Category Archives: Books

Book by Hedwig Brener – Just published!

From: Hartung-Gorre
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2015 3:09 PM
To: Brener, Hedwig
Subject: “Begegnungen mit Menschen und Städten” sind fertig
Liebe Frau Brenner,
gerade sind die fertig gedruckten Bücher aus der Druckerei eingetroffen.
Das Buch ist sehr, sehr schön geworden.
Mit herzlichen Grüßen und Wünschen zum Wochenende
[Google Translation:
The final printed books have just arrived from the printers.
The book is very, very nice.
With warm regards and wishes for the weekend,]
Ihre
Renate Gorre und Woflgang Hartung-Gorre
Hartung-Gorre Verlag
Inh.: Dr. Renate Gorre
Saentisblick 26
D-78465 Konstanz
Fon: +49 (0)7533 97227
Fax: +49 (0)7533 97228
www.hartung-gorre.de3866285248
Zum neuen Buch von Hedwig Brenner
„Begegnungen mit Menschen und Städten“
von Christel Wollmann-Fiedler, BerlinAuf  Menschen zugehen zu können ist eine Gabe, mit ihnen zu sprechen, von ihnen zu erfahren, eine Bereicherung des Lebens. Sich Jahrzehnte später an diese Begegnungen zu erinnern, eine Gnade!
Hedwig Brenner, die Erfinderin dieses neuen Buches, durchstreifte Städte vor unendlich vielen Jahren, begegnete zufällig in Parks und auf Plätzen alten Bekannten oder Unbekannten, die zu Freunden wurden. Die Schilderungen in diesem Buch sind nicht erfunden, erlebt und aufgeschrieben wurden sie von einer kommunikativen weltoffenen sechsundneunzigjährigen alten Dame, einer Czernowitzerin, eben Hedwig Brenner, wie bereits erwähnt. Geboren wurde die Schriftstellerin 1918 in der Bukowina, im deutschsprachigen Buchenland, das einst bis zum Ende des 1. Weltkrieges zur Donaumonarchie gehörte, dann zum Königreich Rumänien kam, 1945 gar zur Sowjetunion und seit 1990 zur Ukraine gehört. In einer liberalen jüdischen Familie wuchs Hedwig Brenner auf, ließ sich von der Vielfalt der Kulturen in ihrer Heimatstadt inspirieren. Auch sie erlebte die Diskriminierung und Verfolgung der jüdischen Bevölkerung in der Nazizeit, kam ins Getto in Czernowitz, überlebte die Gräuel, verließ die Heimat und nahm die Erinnerungen mit. Erst vor dreißig Jahren ist sie in der 3. Heimat, im Heiligen Land Israel, angekommen.
Neugierig und wissbegierig ist Hedwig Brenner seit der Kindheit, wie sie selbst zugibt, beobachtet mit Verve. Diese Beobachtungen und Begegnungen erzählt sie uns in ihrem neunten Buch. Reisen war, nein, ist ihre Leidenschaft. Erst vor einigen Monaten besuchte sie Berlin, hatte Lesungen, traf auch hier wiederum Menschen, die irgendwann ihren Weg kreuzten  und neue kamen hinzu.
Seinerzeit in Ploiesti im rumänischen Petrolgebiet in den Jahren 1945 bis 1982  erlebte Hedwig Brenner so manches während der Ceaucescuadministration. Reisen ins westliche Ausland, in „kapitalistische“ Länder, waren untersagt und somit eine Seltenheit. Hedwig Brenner eroberte das Herz des einen oder anderen, bekam einen Paß mit Stempel und reiste mit vier Dollar Taschengeld ins „feindliche“ Ausland zu Freunden und Verwandten nach London, Brüssel, Düsseldorf und anderswohin. Nur alleine durfte sie reisen, Ehemann und Söhne blieben als Pfand zuhause. Die kommunistische Regierung kontrollierte und reglementierte das Leben seiner Bürger. Erst später, von Israel aus, besuchte das Ehepaar Brenner gemeinsam Land und Leute in Europa und Nordamerika.
Bis ins Detail sind Hedwig Brenner diese Städte mit ihren Sehenswürdigkeiten und Schönheiten  gedanklich geblieben, die Namen der Menschen, der alten und neuen Freunde kramte sie aus der Gedankenschublade und schrieb sie in Haifa in Neve Sha’nan nieder.
Nehmen sie teil an den vergangenen Erlebnissen und Begegnungen dieser alten Dame, lassen Sie sich verführen an Orte und durchstreifen sie mit ihr Städte, die heute anders aussehen als damals, seien sie zu Gast bei Menschen, die Hedwig Brenner in ihren Erinnerungen schildert. Fantasie ist auch eine Gnade und eine Gabe!

