Odd Nansen in the News

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Not long ago I was introduced to an interesting blog called “Dairies of Note.”  Having spent much time involved in a diary of note, I was intrigued by the blog writer’s approach:  quote, on each calendar day, a different diary entry written by someone on that very day sometime in the past.  It is quite a feat to be able to draw upon so many varied diaries, and, from what little I’ve seen so far, the range is enormous, and utterly fascinating.

Each diary entry comes with some explanatory material, and links for further reading, but the main attraction is the diarist’s words in each instance.  Yesterday, it just so happened to be Odd Nansen’s turn.  It’s a horrifying entry, but all of you who have read Nansen’s diary know that the scene described is unfortunately by no means unique.  As I have said in many of my lectures, it is Nansen’s inspiring humanity which prevents his diary from becoming simply a catalog of horrors.

Here is the 1944 entry from Odd Nansen’s diary that was chosen for  August 31.

We are all inundated with more reading material than we can cope with these days, but this daily blog is unique, and worth a close look.

August 10, 1941: The Atlantic Conference

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Eighty-two years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met (August 9-14, 1941) for the first time as heads of state.  The two had met only once before—back in 1918, when Roosevelt was a young Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Churchill a young Member of Parliament.  This new meeting would forever after be known as the Atlantic Conference.

The location, a tightly guarded secret, was Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, the site of a new American naval base leased from the British as part of the destroyers-for-bases deal.  [Note that I write “the British” instead of “the Canadians.”  You might be surprised to know that Newfoundland was at the time still a British dominion, and did not vote to join Canada until March 31, 1949! For a time, the base, Naval Station Argentia, was the largest American military base outside the U.S.  Its importance earned it the nickname “the Gibraltar of the Atlantic.”]

Churchill arrived at Placentia Bay on the morning of August 9, 1941, aboard HMS Prince of Wales, a British battleship.  Roosevelt awaited him aboard the heavy cruiser USS Augusta.

Roosevelt and Churchill

The goals of the two leaders heading into this all-important first meeting were poles apart.  At the top of Churchill’s list was an American declaration of war against Germany, or at the very least vastly increased military assistance.  Roosevelt’s expectations were much more modest.  He hoped to use the conference to help dislodge the implacable isolationist sentiment gripping much of the country, and even more of the Congress.

Both parties came away only partially satisfied.  American isolationist sentiment remained as implacable as ever.  On August 12, while the conference was underway, a bill to extend the military draft passed the House of Representatives by a single vote.  Nevertheless, Roosevelt did agree that the U.S. Navy would henceforth escort British ships sailing from the coast of North America to a point two hundred miles east of Iceland.  This move alone freed up “over fifty destroyers and corvettes” for use in Britain’s home waters in Churchill’s estimation.  Moreover, the military leaders of the two countries were able to further their staff discussions, providing greater coordination.  Finally, Roosevelt promised to be more provocative in challenging the German Navy on the high seas, hoping to perhaps create an “incident.”

Churchill, for his part, had to be content with these developments, as well as an offer for increased aid (FDR promised to ask Congress for another $5Billion in lend-lease aid).  All these fell far short of his original goal, but half a loaf was better than none.

Finally, the conference could not fail to have an important symbolic impact as well. Felix Frankfurter, writing to FDR afterward, observed:

“We live by symbols.  And you two in that ocean . . . in the setting of that Sunday service, gave meaning to the conflict between civilization and arrogant, brute challenge; and gave promise more powerful and binding than any formal treaty could, that civilization has brains and resources that tyranny will not be able to overcome.”

Ironically, the most far-reaching outcome of the Atlantic Conference grew out of a suggestion Roosevelt made at his initial meeting with Churchill: to issue a joint declaration of principles.  This joint statement—really no more than a mere press release—soon became known as the Atlantic Charter.  In the words of one historian “it seized men’s imaginations and framed their hopes.”  Issued on August 14, 1941, its eight points had the universal appeal of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points (issued in 1918), with the important distinction that it was a joint, rather than unilateral, declaration.  These eight “common principles” for the postwar world included: no territorial expansion; liberalization of international trade; freedom of the seas; international labor, economic and welfare standards; freedom from fear and want; and most importantly, restoring self-determination to all countries occupied during the war by the Axis powers

The Atlantic Charter would ultimately influence the formation of NATO and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).  Adherents to the Atlantic Charter would later (January 1, 1942) sign the Declaration by United Nations, which became the basis of the current United Nations.

Admiral Harold Stark, CNO, and General George Marshall, Army Chief of Staff, stand behind FDR and Churchill

Although the Atlantic Conference has been best remembered for the Atlantic Charter, the emotional high point of the event, agreed by all, was a joint religious service held on the quarterdeck of the Prince of Wales on Sunday morning, August 10.  All the conferees, along with hundreds of sailors from both countries, attended.  In his magisterial history of World War II, The Grand Alliance, Winston Churchill described the scene:

“This service was felt by us all to be a deeply moving expression of the unity of faith of our two peoples, and none who took part in it will forget the spectacle presented that sunlit morning on the crowded quarterdeck—the symbolism of the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes draped side by side on the pulpit; the American and British chaplains sharing in the reading of the prayers; the highest naval, military, and air officers of Britain and the United States grouped in one body behind the President and me; the close-packed ranks of British and Americans sailors, completely intermingled, sharing the same books and joining fervently together in prayers and hymns familiar to both.”

