Tag: holocaust

GUILT

Boyne writes an enlightening story about human judgement and feelings and how one may respond to memories of horrific events in one’s life.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“All the Broken Places” (A Novel)

Author:John Boyne

Narration by: Kristin Atherton & 1 more

John Boyne (Irish novelist and writer.)

“All the Broken Places” is a creative story about guilt, memory, responsibility, and redemption. It jumps back and forth in time with too many characters. However, it reflects on the terrible consequences of WWII and its survivors who are victims of Nazi Germany’s holocaust. It is about one woman’s long life who is a child when her father is a German Commandant and a mother, who is aware, if not complicit, of holocaust’ crimes at Auschwitz.

Photo of victims taken in a 2024 trip to Auschwitz.

There seems an injustice to punishing a 12-year old’s growth to adulthood for the crimes of her father, despite his horrific acts as a commandant at Auschwitz. The pain of those who lost their loved ones from WWII and the atrocities of Germany in death camps is unimaginable to most who are alive in the 21st century. The injustice of the main character’s punishment from those who lost loved ones is equally unimaginable, but John Boyne writes a fictional story of Gretel who is a young girl punished by WWII allied survivors when she and her mother move to Paris.

Teenager on the cusp of sexual awakening.

Gretel is at the age of development that has enough understanding of guilt to feel it for what her father did during the war. She is also at the age of sexual awakening. The story is about Gretel from the age of 12 to 91 when she is living in London near the end of her life. At the age of 12, she is aware of her father’s role as a commandant at Auschwitz. A reader/listener is put in the position of asking oneself if that makes Gretel complicit in the horror of the holocaust? Because her mother relies on her husband for their financial well-being, is she guilty of the crimes her husband is perpetrating at the order of the Nazi government? Can one think a 12-year-old is complicit?

Can one be guilty of events for which they have no control over, or responsibility.

The life of Gretel is an exploration of one’s guilt, memory, and responsibility for the holocaust and deaths from WWII. Gretel keeps her childhood connection to Nazi Germany secret throughout her adult life. She is the older sister of Bruno, her brother, who dies as a child during the war. His death occurs at Auschwitz in circumstances that reinforce the horror of the camp. Elsa is Gretel’s mother who searches for a husband to take care of them in their move to Paris. As Gretel matures, her guilt about her father’s role in Nazi Germany rises.

As Gretel’s mother finds a match for a husband, Gretel is experiencing the teenage years of maturity where sexuality increasingly occupies her thoughts.

Gretel becomes obsessed with a handsome young boy whose father owns a small business in Paris. She puts herself forward to the boy as a possible companion for her sexual awakening. Ironically, this young boy becomes an accomplice to a punishment organized by the community to attack Gretel and her mother for being associated with the Auschwitz’ commandant. Gretel and her mother are attacked and brutally scalped by an organized mob of local residents.

Hanging post shown at Auschwitz site in Poland.

The author recounts Gretel’s years of life and travels that take her from France to Australia and a retirement home in London. She never escapes her feelings of guilt and memories of a life unhappily lived. To complicate her life, she sees one of the German officers who worked for her father when she lives in Australia. Kurt Kozel, whose name is actually Kurt Kotler, has survived the war, hidden his war identity, is married, and has a young son. What happens next draws one further into the theme of the author’s story about guilt and how it can affect one’s behavior.

Boyne writes an enlightening story about human judgement and feelings and how one may respond to memories of horrific events in one’s life.

LIFE’S JOURNEY

Millman’s Socratic story is about human patience and knowledge. He addresses knowledge as something of the greatest value that can keep one from resorting to violence. This is a message that resonates with those who are appalled by today’s international and domestic conflicts.

Books of Interest
 Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Journeys of Socrates

Author: Dan Millman

Narrated By: Sam Tsoutsouvas

Dan Millman (Author, world champion athlete, martial arts instructor, and college professor.)

