Mendocino County Today: Wednesday 11/12/2025

Wind/Rain Ahead | AV Volleyball | Coast Courthouse | AV Soccer | Fair Association | Sheriff Hires | Video Vigilantes | Agnes Gamble | Mendo PHF | Poplar Color | MLT 2025 | FFA TG | Dream Group | Republican Women | Fall Festival | Sundown Town | Yesterday's Catch | Remembering Belva | More Uninsured | Yellow Sweater | Pentagon Waste | November Beginners | Alcatraz Bound | Assisted Culling | Those Beatnicks | Dictionary Word | Judgement Day | Big Words | NY Restaurant | Weird Time | Lead Stories | Phone Addiction | Returning Soldier | Against First | It's Later | Forest Clearing | Lola Mozes

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EARLY this morning, patchy fog and low clouds are expected to continue. A strong front is bringing rain and strong winds this afternoon through Thursday morning. Showers and possibly a thunderstorm are expected Thursday with drier weather expected Friday and Saturday. The next system is expected Sunday and Monday. (NWS)

STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): A warm 55 with cloudy skies this Wednesday morning on the coast. Rain will move in sometime today, but not sure when ? We now have a high wind warning for tonight with gusts forecast up to 50mph & 1" to 2" of rain. Same as recently that did not quite happen, we'll see. Look at the 10 day chart to see the off & on pattern coming up for the next week.

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FORT BRAGG MAYOR JASON GODEKE RALLIES RESIDENTS TO DEFEND COURT SERVICES ON THE COAST

Says cutting access to court services is like cutting medical services

by Elise Cox

Fort Bragg Mayor Jason Godeke warned Monday of potential cuts to courthouse services on the Mendocino Coast, following the transfer of civil cases and criminal cases requiring juries to Ukiah. The Mendocino County Court has not put out any official statement about the reduction in services.

Mendocino County Court Administrator Kim Turner was not immediately available for comment.

The reduction in services was first reported by Frank Hartzell of MendocinoCoast.News.

Godeke said the reductions could have a “devastating impact.”

Speaking at the Nov. 10 City Council meeting, Godeke said recent developments suggest the Fort Bragg courthouse may soon be limited to criminal proceedings only. “If we really did lose all other procedures besides criminal hearings, it would be an enormous hit to our courthouse,” Godeke said. “We’re talking about domestic violence, restraining orders, family law — those are all things that people would then have to start traveling to Ukiah for.”

Godeke called on supervisors and constituents alike to speak up. He proposed drafting a letter from the City Council supporting the continuation of full court services on the coast — a move his fellow councilmember appeared to endorse.

Under Government Code section 68106, courts must notify the public and the Judicial Council at least 60 days before closing courtrooms or clerks’ offices or reducing clerks’ office hours, but smaller cuts can have a significant impact.

“Our courthouse serves the entire coast,” Godeke said. “Just imagine all those people having to drive to Ukiah for pretty much anything. It’s the health-care analog of having to drive to Ukiah to have a baby — and it’s going to be a real problem for us.”

(Mendo Local is free to read and staffed by volunteers. But we have startup costs and ongoing bills for software, mileage, and the insurance that allows us to do investigative reporting. If you would like to help us pay these costs, please consider making a pledge. There will be more information to come about our fundraising efforts. www.mendolocal.news.)

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AV BOYS VARSITY SOCCER PLAYS FOR A CHANCE AT THE FINALS!
Date: November 12
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Boonville Fairgrounds
Tickets available: https://gofan.co/app/school/CA22853

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2025 MEETING OF ANDERSON VALLEY FAIR ASSOCIATION

by Terry Sites

This year the Fair Staff, the Fair Board, the Fair Associates, and interested members of the public were invited to a potluck dinner on November 10th at 6:00 in the Fairgrounds Dining Room. The room was decorated warmly with a fall leaf theme by Palma Toohey. Each table was decked out with vases of colorful zinnias familiar from the Fair which are grown on the Fairgrounds by Becky and her crew. From 6:00 to 7:00 people enjoyed catching up with each other while they were eating.

Board Chair Wayne Hiatt brought the meeting to order at 7:00. The first order of business was the reading of the Nov. 11th 2024 minutes by Jim Brown. This gave people a chance to remember all the categories that make up the business of Fair. The minutes took care to thank all the people who make the Fair what it is including both paid employees and volunteers. It is a somewhat staggering list. So many people put their time and energy into making the Fair a pure pleasure for those who attend. 2024 was the 100th Anniversary of the fair, which made it especially memorable.

You can read through these minutes in their entirety below to get a full picture. After the approval of the meeting agenda, the next order of business was the reading of comparable information for the 2025 in the Fair Manager’s Report also read by Jim Brown, Fair Manager. Each year some things go up and others go down. The minutes from this 2025 meeting will be available for comparison with 2024 in the AVA after they are approved.

Everyone present received a copy of the 2024 Financial Statement. On the statement all the items were listed for the years 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 in columns so it was possible to see the financial ups and downs clearly. Reading a financial statement is beyond my limited talents but if it is not beyond yours, I’m sure the Fair office could show you a copy and you can draw your own conclusions. The money our Fair receives from the State is not what it was and ideas for any additional revenues would be welcome. Additional sponsorships is one possibility although it was pointed out that businesses are at this time more likely to tighten their belts than to spend more money. Good ideas for new attractions is another avenue. The Marguerita Booth, which appeared for the first time this year, made $15,000, which is a tidy sum. If you can help with either of these potential moneymakers or any other money generating ideas please make an appointment to share them with Jim Brown at the Fair Office. It is worthwhile to note that the revenues for RV parking were sharply up due to camping by workers for the ongoing bridge replacement project close to the Fairgrounds.

Next up on the agenda was the election of two directors for three years each. Sophia Bates and Nichole Wyant were duly elected. Following the election questions from the audience were entertained and they ran a gamut of concerns. Appreciation for the Fair working team and the Fair Board and those in attendance was expressed and the meeting was adjourned.

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2024 Annual Meeting Of The Anderson Valley Apple Show And Fair Association Membership

The 2024 Annual Association Meeting of the Anderson Valley Apple Show and Fair was called to order November 11, 2024 at 6:02 p.m. by Director Wayne Hiatt.

All Board Members were present. We meet in person, in the auditorium. Finger food was provided. 14 Association members were present and signed in.

Approval of the Agenda -M/S/P by Directors Bates / N. Wyant to approve the 2024 Annual Meeting Agenda as written. Approved

Approval of the 2023 annual meeting minutes- Copies were supplied to members.

M/S/P Member C. Titus / Director Bates to approve the Minutes of the November 13,

2023 Annual Meeting as written. Approved

2024 Managers Report: Jim Brown

2024 Anderson Valley Apple Show And Fair

Manager Brown reported on the 2024 fair. Admissions: people DOWN 2%, and Revenue DOWN 2%, Concessions DOWN 4%, Commercials DOWN 9%, Miscellaneous Fair, Miscellaneous non-fair down %, Carnival UP 25%, Exhibits UP 35%, Sr Livestock UP, Jr Livestock UP, Floriculture UP, Fine Arts UP, Home Arts DOWN and Ag DOWN, Wool UP and Jr. stills DOWN.

