Dachau

The boy in the striped pajamas, and a 12-year-old girl

We were sitting around the couch the other evening and Liz, all 12 years of her, like she was pulling it out the empty space around her, said the sort of thing that can linger in a room a lifetime. “You know,” she said. “World War II was just awful.” I suspect she meant that […]

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Formal wear at Rideau Hall, naked in Dachau

Barely in the country from our family holiday in Germany, and not really fully unpacked in our Hamilton condo, the kids continue to live in what is their never-ending Holiday Land. They’ve been back to school this week in Canada, sure, sure, but just for three days, before tomorrow morning, right around sunrise if Yours Truly is

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Where angels and devils collide

(Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, May 2, 2015)

DACHAU, GERMANY ✦ I may be a ghost you don’t even believe exists, but before I get there let me tell you about this scene in the Arthur Miller play “Incident at Vichy,” where there’s a well-to-do professional, (like I was when I lived), standing before the Nazi authority now in town.

The man, dignified with degrees and references and these sorts of things, presents what he has to the Nazi who then asks, “Is this all you have?” The man nods. “Good,” says the Nazi, throwing it all into the garbage. “Now you have nothing.”

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