Category: Atrocities

Book Review: Woman at 1,000 Degrees – by Hallgrímur Helgason

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Books, Three StarsLeave a comment

Not too long ago I read Slaughterhouse Five, which has as one of its central themes the firebombing of Dresden during World  War II. The novel Woman at 1,000 Degrees starts with this sentence:

I live here alone in a garage, together with a laptop computer and an old hand grenade. It’s pretty cozy.

Jonas, my hiking guide in Iceland earlier this summer, recommended the author Helgason and specifically this book when I asked him about Icelandic literature. Not only did I read about life in Iceland, but I read about World War II from the view of an Icelandic girl named Herra Björnsson who, at the age of ten, through a series of events resulting from very bad luck, ended up alone in Europe during the war. The story around the firebombing of Dresden in Slaughterhouse Five painted horrific picture of what went on during that war. The experiences of Herra in Denmark, Germany and then Poland illustrate what it was like for a child, a girl, to be abandoned alone in the maelstrom of chaos. She was cast out, abused, starved and raped again and again, over years, and only through seeming miracles she found her way back home after the war. The story tells the plight of the innocent population, Germans, Poles, Russians and Danes, during the Nazi regime and its wars of aggression and racial extermination. It rang home for me, as I recalled stories my own father has told me again and again of the horrors of war he himself had to face when he was a ten-year-old child refugee from the east as the Third Reich was collapsing.

Helgason tells the story in vignettes, showing Herra as an eighty-year-old woman dying in a garage in Reykjavík, then as a young girl in Iceland, as an adolescent during the war in Germany, and as a young woman in Argentina as she had to flee Germany with her Nazi father. We follow Herra at various stages of her life, not in chronological order, but in order of increasing horror as we witness the atrocities she is forced to endure that eventually end with her on her deathbed, lonely, yet full of spunk, in a garage.

Herra narrates the story of her life. She is quite insightful, as this excerpt shows:

She was married to an Italian countertenor who was now a pilot in Mussolini’s air force. He had participated in the invasion of France, one of the most ludicrous operations in the total absurdity of the Second World War: Italians in the flower of their youth sacrificing their lives so that the word TABAC could be changed into TABACCHI on some tobacconist’s signs in a few Alpine villages.

Helgason, Hallgrímur. Woman at 1,000 Degrees (p. 96). Algonquin Books. Kindle Edition.

If you have been reading my blog you will likely know that I love languages, and Icelandic strikes me as a particularly exotic language. With that in mind, you might understand why I especially enjoyed the following page, where Herra characterizes some of the languages she knows:

We Icelanders therefore walk around with gold in our mouths, a fact that has shaped us more than anything else. At least we don’t squander words unnecessarily. The problem with Icelandic, however, is that it’s far too big a language for such a small nation. I read on the web that it contains 600,000 words and over 5 million word formations. Our tongue is therefore considerably bigger than the nation. I did get to know other languages pretty well, but few are as solemn, because they’re designed for daily use. German strikes me as the least pretentious language, and its people use it the way a carpenter uses a hammer, to build a house for thought, although it can hardly be considered attractive. Apart from Russian, Italian is the most beautiful language in the world and turns every man into an emperor. French is a tasty sauce that the French want to savor in their mouths for as long as possible, which is why they talk in circles and want to ruminate on their words, which often causes the sauce to dribble out of the corners of their mouths. Danish is a language the Danes are ashamed of. They want to be freed of it as soon as possible, which is why they spit out their words. Dutch is a guttural language that gulped down two others. Swedish thinks it’s the French of the north, and the Swedes do their utmost to relish it by smacking their lips. Norwegian is what you get when a whole nation does its best not to speak Danish. English is no longer a language but a universal phenomenon like oxygen and sunlight. Then Spanish is a peculiar perversion of Latin that came into being when a nation tried to adapt to a king’s speech impediment, and yet it is the language I learned the best. Few of these nations, however, have mastered the art of silence. The Finns are Icelanders’ greatest competitors when it comes to silence, since they are the only nation in the world that can be silent in two languages, as Brecht said. We Icelanders, on the other hand, are the only country in the world that venerated its language so much that we decided to use it as little as possible. This is why Icelandic is a chaste old maiden in her sixties who has developed a late sex drive and desires nothing more than to allow herself to be ravished by words before she dies.

