Marianne Moore Quotes
The deft white-stockinged dance in thick-soled
shoes! Denmark's sanctuaried Jews!
Moore, Marianne. "A Carriage from Sweden." The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore, Macmillan, 1967.
There were millions of refugees in Europe trying to escape the Nazi’s. When France fell and collaborators established the Vishey government, the French began rounding up Jews, Gypsies, and others for the concentration camps. They could escape France only if they had a transit visa from some nearby country. Salizar, the Portuguese strongman, currying favor with Hitler, prohibited the issuance of transit visas to Jewish refugees. Some unethical diplomats would only issue visas if large bribes were paid. Sousa Mendes, a devout Catholic, had seen all the desperate refugees in the streets of Bordeaux and decided to issue transit visas despite his government’s orders. He issued 30,000 taking no payments at all and saved tens of thousands of lives. Salizar investigated and demanded an explanation. Sousa Mendez was fired and was not even allowed to practice law. He died in poverty. Later he was posthumously awarded his country’s highest medal and a stamp was issued in his honor. See {67378}.
Some bigots blamed the Jews for the Black Plague, then rampant. This is documentation of the Pope’s intercession to protect Jews. Pope Benedict XII, ?-1342, was an enlightened and moral leader who did not share the superstitions of many and realized that something was transmitting the disease. See {611790} for his behavior. The graphic is of the Pope.
The Nazis and most of the Arabs were allies in WWII. The Jews of Palestine—although they were opposed to many of the British policies regarding Palestine—were active in the Allied cause contributing units to the British Army. Although the Germans were brutal to civilians, murdering millions, they refrained from public pronouncements or exhortations to kill civilians in most cases. The Arabs did not. The Mufti was actually given the rank of General in the Nazi SS and had his own SS unit. In this despicable exhortation he actually uses a concept and wording from the Koran. See {584355}. This quotation is important in that it refutes a common claim by some Palestinians that it was only the Germans who were responsible for the Holocaust and the post war Jewish Refugee problem and that the Palestinians had to bear the price rather than place Israel in Europe. This quotation and the other by the Grand Mufti prove that Palestinians were not only complicit in persecution of Jews but took a leadership and advocacy role.
Most of the Jews in the Vilnius ghetto were killed, many fighting the Germans. Kovner ironically survived.
In the Nazi occupation of Denmark in World War II a regulation was issued requiring Jews to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing:. The day after these words were spoken, the king rode his horse in public, wearing the yellow star prominently on his tunic.
He was distraught at the persecution his family was forced to endure in Germany.
See Talaat Bey {40621} for a similar twisted logic.
Ernestine Louise Polowsky
Ironically Germany and almost all Germans have repudiated the Nazi era and atrocities against the Jews and others. However, the Arabs many of whom were Nazi WWII allies still hold and spew false and dangerous Nazi propaganda. See {584354} for some of the earlier Arab Nazi activity.
He was shot in 1944 for his involvement in an attempt to kill Hitler
The historical record that is available shows that while the Pope did not, actively or aggressively oppose Hitler, and he did not discipline Catholic prelates who were Nazi supporters, there is no specific evidence that shows the Pope conspired with Hitler, about the extermination of Jews or anything else. However, most of the relevant documents of the era are in the Vatican and the records have been sealed and have not been visible to historians. Apologists for the Pope’s passivity point out that a large percentage of Germans were Catholic and he had a duty to not antagonize Hitler who would retaliate against German Catholics and the German Catholic clergy and church property. Further, Fascist Italy was under Hitler’s control, and the Vatican itself could have closed and its property seized. The historical record is still very vague.
She had saved over 2000 Jewish Children in the Warsaw Ghetto from Death by the Nazis. As a member of the Polish Resistance, she was caught be the Germans, badly tortured, and sentenced to death which she narrowly escaped.
Marianne Craig Moore was an American modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit.
