November 22, 2016
We need any reminder we can get that individual action can make a difference. Some reminders come in form of memorials or museums, and I was happy to learn that a new one is planned, if fundraising succeeds.
Schindler’s Czech Factory, Used to Save More Than 1,000 Jews During WWII, to Become a Museum
The reason this caught my eye are somewhat personal. I was called by a British film maker in 1982/3 who was doing a documentary on Schindler, long before what’s his name did the technicolor version. Because of the Falkland war, British director John Blair was not allowed to travel to Argentina to interview Schindler’s widow. So he flew her to New York instead and I was hired to do the simultaneous translation between English and German during filming.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0180981/
A story of human failings, bitterness, betrayal and despair emerged. Emilie had suffered badly within the marriage and after; he left her to survive on her own on some isolated farm in Argentina, while he was feted as a hero in Germany and elsewhere. It was an awkward interview, given that the documentary was about a life saver, now being accused in various ways. Clearly, Schindler did a lot of what he did out of greed, or self aggrandizement, or other non-heroic motives. I later learned more about his widow’s fate here when she was brought back to Germany in 2001 shortly before she died there, her wrath at Spielberg and her mental decline.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jul/29/kateconnolly.theobserver
And yet: Schindler saved lives (so, as a matter of fact, did his wife, much less acknowledged.) He was a complex figure, joined the Nazi party for economic reasons, surely hurt many, but he showed courage, took risks, went as a lone individual against the death machine. May we all be that brave when it’s needed.
My photographs are from KZ Buchenwald. The pebbled fields commemorate the barracks. 
Steve Tilden
Friderike, you never cease to amaze me with your talents, but also these snippets of what you have accomplished in your varied life; a bit of a ‘oh by the way I did such and such’, things that are so far distant from this haole boy from the beaches of Oahu. One of my own claims to fame is that I still think its funny that my friends would call me ‘shark bait’ and urge me into the water first for their protection. How does that compare?
This YDP reminds me of reading about the Japanese diplomat in Vinius, when kicked out of the embassy, lived in a hotel room and issued visas to thousands of Jews fleeing the Nazis.
And here we are with a president-elect cut from the same sorry cloth as Adolf and Benito. Sad, but typically human.