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Researching a novel ...
Topic Started: Sep 6 2005, 03:03 PM (1,081 Views)
JerseyJohn
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Not too many years ago I read a book called, Survivor of the Holocaust by Jack Eisner. Some of what he wrote seemed beyond being credible, which he admits himself, but those things are irrelevant to the overall story. I'd been planning to write something involving both WWII in Europe and the Holocaust for a long time, but was discouraged by all the research it would require. The late Mr Eisner's book rocketed me into writing my own (a long rough draft last year).

There is one person mentioned who really fascinates me. Eisner says his name was Srulek, The Boy in White. I'd heard something about him ages ago, probably back in the sixties, but it's been almost impossible to find information on him. This was a young boy who I take to have been around twelve. When Eisner's train arrived at Majdanek Concentration Camp, an SS general wearing a white uniform rode to a nearby spot. He was on a white stallion. At his side was a boy on white pony wearing an identical uniform. He continued riding till he was at a stand beside the platform where the victims were being offloaded. He wore a holster with a luga and carried a whip. He mounted the stands and began speaking to the prisoners -- in Yiddish! He referred to himself as Srulek from Lodz (site of the notorious ghetto) and said he was the general's grandson. "The Germans are our friends. Do as they say and work hard and you will be treated fairly. ..."

Eisner goes on to describe how this boy saved his life later on, overruling an SS officers hanging sentence and changing it to 20 lashes (harsh enough under the circumstances). He also describes how, on another occasion he shot a prisoner from atop his pony.

I wrote to Jack Eisner asking if he could tell me where to find out more about Srulek and other people he mentioned in the book. A few weeks later I recieved a polite letter informing that he'd died of cancer a few months before I'd written my letter.

I've titled my novel, The Judas Goat. Srulek is the main character, though a totally fictitious version of that same boy. The story goes through the Second World War and through the Cold War, to the present day.

If anyone has a really super knowledge of anything in that era, I'd be very grateful for anything interesting you'd care to let me in on, especially the Odessa organization or the German occupation of Poland.

Specific questions I've got at the moment are ...

Reinhard Heydrick's rank in 1939 and 40 (in 1941 he was a 4 star SS General and, in early 1942 he presided over the Wansee Conference in Berlin, where the fate of Europe's Jews was planned in painstaking detail. He was assassinated a few weeks later in Chezhoslovakia, where he was known as The Butcher of Prague.

Adolf Eichmann's rank during the same period. He became Heydrick's assistant and, at Wansee was a Lt Colonel in the SS (SD division) which was the highest rank he attained. Throught the war Eichmann arranged the train schedules that brought victims to the concentration and death camps. He was abducted out of South American by Israili agents in 1960, put on trial and executed in Israel in 1962.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone would care to offer.
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JerseyJohn
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Copied from the BetterFiction Forum:

Wade's critique of what would have been the first chapter of my novel, The Judas Goat, convinced me I was doing something the wrong way: I was trying to start the story at it's end to avoid what I thought would be a boring chronological sequence of chapters.

After thinking it over, in as much as this is an historical novel (with a huge amount of speculation) the only sensible way of doing things is to arrange the story chronologically -- which still leaves room for flashbacks, but they should be in the form of entire chapters, which would have been my original plan.

So, I decided to start the story in the mid-1930s. Originally it would have been the Munich Conference in 1938, till I dug up some articles about the Nazi Party in the United States and found 1936 was a good year to start it here, at an American Nazi summer camp.

The German American Bund

It turns out their were two big summer camps for the children of American Nazis in the days when they were allowed to openly profess their abhorrant beliefs. Camp Nordlund in New Jersey, and Camp Siegfried on Long Island, New York. Ironically, I now live in New Jersey and spend much of my childhood and teen years living on Long Island.

Camp Nurdlund New Jersey, Hitler Youth American style.

Posted Image

Bund members took the position that George Washington was the first American Nazi. His picture (no two of them look alike) always figured prominently, along with the American flag, at their rallies.

This photograph appeared at the time in Life Magazine.

Posted Image

My mother-in-law, 87, is of German descent and from Newark. It turns out that city was the New Jersey hotbed of nazi activity. Unfortunately for me she's got Altzheimer's and it's hard to find out anything about this by talking to her. When I tried, she kept telling me how much she hated the Japs because they sneak-attacked Pearl Harbor. We meandered around for a while but it turns out she either lost any memories of the bund members she might have known, or she might actually have not known any. One thing she does remember clearly is the Hindenburg falling to the ground in flames. She was watching it at Lakehurst the day it happened. Unfortunately it's of little use to me with regard to the novel.

Newark also had a large Jewish population and it was the center of anti-bund activity. One of the top New Jersey gangsters during the 1930s was an American Jew named Longy Zwillman. He organized a group called The Minutemen, which concentrated on disrupting nazi rallies and even regular meetings in Newark. It's been alledged that that he filled the Minutemen with paid boxers and ex-cons who attacked uniformed bundists wearing swatztika armbands on sight, sometimes with baseball bats. During the 1930s this actually aroused some sympathy for the bundists but, in light of what was to later take place in Europe (the Holocaust didn't get fully started till early 1942!) it would seem this semi-criminal organization was acting with great insight.

