The Kindly Ones: Jonathan Little
Posted on April 20, 2020 Leave a Comment
This is a fascinating and disturbing read, nearly 1,000 pages describing in detail the life of an SS officer, Max Aue, who experiences some of the worst of the German atrocities in the Second World War. Written as an autobiography, Aue is living as an old man in France, reflecting on his experiences. In 1941 he is attached to the Einsatzgruppen, so we have vividly described scenes of the killing of, among others, the Jews, including at Babi Yar in Kiev. The author, Jonathan Little, has a way of bringing to life the barbarity and the ordinariness of the barbarity, including the detailed statistics gathered by the German forces. The book moves on to the limits of the German advance to the Caucasus, where our ‘hero’ is tasked with helping understand something of the various ethnic groups living in the area. After spending time with the German 6th Army cut off in Stalingrad Auer returns to Berlin, then to Auschwitz where the slaughter of the unwanted has reached industrial proportions, and finally to the Battle for Berlin, where Aue is fighting for his own life.
The protagonist is a learned man, a doctor of law, caught up in very difficult times. The author said that he tried to imagine how he would behave if he was living as a young adult in Nazi Germany. In this it is an honest account, and should be read by anyone who claims that they would refuse to be involved. We know from the works of Stanley Milgram and others in the 1960s that so-called ordinary people do what are normally conceived of as despicable things when the culture they live in requires them to do so. This is one of the great things about the book, that it shows ordinary people, including intellectuals, doing extraordinary things, living perfectly normal lives, studying others, writing articles, discussing the nuances of Caucasian languages, and killing people.
For me there is too much on Aue’s unusual sexuality and too many descriptions of diarrhoea. On the other hand, these elements and others, including his vivid dreams, do demonstrate the depth of characterisation of Aue. While aspects of his sexuality before the war is described, the descriptions of shit and dreams may be seen as Aue’s trauma, the responses of an already disturbed individual becoming ever more disturbed by his experiences. Against this, Aue describes the world in a mechanical and non-emotional manner. This is exemplified through the style. There are few paragraphs, and conversations are held entirely within paragraphs, so the reader sometimes has to concentrate to know who is speaking. This also adds to the relentlessness of the book.
I do finish many books and they disappear quickly from my mind, but this one leaves a lingering sense of the horror of war, particularly the atrocities of the Second World War and how I might have acted in those times. I have now read it twice. It made me feel that I experienced something of what the book describes, and for that reason alone the book is worthwhile.
The author is French, where the book was a bestseller, winning the Prix Goncourt. He spent 18 months conducting research, including visiting the main sites where the action of the book took place. He incorporates many historical characters, from Himmler through to the lower level leaders of the Einsatzgruppen and other organisations. The intertwining of history and fiction works well.
The translator does a good job of transmitting the sense of Aue’s personality. As I have not read the original I cannot know, but there is a congruence between the Aue we get to know and the writing style.
The book should become a classic, and a must read for anyone interested in understanding the Holocaust. We usually get the Jewish version of the Holocaust, but it is important to try and balance this by getting the perpetrators outlook. They were, after all, human too. While The Kindly Ones is fiction, it still provides us with some historical understanding of the German perspective.
Covid-19 and the elephant in the room
Posted on April 19, 2020 Leave a Comment
The current reporting of CV-19 is rather disappointing. It is shallow and emotive. There is more focus on clapping the NHS and reporting relatives’ comments about their dead loved ones than having a rational debate about the impact of the virus.
For instnace, there is virtually no discussion and analysis about those who are dying. In the UK up to 17 April there were 13918 deaths in hospital (and presumably many more in care homes and at home; it is only in the last couple of days that journalists have picked up on this). Of these 12727 were aged over 60, that is 91.4%. There were 1079 deaths in the age group 40-59 (7.8%), leaving only 112 (0.75%) 39 or under. If CV-19 is equally likely to affect everyone as is generally reported then these figures must be wrong. From the evidence so far CV-19 affects those with a pre-existing health condition more severely than others. We know that pre-existing conditions are correlated with age, so again older people are more likely to die.
A number of NHS staff and carers have died, and these are presumably younger than the average of those who are dying, but we do not know whether they had pre-existing conditions. For younger people generally, though there are not many deaths, there are some. We should be focusing on these cases and determining a) did they die of CV-19, b) did they have a pre-existing disorder, and c) are there other reasons they may have become infected (other personal factors, genetic, environmental, etc). There is also the issue of whether some ethnic groups are more likely to get CV-19. Furthermore, from what we understand so far men are more susceptible than women.
It is still relatively early days, and we don’t have full datasets regarding who has died of CV-19 and what comorbid conditions they had (if any), but the data we do have suggests that older people are much more likely to die of the virus than younger people, particularly if they have a pre-existing condition.
