The Holocaust museum in Amsterdam (at long last)

      

      On Sunday, the new Netherlands National Holocaust Museum will be dedicated in Amsterdam.

      (On the front of the building the sign says Nationaal Holocaust Museum ... that's the Dutch spelling of national).

       Anyway -- to use a favorite (borrowed) expression: What took them so long?

       It has been 82-plus years since the abuse, degradation and eventual deportation/deaths of Dutch Jews at the Nazi concentration camps began.

       There are several buildings and memorials to honor Holocaust prisoners and victims in Amsterdam; we have visited them on our three trips back to the old country, and we've written about them.

        But never has there been an actual Holocaust museum -- like many around the world, including those in Washington, D.C. and Dallas, for example -- in the Netherlands.

        Until now, thank goodness.

        We thank a friend at Trinity Terrace -- our seniors residency in Fort Worth -- for alerting us to The New York Times story about the museum (see link at the bottom of this blog). It was news to us. 

        If you know and understand our family's Holocaust history, you know that we think it is important.

        And it is important enough in Holland that today the Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, will attend the museum ceremony.

        (He will do so alongside the president of Israel, and with today's fragile Middle East situation, some 200 mosques -- Palestinian supporters -- and even a protesting Jewish organization or two suggested/demanded that Willem-Alexander not attend. His reply: I will be there.)

        Not coincidentally, we -- Beatrice and I -- were in Amsterdam the day (April 30, 2013) that Willem-Alexander became the first king of the Netherlands in more than 100 years.

       That was just a few days after we visited -- or re-visited -- four sites in the Jewish Quarter in Amsterdam: the Hollandsche Schouwburg,  the Joods Historisch Museum, the Portuguese Synagogue, and the Auschwitz memorial. 

    Here is a link to the blog piece I wrote then: https://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-place-for-memories-and-tears.html

     Plenty of Holocaust history at those places, and we appreciated the sights.

     The new museum will tell -- as an Associated Press story this week noted -- the story "in video footage, photos, scale models and mementos, of Dutch victims of the Holocaust."

      As you also might know, my mother (Rose Van Thyn) spoke and wrote about her and our family's Holocaust experiences for many years. Will some of her material (photos, videos, articles, letters) be included in this Holocaust museum?

     Answer: We have no idea. Certainly no indication of that.

      My sister -- Elsa Van Thyn -- said in a note: "Guess the museum will feature Mama's statements about how the Dutch weren't the best for the Jews." 

      Don't know.

      But what we do know is that -- whether our family, especially those who lost their lives in the World War II years -- is directly acknowledged at the museum or not, the opening of this facility is a great thing.

       We cannot forget our people.

       And we are grateful for those who remember, and -- with this museum -- honor their memory.

---

      Here are links to information about the museum:

       -- Nationaal Holocaustmuseum  Museum/nl\ 

       -- https://www.yahoo.com/news/holocaust-museum-amsterdam-aims-tell-063005778.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

     -- https://apnews.com/article/netherlands-holocaust-museum-antisemitism-4b7f1e725bb014283c57381425001aee

   -- With a New Holocaust Museum, the Netherlands Faces Its Past 

   

On this date 77 years ago ...

     On October 14, 1946, Rozette Lopes Dias -- then with the last name Lazer -- married Louis Van Thyn in war-weary Amsterdam.

    We are still grateful 77 years later.

The wedding photo: 1946

    Who knew on that day -- a Monday and a trip to City Hall for the wedding ceremony -- how long their lives would go, and how far they would travel.

     They'd known each other for little more than a year. And they had been through so much in the previous half-dozen years, some horrific experiences -- certainly not of their choosing.

     They each had lost so much, and they had precious little family remaining.

     So, who knows how deep their love was then. But they knew they needed each other.

      Their stories -- their combined story -- has a beautiful ending, of course: Almost 62 years of marriage, the last 51-plus in two homes they owned.

       And such good fortune: Two children they never expected -- me and my younger sister Elsa --  and from that, five grandchildren. From there, to the present-day nine great-grandchildren (but only a couple born while Louis and Rose still lived).

       Plus, a journey of almost 5,000 miles and two weeks from the wonderful place where they grew up (Hup Holland!) to the country  where Mom always dreamed of living, the result of how well American military personnel treated her and other women Holocaust survivors upon rescue in early 1945.

      And what culture shock -- from a busy center of a million people to a state and city of which they'd never heard (Louisiana? Shreveport?).

    They could not have known, did not know, how accepting, how helpful, those people in Shreveport would be. First, the Jewish community, but soon far beyond that, from all over. 

