Category: History

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Digging the Mole: Language, Memory, and the Dirt of Native Soil

Well, I am back in Wales after a week in the Czech capital. And, as is always the case following such travels, I seem to have left behind some part of me that keeps spinning, endlessly and unclaimed, like a piece of luggage on a carousel forcing it back into view with every turn. Retrieving some of its content piecemeal—and in full view of anyone around me—I am devoting the next few entries in the broadcastellan journal to the grabbing at that stubbornly revolving case and the spreading out of whatever I might snatch from it for all to see.

Traveling to Prague was not simply a matter of going on a trip to me—unless, you might say at the risk of sounding like some hideous pop tune, it was a matter of going on a trip “to me.” It was the closest I have been to walking on what my German passport claims to be home turf in about seventeen years (apart from a subsequent stopover in Amsterdam, during which we took the train into town for a meal and a walk along the grachten).

If that nearness to what I have been trying to get away from weren’t enough to cause anxiety, Prague is full of reminders of the cultural contributions of my forebears, from the writings of Franz Kafka to the attempt at exterminating Jewish culture, impressions to be shared in subsequent entries. I was relieved, amid “collective guilt”-ridden visits of the Jewish Quarter and the angst-fest that is the Kafka Museum, to come across Krtek, the mole. Perhaps it was a matter of closing my eyes and ears for a while (moles, unlike Krtek, being short-sighted and hard of hearing) and of not resurfacing for a while, getting so close to being home-soiled.

I grew up digging Krtek, a cartoon character created by Zdeněk Miler. Former Czechoslovakia was a chief purveyor of children’s television entertainment both in Eastern Europe and Germany during the 1970s. As it turns out, Krtek is celebrating his fiftieth birthday this year, which is why he was prominently on display in the shopwindows of Prague. I could not resist sharing my rediscovery by donning above t-shirt. Never mind that I look like Mr. Magoo avoiding the glare of an otherwise welcome sun.

To me, Krtek will always be “Der Kleine Maulwurf,” which is how I got to know him during my childhood. “Maulwurf”! What a wonderful word. Literally, it means “snout throw” (or “muzzle toss”). The German language is marked by a directness largely lacking in Latin-quartered English, an openness and simplicity I did not come to appreciate until I dug a hole out of the place I chose not to call Heimat and picked up the works of Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, whose to English ears mannered idiolect (termed “Carlylese”) comes alive in metaphors and loan-translations.

A number of poets and novelists living in Prague in the early 20th century circulated their thoughts in the linguistic isolation cell of German, a marginality so keenly felt by Kafka. Being already in a heap of clay dug up by Krtek, I am currently reading Gustav Meyrink’s Der Golem (1915), the famous legend of the clay-made aider of the Jews, about which and whom I will have more to say in the near future.

Having lived outside Europe for so long, I am sometimes overwhelmed (and not always pleased) by the memories tossed back in my face at the mere sight of something like a little mime of a mole, memories that come to life chiefly in images but, when recalled in words, insist on sticking out my native tongue at me.

I know. It seems as if I were making a mountain out of one of his hills; but watching Krtek in this charming little movie, I am reminded how much he, too, dug the radio, and how this love for foreign sounds brought about his isolation . . .

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Things to Come . . . and Go

Well, there are few signs of it here. And sometimes I am not sure how I feel about that. Progress, I mean. Yesterday, I took in the lavish and fabulous Things to Come (1936), one of the cinematic gems the BBC has been dispensing in its current Summer of British Film retrospective. For once, our progress-defying DVD recorder did not refuse its services; so, unlike the previously shown Quatermass Xperiment, which I was unable to preserve for future viewing, Things to Come flickered on our Ikea-blind-turned-movie screen last night without a glitch.

“Progress is good,” “ignorance is bad,” and “war is a waste of energy” are the chief messages conveyed by this collaboration of H. G. Wells and director William Cameron Menzies, posing here with Pearl Argyle in a publicity shot featured, like the image below it, in my frequently raided copy of Film Pictorial Annual 1937, which devotes over a dozen pages to retelling the story in an “easy-to-read narrative.”

The second of these messages, “ignorance is bad,” is being brought across forcefully in the opening scenes, in which the cheer of the folks in Everytown are being contrasted with the warnings of an impending war. I was reminded of Archibald MacLeish’s aforementioned radio drama “Air Raid,” in which warnings about the coming of war are being disregarded by those who subsequently perish in a blitz on their village.

