Mom's appearance in an Iowa museum

        An update on a blog piece we published on January 30 of this year ...

       This is in reference to Mom (Rose Van Thyn) being part of a Holocaust-related  museum exhibit in Danville, Iowa.

       We received a note from Dr. Stephen J. Gaies, who was our original contact for this endeavor.

     He wrote: "The railcar exhibit at the Anne Frank Penpal Museum was officially opened on June 12."

      That's fine with us. As we wrote previously, we are honored that Mom (and Dad, Louis Van Thyn) are being remembered -- in Iowa -- all these years after they left us.

      Dr. Gaies, a University of Northern Iowa professor with a long background in Holocaust and genocide education, is a consultant for this museum. He referenced Janet Hesler, the museum founder and director and the guiding force for this exhibit.

     Mrs. Hesler provided photos of Mom's part of the exhibit, which are included here, and Dr.  Gaies included a sheet of supplementary information on Mom, which is accessible through a QR code.

     Mrs. Hesler also told Dr. Gaies that "she recently received a phone call and a check from Ron and Jackie Nierman from Shreveport in memory of your parents."

     Thanks to everyone for caring and remembering. Mom and Dad would have liked it, and I know my sister Elsa and her family are appreciative, too.

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      Link to the supplementary information: https://1drv.ms/w/c/bab4ca9d15529a50/Ed8DKKJzQTFCo0y-nKjZZkMBj7u21yVB6kkY743zSf2Eqg?e=dBj8SW

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      Here is a link to the earlier blog piece: 

https://nvanthyn.blogspot.com/2025/01/mom-dad-making-appearance-in-iowa.html 

      

Mom, Dad making an appearance in Iowa

      Mom's influence, her dedication to educating the world about the Holocaust, is still being felt ... in Iowa.
      Yes, Iowa. You read that correctly. Danville, Iowa, to be exact, a small farming community in the southeast part of the state.

Our young Rose

      Good timing, too. The day after this year's International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we received a note -- through a longtime friend -- from a man in Iowa asking for permission to use photos of Mom (and Dad) and one of her poems in a Holocaust-related museum.
      The Danville Station, a library-museum featuring the "Anne Frank Pen Pal Letters." It is a non-for-profit cultural institution.
      Intriguing? Indeed.
      Mom, who for 25 years talked and wrote so often about the Holocaust, has been gone 14 1/2 years (Dad for 16 1/2). But they would be so proud of an exhibit being put together in that museum to  honor them.
      We -- their family -- are pleased, and happy to help.
      In a world where Holocaust education seems to be dwindling as much as the actual survivors of that horror, this is a small bit of encouragement. 
      So were the responses we received this week about our (annual) post/e-mail on Holocaust Remembrance Day. We will never forget, or -- as one friend pointed out -- forgive.
    (And we don't approve of  Elon Musk's clownish "salute," or whatever he did, and certainly not of his coddling of Germany's far-right -- yeah, Nazi-leaning -- political party. He's not stupid, but that was. C'mon, he knows what a Nazi salute looks like. So why even go there?) 
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    Back to the story, the Anne Frank-Rose Van Thyn connection of sorts.
     The origin of this tale is a note from Dr.  Stephen J. Gaies, who was director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education and a professor emeritus in the department of languages and literatures at the University of Northern Iowa. He is now a consultant to the Danville museum, which opened in 2018.  

    He was writing our old friend Thomas Aswell (from Ruston, Louisiana Tech and now living in the Baton Rouge area where he is a longtime political journalist, and a good one.)
    Dr. Gaies: "I am writing about gaining permission to use a photograph that appeared in an article you published in Louisiana Voice on November 1, 2016 ..." (about the book Survivors: 62511, 70726, our family's story and that of my parents' Holocaust concentration camp experiences.)   
    He explained that he was helping design the museum's permanent exhibit and "featuring one of Rose Van Thyn's poems ('Where To') in a new part of the museum." They also want to include some images as part of the description of her life.

