Poem by Else Cederborg: "A Stone In The River"

  

She stands on a stone in the river

sticking out her tongue she drinks in the world

each rounded drop a planet in its own right

falling from above

shooting up from beneath

each and one of them new to this world as is she

a child of five, but ready to make her impact

actually, a conqueror in disguise

Her tongue speaks out for her

singing, humming, sucking in

what it says is: This is life!

Was that the moment she slipped and fell?

That very moment, never to be lived again?

A moment lost and turned into eternity?

And she?

She nearly drowned, was rescued, got scolded

"survived" it was called

so she got wet, lost faith and grew "normal"

all in one second

she is never to stand on a stone in the river again

ALL Rights Reserved©Else Cederborg   

Nazi-Lover

 

In this photo the British historian and author David Irving (born 24th of March 1938) looks like an impersonification of what he is/was, namely a Hitler- and Nazi-loving relic from 1938. Being born before WW II, he didn't take part in the atrocities, and maybe he wouldn't have if he were a true contemporary of Hitler. 

 

Evil eyes, as he has, don't add up a human personality, but this man has published 40 books or so about Hitler and WW II as a historian and expert on the Nazis, which means that he may have influenced many people, young and old. However, it seems that the academic establishment never accepted his conclusions about what went on in the Nazi-world. His ideas may strike people as interesting, as well as disturbing, because of his academic status which some will see as a guarantee of a genuine expert knowledge of the Nazi subject. 

 

His first book, "The Destruction of Dresden" (1963), became a bestseller as it fell in line with the new understanding of the sixties, namely that the heavy Allied bombings of Germany were non-acceptable: Many started to feel that The Allieds had gone too far. Several of other books by Irving also made a stir, so to speak. However, something like e.g. his refusal to admit that there were ovens for cremations in the camps seem ridiculous today. We know better, also when it comes to his allegations that there weren't mass murders of Jews in the camps as there were no photos depicting them in these, according to his opinion, "non-existing" ovens.

Buchenwald Memorial

Not only did he deny what happened in the kz-camps, but also that Hitler took part in the planning of the atrocities. Actually, Irving's way of thinking is quite bizarre when it comes to the "Endlosung" as he refuses to see what went on: IF some of it was true - which he was sure that it wasn't - then, Hitler, in his opinion, knew nothing about the plans of murdering all the Jews of Europe. That means that he chose not to take in what Hitler said about the planned genocide of the Jews in his speech of January 30, 1939. Also, his will is a clear indication that the future exterminations of the Jews were very important to him now that he himself was on the brink of committing suicide. 

"Die Endlosung" was a very important part of his program and can't be denied such as Irving has done. Actually, this abominable "Endlosung" was adopted as the main part of his plans on the Conference in Wannsee of January 20, 1942. As should be remembered, the main purpose of this conference was to establish the "how to" of the planned genocide. There is no doubt that innocent people were tortured and murdered, solely for being Jews or of what was considered an "inferior race", like e.g. gypsies.

 

 

Because of this undeniable, total cruelty, this extreme injustice I find it very hard to see what has become of the formerly so very persecuted Jewish people. They are literally doing what Hitler did to them, only targeting another innocent people: The Palestinenians. I've become very split in my opinion of them and their cause. When I'm thinking of what happened to them in WW II, I feel that they should have been offered a large part of Germany for building their state. However, I never felt that the German murder atrocities against them gave them the right to do what had been done to them to a flock of Arabs and to set out to steal their land. In a weird, backwards manner they have become Nazi-lovers themselves by accepting some of the Hitler lore about race and history. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgr71z0jp4o

 

https://folkedrab.dk/artikler/hvordan-ved-vi-at-holocaust-har-fundet-sted 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Lipstadt

 

https://www.information.dk/kultur/2013/06/nazi-chefideologs-dagboeger-fundet-usa 

 

Wikipedia

WhenThe Object of One's Love is Non-Human

 

Of course anyone who hears about such a case love the dog and calls him a hero. Actually, the girl was a hero(-ine) too for not panicking and even finding food and other ways to survive. Anyway, in this case there was a reason to admire and love the dog. So there is in many cases of human-pet-relationships, even though the animal hasn't saved lives in such a dramatic manner as in this case.

 

The owner of these two dogs call them "The Light of My Life", and that may very well be a true description of their relationship. These dogs may have become what's generally known as "fur-babies": They are being seen and treated as the human babies their owner - male or female - have chosen not to have. Maybe he/she refers to them as my "sons", and maybe he/she "adopted" them, e.g. from a shelter. To treat and relate to a pet like to a human baby is a way to "keep one's cake and eat it", and I fully understand why women these years chose an animal over a baby. Actually, I'm more surprised that not all women do just that in a time period that's polluted with tRumpian, misogynistic laws, making it very difficult for women to have and raise children. 