August 10, 1941 service aboard the Prince of Wales

Franklin Roosevelt agreed. He later told his son Elliott “If nothing else happened while we were there, that would have cemented us.”  FDR may have been particularly moved by the choice of hymns (personally chosen by Churchill himself) which included Roosevelt’s personal favorite, the Navy Hymn:

Eternal Father, strong to save,

Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,

Who bid’st the mighty ocean deep

Its own appointed limits keep,

O hear us when we cry to thee,

For those in peril on the sea.*

It is a powerful hymn, one I heard many times while one of my sons was a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy.

The closing words of the hymn, along with Churchill’s final observation: “Every word seemed to stir the heart.  It was a great hour to live,” would prove to be particularly poignant. Exactly four months later—on December 10, 1941, the Prince of Wales would be sunk by Japanese dive and torpedo bombers off the coast of Malaya; nearly half of its officers and sailors who had attended services that sunlit morning would be dead.

*= At President Roosevelt’s funeral on April 14, 1945,  in the East Room of the White House, the opening hymn was the Navy Hymn.

Profiles in Courage: Peter Deinboll

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Peter Deinboll

Last Thursday (July 27) was Peter Deinboll’s birthday.  Were he still alive today he would be 108.  Deinboll was born in Orkanger, Norway in 1915 and graduated from college in 1939 with a degree in chemical engineering.  He fought for Norway following Germany’s invasion in April 1940, and, when Norway capitulated, he chose to escape to Great Britain, where he joined the Special Operations Executive (SOE).  His escape route from Norway tells you a bit about his persistence: he traveled to Sweden, then the Soviet Union, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, India, South Africa, Trinidad, Canada, and finally, to England.

Of particular interest to the SOE during the war were Norway’s pyrite mines located at Løkken Verk, southwest of Trondheim.  Pyrites are a raw material involved in many uses, including the production of  sulfuric acid, a key chemical in many industrial processes.  Each year the Løkken mines produced hundreds of tons of ore, which were then transported by special electric trains to the port of Thamshavn to be loaded onto cargo ships.  Deinboll knew the mines well—his father had worked there since 1920 and was its chief engineer.

Pyrite Mines

Deinboll’s first undertaking for the SOE—Operation Redshank—involved bombing the electrical transformer that powered the mine and the railway.  With two accomplices Deinboll successfully destroyed the transformer on May 5, 1942, temporarily halting all pyrite transport.  During the attack Deinboll was spotted, and pursued for seven hours before he was able to elude his pursuers.  Ultimately, all three saboteurs escaped to Sweden and thence to England.

For his actions, Deinboll received the War Cross, Norway’s highest military award (an honor he would share with such other resistance luminaries I have previously written about as Gunnar Sønsteby, Joachim Rønneberg, Knut Haugland and Birger Eriksen).  He also received the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) from the British.  At a subsequent meeting of the Anglo-Norwegian Collaborating Committee (ANCC) Operation Redshank was described as “almost a model operation.”

As production at the mine gradually returned to normal, a further attack was planned.   Since security at the transformer station had been significantly strengthened, a new target was selected.  This time Deinboll was ordered to destroy the loading tower at the jetty in Thamshavn, and, for good measure, to also sink a cargo ship at the loading dock, thereby rendering the port inoperable.

Deinboll’s mission was beset with problems from the outset.  He and his two companions left England on December 6, 1942, and were launched from a British fishing boat, the Aksel, 20 miles off Norway’s coastline.  Their small boat was heavily damaged in a storm, and ultimately sank, but fortunately not before they had salvaged all their gear.  Just reaching the mainland took six days, and another fortnight was needed to reach the target. (Moreover, the Aksel and all its crew were lost at sea on its return voyage.)

The loading tower proved to be so heavily guarded that any thought of attacking it had to be abandoned.  It also took a further two months for a suitable cargo ship to arrive. Incredibly, during the wait Deinboll’s father hid the sabotage party, and provided advice on their attack plans.  Finally, in late February a 5,000-ton cargo ship, the Nordfahrt, arrived.  On February 26, 1943 Deinboll and his party stole a dingy and were able to attach three limpet mines, which seriously damaged the ship, but did not sink her—she was run aground and later salvaged.

Deinboll’s troubles were far from over.  He and his crew escaped on skis, heading for the Swedish border miles away.  Separated from the rest of his party in a blizzard, Deinboll at one point fell 200 feet over a precipice, injuring his leg.  He was forced to dig himself into the snow, and remain there for 30 hours before mustering enough strength to continue.  Deinboll later holed up in a deserted mountain hut, drinking water from snow melted between his legs.  Eventually he reached safety in Sweden.  His father and the rest of his family were also forced to flee to Sweden at this time, as the Nazis had begun to question Deinboll pere’s allegiances.

Although this attack, known as Operation Granard, had little long-term effect on the operation of the pyrite mines, Deinboll nevertheless received a Military Cross (MC) from the British for his efforts.

Eight months later, Deinboll was at it again.  He and six other Norwegian SOE operatives were parachuted into Norway, with a mandate to disrupt the mines—either by attacking the lift shaft, or else the locomotives which carried the ore from the mine to the port.  Because these locomotives ran on a special track gauge unlike any other in Europe, they could not be easily replaced.  Arriving at the mine on October 10, 1943, Deinboll concluded that the now even more heavily guarded mine was too difficult a target, and focused instead on the locomotives.  On October 31 his crew split into three groups, and succeeded in destroying or disabling five locomotives.

Less than three weeks later (November 19, 1943), despite even more heightened security, the group disabled the sole remaining locomotive.  One saboteur was killed due to a premature detonation, another captured, while the remaining five once again escaped successfully to Sweden.  [Interestingly, where Deinboll’s story ends, Gunnar Sønsteby’s begins.  One of the damaged locomotives was sent to Oslo for repair, and in August 1944 the repairs were nearing completion.  Despite the best efforts of the workers in the repair shop to slow-walk the process, the Germans were pressing hard for the job to be done; a night shift was even ordered to speed up things.  On the night of September 12, 1944, Sønsteby and two accomplices broke into the repair shop undetected, placed eight pounds of plastic explosives in the locomotive and another six pounds on the controls and set a fuse for two minutes.  The operation was a complete success.]

