Short Stories, Irish literature, Classics, Modern Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction, The Japanese Novel, Post Colonial Asian Fiction, The Legacy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and quality Historical Novels are Among my Interests








Showing posts with label World War Two. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World War Two. Show all posts

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Fires on the Plain (野火, Nobi) is a 1959 Japanese war film directed by Kon Ichikawa, starring Eiji Funakosh - 0ne Hour Fifty minutes


 Available on YouTube with English Captions 

Ten years ago I read Fires On The Plain by Shohei Ooka (1951, translated from the Japanese by Ivan Morris, 1957, 246 pages)

Here is a portion of my post on the novel.

"Shohei Ooka (1909 to 1988-Tokyo) is know for one  famous book, Fires On The Plain.   He was one of the first Japanese authors to write fiction based on the Japanese experience in WWII.   Ooka was a French scholar and translator.    He translated The Red and the Black and  The Charter House of Parma both by Stendhal into Japanese.   In January of 1944 he was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Army and after a brief training was sent to the southern Philippines to fight the Americans and Filipino resistance forces.   In January 1945 he became a prisoner of war of the Americans.

I decided I wanted to read this book as soon as I saw it was about a Japanese soldier's experience in the Philippines in WWII.    A few members of my family still have living memories of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. "
 
I was delighted to find a highly regarded movie based on Fires in the Plain on YouTube 

The film follows a tubercular Japanese private, Tamura (Funakoshi), and his attempt to stay alive during the latter part of World War II. Tamura and his fellow soldiers are stranded in the jungles of the Philippines after the American army has returned. The Japanese army remnants have taken to the jungle after being driven out of the main cities. The Filipinos, after suffering a brutal Japanese occupation, are in little mood to show mercy on their former tormentors, and light the titular bonfires for communication. Japanese soldiers are reduced to little more than bandits and murderers as their supplies dry up and they are encircled by the American-Filipino forces.

Tamura is abandoned by his unit and forced to fend for himself. He is weak and sick, and must scavenge for food and water. He encounters other Japanese soldiers who have been reduced to madness and desperation. Some have resorted to cannibalism. Tamura himself is tempted to eat the flesh of a dead soldier, but he manages to resist.

Fires on the Plain is a powerful and disturbing film that depicts the brutality of war and the dehumanizing effects of conflict. It is a film that stays with you long after you have seen it.

The film was initially received mixed reviews from both Japanese and international critics concerning its violence and bleak theme. In following decades, however, it has become highly regarded and is now considered to be one of the greatest Japanese war films ever made. 

Mel Ulm













Sunday, September 24, 2023

The Counterfeit Countess:' The Jewish Woman Who Rescued Thousands of Poles During the Holocaust by Elizabeth B. White and Joanna Silwa -2023-


"The astonishing story of Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg—a Jewish mathematician who saved thousands of lives in Nazi-occupied Poland by masquerading as a Polish aristocrat—drawing on Mehlberg’s own unpublished memoir.World War II and the Holocaust have given rise to many stories of resistance and rescue, but The Counterfeit Countess is unique. It tells the remarkable, unknown story of “Countess Janina Suchodolska,” a Jewish woman who rescued more than 10,000 Poles imprisoned by Poland’s Nazi occupiers. Mehlberg operated in Lublin, Poland, headquarters of Aktion Reinhard, the SS operation that murdered 1.7 million Jews in occupied Poland. Using the identity papers of a Polish aristocrat, she worked as a welfare official while also serving in the Polish resistance. With guile, cajolery, and steely persistence, the “Countess” persuaded SS officials to release thousands of Poles from the Majdanek concentration camp. She won permission to deliver food and medicine—even decorated Christmas trees—for thousands more of the camp’s prisoners. At the same time, she personally smuggled supplies and messages to resistance fighters imprisoned at Majdanek, where 63,000 Jews were murdered in gas chambers and shooting pits. Incredibly, she eluded detection, and ultimately survived the war and emigrated to the US. Drawing on the manuscript of Mehlberg’s own unpublished memoir, supplemented with prodigious research, Elizabeth White and Joanna Sliwa, professional historians and Holocaust experts, have uncovered the full story of this remarkable woman. They interweave Mehlberg’s sometimes harrowing personal testimony with broader historical narrative. Like The Light of DaysSchindler’s List, and Irena’s ChildrenThe Counterfeit Countess is an unforgettable account of inspiring courage in the face of unspeakable cruelty." From the publisher 
 

This is a very valuable addition to Holocaust History, especially as it relates to Poland.  Sometimes in thinking on the Holocaust one loses sight of the many people who Risked or lost their lives to help others.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in this period.

