What to do with a dove thrown into the nest of snakes ...

I know this is a strange title. My language skills in the tongue which was not my mother's seems to be limited to express what I feel after reading this book. I will try to express it as clearly as I can:

It is about an incredible person. Probably the one among the best who was walking the earth ...
Yet his story left me in fear and sadness.  It is about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And about the book: „Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich”.  The author is Eric Metaxas.

Please let me warn you. Be that as it may, I truly admire Bonhoeffer. I was surprised how deep his religiousness was. And how deeply, being faithful to Christianity, he understood Jewish roots of his religion — what, among other things, brought him to total denial of German ant-Semitism amplified and explored by the Nazi. I could only wish there were more such priests and monks and Christian laymen...

I have to write about my admiration, because in the later part of this review I will be critical also of Bonhoeffer !
So why I have such strange feelings and thoughts ?

Let me now tell you few basic fact — I do not intend to write long, typical review. Eric Metaxas’ work is a very good record of the life and struggle and martyrdom of Dietrch Bonhoeffer. Dietrich was German pastor and theologian. He was born in 1906 in Wrocław (Breslau). He came from very prestigious family of Professor Karl Bonhoeffer, the neurologists and psychiatrist. His decision to become a theologian, and later the priest came when he was only fourteen. His other talents were in music (was a very good pianist) and in sports (was quite good athlete).

The story of Bonhoeffer's life tells the tragic truth about that dark period in German, and more generally, in human history. He opposed the Nazi regime, he did it long before the war and during it. Despite his apparent pacifism and priesthood he conspired to kill Hitler. For his involvement in the plot against Hitler he was sentenced to death and executed by hanging on April 9th, 1945, just few weeks before the end of the war ...

For all interested in details there is a very good article about him on Wikipedia.

Now, let me come to the essence of my feelings. The biography relates also what was the attitude of the Churches to Hitler and his Nazi regime. And here came first shock. How little we know about the “German Christians” whose coat-of-arms had Nazi swastika inscribed into the cross! And how popular that movement was among German Protestants of that times. How little we know about Ludwig Müller — who became Reich’s Bishop in 1933. And let’s not blame only protestants. Catholic Church with all its majesty entered into specific state contract with Hitler — The Concordat. This shameful act, negotiated by pope-to-be, Eugenio Pacelli, was signed when it became quite clear what are true Hitler’s intentions... Do we really know, that it was never revoked by the Holy See? How can we really think of WORDS in the Pius XI encyclical „Mit brennender Sorge” when the ACT was still in place?

Of course there were Christians who opposed Hitler, of course there were priests murdered by Nazism. But what is the shocking truth, is that even in “Confessing Church” the opposition against anti-Semitism was relatively week, and its famous Barmen Declaration even does not list anti-Semitism as a crime!

I know I will tell harsh and strong words here — but all that represents nothing less than a total failure of Christianity in Europe in XX century. When you know all that facts, and spend some hours contemplating on them — what do you think when some European politicians speak about “Christian roots” of Europe?

I will not give answers to these burning questions — I know they would be too blatant...

It seems to me, that Bonhoeffer knew about this total failure, and to me it is clear from his letters, where we can find the term that latter become, somehow improperly, an emblem of his theology: Religionless Christianity:

Our whole nineteen-hundred-year-old Christian preaching and theology rest on the "religious a priori" of mankind. "Christianity" has always been a form--perhaps the true form--of "religion." But if one day it becomes clear that this a priori does not exist at all, but was a historically conditioned and transient form of human self-expression, and if therefore man becomes radically religionless--and I think that that is already more or less the case (else how is it, for example, that this war, in contrast to all previous ones, is not calling forth any "religious" reaction?)--what does that mean for "Christianity"?

Many “Christian” critics of Bonhoeffer thought of his ill will in these thoughts...

Did they know the history? Did they know how many of Hitler’s Willing Executioners (a suggestio to the book is intentional) were devote Christians?

I think that the Bonhoeffer notion of religion which possibly could be built upon ruins of Christianity — is the only true hope for Christianity — at least this is my private, and certainly heavily biased, opinion — of the person who equally intentionally left Christianity years ago ...

