Murdered because of a trivial dispute between two trivial and worthless German thugs.

The following meditation on autumn was written by Bruno Schulz (July 12, 1892 – November 19, 1942). His tragic story can be found on Wikipedia. He was an author of stories, a lost novel, and poetry, a Catholic, of Jewish parentage, whose 'patron', the German-Austrian thug Felix Landau, murdered the Jewish dentist of another German thug,  Karl Günther, who, in revenge, murdered Bruno Schulz.

The autumn would not end. Like soap bubbles, days rose ever more beautiful and etherial, and each of them seemed so perfect that every moment of its duration was like a miracle extended beyond measure and almost painful. In the stillness of those deep and beautiful days, the consistence of leaves changed imperceptibly, until one day all the trees stood in the straw fire of completely demateralsed leaves, in a light redness like a coating of coloured confetti, magnificent peacocks and phoenixes; the slightest move or flutter would cause them to shed the splendour of their plumage - the light, moulted,superfluous leafy feathers.

Bruno Schulz: A Second Autumn”, from The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories, transl. Celina Wieniewska. 

Jesień, jesień, aleksandryjska epoka roku, gromadząca w swych ogromnych bibliotekach jałową mądrość 365 dni obiegu słonecznego. O, te poranki starcze, żółte jak pergamin, słodkie od mądrości jak późne wieczory! Te przedpołudnia uśmiechnięte chytrze jak mądre palimpsesty, wielowarstwowe jak stare pożółkłe księgi! Ach, dzień jesienny, ten stary filut-bibliotekarz, łażący w spełzłym szlafroku po drabinach i kosztujący z konfitur wszystkich wieków i kultur! Każdy krajobraz jest mu jak wstęp do starego romansu. Jakże się świetnie bawi, wypuszczając bohaterów dawnych powieści na spacer pod to zadymione i miodne niebo, w tę mętną i smutną, późną słodycz światła! Jakich nowych przygód dozna Donkiszot w Soplicowie? Jak ułoży się życie Robinsonowi po powrocie do rodzinnego Bolechowa?

9

W duszne, nieruchome wieczory, złote od zórz, odczytywał nam ojciec wyjątki ze swego manuskryptu. Porywający lot idei pozwalał mu chwilami zapomnieć o groźnej obecności Adeli.

10

Przyszły ciepłe wiatry mołdawskie, nadciągnęła ta ogromna żółta monotonia, to słodkie, jałowe wianie z południa. Jesień nie chciała się skończyć. Jak bańki mydlane wstawały dni coraz piękniejsze i eteryczniejsze i każdy wydawał się tak do ostatnich granic wyszlachetniony, że każda chwila trwania była cudem przedłużonym nad miarę i niemal bolesnym.

11

W ciszy tych dni głębokich i pięknych zmieniała się niepostrzeżenie materia listowia, aż pewnego dnia stały drzewa w słomianym ogniu całkiem zdematerializowanych liści, w krasie lekkiej jak wykwit plewy, jak nalot kolorowych confetti — wspaniałe pawie i feniksy, które wstrząsnąć się tylko muszą i zatrzepotać, ażeby strącić to świetne, lżejsze od bibułki, wylinione i niepotrzebne już pierze.

— Bruno Schulz, “A Second Autumn”, from The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories

Bigotry! Bigotry! Quackety Quack!

You won’t like this – not at all!

How often, if you speak out against homosexualism (no, not homosexuality) or any other pressure-group, do you hear the duckspeak: Some of my best friends are……….

No! No! No!

I have no friends whom I know to be actively homosexual;.

whom I know to be rich. I am poorish, and do not like the rich;

whom I know to be deep ecologists. They are mad;

whom I know to be in favour of abortion – need I explain why?

I have no friends whom I know to be religious Jews, only because religious Jews choose their friends from among their co-religionists. Does that make them bigots, speaking duckspeakfully? I think not.

I had a friend, who was a Jew and I think privately a Chasidic Jew, though he dressed like an Englishman. We were in business together and every week he would invite me and a couple of other Catholics to a debating society which met weekly in the Bloomsbury Hotel. It sounded very boring, and too much like school, so I always pleaded the need to go home to my family. Later it emerged that the society was Jewish and seeking converts. Had I known I would certainly have gone for the chance to learn, question, and argue. I approve totally of missionary activity.

I guess he was a bigot, too, because he was devoutly religious, a family man, and would never have accepted that the Messiah has already come. His reasons were, for him, rational.

I had a number of Muslim Arab friends when I worked in the End of London. One, the chef at my favourite restaurant, was called Ossama. They were witty (in English, too. I know no Arabic), clever, well educated, and knew far more about European history that the average English person. They also were out, sometimes very subtly, sometimes openly, to bring in converts. Good for them! I did my best to present Catholicism to them, but without success.

One of them told me that Allah would forgive me if I killed my father, mother, brother, or sister, but not if I continued to say that He had a Son. Very bigoted, but for him, rational.

I am choosy about my friends – and enemies, for I, too, am duckspeakingly a bigot.

A bigot is someone who knows or thinks he has the truth. He then acts in accordance with it.

To be Catholic is to believe that only Christ saves, and that he does so through His Church, whether the person to be saved is Catholic or not. That is what I understand to be the truth of “no Salvation outside the Church”.

Unacceptable bigotry!

Quack! Quack!

Religious Intolerance - HUH!

(Thanks to Love in the Ruins for the lead to this story.)

So Dorota Rabczewska, a young Polish singer, will be prosecuted in Poland for insulting religious feeling. Please note, 'religious feeling', and not 'the Catholic Church'.

She said, silly girl, that the Bible was written by drunks and people who liked herbal cigarettes.

If this is not insulting, what is?

If I chose, as a resident in Poland, to insult the religious feelings of Catholics, Jews, Muslims (Tatars have been here for over 600 years) or Protestants, I would, rightly, face the same treatment.

I am a Catholic. If someone came into my house and insulted my God, my Church, my Saints, or my Scriptures, I would, as my strength permitted, ....you can use your imagination.

Have a nice day!