Within the United States government during the late 1930s, the bundists were considered semi-patriotic despite being blatantly racist. The American communists, with their sympathies and ties to the USSR were considered to be far more dangerous. This, perhaps, was because they did not represent an ethnic group, like the bundists, but support for what was viewed as an unAmerican form of government. Communism vs Nazism in America and the fascists were seen as much less of a threat -- untill, of course, the United States actually found itself at war with Germany.

The moment of glory for the bundists came in a Madison Square Garden rally complete with huge images of George Washington. It was also their swan song. Up till that time they seem significant, but upon getting thousands of them together in one place and one time it appeared they had a power and solidarity that was largely illusional. What they newsreels didn't show was the fact that many thousands more New York Jews surrounded the place and it took most of NYC's uniformed police force to protect the nazis when they exited the place.

Madison Square Garden 1939, 22,000 Bundists attend a rally in NYC.

Posted Image

The bunds were put under federal and state pressures immediately after the big rally and, not long afterwards, the United States entered the Second World War, causing the organizations to become outlawed.

So, the early chapters will have a young American bundist in New Jersey while, in Europe, there will be three families of Polish Jews and the family of a German SS officer. Ultimately, those characters will move through the story (maybe several novels with this one going from 1936 thru c1947) from the mid-nineteen thirties to the early 21st century.

If anyone has anything to add to these notes, or just wants to discuss the material, please do so.
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Sierra X-ray
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Well, you already know what I think about this story John ;)

Xander
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JerseyJohn
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Thanks Xander, and I appreciate it. I'm half way through the new first chapter and just slumming on the Internet for a break. Went to the library tonight and found some very interesting books for researching the subject. Ironically I didn't find anything the New Jersey Bunds of the 1930s. I'll need to go back during the day with some printouts of things gotten off the net and spend some time talking with the reference librarian.
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bananafish
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Goodness that's a certainly enormous task you've decided to undertake O_X. The amount of research WELL ah. Now we know why it's so much safer to do it Sci-Fi and make everything up yourself without worrying about facts :P haha -__-

In any case, about your first two questions I know someone that might know the answers. I'll look into it for you and then get back to you ^.^ best of luck with this though. Man. -_-.
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JerseyJohn
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Thanks Andegora, that would be great. B)

Scifi used to be something that people were able to write with wreckless abandon, I mean, back when I was a kid in the fifties. Technology, compared to today, was very primitive. Our knowledge of space was especially limited, so as far as anyone knew there really might have been little green men running around on Mars and Venus.

I think it's becoming more difficult to not do research, though, even in scifi. For one thing, the readers are more educated than they used to be. Also, even though I don't think people are more sophisticated now, I think the science fiction readers are.

When I was around twelve or so I had a job after school where I was paid at the end of the afternoon. My first stop would always be the magazine stand to grab the latest little scifi magazine. They'd usually have a cover that featured a great looking babe in a string bikini, supposedly made of vine or some nonsense. There'd be an ugly creature, always built like a man but with a huge head and deranged eyes, and he'd be chasing her through the jungle. So I'd buy it and stuff it under my shirt, sneaking that pornography into the apartment past my mom to be eagerly read in my room. Imagine my disappointment after I'd read it cover to cover and there was never anything about the damsel or her skimpy wardrobe. Yeah, all they ever had were dumb stories by guys like Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Damon Knight and the rest. :lol:

With this novel I've already had one incredible researching snafu. I've been looking for info on Camp Nordlund, New Jersey and coming up empty. What puzzled me was it's twin in New York (Long Island), Camp Sigfried, had plenty of info floating around. Turns out the NJ place was called, Camp Nordland, and does have some interesting tidbits. Why would anyone name a place half in one language and the other half in a different language?

I found one newspaper clipping that I think is a riot. It's from 1937 out on Long Island. The Bund threatened, in a newspaper announcement, to sell Camp Sigfried to "A Negro Organization" if the local township didn't stop harrassing them. It worked, they were allowed to Sig Heil in peace after that. :lol:
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emily_jae
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You mentioned Lodz during the second world war. That was where my grandmother and her mother were interned. They were german citizens living in Poland, but that detail didn't seem to matter. They were imprisoned anyways. Her mother died there, and it wasn't untill many years later that my grandmother was reunited with her father. I could ask her something, if you tell me what it is exactly you want to know.

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JerseyJohn
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Thanks Emily. Sorry about your great-grandmother, it's unconsciounable that things like this ever happened.

The Germans set up several Jewish ghettos in Poland, the two largest were in Warsaw and Lodz. As the war went on they deliberately made the conditions more murderous, massive overcrowding, starvation, allowing disease to run rampant. It wasn't till early 1942 that the pigs deciding on these things figured out what they wanted to do. Up till that time there were two factions, one wanted to work the entire Jewish population of Europe to death and the other wanted to simply execute all Jews wherever they were found.

