Rights Reel: Korkoro

In my last post, Roma 101, I offered some resources for learning about the history and culture of the Roma people to enhance our discussion of Oksana Marafioti's American Gypsy: A Memoir. To shift the focus to human rights-relevant themes in that history, it's important to point out the Roma WWII experience. Under the Nazi regime, German authorities subjected Roma to arbitrary internment, forced labor, and mass murder.  Please visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum site or the Wikipedia page for Porajmos (The Romani term for the Holocaust) to learn more.

Now I know browsing those pages is not how anyone wants to spend their weekend, so what if there was a way to learn about this historical event and in a more personal, relatable way? Sort of a Schindler's List with gypsies? In fact, the French movie by Romani director Tony Gatlif is just the ticket. Inspired by the true life of a Romani who escaped the Nazis with help from French villagers, the film has the same stunning cinematography and rich musical score as Gatlif's Latcho Drom (one of my all time favorite films). You can stream Korkoro here via Amazon or on Netflix. Then check out the film's Wikipedia page to learn the real life basis for the fictional story.

Another film I have not seen but which looks worth seeking out to learn more about the Roma is A People Uncounted. Check out the trailer below:

The Music of Maurice Sendak

I was starting to research my posts for our discussion of Avi Steinberg's Running the Books when I discovered that he had recently done an interview for the Paris Review with the late Maurice Sendak,

In the past, you’ve spoken of listening to music while you draw. What were you listening to with Bumble-Ardy?

There are certain pieces of music that are always attached to certain books. And there is a logic to my choices, even if I don’t always know it. Here, I chose Verdi. I don’t like early Verdi, and I love very late Verdi. I’m eighty-three. When he was eighty-three, after Aida—it’s too bad he didn’t say this before Aida—he said, “Enough already, enough.”  He said that he was done, finished, kaput. And then he met this young man, Boito, composer of Mefistofele, who told him, “You have more in you, old man. You have more in you!” So Boito wrote libretti for Otello and Falstaff, and, by the time they were done, Verdi was eighty-five or eighty-seven and died. But, in my opinion, those are the two greatest Verdi operas in existence. Those pieces are unbelievably fresh, young, fantastically beautiful.

This reminded me that Sendak collaborated with Tony Kushner on a production of Brundibar, the children's opera which was composed and performed at the Nazi concentration camp Terezin. Kushner and Sendak also produced a book version:  Brundibar.  PBS' Now has a useful page for more information about the opera accompanying this great interview with Bill Moyers in which Sendak explains how he became fascinated with the opera. and probes the author on blackbirds and Schubert, bullies and the Holocaust and how you can't get rid of evil.


I also recommend Fresh Air's Sendak tribute and this cartoon by Sendak and Art Spiegelman from The New Yorker.

Rivers for Reflection

Yesterday I attended a very moving St. Paul Chamber Orchestra performance of Neharot, Neharot by Israeli composer Betty Olivero for viola, accordion, percussion and two string ensembles. The viola soloist was Kim Kashkashian, who has recorded the composition. This haunting piece uses the elegies of women who had lost loved ones in the Israeli conflict with militias of the Lebanese Hezbollah in 2006 as it's touchstone.  The program notes explain,

The title of the composition Neharo't Neharo't, means “Rivers, Rivers” in Hebrew and refers to the rivers and floods of tears which are too often shed by mourning women in disastrous situations. On the other hand, the title contains also an element of hope: the root of the Hebrew word “nahar” (river) resembles the word “nehara,” meaning “ray of light.”

I found the music very appropriate to marking this Holy Week and the season of reflection we experience each April with Remembrance Days for both the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. How fitting too, that we are reading Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife this month at the same time the people of Sarajevo are commemorating the 20th anniversary of the siege their city. Take a few minutes to soak this in. Listen to Part 1 above. Here is Part 2.

Our June Author: Irène Némirovsky

This month we are reading Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky who was living in Nazi-occupied France when she was arrested and sent to Auschwitz where she died. Her last, unfinished novel, Suite Francaise, was discovered and published only recently.