Helgason, Hallgrímur. Woman at 1,000 Degrees (p. 56). Algonquin Books. Kindle Edition.

This is not a book you’re just going to pick up at Barnes and Noble as you browse through their offering. Icelandic authors are not generally prominent in the United States. Nonetheless, I recommend you find Woman at 1,000 Degrees and experience a novel of an entirely different kind.

When the Tigers Broke Free – My Perspective of Russia

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Music, War1 Comment

Pink Floyd released the album The Final Cut in 1983, which contained When the Tigers Broke Free. I must have heard that song hundreds of times, and I still today, every time I hear it, my eyes well up with tears. Here it is. I suggest you read along with the lyrics for better understanding.

When the Tigers Broke Free

It was just before dawn
One miserable morning in black ‘forty four
When the forward commander
Was told to sit tight

When he asked that his men be withdrawn
And the Generals gave thanks
As the other ranks held back
The enemy tanks for a while

And the Anzio bridgehead
Was held for the price
Of a few hundred ordinary lives

And kind old King George
Sent mother a note
When he heard that father was gone

It was, I recall
In the form of a scroll
With gold leaf adorned
And I found it one day
In a drawer of old photographs, hidden away

And my eyes still grow damp to remember
His Majesty signed
With his own rubber stamp

It was dark all around
There was frost in the ground
When the tigers broke free
And no one survived
From the Royal Fusiliers Company Z

They were all left behind
Most of them dead
The rest of them dying
And that’s how the High Command
Took my daddy from me

As of now, British estimates put the number of Russians killed or wounded in Ukraine since February 2022 at about 500,000. Today, every day, we estimate that about 1,000 Russian soldiers are injured or killed in Ukraine. Russia is recruiting 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers a month. I am not counting Ukrainian soldiers here who are defending their country. The Russian men and boys are sent into a meatgrinder in a far-away country that has nothing to do with their own lives, security or safety, simply at the will and ego of one man.

Throughout history, rich and powerful men have sent other people’s daddies into the line of fire, into literal meatgrinders.

Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Putin!

We don’t learn and we keep doing it.

When the Tigers Broke Free!

Alexei Navalny’s Death and the Credibility of the World’s Press

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, History, PoliticalLeave a comment

We all shook today when we found out that Alexei Navalny died in a Russian prison. The news reverberated throughout the world and in Russia itself.  All I know about Navalny I have learned through his portrayal in the western media. This includes statements about Navalny’s character by Ambassador Michael McFaul, who knew Navalny personally and considered him a friend.

Digging deeper, particularly in circles of Russians, Navalny does not appear to be the knight in shining armor that we all think we know. Apparently, many Russians do not support Navalny and even consider him to be further on the right than Putin.

Here is an interesting article in the Workers World, which gives an entirely different viewpoint of Navalny, his history, and his status.

Alexei Navalny: Why is Biden supporting a Russian fascist? – Workers World

I might warn you, if you have never read anything in Workers World: It is the official newspaper of the Workers World Party (WWP), a communist party in the United States. So you might take its content with a grain of salt. Even in this article they denounce capitalism as a systemic tool of abuse of workers.

I have to state and admit that I do not have more information than what I read in the western media and what sources like Workers World downplay as western liberal propaganda.

If you are interested in learning more about Russia, its propaganda machine, its disinformation engine and its brutal oppression of political opponents, pick up the book Red Notice by Bill Browder.

This experience highlights to me how little we actually know about what is really going on in the world. It does not surprise me when I hear that 70 million people, many of whom consume only information propagated by Fox News, plan on voting for candidate Trump in the next election. They can’t help it. It’s all they know.

Just like I can’t help it. I am not sure I know what Navalny really stood for in Russia, and how much of what I read in opposing articles like the one I linked to above is reality, or just another flavor of Russian propaganda.

This shows how hugely important it is to have a free press and have a choice so we can choose as unbiased a source as we can.

Book Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns – by Khaled Hosseini

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Books, Four StarsLeave a comment

If you check my Ratings Key for 4-star books here is what you find:

  • Must read
  • Inspiring
  • Classic
  • Want to read again
  • I learned profound lessons
  • Just beautiful
  • I cried

A Thousand Splendid Suns checks all these boxes.