For Deinboll’s actions, known as Operation Feather, Colonel John Wilson, head of the Scandinavian section of the SOE, recommended that he receive a second DSO.  The British War Office, however, downgraded the recommendation to another MC instead.  When the papers were submitted to King George VI for his approval, he remarked that, if the actions described in the citation were correct, a higher award was justified, and ordered that the recommendation be resubmitted.  So Peter Deinboll received his second DSO after all—the only Norwegian to received two DSOs during World War II.

On November 8, 1944, an airplane carrying Deinboll back to Norway for yet another mission (his fourth) disappeared over the North Sea without a trace.  His body was never recovered.  Deinboll’s personal war against the Germans was over.  He was 29.

In 2003, a bust of Peter Deinboll was erected in the center of Orkanger, his hometown, and close to the scene of his exploits.  It is perched on a block of ore taken from the Løkken mine.  A tablet on the monument bears a quote attributed to Deinboll:

“Bare den som har hatt døden til følgesvenn vet hva livet er verdt.  Only he who has had death as a companion knows what life is worth.”

Deinboll Memorial

German Gold

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Dear readers, some of you may recall my recent blog, and article (Rescuing Norway’s Gold), about Nazi Germany’s quest for gold, beginning with its seizure of Austria’s gold reserves following the Anschluss of 1938.

Recently I read a book (War at Sea by James Delgado) which tells the history of naval warfare through the shipwrecks which litter the ocean floor.  There I came across an interesting tale.

When World War I broke out in August 1914, Imperial Germany had a naval squadron—the East Asia Squadron—stationed in the German quasi-colony of Qingdao (aka Tsingtao) in China’s Shandong Province.  Outnumbered and outgunned by Allied navies in the region, notably the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Royal Australian Navy, the East Asia Squadron, under the command of Vice Admiral Maximilian von Spee, elected to abandon the area, sail east, resupply from neutral but pro-German countries such as Chile, round Cape Horn, and try to reach Germany via the Atlantic, along the way “doing as much mischief as I can,” in von Spee’s words.

Off the coast of Chile, von Spee’s squadron met up with SMS Dresden, a German light cruiser.  Since the war began the Dresden had been acting as a commerce raider in the waters off the east coast of South America, and had just entered the Pacific in search of more targets.

The newly augmented squadron soon thereafter successfully tangled with a British force off the coast of Chile, in the Battle of Coronel (November 1, 1914), sinking two British cruisers.  It then proceeded to head east, around Cape Horn.  Once in the south Atlantic, von Spee, instead of taking the most direct route back to Germany, elected to attack the British naval base in the Falkland Islands.  His aim was to destroy its wireless station and all-important coal stocks.

He walked into a trap.

In the Battle of the Falkland Islands (December 8, 1914), a superior British naval force destroyed the entire German East Asia Squadron, with the sole exception of the Dresden and a few auxiliary vessels (von Spee and his two sons were all killed in the battle).  The Dresden fled back into the Pacific once again, and low on fuel (coal), sailed into Cumberland Bay in what is now known as Robinson Crusoe Island, hoping to be interned for the duration of the war.*  The British, however, still smarting over the debacle at Coronel, had other ideas.  When they located the Dresden (March 14, 1915) they announced their intention of ignoring international law, and commenced shelling an enemy ship while in a neutral harbor.  This shelling, and the decision by Dresden’s captain to scuttle the ship, sent her to the bottom of Cumberland Harbor in no time.

SMS Dresden under attack

What the British did not know, however, was that the Dresden was carrying a secret cargo.

Before von Spee’s squadron departed Qingdao, it had onloaded all the gold held in the German concession.  Sometime between the East Asia Squadron’s rendezvous with the Dresden in the South Pacific and the Battle of the Falkland Islands, all that gold was transferred from von Spee’s ships to the Dresden.  Von Spee may have been hoping that the Dresden’s powerful turbine engines would enable her to outrun her slower British pursuers.  He took a long-shot gamble, and lost.

The Dresden would remain, seemingly undisturbed, for years at the bottom of Cumberland Harbor.  When author Delgado and others examined the underwater wreck in 2002, however, they made an unusual discovery.  The 1915 photos of the Dresden’s sinking show the ship intact.  The divers instead found the stern to be heavily damaged.  Further investigation revealed that, following the Nazis’ seizure of power in 1933, a “secret expedition by German and Chilean hard-hat divers had blasted open [the captain’s] cabin and retrieved the gold for Hitler.” The actual amount of gold carried by the Dresden is not known, but apparently it was enough to mount a major salvage operation halfway around the world from Germany.  How much was in fact recovered is also unknown, and remains a mystery to this day.

So, the story of the Nazis’ quest for gold began well before the Anschluss of 1938.**

Incidentally, I had the honor this past May of speaking about Odd Nansen at Polhøgda, Nansen’s birthplace and childhood home. During my visit to Norway, Odd Nansen’s granddaughter Anne and her husband Preben graciously accompanied me on a ferry ride from downtown Oslo to Oscarsborg Fortress in the Oslofjord.  Those who have read my article know that Oscarsborg is the site of the opening clash between Norway and Germany in World War II.  I was able to personally inspect the 11-inch guns (ironically, made by Krupp) which initially disabled the German cruiser Blücher, as well as the torpedo battery which finally sank the Blücher, giving the Norwegians sufficient time to evacuate the Royal Family, the government ministers, and the nation’s all-important gold reserves.  It was a wonderful day—filled with poignant World War II history.