In Things to Come, chemical warfare results in the spreading of a “wandering sickness” crippling all civilization. As the Film Pictorial Annual sums it up in what reads like a bowdlerized version of Byron’s “Darkness,”

Nation after nation was dawn into the gigantic struggle. Infinitely more horrible than the last world war, this new fight carried death by bombs, by gas, by famine and by disease into every city an every town in the civilized world. New hates, new forces were unleashed; until, so obstinate, so wilful is human nature that there was none left to work for peace. The whole world, caught in the struggle, could find no way to end this horror.

Living as remotely as I do, it is quite easy to get lost in the everyday, to lose sight of world events, present or prospective. Right now, I am once again cut off from the internet, this time due to a crossed telephone line. During times like these, I become aware of how I much I depend on telecommunications technology and how keenly I sense its loss. Progress, after all, means positive change only for those who are privileged to benefit from it.

To find out whether things are truly as peaceful as they appeared in the tranquility and seclusion of home—things-hard-to-come-by these days), we drove down to our nearest Everytown. And, succumbing to a “wandering sickness” of the Weltschmerz variety, we took advantage of the technology denied us at home to book a trip out of town. Expect to find references to Prague woven into posts to come once we prove victorious in this latest battle for broadband . . .

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"Life with[out] Mother": Anna and Eleanor Roosevelt on the Air

Leave it to Will and Grace. That is what I used to say when that show was still on the air. Sarcasm, I mean. The kind of at-someone-else’s-expense humor those most likely to be subject to bias attacks are so quick to dispense. Sometimes, though, even I cannot hold back. While flicking through the August 1949 issue of Radio and Television Mirror, something I decided on doing all this week here at broadcastellan, I came across an essay by Anna Roosevelt, commenting on her life with former First Lady Eleanor.

Back in 1949, the two had a radio program, broadcast Monday through Friday afternoon over ABC stations. Now, imagine soon-if-not-soon-enough-to-be former First Lady Laura Bush and one of her daughters going on the air five days a week to discuss politics and social matters. Who would tune in, let alone without a smirk or the fingers-crossed anticipation of a delicious gaffe?

Now, I do have doubts that the Bush women could handle such an assignment; but that is almost beside my point. Take Hillary and Chelsea, if you must. I mean, would anyone tune in, unless Hillary were having a giant tumor removed or Chelsea defended herself after being caught driving naked under the influence?

We chuckle at the so-called “good old days” with an air of superciliousness or else wax nostalgic. The very thought of sitting still while two of the western hemisphere’s most famous mother and daughter talk without any scandal or sensational element in sight! Preposterous, right? To me, this is neither cause for ridicule nor romance. It is simply a fact that we have become more callous and shallow and than we have ever been in the best and worst of times, even in the face of what might be, according to some scientists, the worst yet to come.

I do go on a bit; but I am not one to attach as of course the adjective “cheap” to the much-abused noun “sentiment.” At any rate, here is Anna Roosevelt talking about her mother and their joint radio venture, recordings of which, I regret, do not appear to have survived for appraisal:

Life with Mother always has been rich with her inspiration. Her aim never was to mold me in her image, but to guide me along lines of intellectual independence, social awareness and understanding. If I am able to bring any of these qualities to our radio program, I recognize how deeply indebted I am to Mother—even when I have the temerity to take issue with her on a subject. 

Neither Mother nor Father ever courted sycophants among their children. And if I have learned to speak up, I can trace my assertiveness to the family hearth. Although the family has arrived at broadly the same general philosophy, it would be an error to suppose that we agreed automatically on every social and economic question of public interest. 

Certainly there was nothing to support such a notion at our spirited family gatherings where everyone was free to express opinions, where sometimes even Father would have to shout to get the floor. The dictum that children should be seen and not heard was sharply modified in our household [. . .]. 

Our silence [in front of company] was not mere obeisance to good manners, but a credit to Mother’s good sense. For she took great pains to impress upon us that we should learn by listening to others[. . .]. 

It was second nature for us to hear Mother—from the time I was a child—discuss settlement work in New York, and to hear her connect individual cases to broad social problems affecting hundreds and thousands of others in any large city in the United States [. . .] 