Given this situation, the next argument must be about economic strategy. At the moment outside the fields of health and food distribution there is relatively little economic activity in the country. This situation, the longer it continues, will have a growing impact on the physical and mental health of the population. People will start getting ill and dying of things other than CV-19, they probably already are. There are many people with illnesses that are not being treated normally because hospitals are focusing on CV-19.
I am not claiming that the current strategy is necessarily wrong, what I am saying is that we need a much higher level of debate at all levels to develop an appropriate strategy for the future. The Government is saying there will be no strategy for the time being, and it is also saying that the membership of SAGE (the scientific advisory body for the Government) will be kept secret. These are terrible decisions. We are in desperate need of decent investigative journalists, effective opposition MPs and scientists who are prepared to openly debate, discuss and challenge the Government’s position.
Social Democratic Republic of South Wingfield (SDRSW)
Posted on January 31, 2020 Leave a Comment
An open letter to all EU leaders
Back in 1997, when Tony Blair came to power, we were not that impressed by his policies, personality and so on (oh for the return of those days – we didn’t realise how much worse it would become), we declared independence from the UK and became SDRSW. We were social, we were democratic, we didn’t have a monarch. We had a flag and everything, so it was valid.
Now we are on the day that the UK is leaving the EU it is time to reinstitute the SDRSW. Basically, we are not leaving. We are staying in the EU; the whole house and garden is remaining a full member. We will continue to have free movement of people, goods, services, and capital (though we don’t have much of the last one – or the rest for that matter) between the SDRSW and the rest of the EU.
We do have a problem. Like West Berlin before the fall of the USSR we need a corridor between the EU and ourselves, as we are in the middle of Derbyshire. We have yet to negotiate this with Johnson, but expect to have the corridor through to Portsmouth so we can easily get on Brittany Ferries and go to France without showing our passports – because we are in Schengen, or we will be once the EU agrees to it. While we are at it we would also appreciate joining the Euro, and perhaps having a little more political union.
As full members of the EU we are of course willing to contribute our share of the funding. We realise that you will not be accepting those dodgy new so-called 50 pence pieces that Johnson is introducing (I am surprised they are not 10 bob notes), but I am sure you will accept Paypal. In return of course we will be able to apply for grants for the less well off areas of the SDRSW. A couple of my sheds are in need of new felt roofs and there is a bit of damp at the bottom of the stairs.
In case anyone thinks this is not democratic (unlike leaving the EU without a further referendum when polls suggest a clear majority wanting to stay in) we have had a vote and 100% of the population want to remain in the EU. Even the cat realises the benefits of membership.
We are looking forward to a long and fruitful relationship within the EU. When the day comes, and come it surely will, when the rest of the UK, its economy in the doldrums, its chicken all chlorinated, its sewers overflowing with the excrement coming from the mouths of Johnson and Co, its genetically modified crops rotting in the field for want of staff, its NHS bought and destroyed by Trump, its trade agreements with the rest of the world non-existent or written very much in favour of the other parties, its barbed wire borders saturated with the rotting corpses of those trying to escape the barbarity within, then we will welcome the UK back into the EU with open arms.
In the meantime, as the Brexiters would have it, we have decided to take back control. And we are happily flying the EU flag.
Yours sincerely
SDRSW – EU
1917
Posted on January 21, 2020 2 Comments
I had high expectations for this film, but ended up disappointed, as happens so often with films. I do worry that there are common factors that make many modern films problematic – some of which I cannot mention due to the reaction I would receive from certain quarters. Nevertheless, I found myself continuously disappointed with the film. Here is a list of some of the problems I had with it:
- What was the point of the film? A unit could be contacted in a number of ways despite having telephone lines cut – and why send the brother of one of the officers in that unit? And later another unit is going the same way. They could have told them. The plotline was as ridiculous as Saving Private Ryan
- walking through a front line trench without fire steps
- dugouts on both the British and German sides at ground level rather than dug deeply into the ground
- Not enough booby traps on the ground where the Germans had retreated, and when they finally came across one, a tripwire, there was an explosion that failed to injure either soldier, though they were both close to the tripwire, and then the dugout (on the surface remember) gradually collapsed like something out of one of those shoddy Harrison Ford archeology films
- German artillery within about 100m of the front line. Also not impressed that they had not recycled their shellcases, this was 1917 and they had huge shortages
- Perfectly untouched fields just behind the front line
- Your friend gets stabbed in the guts so you try and twist him around and pick him up? No wonder he died.
- A huge waterfall on the Somme battlefield along with rapids? Sorry, I have been around that area quite a lot and there is nothing like that. A totally spurious scene. And it was the Somme, there was mention of Bapaume.