Sunday, August 20, 2023

Paisan - A 1946 Film directed by Roberto Rossellini - running time two hours- distributed by MGM




 


Earlier this month I posted upon Germany Year Zero, a component of three films from Roberto Rossellini concerning the immediate post World War Two Years in Germany and Italy.  These films are considered inspiration for the Italian Neorealist Movement in Cinema.  I do not hesitate to designate them as High Art.

In six independent episodes, it tells of the Liberation of Italy by the Allied forces during the late stage of World War II. The film premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and received numerous national and international prizes including a nomination at the 22nd Academy Awards for Best Story and Screenplay.

The six episodes:

"Invasion" (Sicily, July 1943): An American soldier helps a young Italian woman escape from a group of German soldiers.

"Abruzzo" (September 1943): A group of Italian partisans help an American soldier who has been injured.

"Florence" (August 1944): An American soldier falls in love with an Italian woman, but their relationship is complicated by the war.

"Romagna" (September 1944): A group of American soldiers are captured by the Germans and forced to work in a labor camp.

"Tuscany" (October 1944): An American soldier is befriended by a young boy, but their friendship is tested when the boy's father is killed by the Germans.

"Po Valley" (April 1945): American and German soldiers fight a battle to the death in the Po Valley.

Paisan is considered a masterpiece of neorealism, a film movement that emerged in Italy in the aftermath of World War II. Neorealist films are characterized by their use of non-professional actors, location shooting, and a focus on the everyday lives of ordinary people. Paisan is also notable for its use of documentary-style techniques, such as long takes and handheld camerawork.

This film is available on YouTube with English Subtitles- the film is partially in English.

I hope to post upon Rome-An Open City soon

Mel Ulm



Sunday, July 9, 2023

Madame Pimpernel- also titled as Paris Undercover is a 1945 Film Set in Paris during the German Occupation




Production
company

Constance Bennett Productions

Distributed byUnited Artists

Release date

• October 19, 1945



The film stars Constance Bennett and Gracie Fields as an American and an Englishwoman trapped in Paris when Nazi Germany invades in 1940, who rescue British airmen shot down in France and help them escape across the English Channel. This was also Bennett's only producing credit.



American Kitty de Mornay quarrels with her French husband Andre over her lack of concern over the imminent fall of Paris to the Germans. She is so ignorant of the danger she is in, she flees with her English friend Emmeline "Emmy" Quayle too late. They end up at the country inn of Pappa Renard. After serving them a meal, he reveals that a shot-down English flyer, Flight Lieutenant William Gray, is hiding out there. Since Renard is unwilling to continue sheltering Gray, the women decide to take him back to Paris with them. When their car has a flat, German Captain Kurt von Weber happens by and has one of his men change the tire. Since he is going to Paris too, von Weber personally drives them back, past all the German patrols and checkpoints. When he leaves, he gives Kitty his card, revealing that he is assigned to the military department of the Gestapo. They sneak Gray past Madame Martin, Emmy's concierge, and into her apartment.

A week later, Gray decides he has to leave, as anyone caught sheltering an enemy soldier will be executed. Before he can, the Germans surround and search the building. The timely arrival of von Weber, with a bouquet of flowers, ensures that the search is cut short. Kitty suggests going out to a nightclub to get the German out of the apartment. At the club, they encounter Andre. While dancing, Kitty apprises Andre of her situation and asks for his help in getting Gray out.

Following Andre's instructions, they contact Tissier, a baker. By bad luck, a German patrol happens by, and Emmy is taken in for questioning. After seeing Gray off, Kitty goes back to see what she can do for her friend. To her surprise, she find Emmy at Tessier's place.