Whether at the White House or elsewhere, life with Mother is unfailingly eventful—and always has been. It was especially eventful recently when Mother—the very epitome of punctuality—did not arrive on time for our first broadcast together at the ABC studios in New York City. 

I couldn’t understand it. Mother had planed in the night before from the United Nations meeting in Paris. We had worked out a few questions I was to ask concerning the Human Rights Committee, and were to meet at 10:30 the following morning at the ABC studios in Radio City. 

I had thought how easy our first program at the same microphone would be. I didn’t become alarmed until I noticed that Mother still was among the missing—and it was just two minutes before air time. 

Suddenly I found myself on the air—and utterly alone. I gazed entreatingly at the door. I was certain Mother would burst in at any moment. But there was no sign of her. I ad libbed for ten and one half minutes, without a page of script or a note to guide me. I filled in two more minutes by playing a recording Mother had made in Paris. I discussed New York traffic. Christmas shopping and anything else that came to mind. 

Then Mother arrived—in time to answer just one question. I knew Mother must have had a good alibi. She did. She had forgotten about the congestion of New York City traffic. She had thought—with incredible naiveté—that she could travel from Washington Square to 50th Street in ten minutes. 

Quite a miscalculation for so adept a world traveller as Mother. It made her realize just how completely engrossing the United Nations sessions had been.

Mrs. Roosevelt, who was taking a break from broadcasting during August, kept turning to the radio for news from Korea. On this day, 22 August, in 1949, she expressed herself concerned about the use of the Atomic bomb to resolve the conflict, hoping that the weapon would never be used (and she does not write “again”) since it would create a deadly chain of retaliation that might prove the end of the civilized world. In light of the current state of broadcasting here and stateside, I have a feeling it takes less than a nuclear weapon to accomplish just about that.

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Hustle Bustle

Generally, I don’t leap at the chance of gawking at gowns worn by Nicole Kidman, Uma Thurman, or Kate Beckinsale, period costumes currently on view at the American Museum in Britain just outside Bath. Still, I was intrigued by the museum’s exhibition Dollar Princesses and, on a trip to the old spa town last Thursday, we trotted up to Claverton Manor (pictured) to have a look.

Dollar Princesses tells the story of what Oscar Wilde referred to as the “American Invasion”—the eastern migration of moneyed American women dead set on a title and deigning to take any destitute Englishman yet attached to it in the bargain. Take Jenny Jerome, for instance, who courted in record speed—a mere three days—to beat the moneyed crowds so as to become Lady Randolph Churchill. Her son Winston, incidentally, made his first political speech at Claverton Manor back in 1897.

As I looked at the artifacts and read the literate panels, I was reminded of the impression made by American heiress Isabel Boncassen on Lord Silverbridge, characters of The Duke’s Children (1879-80) by the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope:

Thrice within the next three weeks did Lord Silverbridge go forth to ask Mabel to be his wife, but thrice in vain [. . .]. It was no doubt true that he, during the last three weeks, had often been in Miss Boncassen’s company [. . .]. But Mabel had certainly no right to complain. Had he not thrice during the same period come there to lay the coronet at her feet;—and [. . .] was it not her fault that he was not going through the ceremony?

“I suppose,” she said, laughing, “that it is all settled.”

“What is all settled?”

“About you and the American beauty.” 

“I am not aware that anything in particular has been settled.”

“Then it ought to be,—oughtn’t it? For her sake, I mean.”

“That is so like an English woman,” said Lord Silverbridge. “Because you cannot understand a manner of life a little different from your own you will impute evil.”

“I have imputed no evil, Lord Silverbridge, and you have no right to say so.”

“If you mean to assert,” said Miss Cass, “that the manners of American young ladies are freer than those of English young ladies, it is you that are taking away their characters.”

“I don’t say it would be at all bad,” continued Lady Mabel. “She is a beautiful girl, and very clever, and would make a charming Duchess. And then it would be such a delicious change to have an American Duchess.” 

“She wouldn’t be a Duchess.” 

“Well, Countess, with Duchessship before her in the remote future. Wouldn’t it be a change, Miss Cass?”

“Oh decidedly!” said Miss Cass.