In addition, reading it now is extremely timely, given the recent departure of the United States from Afghanistan on August 30, 2021.

We hear the story from the perspective of two young women, girls at first, in alternating chapters.

Mariam was born in 1959 in Herat in western Afghanistan, the cradle of Persian culture. She is an illegitimate child of one of the richest men in the city, Jalil. He has three wives and nine legitimate children among them. They all live in one large mansion as a happy family. Mariam and her mother, however, live in a hovel he had built for them a couple of miles out of town, up a steep hill, away from the city, and away from his “respectable” life. But he apparently loves Mariam enough to come and visit her once a week and spend quality time with her. She grows up into her teenage years loving and adoring her father, not knowing any better that life could be different. One day she walks to the city without permission, arrives at her father’s house and quickly finds that there is indeed a difference between her and her other siblings. Within just a few days, at the age of fifteen, she is married off to a middle-aged man in Kabul, Rasheed. Despite per protests, Rasheed takes her with him and her life changes drastically. Rasheed is a brute of a man who thinks nothing of beating a wife with a belt until she bleeds.

A few houses down the street from Mariam and Rasheed lives a young family with a little girl named Laila. There are two older brothers. Laila’s father is somewhat of an outsider in the neighborhood. He is an intellectual, a teacher, who loves his books and cherishes education, even for a girl. Laila grows up in a loving, albeit poor, family. Her best friend is Tariq, a neighborhood boy who is two years older than she. Laila’s older brothers go to war against the Soviets and eventually both die for the cause. Laila’s mother is so shaken, she becomes morose and sickly. Eventually, a stray rocket hits their house. Laila is the only survivor but severely wounded.

Rasheed and Mariam rescue her, and promptly, Rasheed decides to take Laila as a second wife, against Mariam’s will. This stroke of fate puts the two women, a generation apart, into the same household under the boot of a severely abusive man.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is about the devastating abuse and systemic destruction of women in a regime and society where a few theocrats have absolute power over the lives of millions of people. It is also about the history of Afghanistan, starting in the 1960s and through about 2007. It describes the years before the Soviets invaded the country in the 1980s, their eventual defeat, the rise of the Mujahideens, their devolution into bands of warlords bent on destroying their own country for personal gain and power, and finally the rise of the Taliban, pre-Osama bin Laden. It illustrates in vivid detail what the Taliban, basically a bunch of uneducated goat-herders and religious fanatics, did to their own country and most importantly, to 50% of their population – all the women. We witness the hardships of women under that regime, and then, as we all know, the post 9/11-years as the American’s supposedly liberated the Afghans from the Taliban. Things started getting better again in the country and people’s lives started to improve.

That is where A Thousand Splendid Suns ends. There was hope. There was light again for girls and women.

The bitter, brutal irony is that I read this book not in 2007 when it came out, but fifteen years later, now in 2023. I know that the Americans left the country under very adverse conditions for the Afghan people. I know that the country fell into the hands of the Taliban again within days of America leaving, and I know, from reading A Thousand Splendid Suns what happened to the Afghans – again.

It’s easy for us to make decisions about how we feel about Afghanistan being a world away. Reading A Thousand Splendid Suns is crushing, challenging, and most of all thought-provoking. We didn’t do anything new to Afghanistan. We were just another invader in the revolving door of systematic subjugation of a nation and its people, a nation that could not be defeated by two superpowers in two generations, but a nation that also hasn’t figured out how to live and prosper on its own.

The Afghan people are not to be blamed. The sick interpretation of Islam and the fact that an entire nation is willing to subjugate itself to its dogma is at the root of the problem. And that is exactly why there should never be any connection between politics, government and church, any church at all.

Reading this book, I realize that through my entire lifetime on this planet, the people of Afghanistan have suffered, badly suffered, and there is no end in sight even now.

Worldwide Waste of Food

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Economy, PoliticalLeave a comment

I have written several posts in 2015 with the subject of waste of food. Here are links to both of them:

Worldwide Waste of Food

Child Hunger and Banquet Food Waste

Today I received an email from a reader who works on a university project about world hunger, who asked me to attach this information to my posts.