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Hedwig Brenner and her son Michael from the USA

What’s it about: “The Nazi, the Painter and the Forgotten Story of the SS Road”?




Drawings dedicated by Arnold and Anna Daghani to Erich Dubowy



These two letters – Click here for the German transcription! – and the drawings above were sent by Arnold and Anna Daghani to Erich Dubowy between June and September 1976. They are reproduced by special courtesy of Erich’s son Daniel Dubowy from Canada. Concerning the relationship between Arnold Daghani and Erich Dubowy, we learn from Daniel: “…they knew each other from Czernowitz, (they were of the same age) but surely from Bucharest. In the early fifties in Bucharest there were quite a few Czernowitzer artists who socialized and met regularly, and my father who was an architect but also a decent piano player, must have intermingled with them. […] They may not have been close friends but acquainted enough to be in some constant correspondence before and after.” Even more, one of the reasons these letters make compelling reading is their historical relevance, far beyond just personal considerations. 






Arnold Daghani shines a light on his artistic self-conception as well as on his relationship to the Romanian post WW2 artist community, such as to the Czernowitzer poet Alfred Kittner, the Romanian art reviewer Eugen Schileru, the Armenian businessman and art collector Krikor H. Zambaccian, the diplomat and art critic Oscar Walter Cisek, who authored short stories, novels, poems and essays in both German and Romanian. In addition we discover at the bottom of these letters a catalogue of Daghani’s works, which apparently were still in his possession before finally emigrating to England and settling in Hove, near Brighton, one year later in 1977. Daghani died in 1985, a deeply frustrated man, and his work is now held at Centre for German-Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex.


Dr Deborah Schultz comes straight to the point stating in her article “Pictorial Narrative, History and Memory in the Work of Arnold Daghani” as follows: “His frustrations were intensified by the lack of public interest in the camps in Ukraine, with all the attention focused on better-known camps such as Auschwitz, and he strongly believed that his account had to be heard. For Daghani writing and image making may have been the means of locating himself and of finding his way.” You will better comprehend this by reading the first paragraph of Daghani’s second letter: “As an ‘homage’, I received from the public prosecutors the entire investigation procedure file, since, according to the chief prosecutor [Fritz Bauer], it’s solely due to me, that they gained knowledge of the atrocities committed on the other side of the Bug River.” But it’s finally G. H. Bennett,  Associate Professor in History at the University of Plymouth, who – by his article “The Limits of West German Justice in the 1960s: The Post-War Investigation of Walter Gieseke” and his book “The Nazi, the Painter and the Forgotten Story of the SS Road” – is enlightening the historical dimension for us.




Well, the “Nazi” was Walter Gieseke, Oberstleutnant of the Gendarmerie and SS, the “Painter” was Arnold Daghani and the DG IV (Durchgangsstraße IV) was the “SS Road”, the road building project across the Ukraine which resulted in the murder of substantial numbers of Jewish forced labourers, among those many from Bukovina.


At my previous posting “The Stone Quarry on the Bug River at 8 Miles from N 48°40′ E 29°15′” you’ll find additional reports on the fate of the Jewish forced labourers including excerpts from Andrej Angrick’s article “Forced Labor along the ‘Straße der SS'” and Gerhard (Bobby) Schreiber’s memoirs “A Tale of Survival”. After getting numerous answers to our initial question, the final question concerns the moral condemnation and criminal conviction of the war criminals, but read by yourself G. H. Bennett’s conclusion:


“Gieseke was never brought to trial and Daghani would eventually conclude that the West German investigations into the crimes committed along DGIV were ‘merely a farce, a meaningless gesture’. […] The investigation of Walter Gieseke highlights the problems in the 1950s and 1960s of securing justice for crimes committed during the war. The processes of investigating and prosecuting of German war criminals in the context of West German justice in the 1950s and 1960s were not likely to result in a conviction. Gieseke’s defensive strategies maximized the problems facing investigators which resulted from the set of legal, political, social and investigative contexts that made a trial difficult and, in the eyes of many West Germans, unwanted and unwarranted. […] In the case of Walter Gieseke can be glimpsed many of thecomplexiti es that protected the guilty men and women of post-war Germany. Moreover, study of this case hopefully demonstrates the need to discount concerns about ‘practitioners’ trespassing onto the territory of historians. In studying post-war German justice, and indeed most aspects of legal history, there is ample scope for practitioners and historians to pool their skills and approaches to the mutual benefit of truly interdisciplinary scholarship.There is much to be learned from each other and little to be feared.

