Tag: WWII

Lifelike

Life is what you make of it …or paint of it!

(updated: 17 December 2025)

I saw my late maternal grandmother, Ina Rose at the Tel Aviv Hilton in November 2009 with my mum. I recorded an interview with her during the morning of the 25th. I saw her again that night after TechAviv after a lift back there from Boris.

In our discussion, she describes her meeting with Albert Einstein in the USA sometime between 1945-1947. It was her being an artist that sparked Einstein’s interest to meet her.

During the war, Ini was freed from an internment camp and ended up hiding in Toulouse, France. There she learned French and followed the painting style of French Impressionism. Ini went to the USA after the war to meet her mother and sister.

[ Einstein ’46 | Ina’s WWII story | Australian naturalization ’56 | Marriage to Frederick ’47 in Melbourne ]

Ini mentions Fred (my grandfather) and Toulouse in her 2000 postcard to Luke and I below:

They met in Toulouse and even spoke French to each other at home in Australia as the norm. My mother, Jacqueline, speaks French very well to this day. I learned it for 3 years but struggled with it, unfortunately.

Anyway, my immediate family actually lived in an apartment down in the dip of Washington Street (but before I was born) before we moved up the hill to #38 that was sold in 2006.

[pic 2 – 2006 | pic 3, 4 – early 2000’s]

Continuing, Ini’s second home in Melbourne overlooked the ocean in Alimar Court (she actually named it after her children), Brighton, where she lived for many decades.

I have fond memories of going there a lot as a child.

Watching National Lampoon's Vacation in late 80s (Wally World)

I rode a two-wheeler bike there for the first time – in an Austrian ski helmet, ghostbusters tee, no socks and sweat-band watch.

[ 1984? ]

… I ain’t afraid of no ghost!

Ray Parker Jr. - Ghostbusters - Iris Face Remaster

So the house was filled with her art and that was her main line of work for many years.

She held a couple of exhibitions over the years, one even well into her nineties.

The last time I saw her was in July 2013 back at the Hilton (below left) and to her, Israel was fantastic and that was a great realization. She had gone to Germany a few years prior and that really stirred up negative memories.

Also, the first and only time I met her mother, Elizabeth Kaplan was in January 1986, in Boca Raton, Florida.

Elizabeth had a concentration camp number tattooed on her forearm and survived it by being enslaved as a translator for the Nazis. Also, that trip took us to Disney World and EPCOT in Orlando, which was a very fortunate experience to have.

17 years later in 2003 I reconnected with the late Stewart Springfield again in New York City who was Elizabeth’s grandson from Ina’s sister Rita, and a really nice guy – at least he was to me. He was walking with a limp but I didn’t ask him about it.

Wait, isn’t that VP Kamala Harris schmoozing Hillary Clinton behind me? That’s not a photoshop either.

In the 80s he sent us a box of sunglasses for no charge as that was his line of work.

In 1986, Stewart told me that his mum was listed in the phone book as “R Springfield” and ended up getting a lot of phone calls from female fans looking for Rick Springfield and he ended up hanging the phone up on a few.

But ladies were checking Stewie out anyhow down at the beach when I went down there with him in Florida, and he popped off his shirt too. Later in the day he showed us cable TV and we settled on WWF.

Stewart’s mother was Rita (blue pocket below, and striped shirt) and father was Steve.

I think he committed suicide around 2010, but in truth, I don’t know the full story as yet. I may be out by a few years too.

src [ link inactive July  2025 ]

[ late 2012 wearing Carrera glasses sent from Stewart in early 2000’s ]

Anyway, at Venice Beach on Superbowl day, (26 January 1986) some sort of street comedian pulled me out in front of a crowd and said I looked like Dan Quayle (“Who was that?” I thought) and then people cracked up laughing because I was Australian. I was an instant hit.

[src]

The wild thing was that as a result, Andrew saw me and came over and said hello, and he was in the extended family (below, red tie.)

The four of us only had 2 nights in LA waiting for a connecting flight and the Challenger space-shuttle blew up around the time we were leaving the country although I’m still somewhat perplexed as to the final sequence of cities eventually reached.

I remember it being really cold in Florida and being told to “put on layers,” and that the weather ended up taking its toll on Challenger.

But in LA, we also saw Runaway Train that just came out, and I slept through most of it in the large, red reclining seats – the screen barely visible.

