BOOK CLUB March 29: UNPLUGGED AND UNCENSORED! ;)

At Ruth's Diner!

And... we finally got a table! ;)

Not Without Hope

(This is a somewhat cheesy little story I wrote for the newsletter at my first social work internship. My director said it didn't belong in the newsletter and she threw it away. I use it for my suicidal patients now -- they seem to like it.)

Not Without Hope


By Amy K. Stewart


Ethaniel Weiss had a tiny piece of dried, moldy, dark brown bread 
hidden in the fold of his scratchy wool blanket on the barrack cot he
 shared with three other men in the concentration camp in Germany.
It
 was January, 1945. Ethaniel had been in the camp for almost a year 
since he and hundreds of other Jews had been rounded up, shoved into
 cattle cars and shipped to the camp.
 Ethaniel’s wife Sarah and daughter Meira had arrived to the camp at
 the same time. He never saw them again. 
Ethaniel and his grown son
 Moshe were some of the few original survivors. They had endured
 beatings, disease and continuous hard labor in the scorching heat of
 the summer and the biting chill of the winter.
 Ethaniel helped his son survive by stealing food whenever he could. He
 once stood in front of a guard and begged for his son’s life,
 receiving a swift blow to the head as a result.
 
Moshe would listen each day as his father told him to remember the 
times they had spent as a family, ice skating on the pond, walking to
 the downtown square for ice cream, sitting around the large oak table 
in the dining room cutting into roast duck. “You can have all these 
things again one day. We must not give up hope. We have to hang on. We
 have to survive. Promise me you will not give up,” he continuously told his son.

That night Ethaniel was weak with fever. He tossed and turned, knowing
 the guards would be rousting the men in just a few hours. He reached 
into the blanket for the crust of bread. It was gone. His son,
 sleeping next to him, turned over so his back faced his father and 
said nothing.

The next day while working side by side digging ditches, Ethaniel
 could barely stand up. He was delirious with fever. “The bread… the
 bread,” he mumbled. Moshe turned to his father, “I was hungry.”

Ethaniel could not believe his ears. His son. His very own son. Betrayed.

That night Ethaniel grew even sicker. He had typhus but if anyone
 found out how ill he was, he would be sent to “the showers” -- never
 to return. Images of his wife Sarah floated in his head. He reached 
out for her. 
The next morning Moshe awoke to find his father’s body 
cold and lifeless next to him. Ethaniel had given up. The act of his 
son’s betrayal had been too much for him to bear. 
Moshe was suddenly aware of something else. It was quiet in the camp
 and sunlight was streaming through the open doorway. The men
 cautiously ventured outside. In the distance they could hear the
 rumbling of tanks. No one knew what to do. Foreign-looking men in
 uniform began to filter into the camp. The tanks were topped with a 
red, white and blue flag.

If only Ethaniel had known. If only he had held on one more day. If
 only he had not given up hope.
 No one truly knows what their future will hold. All we know is that we can hope.

OUR NEXT BOOK! Deb's choice "Sycamore Row" by John Grisham which is the sequel to "A Time to Kill." 
12:30 SATURDAY, MARCH 29

.

Our next book! Kidding! ;)

 

Next Book Club Meeting:

 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 11

Place: Feldman’s Deli 

2005 East 2700 South, Salt Lake City 

Martha's pick: "Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project," by Jack Mayer

 

From Amy: 

Some of my favorite passages:

Page 60, regarding Megan looking at historical photographs of the Holocaust:

"The photographs disturbed her the most -- black-and-white images of starving children and orphans staring at her through the mystery of time and the harsh freezing of a painful moment. No doubt all of these children had died shortly after these photos were taken. They were not the abstraction called "The Holocaust," not an imagined reconstruction in words; they were specific children, so real that she felt she could enter their photographs, or they could step out of their hell. Their skeletal faces beseeched her, their bony hands reach out to her for bread."

I feel this is incredibly great writing and brings to the forefront the horror and trauma of the Holocaust victims. A photo is a slice of time -- a slight reminder of a moment that people would not know about or eventually would forget.

---

Page 221, when Irena and her friend Janina, stay up late into the night talking.

"They talked about how times had changed, how their lives had unfolded in unimaginable ways. Janina said, "If I would have made this up in 1936 you would have said I as crazy and you would have been right."

I can really relate to this because my life has been incredibly unpredictable (definitely not boring) the last few years. No one can foretell the future. If anyone would have told me 10 years ago that I would be spending the summer of 2013 living with my nephew in the Avenues, finishing my degree at the U, interning at Odyssey House and studying for a social work licensing exam, I would have told them they were completely crazy.
---

Page 261, Mr. C is telling a Native American story.

"... it was as if there were two wolves that lived inside him who fought each other for his soul. One wolf was vengeful and angry, the other forgiving and kind. The boy asked, `Which one wins, Grandfather?' The old man smiled and said, `The one I feed.'"

I am actually going to research this Native American story. I believe how we think affects not only our emotional well-being but also our physical state. Negativity, stress, hatred, anger, grudges, sniping, judging -- is all like a poison that you pour into your body.

A MESSAGE FROM PATTY

Just a quick note: I really had a good time last night.  It seemed like a very festive evening.  I enjoyed learning a bit more about Martha and Deb.  Martha seems very intelligent and a good conversationalist.  Deb has a beautiful smile and her eyes just sparkled.  Kathryn is always fun to be with, she is so animated, and it was really nice that her hubby could come along.  And Amy, thanks for pulling us all together.  What an ecclectic group, and a fun group as well.  And Ivan, what a man.  Thank you so much for your generosity.  Tell Nessie we missed her and are grateful she didn't want to share what she had.  I'm really looking forward to our next get-together in January.  I'm really getting into this group.  Good people!

-- Patty 

 

A MESSAGE FROM IVAN

It was a fun night, a fun book.  It was interesting to see that the majority of the books our group/club picks are related to that WWII era.  Perhaps, because we love to see how ordinary people do extraordinary things when under the yoke of extreme oppression and distress.  I hope that we never see those horrific scenarios in our lives, but if we do, may we be like the heroines and heroes we have been reading about.  If you think about it, all these heroines and heroes were doing was being true friends to those oppressed and less fortunate.  There is a phrase that I heard, supposedly written in some apocryphal book: “A FAITHFUL FRIEND, IS A STRONG DEFENSE”  I believe in the power of friendship and the enrichment that comes from human connections and interactions.

You enrich my life, I’m so glad we have this club, may we continue to turn pages and keep meeting to both share a meal and exchange ideas and important events in our lives.  I’m going to get the next book this week. :)

Best regards,

Ivan