Additional Links:
“SS film links officer with war crimes” by BBC
“Lost film unearthed in Devon church…” by Daily Mail 
“Arnold Daghani. Who is he?” by Miha Ahronovitz
“The Art of Arnold Daghani” by The Art of Polemics


Lu Rudel: Memoirs of an Agent for Change in International Development; My Flight Path into the 21st Century.

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I am happy to report to you that the book, over which I have been laboring for the past three years, has finally come off the press.  The title is, “Memoirs of an Agent for Change in International Development; My Flight Path into the 21st Century.”

The book has been selected for inclusion in the “Memoirs and Occasional Papers” series by The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.  You can find it on their website, (www.ADST.org).  Here is the link:

http://adst.org/publications/memoirs-and-occasional-papers/memoirs-of-an-agent-for-change-in-international-development/

The printed version is listed for purchase on Amazon as well.  Additionally, it is available for downloading at Amazon as an e-book for the Kindle – at the modest price of $3.08.

This short description of the book’s contents appears on the back of the book cover: “Lu Rudel describes his unique experiences with US foreign economic aid programs during some of the most dramatic international events since World War II. These include Iran after the fall of Mosaddegh (1956-1960); Turkey after the military coup of 1960 to the start of the Cuba Missile crisis; India after the death of Nehru (1965-1970); and Pakistan following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988.  Rudel’s firsthand observations on Iran differ markedly from the description of events commonly espoused by some historians and journalists.”He also provides a firsthand account of the political metamorphosis over the past half-century of the “Group of 77” nations as they attempted to employ the UN’s economic development agencies to press for a “New International Economic Order.” These experiences lead him to draw important lessons about the conduct and effectiveness of foreign aid.”After retirement in 1980 he launched a second career, applying lessons learned from his work in international development to creation of a thousand-acre land development and resort in rural Appalachia.  His experiences over the following thirty years as an entrepreneur track the relentless growth of government regulations and the disappearance of community support institutions such as local banks, now being replaced by mega-banks.”Finally, he examines global trends of the past eighty years in four critical areas of change affecting our lives – population growth, science and technology, economic systems, and political structures – to draw some surprising conclusions and projections.”

I have placed a selection of photos on the web to complement the chapters of the book.  The photos can be accessed by a link on the web site. (www.rudel.net).

I enjoyed writing these stories dealing with my two careers.  You will have to decide if they make good reading.   A second, companion volume dealing with the more personal aspects of our family life is approaching completion.  I’ll let you know when that volume becomes available.

Lu Rudel, Bethesda, MD, October 2014

Selma Merbaum – Ich habe keine Zeit gehabt zuende zu schreiben

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Gabriele Weissmann: On Monday night the reading for Marion Tauschwitz’s new book “Selma Merbaum – Ich habe keine Zeit gehabt zuende zu schreiben” [I had no time to finish writing] took place at Berlin’s big book-store, Dussmann. Organized as a dialogue between Marion Tauschwitz and the well-known (and beautiful actress)  Iris Berben, introduced by the publisher. The room was packed, and the interest great. Selma’s poems are already quite well-known in Germany and often read in schools. They both read from the book, Marion Tauschwitz also giving a general view of her search for Selma’s background and  Iris  Berben spoke of her love for the poems. She was deeply impressed when she read them in Czernowitz, in the Chessed Shoshana hall, with Prof. Rychlo interpreting.  Berben then read “Poem”, in a personal, very moving manner, in which Selma’s  yearning for love, for life, her sensibility, her premonitions, are so well formulated.   At the end Iris Berben read part of her well-written introduction. Tauschwitz’ book is an insider’s view of Selma’s life and writing, with very accurate research into the family history. She has searched  family records,  read intensively documentation and literature on the subject, interviewed  persons in Europe and Israel, has corrected irregularities including Selma’s correct name. She describes Selma’s strong personality against the background of the social, cultural and political influences on the young girl’s spiritual development.  Her sensitive poetry, her hunger for life, her political views and her sight of the tragic events which took place in the last years of her life. The tragedy of the concentration camps… Selma, through Marion Tauschwitz’s book has become alive again. Her poems are world literature. A lot of applause at the end, and people literally rushed with the books for signature.

