Tag: Nazis

Introducing Buster Wellington from The Road We Took by Cathy A. Lewis

~ Cindy Thomson ~ 1 Comment

Inspired by her father’s historical recount and stories shared with her during her youth, The Road We Took: Four Days in Germany 1933 is the epic tale of an American Boy Scout who discovers by coincidence four desperate Jewish citizens attempting to escape Nazi Germany.

September 2nd, 1933

Mr. Darcy: Hello Buster! My name is Mr. Darcy, I work for the US Federal Government, Customs Division, and I will conduct your interview today. You’ll have to tell me even before we begin, I see by your passport Buster is not your real birth name. How did you come by that name? And, how old are you?

Buster: Buster is a nickname given to me by my mom, after the barber gave me a Buster Brown haircut. You know, the image of the boy used in advertising to sell shoes? His haircut reminds me of someone putting a bowl over his head and trimming what exceeded the rim of the bowl! And indeed, I had a haircut like that once, at age 3. My father howled with laughter when he saw it. At that point, he started calling me “Buster” and it stuck. My legal given name is Raymond Davis Wellington III. You can see why Buster is so much easier! My age, I just turned 17 three days ago.

Mr. Darcy: As you know, I’m a Customs Agent, and it is my job to interview passengers of the SS Bremen returning from Europe, especially Germany. Our government is interested in what you saw while traveling through. It’s my understanding you spent four days in Germany, is that correct? Can you tell me why you were there to begin with?

Buster: Six weeks ago, my Boy Scout Troop #814 from Rochester, New York began our journey through Europe with our destination being Godollo, Hungary. We were travelling there to attend the 4th Boy Scout World Jamboree. We camped in the Royal Forest on the grounds of the Hungarian Monarch’s estate for two glorious weeks. We camped, fished, played soccer against a number of foreign teams. Thanks to Wolfie, we won all of our matches. He’s a brilliant player. A natural for the sport. Wolfie was one of the best parts of the journey, finding him in Vienna while we were on our way to Godollo.  After the conclusion of the Jamboree, we headed to Germany. The port of Bremen to be exact, where our ship docked, our ship back to the US.

Mr. Darcy: Can you tell me more detail about what you witnessed while in Munich?

Buster: Mr. Darcy, no disrespect meant, but there is only one way to describe what happened in Munich. 

Mr. Darcy: Go on. 

Buster: All hell broke loose. To begin with, after the jamboree, our plan was to first return Wolfie to Munich, his father would be waiting for him. However, when we arrived, that wasn’t the only thing waiting for him. Then to make matters worse, there was a huge parade taking place right in front of our hotel. There were tanks and trucks and thousands of foot soldiers marching.

Mr. Darcy: This is what is of particular interest to me, the parade. Tell me about the troops. According to The Treaty of Versailles, Germany could not re-arm but apparently, the treaty was of no effect. There is one force behind this-Can you tell me who led this armament, who was behind this parade and show of force?

Buster:  That’s easy-Hitler and the Nazis. The troops, the number was astounding. And the way they marched, I believe they call it, “goose-stepping”. With thousands and thousands of troops marching like this, their boot heels hitting the pavement in synchronicity, it sounded like a canon going off with each step. And there were hundreds of tanks, and trucks. My father told me, “It was as if the treaty of Versailles never existed.”  On top of this show of force, there were Nazi Youth, thousands of them, all marching the same way. 

Mr. Darcy: Tell me about the citizens, what was the reaction? Also, this boy Wolfie, was he a German boy?

Buster: Every building hung a Nazi banner, you know, the swastika, and the people lining the streets all had armbands and held flags of the Nazi symbol. It was like they were all in a trance, cheering and shouting in approval, smiling and chanting. Even small children! Like they were drugged. Wolfie was supposed to join the Hitler Youth, it was the law. All boys of a certain age had to quit other groups and join. But he didn’t.

Mr. Darcy: Why not?

Buster: Well, he wanted to remain in the Boy Scouts to attend the Jamboree even though it was forbidden.

Mr. Darcy: We have information that states anyone in opposition to the Nazis, any kind of objector or political adversary, anyone that is Jewish would face severe treatment, even death, did you witness this?