    While Dr. Gaies was our contact, he stresses that Janet Hesler is "the founder, director and 'soul' of the museum and this exhibit."
    Certainly, we granted permission. And we did send a good number of photos and blog pieces to hopefully enhance the exhibit.
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     Now, to tell how Anne Frank (and her sister) figure into this story. 
     "It's an honor to tell your mother's (and father's) story to visitors [at the museum]," Dr. Gaies wrote. "Let me tell you ... how we plan to incorporate a sample of your mother's poetry and information about her life and accomplishments into the new exhibit area.
   Mrs. Hesler: "The Anne Frank letters began in 1939 when our teacher at Danville, Miss Birdie Mathews, started an international correspondence exchange program for her students.

        "The students drew names and Juanita Wagner drew the name of Anne Frank. The Wagner sisters (Betty and Juanita) wrote a letter to Anne and on April 29, 1940, two letters and a postcard arrived in the mail from Anne and her sister Margot.

    "Eleven days later the Nazis invaded Holland, so this is the only correspondence that we have."

      "The original letters are in the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles and we have the only copies of them in the world."

      Dr. Gaies: "It wasn't until a few decades after the war, when Anne Frank started to become a central figure in America's representation of the Holocaust, that the significance of this letter was recognized. A small local museum was created in Danville to preserve this small bit of history." 

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     Also at the museum is an  authenic pre-WW II cattle-car train, the kind  used to transport so many people -- mostly Jews -- to the concentration camps (Mom included, her ride to Auschwitz.)

     Dr. Gaies: "Years of efforts to obtain a WW II-era railcar similar to those used for deportations from Westerbork (the transit camp in eastern Netherlands) finally bore fruit, and a railcar was located and restored in Germany and shipped to Danville, arriving in 2023. 
     "An enclosure has been built to protect the railcar from Iowa's harsh weather. One wall of the enclosure is clear; the other three inside walls of the enclosure are new exhibit space. A museum design firm has been contracted to transform our ideas for the exhibit."

     Key to the purchase of the rail car, Mrs. Hesler pointed out, was the Iowa Economic  Development Authority. 

     "Through the grant 'Destination Iowa,' she wrote, "we have received $745,000 to obtain, refurbish, and ship the railcar" and also "construct the building with three wall exhibits that tell the story of the Westerbork camp and well as the rescuers that risked so much for others."

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     Dr. Gaies: "Your mother's poem and a photo of her will appear together with an excerpt from a letter by and an image of Etty Hillesum, in a section entitled, 'Writing About Deportation.' ...

     "We are including a QR code that will link visitors to a webpage containing supplementary information about your mother's life. The information will include a prose summary, a timeline and a list of selected references, together with additional images, we hope. 

     "Etty Hillesum will have a different QR code and supplementary information webpage, as will two Dutch rescuers we are featuring in another section of the exhibit.
     "Even though the museum is off the beaten track, it already gets thousands of visitors each year, and there is every expectation that with the new exhibit and increasing publicity abut the railcar, attendance (including school visits) will continue to increase.
     "So I feel that this is a wonderful new opportunity to share your mother's -- indeed, your family's -- story with a world that can only benefit from learning about your parents' courage and resilience."
     We agree, and we are grateful. We will not forget.

Facebook messages received ...

