Doubly Wronged

After the war, thousands of Jewish children ended up in orphanages all over Europe as a result of the Holocaust. The toddlers in this children's home in Etterbeek, Belgium, survived in hiding, but their parents had been deported to Auschwitz.  US Holocaust Memorial Museum

The night of broken glass was the

opening salvo in a monstrous solution

that dispelled disbelief, the occasion

when the dire message signed, sealed

and delivered gave warning and nudged

the conscience of the world to grudgingly

permit the transport of children from

Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia

Poland shipped off to Britain then to

Israel, Australia, Canada, the United

States for haven from certain death at

the very time when doors were being

slammed in the face of Jews desperate

to escape what became the inevitable.

The passage of a lifetime where young

memories lingered on the faces of parents

their voices, their assurances, their

absolute absence from existence yet

haunting those children surviving the

curse of the Holocaust. But wait, on the

cusp of death themselves now their

lifespan ebbing they are assured the

reparations that a different Germany now

proffers, diligent post-war in rescuing

the nation from its atrocious place in

history to make amends. Cash awards

an apology yet nothing can restore lives

stolen and memories laden with sorrow.

The official view that bestowing cash

compensates the vacuum in bereaved

children's lives as brutal as the original

campaign to destroy all Jewish life.

 

United In God

 

Existence of all life forms, animate

inanimate, is a random result of nature's

endless yet indifferent formulaic measure

of the universe created in a primordial

and timeless vacuum through an ongoing

cataclysmic shrug. Her formula in the

creation of humanity included hubris so

deep and vast the creatures themselves

took pains to create an Almighty fiction

to whom all creation could be attributed.

In turn investing that creative spirit with

the venomous emotions entrusted to mankind

of jealousy, greed, passion and the imperative

to shelter all the treasures that resourceful

nature left at the deputized command of 

man from the grasp of rivals. This supra

natural deity demands of his faithful full

obeisance, their very lives elevated to a

greater plane of existence in exchange 

for human slaughter. Extolling the very

conquest of all humanity in the greater

treasury of surrender to the whims and 

wishes attributable to the powerful and

frightening one on high exuding strength

and extracting awe while commanding all

to submit to jihad to overwhelm reluctance

of those without faith, while among those

of the faithful a pitiless war of attrition

among themselves forms the base of total

wholesale destruction of the human race.

 

Raging On

Atlantic Canada Holocaust Education Foundation

It it SO frustrating attempting to

conduct a rational discussion with Jews.

They are beyond irritating, argumentative

stubborn and irrational. Tell them there

is no evil intention in discounting their

inflated numbers of Jewish deaths they

call the Holocaust and they shrink back

in horror as though you were the very

architects of Hitler's Final Solution. Say

to them that they as an identifiable group

have not been the only ones that have

struggled against odds, but they surely

must shoulder some of the blame since

as a race they are so ... exclusionary ...

so ... hostile ... so scheming and cunning

... so arrogant ... little wonder they are

accused of trying to control ... everything.

People resent that kind of self-appointed

grandstanding in finance, communications

you know, that kind of thing. Their endless

tedious accusations of anti-Semitism they

label any and all critics is blatantly lacking

in respect over reasonable debates such as

criticism of Zionist aspirations depriving

others to empower Jewish nationalism.

But people of good will like us become

accustomed to their manipulating ways

and we'll keep on trying to get through

to their better natures, those prickly Jews.

 

Its Denizens

 

The density of the tree growth in the forest

is impressive and so is the topography

called a ravine yet so widespread that

there are many ravines, many rivulets

at each of the valleys sided by steeply

sloped hills that shelter the rarely-seen

animals for which the forest is their

natural habitat. Accessibility to the

forest not far from a large urban area

is far from difficult with many points

of entry for the curious and those who

enjoy exploring along with their equally

curious companion animals eager to

lope along the trails that emerged long

ago when animals and then people began

to launch a presence in the byways and

hidden areas of the forested ravine. It is

where teens meet secretly at night to

light fires both to sit around and smoke

weed and drink, occasionally to torch the

hollowed-out interiors of majestic old

pines. It is where fleeting glimpses of

deer and foxes, raccoons and skunks can

be seen as they slink from trail to under

story. It is where nocturnal animals hunt

the owls and raccoons and a new breed of

coyote whose heritage is wolf and coyote

and when dusk enters and night falls it is

best to find shelter from the eerie silence.

 

 

The Utility of Strangers

 

If I were reading a book and it became

too intense I could put it down for a

break, but confronting me was no book

but an irate stranger whom happenstance

has placed before me as he waxes

indignant over the state of world affairs.

I did nothing other than to be there when

he was also there in that public place

where books line the library shelves

my presence somehow goading him to

approach and ventilate his distemper with

the times. In the process revealing more

than any stranger might want to know

outside the pages of a novel yet his

eagerness to reveal himself kept me

prisoner to his rants as did the bristling

bulk of his aroused presence with no

easy escape beyond courtesy for who 

am I to shun anyone in such obvious need

as this man born in Cuba to a barefoot

doctor, himself attending university in

Russia travelling to Tunisia because he

spurned Communism and atheism. As a

Christian he found no comfort sojourning

in Tunisia despite its cosmopolitan flair

ending up in my country, now his impression

of its glaring faults mystify and enrage him

as he acquaints me passionately with

every one of his disappointments in life.

 

 

Qualms

He is but a vain, ignorant and shallow man

who confuses the dignity, honour and

power invested in the office he holds with

attributes that he does not himself 

exemplify. It is, above all, the power in

the position temporarily his that he feels

reflects the glory of an absent intellect

and inability to but mock the cerebral

functioning of those superior to him

holding positions meant to guide his own

while his quixotic decision-making sends

quavering shivers down the spines of

world leaders for any decisions he makes

in the full fallibility of his flawed character

through the intrinsic majesty of his office

inevitably impacts the stability of the free

world upon whose freedom the decisions

emanating from his office traditionally

guarantees. He is a madman run amok

and the dilemma is that lawful democracy

and the people's will placed him in

such authority that others can only hope

he will in due time be but a footnote in

history which cannot pass soon enough.

 

Humanity's Salvation

 

No event can contend with the emergence of 

new life fresh with the dew of spring's

awakening to excite, awe and delight for there

are scant few observers and participants alike 

who are not taken with the birth of a dimpled 

child much less new births of any creature 

presenting as an exquisite immature version of the

maturity that will eventually overtake them.

Without doubt it is monumentally fitting that 

the whole of creation appears to be fixated on

the birth of a child as a momentous occasion 

in world history leading to the emergence of a 

worldwide religion. The elder version hailed

as the Prince of Peace delivered his universal 

message in a transmission of earthly life as a 

gesture from the God of Abraham. And how

peculiar it is that it had to be a Jewish child 

whose identity as the voice of God transfixed 

vast multitudes. How much more peculiar that 

those worshipping multitudes chose those of 

the Prince's heritage to single out as unfit for

habitation among the faithful, to view them 

with scorn and derision while hailing the 

miraculous deliverance proffered by the Almighty

through a Jewish heritage as a light unto the

world in one fell swoop gifting the world with

the brilliant light of salvation gratefully 

accepted while rejecting iniquitous Judaism.