Earlier in the trip I also slept through Cats (but will need to double check) on Broadway. Our friend Ted from 72nd street took us there in a limo – I think straight from La Guardia airport.

There was some type of miscommunication or flight issue. Back in Melbourne, I also slept through all of Gandhi (1982) around that time too – just to kickstart the unconscious.

Really nice spot in NYC staying with Ted – a short stroll from central park. My dad really liked WBLS radio and there was a really cool computer games store nearby, possibly Electronics Boutique but I’m not sure why the address is not listed in the catalogue.

17 years later when I arrived in New York, I heard Joe Budden absolutely blasting out of a car.

[ shoes: Gravis ]

This was right about the time it was released.

Joe Budden - "Pump It Up" Live (2003)

Anyway back to Jan 1986, on that trip at either Vail (Westin) or Copper Mountain (Club Med,) someone pulled out a dollar bill and showed me the “All Seeing Eye” and warned me about it, yet I didn’t really get the gist of all his fear.

It was a lot for a young guy to take in. He could’ve given me the dollar bill too, I would’ve taken it.

[ 1993 ]

I also met some guys making a ski movie in the lounge and they wanted me to intro “Teton Gravity Research” or some words very hard for me to remember and I kept messing up as they filmed me. Was TGR even a thing back then – it couldn’t have been that!? I might’ve ended up on a bloopers reel.

This was a few seasons before China Bowl officially opened to skiers – but perhaps backcountry skiers made the trek as I saw badges and T-shirts for sale with that name on it.

It may be worth mentioning that a couple of years later I met some Americans in India – there was Maximilian, a few years older than me, an only-child and with his single mum, ranting about how Def Leppard was the best band ever and Pour Some Sugar on Me was the best song and he mimed it on a dancefloor and attracted a bunch of girls after demanding the DJ play it… something like that anyway.

Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me - (In The Round In Your Face (HD/1080p)

I ended up buying the cassette. Okay, so they weren’t Metallica.

In the dining room I met a manager from Chrysalis Records, he asked me “What bands do you like?” I told him “Huey Lewis and the News” and a couple of others. He went beserk. He rattled off some other names and I said I knew them. He also mentioned Was (Not Was.) He was so thrilled he ended up sending a box of 30 CDs back to Melbourne for us to play on our new CD player including the entire Huey collection up until Small World, David Sanborn, The Proclaimers, Vinnie Vincent and The Pursuit of Happiness. Very generous and cool guy – a lot of kind people in the USA – great with box shipping too! It could’ve also been guerilla marketing.

Anyhow, back to Venice Beach – the fellow that took us to Venice Beach was an African-American guy who was waiting around the airport working as a city guide: quite a random encounter. I don’t remember much of Venice Beach except for Muscle Beach.

Danny Trejo on Muscle Beach 1986

But I also remember a large T-shirt shop with screen printing which was new to me. It was wall-to-wall with different t-shirt images. I may have even encountered Sky Ferreira’s future dad there – did his shop exist then? Was he old enough? I think there were a number of t-shirt shops in a row. Whoever he was, he demonstrated in front of my eyes how to run a flood-and-stroke T-shirt print.

Our tour guide’s name was Michael – I remember because I personally knew another Michael at the time and of course MJ. Strange stuff. I have my old passport somewhere so I Don’t Forget.

Don't Savanna (2017 + 2022)

So, a couple of years prior to Ini’s passing in 2015, she made this toast after relocating homes – but her art (and husband) came with her!

My mother now paints, and I’m starting to get restless hands myself!

[~’92 | ’93, grandfathers Fred and Oskar | ~mid ’00’s after leaving Brighton]

pics
www.pinterest.com.au/pin/164311086394226917/
✓ 2 days ago ago

Living Testimony by Rabbi Michael Mandel (Machon Shilo, 1998)

Playlist: Living Testimony by Rabbi Michael Mandel

* I never saw this exhibition but for some reason the flyer was in the photo box.

source

 

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✓ 2 years ago ago

Last Post Ceremony: Eulogy of the Unknown Australian Soldier - 11 November


✓ 4 years ago ago

The Legacy of the Dulles Brothers: Stephen Kinzer

“Washington Dulles International Airport …Opened in 1962, it is named after John Foster Dulles (1888–1959), the 52nd U.S. Secretary of State who served under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulles_International_Airport

Obviously an important figure in American history, I first learned of John Foster Dulles (and his brother) when reading the book:
The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People
while in Jerusalem in 2005.