      It was a perfect fit, certainly moreso than it could have been in, say, the New York City melting pot of millions.           

      In 1 1/2 years, they were home owners. In five years, they became U.S. citizens ... and darned proud of it.

      Parts of their hearts, though, was with the few family members and many friends they left behind in The Netherlands. And also with the friends -- and eventually some family -- in Israel, the Jewish-dominated state created in 1948.

       That included the very couple that had introduced them to each other in the summer of 1945. Those two people were the only married couple housed -- in an attic room -- at the former factory converted into a safe shelter for women Holocaust survivors who had returned to Amsterdam.

     The man knew Dad from boyhood days in Amsterdam. The woman was Mom's best friend at Auschwitz; they had been in elementary school together and had reunited while standing in line after they got out of the cattle-car transport to the concentration camp.

     After they survived the Holocaust, that couple moved to Israel, specifically to Narahija.

      Which brings us to today, to this past week and Hamas' invasion of Israel. 

       Because -- as I've been asked repeatedly this week -- we do have distant connections in Israel.

      That couple's granddaughter is now on active duty with the Israel military.

      A grandson and granddaughter of Mom's favorite first cousin (Maurits) in Amsterdam, and the granddaughter's husband (a tank driver) are reservists called to active duty. 

      Maurits' son married an Israeli girl; they live in Jerusalem. And Maurits' daughter, who lives in Antwerp, Belgium, has four children living in Israel, but -- because they are Belgian citizens -- none are in the service. 

     (Maurits' children are our second cousins, once removed. At least, that's the best we can figure.)

---  

      Can tell you this: Grateful that Mom and Dad are not around to endure this latest invasion of Israel. They would have been extremely concerned.

      Because that's how they were in 1967 (the "Six-Day War" and 1973 (the Yom Kippur War) when Arab military forces invaded Israel.

       Television news then wasn't 24-7 -- Shreveport had only three TV stations and three networks -- but Mom watched (and worried) every report. Dad was working at the pipeyard, but I know he and the people there were paying attention.

       I think about this now because we've had the news on constantly here. 

      Thought about writing about baseball -- how much I've watched this Texas Rangers' season -- or football (LSU, Louisiana Tech and the Dallas Cowboys are always topics of interest in this apartment). 

      Wanted to say how good the Rangers have been and how good it feels for their fans. Same for the Houston Astros and their Yankees-like dynasty of the past seven years.

       But writing about athletics just didn't seem right this week. (Maybe if a certain team had recaptured its glory of so many decades I might be more involved, but that hasn't happened in 14 seasons. So there.)

        No, there is sadness here for all those deaths and injured in Israel, in Gaza. Not only the Jewish people, but the thousands of innocent Palestinians. They, too, are victims of Hamas, and Israel's penchant -- determination -- for revenge.

       No winners in this. None. No end in sight.

       Sad.

       And when I heard on TV someone say that "people died just because they were Jewish," I thought, yes, that's how it was for our grandparents, uncles and aunts, Mom and Dad's first spouses, plus their many uncles, aunts and cousins.

      Even through many good times, Mom and Dad never forgot. Nor do we ever forget, and we shouldn't.

      We want Israel to survive and thrive. But we, too, want the Palestinians to have peace and good times.

      We are for peace, period.

      I know those two people who took those wedding vows -- who committed to each other -- on October 14, 1946, would approve of that.

      They were blessed, and so were we. We wish the same for millions of others.          

          

A family connection to "Righteous Among the Nations"

     You likely are not familiar with the "Righteous Among the Nations." If you are, good. If not, and you are interested, read on.
     It is Holocaust-related, and now we can say that our extended family -- in Israel and Belgium -- has a connection to it.
     The "Righteous Among the Nations" is part of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center located in Jerusalem.  
     It is a tribute to those individuals -- as the Yad Vashem web site says -- "who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust."
         The worldwide project to research and find those names began in 1963. But here it is, 55 years later, and -- finally -- two names are going to be added to the list: 

Wilhelmina and Cornelis de Ru
(photo from Elena Bins-de Ru)