To celebrate our 100 year anniversary, we partnered with our concessionaires and carnival. Each segment got involved: on Friday the first 100 people got in free the second 100 people got to draw from a bag of one free food item and the third 100 people got one free ride at the carnival. there was a lot of excitement over the giveaway.

Then, on Sunday Cal Fire did a fly over before the start of the rodeo. Thanks to Derek Wyant

Like to Thank Becky, John, Conner, Reise, Austin, Dominic, Bret and Bobby for the way the grounds looked, setup and clean up after Fair. Flowers and lawns looked good. Thanks to Becky for all her work on the flowers and barrels of Flowers.

Thanks to Gina and Jo for help in the office. Thanks to Judith Kooyers for help in the office and anywhere else we needed help.

Thanks to board members for all their help to put on and help out in all the different areas of the fair: Wayne, Rodeo, water truck for dust off, flat bed for parade, and truck to move skirted trailer for dances, Morgan parade and Exhibitors BBQ, Lindsay for car show, Livestock and reserved seating at rodeo, Jay for entries and parade set up, Sophia exhibits, Derek dance and rodeo, parade set up, Nichole dance, rodeo and sponsorships Bill Holcomb for car for Grand Marshall, Palma Toohey for decorating directors room, Parade and soccer and help in floriculture bldg, Terry Sites for all the arrangements, Brenda Wool Show and Fiber Arts, Francine floriculture, Brenda Hodges, Nici Daggs and Debra Eliose for Fine Arts and Home Arts, Sheli Wright, Jill wool building, Emily Eddie and Ellen Fontaine Ag Bldg, Gracen Penry and crew for parade set up, Gracen Penry and crew for sheep wranglers.

Unity Club Ladies for selling tickets at back parking lot. R. Pardini for supervising parade, Eddie for helping, Ernie Pardini, and Dan Houck for announcing parade, Gary Johnson for providing the sheep for the Sheep Dog Trails, Bob Maki for stepping up to make the car show possible and a total success, Motosport of Ukiah for use of side by sides, Bryan Wyant for being on call for electrical issues, Ernie Pardini for announcing Parade of Champions, Jerry Causbrook for helping out at Parade of Champions, Mandy Clendenon livestock supervisor, Mattie Owens Horse Show, Westly Hunt, and Lucy Burris for livestock staff. AV Fire Dept. and Cal Fire for first aid station,

Mendocino County Sheriff Dept. for added security, Gina for designing the fair schedule.

Terri Gowan rabbits and Cavy Show, Sharon and Donald Gowan for apple display and apple tasting, Conner Harding for delivering ice, Granite for donating sand, DenBeste and A to Z Construction for Trucking for hauling sand, Cal Trans for barricades, County Yard for loader and truck to spread sand. AV Elementary School, Lemons Market, for helping with sale of Carnival tickets.

Camp Host Dolly Pacella for fair time camping. McFarland Trucking for Skirted trailer for dances and Jerry Causbrook and Anderson Logging for sponsoring two of the bands. The many volunteers that help each year and everyone that exhibited this year!

Blue Ribbon: Craig Titus

Grand Marshal: Donna Pearson-Pugh

Discussion with Members followed. Inquiry about what the Bylaws say on association membership. Thank you to Jim Brown for a great Fair. Need to move Band on Friday.

Financial Statement: Discussed question answered M/S/P Directors

Newcomer / Clow to approve the November 1, 2023 to October 31, 2024 Financial Statement as printed. Approved

Election of two (2) Directors for three years: The terms of Two (2) Directors ending: Jay Newcomer, and Jack Lindsey Clow M/S/P by Member C. Titus /D. Wyant to open Nominations.

Nominations were Jack Lindsay Clow nominated by Member, C. Titus / Director D. Wyant. Jay Newcomer nominated by Member Gwyn Leeman and Director Bates. M/S/P by Member C. Titus / Director N. Wyant to close Nominations, Approved Members were appointed by acclimation.

M/S/P by Member Andy Jones / Director Bates if we have 6 volunteers to handle the set up and clean up we will have a Potluck Dinner for the Annual Meeting next year.

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THE MENDOCINO COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE welcomed two new employees Tuesday morning.

Public Safety Dispatcher Susie Trejo Muniz and Corrections Deputy Wyatt Thom. Both grew up in Mendocino County and will now serve their community. Please join us in congratulating Susie and Wyatt as they start their new careers.

The Sheriff’s Office is currently hiring! If you would like to join your neighbors in serving our community, click below and apply today.

https://www.governmentjobs.com/jobs/5095329-0/corrections-deputy

or visit: https://www.governmentjobs.com/careers/mendocinoca?page=1

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PHOTO VIGILANTISIM

Editor:

Recently a disturbing presence has been patrolling the streets of Ukiah. Unhinged and rooted in xenophobia and prejudice towards those less fortunate and vulnerable, a vigilante group called “Ukiah Caught on Camera” has taken to the streets. Videos recorded by this group have been posted on social media in an attempt to shine a light on the city’s homeless problem, crime, loitering, illegal camping, panhandling and unlicensed food vending.

These issues could be considered as very valid concerns if not for the methods that are being used to humiliate and dehumanize our fellow community members who are featured in these videos. The purpose of this letter to the editor is to expose this vigilante group for what it is: a hate group masquerading as the neighborhood watch. Their intentions seem to be less about improving the community and more about sowing seeds of division amongst our citizens.

No matter where you stand on these issues, we can’t allow vigilante justice in our society. My concern is that if left unchecked, this group could incite violence and fan the flames of discrimination against “the other” in our small community.

We as a society need to galvanize around our love for one another and strive to protect vulnerable populations from harassment. People who are struggling in their lives do not deserve to be publicly humiliated. They are us and we are them. We are all a part of this community, and only together can we solve what’s wrong with it.

We need to focus on solutions and productive ways to solve the challenges that face our community, not dehumanizing those who we don’t like or don’t understand. We need to enforce our laws and ordinances, but we also need to do it with compassion and empathy. Scapegoating those who are most vulnerable reflects poorly on us as a community.

Public vagrancy, homelessness and drug addiction are important issues to address. We can only solve these issues through our shared humanity and our willingness to work together, not catching people on camera in vulnerable positions and posting it on social media.

This group is not about finding solutions for our town, it’s about targeting bigoted vitriol towards our fellow citizens. I hope that we will protect those who need our protection most and stand up to those who wish to bully them for merely existing and trying to survive.

Jared Soinila

Ukiah

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AGNES W GAMBLE died October 17, 2025 in Cypress, California.

She was visiting her daughters Annette and Laurine.

Agnes also celebrated her 101 birthday (about 30 days early). She enjoyed her celebration very much.

However she was weak from choosing to eat and drink too little for a long time. Agnes’s Kidneys had been failing since April and she had heart failure. Her condition rapidly declined over about six days.