Buster: Oh, yes, yes indeed. It’s difficult for me to discuss. My father can speak of that in detail, you know he works for The State Department as Counsel, right?

Mr. Darcy: Yes, of course we do. Can you tell me one last thing about your journey, sum it all up?

Buster: To begin with, I feel like my eyes have been opened to a hatred I never knew existed. I guess you could say I’ve led a sheltered life up till this point. I’ve never seen brutality such as the kind I witnessed, and not just one incident. It was happening all over Germany, and my father told me about the instances, the events we didn’t see. To think that a man can dictate who can live and who can’t. That a person would have such hatred for Jewish people, the infirmed, anyone that didn’t match the German image and identity astounds me. I can’t understand it. 

Aren’t we all just people, with the same thing running through our veins? This trip made me aware of so many things and I’ve undergone a change as a result. I will now watch out for the younger scouts in my troop, making sure they never have to go through what Ricky and Walter went through. Such life changing abuse. And then, there’s Maddie. Beautiful, gifted Maddie. Because of her, I will never judge a person based on their background, their religion, or any kind of disability. I’ve learned the Nazis murder people that aren’t like them. They want to take over the world and spread their poison throughout the world as we know it. We cannot let that spread or our world as we know it will be destroyed.

Mr. Darcy: Wise words, Buster. This concludes our interview. Your father is next. Thank you.

Cathy has spent over 40 years as a professional chef after graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in New York. She was the first female Executive Chef for the Servico Corporation, where she served The Philadelphia Eagles, The Philadelphia Flyers and The Philadelphia 76’ers. Over the course of her career, Cathy capitalized her creative talents as a restaurant owner and partner, conceptualizing and creating brands for three successful startup businesses, Food Works, in Pittsford, New York, The Bagel Bin in Penfield, New York, and The Nick of Thyme in Brentwood, Tennessee. It was at the Nick of Thyme that Cathy developed long standing relationships within the music industry. Her clients included Donna Summer Sudano, Naomi Judd, Wynonna Judd, numerous Christian and country music artists, world-renowned wine collectors Billy Ray Hearn and Tom Black. After the sale of her business, Cathy cooked for and traveled extensively to movie locations with actress and activist Ashley Judd and her husband, three-time Indy 500 champion Dario Franchitti.  She continues to cook privately for exclusive clients and friends.

When she is not working as a professional chef, she enjoys writing, reading, cooking for her family and special friends, taking photos of nature and food, gardening, watching open wheel racing, watching movie classics from the golden age of cinema on TCM, and chasing her two cats, Princess Poopie Peanut Head and Tout Suite. The Road We Took is Cathy’s first novel and partially conceived from her father’s journal of daily writings and documentations along with the narratives and tales he told Cathy as a young girl. https://www.cathyalewis.com

Interview with Perla Divko from The Devil’s Breath by Tom Hogan

~ Cindy Thomson ~ Leave a comment

Perla Divko, along with her husband Shimon, is an Auschwitz prisoner forced by Kommandant Rudolf Höss to solve a murder (of Höss’s accountant) and the theft of millions in gold extracted from the teeth of gas chamber victims. The Divkos are a formidable team: Shimon was Chief Detective in Warsaw, while Perla was an investigative reporter. In The Devil’s Breath, the pair approaches their assignment with two goals:  to solve the murder and theft, and thus stay alive; and to get word and evidence about Auschwitz and its industrial murder to the outside world.

Q:  You and your husband are forced to help your captors and torturers. How difficult was that for you?

A:  The Kommandant tortured my husband, but he didn’t break. Then they told us that they would execute 100 of each of our barracks-mate if we wouldn’t help. I believe we were still willing to die for our beliefs, but then Divko suggested that we had a unique opportunity to get inside the workings of Auschwitz and document the mass murder happening there. That was what made working with the Nazis palatable.

Q:  You and your husband are a team of equals, a rare commodity in Europe, especially Poland.

A:  We were fortunate in that we both had established ourselves in our professions before we met. And when we first met, I had more sources and inside information than Shimon. So we met as equals, became partners, and only then got married.