"Moses" one of the 11-inch guns

Examining “Moses” one of the 11-inch guns

The torpedo battery at Oscarsborg

The Blücher sank approximately where the white ship in the distance is located.

———————————————————————————————————

* Formerly known as Más a Tierra, Robinson Crusoe Island is the second largest island in the Juan Fernández Islands.  Administered by Chile, it was the site where Alexander Selkirk was marooned in 1704 for four years and four months.  Selkirk had asked to be left on the otherwise uninhabited island, during a resupply stop, due to his growing concern over the seaworthiness of his ship, the Cinque Ports; the captain, tiring of his complaints, happily obliged.  Selkirk’s experience is widely believed to be the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel of the same name (although Defoe set his Robinson Crusoe in the Caribbean).  Selkirk’s decision to leave the Cinque Ports proved prescient: the ship soon thereafter foundered off the coast of Bolivia.  Más a Tierra was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966 to reflect the literary lore associated with the island, and to attract tourism.

** Trivia Note: The naval intelligence officer aboard the Dresden when it was attacked was Lieutenant Wilhelm Canaris, who would later go on to become an admiral and head of the Abwehr—Germany’s military-intelligence service.  Initially a fervent Nazi, Canaris later grew disenchanted with Hitler, and used his powerful position to assist resistance movements.  His double-game was discovered late in the war and he was hanged on Hitler’s order on April 9, 1945, in Flossenburg concentration camp.

 

Thomas Buergenthal (1934–2023): A Remembrance

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“Your cause of sorrow must not be measured by his worth, for then it hath no end.”   Macbeth, Act V, Scene viii

I first met Tom Buergenthal—or rather—he first met me, in January 2011.  As my readers know, a year earlier I had purchased Tom’s newly published memoir, A Lucky Child, on an impulse.  I was so taken with Tom’s story, of persecution, heartbreak, struggle, family love, and survival, that I Googled him, learning that he was then a justice on the International Court of Justice at the Hague.  An email address was provided, so I wrote Tom to tell him how much his life story had affected me. I also asked if I could send him my copy of A Lucky Child for his signature (I love signed books).

Tom counseled patience: the cost of mailing a book to the Netherlands and back would be prohibitive.  Besides, Tom was already planning to retire from the bench and return to the U.S. where he would resume teaching at George Washington Law School.  At that point using the mails would be much much cheaper.

While I awaited Tom’s return, I searched for a copy of the diary Tom alluded to in his memoir—the diary written by Odd Nansen, the man Tom credited with saving his life in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.  I ordered one of the only five copies of From Day to Day available for sale on the Internet.  Nansen’s diary proved to be as powerful as Tom’s own memoir.  But whereas Tom’s book was going through multiple printings and numerous translations, Nansen’s diary had all but vanished.

In January 2011, having decided to republish Nansen’s diary, I traveled to Washington, DC for the dual purpose of researching the copyright status of From Day to Day, and meeting Tom in person for the first time to obtain his all-important autograph.  G.W. Law School is a conglomeration of several adjoining office buildings with connecting hallways in various places—in other words, an incomprehensible maze.  Upon my arrival there I had no idea how to get from where I stood to where Tom’s office was purported to be.

While I was thus intently studying the floor plan in the building directory, a cheerful voice behind me said “You wouldn’t happen to be looking for me?”  There stood a short, cherubic figure with a full head of curly white hair and a ready smile—Tom Buergenthal.

And so our friendship began.

At that initial meeting Tom graciously offered to help me in my new quest.  He would introduce me to Odd Nansen’s children, most especially his eldest child Marit.  She was the “keeper of the flame,” he observed, the family historian who could answer my many inquiries. And, assuming I could find a publisher, he offered to write a preface for the new edition.

Over the next few years our friendship grew, as Tom counseled me, encouraged me when rejection followed rejection, and patiently answered my endless questions.  When I learned that Vanderbilt University Press agreed to republish the new, fully annotated version of From Day to Day, my first phone call was to Tom.  I told him that his memoir had undoubtedly touched many readers—how could it not—but it was unlikely that his book had changed the course of someone’s life the way I knew mine was about to change.  Even then I could hardly realize how meaningful the next phase of my life would be.  And throughout it all, our friendship grew.  The highlight of any trip to, through or near DC would always to be a dinner with Tom and his lovely wife Peggy at their favorite local restaurant, Matisse, on Wisconsin Avenue.

I’ve read many of the comments left on Tom’s obituary page, from people who knew Tom in various roles: teacher, friend, co-worker, etc.  Here’s just a sampling:

“A brilliant mind, a voice for humanity, and a wonderful friend”; “The most impressive, kind and humble person”; “A great jurist, scholar, educator and humanitarian”; “Unflagging optimism and good humor”; “Big-hearted, big-minded giant”; “Made a lasting impact on everyone he met”; “An intellectual giant . . . incredibly kind, funny and humble”; “The most wonderful and kindest man”

I agree with every one of them.  What I remember most about Tom was a seriousness of purpose that was cleverly masked by his gentleness and constant good humor.   I never saw an ill-tempered Tom, a brusque response, a cutting retort.  He was always patient, always kind.  And Tom’s magic, perhaps unknowingly, began back in Sachsenhausen.  For not only did Odd Nansen save Tom Buergenthal; Tom Buergenthal saved Odd Nansen.  After the war Nansen wrote:

“Without suspecting it, Tommy accomplished with us a work of salvation.  He touched something in us which was about to disappear.  He called to life again human feelings, which were painful to have, but which nevertheless meant salvation for us all.”