     Cornelis and Wilhelmina de Ru (Retel). Commonly known as Kees and Mien.
     And our family -- that is, the Kopuits (second cousins Heleen and Philip, and their families) and, by extension, the Van Thyns -- is grateful. We share the same great grandparents on my mother's side, and we share this story.
     It centers on Maurits Kopuit, Heleen and Philip's father. The de Rus basically saved his life.
     But for 5 1/2 decades, the de Rus declined the recognition they deserved. That has been corrected.
     The connection is this: It was at their grocery store in the city of Leiden -- in south Holland, close to The Hague -- where Maurits was hidden away during much of World War II. He was in his early teens.
     The Nazis never found Maurits, nor his parents hidden  closeby at a small farm in Voorschoten, although Maurits' father, Philip, died of heart disease at age 39 during that time.
     Of Mom's 35 first cousins -- her mother and father each were from large families -- Maurits was the only survivor of the Nazis' reign of terror. All the others, like most of my parents' families, perished in the gas chambers or otherwise.
     (Three years ago, I wrote two blog pieces on Maurits, who after the war returned to Amsterdam, lived with his mother two houses over from us and eventually became a writer, columnist and dynamic editor for the main Jewish newspaper in The Netherlands. Links to those blog pieces are below.)
     Quick summation: My mother and Maurits were very close.
     Philip Kopuit, who lives in Jerusalem and relatively close to Yad Vashem, informed us of the de Ru honor in a note earlier this week.
     Philip wrote: "Some history. During the war, Papa [Maurits] was mainly with one Christian family, the de Ru family. A family with seven children; the youngest were about his age. 
     "Arie, the oldest, was a guest at my bar mitzvah dinner [1973 in Amsterdam]. Heleen and I remember a visit we all paid at the de Rus once when we were very young.
     "Today, only the youngest child is still alive. He lives an hour and a half from Los Angeles.
     "One of the granddaughters contacted us over a year ago. They wondered why their grandparents were not registered at Yad Vashem and were not recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. 

     "Heleen and I gave some testimonies and memories, and last week I got this attached letter from Yad Vashem."

     Some background (from the "Righteous" section of the Yad Vashem web site):
     "One of Yad Vashem's principal duties is to convey the gratitude of the State of Israel and the Jewish people to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. This mission was defined by the law establishing Yad Vashem, and in 1963 the Remembrance Authority embarked upon a worldwide project to grand the title of Righteous Among the Nations to the few who helped Jews in the darkest time in their history.

Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad 
Vashem (photo from the Yad Vashem web site)

     "To this end, Yad Vashem set up a public Commission, headed by a Supreme Court Justice, which examines each case and is responsible for granting the title. Those recognized received a medal and a certificate of honor and their names are commemorated on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem."
     So over the past year, the de Rus -- with Philip and Heleen making their case -- were up for consideration.
     Done. Accepted.
     The letter above, from the "Righteous" department director, was sent to Herman de Ru, the remaining child, who lives in Fallbrook, California (between Los Angeles and San Diego, a town known to me because that was the hometown of baseball great Duke Snider).
      For years, Herman -- like my mother did -- has been a public speaker about the Holocaust years, his experiences as a teenager in Holland, and his parents' help in hiding Maurits ... and many others.
      The letter was copied, among others, to Philip Kopuit and de Ru family members -- Mrs. Elane Lazet in San Marcos, Calif., and Mrs. Elena Bins-de Ru in Gent, Belgium.
     It was Elena Bins who contacted Philip and Heleen and asked for their help in gaining the "Righteous" honor for her grandparents.
     She is the daughter of Kees de Ru, who she said died the same year (1992) as Maurits, and related fond memories of  her visits with her uncle Herman in America.
      She said her grandparents had hidden other Jewish people, but names were changed and she could not find those who survived. But she and her uncle remembered the name Maurits Kopuit, who was called "Maup" by the de Rus.  Herman often talked about him.
      (Elena also said that her recall is that at least six de Ru family members were at his bar mitzvah. The elder de Rus had died in 1971 and '72.)
      When Maurits long ago suggested to the de Rus that they belonged on the "Righteous list, they declined. As Elena explained, "My grandmother was very modest." But Maurits had a tree planted in their honor at Yad Vashem, and they were very pleased.
      And when, in 1985, the Dutch government granted Maurits knighthood in the Order of Orange Nassau -- for service to the country -- the de Ru family members, especially Kees and Mien, were proud.
       Fitting, because the once young man really was part of their family, and he of theirs. 
---
     Looking at the Yad Vashem "Righteous" database, there are as of today, 26,973 people who have been honored. The most (6,863) are from Poland, and The Netherlands has the second-highest total (5,669).
     Soon it will be 5,671 -- Cornelis and Wilhelmina de Ru do belong. They were Righteous.
     "Heleen and I pretend this doesn't mean much to us," Philip wrote, "but we are actually moved by it."
     So are we. I know Rose and Louis Van Thyn would have been, too.
---
http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2015/08/my-mothers-first-cousin-one-of-my-heroes.html
http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2015/08/cousin-maurits-driving-force-in.html