Q:  Your alliance with your Nazi overseer, Graf, is again something unique in the stories we hear about the Holocaust, especially the camps. How did that come about?

A:  It began as an adversarial relationship, with Herr Graf charged with overseeing every phase of the investigation and reporting it back to his Nazi overlords. But Graf was also a human being, and once he saw the workings of Auschwitz up close, his human side trumped his Nazi loyalties. And that opened the doors to each of us being to talk to the other as equals, rather than prisoner/captor.

Q:  You had a fiery relationship with Gisela Brandt, the female SS officer in charge of camp labor. Were you ever worried that she might send you to the gas chambers for what she called your ‘insubordination’?

A:  Not really, but only because I was far more useful to her alive than dead. And while she pretended that we were allies, she was a Nazi through and through, and I knew that the moment my value to her and the Kommandant lessened, I’d be in the next transport to the gas chambers.

About the Book:

The Devil’s Breath is a fascinating new suspense novel set in Auschwitz. This murder/theft mystery takes a unique approach to Holocaust literature. Instead of the events of camp and ghetto life being the primary narrative, The Devil’s Breath uses the Holocaust as the setting for a gripping murder and heist mystery, educating the reader as it entertains.
Auschwitz prisoners Perla and Shimon Divko—she an investigative reporter, he a former lead detective in the Warsaw ghetto—are forced by Kommandant Rudolf Höss to solve the murder of his chief accountant and find millions in missing gold taken from the bodies of Jewish corpses. With Reichsführer Himmler due for his annual audit, they have a week to solve the crime or watch hundreds of their peers executed as the penalty for their failure. The investigators dive deep inside Auschwitz—the Kanada harvesting operation, the killing process and the perils of daily life, hindered at every step by multiple red herrings, the murder of prime suspects and witnesses, and the complicated relationship between Höss and his mistress, Gisela Brandt, an SS officer.
The Divkos have two agendas in accepting the case: 1) to solve the crime and keep themselves and the hostage prisoners alive; and 2) find a way to alert the world about the scope and purpose of Auschwitz. In a thrilling conclusion, they solve the crime but are sentenced to death in the gas chamber for their efforts, where in a triumphant but heartbreaking finale, they pull off one act of resistance.

Title: The Devil’s Breath ISBN: 978-1-7369436-1-8 274 pgs., Format: Paperback Price: $17.95, Kindle: $2.99 ISBN: 978-1-7369436-0-1 Pub. date: Aug. 30, 2021

About the Author
Tom Hogan grew up in post-war Germany, living in a German village with his US military family. When Tom was 8, the family visited Dachau, the original Nazi concentration camp, which prompted Tom to wonder how many of his neighbors had known about or participated in the campaign against the Jews and the resulting Holocaust. It was a question that would stay with Tom his entire life.
After graduating from Harvard with an MA in Biblical Archaeology, Tom was recruited by a human rights agency to bring Holocaust Studies into high school and college curricula. For four years he taught at Santa Clara University and traveled with Holocaust survivors to school districts and universities, bringing the lessons of the Holocaust home to new audiences.
In the late 80s, Tom left teaching to join a growing company, Oracle, as its first creative director. Leveraging his success at Oracle, he joined the VC (Venture Capital) world, where his agency, Crowded Ocean, positioned and launched over 50 startups, many of them market leaders today. He is the co-author of The Ultimate Startup Guide, which is used in graduate and MBA programs. 
He recently left the tech world to return to teaching. For five years he taught Holocaust and Genocide Studies at UC Santa Cruz. He then retired to Austin, where he now writes full-time. His first novel, Left for Alive, was described by Kirkus as “gritty and observant, particularly his descriptions of the various outlaws who populate his pages… an impressive tale about criminals that will hold readers hostage.” The Devil’s Breath is his second novel. In addition to his fiction, Hogan is a screenwriter and has written for Newsweek as well as numerous political and travel publications.

Introducing Ada from Ronald H. Balson’s The Girl From Berlin

~ Cindy Thomson ~ Leave a comment

Thank you for doing this.  It seems you have experienced a roller coaster ride of guilt, anger, fear, and redemption while having to deal with a treacherous Nazi regime. Because you and your family are Jewish you were deprived of careers/businesses, then property, basic rights, and ultimately, for many of them, their lives. I am sure many times you got a reprise from your music skills. 