Kitty is persuaded to help others escape with them. Emmy reluctantly decides to get involved too, just to keep Kitty out of trouble. They contact Father Dominique. Expecting to sneak one man into unoccupied France, they are surprised to find the priest hiding about a dozen in his crypt. The women take two with them, but when they reach Tissier's bakery, they learn that he has been shot. When they discover that the local cemetery is across the border, Kitty decides to use a funeral to get the men. The undertaker, however, informs them that the Germans are on guard against such attempts. However, he expects the aged Marquise de Montigny to pass away soon; when she does, the undertaker is glad to be able to give the worthy, yet poverty-stricken woman a lavish funeral procession, with the soldiers disguised as mourners. At the last moment, Kitty and Emmy decide to go back to continue smuggling.




By 1942, the occupying Germans are frustrated that so many Allied soldiers are eluding them. Von Weber comes up with a plan to destroy the smuggling network. He arranges for a fake Allied pilot to be "shot down". The man is brought to Emmy's antique shop hidden inside a chest. She is warned, but he becomes suspicious and pulls a gun and calls the Gestapo. She is able to strike him on the head (fatally) with a candlestick when he is distracted. However, too much is overheard over the phone, and the Germans, led by von Weber, come for them; Andre is there as well, back from England on a mission for the Free French. Emmy is captured, but the others evade the first sweep, hiding in the basement. When they overhear that von Weber will not stop searching, utterly convinced Kitty is still in the building, she knocks Andre out and gives herself up to save him.

They survive to be liberated by the Allies, though Emmy is so unhinged by her ordeal that she at first does not even recognize her friend.

The ending is very exciting and gratifying. The Germans are all cruel, bullies, glorious over taking Paris 

Madame Pimpernel is an excellent retake on the Pimpernel saga,

I will take post on Pimpernel Smith, staring Leslie Howard.

Mel Ulm 


Sunday, December 19, 2021

Wunderland by Jennifer Cody Epstein - 2019 - 384 pages


 

Wunderland by Jennifer Cody Epstein - 2019 - 384 pages 


Last month I read The Painter from Shanghai: A Novel by Jennifer Cody Epstein.  I added her two other novels to my Amazon wish list.  When Wunderland was marked down fifty percent, as a Kindle, I happily acquired it.  Set largely in Germany,  Wunderland centers around the impact  of the Holocaust on three women. Ava Fisher and her mother Ilsa have never been close.   Renete, Ilse’s very close friend when they were growing up, is the third.


Ilse and Renete grew up very close. Hitler has come to power, Ilse joins Hitler youth organizations and begins to write articles about how Jews were destroying Germany.  Through a series of revelations Renete discovers her mother has kept secret their Jewish ancestry.  Epstein vividly portrays how both girls lives are impacted by the Nuremburg laws, the Gestapo.  Things were never easy between Ava and her mother Ilse, supposedly her father had been killed on the Eastern Front.  Terrible attacks on Jews are depicted.


Once Renete’s ancestory comes out, it changes everything.   We see the pervasive way German Society is destroyed.



The narrative moves from Germany in 1936 to New York City in the 1980s.  There are lots of delightful literary references including a number to a German translation of Alice in Wonderland.



From the author’s website


“I am the author of the USA Today bestseller Wunderland, now out in paperback. My prior works include The Gods of Heavenly Punishment, winner of the 2014 Asian Pacific Association of Librarians Honor award for outstanding fiction, as well as the international bestseller The Painter from Shanghai. I have also written for The Wall Street Journal, The Asian Wall Street Journal, The Nation (Thailand), Self and Mademoiselle magazines, and the NBC and HBO networks, working in Kyoto, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Bangkok as well as Washington D.C. and New York. I’ve taught at Columbia University in New York and Doshisha University in Kyoto, and have an MFA from Columbia, a Masters of International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a BA in Asian Studies/English from Amherst College.

I currently live in Brooklyn, NY with my husband, filmmaker Michael Epstein, my two amazing daughters and an exceptionally needy Springer Spaniel.”


I hope to read The Gods of Heavenly Punishment, set in Japan during World War Two, soon.