Also, let's not forget that for some people animals are a sort of "toys", that may be "chosen away" when they get tired of having them. It's extremely unfair to treat a four-legged friend - a "son or daughter" - like a toy, but it may happen which is not that easy with human babies: You can't just leave them in the wood or on a busy street like it has been done over and over with pets. Such a Good Riddance-operation may mean nothing to the owner who talked about his/her pets as "sons/daughters", because, after all, "they are only animals" ....

    

However, animals are not inanimate objects without feelings or personality. This cat, for instance, has adopted a rat as a pet or a surrogate "kitten". Not normal, not happening very often, but this special cat chose to have its own "fur-baby", just like he/she is the "fur-baby" of his/her owner. 

WW II And the Cats of London

  

I'm not sure how many cats the, at that time, 19 years old Iris Davis saved from the debris of the bombed London, but the number 600 has been mentioned. Probably she saved even more when she went out looking for the poor pets, who - just as their humans - had lost their homes and all of a sudden had to fend for themselves. She used a kind of laso that made it possible for her to catch and secure the cat.

This is an image we are used to see from all kinds of wars: A hapless animal, struck down by the weapons that were meant to kill humans. Without Iris, London might also have seen an awful feline tragedy. Not that she saved all the poor homeless cats, but with her the number of victims was reduced.

I'm not sure that this is Iris, but whoever it is does what has to be done to save helpless pets. However, pets also saved humans, and several of them were awarded medals for bravery, for instance when they found and thus rescued people who e.g. were stuck in the rubble. 

As to Iris and her efforts for the cats of London, she became quite famous at the time as a cat saver, but her war fame doesn't seem to have stuck with her, as I haven't been able to find her biography. Anyway, there is an irony in her humane work as an animal saver, as pet owners had been advised to euthanize their pets before the bombings started, namely to save them from starvation. This led to what has been called a "massacre" of maybe 500,000 pets or even more. 

 

https://www.historyonthenet.com/war-animals-55-birds-dogs-horses-saved-thousands-lives-world-war-two 

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205357526 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24478532 

 

https://x.com/TheNameofWar/status/2067980781809475917 

Poem by Else Cederborg: "Balloon"

 

 

 

Stepping out
dressed like a billion
all too glittering for this world
happily enough her head is floating
you may find it on a cloud up in the sky
moving in air, far from reality, it’s gleaming

It can’t be denied it’s a lantern
a will-o’-the-wisp, that’s leading her on
feet in the world of fashion and riches, head in the sky
no wonder she is out of reach, even for herself

ALL rights reserved © EC

Poem by Else Cederborg: "Cruelty"

 

Cruelty doesn't go shoeless
no, it trips wherever it wants to go, dressed in fine shoes
its tortured victims drag themselves along

moving on sharp stones
still, some don't call it injustice 

 

All Rights Reserved © Else Cederborg

 

 

A True Heroine

 

Frances Oldham Kelsey (1914-2015) 

Wars and accidents may rob humans - and animals - of their inborn good health and looks. What started out as agility and the ability of free movements may end up in something very sad, namely disabilities of various art. That's a fact of life, and we know it, at the same time pushing it in the back of our mind, and doing whatever we can to forget about it.

It's a beautiful idea, but this boy obviously didn't get the opportunity to rise from his wheelchair in this life, so to speak. He didn't survive his illness, but died. Many other children did survive, but they were severy damaged by a drug which their mothers took against morning sickness when pregnant with them. It's a tragedy that ruined the health of British babies in the 1950ies, and so it might have done in the USA had the release of the drug - which was known as THALIDOMIDE - not been stopped by a Canadian doctor and scientist, who was living in America. Her name was Frances Oldham Kelsey (1914-2015).

Being Canadian born she was a sort of British, but most of her life she lived and worked in the USA, and even though she became a naturalized American, she moved back to Canada to be with her family when she retired.

She really was a HEROINE, and that word shouldn't have been in brackets in this newspaper article. What she did was to save America from very serious birth defects like these:

This kind of birth defects do have a severe impact on the one who suffers from them, but also on their families and society as such. Because of her research and her putting a stop to the release of Thalidomide she received The President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service from John F. Kennedy. 
 

 

 

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/frances-kathleen-oldham-kelsey 

 

Wikipedia