On these thoughts I seem to be in line with the author of the biography, though he avoids making such strong statements as I did here.

But there is also something in this book that is even more disturbing. Several times in the book, almost casually, its author relates Bonhoeffer’s and his circles, including his family, opinion about the First World War and the “unjust” treatment Germans got in and after the Treaty of Versailles... Imagine — the people who caused the first round of horrors in XX century, and who, including its best people, to whom Bonhoeffer certainly belonged, did not even accept the historical punishment they got ! Were they blind ?

Are we all blind? Were there only few doves and all that remained was the nest of snakes ?

Written in Paris, London & Lodz....

Carl Orff & Brahms ...

Whenever I can, I listen to music on Saturdays. Today, my musical experiences were under the spell of German composers. I started with Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. This cantata was written in 1937. On the textual level it is based on secular German poems, embracing the nature of life, joy of nature, common pleasures and perils. „Wine, Women and Song” was the title of 1884 publication of the most of the poems contained in the cantata.



This is beautiful music, no question about that. However, always after I listen to the great German music, particularly of the early XX century music, I cannot avoid deep question how this highest emanation of culture could live with the silent acceptance of all Nazis atrocities committed at that time. What is the value of culture, music and literature, if it cannot help people to resist the blatant crime?

How can we listen to beautiful tunes and chords of great musical works when we know that their authors, openly supported the regime that coldbloodedly killed millions of people?

How can we enjoy it when:

„...German music, which had sought sublimity, transcendence, disengagement from the ordinary world, must bear responsibility for what happened down below as it roamed through higher realms. Mann hinted further that this very “musicality of soul” was the key to Germany's fall; the aesthetic had triumphed over the merely human. In Nazi Germany, music became either a weapon of hate or an opiate of indifference.” (Alex Ross: World War II Music)

So, while I enjoyed it, I had the feelings that spoiled my experience....
It is hard to forget that Orff, accepted Nazis' commission to write a replacement score for Mendelssohn's “Midsummer Night's Dream” — what certainly was one of the darkest deeds in all musical history.

Later today, I switched to older German music. Johannes Brahms and his symphonies. Dramatically different world — warm and great. Melodious and architectural. And listening it under the baton of Leonard Bernstein — is always a great experience....



Why? Is it because Brahms lived long BEFORE the dark times? Is he better than Orff and Strauss who openly collaborated with the Nazis? If so — what to think about Wagner?

I think, that the deep reflection on the German culture, its music, its literature, in all its highs and lows has been, and still is, the very important part of our intellectual life...

In this context, it is worth to read the entire Alex Ross article: "In Music, Though, There Were No Victories". You can find it here....

So it goes....

Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" is probably the best anti-war novel I ever read. Paradoxically, it is not openly or verbally pacifistic. Rather, by showing the absurdity of human condition in the war time, it builds in readers the strongest aversion to the war and to the artificial and often pompous "war heroism" - we so frequently witness in books and in media.

"Slaughterhouse Five" is a surrealistic novel, sometimes skimming on the brink of science-fiction genre. The title refers to the real building of the Dresden Slaughterhouse where American's POWs were kept in the very end of the war when the famous Dresden bombing happened.

It's subtitle, "The Children's Crusade" refers to the scene in the beginning of the book, where former II WW soldiers were called babies by the wife of war hero. In some sense the purpose of the subtitle is to despise the typical, pompous, heroic stories of the wars...

The most of the narration is filled by the story of Billy Pilgrim, an American soldier, who is sent by Germans to Dresden, just before the bombing. Billy experiences a mental state called "unstickness of the time" - he visits his past, present and future out of sequence, sometimes in backward direction and often, repetitively. During his time travels, he claims to be kidnapped by aliens and kept as hostage and zoo exhibit on a planet called Tralfamadore. These parts of the plot seem to be quite strange, but when you immerse into the text deeply, they play some increadible role - far from typical sci-fi motives in other novels.
In fact they have some philosophical implications. The questions of free will and of time and its meaning - are central to them. I like the concept of time and past looming from them - the past exists, is unchangable and can be visited in a way similar to that of our visits of places.