Agnes was a widow since 2010; her husband was Dean Gamble. In addition to her two surviving daughters Agnes’ oldest daughter was Beth Lynette Kreiss who died December 2020. Agnes also lost a grandson Michael Maxel in 2008.

Daniel Kreiss, and Aileen Kreiss are her two surviving grandchildren. Their father David Kreiss, husband to Lynette, lives in Valejo with Aileen. Daniel resides in New York.

Agnes valued her immediate family very much, she also valued her church family at Chapel of the Redwoods in Comptche.

Agnes' memorial service will be held at the Chapel in Comptche at 1:00PM, Saterday November 22, 2025

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MENDO’S PHF GETTING READY TO OPEN

by Savana Robinson for Mendocino News Network

A psychiatric health facility with 16 beds will be opening in Ukiah next year, built with money raised through Mendocino County’s Measure B. A 60-bed mental health wing is also being built at the jail. Measure B, passed in 2022, is a sales tax that collects funds for improving mental health infrastructure and services in Mendocino County.

A major proponent of Measure B, current Willits Mayor and former Sheriff, Tom Allman, spoke about the county’s history with mental health treatment and the possibilities for the future.

“We used to have a PHF — psychiatric health facility, and Mendocino County had one up until January of 2000 in Ukiah.” Allman said. “In 1999 there was a series of bad incidents that happened at the PHF, and a decision was made by the board of supervisors to close it, and so it closed in January of 2000 so Mendocino County since January 2000 almost 26 years ago, has been without a locked facility other than a correctional facility. That doesn't mean that we have any fewer or any less people who are victims of mental illness.”

Allman noted that for the past nearly 26 years, transporting mental health patients out of the county has been the main option for in-patient care. These transports and non-local treatments can be costly for the county and having a local in-patient care option will save money for the county and allow patients to be treated closer to home.

“If we treat them here, they see their doctor. Here, their family can visit them. Here they get follow up treatment. Here they can wake up and have their family bring them their own clothes instead of wearing clothes that — who knows where those clothes have been? Just the overall quality of treatment goes up tenfold, and the cost savings is huge.”

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MENDOCINO LAND TRUST:

We’ve been busy this season! We completed a major salmon restoration project in Jackson Demonstration State Forest, staked out future trail segments from Westport to Point Arena, and upgraded a popular coastal access trail in Fort Bragg. Our volunteers have made important contributions as well, joining us at three sites for the annual Coastal Cleanup Day, pitching in to remove 300 feet of old boardwalk, and showing up in increasing numbers for our monthly stewardship days. Thank you all!

Looking ahead, our 2025 Project Updates will hit your inboxes and mailboxes shortly. It’s an impressive overview of our work that includes trail projects, protecting land from subdivision, new public access acreages, and habitat restoration. None of this work would be possible without your help. Executive Director Conrad Kramer gives us a preview of the scope and diversity of our work in 2025:

“This year, thousands of Mendocino County residents and visitors enjoyed MLT’s 20 public access sites and 20 miles of trails spanning our 100-mile coast. Our work ranged from creating new public access to acquiring land that we will return to Tribes. We designed new California Coastal Trail segments and began the early planning of a section of the Great Redwood Trail north of Willits. MLT staff and partners made significant progress on important habitat protection and restoration programs for endangered coho salmon and Behren’s Silverspot butterflies. We also continued to work on protecting thousands of acres of additional redwood and fir forests, oak woodlands, working forests, farms, and ranches on the coast and inland.”

Read about all our year in review here. We hope you will consider a generous donation this season to help us continue this vital work next year, and for many years to come.

Thanks for your ongoing support!

mendocinolandtrust.org

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DREAM GROUP THIS THURSDAY (Nov 13) 6-7.30 pm im Cleone

There is still space available in our Jungian Dream Group, held monthly at my therapy space in Cleone (Fort Bragg). Each time we take one dream and we analyze it together according to the Ulmann Method. It’s good fun and illuminating! $25.00 for a 1.5 hour session, including refreshments. Please join us this Thursday if interested! 6-7.30 pm.

Write me with any questions or concerns!

Brinda Wachs, M.A.

Jungian Practitioner

Dreamwork & Expressive Arts

Dipl. CG Jung Institute Zurich

Fort Bragg, California (USA)

www.therapywithbrinda.com

Tel (+1)831-251-1577

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MAGA GALS ORGANIZE

The Ukiah Valley community is proud to announce the formation of the Ukiah Valley Republican Women Federated (UVRWF), a new organization dedicated to promoting civic engagement, leadership, and education among Republican women in Mendocino County. The group’s first meeting will take place on Friday, Nov. 14, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., at 367 N. State Street (Victory Theatre), Suite 105, and will include a complimentary light lunch for attendees.

The UVRWF joins a long tradition of Republican Women Federated clubs across California and the nation, working together to strengthen communities through informed participation and principled leadership. The club aims to inform the public through political and legislative education, training, and activity, as well as to recruit, train, and elect Republican candidates who reflect the values and priorities of the Ukiah area.

“Our mission is to bring together Republican women who care deeply about their community, their country, and the future of good government,” said Deanna Perrish, co-founding member of UVRWF. “We want to provide a welcoming place where Republican women can learn, connect, and make a difference at every level of government.”

The UVRWF invites interested Republican women—and Republican men who share their values—to attend the inaugural meeting, learn about the organization’s goals, and find ways to get involved.

For more information or to RSVP, please contact Theresa McNerlin at [email protected]. RSVP is strongly encouraged and appreciated, but not required.

About Ukiah Valley Republican Women Federated:

The Ukiah Valley Republican Women Federated is part of the California Federation of Republican Women, affiliated with the National Federation of Republican Women. The organization’s mission is to promote the principles, objectives, and policies of the Republican Party, and to increase the effectiveness of women in the cause of good government through education, engagement, and community leadership.

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WAS FORT BRAGG A ‘SUNDOWN TOWN’?

Sunday, November 30, 2025, 2 pm, at Town Hall, 363 Main St., Fort Bragg

Dr. Phil Zwerling speaks on “Was Fort Bragg a ‘Sundown Town’?”

Sunday, November 30, 2025 2 pm at Town Hall, 363 Main St. Fort Bragg

Zwerling: “I started with the question of why our town would be named Fort Bragg when it was incorporated in 1889 even though the military Fort had been abandoned in 1864; the original native inhabitants had already been marched over the hill to Round Valley and 15 of the original Fort buildings had been demolished and stripped of their lumber by white settlers; and Braxton Bragg was already known as an enslaver and a Confederate traitor?

“My second question was 'Why was the City of Fort Bragg 99% white for its first 60 years, from the censuses of 1890 to 1950?' Then I examined the newspapers for repetitive stories of white violence directed here against Chinese, Japanese, and African Americans much as it had once been directed against Indigenous people. Was Fort Bragg a Sundown Town?”

Please come and be part of the conversation and share your stories.

Discussing controversial topics requires civility and respect for the opinions of others.

