I promised myself "No more World War II films or books." There is just so much out there and I feel overexposed. Then I showed up an hour early for an event and near the waiting area was one of those little "libraries" that almost look like bird houses, stocked with free books from the neighborhood. So I opened the little door and inside I found this book by Julie Orringer, and what was different is that it is a fictionalized account - that is to say an IMAGINED fiction based on her Hungarian Jewish Family's History. On the covers and inside were such praises by various reviewers. Could the book, published about 8 years ago, really be that good?
There is so much out there about World War II and the Holocaust, and frankly the Hungarian experience seems to be a rare event - as is, frankly, accounts by Christians in occupied countries such as Poland. So, not knowing - until the end - that it was based on her Hungarian Jewish Family's History, I sunk into this book as I has not with any book in a long time.
Primarily it is a love story beginning in the late 1930's and her grandfather Andras' story.
Andras gets a rare scholarship to study architecture in Paris in the late 1930's, where he finds a lot of expatriot Hungarians living and falls in love with an older woman who has a devastating secret past. He has a brother who is going to study in Italy to be a doctor. A brother who is supposed to inherit the family farm but would rather be a window dresser. Their future experiences will make their early struggles for survival while young students seem easy.
In Paris Andras and other Jewish students stick together, though some come from wealth. The scholarship is good, but he still has to earn a living and so he works and lives in a freezing walk up. Some of the people he trusted in Paris prove to have their own agendas when they find themselves back in Hungary, unable to get the Visas to stay in other countries, their dreams abandoned.
The brothers are called up to support the Hungarian Army in Jewish only troops that are worked like slaves. There are brutal commanders and their are kind ones; does everyone allow their personal beliefs to dictate how they will treat others while in their official capacity?
As I turned the pages and read the story, my anxiety increased, as the characters lived increasingly limited lives. As with any Holocaust/ World War II story, since most readers probably already know a little or a lot about how bad it was, there is and is not something new.
I value the greater understanding of Hungarian World War II and Holocaust history that I have now from Julie Orringer's story.
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Saint Louis, Missouri, flooded enough to stop transportation, The North Of England - flooded. (Prince Charles with his long time concern for the environment is truly the perfect person to be the next King!) Tornados touching down in unprecedented numbers. Earth changes, no doubt. Global Warming Summit in Paris. Is this really something we can stop now by altering our life styles so that we no longer pollute? (I think it would take more than recycling, and shutting down factories particularly in China, but also less use of air travel...) Al Gore was right. Al Gore was right.
In the wee hours I woke up and turned on the radio, a station which featured psychic predictions for the future. In the morning I wake up again, check my weather ap and see that the experts are predicting a swath of storms "NON EL NINO RELATED" that will hit my area this week. I took down the Christmas lights that I had planned to keep on until January 6th, in advance of these storms thinking the wet weather and electricity could be dangerous.
My dog is wearing sweaters and I've taken to using a space heater in one room - the bedroom, which I'm using 90% of the time now. The gas wall heater is too expensive to use and so old it has no thermostat and though it can eat up the humidity when it's on, most of the heat goes out the windows. The electric bill will rise, as will the gas bill, but not enough to consider the expense of double pane windows, water heater wraps, and all the rest.
Not too long ago, during one of the hottest summers I've ever experienced, so sick of the heat, I vowed that I would not complain of the cold or the wet. I'm actually lucky because I'm not dealing at all with freezing rain, sleet, ice or snow and even when it goes to freezing at night I can cover up my plants outside.
I'm limited in what I can do but I do it. I have cut back my water use especially. I recycle not only bottles and cans but give away clothes and other things that someone else can get use out of. I generate so little garbage that my can doesn't have to go out to the street more than once a month. I think "if everyone would do just a little more towards this effort." But, despite their being constant warnings - and rules - and laws - about water usage in my area, I still have a neighbor who waters excessively. Everyone on the street is angry at him but so far he has not been busted by the authorities and has not gotten any fines.
Now, anticipating the rain, I'm more worried than ever that it will be excessive and that there will be flooding in my area, which was not designed to cope with too much rain at any one time. There is a construction site down the street that is dug out and I hope any flooding will go down into the pit instead of down the street and into the yards!
Friday night, late, a friend of mine called me with a throb in his throat. "Did you hear about the terrorism in Paris? I've met some of the musicians that play in that band! " He explained that they are not a heavy metal or death metal band but took the name of their band as a kind of joke. Whatever, they do play rock and roll, which is offensive to Moslems, and the terrorists targeted people out to have a good time, if not sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
I had not heard about this latest act of terrorism by Moslem EXTREMISTS, as I'd been feeling under the cold, windy, weather and was laying in bed under a crochet blanket with my dog and reading a book, so I told him I would call him back. Within fifteen minutes, thanks to the internet on my low budget cell phone, I was able to tell him that the band members themselves were OK. From that point on I read at least a hundred articles from news services all over the world, especially The Daily Mail - UK, but also the New York Times, Washington Post, and many others, searching for the latest tidbit of information that would bring the whole picture into focus.