• • 
    

Rose and Louis -- in the New York Daily News

     The article below was published Tuesday (June 26) on the op-ed page of the New York Daily News, and it is centered on my parents, particularly Mom.
     It is about the Holocaust -- and today's world, today's America. It is about the President's rhetoric and policies, OK.
     I suggest you put your political beliefs aside as you read this. Perhaps you cannot do that, but it is about Rose and Louis, so give it a try.
     This is written by Brandon Friedman, co-founder and chief executive officer of The McPherson Square, a public relations firm based in Washington, D.C.
      Here is why Friedman is aware of my parents: He was born and raised in Shreveport, he graduated from LSU-Shreveport and he has a master's degree from University of Texas.
       What many of my readers might not approve of: He served in the Obama Administration. What they will approve of: He served -- with some distinction -- in the U.S. Army, a rifle platoon leader in Afghanistan and Iraq.
        (I was alerted to the article by Lisa Nicoletti, professor of art history and visual studies at Centenary College, guiding force of the Holocaust studies there, and -- with husband Steve -- great friend to my parents. We thank her -- again.)
      The article:
---
     What 'Never Again' Holocaust educators would say now about civility and fascism

     By Brandon Friedman
     As a kid, I was surrounded by people who went on and on about “Never Again.”

     Holocaust survivor and educator Rose Van Thyn was one of those. She spoke to classes often, and what I remember about each time she visited my school over the years was the conviction in her voice — as if she really believed it could happen here.

     Rose was sincere. She had been through a lot. Like the others, she had a number tattooed on her arm. She was a survivor of Auschwitz.

     Still, I took her warnings with a grain of salt. I think all the kids did. No one really believed her. Because that had happened a long time ago. It was Europe. And this is America.

     Nevertheless, Rose spent her entire adult life in north Louisiana warning anyone who would listen. She never stopped. Then her husband Louis, also a Holocaust survivor, died in 2008. She died two years later.

     I didn’t hear about their deaths. Life had gone on. I had grown up and I was busy. I found out when I googled it this week.

     And then something occurred to me: Like the Van Thyns, many of the most famous Holocaust educators and Nazi hunters have died in recent years.

     Simon Wiesenthal, the most famous Nazi hunter, died in 2005. Elliot Welles, who the New York Times called an “indefatigable Nazi hunter,” died in 2006. Tuviah Friedman, who helped track down Adolf Eichmann, died in 2011. Elie Wiesel, the author of “Night,” died in 2016.

     I bring this up because we’re in the midst of a national discussion about “civility” in the face of authoritarianism. And in all this talk about civility in America’s political discourse, it occurred to me that the passing of Rose’s generation has left us extraordinarily vulnerable. In fact, I don’t think today’s resurgent fascism — and the dark enthusiasm that animates it across America — is coincidence.

     Rose was a tiny woman, but she was unrelenting. She was not violent, but she was also not willing to negotiate with a racist ideology. She knew that going along just to get along made things worse — not better.

     Her fellow survivors were the same. They knew that calls for civility in the face of oppression had been used as a weapon against them. And they knew what we took for granted.

     They knew that Nazis weren’t an aberration. They were regular people. Your friend. Your neighbor. Your uncle who forwards racist memes.           They knew that Nazis are what happens when hate goes unchecked by polite people who fear confrontation.

     They also taught us is that dictatorships and genocide don’t happen all at once. They don’t start with extermination camps. They start when vulnerable classes of people are blamed for society’s problems. They start with state propaganda.

     They start with the encouragement of violence at political rallies. They start when elected leaders call the press the “enemy of the people.” And they start when people don’t push back forcefully and publicly — early and often.

     As with any cancer, the time to stop creeping fascism is not after the arrests and the killings begin. By then, it’s too late. The time to stop fascism is when the President calls some Nazis “very fine people.” That’s the time, before it metastasizes and spreads further.

     President Trump has called for his followers to “knock the crap out of” political opponents. He threatened this week to suspend due process for immigrants. He said immigrants “infest” America — a literal use of Nazi terminology. Meanwhile, the government he runs is holding children hostage in cages until their Mexican and Central American parents agree to deportation.

     I don’t think I fully understood the urgency of Rose Van Thyn’s warnings when I was younger. But now that I’m older, I understand power. I know that human nature doesn’t change. Most importantly, I know that when a leader flouts the rule of law and begins “othering” minorities, the time for civility is over.

     What does that mean? In my view, political analyst Josh Berthume said it best yesterday: “Racists, misogynists, homophobes, bigots, fascists, and every single one of their enablers should feel the sting of shame and ridicule. When their behavior is not challenged, it is encouraged.”