“And very much for the better. Quite a case of new blood, you know. Pray don’t suppose that I mean to object. Everybody who talks about it approves. I haven’t heard a single dissentient voice. Only as it has gone so far, and English people are too stupid you know to understand all these new ways,—don’t you think perhaps—?”

“No, I don’t think. I don’t think anything except that you are very ill-natured.” Then he got up and, after making formal adieux to both the ladies, left the house.

As soon as he was gone Lady Mabel began to laugh, but the least apprehensive ears would have perceived that the laughter was affected. Miss Cassewary did not laugh at all, but sat bolt upright and looked very serious. “Upon my honour,” said the younger lady, “he is the most beautifully simple-minded human being I ever knew in my life.”

“Then I wouldn’t laugh at him.”

“How can one help it? But of course I do it with a purpose.”

“What purpose?”

“I think he is making a fool of himself. If somebody does not interfere he will go so far that he will not be able to draw back without misbehaving.”

“I thought,” said Miss Cassewary, in a very low voice, almost whispering. “I thought that he was looking for a wife elsewhere.”

“You need not think of it again,” said Lady Mab, jumping up from her seat. “I had thought of it too. But as I told you before, I spared him. He did not really mean it with me;—nor does he mean it with this American girl. Such young men seldom mean. They drift into matrimony. But she will not spare him. It would be a national triumph. All the States would sing a paean of glory. Fancy a New York belle having compassed a Duke!”

“I don’t think it possible. It would be too horrid.”

These days, titles are still a big draw in the United Kingdom; as the recently concluded “Cash for Honours” investigation drove home, they are as desirable as ever among those with a few thousand pounds to spare. The latter-day “Dollar Princess,” on the other hand, is not so eager to spend her precious ducats on a Duke. That kind of hustling went out with the bustle. Lords, after all, are a dime a dozen around here.

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This [I believe] I Believe

Perhaps we are becoming rather blasé about the phenomenon of web journalism (commonly known and often derided as “blogging”). Many of us still write what we wish, refusing to succumb to the urge or promise of making monetary profits by agreeing to become the mouthpieces of commerce, thereby to surrender the opportunity of sharing something about ourselves other than our apparent greed. How much is it worth to you to write freely, to display whatever you are pleased and prepared to share, what you think, think you know or believe?

It used to be a rare chance indeed to make yourself heard in a public forum comprising of more than a room full of people. The media who can spread news or opinions beyond the small circle of our communities, they always seem to be owned or run by others, be it likeminded or otherwise. That sense of being removed or apart from the media is largely a misconception, at least in democratic societies, a misconception arising from the distrust or apathy of the individual who does not participate, let alone initiate debates. And yet, what went on the air was generally prepared for the listener-turned-consumer by those who chose to enter the radio industry, whether to teach, delight, or exploit.

How exciting it must have sounded to the radio listener of 1951 when a program called This I Believe premiered on CBS, soon to be heard by American and international audiences the world over. This week, BBC Radio 4 is offering an hourlong introduction to This I Believe, its origins, its creators (among them Edward R. Murrow, pictured above), and its participants—an eclectic group of housewives and luminaries).

So, what if you were given four and a half minutes—or no more than 600 words—publicly to express your beliefs (something thousands have done since the revival of This I Believe in 2003)? What would you say? Would you find the words—and the courage—to say it?

However easy it is to say I, I believe that it should take more than a moment’s haphazarding to examine and express one’s philosophy, provided such a philosophy, which lies beyond performance and conformity, can be formulated at all. Yes, it is far easier to say “I” than it is to add “believe” and to follow it with words that truly follow . . .

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I’m Not a Fan

Well, I’m not a fan of . . . anything. That is to say, I am not a fan of the word. Fan, fanatic, fanaticism. Those lexical expressions of inflexibility, those dictionary indicators of obduracy ought to be reserved for folks who are determined to blow themselves up for what they believe to be their beliefs, for the indiscriminals who are prepared to take the lives of others around them for the sake of an idea or an ostensible ideal (I’ve got Glasgow and London on my mind). No, I am not inclined to go quite so far in my devotion. It does not follow, however, that I am incapable of getting passionate or downright pigheaded, even when such fervor goes against my better judgment.