Saturday, December 11, 2021

The Last Bookstore in London by Madeline Martin - 2021


 


The Last Bookstore in London by Madeline Martin - 2021


On a personal note, at age 22 my uncle Melvin Ramsey was killed defending London in a fighter plane. He was an American but before the USA joined the war, he signed up for the Canadian Air Force. When in London I looked for his grave but could not find it.  I never met him. His loss hurt my mother and grandmother terribly. 


As the work begins, just before Germany starts World War Two, Grace Bennett, along with her best friend Viv, realize their dream of escaping the provinces and moving  to London where they will live with her late mother’s best friend, Mrs Weatherford.  Grace worked in her uncle’s store and hated it.


In order to get a job in London one had to have a letter of recommendation from a prior employer. Grace’s uncle refused to give her one. Viv had forged her self a letter but Grace’s integrity made her refuse this.  Viv got a job at the highly prestigious department London department store, Harrods, where Mrs Weatherford’s son worked. Mrs Weatherford gets Grace a job at a bookstore where after six months she can get a letter to get a job at Harrods along with Viv and Colin, Mrs Weatherford’s only child.  Grace has never had time for reading and at first feels totally out of place at Primrose Books.


The owner is very cantankerous, being short with Grace and giving her little direction.  The shop is a disorganized mess. Grace makes it her mission to organize the shop, making it a pleasant place where people will want to shop.  Soon she has transformed the shop.


War is declared.  A handsome customer, George, talks to Grace about the magic of reading.  Just before leaving for the war he gives her a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.  After a few months, the blitz bombing of London begins.  Grace volunteers three nights a week as an air raid warden. Grace begins to love reading. She reads from classics like Middlemarch to others sheltering in tube stations with her.  


The horror and terror of the blitz gets worse and worse but the English are not beaten down.  We see the impact of rationing on Mrs Weatherford’s cooking, she converts her flower garden to a “victory” vegetable garden.


Grace and the book store owner become very close as he opens up to her.


Tragic things do happen.  I found this book very moving and uplifting.  If London can survive the Blitz, it  can survive the pandemic.  I loved the close of the book.  Some on Goodreads have said the book is “too romantic” for them.  


Madeline Martin is a New York Times and International Bestselling author of historical fiction and historical romance.

She lives in sunny Florida with her two daughters (known collectively as the minions), one incredibly spoiled cat and a man so wonderful he's been dubbed Mr. Awesome. She is a die-hard history lover who will happily lose herself in research any day. When she's not writing, researching or 'moming', you can find her spending time with her family at Disney or sneaking a couple spoonfuls of Nutella while laughing over cat videos. She also loves research and travel, attributing her fascination with history to having spent most of her childhood as an Army brat in Germany.”




Saturday, September 5, 2020

Hitler and the Hab­s­burgs: The Führer’s Vendet­ta Against the Aus­tri­an Royals by James Longo- 2018




Hitler and the Hab­s­burgs: The Führer’s Vendet­ta Against the Aus­tri­an Royals by James Longo- 2018


This book is the story of intersecting lives of people very different from each other, Adolph Hitler and the Hapsburg family. 


Like many popular works of non-academic non-  fiction, telling the story of the impact of Hitler on the ancient Hapsburg dynasty involves telling of events that the most likely readership of the book already know in order to convey some information that will be new to them.


The book begins with Hitler’s pre-World War One years in Vienna.  He was greatly traumatized when he could not get into art school.  He saw that Vienna, capital of the Empire was highly cosmopolitan, Jews were accepted more there than anywhere else in Europe. (Longo often quotes Stefan Zweig and writes about his deparature for Brazil, driven out of Austria by what he sees as the decay of European culture.). Hitler lived in abject poverty, ever outraged by wealth of others, especially the Hapsburgs.  Longo tells us the assasination of Arch-Duke Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Hapsburg throne (June 28, 1914, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina).  This event precipitated World War One.  Hitler fought in the war.  He would come to see the Jews of Austria and their puppets the Hapsburgs as to blame for Germany’s defeat, as Logno details.


One of the sons of Arch-Duke Ferdinand scandalized the royal family by marrying a German woman of insufficient nobility to be a Hapsburg Queen or royal mother.  The marriage was accepted but only as morganatic.  Somehow this made them outsiders in the very inbred Hapsburg family and gravely offended Hitler who was highly offended by what he saw as the personification of the “mongrelization” of the Aryan race.  