     That’s a sentiment every Nazi hunter would get behind, and I share it. We must shun these people back into the shadows. It’s the only way to ensure that what Rose experienced does, in fact, never happen again.
Friedman has spent 17 years in politics and government, including time as an Army infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan.

---
Bio links:
http://www.mcphersonsquaregroup.com/brandon-friedman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Friedman
  

Remembering the Holocaust ... and Charlottesville

Rose and Louis (The Shreveport Times photo)

     This Sunday afternoon, I will be thinking of Mom and Dad ... and millions of other people.
     I also will be thinking of last August, and the tumultuous weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.
     Thinking, remembering, and reflecting. That is what the annual Holocaust Remembrance Service in Shreveport-Bossier is for me. And I am sure Beatrice Van Thyn feels the same, as do many others.
     That is why we attend. To honor those who suffered through the Holocaust, those who paid the ultimate price (6 million Jews, 11 million victims, 60 million altogether -- military, people of the world). Our family lost too soon: four grandparents, two uncles, one aunt, an in-law aunt and uncle, one nephew, and my parents' first spouses. 
     This Sunday (3 p.m. start), I especially will think of Mom. Because the service this year will be in Brown Chapel on the Centenary College campus.
     Special connections: (1) Mom often was a featured speaker at the Shreveport-Bossier Holocaust Remembrance Service; (2) she and Dad, as Holocaust survivors, were among those lighting the 11 eleven candles commemorating the 11 million victims of Nazi occupation/persecution; (3) Mom loved Brown Chapel, was a speaker there several times, and chose it for her memorial service (eight years ago in July).
     As many people remember, for years she spoke publicly about the Holocaust, her experiences in it and in life.
     She wrote prolifically in English, her second language, although I am sure she wrote Dutch to her friends back in the old country. Long takes on her and her original family's Holocaust days; poetry -- most her own, some borrowed -- and letters to the newspapers.
     I am sharing some of those editorial-page letters (saw them again recently as I culled our paper files and created digital files).
     One of her favorite subjects -- and not in a positive manner -- was David Duke. Surprised?

1990 The Shreveport Times

     Is there anyone in the United States, and with Louisiana ties, that is more symbolic of anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and white supremacy advocate? He was the America's leading Nazi wannabe and Grand Wizard (of the Ku Klux Klan), so the answer is ... no.
     Much as I love my home state, it is a forever-stain on Louisiana that he actually had success there politically.
     He was -- among other things -- an elected state representative and a finalist in the 1991 state governor's race, having drawn 80,000 more votes in the primary than the incumbent governor, Buddy Roemer. It took a "Vote for the Crook" campaign for Edwin Edwards to keep a Nazi promoter/sympathizer out of the governor's chair. (Soon enough Edwards and Duke were convicted felons.)  
---
     Duke is still around, of course, spouting his white trash, and he has enough followers to draw attention ... from those who want to pay attention. 
     Which brings us back to Charlottesville. He was there, he was on camera, and he had plenty of would-be-Nazis company. 
     Just as a reminder, I again watched the "Vice News Tonight" behind-the-scenes coverage of the Nazi/KKK/white-supremacists types ... and the slanted hatred they espouse. It is really head-shaking. Pitiful. Annoying. Obnoxious. And, well, laughable.
     Had my say on this last August: http://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2017/08/here-is-my-red-line.html
     Do not care to rehash it any further, except to say that I will not agree with the "many sides," "both sides" were guilty. That argument is an overreach, a misinterpretation.
     And those Nazi/KKK/white supremacists publicly loved that people -- influential people -- are at least partially, if not fully, taking their side, giving them an out or an excuse.
     Of course, this protest also involved the Confederate-hero statue issue -- in this case, Gen. Robert E. Lee -- so the question of slavery, of those clinging to their Southern roots and heritage, was combined with the pro-Nazi cause.
     We could write a whole blog on that. Personally, I like statues; I did a sports page piece on the sports statues in the Fort Worth-Dallas area. But, hey, statues of Stalin and Saddam Hussein -- and for football's sake, Joe Paterno -- came tumbling down. Can you imagine statues of Hitler, Goebbels, Rommel, etc.? Yeah, right. 
     So the Confederate statues symbolize heroes to some, slavery to others. Heritage or shame. There is both sides of this debate.
     But both sides guilty in Charlottesville? C'mon. It is just not right.    
     No, no, no -- one side is bent on hate speech, and prone to violence, eager to provide that violence and, in this case, even defending and slanting the facts about a car driven into the crowd, injuring many and killing one young woman. 
     The other side is sticking up for decency. 
     Even if we disagree on politics and social issues today, I would hope we could agree that David Duke and his cronies are wrong, wrong, wrong. 
     They were waving their Nazi, KKK and Confederate flags, carrying their lit torches through the night, chanting "this is our country" and "blood and soil" -- the Nazi standby from the 1930s -- and "Whose streets? Our streets!" and, the twist on the current-day slogan, "White Lives Matter."
     The decent view is: It is all our country -- no colors needed -- and all lives matter. 
     To equate the thugs in Charlottesville with a left-wing radical shooting bullets rapidly into a Republican baseball practice, we don't consider it the same thing. Our U.S. Congresswoman from the district here in Fort Worth did that in echoing the "both sides" claim, and a couple of people on my Facebook page agreed with her. 
     Mrs. Kay Granger's office is close to where we live, across the street off University Drive, so I took a copy of my blog piece and a short note there. To her credit, she answered with a lengthy, well-done letter and strongly denounced -- twice -- the white supremacists' actions and views.
     She cited the baseball practice shooting as "an example of political violence, and I denounce it as well" and went on to write, "... I cannot imagine that anyone but severe partisans would not agree with my position in denouncing both actions."
     I don't consider myself a severe partisan -- you might -- but that was one man with an obvious mental-health problem (we've heard this description repeatedly in other cases). How many one- or two-person violent acts have we seen here in recent memory?
     One lone wolf, not a mob or a movement. It is not a parallel situation.
     Cannot deny that the counter protesters in Charlottesville -- the anti-fascist group -- were ready for battle, that some went there knowing they would have to fight to protect themselves. History tell us how violent the Nazi/KKK types love to be.
     But the rally itself -- the largest white supremacists gathering in the U.S. in a decade, they bragged -- was the instigator. 
---
     Look, the Charlottesville movement had a license to protest (so giving that crowd permission was the first problem ... but where do you draw the line on protests?). 
     Tried to tell you before the current administration was in office that there would be plenty of protests. Got lots of criticism for defending the Hamilton cast ("wrong place," "wrong time," "disrespectful). 
     And now you have had the women's marches, the NFL players' national-anthem protests, the young people-led gun-restriction protests, the abortion/anti-abortion protests won't subside, the Black Lives Matter protests. We don't all agree, but -- Lord help us -- we don't want violence.