There are many distinguished pictures of Tom available on the Internet, from his many speeches, award ceremonies and interviews.  The one I most prefer, however, is this one:

 

It is a bit more casual.  In fact, Tom looks rather rumpled, like he has just had a long, hard day at the office.  But what I like about the picture is the juxtaposition: if you gaze over Tom’s left shoulder you will see a shelf full of books.  The first three are the three-volume set of Nansen’s diary in the original Norwegian; taking up most of the remaining shelf are multiple copies of the English version of Nansen’s diary (the cream and reddish bindings).  Here is a veritable library dedicated to the man whose heart went out to young Tommy when Nansen first saw him in the Sachsenhausen infirmary like “one of Raphael’s angels.” A bookish tribute to the man who not only saved Tom’s life, but more importantly, according to Tom, “taught me to forgive.”

My readers know that I always end my presentations with a reading from Nansen’s diary entry of March 5, 1945.  There, while relating a conversation with 10-year-old Tommy, on what he expected to be his last meeting with Tom in Sachsenhausen [Nansen was moved to Neuengamme concentration camp on March 20, 1945] Nansen ends the entry with this fervent hope:

“May you one day grasp and experience [life’s] richness, and all the warmth and joy, all the beaming light which are reflected in those big eyes of yours, too shrewd for a child’s, and which are a reminder and evidence of what you were meant to be.”

Even in the short time I was privileged to be Tom Buergenthal’s friend, I can attest that Tom did experience—and share—all the warmth and joy, all the beaming light that were indeed reflected in his big, bright, eyes.

Farewell, Tom Buergenthal.

 

Other blogs dealing with Tom Buergenthal:

April 22, 1945: Thomas Buergenthal Liberated (4/22/20)

The Meaning of Cold (1/7/18)

August 2, 1944: Tom Buergenthal Enters Auschwitz (8/2/21)

Tom Buergenthal and the World Court (2/15/23)

February 16, 1945: Nansen Meets Buergenthal (2/16/16)

Rare Archival Footage of Young Tom Buergenthal Located (11/7/21)

Anti-Semitism in America (12/4/22)

Thomas Buergenthal: Track Star? (11/17/19)

A Year-End Potpourri (12/29/21)

The parallel lives of Thomas Buergenthal and Anne Frank (8/2/19)

April 4, 1945: Ohrdruf Liberated (4/4/23)

In Memoriam: Thomas Buergenthal

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Thomas Buergenthal

It is with deep sorrow that I write to inform you that my dear friend, Tom Buergenthal, died on Monday, May 29, 2023.  He had just recently turned 89.  Tom’s obituary can be found here.

I am currently at a loss for words, but will write more soon.

Memorial Day: Remembering the Fallen

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In Memoriam.  Private D. Sutherland killed in Action

 in the German Trench, May 16, 1916, and the Others who Died.

By E. A. Mackintosh

So you were David’s father,
And he was your only son,
And the new-cut peats are rotting
And the work is left undone.
Because an old man weeping,
Just an old man in pain,
For David, his son David,
That will not come again.

Oh, the letters he wrote you,
And I can see them still,
Not a word of the fighting,
But just the sheep on the hill
And how you should get the crops in
Ere the year gets stormier,
And the Bosches have got his body,
And I was his officer.

You were only David’s father,
But I had fifty sons
When we went up in the evening
Under the arch of the guns,
And we came back at twilight—
O God! I heard them call
To me for help and pity
That could not help at all.

Oh, never will I forget you,
My men that trusted me,
More my sons than your fathers’
for they could only see
The little helpless babies
And the young men in their pride.
They could not see you dying,
And hold you when you died.

Happy and young and gallant,
They saw their first born go,
But not the strong limbs broken
And the beautiful men brought low,
The piteous writhing bodies,
They screamed “Don’t leave me sir,”
For they were only your fathers
But I was your officer.

Private David Sutherland of the Seaforth Highlanders was killed during a trench raid on May 16, 1916; he has no known burial place.  Lt. Ewart Alan Mackintosh received the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry during the same raid.  Macintosh was killed 17 months later, on November 21, 1917, on the second day of the Battle of Cambrai.  He is buried in Northern France.  He was 24 years old.

E. A. Mackintosh

Mary Berg’s Secret Is Discovered (Part V)

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When Mary Berg, survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, died in April 2013 (exact date unknown), it appeared that her desire for lasting anonymity had succeeded.  Her former editor, S.L. Shneiderman, had died years before (1996).  Susan Pentlin, who—against Mary’s wishes—prepared a reissue of Berg’s diary in 2006 (under the new title Mary Berg’s Diary), never revealed what she knew, and followed Mary into the grave eight months after Mary’s demise, passing away on Christmas Day 2013.

But the story didn’t end there.

Fast forward to early June 2014, over a year after Mary’s death.  Apparently, her husband, Bill Pentin, consigned some of Mary’s belongings to an estate sale.  Was it a case of decluttering?  Was Pentin downsizing? Since he, like Mary, graduated from college in 1947, he was also pushing 90 years old by this time.  Did he carefully examine everything that was consigned, or was much of the material consigned precisely because it hadn’t been used/handled/viewed in decades, and therefore couldn’t be very valuable to the family in the first place?

Part of the sale consisted of four of Mary’s photo albums, covering the period from the 1920s to the 1950s, and a 50+ year-old scrapbook. [Perhaps it’s not surprising, given Mary’s later views, that her 12 original notebooks, and the first, Polish, version of the diary are considered “no longer extant.”]