     So how's your coronavirus vacation going?
      Would not say that we are bored; we can find enough to do -- reading, studying our computer and/or I-Pads, and watching lots and lots of television "news" -- but we are not as busy as we were before, either.
      How about you?
      Interesting to watch the debate on when and how things -- well, our world -- should open up again. Seems to me that it's become a political divide (isn't everything these days?), and I am not about to delve into that argument. Not here, not on this blog.
      Make up your own mind. And if you go out into public often enough -- mask or no mask, social distancing or not -- good luck. Don't be afraid. Don't be lax, either. 
       We did go, carefully, on a shopping trip to our favorite Costco this morning -- we had items we needed -- and then on a walking trip to the credit-union drive-through across the street from our facility, I happened to see the Blue Angels flyover in Fort Worth that had many of our residents excited to see. 
      Here is the link to those few moments, as posted on Facebook this morning: 
  https://www.facebook.com/TrinityTerraceTX/videos/2914550845259066/?t=5 
       We will keep our distance, and I will keep researching on the Louisiana sports-related project which I have been grinding on lately.
     It is good, though, to see our neighbors and fellow residents here at the compound -- even at a distance and (most often) masked -- and neighbor Dr. John suggested, "I haven't seen any of your blogs lately."
     Told him I was working on a couple, and so here is the first.
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      These are three notes I received by Facebook Messenger last week, reminders of family and published work -- blogs and the book -- done in recent years.
      ● Dr. Larry Joseph Rapp Jr., a two-year Centenary College student from New Orleans and then an LSU-BR graduate, sent this note:
    "Hi Mr. Van Thyn, 
     "You don't know me but I just want to say thank you for compiling your parents' stories. I was fortunate enough to see your mother speak at Centenary College in the early 2000s. She was so memorable that nearly 20 years later I had to find out more.
     "Thanks to Wikipedia, I think I found out about your book. My mother read it first; I just finished it, and I will certainly share it with anyone who will read it. You probably hear this frequently; at least I hope you do. Your parents would be proud of and honored by your work."
      Joseph went on to earn a doctorate in physical therapy from the University of South Alabama and has accepted an offer to work for the Department of Defense at Hurlburt Field AFB (in the Florida Panhandle) as director of physical therapy.
      ● B. Wade Brooks, a Benton resident and school teacher who attended Parkway High in Bossier City and then the University of Central Arkansas and University of Tenneseee, sent a note asking to contact a friend about another matter, and then added: "I saw your mother (Mrs. Rose) speak at Shreve Memorial Library one afternoon. Our kids need to hear those type stories these days." 
     Paid special attention to this surprising message: 
     ● "My name is Joe Sanders. I am the son of Leen Sanders. I just read an article  you wrote about my father and his actions as a prisoner in Auschwitz. Things I was never aware of. I am not much of a reader, but I really enjoyed reading your story about my father. 
     "Thank you so much. Joe Sanders."
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     These are gratifying, of course, and the Joe Sanders note particularly was/is intriguing. Leen Sanders was the Dutch boxing champion/hero -- my Dad's hero -- who was the subject of a blog piece 6 1/2 years ago as part of the blog series on my father's story and it is Chapter 16 in the book about my parents and our family. 
      So I did contact Joe, we have exchanged messages over the past week, and I am about to follow up with more on the Leen Sanders story -- yeah, the rest of the story -- and Joe's perspective on life with his parents.
     As one of our favorite talk show hosts/analysts says: Watch this space.        

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:
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     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.

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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.)  
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     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. 
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     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. 

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."
---
       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."

Here is my red line ...

     

Marching in Charlottesville (nbcnews.com photo)