1994 The Shreveport Times

     So about Charlottesville, it's not anger I feel (although my friend in Holland, daughter of a Holocaust survivor, wrote a note saying she thought that). It's sadness. Sad that the Nazi/KKK/white supremacy loudmouths are there and visible.
     It is, true, a small and loud faction of our society. It is, unfortunately, a growing menace -- again -- in Europe. We don't need to ignore them; we need to pay attention. We need to tell them, often: You are just wrong.
     We don't need to be scared, either. Guarantee you that Rose Van Thyn was not scared of David Duke or any of the others.
     Don't think she ever was in the same room with him. She chose not to be; he had some public appearances in Shreveport-Bossier.
     But one member of our family -- my sister Elsa -- was an LSU student at the same time as Duke in the early 1970s. The other night, when I told her I was going to write this blog, she remembered several times listening to him speak at LSU's Free Speech rallies, almost always wearing his Nazi uniform (as did often on campus).
     And she remembered laughing at how outrageous he was, that while others were denouncing the Vietnam War, Duke was blaming the Jews for it and blaming Jewish women for inciting protests.
      Had my mother seen Duke, she would have gone face to face, toe to toe with him -- well, sort of, at 4-foot-9 and 110 pounds (maybe), perhaps not face to face.
      She did not use bad language, but if there was something she did not like, you knew it. She would not have backed away from David Duke. She would not have been violent, but you could see his always-present bodyguards stepping in, couldn't you? Rose did not need bodyguards. 
      What happened in Charlottesville last year, and the Nazi-type rallies and speeches we read and hear about (too often) are very good reasons why a Holocaust Remembrance Service is important. 

A Holocaust survivor ... a television (behind-the-scenes) legend

      The man's name is Peter Lassally, and he was a television star -- not in front of the camera, but behind the scenes.

     He is known in the TV world as the "host whisperer."

     Some of us who consider The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson the greatest of all television programs know who Peter Lassally is.

     What I did not know until earlier this month is that he (1) is a Holocaust survivor; (2) lived in Amsterdam; and (3) has an Anne Frank connection.

      And that draws my attention. I have known Holocaust survivors from Amsterdam quite well.

      Learned all this from a 9 1/2 minute segment on Lassally during CBS' Sunday Morning program March 11. 