Permit me to opine for the sake of defining. For instance, I strongly disliked Britain’s former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, simply because I could not stand his grin and his (to me) mannered way of speaking; never mind his policy in Iraq, which was reason enough to disdain him. I have nothing yet to say about Gordon Brown, who mercifully abstains from mugging. I am opposed to Britain’s newly enforced smoking ban, no matter how many lives could presumably be saved by such a curtailing of pleasure. I refuse to visit my native country of Germany, along with Switzerland and France, and have choice words for those who turn down a nice cut of meat in favor of bean sprouts or tofu.

Unlike notions, opinions are never vague. Voicing them—a hazardous prerogative these days—is a retreat into what lies past caution, beyond apprehensions of censure known as political correctness, adjustments in expressed thought commonly disguised as reason, or, at any rate, as what is reasonable. Uttering what you can barely get away with can be a welcome getaway from the sincerity-divested shelter of platitude to which the mealy-mouthed have chosen to confine themselves. That goes only for the intelligent and open-minded; the unthinking, who can do nothing but opine, have no use for such relief, which makes them far more dangerous than any strongly voice opinion could ever be.

Meanwhile, I much rather rave than rant. I prefer to reserve my energy—and this little nook in the web—for things I look upon with uncommon fondness (such as radio, whose neglected virtues I extol in this journal) and people I adore in a manner that I, an atheist, refuse to label idolatry. A few decades ago, I decided that, while not fanatic, I fancied a certain leading lady of Hollywood’s aureate days. The lady in question is Claudette Colbert. French-born, no less. My latest acquisition—above poster for the 1947 thriller Sleep, My Love—arrived today and awaits a spot on whatever wall remains to display it. Space, by now, is at a premium; only yesterday, I made room for this announcement for Colbert’s 1941 vehicle Skylark. It is probably not what you’d expect to find in a Welsh cottage—unless, that is, you knew me and knew I had come to live there with someone so willing to humor my foibles and fancies.

So, what is the difference between a fan and a fancier? The fan cannot see; the fancier has a selective gaze. The fan discriminates; the fancier is discriminating. The fan is dead to the rest of the world; the fancier is alive to the idiosyncrasies of his or her passions. No, I am decidedly not a fan . . .

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(Up) Yours in Songs

Well, the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest is history. That it is also politics was once again apparent in the shamelessly biased attacks on our nerves during the announcements of the televoting results. The face of Europe is changing, and that of anyone tuning in west of Latvia likely to get longer. Perhaps, last year’s Finnish win was the traditional song contest’s swansong.

This year, it was the revenge of what the west regards as Europe’s ugly ducklings. From now on, or until further notice from Russia, the contest is going to be one big Eastern Euro-paean after the singing of which most of those precious “points” are being traded by former Communist countries voting for each other’s representatives in a series of mostly predictable not-so-foreign flag waving gestures.

When you live on what now looks like a remote island way to the west of it all, “Flying the Flag” is a pointless exercise; the UK’s Scooch, who misfired with said camp number, could only rely on major points from a minority anglophisle like Malta.

“Yours in song”: Rose Marie (seen here in a photograph from my collection) had nothing to do with it.

The night proved the might of the new Russia, whose brass girlband screamed something about “want[ing] your money, honey,” and the animosity our younger and poorer relations in the east feel toward the western founding fathers of the old love-thy-neighbor fest. Perhaps, voting is still a novel concept to them, which is not to say that the winner of the evening, Serbia’s Marija Serifovic was inferior to the imitation swing from Germany (crooned by a smarmy and charm-deficient Roger Cicero) or the pink mess that was supposed to convey “L’amour à la Francaise.”

Had the runner-up (Ukraine) walked away with the trophy, I would have attributed the success to the outrageous if too-silly-to-be-offensive drag act that thumped its nose at the contest, just as Finland’s provocative monster metal medalists did last year. This time around, winning the contest was not a matter of sending or shaking it up (Denmark’s “Drama Queen” and Israel’s “Push the Button” did not even make it into the finals; nor did Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

The natural selection of favorites and the survival of the allegedly fittest or finest was a matter of ethnic myopics, of turning Eurovision into a bloc party in which the eastern front now far outnumbers the west. It wasn’t exactly hostile (the audible resentment of the results by the audience in the hall notwithstanding)—but it sure wasn’t impartial.