Marion Tauschwitz and Iris berben at Kulturkaufkaus Dussmann, Berlin, on 29.09.2014

Ein Radiobeitrag der ARD-Kulturkorrespondentin Maria Ossowski,

auf amazon die ersten Leserstimmen,

sensibel die Einschätzung auf haGalil von Ramona Ambs,

auch ein Literaturblogger hat Selma Merbaums Biografie schon gelesen,

und auch avivia – online magazin hat genau gelesen,

weiterhin eine Rezension von Christel Wollmann-Fiedler.

Read more on Marion’s (litera)tour guide for October/November 2014 at:
http://www.marion-tauschwitz.de/lesetermine/

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Transnistria, Then and Now

The territory of Romanian-ruled Transnistria (1941-44, 42,000 km2 / 16,216 sq mi) is incongruent with and included present-day Transnistria (4,163 km2 / 1,607 sq mi). Learn more on that subject from the disambiguation effected by Daniel Katz by clicking here for a PDF download of Daniel’s presentation, including detailed maps and additional links.

Please remember, Fabius Ornstein’s testimony “The Suffering of the Deportees in Transnistria” is still available at our Blog! On Fabius Ornstein’s life-saving activity in Transnistria we learn from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency report dated July 26, 1943 as follows:

“Thousands of Jews in Transnistria Have Not Seen Bread for Months, Hundreds Starving
Thousands of Jewish deportees confined in the various ghettos which the Rumanian occupation authorities have established in Transnistria, the Rumanian-administered section of the Russian Ukraine, have not seen any bread for months and the vast majority of them are threatened with starvation unless some assistance is forthcoming soon, according to private advices received here today. In the township of Copaigorod about 2,220 Jews are confined at present, the report discloses. Under the leadership of one of the deportees, Fabius Ornstein, the Jewish community has organized a free kitchen which has so far managed to distribute about 500 meals twice daily. These ‘meals,’ however, almost always consist of potatoes and nothing else. […]”

Maps of 2 territories named TransnistriaMaps of 2 territories named Transnistria1

Czernowitz – Jewish City of German Language

!Cz2allesClick on the front cover for a – free – copy of Friedrich J. Ortwein’s book!

Friedrich J. Ortwein: “Up until now, I was profoundly convinced, that the love and the devotion of the citizens of Cologne to their home town, the antique CCAA (Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium), one of the Daughters of Rome and free imperial city, cannot be exceeded by anybody in the world. But during the travel preparations for our journey to Galicia and Bukovina, when I came across the website of the Jews expelled from CZERNOWITZ, I had to reverse: The children and grandchildren of Czernowitzers, together with a few Holocaust survivors, have created a website containing a huge data volume and so they emphasize in an unique and inimitable way their love for the home country of their ancestors.

Forum members from all over the world, from the Americas, from Australia and South Africa, from Israel and Europe analyze, comment and swap ideas on events, research their genealogical roots, discuss and value rediscovered archival materials, enjoy old and new photos, exchange holiday and birthday wishes and all this happens in English with embedded German, Yiddish and Hebrew particles.”

Hitler’s Forgotten Ally – Ion Antonescu and His Regime, Romania 1940-1944

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http://us.macmillan.com/hitlersforgottenally/DennisDeletant

http://www.humanitas.ro/humanitas/aliatul-uitat-al-lui-hitler-ion-antonescu-si-regimul-sau-1940-1944

European History Quarterly 01/2009 (Lucian N. Leustean): “The prime merit of the book lies in its systematic investigation into the tumultuous evolution of the Antonescu regime and into his personal life. In addition, the combination of historical details with societal factors brings new facets to this analysis. Thus, examination of the Iron Guard leadership and of religious confessions in Romania helps to decipher the atmosphere of those times. In addition, Deletant’s writing style makes the book a gripping read, revealing the intimate connections between the personal life of the dictator and the political evolution of his regime. These points, coupled with the fact that most probably Antonescu remained the only leader who could publicly contradict the Führer, offer an incisive image of ‘Hitler’s Forgotten Ally’.”