Reblogged: Damnable

In my last post, I wrote of German wartime behaviour only in Poland, but as most people who have even lightly read up on the subject know, the whole of occupied Europe was subjected to a vileness and vindictiveness not seen since the Balkan atrocities of the XIX century.

Belgrade in Yugoslavia, for example, was bombed until nothing stood. There was the routine murder of hostages (men and boys over 16, and often women and girls too), fifty for every invader wounded by a patriot, and a hundred for every one killed.

Above: German soldiers and their handiwork, murdered Polish farmers.

Above: Poles taken hostage wait to be driven away to be murdered

There was Lidice in Czekoslovakia, inhabitants massacred and the village ploughed under, following the killing of heydrich.

In Oradour-Sur-Glane, France 642 people, as old as 90, and as young as a few weeks were shot in the legs so they could not flee, and then deliberately burned alive in German reprisals.

In Poland, the vindictiveness could be petty as well. The Germans dynamited the Grunwald memorial which commemorated the Polish victory in 1410 over the Teutonic knights. They destroyed the monument in Kraków to Adam Mickiewicz, who had had the temerity to be a famous Polish writer. (below)

When von dem bach, the butcher of Warsaw, was asked by a Pole how the nation of Bach and Hegel could behave so barbarically, he replied, "Because this is war."

Unfortunately he escaped execution.

And why am I recounting all this which happened over seventy years ago?

Because it did not just happen, it was deliberate.

Because the lives that were unjustly taken impinged and still impinge on other lives, of people still living. I grew up without my Father. My Stepfather saw his brother killed in Sicily. At the outbreak of war, all five brothers had agreed that, if any of them died in the war, the others would lake care of his wife and children. They never found the dead brother's wife and children, presumambly killed in the Blitz. Nothing special about it - these stories are just two out of millions throughout Europe.

Because, while West Germany went on to prosper, there was no chance of that for the counties abandoned to Stalin in the Western Betrayal.

And, lest I be accused of racism, my attitude is the same towards the evil English or British people who ran and profited from the slave trade.

Be damned to all of them.

Reblogged: a story told only that it may not be lost

Having been a financial services salesman (heh!), but an honest one, one of my few and minute skills is getting people to talk about themselves. It has helped me a lot, both as a homelessness worker and as a teacher.

A lot of my Polish friends are younger than me, and a lot are older, and so perhaps to me more interesting. An 83 year-old friend named Jósef, a Catholic, told me this:

When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Jósef was aged 12 and his brother 14 months. Their father had an old army carbine, which he buried in the garden for possible future use against the Germans. A neighbour, uncharacteristically for a Pole (see Norman Davis, passim), saw him bury it, and reported the fact to the Germans, and mother and father were taken to Oświęcim and gassed. (Yes, I know the Germans and the world call it something else, but I will use only its Polish name.)

Jósef, carrying his little brother, fled to the forest and nearly starved, creeping at night from house to house for food and shelter. Somehow they survived until 1944, and the Soviet 'liberation'. They are still both alive, well, and happy.

Under the post-war communist stalinist puppet government, as a soldier he could not declare his Catholicism, or marry in Church, so a civil ceremony had to do until times got easier. He and his wife, an ex-policewoman, are still married and as soppily in love as any two newlyweds.

God be praised!

I am about to cook a trout for Friday lunch.

I am about to cook a trout for Friday lunch.

Am I alone in having difficulty in accepting this?

I am aware that this passage is regarded in some quarters as a later insertion, but to what extent the Magisterium views it as such, I do not know:

Romans 13, 1-7

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. ² Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. ³ For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. ⁴ For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. ⁵ Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

⁶ This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. ⁷ Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honour, then honour.

As St Paul's words stand, when Catholics are subjected to evil government, whether elected, imposed from within, or  imposed by an invader, any physical  resistance such as insurrection, lying, sabotage, or assassination, is , if I have understood him correctly, to be condemned.

So there go my heroes, Bonnie Prince Charlie, King Alfred, John Brown, General Fieldorf-Nil,  and a host of others, condemned for resisting "God's (if not annointed) appointed" rulers.