Glen Coghill, a part-time antique/memorabilia dealer, with a specialty in World War II related items, attended the sale and saw, in one of the albums, photos of vintage World War II airplanes.  Interested, and confident he could resell such items for a profit, he submitted the highest—and only—bid for it: a whopping $2.00.  As the winning bidder, Coghill was then given “bidder’s choice.”  That is, the ability to purchase the related albums/scrapbook for the same price.  He agreed to purchase everything, upping his total investment for the day to $10.00.

Only when Coghill returned home was he able to examine his new purchases in detail, including all the press coverage of one “Mary Berg.”  Doing a Google search, he came across Amy Rosenberg’s 2008 article in Tablet magazine entitled “What Happened to Mary Berg?”  It was only then that he realized that Mary Berg was the same person as Mary Pentin, a fellow antiques dealer with whom he was acquainted.

Looking for some guidance regarding his now much more significant purchase, Coghill contacted the staff at Tablet.  He expressed a desire to find a good home for this seemingly valuable material—whether it be a museum or a private collector.

This latest twist in the Mary Berg saga was reported in a new article in Tablet, in June 2014, written by Sara Ivry.  It is not clear what advice, if any, Sara or anyone at Tablet gave to Coghill at this point.  According to a further, November 2014 article in Tablet, Coghill had met with a curator for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, but in the end decided to place Mary’s items with Doyle, a Manhattan auction house, where the materials were estimated to be worth up to $6,000.  Not a bad return on a $10 investment!

News of the pending Doyle auction set off alarms among Holocaust scholars, fearing that Doyle’s sale might fuel a commercial market in Holocaust-related memorabilia, rather than keeping such items in publicly accessible collections.  The clincher apparently came when the New York Times reached out to Mary’s relatives, who learned about the auction (and the earlier estate sale) for the first time.  They thereupon contacted Doyle.  Given Mary’s decades-long quest for invisibility, the call to Doyle could not have been a friendly one.

Doyle then elected to cancel the proposed auction and released a statement that it was “working with all involved parties toward the goal of finding an appropriate permanent home for the archive.”  Ultimately Doyle brokered a sale to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for an undisclosed sum (although presumably more than $10.00).  The photo albums and scrapbook can now be viewed on the Museum’s website: Mary Berg collection – Collections Search – United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (ushmm.org)

A local AP reporter who also covered all the twists and turns in the story noted that the handler of the estate sale had been informed by Bill Pentin to throw out whatever items didn’t sell.  He concludes:

“Had Coghill not bought that scrapbook—he was the sole bidder—it would have been sent to the York County Solid Waste Authority’s incinerator.

And we would never have known that Mary Berg had lived among us all these years.

Worse, we would have never known who she was.”

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien imbues the ring of power, on which the fate of Middle-Earth depends, with agency.  As the wizard Gandalf explains to young Frodo Baggins, the long-missing ring ended up being “found” by Bilbo Baggins precisely because it was trying to get back to its master—it wanted to be found.

Maybe Mary’s photos and scrapbook—despite all her efforts—just wanted to be found. Whatever the reason—dumb luck, serendipity, or a careless oversight by Mary’s husband, we are nevertheless richer for having this material.  As one scholar noted, the material sheds light on the period when public memory of the Holocaust was still being formed.

Even Mary’s relatives ultimately reconciled themselves to this final chapter in Mary’s life.  As a nephew, Steven Powell, concluded: “All the players in this drama are deceased, so it is a part of history now.”

End of a Series.

Note: On this date in 1943 the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was considered officially ended.  The Ghetto’s final 50,000+ inhabitants had either been killed or captured; those captured were in almost all cases later sent to extermination camps. The largest single revolt by Jews during World War II was over.

The Warsaw Ghetto Claims Its Final Victim (Part IV)

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I have previously sketched the history of the Warsaw Ghetto: its formation in 1940 (here); the mass deportations of its inhabitants to death camps in 1942 (here); and the desperate uprising of its remaining inhabitants in 1943 (here); all as seen through the eyes of diarist Mary Berg.

Mary Berg (All photos courtesy of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum)

Berg was one of the very few who survived the Warsaw Ghetto, initially because her relatively wealthy family could afford more and better food, etc., and ultimately because of her American-born mother’s U.S. citizenship.

On March 1, 1944, as part of a prisoner exchange with Germany, Mary and her family began their voyage to freedom, first by train from their internment camp in Vittel, France, to Lisbon, Portugal, and then by boat to New York City.  Mary carried with her few personal possessions, but among these were 12 small, spiral notebooks, written in her own cryptic shorthand (in case they fell into the wrong hands) which described “the most important facts” of her four-year stay in the Ghetto.  In her head she also carried “all the most important dates and names” which she had memorized.

Mary also had a mission, as she related in the very last entry of her diary:

“I shall do everything I can to save those who can still be saved, and to avenge those who were so bitterly humiliated in their last moments.  And those who were ground into ash, I shall always see them alive.  I will tell, I will tell everything, about our sufferings and our struggles and the slaughter of our dearest, and I will demand punishment for the German murderers . . . who enjoyed the fruits of murder, and are still wearing the clothes and shoes of our martyrized people.”

Mary had just landed in New York on March 15, 1944, when she met Samuel L. Shneiderman, a Polish journalist who had escaped Europe in 1940.  When Shneiderman learned of her shorthand diary, he offered to work with her to transcribe and complete her narrative, adding explanatory context where necessary, etc.