Sadly, I will tell you what the whole picture is in one word: EVIL
And that evil is prevailing makes me feel tearful and depressed. This morning I wanted to stay in bed under the covers and not get on with my day but I snapped out of it while taking a hot shower and then dressing and putting on makeup and perfume and leaving the house. I put on my best appearance anyway despite feeling so down. I knew that I could not quit living my life out of fear...
The American Holiday of Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away and is the beginning of our holiday season with Christmas and the New Year coming up fast and this is the time of year when most people make an effort to share, give generously, and be more loving and tolerant, beginning with their own family and then to strangers.
I've already bought slices of turkey breast, stuffing bread, pineapple, onions and garlic and ginger, an acorn squash, sweet potato, zucchini, and other ingredients to make a small American feast. But I'm planning on attending a local community celebration that I went to once years ago that happens to be put on by a local Jewish congregation and is open to everyone of any faith. It is held outdoors rain or shine and wind and cold might keep me away, but I was looking forward to it, and thinking of asking this particular friend along. I can easily make my personal thanksgiving meal for the following Sunday's meal.
Now that Moslem EXTREMISTS are killing the innocent outside of SYRIA (where even children have been beheaded and women have been killed for refusing to be sex slaves) well, their TERRORISM has worked. Paris is terrified. Certainly London is. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that terrorism only takes place in big cities.
I'm afraid to go to this community gathering where hundreds of people will be on Thanksgiving, especially because it is being held at a Jewish temple. I also hesitate to take the subway. I fear that the subway would be a great target during rush hour. Yet I know that our HOMELAND SECURITY and other governmental agencies are doing their best to find terrorists and other criminals who mean to hurt or kill others before they can do so. Still, I think most people I've been talking to feel a bit paranoid.
There is only one way to understand people who blow themselves up, in an effort to kill others.
THEY HAVE BRAIN WASHED and are in a CULT.
So while I cry for the innocent victims, I decided today, knowing that people from all over the world can read this blog, to talk to you about BRAIN WASHING and CULTS.
What is the difference between a regular religion and a cult?
A cult often expects you to cut yourself off from your family and friends, which is to say, your support group, and gradually you are surrounded only by people who are indoctrinating you. They isolate you as part of their ownership of you. In a cult, your mail may be censored or kept from you. You may be denied use of communications such as the phone or e-mail. You may not be allowed to leave the cult, not even to go out to the doctors or shopping, alone or without permission. You may be expected to give them your money, maybe even sell your house and give them all the money from the sell, and move to live with or near others in the cult. Without the finances to leave them, they now have more control over you. They will put you to work, often extensive volunteer work, in exchange for bare necessities or access to the leader or permission to marry.
Women are often sexually exploited in a cult. They have no right to own their own bodies, to decide when or with whom they will have sex with, or are brainwashed to think that having sex with other cult members or the leader doesn't count when it comes to promiscuity. They may be forced to marry someone not of their own choosing. Their husband may rule their lives like never before, or the couple will be ordered to not have sex or not have children.
What they tell you BEFORE you give up your family, friends, job, possessions, and MOVE to be with them, and the reality may not match. But you may, having given up so much, and being idealistic, still decide to give it a try, not knowing you can never own your life again. (I have to wonder if some of the suicide bombers kill themselves because they see it as a way out!)
Some cults use constant teaching called programming to challenge your normal thought processes. Some use actual hypnosis, sleep deprivation (keeping you working for days on end without proper sleep), nutritional deprivation (keeping you on a starvation diet, or making you work longer and harder for the reward of a full meal), all of these things making you more and more likely to do things their way and to submit and become part of a hierarchy that is dictated.
When it comes to acts of violence, which you may or may not have been prone to before you joined or were recruited by the cult, your training includes desensitizing you. (As I understand it the terrorists in Syria even train children to behead beginning with the use of dolls, which of course cannot feel pain or shed blood.) Because you have learned to think of other people as the Other, not like you, not part of the cult group, even as the enemy, their humanity is in question. (The Nazi's did this by comparing the Jews to vermin.)
If you try to leave the cult because you realize it is one and that you do not want to be controlled, you may not have any old friends or family left to take you in. You may be threatened with violence yourself, or be shunned, attacked verbally, or find yourself the target of slander that makes it impossible for you to regain employment. (This is the testimony of many an ex Scientologist.) Some cult members have found themselves in desperation and decide to make the best of their situation, and years go by before they can leave, often when the leader dies or the group breaks up.
It's best, whenever you encounter a new religion, or version of your religion, in which your personal freedoms and right to determine your own life or fit into a multicultural society, TO NEVER GET INVOLVED IN A CULT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
However, it is a known fact that some people have, though intensive deceptions, including group hypnosis, joined a cult, totally changing over their life, in as little as one long day, or weekend. Some cults have recruiters looking for their type of person - someone a bit disgruntled with their own life or the state of the world who is idealistic and believes they can make change - but often also someone who is intelligent, educated, or who has special skills and talents - such as an ability with languages, computer programing, or in the case of terrorists, some history of military use of weaponry.
Here is Southern California, there have been and are many cults. Some of them are storefront preacher-lead cults. Rarely are they violent.
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