Margit Morawetz Meissner’s Story

I have just finished reading “Margit’s Story”, the autobiography of Margit Meissner, a remarkable woman and friend of ours. Published in 2003, and for sale among other places at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, where Margit acts as a docent, the book tells in remarkably clear, readable style and with apparent objectivity, her fascinating, and often harrowing life story.

Born Margit Morawetz in 1922 in Innsbruck, Austria and raised largely in Prague, her mother came from a very wealthy family and her father was a very successful banker, allowing the Morawetz family to live in style and luxury, to travel widely and to meet some of Europe’s most cultured artists, musicians and families.

All this came to a change first slowly and then abruptly as Hitler first invaded Austria ending the family’s summer use of its home in Alt Aussee, and then as the Germans entered Prague. In Paris at the time, Margit and her mother escaped through France, across the Pyrenees, through Spain, into Portugal and eventually to America. In these two sentences, I have unmercifully shortened the courage, the adventures and the luck that they found along the way, even as others of their family were escaping to Australia, to Canada, to England, and not at all.

Arriving in America, first finding work in New York and then in California, Margit married for the first time (unsuccessfully and against the advice of her friends and family) and found herself back in Europe after the war, working with children in Germany and elsewhere, and eventually spending time in Alexandria (Egypt) and Israel, before returning to California. She was only about 30.

She remarried Frank Meissner, who became a business man, and Margit had two children, continued work she had done as a dressmaker and dress designer in a number of settings, and began working with children with disabilities as the result of some physical problems and learning disabilities of her own children. They lived in Buenas Aires for a time, and she eventually moved to Washington DC, where they lived for many years in Bethesda, and Margit became very active in matters at her local schools and throughout Montgomery County, while her husband worked at the InterAmerican Development Bank.

Throughout all of this, Margit, with a great linguistic facility that can only put most of us to shame, learned German, Czech, Hungarian, Russian, French, Spanish, English and Portuguese, speaking most of them fluently and without a noticeable accent. She proved to be extraordinarily handy with needle and thread and related equipment, as a seamstress, designer, business owner and manager, and instructor. She proved herself able to organize not for profit organizations concerned with education and special needs students. She kept up innumerable friendships; she traveled everywhere (her siblings lived in Canada, Ibiza and Australia, with second homes scattered throughout Europe), and the last time I saw her, a couple of months ago, she was, now a widow from her third husband, at age 86, about to go on a trip to Bhutan.

We trust she got back safely and enjoyed the trip. I must call her up and make sure.

Italy has changed (2 cents)

If you don’t believe me, read “Christ Stopped at Eboli” by Carlo Levi (1945) or “Fontamara” by Ignazio Silone (1933). Even if you believe me, you should probably look at these 20th century classics to remind yourself of the changes in Europe wrought not only by wars but by the coming of roads, tourism, prosperity and technology.

“Show Boat” Lite: a slow boat to nowhere at the Signature (5 cents)

I had read a few highly mediocre review of “Show Boat” at the Signature Theatre, but tried to ignore them when I went to see the show last night for at least three reasons: you can’t rely on reviews in general, “Show Boat” is one of my favorite musicals, and the Signature generally puts on first class productions. Unfortunately, this time the critics are right and this particular Show Boat will simply laze along the river until it closes in mid-January.

The production has so many problems. First, although there are some strong performances (Joe, Queenie, Gaylord Ravenel, Frank and Ellie), two of the most important roles (Nola and Julie) were poorly cast and are poorly performed, with each of the two actors showing lack of (or wrong) emotions, struggling to stay on pitch, with too much vibrato in their voices. Second, the orchestration, so important for this show, is somehow off – a little too tinny perhaps, not rich enough, and not sufficiently integrated into the show. Third, the staging, for “Show Boat” is minimalist – for example, there is no boat, putting this production about half way between a full production and a concertized version of the show. Fourthly, a couple of good songs were cut, and some of the dialogue was rewritten (without success). Fifth, the production is totally devoid of all drama – a show that normally absorbs the attention of so many different emotions (issues of segregation in the south, and in Chicago; difficulties of making a living in early 20th century America; addictions of drink and gambling; laws against mixed racial marriages and relationships; “passing” for white and being outed; parents and children; spousal relationships; life upon the wicked stage) is devoid of any emotion, cold, bland, disjointed.