This program is free and open to all.

For further information: https://thenoyobidatruthproject.org/

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CATCH OF THE DAY, Tuesday, November 11, 2025

JEFFREY ALLEN-VERMILLION, 35, Ukiah. Under influence, paraphernalia.

JONATHAN CAMARGO, 37, Ukiah. Controlled substance with two or more priors, paraphernalia, probation revocation.

TINA CARTER, 51, Ukiah. Under influence, controlled substance, paraphernalia.

DELFINO CORTEZ-ROSALES, 49, Ukiah. Under influence.

BOWE LEMMON, 64, Ukiah. Grand theft, stolen property, trespassing, vandalism.

GEORGE MALAMPHY, 73, San Francisco/Ukiah. Failure to appear.

MICHAEL PARKER, 48, Ukiah. Petty theft with two or more priors, under influence, paraphernalia, unlawful diversion of state waters, shopping cart, unspecified offense.

PATRICK SCHUETZ, 54, Ukiah. Probation violation.

AZAIAH ZACARIAS, 24, Ukiah. County parole violation.

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REMEMBERING BELVA DAVIS

I just came from a beautiful memorial for Belva Davis (1932-2025), the pioneering Bay Area journalist, TV reporter and news anchor. A Black woman from Monroe, Louisiana, who came to the Bay Area to escape the Jim Crow South and blazed an historic trail on television and as an AFTRA (now SAG-AFTRA) union leader.

The memorial was held at the magnificent Grace Cathedral atop San Francisco's Nob Hill and the packed crowd included a cross-section of journalists, activists, artists, museum curators, ministers, politicians, and Belva's close friends and family.

The speakers included former Mayor Willie Brown (in fine voice), Oakland Mayor and celebrated former Congresswoman Barbara Lee (as authentic as ever), and 60 Minutes top notch correspondent Bill Whitaker, who like me started his career at KQED (Bill in '79, me in '80) under Belva's watchful eye.

The wonderful singer Paula West and the Glide Memorial Church gospel choir were on hand to bring some soul to the occasion. And Belva's lifelong friend Rose Mary Towns spoke movingly of Belva, as a kind of sister, whose life she shared from the time they met in junior high.

It was good for me to see some old KQED friends and colleagues: Joanne Elgart Jennings, Spencer Michels, Janette Gitler, Thuy Vu, Mary Bitterman, Michael Isip and Eric Shackelford, as well as my more recent friend and co-producer Christine Chun-i Ni from local NBC. Kudos to George Osterkamp, who is busy making a documentary about Belva's extraordinary life and was there to film the ceremony.

If you've never seen it, I encourage you to watch the tribute to Belva Davis that George Osterkamp and Bill Whitaker put together for the CBS Sunday Morning Show.

I've said it here before, and I'll say it again: It was a great privilege to work with Belva Davis as I was just starting out in public television -- she was a model and an inspiration. And it was always a pleasure to run into her over the years at various events. She did a very insightful interview for the documentary Nat Katzman and I did about former San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, one of the many politicians she knew well and covered closely.

We carry on…

(Steve Talbot)

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HIGHER PREMIUMS WILL MEAN MORE UNINSURED PEOPLE

Editor:

While millions of families are starting to sign up for health insurance for next year, they’re learning that their premiums are doubling or tripling — an increase too many families can’t afford. The $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts made by Republicans this past summer put care at risk for children, seniors, people with disabilities and especially rural communities.

Ed Oberweiser

Fort Bragg

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PENTAGON WASTES MONEY AS VETS DO WITHOUT

Editor:

The Pentagon’s budget for this year has surpassed the $1 trillion mark. Of that amount, approximately $450 billion-$500 billion is allocated to the defense industry through procurement, contracts and acquisitions (“Vets suffer as Pentagon cash flows to defense contractors,” Nov. 8). There remains a systemic problem of financial mismanagement within the military-industrial complex. For example, the Air Force reportedly overpaid $150,000 for soap dispenser parts — roughly 80 times more expensive than comparable commercial models. It also spent $1,300 each on retractable coffee cups used aboard KC-10 aircraft—cups that could be 3D-printed for about 50 cents apiece. Waste and inefficiency in the military have been well documented for years. The real tragedy, however, is that while billions are squandered, our veterans — many of whom return home physically or emotionally scarred — are too often neglected by a government that claims it cannot afford to care for them.

Richard Cardiff

Sebastopol

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NOVEMBER FOR BEGINNERS

Snow would be the easy
way out—that softening
sky like a sigh of relief
at finally being allowed
to yield. No dice.
We stack twigs for burning
in glistening patches
but the rain won’t give.

So we wait, breeding
mood, making music
of decline. We sit down
in the smell of the past
and rise in a light
that is already leaving.
We ache in secret,
memorizing

a gloomy line
or two of German.
When spring comes
we promise to act
the fool. Pour,
rain! Sail, wind,
with your cargo of zithers!

— Rita Dove (1981)

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PRISONERS BOUND FROM THE EAST WERE PLACED IN SEALED PASSENGER CARS FOR THEIR TRIP WEST.

The first thing that they saw was Alcatraz Island itself when they arrived. Remember that these men were the worst of the worst.

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ORWELL WATCH: THE GREAT CANADIAN "OSTRICH CULL"

The world may be losing its mind, but it's at least generously inviting us to watch

by Matt Taibbi

On Friday, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation anchor Andrew Nichols tossed to correspondent Caroline Barghout in Edgewood, British Columbia for one of the most uncomfortable on-site TV reports ever. Barghout spends an agonizing minute and six seconds searching for creative ways to deliver a story about the Canadian government gunning down 330 ostriches without using key words like “kill” or “dead.”

Barghout’s standup script would deserve its own exhibit in the Newseum, if the place still existed:

Right now, it is very quiet here. Uh, it’s actually eerily quiet. We had been here a few times over the past few weeks, and we always would see ostriches, and now we’re not seeing ostriches. And as you mentioned, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has said that it has completed the cull of the ostriches.

The correspondent wasn’t finished. After conveying a statement from the CFIA that “experienced marksmen would be the best and most appropriate and most humane option” to “conduct this cull,” Barghout described the post-event location of the story’s main characters in a way that carefully avoided reference to their current level of, well, aliveness:

So they brought in professional marksmen to conduct this cull on this property. We know that the birds are still on the property. We don’t know where they will be moved to now that the cull is done.

Having Barghout stand in front of a wall of hay bales strategically erected by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and summarize the affair as “Previously, we saw ostriches, but now we do not see ostriches” was a sadly perfect mix of news-speak and Newspeak. Once again, the CBC fulfilled Canada’s historical mandate to preview what news delivery will look like in a post-misinformation universe.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) decided last year that the animals required termination after some tested positive for Avian Flu. Still, the government came under intense criticism not just for carrying out a procedure not all felt was necessary, but for doing it in a gruesome manner, gunning birds down in “kill boxes” under cover of darkness while activists and owners of the Universal Ostrich Farm screamed from a distance.

