Friday* was the 63rd anniversary of the German capitulation that ended WWII - celebrated with Russian music and speeches near the Soviet war memorial in Treptower Park. An interesting mixture of old men, black-clad youths and young parents.
And yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the Nazi book-burnings - marked with readings of burned books and new books, which I didn't manage to attend. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has an excellent site all about it. It features a list of 58 authors whose books were burned, from Hemingway to Marx and including Vicki Baum. Here's a quote from her:
[The New Women] are healthy and happy, with no hysteria, no anemia, no nerves and sentimentalities. They are at home on the sports field and in the laboratories; they work a lot and do not make a lot of fuss over those emotions that meant so much to us in the old days because they proliferated half-hidden, suppressed and forbidden. -1929
*Actually Thursday, but who'd want Russian music and speeches on a Thursday night?
No comments:
Post a Comment