Afterwards (and a few Black Russians later) I signed off from the politics of schlock pop-rock with a screening of The Dolly Sisters (1945), in which a musical act from Eastern Europe (Hungary, in this case) gets the full Hollywood treatment. Speaking of Hungary, even at the risk of undermining my east/west dialectics, I thought that Magdi Rúzsa’s “Unsubstantial Blues” ought to have fared better.

Meanwhile, I did not get to continue my Radio Vs. Television series, my plans having been thwarted by yet another broadband brownout; nor was I able to tune in many of the previously announced new drama series airing on BBC 4, relying, clearly overmuch, on internet radio rather than the old wireless.

And now, after permitting friends to celebrate another one of my many happy returns, I am turning by back on Europe for a trip to Gotham. As much as I resent having to pay for wireless access by sipping overpriced java at a Starbucks, I’ll try to report from there . . .

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"Round and Round Hitler’s Grave"

It took a while before the news got around the world; but on this day, 30 April, in 1945, Adolf Hitler got around facing trial and execution by committing suicide in his bunker. It would take another six decades until that hideout was opened for public inspection, when, in 2004, the Führer’s final days became the subject of a German film Der Untergang (2004). The Great Dictator had often been the subject of caricatures and crude character sketches, which are so much easier to accomplish than a life-size portrait. They are so much easier to take, as well, considering that a realistic image forces us to acknowledge that, far from being super- (or sub-) human, Hitler was one of us.

Throughout the Second World War, parodies and revenge fantasies boosted the morale of the Allies, comforted by way of comic deflation or enraged through violent melodrama. Radio popularized songs like Spike Jones’s previously mentioned “Der Führer’s Face” and Pete Seeger’s “Round and Round Hitler’s Grave.” If he could not be assassinated, potshots had to do:

I’m-a going to Berlin
To Mister Hitler’s town
I’m gonna take my forty-four
And blow his playhouse down.

This is how, a few days after the Führer’s death, the Almanac Singers modified those lines of Seeger’s original song when they performed it for a live broadcast of Norman Corwin’s celebrated VE-Day tribute “On a Note of Triumph,” the highest-rated American radio play of all time:

We’re gonna tell the postman,
Next time he comes ’round,
That Mr. Hitler’s new address
Is the Berlin buryin’ ground.

The Führer was dead, all right. Some eager radio writers had already killed him off, in fantasies like the aforementioned “Death Comes for Adolf Hitler.”  And yet, did that “playhouse” of his ever shut down only because its director, its producers, sponsors, and select members of staff were found dead, along with an audience of millions or, as discussed here, tried and executed in the spectacle of Nürnberg?

Corwin cautioned the American public, asking listeners to “fix [their] eyes on the horizons” and swing [their] ears about.” The old regime did not simply expire, no matter how many rounds had been shot to silence the enemy or how loudly one went “Round and Round” the problem of facing the aftermath.

Lately, I have been watching a number of German post-war films that dealt with the recent past of the fallen Reich and were less than sanguine about the Wunder of the nation’s reinvention as a republic. That is, they dealt with the inconvenient truth that the Nazis were not all below ground. Some had gone underground. They went on to make it big during the US-financed Wirtschaftswunder (or economic boom). Both Wir Wunderkinder (1958) and Rosen für den Staatsanwalt (1959) comment on the big fascist business and bureaucracy behind Germany’s capitalist society and its corruption by Nazi big shots who, rehabilitated without remorse, managed to get high up by keeping a low political profile.

It is this sense of a hidden presence, of an unresolved, let alone conquered past, that, many decades after Germany’s surrender, made it difficult for me to face life in that country, a country where fascists old and new still dance round and round Hitler’s grave as if in hopes of a resurrection; where those in denial of the past or in support of its policies still trample on the graves of millions; and where the radical left not only opened wounds, but fire, perpetrating acts of extremist terror.

I have not been back these seventeen years. We all have our baggage, you might say. Sometimes it weighs so heavily on our souls, it keeps us from dancing . . .