You can find that information at this link: World Hunger Facts and Statistics as well as at the bottom of the two other posts.

It has been eight years since I wrote these posts, and things have not gotten better. Due to impending climate disaster, there will be millions of climate refugees searching for “higher ground” and there will be crop failures all around the world which will exacerbate hunger. I welcome the research, the activism and the initiative of the new generation and university projects like the one my reader quoted. She took the time to search old posts and contact the writers – that takes work, and I applaud it.

Thank you, Debbie.

Living in a Safe Country

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Political1 Comment

Today I went sailing in San Diego Bay with family and friends. In the car on the way home, the conversation went to “the good life” we’ve all been blessed with. How our lives are safe, we have intact homes, enough income to eat every day, and we don’t have to worry about anything seriously threatening our safety and well-being.

That made me think.

Say that a coup happened in the United States right now. A strongman took over our government by undermining its institutions, and by taking command of law enforcement and the military. It’s been done before in many other countries. If that happened, it would not take long before our way of life would collapse. Gangs would be marauding in our suburban neighborhoods, raping women, taking our food and valuables at will and threatening our lives.

Say you have a couple of small children, a six-month old baby and a three-year-old toddler. To keep them safe and give them a chance at a normal life, you pack up your SUV with the kids and a few belongings and you head up to Canada, where the government is still intact.

However, as you cross the border, you get arrested by the Canadian border authorities. They take away your baby and your toddler – who knows where to?  – and without obtaining any information about how to find you and reconnect you with your children, they send you back – without your children.

That is what our American government did in 2017, when they sent political refugees back to Honduras, Nicaragua and all the other countries people were fleeing – only after they took away their children with no plan to ever give them back.

Do we really live in a safe country?

A Dark Day for Freedom and Individual Rights in the U.S.

On By Norbert HauptIn Abortion, Atrocities, Political, ReligionLeave a comment

With the Supreme Court striking down Roe vs. Wade, things are changing in this country, for the worse, for the much worse.

But then again, we have observed this circus happening since 2016, where somehow we have let “conservative” values roll over our freedom. What did we expect? We have seeded the Supreme Court for years now just to make this happen, and it started with McConnell’s blocking the nomination of Merrick Garland. It’s ironic that these same “conservatives” are the ones who proclaim their freedom was taken away by an election that didn’t go their way.

The country is heading down a path of darkness forced by religious zealots. I have no problem with Christians being Christians, and Muslim’s being Muslims, as long as they stay out of interfering with my life and my freedom, all the rest of us who don’t buy into their delusions.

Here they have crossed this border. They are interfering, and that’s deeply disturbing.

What’s next?

How about we make all our women wear burkas because that makes us men feel better about the powers we have?

I hear their God hates genitals. Maybe we can bring in genital mutilation – of course for women only. And for witches.

Do you think I am angry?

You bet I am.

 

Overdramatization of a Riot?

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, PoliticalLeave a comment

The clip on the left is from Time Magazine, April 25, 2022, page 6.

U. S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Green stated that “The American people are fed up with this over-dramatization of a riot.”

I can’t speak for the American people, other than I am one of them – ex pluribus unum.

Say I took a crow bar, or a sledge hammer, or perhaps even a weapon, and I went down to my local municipal government building – and I am not even talking about the U.S. Capitol or any State Capitol. Then when I got to the locked door, I’d just beat it in. If there were security guards or police, I’d pepper spray them or beat them with the crow bar.

If I did that, chances are that I’d not survive, because I’d be shot down in hail of bullets. If I did survive, I’d rot in jail for the better part of a year until I got my trial, and then I’d lose and – at my age – spend the rest of my life in prison.

Now if I did this same thing along with the 2,000 people who have entered the Capitol on January 6, the whole thing would go away because it’s an overdramatization of a riot?

I am not buying it.

I am in favor of every one of those people that committed violence entering the Capitol that day to do their time.

Those in our government, particularly those elected officials, in the legislative and executive branch who incited this should also be held accountable.

German Foreign Minister Speaks at United Nations

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, WarLeave a comment

A powerful speech at the United Nations by Germany’s Foreign Minister (the equivalent of the U.S. Secretary of State).