If anyone can suggest some resolution of this problem, I shall be very happy.

From LINEN ON THE HEDGEROW: Without the enemy within

Fine post from Richard Collins: LINEN ON THE HEDGEROW: Without the enemy within: Father Simon Henry has an excellent post on Offerimus Tibi Domine  that encapsulates beautifully, the main issue facing the Catholic Church...

From Aggie Catholics: 25 Inspirational Bible Verses

A must-read:

Aggie Catholics: 25 Inspirational Bible Verses: Sometimes you might need a little inspiration. Why not let the written Word of God help you out? 25 Inspirational Bible Verses 1 Pete...

Very Unloveable Person of the Twentieth Century.

In a spirit of utter uncharity, but with a firm moral purpose, I warmly invite nominations for the title of Very Unloveable Person of the Twentieth Century.

Nominees must be dead (danger of libel litigation).

My own are:

Berthold Brecht
John Lennon
Harold Wilson
So-called "bishop" of Durham Jenkins
Anthony (**** the grammar schools) Crosland 

More, please...

Does this tell us something?

In France, they have Aéroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle, and in Poland, airports named after Fryderyk Chopin and Ignacy Jan Paderewski, interpreter of Chopin, and second Prime Minister of the Polish Republic.

In England there is John Lennon Airport, which I will never use. Need I say why?

This post is most certainly linked to the previous one.

Sirach Chapter 22

ON LAZINESS AND FOOLISHNESS

1 The sluggard is like a filthy stone;

everyone hisses at his disgrace.

2The sluggard is like a lump of dung;

whoever touches it shakes it off the hands.

3An undisciplined child is a disgrace to its father;

if it be a daughter, she brings him to poverty.

4A thoughtful daughter obtains a husband of her own;

a shameless one is her father’s grief.

5A hussy shames her father and her husband;

she is despised by both.

6Like music at the time of mourning is ill-timed talk,

but lashes and discipline are at all times wisdom.

9Teaching a fool is like gluing a broken pot,

or rousing another from deep sleep.

10Whoever talks with a fool talks to someone asleep;

when it is over, he says, “What was that?”

11Weep over the dead, for their light has gone out;

weep over the fool, for sense has left him.

Weep but less bitterly over the dead, for they are at rest;

worse than death is the life of a fool.

12Mourning for the dead, seven days—

but for the wicked fool, a whole lifetime.

13Do not talk much with the stupid,

or visit the unintelligent.

Beware of them lest you have trouble

and be spattered when they shake themselves off.

Avoid them and you will find rest

and not be wearied by their lack of sense.

14What is heavier than lead?

What is its name but “Fool”?

15Sand, salt, and an iron weight

are easier to bear than the stupid person.

16A wooden beam firmly bonded into a building

is not loosened by an earthquake;

So the mind firmly resolved after careful deliberation

will not be afraid at any time.

17The mind solidly backed by intelligent thought

is like a stucco decoration on a smooth wall.

18Small stones lying on an open height

will not remain when the wind blows;

So a timid mind based on foolish plans

cannot stand up to fear of any kind.

To Each According to his Need. From Each According to his Ability

Marx's famous slogan from his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program was first used by  Louis Blanc in 1839, in "The organization of work". It attracted me to communism as a young man, and still attracts me, but only as a slogan. I cannot, for the life of me, see what objection a Christian could have to it, as a slogan. As applied under communism, albeit by the use of cruelty, wholesale murder, torture, oppression, and lies, it still produced some remarkable results. One has only to talk to a middle-aged or older working-class Pole, completely familiar not only with Polish history, but with English history, including the Tudors and their so-called 'reformation', with European history, with ancient Greek philosophy, with classical and romantic music, and with the Saints, especially Polish, to realise the superiority of education under communism. The Church, of course, instilled knowledge of Catholicism, but the state did the rest.