Elise Cooper: Why did you want to become a violinist?

Ada Baumgarten:I think it was always a given.  My father was first chair for the Berlin Philharmonic.  On my fifth birthday, he gave me a bench made violin, crafted by a one of Germany’s finest violin makers.  My father taught me well and from then on, my dream was to play next to him in the orchestra.

EC: Do you harbor any hard feelings toward Wilhelm Furtwangler?

AB: None.  Maestro Furtwangler was badly misunderstood and received unjust criticism after the war because he chose to stay in Germany with his orchestra, which had the collateral effect of lending cultural prestige to Hitler and Nazi Germany.  But he was never a Nazi and he abhorred their policies. He stood up to Hitler and did his best to protect his Jewish players, including my father.  In defiance of Goebbels and Hitler, he continued to conduct music from Jewish composers and he featured Jewish soloists.  When my father was arrested during Kristallnacht, it was Furtwangler that contacted me and attempted to make arrangements for his rescue.

EC: What do you think of Rafael Schachter?

AB: He was a remarkable man.  With an old piano, he found in a damp basement, he brought music to prisoners in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.  He gave them pride and a purpose – a way to temporarily escape the dread of their confinement.  He assembled and taught 160 inmates to perform the technically difficult Verdi Requiem by rote memory.  

EC:  Can you tell us about Hitler’s plot?

AB: In June 1944, Hitler devised a fraudulent plot to fool the International Red Cross.  He boasted that Theresienstadt was a Jewish spa and invited them to inspect. The Nazis quickly beautified the camp and when the Red Cross came to inspect, Rafael’s chorus performed the Verdi Requiem.  The prisoners proudly and loudly sang to the Red Cross and the Nazis.  Their secret joy was that the Nazis didn’t understand the words that were sung in Latin.  The inmates were singing words that condemned the Nazis on Judgment Day: “Day of wrath, day of wrath, when the wicked shall be judged!”  Today we call that performance “The Defiant Requiem.”

EC: Did you ever fathom that the German people as a whole would turn their backs on the Jews who were their neighbors, friends, and business partners?

You were overheard saying “Perhaps the most hurtful and inimical result of the campaign as the pervasive acceptance of Nazi policies by German society…while the law did not require our non-Jewish friends to shun us, it became apparent they would no longer stand up for us.” 

AB:In the years preceding the war, there was a much smaller Jewish presence in Italy.  Forty thousand lived in Italy and five hundred thousand in Germany.  Jews were prominent in prewar Germany in several disciplines: the arts, science, finance, medicine.  Many middle-class Germans who had suffered during the severe depression years were resentful.  Most importantly, Germany had Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, a master at controlling the media and public opinion.  As a result, the German people were manipulated into accepting, or ignoring their government’s policy of Jewish persecution.  The Italian people did not harbor such prejudice and hatred.

EC: Do you wish your family had the foresight to get out sooner?

AB:Of course, but it’s a mistake to think that the failure of Jews to leave Europe was a lack of foresight.  In many cases, they were trapped. Where could they go? Immigration visas were tight or non-existent.  Borders were closed.  And if we could leave, where do we resettle?  How do you pick up and leave everything you know?  No one anticipated extermination camps.  In my family’s case, we could have resettled in another city with a new orchestra, but my father was loyal to his conductor.

EC: What was it like for you to have Hitler and Heydrich approach after your playing?

AB:I was young and conflicted.  They were the two most powerful men in Germany and well-known music lovers.  Heydrich was an accomplished violinist.  To receive praise for my artistry was flattering for a teenageer, but I also realized that the compliments were coming from detestable human beings.

EC: What are your feelings for Kurt, your childhood friend who stayed a friend?

AB:I always loved Kurt.  He was a good person.  He never bought into the Nazi ideology.  Like many boys growing up in Germany, he was forced to join the Hitler youth and ultimately the army.  When the chips were on the table, he proved his goodness.

EC: Are you haunted, bitter, and angry for a life stolen from you as well as loved ones?