“Show Boat” is a wonderful show, combining great musical tunes with a high sense of drama, showing post-civil war America trying to grapple with racial and socio-economic issues. If the music is sub-par, and the drama utterly lacking, what do you have left? Memories of better performances, a few tunes that keep running through your head, and hopes for more successful “Show Boat”s in the future. The cast of this show seemed so stale, as if they know they have a loser on their hands; how will they keep going for six more weeks?

Much Ado About Nothing (a Double Entendre) at the Folger (35 cents)

Let’s start with a confession. I think that “Much Ado About Nothing” is just what the name says. I don’t like the play. I don’t like the plot. I don’t like any of the characters. I understand that this play has been performed steadily over the past 400 years and that it is one of Shakespeare’s more accessible comedies, but I just don’t like it.

Having said that, I have seen it performed a few times, I saw it last night at the Folger in Washington, and I am sure I will see it again. But while I can appreciate a good performance, I am sure that my overall impression is colored by what I think of the script itself.

There is some good acting in the Folger production (see below), but the negatives far (far!) outweigh the positives, in my opinion. Here are my problems:

First, the director decided to set the play in Washington DC and display the “diversity” of Washington and especially its Caribbean-born community. Well, OK, why not? Shakespeare has been updated before. BUT…..they didn’t change the text to say that this was Washington DC. They kept talking about being in Messina. In fact there was nothing unique about the set making it Washington DC. It was really set in “anyplace” urban world, from all I could see.

Second, the play starts with the return of the military – in the play, I think it was the Sicilians against the Florentines. But in this production, what war were they coming back from? It made no sense.

Third, the diversity was weird plus. The two central women, cousins, were both played by African American actors, with a West Indian accent, as was the role of Leonato, their father/uncle. In fact, each of the female roles appeared to be played by African Americans with Caribbean accents, but the other men were not African American, and did not have Caribbean accents – I thought that the contrast and imbalance was embarrassing.

Fourth, the role of Borachio (an evil perpetrator, turned informer) is a male role, here played by a woman. But they kept the clearly male name, and called her both “fellow” and “her”, as I understood it, confusing her sexual identity for no good reason. And, because she was played by an African American woman, they had her speak with a Caribbean accent, even though she was the only of the “non-neighborhood” types to do so.

Fifth, the prince Don Pedro was played by an Asian American, who has an Asian intonation in his voice, and his brother Don John was an angry young white man (he would have been better cast as Rif in West Side Story). Etc., etc. I just thought the casting was awful.

Now, some of the performances were excellent – particularly Rachel Leslie’s Beatrice (although she was better as the first act shrew than as the out-of-the-closet lover), Roxi Victorian’s Hero (whose performance improved as time went on and her condition worsened) and Doug Brown’s Leonato. Howard Overshown’s Benedick was acceptable, although he and Beatrice seemed to have no chemistry, and his performance does not stand on its own the way Leslie’s does. The actors playing Claudio, Don Pedro and Don John, though, were totally sub-par for what you would expect at the Folger, and although Alex Perez’ Dogberry grew on me, I thought with a little more directing assistance, he could have done much more with the role. And what a waste to have talented actor Craig Wallace acting as a DJ, spinning West Indian music.

This is the third performance we have seen at the Folger since we became subscribers. And the first to disappoint. Hopefully, the remaining two this year (“Orestes” and “Hamlet”) will remind us why we bought the subscription.

Music, Music, Music

Yesterday’s concert at the Church of the Epiphany was a piano soloist devoting the noon hour to Haydn, whose 200th jahrzeit is being noted this year. She started with a Haydn concerto, followed by a series of Mozart variations. I was disappointed with both, not necessarily because of the technique of the soloist (although I asked myself the question), but because I thought that the Steinway concert grand and the church’s acoustics did not permit the music to be as light as it needed to be. It sounded too ponderous. Then came a tribute to Haydn written 100 years ago by Debussy, a short piece which I enjoyed immensely.