VIDEO: Baerbock auf Englisch zu Ukraine: “Es geht um Mia und die Zukunft unserer Kinder” | Euronews

A Day in the Life of Refugees

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Commentaries, HistoryLeave a comment

It was winter. The mother was 35 years old. Her husband was gone, fighting in the war. She had five children. The oldest daughter was 9, her oldest son was 8, and there were three younger daughters. With them was her mother, the children’s grandmother. They packed up a few suitcases with the most important belongings and they left their home. They locked the door. They headed west. They never saw their house, their home, again.

The year was 1945.

The town was Breslau, then Germany, now inside Poland.

The mother was my paternal grandmother. She would die in childbirth two years later.

The 8-year-old boy was my father.

The invading force they were fleeing from, closing in on Germany, were the Russians.

My father is still alive today. He knows what these thousands of fleeing Ukrainian families feel like today.

Her Car is Parked in our Lot

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities, Feelings, WarLeave a comment

Here is a picture of U.S. Marine Nicole Gee In Kabul just days before she was killed in the suicide attack.

Image and Article at Redditt [click image for article original article]
Her good friend and a fellow Marine wrote this for her:

Her car is parked in our lot.

It’s so mundane. Simple. But it’s there.

My very best friend, my person, my sister forever. My other half. We were boots together, Corporals together, & then Sergeants together. Roommates for over 3 years now, from the barracks at MOS school to our house here. We’ve been attached at the hip from the beginning. I can’t quite describe the feeling I get when I force myself to come back to reality & think about how I’m never going to see her again. How her last breath was taken doing what she loved—helping people—at HKIA in Afghanistan. Then there was an explosion. And just like that, she’s gone.

Our generation of Marines has been listening to the Iraq/Afghan vets tell their war stories for years. It’s easy to feel distant when you’re listening to those conversations, it’s easy for that war & those stories to sound like something so distant—something that you feel like you’re never going to experience since you joined the Marine Corps during peacetime. The stories are powerful and moving. Motivating. You know it can happen. And you train to be ready if/when it does. You’re ready. Gung-Ho. You raise your hand for all of the deployments, you put in the work. But it’s hard to truly relate to those stories when most of the deployments nowadays involve a trip to Oki or a boring 6 months on ship.

Then bad people do bad things, and all of a sudden, the peaceful float you were on turns into you going to Afghanistan & for some, never coming back. It turns into your friends never coming home.

Her car is parked in our lot.

For a month now, it’s been parked in our little lot on Camp Lejeune at the Comm Shop where I work. I used it while my car was getting fixed & I just haven’t gotten around to bringing it back to our house. I drove it around the parking lot every once in a while to make sure it would be good for when she came home. So many Marines have walked past it, most of them the newer generations of Marines, our generation of Marines. The same Marines who often feel so distant from the war stories their bosses tell them about. I’m sure they thought nothing of it—just a car parked in a parking spot. Some of them knew her. Some of them didn’t. But they all saw her car. They all walked past it. The war stories, the losses, the flag-draped coffins, the KIA bracelets & the heartbreak. It’s not so distant anymore.

Her car is still there, & she’s gone forever.

I love the first photo. We climbed to the top of sugar cookie in 29 one Saturday morning a few years ago to pay our respects. I snapped the picture on my camera. I never would’ve thought her name would be on a cross like those one day. There’s no way to adequately prepare for that feeling. No PowerPoint training, no class from the chaps, nothing. Nothing can prepare you.

My best friend. 23 years old. Gone. I find peace knowing that she left this world doing what she loved. She was a Marine’s Marine. She cared about people. She loved fiercely. She was a light in this dark world. She was my person.

Til Valhalla, Sergeant Nicole Gee. I can’t wait to see you & your Momma up there. I love you forever & ever.

Dr. Seuss and High-Grade Niggers

On By Norbert HauptIn Art, Atrocities, Slavery2 Comments

The political right in the United States is taking issue right now about Dr. Seuss’ estate pulling back six of his books. Mind you, nobody was forcing them to do this. They did this after their own initiative.