Dan Millman’s reasons for the title of his book “The Journeys of Socrates” is difficult to understand. The known facts of Socrates life do not seem remotely related to the life of a Jewish immigrant who lived in 19th century Russia. The story is almost too horrific to believe because of the tragic life of its hero Sergei Ivanov, a Jew in Tsarist Russia being raised in a camp of Cossack warriors. The only parallels one may make is that Socrates is characterized in ancient writings as a man who sought virtue and wisdom in his journey through life.

Socrates was known as a warrior in the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (431-404 BCE). He is better known as a teacher and student of the philosophy of life.

Socrates had gained a reputation for bravery, endurance, and moral fortitude in war, while a mentor of young men like Alcibiades who wanders through life with little self-understanding. (It is the ancient writings of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes that reveal some of what is told of Socrates life.) This seems a slender thread of association with the title of Millman’s book. The story of Sergei Ivanov is of a man who introspectively examines the meaning of life after experiencing horrific violence. This is a Socratic interrogation of a Jew’s life in pre-1917, revolutionary Russia and Ukraine.

Hiding one’s identity as a Jew has been told many times by many authors. Ethnicity and religious belief, like the color of one’s skin, marks one as different.

Ethnicity is a marker of human beings as the “other”, i.e., someone different than themselves. Unlike the color of one’s skin, ethnicity is easier to hide. Sergei Ivanov becomes known as a Jew in a Cossack training camp. He decides to escape that life but is followed by a fellow trainee who catches him. They fight and Sergi’s antagonist is knocked unconscious and appears dead. Sergi escapes and plans to find what he believes is a treasure buried by his grandfather that will give him enough money to get passage to America from his grandfather’s Ukranian homeland.

Buried treasure.

Sergi finds the treasure that had been buried by his grandfather, but it was only a clock and five gold pieces, not enough for passage to America. However, there is an address on the clock that leads him to his grandfather’s house. What he finds is an aunt that he thought was dead. She has a daughter for whom he falls in love and asks for her hand in marriage. They are married and Sergi’s plan is to take his now pregnant wife to America when he has earned enough money for passage. However, fate intervenes.

The man Sergi thought he had killed when he escaped the training camp was alive and had become a leader of a Cossack gang that terrorized the country with a special hatred for Jews.

The gang comes across Sergi and his pregnant wife when they are out for a walk before their planned trip to America. His former enemy and his followers murder Sergi’s wife, rip the baby out of her womb and leave her husband unconscious on the ground after trying to defend his pregnant wife. The gang leader chooses to leave Sergi alive to remember the grief he would have for his wife and baby’s loss of life because he could not save them. Sergi recovers and prepares himself for revenge on his former training camp antagonist.

Deaths inevitability.

At this point, one presumes this is to remind listeners of Socrates reported bravery, endurance, and moral belief despite hardship in life and one’s inevitable death. However, this is only a small part of the author’s intent. What one draws from the story is how ethnic or racial discrimination exists in every nation in the world. Human nature is often brutish and violent despite a rational person’s search for truth and peaceful coexistence. One asks oneself why humans wage war, why we murder innocents, and why does revenge only begat more death.

Sergi recovers from his injuries and is counseled and educated by a believer of a different faith.

As one finishes Millman’s story, listener/readers realize Sergi’s teacher is educating him about human patience, ethnic understanding, and knowledge that can break the repeating cycle of discrimination and violence caused by racial, gender, and ethnic difference. It requires patience, preparation, and knowledge. Sergi spends many years with his teacher and gains great strength to prepare him for what is to happen next in his life. Knowledge of what happened when he was struck down after his wife was murdered is not clear to him. As the story develops, one finds his wife had two children in her womb and only one died in the confrontation. What happens when Sergi meets his wife’s murderer is the denouement and fundamental meaning of Millman’s story.

Millman’s Socratic story is about human patience and knowledge. He addresses knowledge as something of the greatest value that can keep one from resorting to violence. This is a message that resonates with those who are appalled by today’s international and domestic conflicts.