The last piece on the hour long program was Beethoven’s First Piano Sonata, which he had dedicated to Haydn. During the first movement, something happened that I had never experienced before. After playing for 3 or 4 minutes, the pianist stopped, stood up, smiled to the audience and said something like “I have to get something”, leaving the stage. In less than a minute, she returned with the sheet music, which she opened up on the piano, and she started the piece anew. How often she looked at the music, I am not sure. In fact, I thought the Beethoven was the highlight of her concert. It was just a bit weird.

And it got me thinking about my piano lessons, so long ago, at the St. Louis Institute of Music, in Clayton. I think I started when I was in 3rd or 4th grade.

SLIM occupied a very large, old brick building that sat upon a lot that encompassed an entire square block. I think there were three floors plus a basement. Whether it was originally built as a school, or an insane asylum, I never knew; it could have easily been either. The basement was used to print music; it was the home of the Art Publication Society of St. Louis, which was somehow affiliated with SLIM. I do not believe that either is in business anymore; the building has long been torn down.

BUT, there is a website!! www.slimites.org, according to my Google friends, and if you go there, you get a “coming soon” page. Whether it has been “coming soon” for a week, or for a decade, I don’t know. But at least there is proof (sort of) of its existence, that SLIM was not a product of my imagination.

Let me proceed…..My first piano teacher was named Arthurleigh Bartzen. That was something, because I was of course an Arthur, but he was an Arthurleigh! I had never heard of anyone with that name (and haven’t since). I remember he came from San Angelo, TX, which also surprised me, because he certainly did not look like he ever could have been a cowboy.

Now comes the weirder part: When you go on the slimites web site, there is a directory of people who have been connected with SLIM, with their addresses and phone numbers. I think you can get on simply by emailing at a yahoo.com site. AND Arthurleigh Bartzen (and his wife Shirley, who I am sure did not exist back then – we are talking 55 years or so ago) are listed, with an address and a phone number!!! How weird is that?

When you took piano lessons at SLIM, you also had to take a separate music theory class. Which I hated. So you went twice a week. I had a number of different theory teachers over the years I was there. I don’t remember most of their names, although I can picture one (tall, red haired, who when she played the piano swayed like a palm tree in a hurricane, and told us that playing the piano was a great way to loose weight) whose name I would like to recall. The one theory teacher that I do remember had a double last name, the first I had ever seen: Kara Georgieff.

Now when I google Kara Georgieff, I come up with a doctor Michael Kara Georgieff in St. Paul, MN. But when you look at his bio, you see that he went to Washington U. Medical School in St. Louis. So, was his mother my theory teacher? Perhaps.

And, if you go to the website of the Music Teachers National Association, you see that there is a member named Katja Georgieff, and that she lives in St. Louis. Is she related to Michael? Is her real name Katja Kara Georgieff?

One more point: the old Serbian royal family was the House of Karageorgevic. I learned that a long time ago, and always assumed that my theory teacher (long dark hair, mysterious accent) should have been the Queen of Yugoslavia.

So, as you see, my questions go on………….

Revenge, followed by Revenge (38 cents)

Sunday morning’s program at Adas Israel was beyond fascinating. Journalist Tom Friedman interviewed journalist Laura Blumenfeld about her book “Revenge”, this year’s “Adas Reads” selection.

First, Friedman was the perfect interviewer. He asked just the right questions, smiled and laughed at the right time, and went out of his way not to one-up his interviewee by inserting any of his own thoughts.

Not that Laura Blumenfeld would be easy to one-up.

Her story is as follows:

In the early 1980s, her father, an American rabbi, was shot in the old city of Jerusalem by an Arab, as one of a series of attacks. He was injured, but recovered. His daughter was in college at the time.

She decided to get revenge, and years later, as a Washington Post journalist and new bride, she and her husband spent a year in Jerusalem. Her stated purpose was to study revenge, and this she did, not only amongst the Palestinian community, but world wide, visiting societies were revenge was encouraged by and often programmed into the social fabric. She went to Sicily, to Albania and even to Iran. All by herself, never apparently identifying herself as Jewish and certainly not as the daughter of Rabbi Rosenfeld.

