The reason this book is so good is because it describes, in detail, day to day live in the concentration camp, i.e., Auschwitz.
You know I rarely read nonfiction. And I was regretting my choice until Walter Rosenberg was shipped off from Slovakia by train after trying to escape to England.
You see we already know what is going to happen, it's in the book's title. So it's a very different experience from fiction, where you're going down a rabbit hole and you feel at one with the book. In other words, nonfiction is just not personal. But you'll read "The Escape Artist" and have a lot of questions, especially if you're Jewish.
I thought I was overcharged. Could I go to the retail establishment and question the price or would I be labeled the cheap, conniving Jew?
Over the holidays I read a story about an American who decamped from the States, because of anti-Semitism. And now I'm judging myself in ways I never did previously. They call this a chilling effect. The term is used primarily in Constitutional law. In other words, there are effects of not only laws but other behaviors that cannot be easily measured, i.e. people refraining from action. Believe me I don't want to be seen as a loudmouthed Jew, especially when Dave Chappelle goes on SNL and talks about all the Jews in Hollywood.
So the war ends. And then what?
Walter Rosenberg, now named Rudolf Vrba, goes back to college, earning his degree at light speed, trying to catch up on all those years of education he missed. Would I have done that? Probably not. Maybe because education in my life was not seen as enriching and beneficial so much as a hurdle you had to jump. Did you see that article in the "Wall Street Journal" today questioning the need for college? There are fewer students and the institutions are fighting for them, in many cases by lowering prices, but if you get a job at Google are you better off than the person with the college degree?
And needless to say, if I was in a concentration camp, I'd be permanently demoralized. But Rudi bounced back, almost immediately. He went back to Poland, he visited Auschwitz, he kept on keeping on, what motivated him, I wish I could have some of that juice.
Not that there weren't consequences. He trusted absolutely no one. And his relationships were fraught. Both love and friendship. And then there was the argument over credit, did Fred, who escaped with Walter, deserve more attention? Meanwhile, Fred stays in communist Czechoslovakia and dies at a relatively young age, whereas Rudi Vrba died of cancer at 81, in Vancouver, Canada.
So Rudi is sharp, but his home life is...well let's just say his parents were divorced, his mother had a new relationship and Rudi was an independent, self-starter.
But he ends up in Auschwitz at age 18.
Yes, there are the stories of the gassing and burning of bodies, but that's not where the detail is. The detail is in what happened to the few who were chosen to live, who worked in the camps. Did you know Jews could work their way up the hierarchy to the point where they wore civilian clothes of their choice? And had better food? I certainly did not.
I don't want to glamorize it, especially in light of the Holocaust deniers...
You see it's eighty years ago. And there are very few who experienced it firsthand who are still around.
I grew up with people who had numbers tattooed on their arms. Benny the butcher. Everybody in the community knew he and his wife were in the camps. You saw the numbers and...that's an experience you never forget.
And you're reading the book and you wonder how Hitler and his inner circle even came up with the idea of eradicating the Jews. And you know they did a pretty good job of it. What was already a minority is even smaller now. As for anti-Semitism... You can't defend Israel anymore, because of the plight of the Palestinians. And now with the new government's support of Russia against Ukraine they're making it hard for me to support the country too. You see the goal of the Palestinians is to eradicate Israel, they believe it has no right to exist. Not radically different from Hitler's view, but somehow people have forgotten and side with them. Of course Israel is imperfect, but why does the Jewish state get all the hate when the surrounding countries are far from model democracies?
So nobody knew. Or maybe they did.
But the people sent to the concentration camps, they truly believed they were being resettled. They took clothing and valuables and as soon as they landed in Auschwitz-Birkenau, they were stripped of their belongings, 10% were allowed to live, and the other 90% were immediately trucked off to be killed, right then. Given a bar of soap to clean themselves while they were gassed. They ran a noisy vehicle to drown out the screaming.
And Walter's seeing this every day.
And judgments are willy-nilly. Who survives, who gets a better job, it's all at the whim of the SS. They don't study the facts, look at your CV, they just make instant judgments and that's it. And they'll whip you and kill you without thinking twice.
So first there's raw survival. Could I have handled the train, standing up for days, everybody crapping in an overflowing bucket?
And even if I was allowed to live, would I have been able to endure the hardship? Don't look like a perfectly healthy specimen and they kill you. You've got to fake it to make it, as they say on TV these days. Not only day after day, but year after year.
And Walter/Rudi's main goal in escaping is to warn the Hungarians, that they're next. But nobody he tells the story to is as freaked out as he is. They're calm. They doubt. And the Hungarians are shipped off to Birkenau, where there's a new rail line to make the killing easier, eradicating the need to move the soon to be murdered by truck.
But the worst thing is everybody knew. Churchill. Roosevelt. And they did nothing. Could they at least bomb these new rail lines? No.
On my birthday a few years back I went to the Holocaust Museum in L.A., and they had reproductions of the newspaper from that era. Oh, it was in the news, but nobody paid attention.
Not that the Germans wanted the story out. Their goal was to lock up or kill everybody who knew.
And those who knew...didn't believe it.
That's right, those who were exposed to Walter's words were convinced they couldn't be true.
So there are big events in life and how do you go on? Like if you were in Vietnam, or Iran... You came back, most people never went, life moves on, but does it for you?
Or more benign events. Like classic rock. Even rock music itself. It had a multi-decade heyday, but now it's over. Do you move on or just live forever in the land of nostalgia? I mean it's kind of creepy when you see old fat tattooed guys at the gig... They seem to have missed out on everything, life passed them by, all they've got is this music.
And everybody with a brain now knows music doesn't drive the culture, not the way it did back in the classic rock era, even the MTV era. Sure, the music affects people, but do we really listen to these nitwits tell us what to believe? Streaming television drives the culture, but no one in the music industry will admit this, even though when you get together that's all they want to talk about, streaming TV and politics.
Yes, politics is taboo... But hang with a promoter and it comes up instantly. It's a hell of a lot more interesting than the music.
Don't protest. That's just the point. We're all focused on different stuff.
We were all focused on the same things and the internet came along and blew that model to hell. Now what? How do you live your life?
And just like in World War II, disinformation is ever-present. I mean this vax stuff is insane. Yes, the reason Damar Hamlin had such grave consequences from the hit is because he was vaxxed. People were saying that on Twitter within minutes!
Do you have to read "The Escape Artist"? Are you missing out if you don't? Well, there are numerous people, especially boomers, who can't get over the Nazis and the Holocaust. I remember picking up the paper in the eighties when they broke the story that Mengele had been living in Brazil and died. The members of the SS didn't all go hide, most of them went on to work under their real names, findable...if society cared enough.
Man's inhumanity to man. That's what they call it.
Groupthink, obeying orders will get you nowhere. And that's what American education is all about. They don't want you to be able to think, because then maybe...
I mean how does a guy like Putin come up with this stuff, believe he's king and can negatively affect millions of people on a whim? Who are these tyrants?
They exist. And I'm not going to tell you this or that person is Hitler, but I am telling you if you think it can't happen again, here, you're absolutely wrong.
"Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too."
Heinrich Heine, 1822.
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