My mother spent 25 years talking publicly -- and privately -- about the Holocaust, and warning how anti-Semitism and bigotry is still out there and can rise again.
       And here we are.
       Thinking of my mother and father, who were Holocaust survivors and who lost practically their entire families at the hands, guns and gas chambers of the Nazis ...
       Miss them, but glad they are not here for these times and this President.
       I have written about my parents' lives and about their Holocaust experiences, and about some of their friends ... because it is part of my history, my family's history.
       I cannot, and will not, be silent on Charlottesville and the aftermath. The President's at-first weak and then defiant response is unacceptable.
       You don't agree, you can "unfriend" on Facebook or "unfollow" me, or tell me to you want off my e-mail list. Fine. I don't care.
       I have waited to express that, even with criticism from old (and not-so-old) friends after my two political-type posts last year. One of those posts was a defense of the media, and my view that "fake news" references are propaganda from a candidate/President who relies almost daily on targeting someone or some entity.
       But if you can find a defense for this, for his "many sides" BS, for any kind of "out" for the white supremacy, Nazi-KKK-alt right creeps -- and I could use much more colorful descriptions, I don't need you. 
       That goes for anyone, friends from 60 years ago, whatever. This is my parting shot.
       Don't want to get too deep into politics and social issues because it hisses off so many people. I understand the difference between conservative viewpoints and liberal ones, and most of you know where I lean. But I don't lean as much as some of my friends and family.
       But this issue, the current uprising of these Nazis and KKK hoodlums, and their "leaders" whose faces and voices we see and hear too much, the torches burning in the night, the violence erupting (and the prospect of much more), no thanks.
       Just as so many of you were critical of the previous President and the losing Presidential candidate, this President can be criticized every minute of every day. I don't have time or space, except to say I trust the media people we watch a helluva lot more. They are articulate -- and he's not.
       They are articulate -- and he's not. (Just repeating, as he does with almost every sentence he likes.)
       That statement he read Saturday was a joke. Obviously someone wrote for him, as they write almost everything for him these days -- and when he goes off-script, that's when he begins hammering anyone he thinks he needs to hammer (including his Cabinet members and his Republican "friends" in Congress).
       Guarantee you he's never said the word "egregious" before in his life.
       He read that statement Saturday, and the one Tuesday, without any real meaning, without conviction, without empathy. But with plenty of fire and fury when admonishing the media and interrupting -- "excuse me, excuse me ... I'm not finished."
       His rudeness, just as in the debates and the campaign, is overwhelming. His supporters love it; he's "being tough." That is a bunch of bull. His indecency is well-publicized, and it matters not to so many. 
       I much prefer a President who shows class -- whether you agree with him or not -- and can empathize and sympathize. This hate- and fear-mongering bully has none.
       I had a friend tell me several weeks ago, "Anyone who criticizes the President is a bad person."
       Unbelievable. Yes, the office of the President should be respected. But the person in the office should earn that respect. So many refused to give that to the last President.
       You could disagree with his policies and the tone of the country, again I understand. But he was -- my opinion -- not abusive. Nor were Presidents Reagan, Bush and Bush.
       As for the statues honoring the South's Civil War heroes, I don't have a strong opinion. They honor a history, but if they are offensive to African-Americans -- whose  ancestors were the slaves of so many, including our Presidents and the South's war heroes -- you should understand. 
       Same for the Confederate flag.
       Same for KKK hoods and torches.  
       Same for us, the Nazi flag and Nazi gear and Nazi propaganda, and -- heaven forbid -- Nazi statues. Same for KKK hoods and torches.  
       Much of the past should be the past, not the present.
       So, as I posted on Facebook, here are links to re-posts by a couple of journalist friends I respect. 
       From Bob Mann, former Shreveport Journal writer political analyst/teacher in Baton Rouge, on the synagogue in Charlottesville:     
https://www.facebook.com/nvanthyn/posts/1549580738433195?notif_t=like&notif_id=1502896258022518
       From Evan Grant -- Jewish, a late 1980s Shreveport Times sportswriter en route to covering the Texas Rangers for The Dallas Morning News:
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/15/dallas-holocaust-survivors-past-suddenly-become-painfully-present
       So there you have it. We are always aware of the Nazi/KKK/alt-right/white supremacists history and the Nazi/KKK/alt-right/white supremacists ways. My mother knew, and she spoke.
       During the Presidential campaign, Mr. Trump was slow to disavow David Duke's "endorsement" and -- again -- finally did disavow, after prodding, without much conviction. He's hired alt-right, Nazi sympathizers for his White House staff.
       It was predictable, to me, during the Presidential campaign and the white supremacists' obvious delight with this candidacy -- and again now, with their gleeful response to his Tuesday outburst and blame on the "alt-left," that their protests and violence was not far away. I'm surprised it took six months.
       They now have been emboldened and empowered, and what about those neo-Nazis in Europe seeing this?
       We don't accept the "many sides" drivel, we do not accept the "we want to take our country back" crap, we do not accept so much of what this President stands for and, even more, what he says.
       This is beyond politics. It's bigotry and hatred. You don't like what I'm saying, good-bye.       