I don't think German Jews were sent out of Germany till around 1941, but I may be wrong on that. Half of the German Jewish population, about 300,000, left the country before the war started. It was hell for the other half, but some, those who had friends who were important nazis (incredibly, there many who fit that description) often managed to ge by and quite a few even survived the Third Reich without being arrested. Others, were beaten to death in the street on a whim. It's impossible to find much consistency in any of this.

It sounds like your grandmother and greatgrand mother may have been among those who left Germany only to quickly find themselves back in the Reich, this time under even worse circumstances. Many of the Jews later rounded up in conquered nations were actually part of the 300,000 German Jews who had left before the war, but they hadn't gotten far enough away. The United States, despite it's claims about "Send me your downtrodden and persecuted ..." in reality made it very difficult for European Jews to resettle in America. The most famous, and tragic case, is of an ocean liner carrying German Jews that was docked in Cuba when not allowed to enter the United States. The passengers were not allowed of come off at Cuba either and were sent back to Holland, which was itself conquered a little over a year later. Nearly all of those passengers, including many children, perished during the war.

Anything your grandmother remembers and would care to share would be greatly appreciated. That includes anything she'd like to say about living in Germany during the 1930s with the nazis in power. They passed a series of Nuremberg Laws, that kept limiting what Jews could do and where they could work, till finally they were reduced to nothing.

If the memories are too painful for her to go into, that's perfectly understandable, but if she can discuss it and you are able to tell me anything at all about it, I'd be very grateful.
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emily_jae
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well i can tell you some stuff right off the bat, i had to write about her experience in grade twelve, and i can still remember most of it...

She wasn't very old when the nazi's came into power, maybe ten. she lived with her mother and father and older brother, her father was a butcher, and they lived in the city in a house with a lot of apple trees around it, so all the kids in the area played in their yard. there was a jewish boy who used to play with them, and one day he stopped showing up. when she asked her mother where he went, she was told it was better not to ask. She remembers the curriculum in school changing, that suddenly they learned a lot more about 'barbarian' europe instead. she's not a big fan of fantasy stories anymore, they really pushed all the old epics suddenly, really big on the warriors and fighting for glory and dragons and stuff. I've read myself that hitler had a thing for it, something he called neopaganism? maybe that was a reason he fought to hard to make himself a 'king'...i'm not sure, it's been a few years since i did history... but anyways, when things started getting serious, a lot of the people were sent to the camps: it didn't matter that they were german citizens. Her and her mother went to one camp, and her brother had been drafted a while ago. Her father was too old to be drafted, but they made him work as a cook on one of the ships. her brother died. They were in the camp for a while, i forget how long. she remembers that there were trees that grew over the fence along the line for food, and they were always so hungry that they would eat the leaves while they stood in line, and the trees always had big bare spots on that side from the people eating them. Her mother died in the camp later. When she was released she made her way to germany where she met up with her father and they lived in a town called Celle, where she met my grandfather. Her father died a while later. My grandparents were married, and had one son when they emigrated to canada. she always wanted to be a nurse, but that never happened.

One thing she emphasizes strongly always is that her and her mother spent time praying each day and that she holds no grudges now.

She doesn't like to talk about it too much, she's a very practical person, and looks at it all as being in the past and not something to dwell on, but she doesn't mind talking about it too much. my grandpa is another story, he gets worked up about it, so i'm not asking him stuff. but anything specific you'd like to know? i'm going home for thanksgiving and i'll talk to her then.
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JerseyJohn
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Thanks Emily, I'd appreciate anything you can find out. Also, I'll try and write down some specific questions before you go for the visit.

Some things have me a little confused. You said there was a Jewish boy who stopped showing up after a while. Also, that one of her brothers was drafted and that her father was put to work on a ship. Why were they placed in the camp? I know of many instances where men who were half Jewish were either drafted into the German Army, Air Force and Navy, or allowed to enlist. Fieldmarshal Milch of the Luftwaffe, Goering's second in command, was half Jewish. The inconsistency among the nazis was absurd, in this case all the more because it was Goering who originally organized both the Gestapo and the persecution of the Jews, yet his second in command was half Jewish! When asked about it he said, "In Germany it is I who says who is and is not Jewish."

What I don't understand is, is your grandmother Jewish or part Jewish? Or perhaps they were political or there was another reason for them having been arrested. I know this is personal and if it's too personal then I apologize for asking and also withdraw the question.

To be honest, this further information makes it even more valuable because it gets into a shadow area that I'm particularly interesting. Especially the post war part with her returning to live in Germany. That couldn't have been easy. In many countries, returning Jews from the concentration and death camps were quietly killed by the locals to avoid property claims. So it meant surviving one injustice only to killed in another by those who were once neighbors and, no doubt, friends.

-- That's one part I'm very interested in, her postwar years living in Germany.

The thing is, when I start trying to find any sort of rationality in the nazi nightmare it becomes all the more bewildering. It's difficult to find any sort of logic in pure madness.

Thanks for sharing that with me, it's very, very helpful.
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