We have a few online resources on our author to supplement discussion of the novel. The Museum of Jewish Heritage offers an online exhibition Woman of Letters: Irene Nemirovsky & Suite Francaise where you can 'open her valise' and examine a few Némirovsky artifacts, review an interactive timeline, and even page through a mock up of the manuscript of the novel.  Here's an introduction to the author produced by the museum:

Irene Nemirovsky from Sarah Josephson on Vimeo.

You can also watch a video introduction to the exhibit and the museum also provides this short video excerpt of a talk by Némirovsky's daughter Denise Epstein with translator Sandra Smith. A longer interview with Epstein and Smith (with better audio quality) is available from WAMU. Another book talk with some good background and insights can be found in this presentation by Sandra Smith and a French lit professor.

Some critics (see here, for example) have raised questions about the lack of Jewish characters in Suite Francaise and the negative depiction of Jewish characters in some of Némirovsky's other writing. The New York Times and The Guardian detail the controversy. Harvard professor Susan Rubin Suleiman takes on the question in a lecture, “Irène Némirovsky and the “Jewish Question” in Interwar France” available from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website (scroll down for the audio player-- the lecture is also available for download via iTunes).


Many readers of Suite Francaise find Irène Némirovsky's life as interesting as her novel and want to know more. You may want to check out the recent biograpy The Life of Irène Némirovsky: 1903-1942 referenced in the above mentioned NYT article.  There's also a thorough review at Three Percent.

Our April Author: Tatiana De Rosnay

This month's selection was Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.  The author has a website where you can find links to a few promotional interviews. She also has a separate blog for the book. And she posts to a Facebook page.  In addition, she promotes the book and tells you what she's having for breakfast on Twitter.  I share this, not so much because any of it is worth browsing, but because it might help explain why a book that received no serious reviews or interviews is an international bestseller.  Here is a little promotional video I found on YouTube that gives you a little sample of the author in person:




Of course, the subject of the Vel d'Hiv Round-up is well worth exploring.  The Wikipedia article is quite thorough and I recommend visiting the Paris and Drancy pages of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum site. which include photographs and personal histories of Holocaust victims and survivors.  And be sure to check out my previous post on films about the Vel d'Hiv.

Human Rights Podcasts

I've mentioned two sources for human rights-themed podcasts recently, the Irrepressible.info series from Amnesty International and PEN Center's event series. Here are two more: The University of Chicago Human Rights Program podcasts its lecture series and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a weekly program of interviews called Voices on Genocide Prevention. Needless to say, much of the focus is currently on the campaign for Darfur with much useful information-- and inspiration-- for activists.

Terezin

A final post relating to Sebald's Austerlitz, this time focusing on Terezin/Theresienstadt (thanks to Loyal Readers who suggested links). 

Visit the official website of the Terezin Memorial for photos and the site for the film, Terezin: Resistance and Revival, has a companion newspaper series including some multimedia features of survivors, artists and musicians (with music samples).  For more on the music of Terezin visit the Terezin Chamber Music Foundation (which offers an educational curriculum through its online store) or the Viktor Ullmann Foundation.  The composer referenced more or less at the climax of the novel (p. 250), Pavel Haas, has his own foundation with underdeveloped website.  A snippet of his Study for String Orchestra can be found here,  For fun and in keeping with the child focus of the novel, here's a Minnesota Public Radio feature on Hans Krasa, composer of the children's opera, Brundibar, which Maurice Sendak and Tony Kushner recently transformed into a children's book.  Finally, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has an eclectic online feature on Music of the Holocaust  I plan to spend some time with in the future.

The Kindertransport

More background on Sebald's Austerlitz.

The Kindertransport has its own organization, but perhaps the best starting point is the Oscar-winning film Into the Arms of Strangers
and its companion book.  You can get a taste of the film at the film's website and download a study guide.  The BBC also has a feature that includes interviews with survivors.