Posts with the Adolf Hitler tag

Barris Beat

Fix nationhood. Don’t abandon it.

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First Peoples of Canada print of Battle of Batoche, 1885.

It was the climax of the chapter, about a 19th-century military battle in western Canada. It was an important feature in my first non-fiction book, written 44 years ago. It pitted a massive force of army militia troops from eastern Canada against Métis communities defending their land rights in the Saskatchewan territory. That spring of 1885, it became known as the Battle of Batoche.

In my book, Fire Canoe, I referred to the stand that Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont made at Batoche as “the Riel rebellion.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Hitler in a blue suit

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The Reichstag (German Parliament) torched in 1933 by Nazis.

They gathered in front of the presidential building. Business people, magnates and hand-picked allies were invited to attend and listen to their incumbent leader. The country faced a winter election. And those invited, that day, were told their leader would assure them of victory.

“We must stand before the election,” the leader said to the assembly of his faithful. “Regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat. [If defeated] we will remain in power by other means, with other weapons.”

The date was February 20, 1933. The location was the presidential palace in Berlin. The election was the last election in Germany prior to the World War II. Seven days later, Nazi sympathizers used a secret tunnel to enter Germany’s national assembly building. Inside the Reichstag building, they scattered gasoline and lit the fire that would destroy all but the outer shell of the Parliament (not restored until German reunification in 1990). (more…)

Barris Beat

You think you invented social media?

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A British corporal from the front in Burma, with greetings for Joy.

A soldier with circular spectacles, corporal’s stripes on his sleeve and khaki shorts on, walks toward a stationary camera. He smiles as he acknowledges the commotion around him. Glasses clink. There’s a general hubbub of voices in friendly conversation. He’s in a military pub – circa 1940s – and stops in a kind of selfie-framing attitude and speaks right to camera.

“Hello, Joy. How’s this for a wartime miracle?” he begins. “And a novel way of saying, ‘I love you.’” (more…)

Barris Beat

From isolation can come greatness

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Composer Viktor Ullmann, imprisoned but not silenced.

Imagine a curfew keeping you inside your home. You can. Imagine quarantine as if it were imprisonment. You can. Then, imagine coming up with a unique way to deal with your isolation by turning to one of your life skills. I imagine that you can do that too.

That’s what Victor Ullmann did, in 1942. Imprisoned at a place called Terezin, a concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Bohemia, Ullmann, a music composer by profession, wrote an opera inside the prison depicting his predicament. It was called The Emperor of Atlantis.

“It’s a (musical) parable about a mad, murderous ruler,” wrote a reviewer years later, “who proclaims universal war.” (more…)

Barris Beat

A life at sea in letters

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John Birnie Dougall, a Canadian third mate aboard British merchant vessels. Jane Hutchison photo.

I never met John Birnie Dougall. But I came to know him this week, 79 years after his death. He spoke to me by way of his letters – letters he’d written as a Canadian merchant sailor keeping the supply of food, oil, munitions and hope flowing to Britain during the Second World War. As an example of his correspondence home, Dougall characterized the fate of Britain, in 1940, when it seemed Hitler’s U-boats would choke Britain’s shipping lanes to death:

“Even though England may be doomed,” he wrote in a letter to his mother Rachel, “each of us has fixed determination to do or die – a spirit that will not be beaten.” (more…)

Barris Beat

The lessons of walls

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A suitcase lost in a pile beyond an evil wall.

Behind glass at a busy museum in Poland, there’s a tattered leather suitcase sitting silent, but speaking volumes. Time and use have worn the brown polish off the corners of the bag. The latch has rusted. This piece of luggage, now nearly two generations old, has lost much of its shape and identity. Nevertheless, time has not erased perhaps the most important feature of this museum piece. Painted on the exterior is the name of its owner in 1940:

“Marie Kafka. Prag XIII-833,” the white, painted-on letters indicate. (more…)

Barris Beat

Citizen duty

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MEIN_KAMPF_EHe felt compelled to act. He could not hold his tongue. He sensed that if he didn’t step in and say something, all the evils of the past might be repeated. That’s why during a neo-Nazi meeting in the Netherlands about 1960, Heiman de Leeuw demanded entry to the meeting as well as a voice to express his concern.

“You don’t deserve to be living in this country,” he told the supporters of fascism assembled in the hall. “I refuse to keep silent.” (more…)

Barris Beat

The road taken

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A once-in-a-lifetime Paul McCartney concert
A once-in-a-lifetime Paul McCartney concert (courtesy thewritersrefuge.wordpress.com)

An acquaintance of mine told me about the night he met up with a music legend. For weeks, before Paul McCartney’s most recent concert stop in Toronto, my acquaintance and his partner debated whether they should part with the cash required to get into the Air Canada Centre to see and hear the former Beatle. My friend said they vacillated over the expense. Then, realizing they might miss an opportunity to see and hear the creator of such landmark songs as “Yesterday,” “Hey Jude” and “Live and Let Die,” the couple gathered as much cash as they could, dashed to the ACC, but arrived after the concert had begun.

“The scalpers were there with a few last tickets,” my acquaintance said. “But with the concert already underway, I guess they figured they’d better unload the tickets.” (more…)