      Lassally was executive producer of Carson's Tonight Show for the bulk of Johnny's 29 years of legendary television.

      After Carson's death early in 2005, I remember Lassally appearing on several programs to talk about Carson's life, career and personality. But Lassally's personal background was not part of those discussions. 

      He was as close to Johnny -- very much a loner despite his show-business persona -- as anyone could be, including Ed McMahon. But Carson was only one of the stars Lassally promoted.

      He produced Arthur Godfrey's television show in the 1960s when Godfrey was, arguably, the medium's biggest star (as he had been on radio previously). After Carson retired, Lassally was executive producer for the late-night shows of David Letterman, Tom Snyder and Craig Ferguson,  and also an advisor for Jon Stewart.

      Thus, the "host whisperer" title. Well-deserved.

      On Sunday Morning, Mo Rocca -- entertaining, informative and usually a bit zany -- was Lassally's  interviewer. No zaniness this time.

      Here, taken from CBS' Sunday Morning web site, is the 2 1/2-minute transcript from the interview pertaining to the Holocaust:

---

      If Peter Lassally sounds blunt -- even dour at times -- it may have something to do with his life before television. 

      He was born in Germany in 1933. Jewish, the family fled to Holland. For a time, he was in grade school with Anne Frank.

       Lassally: "Well, she wasn't in my class, she was in my sister's class, who told me afterward that she was not a popular girl. I mean, all her experiences were not unusual or strange to me; you hid from the Nazis the best way you could. And we tried and failed."

      When he was 10 his father died. Soon after, he and his sister and mother were sent to the first of two concentration camps [note: Westerbork and Theresienstadt].

      Rocca asked, "Was there ever, in your 25 months in the camps, even just a moment where you sort of forgot where you were?"

      "No. No. Never forgot where you were," Lassally replied. "I remember watching from my window a little baby being swung against the lamppost and, you know, that's what my life was like: Watching them kill an innocent baby in the most brutal way possible."

      Lassally recalls another cruel tactic of his captors, this one psychological: "The middle of the night, word comes to the barracks, 'Everybody outside, form a formation.' You didn't know whether it was a transport going out to another concentration camp, or you'd stand there for hours in the rain, in darkness. And they did it just to scare you and make you nervous. They always had you off-balance."

     Rocca: "So that you were always scared?"

     Lassally: "Always scared. Always scared. Which is what our President is doing."

     He elaborates on his refusal to watch any news programs these days. The video runs another couple of minutes and ends with Lassally reflecting on his life.

     Looking at a photo of Lassally in his TV executive producer days, Mo Rocca says, "What I see is a little bit of wariness. A guy who has seen a lot."

     "I saw a lot, you are right about that," Lassally answered. "I saw plenty. Everywhere!"

---

       The remaining Holocaust survivors are dwindling, but for us, the story is never diminished. Lassally was among the fortunate; his life -- like that of so many others -- is a tribute to what's possible.

      We never forget those we lost in the Holocaust; personally, the family we never knew.

      Nor do we forget the survivors we knew, the ones we lived with, the ones who were their friends.

      We never forget. Peter Lassally never forgot. 

---

      Link to the full interview:
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/tv-exec-peter-lassally-on-working-with-the-kings-of-late-night/

      Photos taken from the interview on CBS' Sunday Morning web site 

Blog reactions and this: "Some very fine people on both sides"