But what is most amazing, after she learned the identity of the shooter (who had been sentenced to 25 years in prison), she located and befriended his extended family, who lived somewhere between Jerusalem and Ramallah, visiting them (as an American journalist writing about revenge) over a period of months and months. And, through the family intermediaries, she corresponded extensively with the shooter, Omar, while he was in prison.

In most society, revenge is a vicious affair – eye for eye, tooth for tooth and all that. But Blumenfeld’s father talked to her about “constructive revenge”, where the goal was to build yourself up so that you did not feel inferior to, but rather became superior to, the object of your revenge. And she had a goal for Omar, as well: transformation.

In her initial contacts with Omar, he came across as ideological and strident. She wanted to break him down by showing him herself as a person, just as he was doing to his large family. And it seemed to have worked over time, as he told her (while in jail) that if he ever got out, he would not attack anyone again.

I don’t want to give away the climax, although Blumenfeld did on Sunday, because I think you should read the book. But even if you knew what happened, there are so many important issues raised by her half-crazed scheme to find and make contact with the man who shot her father, that the book would still be a worthwhile read.

At least that’s what I think. I haven’t read the book, either. But I will.

And revenge seemed to be the theme of the day, as we spent the evening at the Rockville Music Theatre’s wonderful production of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story”, where Jets and Sharks plot out and carry out revenge against each other throughout the show.

The cast was superb, including of course Michelle’s Rosalita (she who wants to go back to San Juan, to the dismay of all of her friends), but also Tony and Maria and Riff and Anita and all the others. Without great publicity, the show virtually sold out all performances. Everyone involved should feel very proud.

Sierra Leone, St. Louis Park MN, and Cafe Deluxe

1. Sierra Leone. The civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s was clearly awful. Just how awful it was can be glimpsed in the memoirs of Ishmael Beah, “A Long Way Gone”, published in 2007. Beah, now living in Brooklyn, having moved to the United States in 1998 at the age of 18, and graduated from Oberlin College in 2004, was trapped by the war in his native country and impressed into the Sierra Leone army at age 13. His native village was attacked by rebels the year before, he was separated from his family (other than his older brother) and with several other boys escaped into the forest, where they lived by hook or crook for the next year or so, before he wound up a soldier witnessing and being involved as an active participant in atrocity after atrocity. The story is, to a middle aged American, mind boggling.

What is equally mind boggling, however, is the sophistication of this changeable group of 6 or 7 boys, and their resourcefulness. Beyond that, Beah obviously shines above the others – educated in English, he was a fan of Shakespeare, able to recite from memory some of the memorable speeches of the Bard and able to discuss Shakespeare with one of the rebel officers. He and others were also fascinated by rap music, and he was part of a young performing group, just beginning to participate in local talent shows before the war erupted, and they took their cassettes with them as they wound through the countryside.

Luck and talent brought Beah to the United States, where he now heads an NGO focusing on the reorientation to society of former child soldiers.

His book is not without controversy, and has been attacked as being an exaggerated account and mentioning events and dates that cannot be corroborated and at times might even have been inaccurately described. Beah has responded forcefully to his critics. And of course it is impossible for a reader to know.

2. St. Louis Park, MN. St. Louis Park is the site of the new Coen Brothers movie, “A Serious Man”, which we saw tonight. Let me simply say that I thought the movie was awful. I am going to leave it at that.

3. Cafe Deluxe. Dinner at Cafe DeLuxe in Bethesda was, as always, very good, although I stuck with a salmon salad nicoise and a glass of Merlot. But all was good – the greens, the light dressing, the warmed salmon. I joined their frequent eater club – I don’t think I will ever get a free meal, but maybe a birthday present?

Do you want to read a really depressing book? “Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World” (5 cents)

I picked up an Advance Reading Copy of Maryland Professor Jeffrey Herf’s soon-to-be-published book, “Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World”, read it over a three day period, and wound up totally and completely depressed.

The subject matter of book is fascinating. It is a description of Nazi Germany’s propaganda campaign in North Africa, Iraq and Iran during the Second World War. It deals both with written propaganda, as well as extensive radio broadcasts, copies of the text of which have been found in recently opened German archives and American archives. It also tells of the diplomatic history of the time (the book does not dwell on military campaigns), both through embassy activity in the countries in question, and in Germany itself, working with certain Arabs in exile, then living in Berlin, the most well known of whom was the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini.