- Token black actors among the soldiers. While many coloured troops fought in the war they would not have been individuals in the Devons. They would more likely be French colonial units
- British soldiers in a forward line that had only become a forward line no more than two days before. The trenches were huge, clearly dug by a JCB, and clean. The wrong shape of course but nothing can be right in this film
- All of the German fire came from artillery in the final attack. Where were the machine guns? Far more common and far more effective at killing large numbers of soldiers
- A Casualty Clearing Station 100m or so behind the front line? Really? Not only a CCS but it also had a mess tent. That would be pleasant next to the damaged soldiers
- Endless boring scenes that needed serious editing
- Dreadful music that tried to make out I was watching an epic.
That is probably enough. The film was as bad as Dunkirk. I am not sure why these war films are so bad at the moment, but clearly there are issues around historical inaccuracy.
Reducing waste
Posted on January 11, 2020 1 Comment
We all know plastic can be a bad thing and that we need to reduce its use. This is the case throughout the world. When I was a child in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s we did not really have a big problem with waste in the same way – though we had our own ways of creating unwanted waste. There were huge slag heaps from the coal mines, filth being chucked out of chimneys everywhere, polluted rivers, too many pesticides, and my personal favourite, visiting the coking plant to collect coke, which burnt on personal fires very efficiently, but in order to convert coal to coke various chemicals had to be burnt off, and the coking plant was like something out of Dante’s Inferno but with big dirty bells on.
At home it was different. My Dad was a self-employed joiner, and he recycled everything he could. The food waste was composted, newspapers and foil were taken for recycling, all forms of metal were taken to the scrapyard (later, when I was an impoverished student, he collected the scrap for me and I would take it to the scrapyard to make a few pounds; even later, when he was an impoverished pensioner I would help collect the scrap and then take it to the scrapyard so he could boost his pension). As a joiner he needed wood, and whenever possible he would use recycled wood. I remember Breadsall Hall being demolished and he bought some huge joists from there. Of course, recycled wood meant recycled nails, so I have no idea how many rusty nails I have pulled out of old bits of wood so that both wood and nails can be reused. At the back of his shed there was glass, old chimney pots, bricks, stone, asbestos roofing (1970s remember), and all manner of things that would come in usesful somewhere, and they usually did. When I was a child milk came in reusable bottles (we are still doing that because we have a milkman and it is becoming more popular again) and pop in glass bottles, so we would collect them and take them to the shop for a few pence. It all helped reduce waste. Why throw away a bottle that is worth 5p? And if you do then a child will find it and take it to the shop. Food that was too good to put in the compost was eaten the next day. Food was bought in recyclable packaging, and shopping bags lasted a lifetime (yes, the modern world is starting again on that one).
The list goes on, but that was then and this is now. We need to do something quickly. In India recenty we saw the problems of plastic waste. It litters the tropical beaches, the roads, the jungles, everywhere. Water in the tap is not fit to drink so you need to either buy water in plastic bottles or filter it, and the former is by far the most common. In India the piles of waste are everywhere, with little being done to clear it up, except what can be eaten by cattle, pigs and dogs. India provides a good example of what we must not be like when it comes to waste.
We can all start by doing something, by changing the way we behave (India had this effect on me in several ways!). Don’t buy pop in plastic. Don’t buy water at all in the UK, we have perfectly good tap water (sparkling water is an exception), so no water in plastic. The packaging in supermarkets is horrendous. When selecting vegetables don’t put anything in plastic bags, put them all in a basket and let the cashier sort them out and weigh them – if there were weighing machines by the fruit and veg we could do it ourselves and then have a ticket indicating overall cost. Do as others have suggested and leave unwanted packaging at the till. Eventually the supermarketes will realise we don’t want the packaging.
I have a more radical idea for takeaways. Whenever you are within a certain radius of one of these hideous monuments to what is wrong with society there is packaging everywhere. Instead, they should not be allowed to put food in throwaway packaging, we should all carry our own packaging, which could, for instance, be in the form of a plastic (nothing wrong with reusable plastics) click-together tray which can hold burgers, chips and so on; and we are all supposed to have our own takeaway cups now for the drinks (that will also limit the size of drinks). Collect your takeaway, eat it, don’t throw the tray out of the car window, take it home, wash it, and put it back in the car for next time. I am sure that if I was at all bright in the business sense I could make a few million with this idea. McDonalds and KFC and so on could all produce their own versions with their logos on. There would have to be a substantial minimum charge for them so that no one would want to throw them away.
It can be done. We did a lot of it in the past anyway. Some of it is just going back to previous recycling days when people were not so rich they could afford to throw things away. It does need action on the part of governments though. Unless there is profit for the big businesses they will not be interested. Governments too will not be interested unless they think there are votes involved. So get to it, write to your MP (or non-UK equivalent) and start making some real changes.
Dr Nigel Hunt 