AB: As I wrote in my memoir, I have no regrets.  I have led a rich and fortunate life.  I played music on the finest stages beside the most gifted musicians.  My family life was warm and satisfying.  I am sad for what happened to my loved ones, but my life was not stolen.

THANK YOU!!

Ronald H. Balson has also written Once We Were Brothers, Saving Sophie, Karolina’s Twins. As an attorney, the demands of his trial practice have taken him into courts across the United States and into international venues. During the early 2000s Ron spent time in Warsaw and southern Poland in connection with a complex telecommunications lawsuit. While in Poland Ron was profoundly moved by the scars and memorials of World War II, which inspired him to write Once We Were Brothers, his first novel. Inspiration for his other novels were provided by his extensive travels to Israel and the Middle East. He also has been inspired by talking with, and meeting Holocaust survivors. 

Review: Hidden Among the Stars by Melanie Dobson

~ Cindy Thomson ~ Leave a comment

978-1-4964-1732-9In most dual-time period novels I prefer the historical line more than the contemporary one. In Melanie Dobson’s new novel, Hidden Among the Stars, I was deeply immersed in both. In the contemporary line we meet Callie, a bookstore owner who reads stories to children and is comfortable living in the secluded nest of Mount Vernon, Ohio. This appealed to me because I live nearby. The author has definitely been here as everything she described was completely accurate from the hiking trail to the Ohio State campus. That was a bonus, however, because the world of children’s stories and the compelling backstory of Callie and her sister and their mysterious but loving mentor Charlotte kept me turning pages.

Likewise the stories of Annika and the boy she admires Max and the girl he longs to marry Luzia set in Austria at the onset of WWII was so vividly drawn and compelling that I could not say which storyline I preferred.

The stories are tied together at the beginning. We know what the mystery is about: A bookstore owner discovers a cryptic list in an old book and finds herself linked to the story of a mysterious Austrian castle, where priceless treasures were hidden in the early days of WWII. We, along with Callie, suspect that Charlotte, who spent time in an orphanage in France during the war, has some connection to this old book that no one yet understands, not even Charlotte. All the characters, even Josh the man that Callie finds herself drawn to, have pasts that make it hard for them to trust and love again, and that makes a reader root for them all.

The faith element is clear in this novel and the characters cling to the hope that Jesus brings into their lives. If I have any complaint, it’s very slight. I thought the first time Josh tells Callie about his faith it seemed more like a sermon than a conversation. However, when it comes up later it flows naturally within the story. And when you are dealing with personal loss (contemporary) and persecution of the Jews (historical) clinging to one’s faith is expected. The novel did not come off preachy in my opinion.

In the Author’s Note, Melanie explains that she indeed has been to the places she writes about. From a bookstore in a small Ohio town to a castle beside a lake in Austria, these places spoke to her and they certainly spoke to me as I read the story, not just as interesting locations, but as places where common people lived, loved, and did the best they could to overcome obstacles and evil. I loved this book. I think you will too!

pic_FULL_Dobson_MelanieMelanie Dobson is the award-winning author of more than fifteen historical romance, suspense, and time-slip novels, including Catching the Wind and Chateau of Secrets. Three of her novels have won Carol Awards, and Love Finds You in Liberty, Indiana won Best Novel of Indiana in 2010. Melanie loves to explore old cemeteries and ghost towns, hike in the mountains, and play board games with her family. She lives near Portland, Oregon, with her husband, Jon, and two daughters.

An advance copy of Hidden Among the Stars by Melanie Dobson was provided to me by the publisher for the purpose of review without any requirements. I have given my honest opinion.

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Cindy Thomson is the author of eight books, including her newest novel, Enya’s Son, third in the Daughters of Ireland series based on ancient legends. Being a genealogy enthusiast, she has also written articles for Internet Genealogyand Your Genealogy Today magazines, and children’s short stories for Clubhouse Magazine. She has also co-authored a baseball biography. Most everything she writes reflects her belief that history has stories to teach. Cindy and her husband live in central Ohio near their three grown sons and their families, and can be found online at www.cindyswriting.com, on Facebook www.facebook.com/cindyswritingand on Twitter: @cindyswriting.