When a New York billionaire named John Catsimatidis got involved in a campaign to stop the “cull” and Trump administration figures like Robert F. Kennedy and Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz tried to intervene, the Great Ostrich Cull somehow turned into a “Republicans Pounce” story, with Politico for instance running a headline, “How a flock of Canadian ostriches became an all-time MAHA cause.” A BBC headline even went so far as to describe the story as the “ostrich cull saga that captivated RFK, Jr.,” explaining that ostriches were an “unlikely political symbol,” since “culls like this are often conducted without fanfare.”

The linguistic tap-dancing around the ostrich version of the Kronstadt Massacre would be less unnerving, were it not for the intersection of Canada’s aggressive word-twisting during the Covid pandemic and the more recent literary inventions around the country’s euthanasia craze. At a time when wide-scale misery seems to be in fashion across the political spectrum (Michelle Obama’s new coffee-table book Look is 304 pages about what a burden it was to have to dress as First Lady), Canada in 2021 quietly opened the door on mass Kevorkianism for people not merely not terminal, but potentially not even sick.

The country that year amended a program called Medical Assistance In Dying — MAID according to the grim acronym — changing the eligibility requirement from assisted suicide for those whose natural deaths were “reasonably foreseeable” to those with a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.” In a flash, assisted suicide (rebranded as “assisted dying”) became one of the country’s leading causes of death. One out of every twenty Canadians who died in 2023 were “assisted” deaths, a rate higher than deaths from “Alzheimer’s and diabetes combined,” as The Atlantic put it. While outlets like the New York Times and the BBC uncharacteristically expressed unease with a possible “slippery slope” effect, there’s comparatively little controversy in Canada, where 86% of the public reportedly approves of the changes in polls.

I wouldn’t feel so uneasy about all this if it weren’t for the language. A lot of thought has been put into how governments market state-assisted (or mandated, in the case of the ostriches) death. Assisted-dying hospices have been re-christened in some quarters as “MAIDhouses,” a term that sounds like a harmless new tapestry color or flavor of geriatric ice cream. “MAIDhouse” is also the name of a non-profit devoted to helping people eligible for assisted dying receive support in a “supportive, inclusive and comfortable setting.” Moral arguments against suicide have mostly vanished outside Catholic publications. There is something deeply troubling in the combination of relentless media coverage of how hard life is for a widening class of victim groups, and the sudden appearance of an instant legal pass to a better place for All Who Ail.

Most of the stories that have come out about “assisted dying” up north focus on people in horrible physical pain from diseases like spina bifida or cerebral palsy, but Canada is also currently scheduled to begin allowing euthanasia/suicide/assisted dying for people suffering from mental illness only — even depression, theoretically — on March 17, 2027.

I wonder if they will call it “assisted culling” by then.

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"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
— William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

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IF I HAD POSSESSION OVER JUDGEMENT DAY

If I had possession, over judgment day
If I had possession, over judgment day
Lord, the little woman I'm lovin' wouldn't, have no right to pray

And I went to the mountain, lookin' as far as my eyes could see
And I went to the mountain, lookin' as far as my eyes would see
Some other man got my woman, and these lonesome blues got me

And I rolled and I tumbled and I, cried the whole night long
And I rolled and I tumbled and I, cried the whole night long
Boy, I woke up this mornin', my biscuit roller gone

Had to fold my arms and I, slowly walked away
(spoken: I didn't like the way she done)
Had to fold my arms and I, slowly walked away
I said in my mind, "Yo' trouble gon' come some day one"

Now run here, baby, set down on my knee
Now run here, baby, set down on my knee
I wanna tell you all about the way they treated me

— Robert Johnson (1936)

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"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
— Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

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ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

We live in such a weird time. How is it that when I talk to people with normal jobs and lives, like bank tellers and small business owners and salespeople etc and whoever crosses my daily path, they sound kind, smart and reasonable, but our official thinking classes—journalists and professors and politicians—are brazen phony idiots who only speak to lie and who are always swallowing the latest political craze and demanding you too (or else!) and who are babbling conformists who imagine themselves as an infallible priesthood of wise elders!?!?

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LEAD STORIES, WEDNESDAY'S NYT

Newsom in the Spotlight at the Climate Conference That Trump Decided to Skip

A Flood of Green Tech From China Is Upending Global Climate Politics

Trump Administration Plans to Send Border Patrol to Charlotte and New Orleans

Aircraft Carrier Moves Into the Caribbean as U.S. Confronts Venezuela

Senator Criticizes Rubio for Paying $7.5 Million to Equatorial Guinea to Take Deportees

‘You Are All Terrorists’: Four Months in a Salvadoran Prison

House Returns After Long Recess to Take Up Bill to End Shutdown

Who Didn’t Suffer During the Shutdown? People Flying Private

Israel Arrests 4 After Jewish Extremist Attack in Occupied West Bank

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DAVID COOK:

Social media is a curse on us. I make it a point to get outside away from all "devices" at least for a 8 hours a day. Nature is fascinating in every detail. I also spend a lot of time in my workshop fixing up old things. My current project is an old wooden boat, and the time spent learning a new skill is very satisfying. Sometimes I will spend hours in silence just working. My stepson is addicted to his phone and video games, and I feel incredibly sad when he comes over and parks himself in the chair, plugs in his earphones and vanishes into his world until dinner is ready. At least he has a job and is self supporting, at least for now. His future is something I worry a great deal about.

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"I WAS AGAINST THE FIRST WORLD WAR. I WAS NOT AGAINST THE SECOND.”

Bertrand Russell regarding the First World War:

“I was against the First World War. I was not against the second. Some people think that this is an inconsistency, but it isn't. I never during the first war said that I was against all war. I said I was against that war and I still hold that view. I think the first war was a mistake and I think England's participation in it was a mistake. I think if that war hadn't happened we would not have had the communists, we would not have had the nazis, we would have not had the Second World War, we would not had the threat of a third. The world would have been a very much better place I think.“

— Bertrand Russell, A Conversation with Bertrand Russell (1952) NBC Wisdom Series (9m40s BR)

“When the First World War broke out, I thought it was a folly and a crime on the part of every one of the Powers involved on both sides. I hoped that England might remain neutral and, when this did not happen, I continued to protest. I found myself isolated from most of my former friends and, what I minded even more, estranged from the current of the national life. I had to fall back upon sources of strength that I hardly knew myself to possess. But something that if I had been religious I should have called the Voice of God, compelled me to persist. Neither then nor later did I think all war wrong. It was that war, not all war, that I condemned.”

— Bertrand Russell, Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (1953)

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Background: Bertrand Russell and the First World War

The First World War was one of the deadliest wars in history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 30 million military casualties, and 8 million civilian deaths from war-related causes and genocide. The movement of large numbers of people was a major factor in the deadly Spanish flu pandemic. Estimates of deaths from the pandemic range from 17 million to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it the deadliest pandemic in history, next to the Black Death and New World Smallpox. Fighting ended with the Armistice of 11 November 1918 and is famously referred to as "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month". The very last hour of the war saw the deaths of 2,738 soldiers.