Back then, I had the thought that the book was mis-titled. It should really have been named “The de-prioritization (expendability?) of Israel in the face of advancing oil interests.”

Perhaps this leads to the notion that a Jew, Israeli (or both) may feel like they are being attacked, but they are in fact being de-prioritised (possibly strongly) in the backdrop of larger interests. And with perceived attack comes retaliation.

Pompeo makes unprecedented visit to Israeli West Bank settlement and the Golan Heights | ABC News

✓ 5 years ago ago

 

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Repost @martinschoeller⁠ Holocaust survivor Naftali Furst: “It is so important to undertake commemorative projects like this one. Whoever is still capable of telling their story should continue to do so. It is our obligation, in the name of the men, women and children who were murdered, to keep telling our stories.” ⁠ Naftali Furst was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (today Slovakia), in 1932. Naftali and his family were sent to the Sereď concentration camp. Naftali was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, the Budy concentration camp, and then sent on a death march to the Buchenwald concentration camp.⁠ From the exhibition “Survivors: Faces of Life after the Holocaust” opened at the Ruhr Museum (@ruhrmuseum) in Germany. It is a cooperative project between Yad Vashem and award-winning portrait photographer Martin Schoeller. The survivors came to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to be photographed by Schoeller in June 2019.⁠ .⁠ .⁠ #yadvashem #portrait #portraitphotography #martinschoeller #holocaust #holocaustsurvivor #bratislava #israel

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Prince William asked to deliver message of peace on trip to Israel and Occupied Palestine | ITV News

 

 
✓ 5 years ago ago

Ra: The Law of One
Session 31, February 25, 1981

31.14: I was thinking more of the possibility of the Orion group having influenced, say, certain members of the Third Reich who I have read reports of having sexual gratification from the observation of the, in some cases, the gassing and killing of entities in the gas chambers.

I am Ra. We shall repeat these entities had the potential for sexual energy buildup. The choice of stimulus is certainly the choice of the entity. In the case of which you speak, these entities were strongly polarized orange ray, thus finding the energy blockage of power over others, the putting to death being the ultimate power over others; this then being expressed in a sexual manner, though solitary.

In this case the desire would continue unabated and be virtually unquenchable.

You will find, if you observe the entire spectrum of sexual practices among your peoples, that there are those who experience such gratification from domination over others either from rape or from other means of domination. In each case this is an example of energy blockage which is sexual in its nature.

 

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Today marks the International Day of Peace (or “World Peace Day”), a day observed around the world through moments of reflection and 24 hours of non-violence and cease-fire. With this year’s theme of “Shaping Peace Together”, @unitednations asks us to come together through @join_un75 to share ideas on how to change our world for the better. In her testimony in the Visual History Archive, Holocaust Survivor Cornelia Aaron-Swaab shares that she has given testimony so that her eyewitness account to the horrors of genocide might help ensure that “no child of any denomination should have to endure this kind of situation where a war will rob you of everything.” Thank you, Cornelia, and thank you to all of the survivors who have shared their stories in the hope of creating a better world. 🕊

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Prince William makes emotional speech in Tel Aviv

✓ 5 years ago ago

Hate rears its ugly head too!

While travelling, anti-semitism is always a thing, but can be overcome.

(last update: 22 April 2024)

Vancouver, November 2005.

I was staying at The Dodson * in a troubled neighbourhood in a single room. In the room next to me (on the desk side, see below) was a man who appeared to have two prosthetic legs. I think he had black hair but was semi-bald – maybe 45-50. He was a permanent resident.

[pic 2 source]

* – owner notified

His walking style was very, very cumbersome. He came across as a loud, somewhat friendly (and charming) robot but with little to no empathy. He was speaking to almost everyone in the hallway who came his way and most people would slip away from him when they had a chance. He might have been a war veteran (or that was at least the lie he put forward?) – I only overheard him say something about his legs.

Spotting a Psychopath - When The Mask Drops
Spot a psychopath when the 'mask of sanity'/ 'presentable image' / 'persona' they normally project to you sporadically drops and it gives you a hint of what their real underlying character is. Over time, all psychopaths will begin to give themselves away through little clues and signs of their real underlying personality leaking out.