While I was in a very fine woodwind shop in Marylebone (London) about ten years ago, an assistant (a music graduate like all the staff) told me a little story about a friend of his, a professional oboist, who had just bought a flat in south London, and on his first day there, was practising.

There came a thunderous hammering at the door. When he opened it, he found a large man, who said calmly, "Stop that noise!"

"It's my oboe. I'm a musician and I have to practise every day."

"Don't do it!"

"I'm sorry. If you let me know when you will be out, I'll practise then, and not disturb you."

"You don't understand. If I hear that noise again, I'll kill you."

So the friend sold his newly bought flat and moved somewhere else.

Need and ability. Certainly in the Soviet Union, the complainant would very swiftly have found himself expending his energies mining salt. Bravo from me!

Equally certainly, for those with musical or other talent (provided it conformed to socialist-realism and the party line), whatever was needful for the development of that talent, such as practice rooms, peace and quiet, would have been provided by the state.

I know many Poles, and a few Russians and Ukrainians, doctors, translators, university teachers, shop assistants, manual workers, and retired. Their knowledge and understanding of Culture (in the Arnoldian, not the sociological sense) far outstrips that of the average British graduate.

The last words are from an oldish acquaintance who teaches English at a well-known Polish University.

"Under the People's Republic of Poland life was grey, but we all had jobs, enough food, somewhere to live, excellent education, free holidays for all, and security. Now life is technicolor, but no one has job security, and there are people sleeping on the streets. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?"

Remember Maldon, Thermopylae, Vienna, Lepanto

Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
Mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað.

Two lines from the Old English poem The Battle of Maldon, uttered when the English realise that the Danes will win. Translates as:

Courage must be firmer, heart the keener,
Mind the greater, as our strength grows less.

We must remember the courage and resolve of our spiritual ancestors who spilled their blood defending their country from the heathen Danes. We must remember the Greeks who died at Thermopylae, preserving civilisation from Persian barbarity. We must emuate the Austrians and Poles at Vienna, the Christian forces at Lepanto, but with the voice and pen, not with the sword.

We are not asked to shed our blood, but only our tact and sensitivity. Our weapons are voice, pen, and pixel. Our enemy is not a race of heroic barbarians, but coteries of slimy equivocating wordsmiths who seek to destroy Christian values by manipulating and corrupting belief through their manipulation and corruption of language.

We must speak, write, and go down fighting.

Stalin Joke No. 5 - not nice

It is 1944, and a soviet general has been discussing his campaign with Stalin. As he walks away from the meeting, a guard in the corridor hears him mutter, "Idiot!" 

He marches into Stalin's office and reports what he has heard. Stalin thanks him, orders him to wait in the office, and rings the guard at the gate with instructions to escort the general back. The general enters, and Stalin asks him, "Who were you referring to as an idiot?"

"Hitler, of course."

Stalin turns to the guard. "And who did you think he was referring to?"

Saint Wulfstan, writing 999 Years Ago

I have to confess to facing the new year in a mood of complete pessimism and despondency. This morning, I remembered the following from my Old English studies over 50 years ago. There is, indeed, nothing new under the Sun, and Saint Wulfstan's cry of alarm still rings true.

Our enemy now is not a barbaric foreign invader, but a viper within the national bosom.

Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, quando Dani maxime persecuti sunt eos quod fuit anno millesimo XIIII ab incarnatione domini nostri Iesu Cristi:

The sermon of the Wolf to the English, when the Danes were greatly persecuting them, which was in the year 1014 after the Incarna­tion of our Lord Jesus Christ:



Leofan men gecnawað þæt soð is: ðeos worolde is on ofste & hit nealæcð þam ende.

Dear people, know what is the truth: this world is in haste and it nears the end.

 & þy hit is on worolde aa swa leng swa wyrse, & swa hit sceal nyde for folces synnan fram dæge to dæge, ær antecristes tocyme, yfelian swyþe.

And therefore things in this world go ever the longer the worse, and so it must needs be that things quickly worsen, on account of people's sinning from day to day, before the coming of Antichrist. 

I would feel happier if we had a modern Saint Wulfstan.