Bertrand Russell's activism against British participation in World War One led to severe fines, loss of freedom of travel within Britain (near house arrest, as Russell was permitted to travel only by foot), and the non-renewal of his fellowship at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. His first conviction in 1916 resulted in Russell being fined £100 (equivalent to £10,000 in 2023), which he refused to pay, hoping he would be sent to prison, but his books were sold at auction to raise the money. The books were bought by friends; he later treasured his copy of the King James Bible that was stamped "Confiscated by Cambridge Police".

Russell's second conviction by the British government resulted in a prison sentence on the tenuous grounds that he had interfered in British wartime foreign policy - he had argued that British workers should be wary of the United States Army on British soil, for it had violent and deadly experience in strike-breaking.

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IT IS LATER THAN YOU THINK

Lone amid the café’s cheer,
Sad of heart am I to-night;
Dolefully I drink my beer,
But no single line I write.
There’s the wretched rent to pay,
Yet I glower at pen and ink:
Oh, inspire me, Muse, I pray,
It is later than you think!

Hello! there’s a pregnant phrase.
Bravo! let me write it down;
Hold it with a hopeful gaze,
Gauge it with a fretful frown;
Tune it to my lyric lyre …
Ah! upon starvation’s brink,
How the words are dark and dire:
It is later than you think.

Weigh them well …. Behold yon band,
Students drinking by the door,
Madly merry, bock in hand,
Saucers stacked to mark their score.
Get you gone, you jolly scamps;
Let your parting glasses clink;
Seek your long neglected lamps:
It is later than you think.

Look again: yon dainty blonde,
All allure and golden grace,
Oh so willing to respond
Should you turn a smiling face.
Play your part, poor pretty doll;
Feast and frolic, pose and prink;
There’s the Morgue to end it all,
And it’s later than you think.

Yon’s a playwright — mark his face,
Puffed and purple, tense and tired;
Pasha-like he holds his place,
Hated, envied and admired.
How you gobble life, my friend;
Wine, and woman soft and pink!
Well, each tether has its end:
Sir, it’s later than you think.

See yon living scarecrow pass
With a wild and wolfish stare
At each empty absinthe glass,
As if he saw Heaven there.
Poor damned wretch, to end your pain
There is still the Greater Drink.
Yonder waits the sanguine Seine …
It is later than you think.

Lastly, you who read; aye, you
Who this very line may scan:
Think of all you planned to do …
Have you done the best you can?
See! the tavern lights are low;
Black’s the night, and how you shrink!
God! and is it time to go?
Ah! the clock is always slow;
It is later than you think;
Sadly later than you think;
Far, far later than you think.

— Robert W. Service (1921)

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YOU HAVE A MOTHER

We lost my dear friend, Lola Mozes, who survived Auschwitz, this morning. I wrote her story a decade ago.

by Chris Hedges

BROOKLYN, N.Y — Lola Mozes’ childhood came to an end in the fall of 1939 at a small bridge in Poland. She was 9 — seated in a horse-drawn wagon, her back propped against her family’s silver Sabbath candelabra, which was wrapped in a blanket — when she saw the aftermath of a German bomb attack. The sight of human bodies, along with eviscerated horses gasping in pain and struggling to rise despite their gaping wounds, reduced her to tears and panic. Her mother, Helena Rewitz, born Schwimer, who would hover over her daughter like a guardian angel later in a Jewish ghetto and the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, took the terrified child into her arms.

I sat with Lola Mozes at her dining room table in Brooklyn on Friday. Short and petite, with curly black hair and white gold hoop earrings, she had a soft, infectious laugh, an impish sense of humor and fine facial lines that she inherited from her father and mother. Her charm and warmth were girlish and slightly coquettish.

“I am the great pretender,” she said, smiling. “It is always there, what I went through. I am tormented by it. It keeps repeating and repeating itself in my head.”

Lola grew up living next to her family’s small grocery in Katowice, a city in southwestern Poland. The language at home was German. She learned Polish in school. Her parents, especially when they wanted to talk privately, spoke Yiddish. Her parents and older brother celebrated the Sabbath and went to synagogue on religious holidays but lived as secular Jews. Her father, Emil, who sang arias as he bathed in the mornings, dressed in imported German suits and spats when he left the house. They lived in a working-class section of the city. Catholic children in the neighborhood taunted her as a “Christ killer” and once pushed her brother Oskar off a tram and beat him. But nothing prepared the family for what was to come. A dark future was only hinted at when the parents, their faces knotted in consternation, listened to Adolf Hitler on the radio.

The bloody scene at the bridge would foreshadow a crucible of mass murder and extreme deprivation lasting six years. For Lola, playing with her favorite doll, skating, swimming and picking out candy from her father’s grocery was replaced by a bitter struggle to survive. Ogres — including a drunken SS officer in the ghetto who used to hold her on his lap and complain about his boots being soiled by the blood of his victims, including the infants he dashed against walls — rose up like monsters in medieval fairy tales. Concentric circles of death and life would radiate around her. Her parents’ fierce love seemed, often, no match for the murderous intent of the armed and the powerful who held the family in their grip.

Lola’s family was herded with other Jews in 1941 into the ghetto in Bochnia, along the river Raba in southern Poland. The ghetto was surrounded by a high wooden fence. It was divided in two parts — Ghetto A and Ghetto B. Ghetto A housed the 2,000 Jews who worked in German factories and workshops where they made shoes, underwear, uniforms, gloves, socks and other items for the German army. The Jews in Ghetto B had no jobs. Many were elderly and sick. They lived in extreme poverty and were malnourished. Many Jews pooled what little they had and formed communal kitchens. The Germans segregated the men, including the husbands and fathers, from women at night. Lola and her family lived with her aunt, who had been well off before the war, in a large wooden house that had been incorporated into the ghetto.

“At one point they told us to stay in our houses,” she said. “I don’t remember when. I peeked through the window and saw strong young men who used to work in the salt mines marching. Every 10th or fifth man was being shot. In the morning there was a strange odor. It was nauseating. We peeked through the curtains. There were wagons with dead bodies. They were stripped. There were puddles of blood in the gutters. We went back to work the following day. We worked 12-hour shifts. For the morning shift we left when it was dark. I remember [when we went back to work again] it was raining. I was walking with my friend. I was carrying my bread. It fell on the ground. My friend said, ‘It fell in the blood.’ We thought this was very funny. We started laughing. I picked it up and brought it home after work and we ate it. It was too precious to throw away.”

Lola had a friendship with a gentle boy who lived with his family in the B section of the ghetto. He cut up newspapers and made a little book he lent to her. It was about a seventh-century rabbi named Sabbatai Zevi who claimed to be the Jewish Messiah and walked from town to town promising to save the people. “He took me to where he lived,” she said. “It looked like a hovel. There were rags on the floor. It was dirty. There were a lot of people, especially old people. The stench was terrible. He was the nicest boy. I said, ‘How can people live like that?’ He was so embarrassed. I will never forget how embarrassed he was. He had been in my aunt’s house where each family had a room. My aunt’s house was clean. We had a stove. There was some heat. I don’t know what happened to him. Those in Ghetto B were the first to go in the transports [to the death camps].”