Here are the basics of the approach made by the Nazis: “Anti-Semitism” refers to Jews only, not to Arabs. Arabs and Aryans are both pure races. Everything bad has been caused by the Jews, and their allies, the British and the Americans. Perhaps “allies” is the wrong word, because it is the Jews who control the British and the Americans. And of course, they control the Russians, as well, as they are behind Communism, as well as Capitalism. And that’s not contradictory, because both of these isms are merely tools being used to destroy the Aryan/Moslem world. As is Democracy. And of course the most immediate manifestation is the entry of Jews in to Moslem Palestine, under British rule, by theft and deceit, and if the Allies win the war, there will be a Jewish state created that will include Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and parts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. And the Jews have been a problem since time memorial–look at what the Koran says. And there is only one thing to do about the Jews: kill them before they kill you.

While none of the Arab governments accepted this reasoning, the governments were all under British or French influence. But the masses of the people (there was no popular poling to be sure) seemed to be highly receptive to all of this, as did many of their popular leaders, not only the Grand Mufti. After all, it is during this period that the Moslem Brotherhood began to advance (before Egypt’s government cracked down) and they were behind this reasoning 100%.

What is worse, the British and Americans could not figure out a way to successfully argue against it: they couldn’t come out and strongly support the Jews (that would play into Nazi hands), and they couldn’t offend the Arabs or their governments (their need to have access through these lands, their military bases, and of course their need for oil kept them quiet). So the Germans had a pretty clear field.

When the war began going against the Arabs, starting with the defeat of Rommel at El Alamein in 1941, the propaganda no longer had the same effect on the military action, but it continued nevertheless, and the main themes (with which we are familiar even today) were picked up after the war by indigenous Arab and Moslem movements. In other words, traditional Arab or Moslem prejudice against the Jews was deepened through the addition of Nazi ideology, first to stir up support for the Axis during the war, and later simply to stir up more hatred towards the Jews.

And, to top it off, as many Nazi officials were brought to justice at Nuremberg, the middle eastern collaborators were, by and large, ignored. Again, this was primarily because no one wanted to upset the Arabs more than necessary. And some of these men had important careers well after the war ended.

The book is apparently the first to look at much of this material and is worth looking at if you need more detail than my sketch and have a high internal defense mechanism against complete and total (i.e. “what kind of world is this really?”) depression.

Bosnians in Israel; Indians in New Jersey (5 cents)

How many people see two Ella Alterman movies in one week? First, it was “Dubak – the Palestinian Jew” and today it was “The Woman from Sarajevo”. Both biopics, “Dubak” is the story of a nonconformist Jew from Gush Tzion, who worked with Bedouins finding lost hikers in the desert hills, and taught hard to teach kids from the local communities, claiming a connection with the land, whether it turned out to be Israeli or Palestinian.

“Sarajevo” is the story of a Moslem woman from Sarajevo, the daughter of a Yad Vashem Righteous Gentile, whose family hid (Anne Frank style) a Jewish family in the heart of Sarajevo from the Nazis for years in a room whose entrance was blocked by a large, heavy safe. Aida kept in touch with the saved family, who had moved to Israel and she herself moved to Israel with her daughter and husband. Changing her name from Aida to Sara, she converted to Judaism, along with her formally Christian husband and their daughter, and she got a job as an archivist at Yad Vashem. It is a story of bravery and righteousness, of religious differences overcome by human similarities, and of wars – not only World War II, but the 1992 Bosnian War. The footage of that war, like the movie “A Woman of Berlin” which I saw yesterday, shows just how dumb and tragic war is.

In addition to seeing the film (at the Library of Congress this afternoon), I read a book called “Suburban Sahibs” by S. Mitra Kalita, published in 2003. Sometimes I think that everyone should read a book now and then that they pick off the shelf without knowing what it is, or whether they will like it. “Suburban Sahibs” is about the Indian community which has developed in Central Jersey, around the town of Iseliln, where we often have stopped as we head north (or south) on the Garden State Freeway, for an Indian lunch on Oak Tree Avenue.