Mary Berg in the Warsaw Ghetto with friend Romek Kowalski

Mary’s diary, originally published as Warsaw Ghetto: A Diary, was among the earliest personal accounts of the Holocaust.  It was first translated from Polish into Yiddish, and serialized in mid-1944 and appeared in English, in book form, in February, 1945.  Mary’s surname was shortened from Wattenberg to Berg to protect family members who might still be at risk in Poland.  The book was eventually translated into seven other languages.  It immediately garnered glowing reviews.  The New York Times Book Review recommended Warsaw Ghetto to everybody “without qualification.”  The New Yorker called it “one of the most heartbreaking documents to come out of the war. . . a brave and inspiring book.”  Accolades poured in from the Chicago Tribune, Dallas News, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Book of the Month Club News, among others.

By turns poignant, searing, tender, eloquent, and wise beyond its teenage author’s years, Mary’s diary is every bit as moving in its way as Anne Frank’s, with which it shares many similarities.  Mary Berg has even been called “Anne Frank before there was an Anne Frank.”

Meanwhile, Mary was focusing on fulfilling her earlier vow. Little more than a month following her arrival in New York City, she was leading a crowd of thousands in a march to City Hall to commemorate the first anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  Her book’s publication in early 1945 only increased Mary’s profile, and soon she was doing everything, everywhere, all the time (as attested by her voluminous scrapbook, of which more later):

  • Being interviewed on New York City radio;
  • Sharing a panel on “Forging a World Bill of Rights” with Nobel laureate Pearl S. Buck;
  • Appearing in Marquis Who’s Who;
  • Serving as a delegate in a Model UN (representing Poland) on behalf of her college, Monmouth Junior College;
  • Speaking at a United Jewish Campaign rally;
  • Serving as commencement speaker at her 1947 graduation from Monmouth;
  • Purportedly working on a second book, of her initial impressions of America.

In other words, Mary had become “widely enough known that she was considered a New York celebrity” according to Amy Rosenberg, writing in Tablet Magazine.

Mary in the Warsaw Ghetto with a member of the Jewish police.

In a February 23, 1945 guest column Mary, writing for Outlook, the school newspaper of Monmouth Junior College, dwelt on the importance of freedom:

“[W]e should always remember that wonderful American privilege of freedom.  Let us teach it all over the world.  Let us show everybody how wonderful it is to have it.  Let us, America, be the best example.  That is how we can prevent future wars, and it depends entirely on us.”

Then something unexpected happened.

By the early 1950s Mary’s diary had gone out of print and she had disappeared from public life.

What is more, Mary disassociated herself from anything having to do with her diary or her past life.  She resolutely refused to participate in Holocaust-related events.  She refused to speak with researchers.  Soon she disappeared from view altogether, and on occasion denied being Mary Berg. There was even concern that she might label her own diary a fabrication.

Ultimately, Mary, who was now married and went by the name Mary Pentin, ended up living and working as an antiques dealer in York, PA.  Variously described as “eccentric,” “quirky,” “difficult,” and “prickly,” she disclosed to no one her past, and not only showed no interest in reissuing her diary, she actively discouraged it.  Her location and status were so completely concealed that Amy Rosenberg’s July, 2008 article in Tablet Magazine was entitled “What Happened to Mary Berg?”

As early as 1959, Berg was arguing with her old collaborator, Samuel Shneiderman, trying to prevent the publication of a Polish language version.  After expressing his disappointment over her attitude (“You have not shown the slightest consideration for me personally and the tremendous effort I put into this book”), Shneiderman nevertheless elected to proceed without her blessing (which he was permitted to do under his contract with her), explaining: “I feel it is my moral obligation to make this book available for the . . . reader, as a book of highly educational value concerning anti-Semitism.” Berg later broke off all contact with Shneiderman and his family.

In 1995, Susan Pentlin—the similarity in surnames is entirely coincidental—a professor at Central Missouri State University, and teacher of Holocaust courses, composed a note to Mary, again seeking her approval of a reissue of the English language version, which she planned to annotate in much same the way I annotated From Day to Day.  (The publishing rights were held by Shneiderman’s heirs, who were amenable.)  Pentlin knew from Shneiderman that her quest was an uphill battle.  She assured Mary that she would respect Mary’s wish to remain private.  “You can trust me not to divulge any information you prefer me not to. . ..  I will not give your present name and address to anyone. . ..  Please believe me, I would never want to do anything that might cause you pain,” Pentlin wrote.

Mary Berg’s handwritten reply in full:

“Your participation in all those Holocaust conferences to satisfy your ego and feelings of self-serving importance is pathetic.  Instead of continuing to milk the Jewish Holocaust to its limits, do go and make a difference in all those Holocausts taking place right now in Bosnia or Chechnia [sic] or have you no sympathy for Moslems being slaughtered?  Why don’t you organize conferences in memory of the Armenians or Kurds or Rwandans?  By teaching about the Holocaust you’ll stop its occurrence in the future, right?  But the future is now.  When the Jews were victimized, they wanted the world to save them.  Are the Israelis dropping bombs on the Serbs to save Bosnian Moslems?  Don’t tell me this is different.

So bug off and stop invading my privacy.

Your request is denied.  M.P.”

What had happened to the vow Mary made in her final diary entry (“I will tell everything”)?

What had happened to her college exhortation (“It depends entirely on us”)?

What had happened to the person who maintained a scrapbook of all her achievements that was so voluminous she engaged the services of a clipping agency?

What prompted such a cynical response to Susan Pentlin?

The precise reason for this volte-face will probably never be known.

Was it a case of survivor’s guilt? While at the Vittel internment camp she had written: “We, who have been rescued from the ghetto, are ashamed to look at each other.  Had we the right to save ourselves?  Here everything smells of sun and flowers and there—there is only blood, the blood of my own people.”

Was it dejection that, despite her avowed mission to “save those who still can be saved,” her diary and her appearances had failed to alter the fate of a single Hungarian Jew, thousands of whom were murdered even after her diary’s publication?

