wisdom tooth a little boy in Trier refers him to a dentist. The dentist takes care of the tooth but tells him about his son, an art scholar. He brings Posey and his partner PVT 1st Class Lincoln Kistein, a legendary cultural impresario from New York, to meet his son who turns out to be Dr. Hermann Bunjes one of Goring’s top art officials. The information they glean eventually brings them to Altaussee salt mines outside Saltzburg that stored more than 1,687 paintings in addition to Michelangelo’s Bruges Madonna. The stories are endless as Edsel follows these men on their recovery missions, brings the reader inside the American command under Eisenhower as they come across the Buchenwald concentration camp, and describes how paintings by Rembrandt, Raphael, and Van Eyck etc. are recovered.
Despite the superb work of the Monument Men during and after the war many examples of Europe’s cultural heritage, whether from museums or taken from private collections, remain lost. In the 1990s there was a renewed interest in this subject and periodically we hear about paintings found in attics or basements, and law suits to adjudicate these findings determining the rightful owners after fifty years or more. It took a long time for these men to gain recognition from the American military and public for their work. Edsel’s research along with the upcoming film should foster this process even further. Though most of these men have been recognized posthumously, Edsel deserves a tremendous amount of credit for bringing their work to our attention.
MY PROMISED LAND by Ari Shavit
Ari Shavit’s MY PROMISED LAND is the most important book dealing with the Arab-Israeli Conflict to be published since Thomas Friedman’s FROM BERIUT TO JERUSALEM. After digesting Shavit’s work I am confused in trying to categorize it. It is in part a personal memoir, it also contains the historical background of the region, it discusses the political strategies and military actions that have taken place in Palestine since the turn of the twentieth century, but more importantly it seems to be the philosophical and moral ruminations of one of Israel’s most important commentators analyzing contemporary issues and what the future may hold. Shavit’s journey begins with his great grandfather Herbert Bentwich’s decision to forgo his comfortable family life in England and immigrate to Palestine in 1897. From that point on Shavit takes the reader on a wondrous journey that encompasses the early history of Zionism, the uprooting of Jews as they try to escape anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, the survival of the Holocaust, and the creation Jewish state, with its many economic, social, and political problems.
Shavit’s approach is a masterful blending of interviews with the actors in this drama, including perceptive historical analysis. At the outset Shavit has what appears to be a dialogue with himself as he wonders what his life would have been if his great grandfather had not gone to Palestine. He correctly points out that his great grandfather, like other Jews before and after him do not see the Palestinian villages as he is motivated not to see them. “He does not see because if he does see, he will have to turn back” because the wonderful possibilities that exist in the valley he witnesses are already spoken for. But the plight of the Jews in Eastern Europe are such that a safe haven is needed where the Jews can develop their Zionist dream and establish a new Jewish identity based on cultivating the land. According to Shavit, “as the plow begins to do their work, the Jews return to history and regain their masculinity: as they take on the physical labor of tilling the earth, they transform themselves from object to subject, from passive to active, from victims to sovereigns.” (35) But in doing so they do not see or solve the problem that the Palestinian Arab presents.
Through Shavit’s interviews and vast knowledge the reader is presented with intimate details of kibbutzniks working the desolate valley that makes up Ein Harod, and the settlement of Rehovot which by 1935 reflect throughout Palestine that the Zionist dream is taking root. The author tells the story of the orange growers in Rehovot as a microcosm of the brewing conflict between Jews and Palestinians that will boil over in 1936. Interweaving events in Nazi Germany and the development of Palestinian nationalism in the north the reader is presented a narrative and analysis of why the Palestinians will revolt in 1936 without the traditional political and ideological arguments that most historians present. The Zionist argument is presented in a local weekly published in Rehovot; “we are returning to our homeland that has awaited for us as wasteland, and we are entering a new country that is not ours….all these riches we bring with us as a gift to our ancient land, and to the people who have settled it while we were away….” (62) But again no reference to the Palestinian. Shavit’s argument throughout is that for the Zionist to be successful he had to be a colonialist and occupy the land that belonged to others and eventually force them out. 1936 is the first watershed year that Shavit speaks about as we witness the onslaught of Arab rage against the Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Tel Aviv. The violence and a general strike are different than past Arab protests as this is a “collective uprising of a national Arab-Palestinian movement that results in 80 dead and 400 wounded Jews that transforms their collective psyche as “the Jewish national liberation movement had to acknowledge that it was facing an Arab liberation movement that wished to disgorge the Jews from the shores they settled on.” (74) The Arabs could no longer be ignored and the response led to further violence and brutality through 1939 as for the first time the Jews retaliated in kind.
In a wonderful chapter dealing with Masada, Shavit describes his interview with Shmaryahu Gutman who realizes that as 1942 dawned the future of world Jewry rested in the hands of the Soviet army as it tried to stem the Nazi tide on the Eastern Front. At the same time General Erwin Rommel is threatening Cairo and if successful the Jews of Palestine would be decimated. At this point Gutman leads a group of 46 teenagers to climb Masada as part of their leadership training which the author describes in detail. Gutman wants Masada to become the poignant symbol that will substitute for the theology and mythology that Zionism lacks. He wants to create a Jewish ethos of resistance that will override the reputation of Jews who do not fight back. It is an interesting concept that was explored in an earlier book by Jay Gonen, A PSYCHOHISTORY OF ZIONISM which offers the idea that Israel as a nation suffers from a Masada Complex, a type of Adlerian inferiority complex based on Jewish history. Gonen argues that to overcome ones perceived inferiority, one adopts a superiority complex as compensation. If so this offers a useful explanation of Israeli domestic and foreign policy from 1948 onward. The Soviets blunt the Nazi advance and Rommel is stopped at El Alamein and “the Zionist enterprise is not that of drained or of orange groves bearing fruit but that of a lonely desert fortress casting the shadow of awe on an arid land.” (97)
For Shavit the lessons Jews learned concerning lethal historical circumstances are the key to Jewish survival. The author uses the Arab village of Lydda as an example of Israel’s demographic policies during the 1948 War of Independence. Because of its location it must be controlled by Israeli Jews if the new state is to survive. In addition, the area of the eastern Galilee must be Arab free to provide land for survivors of the Holocaust. The new Israeli government under David Ben-Gurion sees the War of Independence as a one time opportunity to solve the Arab problem. Ilan Pappe, another Israeli historian describes in minute detail Operation Dalet in his book THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE, a plan to clear out Arab villages from areas that the new Israeli government wanted for its development. Shavit agrees with Pappe and ruminates on the issue of Israeli occupation and what it has meant for Israel and how it has become an albatross around its neck from 1948 until today. Once these lands were seized in 1948 the issue of the right of Palestinians to return has become one of the major stumbling blocks for any future peace.