Another Holocaust/book update: Mom's friend Hilde

         Hilde Kratzenstein Meier, a Holocaust survivor who we knew as Hilde Cohen, rarely talked about her days in World War II.
       Too painful, too sad.
       In the photo of my mother and her "camp sisters" -- the group of Auschwitz and other concentration-camp survivors -- the woman behind Mom (bottom left) is Hilde.
      She has her right hand on my mother's right shoulder. For the next 60 years, they were connected.
      She soon would become Hilde Cohen, marrying Jacob "Jaap" Cohen, a man with two sons. They all somehow survived those early 1940s World War II years, each with their own story.
      They are stories of family losses, separation, intrigue (hidden survivors), imprisonment, reunion ... and a new start with a new family.
      Hilde and Jaap each lost their first spouses and much of their families in the war years. Each was a native of Germany, and separately, left that country in 1933 to move to The Netherlands and escape Hitler's early reign of terror.
      Rob Cohen, the son born in 1949 to Hilde and Jaap, provided much of the information for this blog piece. He lives, as he always has, in The Netherlands.
      As Rob wrote to me and my sister Elsa a few months ago after reading the book about my parents and our family -- Survivors: 62511, 70726 -- Hilde was unlike my mother in this way: She preferred not to talk about the Holocaust experience. 
      "It took me some time to read the book," Rob wrote. "For obvious reasons. ... Especially the part of your mother during the war. It is, of course, also the story of my mother.
      "But contrary to your mother, my mother was not able to speak (much) about her experiences, mainly because of the loss of her mother, father, sister, brother and husband.
      "And because of her own character. So, for those reasons, she was not able to have much contact with your mother, but I can assure you that she loved her dearly."
      Rob did note one major correction:
      "My mother is mentioned in the book as Hilda Meier Kretsenstein. But her exact name is Hilde Kratzenstein."
      (Let's say that my mother's memory and notes were a bit faulty, and so was my lack of research.)
      The "camp sisters" photo likely was made in summer 1945, some months after the end of their imprisonment at Auschwitz, in the infamous women's Block 10 (and the gruesome medical experiments by the Nazis), and after their weeks-long "Death March" through Poland in the brutal winter cold of January 1945.
      By the time of the photo, they had recovered some health, had been given the hand-me-down uniforms they are wearing, and were waiting to find a way to return to The Netherlands.
      When Hilde returned, she soon reunited with Jaap Cohen. And Jaap had reunited with his two sons.
---        
      Jaap was born in Ochtrup, Germany, on May 16, 1907;  Hilde was born in Schüttorf, Germany, on Feb. 5, 1919. So, Jaap was 12 years older than my father, Louis Van Thyn, and Hilde was five months older than Dad. Mom (Rose Van Thyn) was two years younger than Hilde and Dad.
      In 1940, Hilde married Otto Meier, who lived in Enschede, The Netherlands. It was in Enschede where she and Jaap first met, as working companions -- as Rob notes -- "at Meijer Clothing Shop. My father was a window dresser, my mother a saleswoman."
      Hilde, like my mother, was "picked up" by the Nazis in 1943 and eventually transported by cattle-car train to Auschwitz. Otto died in a concentration camp.
      Jaap Cohen, Rob said, "was a survivor, but not from the camps. He was hidden in Utrecht with the Van de Dorpe family (mother and two daughters, all three teachers) together with his wife Sophia (Fietje, she was called) de Lange.
      At first, their oldest son (Harry, born in 1940) was with them. But for safekeeping, he then was hidden in several places in Friesland, up north in The Netherlands, then and now the most sparsely populated, most rural -- mostly farms with cattle and crops -- province in the country.
      Harry was never betrayed, never discovered in hiding by the Nazis. He was too young to remember where he was hidden. 
      The younger son, Jaques/called Jack, was born in a Utrecht hospital in 1943. Details are sparse, but the mother -- as the boys were told -- died in that time frame, perhaps in childbirth. Jaap remained in hiding.
       This is for certain: The occupying Nazis immediately took the baby and he was sent to the Theresienstadt camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia.
      Here, from the encyclopedia on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum web site and other sources, is information on what is described as a "model" camp -- a stopoff for many Jewish prisoners, but also one where the arts were emphasized and were children of age attended an unofficial school.
       Some 140,000 Jews from all over Europe were sent to Theresienstadt; some 90,000 were transported onto Auschwitz and other death camps; some 30,000 died there from starvation or illness; and the number of children was estimated at 15,000.
       Only 10 percent of those children -- an estimated 1,500 -- survived the war. One of those was Jack Cohen.
       Maybe he was among the 1,200 Dutch Jews which a group in Switzerland -- the neutral country untouched (almost unbelievably) by the Nazis -- ransomed from the SS in exchange for millions of dollars. But maybe Jack and others were in the camp when the Russian Red Army liberated it and the International Red Cross moved in to care for the survivors.  
       What Rob Cohen and his brothers knew was that Harry and Jack wound up together -- and Jaap found them.
       "After the war all children (without relatives) were brought to the Berg Stichting Foundation in Laren (a town in North Holland)," Rob wrote, "where my father found them again and brought them with him to Enschede."
        That foundation, begun in 1909, was a shelter for Jewish children, many of them orphans. But the Cohen brothers, by now 5 and 2, were not orphans. They were survivors.
       By then Hilde was in Enschede, too. She and Jaap met again, and married on March 27, 1947. Rose and Louis had been married five months earlier.
       The Cohens soon moved.
        "A brother of my father had a clothing shop in Hilversum," Rob wrote, "but as he also didn't return after the war, my father got the chance to take over this shop in 1947."
        Hilversum is where Rob was born some       2 1/2 years later.