Was it disillusionment that, despite her demand for “punishment for the German murderers,” so many Nazis were let off scot-free as the Cold War with the Soviets heated up?

Perhaps she simply lost faith in mankind.

Perhaps her obsessive secrecy and angry responses were a case of delayed PTSD. Perhaps the flurry of activity following her arrival in the U.S. was merely an attempt to keep her demons at bay, and they finally got the better of her.  Perhaps, as Amy Rosenberg suggests, “even those who escaped were never free.”  In her final diary entry Mary mentions the unique feeling of freedom, now that New York City was in sight, which almost took her breath away, a feeling that was nevertheless still very tenuous:

“In the last four years I have not known this feeling.  Four years of the black swastika, of barbed wire, ghetto walls, executions, and, above all, terror—terror by day and terror by night.  After four years of that nightmare I found it hard to enjoy my freedom at first.  I constantly imagined that it was only a dream, that at any moment I would awaken in the Pawiak [prison] and once again see the aged men with gray beards, the blooming young girls and proud young men, driven like cattle to the Umschlagplatz on Stawki Street to their deaths.”

Mary Wattenberg died ten years ago this month (the exact date is unknown), age 88.  There was no official obituary, and it was only following her death that her friends and neighbors in York learned for the first time that she was even Jewish, let alone a Holocaust survivor, and the author of a famous diary.

Perhaps the Warsaw Ghetto had claimed its final victim.

Mary’s diary was reissued in 2006 as The Diary of Mary Berg, and is still available.  It is both an eye-witness record of an immense tragedy, and, despite Mary’s personal misgivings, a way of “educating future generations about the past [that] will empower them to build a new world without hate,” in the words of Susan Pentlin.

Soon: Part V: How Mary’s secret life was finally uncovered. 

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April 19, 1943): Part III

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“God, why do we have to suffer all this?” Diary of Mary Berg, June 15, 1943

Warsaw Ghetto burning.

I have previously written about the Warsaw Ghetto several times already—primarily as seen through the eyes of teenage diarist Mary Berg.

Part I described the establishment of the Ghetto in September 1940; the lethal living conditions which consigned thousands of inhabitants to death by disease or slow starvation; the start of Grossaktion Warschau on July 25, 1942, sending many inhabitants to their death at Treblinka, a Vernichtungslager (death camp), a process that murdered 250,000 to 300,000 Jews within the space of 60 days.

The deportations to Treblinka from the Warsaw Ghetto were suspended for a brief time (September 21, 1942 – January 18, 1943).

Part II explained how the resumption of deportations was met for the first time with concerted resistance on the part of the Ghetto’s remaining inhabitants, now numbering approximately 63,000 men, women, and children.  Unlike the initial wave of deportations, where the Germans promised—and the inhabitants believed—”resettlement” to labor camps “in the East,” by 1943 the existence, and purpose, of Treblinka was well known.  According to Berg, “Many Jews barricaded themselves in their houses and fired at the manhunters.”  Others deliberately infiltrated columns of rounded-up Jews, and, at a signal, stepped out and attacked the Nazis.  After a few days, the Germans had only been able to collect 5,000—6,000 Ghetto dwellers for transport, at considerable cost to their own forces, and the Germans elected to withdraw from the Ghetto.

The Ghetto’s remaining population now engaged in feverish activity in anticipation of renewed German efforts to collect and deport the remaining inhabitants.  These survivors had no illusions.  According to Berg, “They knew that their fate was sealed, that the Nazis had decided to exterminate the Jewish population completely.”  Water, food, and medicines were stockpiled; bunkers prepared; arms smuggled in from the outside.  It was only a question of time before the Germans would return, more determined than ever.

That day arrived 80 years ago today, April 19, 1943, a date chosen by the Nazis because it was the eve of the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover.

The Germans came with tanks, heavy artillery, flamethrowers.  They employed members of the police, Wehrmacht, Gestapo, and Waffen-SS, among others.  When the defenders refused to surrender, the German’s commander, Jürgen Stroop* ordered all structures in the Ghetto to be systematically burned and/or destroyed, block by block.  Berg observes that, “For many nights, the fire of the ghetto could be seen for miles around Warsaw.”  The suppression of the uprising officially ended May 16, 1943, although sporadic skirmishes with holdouts continued as late as June 5, 1943.  In the end, all but eight buildings in the Warsaw Ghetto were destroyed.  Approximately 7,000 Jews were killed during the uprising, many via suffocation from smoke inhalation or from being burned alive.  The remaining population (50,000) were captured and deported to the death camps of Treblinka and Majdanek.

In this iconic photo, women and children evacuate their bunker and surrender to German authorities

Today, with the memory of Yom HaShoah fresh in our minds, it is fitting to reflect on those who fought and died for the honor of the Jewish people.  As eloquently commemorated by Mary Berg:

“The Battle of the Ghetto lasted for five weeks.  Its starved, exhausted defenders fought heroically against the powerful Nazi war machine.  They did not wear uniforms, they had no ranks, they received no medals for their superhuman exploits.  There only distinction was death in the flames.  All of them are Unknown Soldiers, heroes who have no equals.  How horrible it is to think of all this—so many relatives and friends among them. . . . I have been standing at my window for the last few days [in an internment camp in France] talking with the newly arrived internees [from the Ghetto].  I drank in their words avidly, and my thoughts carried me over there, to the burning houses of the ghetto where I had lived for three years with all these heroes.  Every now and then I felt faint, as if my very heart had withered. . . . “

Diary of Mary Berg, June 15, 1943

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II.

TO BE CONTINUED

* Stroop was hanged for his crimes in Warsaw’s Mokotów Prison on March 6, 1952.

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