Shavit tells the stories of Holocaust survivors and Jews who were able to leave Arab countries to come to Palestine and later Israel. Shavit also tells the stories of displaced Arab families who have lived as refugees since 1948. In so doing the reader is presented with a picture that is far from equitable. Between 1945-1951 685,000 people were absorbed by a society of 655,000. This was facilitated in part by reparations paid by the German government. When interviewing Palestinian Arabs, Shavit hears that they would like resettlement and reparations, this time from the Israeli government to a Palestinian one.
The state of Israeli society is a major concern for Shavit and we see it through the eyes of many Israelis. The economic miracle of the 1950s is based upon the denial of Palestinian rights as it “expunged Palestine from its memory and soul.” (160) But this denial Shavit argues from a very personal perspective “was a life-or-death imperative for the nine-year-old nation into which I was born.” (162) Shavit describes the common thread that all immigrants that are highlighted in his interviews. First, travel by ship from a European port to Israel, followed by time in a refugee camp living in a tent for months on end, and finally a small apartment consisting of one and a half room in a town or joining an agricultural kibbutz. The author is sensitive to the difficulties of societal integration, and the ability of families to adapt to their new surroundings.
In developing the narrative Shavit has chosen a number of important dates of which 1948, 1957, and 1967 stand out. The War of Independence and the resettlement of Arabs is obvious, but 1957 is not so. It was during that year that Israel and the France began colluding to develop a nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert. French feelings of guilt because of the events of World War II made it possible for Israel to develop the Dimona Reactor which allowed Israel to develop a nuclear stockpile. From the Israeli perspective Shavit argues that the reactor was a necessity because the expulsion of 1948 meant that the Palestinians would never rest until they recovered what they believed had been stolen from them. He further argues that following the 1956 Suez War, Israel found itself surrounded by Arab armies that would never accept her and though Israel never acknowledged the facility the Arab states believed it existed. The 1967 War brings forth a new concept for Israel, one of preemption, which allowed the success of the Six Day War. That success however created a climate of preemption that will be carried out repeatedly in the future, i.e.; attacking the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, invading Lebanon in 1982, and destroying the Syrian reactor in 2007. The policy of preemption has had mixed results for Israel and as we hear the same rumblings concerning the Iranian nuclear reactor today, we can just hope.
Israel’s actions after 1967 solidified her as an occupier of Arab territory and for a few years Shavit argues that Israel felt secure. However, the early stages of the 1973 War proved a disaster for Israel. Shavit correctly points out that Israel was victorious militarily, but psychologically it was a defeat. The end result was the weakening of the Labour government that had led Israel since 1948 and for the first time Israelis felt doubt about the future. With the weakened government the ultra-orthodox saw it as an opportunity to built settlements in the West Bank which Shavit describes through the eyes of the leadership of Gush Emunim and the resulting splintering of Israeli society. This on top of the already emerging schism between the Oriental Jewish underclass and the Ashkenazi elite reflects a country that Israel was not unified and has not really come together to this day.
Shavit points out what he perceives to be the mistakes that Israel has made since independence. The greatest one being one of occupation as he describes during one of his own army reserve tours in a Gaza prison. But he also reflects as to the choices that Israel has as it is surrounded in a sea of Islamic countries who want to destroy her. Shavit argues that each time Israel gives up territory as in Gaza and Lebanon it winds up with Hezbollah and Hamas. He does not see a war breaking out in the near future but how viable will Israel be in fifty years when their own Arab population is a majority and orthodox Jews will outnumber secular Jews. As far as the peace process is concerned Shavit correctly states that “ what is needed to make peace between the two peoples of this land is probably more than humans can summon. They will not give up their demand for what they see as justice.” (266)
There is much more to this book than I have discussed as Shavit ruminates on the conundrum that is Israel; “if Israel does not retreat from the West Bank, it will be politically and morally doomed, but if she does retreat, it might face an Iranian-backed and Islamic Brotherhood-inspired West Bank regime whose missiles could endanger Israel’s security. The need to end occupation is greater than ever, but so are the risks.” (401) The picture Shavit paints is not a very optimistic one. Whether he writes about the fractures in Israeli society, the weakness of its government, the inability to control the settlement movement, or the hope that its economic strength can continue, the geo-political world it lives in leads him to conclude his analysis by comparing Israel to a film; “we are a ragtag cast in an epic motion picture whose plot we do not understand and cannot grasp. The script writer went mad. The director went away. The producer went bankrupt. But we are still here, on this biblical set. The camera is still rolling. And as the camera pans out and pulls up, it sees us converging on this shore and clinging to this shore and living on this shore. Come what may.” (419)
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