When Germany took control of Austria in 1938 the two sons of Ferdinand were arrested by the Gestapo and became the first Austrians sent to the Dachu Concentration Camp.  They were assigned to latrine duty and treated in a savage fashion.


The women in the family, including the Archduke’s only daughter,Princess Sophia Hohenberg, declared war on Hitler.  In the face of torture, near starvation and betrayal they sustained the family.


Longo  very movingly tells us what happened to survivors after the defeat of Hitler.


I purchased this book during a flash sale for $1.95.  It is now back up $12.95.


I think anyone interested in the Hapsburg, the end of dynastic rule in Europe, World War Two in Austria will find this book fascinating.  It deserves a place in Holocaust literature.



James Longo is a professor and chair of the Department of Education at Washington & Jefferson College. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and Distinguished Chair of the University Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Studies at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt in Austria. He has lectured throughout Europe and America and has written eight books..from the publisher 


Sunday, March 8, 2020

The Vanishing Sky by L. Annette Binder - June, 2020






The Vanishing Sky by L. Annette Binder - June 2020

Last month I posted on a deeply moving short story by L. Annette Binder ,”Lay My Head”, from her award winning debut collection, Rise.  Here are my opening thoughts on this profound story.

My earliest reading memories are of being read fairy tales.  Long ago our youngest daughter saw an edition of The Complete Fairy 
Tales of the Brothers Grimm on  my book shelves years ago and asked if she could keep on the shelves in her room. She  still has it booked marked so I know she is reading it.

One of the associations in literature throughout history is that of beautiful people with goodness and unattractive, ugly people with evil.  You see this every where from the latest popular novel to the great works of literature.  I increasingly think this, as it is mostly women who are described as beautiful, represents the deeply pervasive image of women as commodities for men to consume.  This prejuduce runs so far down into our consciousness that most repudiate my idea.  Illness as it changes appearances away from standard notions of beauty is seen as a manifestation of evil within the person, either an ancient curse or inherent malignancy coming out for the "beautiful" people and their admirers to fear.  These  are part of what I see as themes of "Lay My Head".

I was very happy and gratified to be given the opportunity to read an advance review copy of her forthcoming novel, The Vanishing Sky.  The Vanishing Sky is set in 1945 in Germany as the country’s defeat is inevitable.  The story centers on the Huber family.

The central character is Etta, mother of two young men.Max is in the army, serving on the Eastern front.  Her younger son, Georg is in the Hitler Youth. He is not quite old enough to fight the coming America invasion,he is very devoted to the German cause and is being prepared for the final stand.  There are lots of bombing raids, in one very moving scene Georg and other boys find a body in a bombed out building.  As things get worse her husband Josef becomes ever more nationalist, oblivious to reality.

Their son Max returns from the war.  He has suffered serious mental harm.  He wants to back to fight but his mother tries to hide him from Nazis  rounding up soldiers.  There is a very 
powerful Holocaust related scene.



The Hubers are just an ordinary Family caught up in a nightmare.  Just sort of people that have died in wars for thousands of years, to no point.

The Vanishing Sky is a fine work of art.  There are many subtle touches that create a cinematic feel of perfect verisimilitude. It conveys a strong sense of day to day Life in Germany as the war ends.  


From http://lannettebinder.com/ 



“I was born in Germany and grew up in Colorado. Like many immigrant kids, I learned my English from primetime TV and the Saturday morning cartoons. My parents spoke to me in German, and -- to their dismay -- I started answering in English before the boxes were even unpacked. 
The Vanishing Sky, my first novel, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury and Bloomsbury UK in June 2020. It is inspired by my family's experiences in World War II Germany.
My collection of stories, Rise (Sarabande Books), received the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Literature. My fiction has appeared in the Pushcart Prize Anthology, the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, One Story, American Short Fiction, The Southern Review, Third Coast, Fairy Tale Review and others. 
I have degrees from Harvard, UC Berkeley and the Programs in Writing at the University of California, Irvine. I live in New England with my husband and young daughter”

I give The Vanishing Star my total  endorsement.

Mel u