So I spoke to him briefly in the hallway and I told him about my travels and he asked if I was Jewish and I said ‘yes.’

On one of the following nights, I heard him engaged in the sexual act with someone. The walls were very thin. There were screams, groans and strange sounds, but most disturbing of all was the horrific anti-semitic abuse being directed at his partner in a stream-of-consciousness style. Vicious, unrelenting hatred against anything and everything Jewish for around 35 mins and possibly longer as I lost track of time.

Once the noises stopped I heard his door close and I opened my door slightly and saw what appeared to be a male prostitute in the hallway still strapping his belt and getting ready to leave.

I couldn’t sleep and lay awake. Then I heard the guy’s door open again.

I somewhat panicked. I snuck up to my own door. It was unlocked. I didn’t want to lock it as that would make a noise. Instead, I pushed my hand strongly against my door above the handle.

I saw the door knob rotate and felt pressure against my hand. He was outside my door trying to get in – or at least seeing if that was possible. I might even have been saving my own life! Did he want another orgasm at my expense? Was he carrying a knife and intent on entering my room? I don’t know.

A war veteran (and convert) murdered my friend Tony Rose in 2014 in a premeditated attack with an 18cm commando knife so it’s certainly possible. The chap knew I was Jewish from a few days earlier and I also have mentioned here the notion of Nazis gaining sexual pleasure from the usage of gas chambers. So it’s not a perfect analogy, but it’s reasonable to suggest I was in serious danger that night.

Perhaps I should have opened the door to see what he was holding but I think that would’ve been too risky. He had a cumbersome walk, but he could’ve had a slingshot ready or a taser if that was his intent. He might have acted nonchalant and lunged at me the following day – I wasn’t going to find out. If he was a war veteran, using a head torch, he could’ve thrown a knife at me and dropped a suicide note by my side if I was asleep… or just shot me.

Moments later he went back to his room and I locked my door properly. It took me a while to get to sleep and I propped something against my door as well. As a permanent resident, he may have known ways to overcome the locks or had a skeleton key (excuse the pun.) On the other hand, he may have wanted to brag about “the Jewish guy who left his door unlocked who I could’ve killed if I wanted to but didn’t so I must be a hero.”

The next day I told the (Asian) receptionist about what had happened and he said “That’s bad” and ideally the hostel should’ve installed CCTV in the hallway after I mentioned it. Anyway, I walked out never to return:

* The exact photo I took when I stepped out to leave for good – and feeling good about it! (see on Google maps)

A few days earlier the receptionist had supplied me with a small oil heater when I complained about the room being too cold and this was due to the in-built building heater not running. The heater he supplied was too small for that room – he probably wanted to keep running costs low and I didn’t say anything further about it:

So after leaving the Dodson, I found myself at the Samesun.

Prior to the Dodson I was staying at the Cambie Seymour Hostel which I had left  because I wanted a private room for less expense than what they were offering. It was also cold there.

[left] Dorm at the Cambie Seymour with its heater.
[middle left] Michael Buble at the Cambie.
[middle right] The same Cambie TV room in 2020 source.
[far right] At Malone’s Taphouse that is part of the Cambie building.

In another similar scenario, some months earlier in July 2005 in Donegal, Ireland, I remember leaving the Dooey Hostel under similar circumstances. I felt like some type of lynching was about to take place when I overheard late one night people talking about some “Jew who had come from Israel.”

It was hard to tell what was going to happen – I definitely may have been wrong. Regardless, I left very early in the morning when everyone in the dorm room was still asleep and left behind 3 paid nights. Sunrise was at about 5am at the Hotel California.

The Irish are some of the friendliest people I’ve met (if you can understand them) – including the owners of that hostel – but I think the whole Israel vs Palestine thing can be taken too personally at times and misunderstood. At least I heard what people were saying – the hostel can’t control who comes in.

Interestingly, on the same trip in Dublin there were some Poles staying in a dorm room with me and in the middle of the night I looked down to see someone rummaging through my backpack. I think the chap then pretended to think it was his backpack.

A few months later, I had a lot of things stolen from my bags in a hostel room at Jaffa port, Tel Aviv, including this favourite t-shirt that I had worn in Canada:

[At Painted Turtle Guesthouse, Nanaimo, drinking bottled water and generally calming nerves. I was happy to have picked up that jacket for $50 at a second-hand store even though it was basically new …jealousy is a curse.]