Her father constructed a small, underground bunker in a wooden shed that was filled with sawdust. When the deportations began in 1942 the family would hide in the bunker. There was barely enough room to huddle together. They would wait breathlessly as the Germans with their dogs prowled around the shed. Lola’s father sneaked out at night to scavenge for food.

Jews could leave the ghetto only under guard. They were marched out of the ghetto in rows of five to work in German factories. Hans Frank, the governor-general of the territories in occupied Poland, ordered that any other Jews found outside ghetto walls be executed. Nearly 2,000 Jews from the ghetto were shot. Most of the others died from disease or in the death camps. Only 90 of the 15,000 people originally in the Bochnia ghetto survived the war.

Lola’s father and brother worked cleaning German offices. She and her mother knitted socks for German soldiers in a large red brick building on Floris Street.

“They sent us socks from the Russian front,” she said. “By the time the socks came to the factory they had been washed. The bottom parts had been cut off. Only the top part was left. We started knitting downwards to make a new sock. We sometimes found blood, toes and parts of flesh in the socks. That is how we knew the Germans were struggling someplace where they were freezing.”

One day the Jewish foreman at the knitting factory asked her to knit a pair of men’s gloves. He gave her gray wool. A few weeks later a high-ranking group of Nazis visited the factory. Among them was Frank, whom the foreman introduced to Lola.

“He was wearing the gloves,” she remembered. “He shook my hand. He smiled. He told me the gloves were keeping him very warm. He said they fit well. He thanked me. That evening my father came home from work. He was full of smiles. He told me everyone had been shaking his hand. They were congratulating him. Everyone said to him that because Frank shook your daughter’s hand it would save the Jews. We thought if they were pleased with our work they would let us live.”

A year ago she happened upon a picture of Frank. She learned, for the first time, that after the war he had been condemned and hanged by the Allies at Nuremberg. He was one of the very few Nazis at Nuremberg who, before being executed, expressed remorse for his crimes.

The photograph and news of Frank’s execution were devastating. “I cried hysterically,” she told me. “I don’t know why. I could not connect him smiling at me like a father, shaking my hand and thanking me and then think of him hanging dead.”

In the ghetto her parents arranged for her brother Oskar, who was two and a half years older, to study with a rabbi.

“My brother became, because of this rabbi, very orthodox,” she said. “He was about 14. He would be charitable to everyone because the Bible said to be charitable. My mother would get some potatoes and peel them. She would say that when she came home from work she would cook us potatoes. But sometimes the potatoes were gone when she got home. My brother would have taken them to a poor family and we would have nothing to eat. One day he came home in wooden shoes. We asked, ‘Where are your shoes?’ He had given them to someone who was barefoot. He became like that. He was like a monk.”

Once, hiding under the sawdust pile during one of the mass deportations, Lola crawled over to her brother. “We talked,” she said. “It was the first time we really talked. He had a piece of bread. He said, ‘I am not hungry.’ ”

Her voice broke. She began to weep.

“That is hard,” she said haltingly. “And he did give me that piece of bread. It was like a rind. We were not like sheep. We lived. When we finally left the bunker I saw him dressing. His belly was distended from hunger.”

The factories and workshops were closed in 1943. Large sections of the ghetto were emptied. Most of the ghetto residents had been executed or taken to death camps. When Lola’s father sneaked out of the bunker at night he would wander through empty streets and forage in abandoned apartments. It resembled a ghost town. The fence around the ghetto was being rebuilt and pushed inward to open the emptied sections of the ghetto to the non-Jews in the city.

Lola’s father decided to move the family, along with her aunt’s family of four and two cousins, to a basement in an abandoned part of the ghetto. He said that when it got dark he would take five of them at a time to the basement. He took Lola, her mother, Lola’s aunt and a young cousin to the basement and went back to get his son and nieces and nephews.

“He never returned,” Lola said. “He was captured by a Jewish policeman. It was Succoth. My mother and aunt lit candles in the basement. We found a deeper basement. There was an Orthodox man hidden in the attic of that house. He visited us. He told us stories about the Messiah. He told us when we died we would go to heaven. I felt better, even with that gripping fear. My cousin and I went out at night to a vegetable field to dig up something to eat. There was a well, but it made noise when you cranked it up. That was dangerous. We could hear dogs barking.”One morning we heard a sound like someone scraping a stick along a fence,” she said. “My mother stiffened. She knew. They were shooting people. We could see the man in the attic make a sign with his arms like shooting. Then we heard singing. It was Shema Yisrael.”

She began to sing Shema Yisrael, the central prayer in the Jewish prayer book, softly in Hebrew.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart.

“There were 200 people singing Shema Yisrael, including my father and brother, going to death,” she said. “I did not at the time connect the shooting with my father and brother and cousins. The shots became steady and constant. My mother held me tight.”

Lola read from a letter she wrote in 1981 to her four children:

Here is the essence of my story. To help my children grow, flourish and multiply without guilt or remorse, without a feeling that they are descended of people who went to slaughter like sheep. No song like Eli Eli or Ave Maria will surpass the chant of my father, my brother, my cousins and hundreds of others as they were led to be shot. It was the most powerful, courageous and victorious hymn. Their voices did not bleat like sheep. Their voices told of victory overcoming evil by dying like men without somebody’s blood on their hands. Their voices sang in unison a praise to the Lord. There was a might in them as if they were already one with their master. And it said Shema Yisreal, Hear Oh Israel, I will take you from your suffering and you will flourish. This was the message I received. That song was sung for me by my father. I flourished as I wish and hope my children will. My children, my dear sweet children. Your daily problems, which you try to solve with so much determination, are insignificant in the view of the awesome past of your ancestors. So you are told, but this is not true. Life is made out of difficulties and joys, of sorrows and utter happiness, but as long as your souls are not soiled with meanness which hurts others be proud of your life. Your life is the extension of the ones which are gone. And now they are immortal. Don’t pity them. They went peacefully because they had hope for the future, your present. My father’s mighty chant was meant as well for you and yours. With all my love, your Mom.

German soldiers discovered Lola, her mother, her aunt and her cousin in the basement. They were detained and, because hiding was a capital offense, waited to be shot. Her mother, holding her, told Lola they were going to the Garden of Eden to meet those in the family who had died. But they were spared and assigned to the last detail of 100 Jews used to clean up the remnants of the ghetto. The mother, working in a laundry, found her son Oskar’s shirt, apparently cut from his lifeless body. Josef Müller, the commander of the ghetto, had by then a Jewish mistress, a practice common among ghetto commanders and camp guards. The remaining Jews in the ghetto nicknamed her Mata Hari.

“She was quite beautiful, very tall,” Lola said. “She was dressed elegantly and wore makeup. She had a husband and a daughter my age. She ordered me around. I had to clean her room.”