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Pride of the Luftwaffe: Guernica at 70

“Well, gentlemen, let’s get aboard,” says the pilot in Norman Corwin’s “They Fly Through the Air.” What a “peach” of a morning. “You couldn’t ask for a better day” . . . to blow up a few hundred civilians. The verse play (discussed here previously), was written in commemoration of the air raid on the village of Gernika-Lumo, perpetrated on this day, 26 April, in 1937. In what words, in which ways can one approach such a monstrosity, reproach such a murderous marvel as modern warfare? How to make sense of it? How to keep from becoming numb, insensitive to the atrocities of war that are being committed even today, when our gardens are peaceful and the pavements busy with people consumed with their own cares or the pleasures of consuming? These are the questions poet-journalist Corwin, who will turn 97 in a few days, tackles in his response to the raid. Picasso’s Guernica, which I got to see at last on a visit to Madrid, is a lament for the dead and wounded; Corwin’s “They Fly” is an attack on the machinery of war and the minds that get it running.

“Gee, that’s fascinating,” exclaims the pilot as he looks down upon the havoc and horror he has wrought by dutifully carrying out his mission, which is merely to test the what is hot from the runways of Germany, the latest line of the Luftwaffe: “What a spread! Looks just like a budding rose, unfolding.” That precious simile is an echo of a remark attributed to Mussolini, who is said to have found floral beauty in mass destruction.

“How can we justly celebrate the odysseys / Of demigods who finger destinies upon their trigger tips?” Corwin’s narrator considers. He has a few suggestions, all of which he rejects as unworthy of the deed:

With wreaths of laurel?
Laurel withers fast.
By sculpturing in bronze?
Too cold; too passive;
Also, in emergencies, it may be melted to make other things;
Rechristen with you names a public square?
That’s vulgar.
Furthermore, no single square is big enough.

A poem, perhaps?
Aha, that’s it! A poem!
A verse or two that will contract no rust,
A bombproof ode, whose strophes will stand stout
Against all flood and famine, epidemic war,
And pox and plague and general decay.
Yes, poetry’s the thing.

Is it? The narrator tries to escape the noise of the motors (“Our meter will be influenced”), but is dissatisfied with his lines:

What words can compass glories such as we have seen today?
Our language beats against its limitations.

How do we commemorate Guernica? Perhaps by listening for and to those engines running, the war machinery that is at work today. The past is often conveniently looked at as if from above, from which vantage point it appears distant, clearly patterned, even negligible or quaint. Perhaps it is best to resist the temptations of flight . . .

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From the House of Terror

This report from the Terror Háza (or House of Terror) concludes my Budapest diary. Not that Hungary is quite done with me yet, considering that this week’s drama on BBC Radio 3 is The Radetzky March, an adaptation of the 1932 novel, which chronicles the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as a portrait of its author, Joseph Roth, an Austrian Jew. Roth died in 1939, some five years before the Nazis took over Hungary (or Nazi Hungary allied itself with Germany), resulting in the deportation and death of thousands of Jews in the concentration camp in Auschwitz. My visit to the House of Terror, in which these and other stories from Hungary’s none-too-distant past are documented, was one of the most fascinating and disturbing history lessons I have ever received.

Once called the House of Loyalty, the building was the headquarters of the Hungarian Nazi Party. In its basement, members of the Arrow Cross interrogated, tortured and silenced hundreds, smothering the voices of the opposition. Like Hungary itself, the premises were soon taken over by the Communists, who, beginning in 1945, continued to use them for such purposes until 1956, the year of the brutally crushed revolution.

The House of Terror is a museum now, an exhibition space at once horrific and beautiful. In its corridors of former power, the art of intimidation survives as art installations. The awful turns awesome, the oppressive impressive. David Lynch might have served as its interior decorator. It is glamorous, you might say. How perverse it was to admire what decency compels us to abhor. The house, it seemed, was designed to corrupt.

It was only when I descended into the cellar, rooms into which visitors are lowered with cruel deliberation on a black and slow-moving elevator, that the oohs and ahhs were choked right out of me. Never before have I experienced such an approach to what must be never again, at least not on this heart-shrinking and spirit sinking scale. This place of dread and despair does not simply document the uses of awe—it provokes and regenerates it.

My throat muscles tightened, my eyes filled with tears, as I solemnly made my way through this desolate underground maze of “detention cells”, “wet cells,” of “foxholes” and “treatment rooms,” of “guard rooms” and “condemned cells”—and the “place of execution.”

“There were no executions” in Terror Háza, the guidebook took pains to inform me, “‘only’ fatal bashings and suicides.” Echoing the distinctions of the extinguishers at work here, the clear and cruel terminology of extermination still reverberates in this orderly house of silencing, a house in which there was no room for grace . . .