The bombing of Dresden is described with scarce details. Aftermath of the bombing, with infamous "corpse mine", where one of characters dies from vomiting (caused by the stench), is probably the only more detailed part of the novel.

The book is deeply related to the other Kurt's novels, "Mother Night" - the main character of the later plays an important episode in the former.

Travelling in space and time with Billy we are faced with almost absolute absurdity of the war, the cold cruelty of men in the wartime, without calling these features by name.

What makes this book special is peculiar climate it creates. In this very ambient, absurd atmosphere lies the strongest denial of wars and any warlike "culture".

Once again I proved myself how great writer was Kurt Vonnegunt...

Last but not least, I read the audio version of the book. The narration of famous Ethan Hawke was one of the best I ever experienced.

Spiegel: Laughing at Auschwitz

I must say: I have never seen more horrifying pictures related to Holocaust.

Can we really grasp that "normality" we see in these pictures?
Can we really atone for what we've done in XX century ?
We - humanity...

I stumbled upon this site by chance.

Book Thief - aftermath of the second reading ....

It really happened for the first time in my life. With so many books read, listen to, fascinated by, enchanted with - it did happened for the first time: I read the same book twice from cover to cover in row without stop, without anything read - or even listened to - between.

And the second reading was even better than the first. Try it - Zusak's "Book Thief" is something you will not regret to spend time on.

Now... See few strophes:

"She could feel his breathing and his shoulder moving up and down ever so slightly. For a while, she watched him. Then she sat and leaned back. Sleepy air seemed to have followed her. The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder. They breathed. German and Jewish lungs. Next to the wall, The Standover Man sat, numb and gratified, like a beautiful itch at Liesel Meminger's feet."

"Liesel stopped breathing. She was suddenly aware of how empty her feet felt inside her shoes. Something ridiculed her throat. She trembled. When finally she reached out and took possession of the letter, she noticed the sound of the clock in the library. Grimly, she realized that clocks don't make a sound that even remotely resembles ticking, tocking. It was more the sound of a hammer, upside down, hacking methodically at the earth. It was the sound of a grave. If only mine was ready now, she thought-because Liesel Meminger, at that moment, wanted to die."

"His armpits were soggy and the words fell like injuries from his mouth."

"It was neither warm nor cool and the town was clear and still. Molching was in a jar. She opened the letter. (...) She was afraid to turn around because she knew that when she did, the glass casing of Molching had now been shattered, and she'd be glad of it."

"A LAST NOTE FROM YOUR NARRATOR: I am haunted by humans."



There is a movie comming in about a year. If I see it right, it features great actor, Adrien Brody ... Here is the trailer:

"There were wooden teardrops and an oaky smile"

Without an exageration I can say that it was one of the best books I ever read...

I finished the reading (i.e. listening) in cold Paris, March 2009 walking on the dark streets of this city. And the first thing I did after I finished was to go back to the beginning and to start it again....

"First the colors. Then the humans" - this is how it starts, the story told from the perspective of ... death personified. The narration brings some far but strong recollections of that used by Norman Mailer in his "The Castle in the Forest", but don't take it as criticism - in fact it is a praise....

What makes Zusak's book such increadible experience? First and foremost - his vacabulary, his parlance, his prose poetry. Bacause of these, you loose the sense of reading the novel, and you feel like you are reading the poetry...

"I can promise you that the world is a factory. The sun stirs it, the humans rule it. And I remain. I carry them away. "

"The girl loved that-- the shivering snow"

One of my friends told me, when recommended the book couple of weeks ago: "I did not know how one could live through the words as it is in the book" ...

But there is also something else. The book has deep meaning and strong message. It is about the most dark period of human history - Nazi Germany. It's about Jewish persecution and Holocaust. But it is also about forgivness, about love, about the simple fact that not all Germans were Nazi and not all Nazis were killers. It's about life in hard times, and about difficult greatness.