[click to enlarge]
So check out this drawing. If you don’t see the problem with this picture, and you don’t think it’s objectionable in 2021, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

If we have people in the United States Congress who have issues with Dr. Seuss pulling back this book, WE HAVE A PROBLEM.

The Capitol Riot Eye Gouger

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities2 Comments

[This post was updated March 8, 2021 with current information]

The FBI is looking for the Capitol Rioters. Here is an article in HuffPost with many pictures of wanted criminals.

The man in the picture above gained notoriety as the eye gouger. Here is a picture of him trying to gouge out the eye of a capitol police officer. In the first version of this post, I had stated that this officer only had one eye left for the rest of his life. A helpful reader has since corrected me and stated that the gouger was unsuccessful, and the officer has since fully recovered. 

I am a martial artist. In my training, many years ago, I have learned a lot of gruesome techniques of self defense, and I believe if I were trapped in a threatening situation I would have a lot of “weapons” at my disposal that could do serious damage to an attacker. In my entire life, I have never been in a situation where I needed to draw on those skills. That’s because I always make choices that do not put me in such a situation in the first place. I have to say, however, that it has helped me greatly in my confidence walking down the street in a sketchy area from time to time.

One move at anyone’s disposal is eye gouging. You can do it with one hand and one eye, like in the picture shown, or you could use a double-eye technique. I am not going to go into the details, but it’s definitely an effective self defense for anyone being attacked by someone of superior strength in very close quarters. One example would be a woman being raped.

Having this knowledge and training, and knowing such techniques is one thing. It’s another thing to use them frivolously. As a martial artist, the most important “skill” you learn is to respect others and never, ever purposely hurt them or attack them. As a matter of fact, even when using techniques for self defense, a martial artist will think about the appropriate response before counter-attacking. For instance, say you are a female, and your brother-in-law is drunk and tries to sexually assault you. You have choice to make. Do you want to kill him? Do you want to maim him for life? Do you want him to be hospitalized for a while? Or do you just want him off you so you can run away, and he can sleep off his drunken stupor and you can deal with the situation the next day without violence? These are four very distinct choices you have to make before you decide to counter-attack in a given situation.

I cannot imagine in what universe the man shown in the picture above lives, where he thought he had the right to attack a police officer and try to gouge out his eye, thus maiming him permanently, just because the police officer did his job and tried to interfere with the man’s attempt to invade the Capitol. The Gouger did this not because he was threatened or attacked.

He planned a trip to Washington. He went on an airplane. He traveled to a hotel and stayed the night. Then, on January 6, 2021, he went to a political rally and proceeded to do this deed. What else did he do that day? Who else did he severely injure before the day was over? He did this not protect his family, or himself, against some aggression.

He did it because he didn’t agree with the politics of the opposing political party.

In what world, in a civilized country, is it ok to gouge out another person’s eye because of political beliefs or ideological or religious convictions? The only world I can imagine is the same world where it was acceptable fly an airliner into a building and kill 3,000 innocent people. It’s terrorism, pure and simple.

The Gouger got away. He went back to the airport, flew home, and now sits at the kitchen table with his wife and children.

The FBI is looking for him. I hope somebody recognizes him and reports him. Somebody works with this man. He is somebody’s neighbor, or brother, or uncle. I hope he gets his day in court, where he can explain how it came about that he felt he had the right to try to gouge out the eye of a police officer at a “political rally.”

I wonder how he will explain this to his children.

The Rioters Can’t Be Very Bright

On By Norbert HauptIn AtrocitiesLeave a comment

I am really having trouble understanding what went on inside the heads of Capitol rioters, like the woman on this mugshot: Riley June Williams. She is 22 years old and it would seem she has her entire life ahead of her.

Instead, she enters an extremely prominent government building as part of a mob on January 6, 2021, and steals a laptop from a desk inside the office of the Speaker of the House. Mind you, this is not going into some post office and stealing a cash register. The Speaker is second in line of succession to the office of President of the United States.

Then she goes on multiple videos of others and of her own making and brags about stealing property of a U.S. government official with the intention of selling it to a hostile foreign power.

Jonathan Pollard spent 28 years in prison for being convicted for activities similar to that. Now, out under house arrest with her mother, she is apparently still working on contacting others and encouraging them to destroy evidence.

How stupid can these people be?