People also do things out of jealousy too and I only learned about this in my mid-20s! Perhaps I presumed good things came pretty easily to everyone. Jealousy is a foreign emotion to me – could it even be idiotic?! I’d help anyone who was jealous of me – as long as it was caught early enough. That said, sometimes it’s never reciprocated, and being kind to the cruel makes one cruel to the kind.

Speaking of jealousy, in Victoria BC in late September, I met an Israeli (/ American?) chap (Gideon??) in a mixed dorm and I could’ve been a good wingman for him (even though I didn’t and don’t drink alcohol,) but he was determined to be some type of alpha male or at least be seen as one, and this was also part of his pickup-style it seemed.

That’s the impression I got and to the point where I couldn’t have a normal conversation with him at the Ocean Island Inn:

But he still was a friendly and likeable guy, no doubt, and at least he didn’t try to steal my stuff like the person from Poland did. But I think that’s much more a ‘broke backpacker’ thing than anything else. By this, I’ve also had a pair of optical spectacles stolen at a hostel in San Francisco in early 2003.

At this hostel (Fort Mason) I met a young German woman who had just completed a thesis on the act of doing an “About Face” in international relations.

Surprise, surprise, it happens and one should be prepared for it. It’s a nice step as well.

Interestingly, when I arrived I walked into the dorm room and there were two gay guys going at it, so I did an about-face, went back to the desk and made a complaint.

Anyway, Gideon noticed the Kenvelo (“yes and no” / כן ולא) t-shirt I had on too and knew some history of the brand. Sort of sums up the acquaintance. But isn’t machoism a part of Israeli culture? What did I expect? Lead or be led. Whatever the case, hopefully age has mellowed him out and good luck to him! Travelling isn’t always easy, even for the best of us!

In Ireland, I met a female ‘Orly’ who I saw again in Haifa some months later as she was Israeli and I even went to her place by the sea. She was genuinely nice and along with a few of her friends, we went to Caesarea and one friend told me she thought Netanyahu was ‘shifty’ and he had just won Likud chairmanship at that point. Orly had studied English literature and wanted to become and an advertising copywriter. One trick at work when dealing with problematic characters (for whatever the reason) was to “go around them.” Speaking of which, up at the university, an Arab fellow followed me and gave me hostile looks for under a minute as we walked down the same path. Did he want to intimidate me, beat me up or was he gay and signaling dominance? If only I was part of a group.

“Safety in numbers.”

I am pretty sure it was at that uni where I spoke to someone with Orwell’s 1984 sticking out of his backpack telling me that “it is the future.”

[pic: 27 Sep 2020]

Or should that be “Danger in numbers!”

Regarding dominance signaling, at a bus terminal in most likely Haifa in ~2006 (Tsfat below,) I spent many hours sitting at a table playing Civilization IV on my laptop with all the bustle around me. Addicted, I skipped a few bus trips to keep playing. When it quietened down and into the night, a cleaner of the building came up to me and started yelling loudly. I was surprised but then he wiggled his head a few times to show me his solitary earing. I thought the bus station was closing and he was telling me to get out, but I later learned it was not. What did he really want? Ahh, the civility.

In any case, a fellow at my recent reunion made the observation that the Israelis he came across while traveling fall clearly into either two categories: cool dudes or total douchebags – or words to that effect. But wasn’t that too harsh? Why pick on Israelis: they live in a permanent state-of-war? But why not if they don’t give you a chance? This fellow, a year above me, presently works as a researcher for public policy. We didn’t speak for long and I hadn’t spoken to him since school. Really, I think countries and people sympathetic to the Palestinians should absorb them into their societies. The money they donate doesn’t have much effect – it funds personal Swiss bank accounts, right? Countries should have a “Palestinian Migrant Quota” to fill.

Nevertheless, in Whistler a few years later I spoke with a man from the US who was hateful against Israelis and I told him that all you have to do is think of one positive thing to say to free your mind. He did and days later he was a changed man and very friendly.

Anti-semitism in the diaspora is a double-edged sword where you can run, but you can’t hide… for long. It can separate people, but it can also bring people closer together.

Graves, trenches or foundations, it’s a digging contest!

see holding bottle –

 

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pics
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creazilla.com/nodes/56021-door-emoji-clipart
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pixabay.com/photos/hostel-youth-hostel-185156/

✓ 2 years ago ago