      Don't often follow a blog piece with reactions to a previous one. This will be an exception.
      One reason: I failed to include President Trump's "some very fine people on both sides" remark regarding the white supremacists vs. anti-protesters aftermath of Charlottesville last week.
      Please. I have never seen "fine people" among the present-day Nazis, KKK, white supremacists, alt-right.
      If you watched the behind-the-scenes VICE News video of the Friday night march in Charlottesville -- the torch-bearing, chanting and, frankly, Jew-baiting crowd -- and heard the rhetoric from David Duke and all his pathetic buddies, there is nothing and no one "fine" about it.
      Every interview we have seen with "leaders" of these groups ... and they are disgustingly racist/anti-Semitic, and darned happy about it -- and the President's statements.
      No "both sides" to it, period.   
      Sure, one side has some who could be violent, and might be ready for physical attack. The other side is totally prepared for violence. All you have to do is listen to the trash talk.      
      Cannot defend the President, and Vice-President, and our U.S. representative, Kay Granger of Fort Worth, Texas, and others who give these people an "out" or put them on an equal basis. That is an unforgivable error.
      It is, as I said previously, above politics. It is about decency and morality. (Not trying to preach; I have my faults.)
      No way to blame this on the "alt left" or the media. Too much of a throwback to Nazi Germany and the hooded, KKK night riders.
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      Now, about the reactions ...
      One is from the daughter of a man I regarded as one of the top two sportswriters ever to work in Louisiana. The other is from a superior athlete of his time. I thought both reactions were strong enough and detailed enough to share.
        John Walter "Jack" Fiser was sports editor/lead sports columnist for The Shreveport Times for a decade (1951-61); I described him in a blog a couple of years as a "erudite, brilliant writer." He was years ahead of his time, and my opinion, the only one in Louisiana in his sportswriting class was Peter Finney (in New Orleans). Ego and self-promotion were not part of their personalities.
      Fiser's columns and game stories -- especially on LSU football and the Shreveport Sports, but really on any subject he chose -- were gems, pieces of craftwork. He made a reader think; he could be critical, yes, but with a deft touch.
      Jack Fiser's column was a "must-read" in a time when The Times circulation was wide, through north and central Louisiana, into east Texas and southern Arkansas.
      Too young for the Fiser writing era, the hours I spent researching sports history of those years were made much longer because I always stopped to read, and appreciate,  what he wrote.
      Full disclosure: Mr. Fiser was sports information director at Louisiana Tech in 1966-67; I was his student assistant, my sophomore year at Tech. He moved to Baton Rouge after that year and wound up at LSU's Alumni House as a writer/researcher (my sister, as a student, worked for him there).

Mr. and Mrs. Fiser

        He was calm and soft-spoken, measured, highly intelligent, well-read, respected and respectful. In so many ways, he was like Tech legendary athletic director-football coach Joe Aillet; he and Mrs. Fiser were close friends with the Aillets. He also was very friendly with Pete Dosher -- his predecessor as Tech SID and my first mentor there -- and Mary Dosher.
      Mr. Fiser's daughter Joan, who in 1966-67 was a cute high school junior (Byrd, in Shreveport), now lives in the San Jose/Silicon Valley area, married and a mother -- and a Facebook friend.
      Here is the note she sent me after the previous blog:
      "What's been happening in our country is alarming and those of us who are appalled by it must speak out. This year I've often thought of my dad, who as you were probably aware, Nico, was politically conservative. I doubt seriously that he ever considered voting for a Democrat, but I know he would not have liked or voted for our current president because of Trump's ignorance, ineptitude, dishonesty, boastfulness and so many other qualities that Jack Fiser abhorred.
      "As a former Marine who dropped out of LSU to fight fascism (later returning to graduate), he would have been upset by the current rise of anti-Semitism and white nationalism. My father would have found Trump's admiration for Putin unthinkable.
      "What we are witnessing is shocking and, at times, frightening, and we can't remain quiet about it. Hopefully, at some point not too far in the future, we will return to the kind of society that most of us grew up in and value -- one in which people can have differing political views and values but still coexist amicably and work together. We should never make the mistake of taking our democracy and way of life for granted."
      Joan adds, "One point I wanted to make was that as far apart as Dad and I were politically on certain issues (like foreign policy), I always respected him as a principled, intelligent person. I knew that we shared very clear values about what's really important in life and how people should be treated.
      "What became obvious in the presidential campaign and since the election is that something has happened to the shared value system that so many of us took for granted. During the campaign it was acceptable to insult other candidates in a vulgar way, which would have been unthinkable before.
       "Now, some people don't seem to have a problem with neo-Nazis marching in the streets shouting, 'Jews will not replace us' or running over counter protestors. This is not the society I grew up in or want for my daughter and her future children."
---
       I am not going to name the person who offered the second reaction I am sharing. But I will say that it surprised me to an extent. Here it is ...
       "[I] did not intend to go deep into the Trump issue but rather wanted to thank you for making me stop and think and reflect and do some soul-searching. When this latest Trump issue came about, I thought 'here we go again,' and then tried not to get emotionally tied to it as I have too many issues in my own life to deal with. But it wouldn't go away ... and it won't.
       "I think this is the beginning of the end for Mr. Trump -- resign or get impeached, but either way for the good of this country he must go. That is how I truly feel.
       "Your assessment of Trump and the trainwreck his presidency is 100 percent correct. I agree totally with what you said in your blog. Thank you."
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       One more personal remembrance from Joan Fiser, dating to early 1968:
        "I remember your parents, whom I met at a Tech basketball game. As you know, your mother was one of those people who touched people's lives. I still remember her face as she explained the number on her arm. That is a story I shared with hundreds of students over the years when the subject of the Holocaust came up. Hopefully that story will never be forgotten."