Lola and her mother were then sent to the labor camp in Plaszów, a southern suburb of Kraków. Plaszów was commanded by Amon Göth, a brutal SS officer who routinely shot prisoners for sport and was portrayed in the 1993 film “Schindler’s List.” Göth was hanged after the war.

Lola and her mother were put to work with other prisoners digging up a Jewish cemetery. The headstones were used for paving roads and constructing latrines. After spending two months in Plaszów they were sent to work in a munitions factory hidden in a forest near Pionki. It was there Lola was forced to watch the hanging of four or five Jews who had tried to escape. She took her mother’s place in the front of the formation of prisoners to spare her the sight of the hangings.

“They were calm and collected,” Lola said of the condemned. “They had their hands tied behind their backs. They said something before they died, but I don’t remember what. We were ordered to look at the hanging. We could not turn away our heads. As I watched, I saw what a horrific death it is — you can actually see life being squeezed out of the body. The face purple, red, almost swelling, as the hanging body twitches in last rebellion. The wife of one of the men, belly swollen with child, stood by the gallows the whole week as the Germans kept the spectacle on display.”

Lola was eventually transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The journey by train took three days. When she stumbled off the train with her mother, aunt and her cousin, she ran toward a ditch to get a drink of water. She visited Auschwitz-Birkenau years later and searched out the ditch. She said the death camp stripped of the emaciated bodies, stench, fear, shootings, barking dogs, beatings, smoke from the crematoriums, shouts of the guards, overcrowded barracks and foul, overflowing latrines failed to convey its reality. “They should plow it under and plant a field,” she said.

“I did not recognize my mother when we got off the train,” she remembered of her arrival at the camp. “She scared me. It was like seeing a ghost. She was drawn. She had big, round eyes.”

They were quarantined in Camp C after being shaved, sprayed with DDT and tattooed. She remembers seeing a group of dwarfs in the camp. “They were so beautiful,” she said. “I wanted to play with them. They were like dolls. On the second or third night they all disappeared.”

She and her mother spent about eight months working in Birkenau. At one point they were stripped and forced into a gas chamber with a large group of women before the execution was abruptly canceled. Lola had begged her mother before entering the gas chamber for their last piece of bread. “I said, ‘I don’t want to die hungry,’ ” she remembered. “My mother, said, ‘When we come out you will tell me you are hungry.’ I said, ‘I don’t care.’ And she gave me the bread. When we got out of the gas chamber my mother said, ‘I told you so.’ ”The women were later put to work twisting strips of oilcloth into braids to be used, she believed, to make plane doors airtight.

“Two guards would pull on the ends of the braid, and if it broke the workers would be beaten, often to death,” she said.

In January 1945, with Soviet forces advancing on occupied Poland, the Nazi guards began to plan the destruction of the crematoriums. They told the prisoners the Birkenau camp would be dynamited and ordered some 60,000 prisoners from Birkenau and the satellite camps to begin a 35-mile march through the snow to a freight yard. Fifteen thousand prisoners died on the march. Lola’s aunt and cousin, who survived the war, hid under a pile of corpses. Lola and her mother, shortly before joining the march, found turnips in a barracks and gorged themselves. The turnips gave her mother diarrhea.

“My mother ripped a piece of her dress and asked me very shyly the next morning if I could wash her off, and that is when I felt what love is,” she said. “She told me they would dynamite the camp and we should leave, that I could withstand the march. We walked through the night. We passed our town, Katowice. We saw the lights. The next day my mother wasn’t feeling good. She was dizzy. She asked me for a little sugar. We were not allowed to bend down for snow. If you bent down they would shoot you. There were bodies on the sides of the road. But my mother asked me for some snow. I bent down quickly to get her some snow. The women around us helped my mother for a little while. They walked with her. Then my mother couldn’t walk. There was a tree. She lay down. She told me, ‘Run quickly and maybe you will save myself.’ Then a German materialized. I fought with him. I told him, ‘You have a mother. You know what it means to have a mother. Let her rest a minute and she will be able to get up.’ He smiled. I will always remember that strange smile. Something amused him. By that time his pistol was drawn. The soldiers began to hit me and push me away. He shot her. I was on the road again. At one point my little sack fell down. I picked it up. I thought to myself, you picked up the sack but you did not pick up your mother. Years later, as I replayed the scene of my mother’s death, her laying, reclining under that tree with her arms a bit outstretched, I thought of her as being crucified.”

Lola made it to the freight yard and was loaded onto open cars. She was transported to Ravensbrück, a women’s concentration camp in northern Germany. She was then put on a train to the Malhof camp. As Allied soldiers neared Malhof, the Germans closed the camp. Lola was soon marching again. Then the guards began to disappear. She remembers the bloated and blackened bodies of soldiers in the fields. One morning she and the other prisoners saw the camp commander in civilian clothes riding away on a bicycle. The war was over.

There is, somewhere in the vastness of the universe, amid galaxies and stars that light emanating from our planet takes decades to reach, the airy image of a girl playing with a doll in the Polish town of Katowice, the image of a girl terrified and clutched by her mother near a bombed bridge, the image of a girl hiding with her brother under a pile of sawdust and accepting a small piece of bread, the image of a girl shaking the hand of the Nazi governor of Poland and the image of a girl in her mother’s arms in a basement listening to men and women about to die singing Shema Yisrael. There is, too, the image of a girl telling a German soldier with a drawn pistol, “You have a mother.”

“I believe in God and heaven,” Lola said. “I speak to my husband, who I lost three years ago, and my parents. My belief saves me from talking to walls and air.”

I did not write this story to say that Germans are bad and Jews are good. The line between good and evil runs through all hearts. It is, sadly, as easy to become an executioner as a victim. This is the most sobering lesson of war. And it is something the greatest writers on the Holocaust, such as Primo Levi, who was also in Auschwitz, understood. There were, after all, Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei, Jewish Kapos, Judenräte, Sonderkommandos and Blockälteste whose contributions to the organization of the ghettos and the death camps kept the crematoriums functioning. The prisoners who lowered themselves to the moral squalor of the SS were soon lost.

I did not write this piece to say that virtue or goodness triumphed after the Holocaust. The Nazi extermination of 12 million people, including 6 million Jews, was a colossal, tragic and absurd waste of human life. I wrote this piece to say that the fierce and protective love of a mother and a father is stronger than hate. It can overcome evil. After the war Lola met a young German man in Spain. “He could have been a soldier,” she said. He asked Lola about her wartime experience. She told him. She kissed him on the cheek in saying goodbye.

Where time and light bend and twist in space, perhaps defying the known laws of physics, a mother and a father, fighting to protect their daughter and son from death, still exist in faint particles of light, making visible an iron bond of fidelity. They gave up life to save it. Scarred emotionally and physically — she rolled up her sleeve as we talked to show me her tattooed concentration camp number, A-14989 — Lola would nevertheless marry a survivor to raise, love and nurture four children of her own. Emil Rewitz and Helena Rewitz, at least in this small house in Brooklyn, won the war.

(chrishedges.substack.com)