Following the lives of three immigrant families, the book gives very interesting insights into the life of this community, the “model minority” community, where the children obey the law, study hard, and almost all become doctors and engineers. While not the best edited book, it is very readable, very straightforward and delivers important messages of interest to all Americans.

Three Thoughts About Germany – Somewhat (Dis)connected

1. Martin Heidegger. A book by Emmanuel Fay, published in French in 2005, is about to be published in English translation and there have been a series of articles that I have seen talking about the book, and about its subject, an influential philosopher, who happened to be a Nazi (as well as a lover and friend of Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt). support of the Nazis has not held back his influence; this book questions whether it should, and whether in fact, in taking into account philosophical writings, one needs to understand the full background of the writer. Heidegger, opponent of western technological society and reason-based philosophy, was in fact, according this new book, extolling a philosophy that is consistent with Nazi thought. Of course, you don’t have to be a Nazi to be suspicious of western technological development (and you don’t even have to be an Islamic fundamentalist). And I wonder whether Heidegger’s Nazi background is important at all, or rather whether Heidegger is. Look at what the New York Times said today in its article on the subject:

“His prose is so dense that some scholars have said it could be interpreted to mean anything, while others have dismissed it altogether as gibberish. He is nonetheless widely considered to be one of the century’s greatest and most influential thinkers.”

Is there something wrong with this picture?

(As an aside, Kate Fodor’s excellent play on the relationship between Heidegger and Arendt was performed several years ago at Theater J; it has been performed elsewhere from time to time, and I expect this book will revive interest in it. It explores Arendt’s thinking as she reconnects with Heidegger after the war.)

2. The Woman of Berlin. At the last minute, we decided to see Eine Dame von Berlin at the Avalon last night. In 1954, in English, an anonymous diary was published by a woman who was living in Berlin when the Russians entered the city in April 1945. The diary, which extended over a period of several months, told of the brutal treatment of women by the entering and, eventually, occupying Russian forces, included continual sexual attacks. But it also told the story of how these women responded to these attacks, not necessarily by sabotaging their conquerors, but in some instances by accommodating to their new situation, picking and choosing between various Russian military men in return for protection from others, food, peace and quiet. Was this their only motivation? Were some of them themselves starved for sex? Were some of them simply thinking survival, or defeat, or coping with unbearable depression?

When the diary was published in 1959 in Germany, it created a furor, as a piece besmirching the German woman, and it was quickly hushed up. The author, anonymous but now believed to be a former German journalist named Marta Hillers who moved to Switzerland after the war and who decided that the diary would not be published again until after her death. Hillers died at 90 in 2001, the diary published in Germany in 2003, and this movie made several years later.

It is a brutal movie – both the war and the graphic sexual scenes (although nudity is kept to a minimum) – that keeps pounding you as you watch it. Is this the way it really was? Or was Hillers’ situation someone unique in that the movie focuses entirely on the fate of the women (and the few men) living in one particular formerly elegant apartment building in Berlin, and the Russian soldiers they came into contact with. Were other experiences of others different?

It is interesting to note that the first review of the diary itself on Amazon is by a man who was in the American military in Berlin at the time, and he finds the story line to be very credible and authentic. On the other hand, as we are dealing with an officially anonymous diary, other questions are raised: is it authentic at all? The book is apparently quite polished, and it has been suggested that it is the product of the writer’s imagination, rather than a true diary. Most scholars, though, seem to accept the diary for what it is.

You might find the movie, which is well acted (in German and Russian with English subtitles), worthwhile, but don’t expect it to be pleasant. And certainly recognize that it may raise new questions in your mind about the human condition, and not answer those that you already have.

The Berlin Wall. Today, of course is the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall. If you haven’t read any of the articles giving the chronology of what happened on November 9, 1989, try to do so. You will find it interesting, how some missed signals sent out word that the gates to the west were being opened, and once the word was out and people stormed the walls (something that perhaps they could have done at any time in at least the decade preceding that date), the East Germans had no choice but to follow through and open the passageways.

I keep talking about my visit to Berlin in 1962, one year after the wall was erected, and again in 2006, and how seemlessly these two formerly so different portions of this city were being reconstructed. Humpty Dumpty it was, turned on its head.