The Cohen family, 1950,
 in Hilversum, The Netherlands

     And Hilversum -- 16 miles southeast of Amsterdam and longtime base of the Dutch national radio and television networks -- is where I remember the Cohen family from visits there with my parents in the early 1950s. Rose went to see Hilde, Louis became friends with Jaap, and Elsa and I were along for the trips.
      Elsa, too young then to remember our visits, recalled her 1963 trip to The Netherlands with Mom -- their first time back after we left late in 1955 -- and told Rob, "I have such a clear memory of Jackie and his motorcycle. ... Remember how nice he was and actually took me for a ride. As a 12-year-old girl, I remember him being so handsome ."
     Elsa returned for visits with our parents in 1972 and 1975 and also told Rob that we had a home movie of him diving into the water near their lakehouse in Loosdrecht.
      "I have such wonderful memories of your family," Elsa wrote.
---

Frouke van Eijk and Rob Cohen

      Rob now lives in Almere, which is 14 miles almost straight east from Amsterdam -- although that straight line goes across the Ijmeer lake.
     For many years, Rob was a tax advisor ("still working a bit") and an active soldier in the Dutch National Guard. He retired in 2009 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
      Married in 1970 to Gisela Bässler (a German native, not Jewish), they have two children -- Claudia (1972), who is married and lives in Jerusalem (where she became an Orthodox Jew) and Peter (1975), a divorced father with two sons who has another son with a new partner and lives in Woerden, The Netherlands.
     Gisela died of a stroke on Dec. 31, 2006, at age 60.
     Since September 2009, Rob has lived with Froukje van Eijk in Almere.
     Brother Jack died of cancer on May 6, 2003. Harry lives alone in Sweden and, says Rob, "is doing well."
---

Jaap and Hilde, 1973

     Jaap Cohen died of cancer on July 23 1979, and soon after that, Hilde -- now alone -- moved to  Benidorm,  Spain, where she lived the last 25 years of her life.
     She died on March 11,  2006 -- so some      2 1/2 years before Dad and four years after Mom.
     She left Rob a memorable keepsake.
     It is a symbol of the great care the United States soldiers gave to Mom, Hilde and the other concentration-camp survivors in Poland in the spring of 1945.
      "Attached I send you," Rob wrote in an e-mail, "the emblem of the 69th Infantry Division, which my mother got for her memory from the American captain and which she always kept in her wallet.
      "I am proud to have it now  because it symbolizes the great gratitude we feel to our brave liberators."
       Rob's lasting memory of his mother and her Holocaust experience is "she did not want to talk about the history. It made her sick. So that is the reason she did not stay in touch with your parents and anyone else from her past."