August 14 - 16, 2006

Arts
The Antidote: Classic Poetry for Today

The Epoch Times

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Nobel Prize-Winning Author Admits Serving in Nazi SS

Memoir chronicles service in Waffen-SS
BERLIN (Reuters)Nobel prizewinning German author Guenter Grass has admitted for the rst time that he served in the Waffen-SS, Adolf Hitlers elite Nazi troops. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Grass, 78, said he volunteered for submarine service toward the end of WWII. He was called up instead to serve in the Waffen-SS in the eastern city of Dresden. The author, best known for his rst novel The Tin Drum and an active supporter of Germanys Social Democratic Party (SPD), said his wartime secret had been weighing on his mind and was one of the reasons he wrote a book of recollections, which details his war service. The book is out in September. My silence through all these years is one of the reasons why I wrote this book, the paper quoted Grass as saying in a preview of its Saturday edition. It had to come out nally. One of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany, the SS played a key role in the Holocaust, establishing and operating the death camps in which millions died. The Waffen-SS grew into a force of 38 combat divisions with almost one million men and it was condemned as part of a criminal organization at the post-war Nuremberg trials. Grass was wounded in 1945 and sent to an American prisoner of war camp, and later became a prominent peace activist. He said he had volunteered for army service as a way of breaking away from home and family. For me it was primarily about getting out of there. Out of that corner, away from my family, he told the paper. I wanted to put an end to that and thats why I volunteered for the army. It was like that for many of my generation, he added. We were doing army service and then suddenly, one year later, the draft order was on the table. And then I realized, probably not until I was in Dresden, that it was the Waffen-SS. Grass won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. He is viewed as part of the artistic movement known in German as Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung or coming to terms with the past. Grass opposed the reunication of Germany in 1990, arguing that the country would be in danger of reverting to its role as a war-monger.

A Reading of A Birthday by Christina Rossetti

By CHRISTOPHER NIELD Special to The Epoch Times What does love inspire you to create?

A Birthday
My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me. Raise me a dais of silk and down; Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver eurs-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me. It is in the nature of love to connect. Our love ies out into the world to link itself with any common bird, tree or shell that reects its sudden joyand returns to store these images deep within our heart as proof that we have, in this intoxicated moment, glimpsed something real. The doors of perception are thrown open and before they slam shut, the inner and outer domains become one. Rossettis poem starts with the plainest sights and ends in an exotic scene of mystical rapture. In the rst stanza, a singing bird conveys sheer happiness, and reminds us of the nave charm we nd in the perfectly ordinary when we are smitten. The apple tree groaning under the weight of its fruit at harvest time is a symbol of loves fertility. Each image is a mood to explore. If, for example, we close our eyes and picture the rainbow shell glimmering beneath the surface of a halcyon or utterly becalmed sea, our breath will slow and our mind will clear in response to such intense beauty. Nest, apple and shell are all heart-shaped and for the poet as equally full of delight. Rossettis language is subtly evocative of what it describes. The repetition of my heart is like a hypnotic chant that draws us into her state of mind, while

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rhyme comes and goes at ease to suggest the casual associations of a daydream. The phrase thickset fruit has a tantalizingly robust thickness of sound that seems to materialize a crisp, scented pippin in our mouth. In the second stanza there is a tremendous shift in tone and imagery. We are transported from the humble to the majestic, from the natural to the artfully fashioned. This is true to what we know of love, which at rst induces a wise receptivity, and then drives us to invest our vision in tangible objectsfrom presents to an attractive home. Raise me a dais she commands, before delivering a set of imperatives: hang, carve and work. There is a real sense of labor, but what is this dais, this platform, that she is crafting? As a throne, it suggests her love is powerful. As an altar it suggests her love is sacred. And as a bed she decorates with the utmost nery, it suggests her love is of the esh as well as the soul. We can almost stroke the silk, the feathers and the fur (vair refers to a squirrel pelt); see the purple, the silver and the gold; and hear the doves uttering within this enchanted castle. We have stepped into a pre-Raphaelite painting, in which earthly and spiritual power are conjoined. Its purple hue, for instance, has adorned kings and bish-

ops ever since it was rst produced at great expense 2,000 years ago in the ancient city of Tyre. Likewise, love elevates us from mere serfs to noble savants. As for the pomegranates, they are an abiding symbol of plenty. Split one with a knife and watch the scarlet seeds spill out among the juice and luscious pith. The white doves and iridescent blue-green peacocks brilliantly contrast purity and splendor; and, for me, the hundred eyes in the peacocks tail represent Rossettis desire to visualize her passion. Love, above all, is an aesthetic experience. It longs to see. Stylistically, Rossetti conducts a measured music, in which each line forms a unit of sense. But in the penultimate line, she withholds the main verb and the sentence runs over to the next. This momentum, combined with the repetition of come and the alliteration of life and love, ends the poem on a heart-felt cry of bliss. This is quite literally a birthdaya rebirth. Love is consummated. The apple is tasted. Christina Rossetti (18301894) was an English poet best known for her poem Goblin Market. Christopher Nield is a writer living in London. Contact him at: christophernield@hotmail.com.

PAST LAID TO REST: German author and Nobel literature laureate Guenter Grass, shown at a book fair in 2004, has admitted to serving in the Waffen-SS in Dresden during WWII. He later became a peace activist and opposed the re-unication of East and West Germany.

Russian Stole Art to Treat Wifes Diabetes

President Putin orders massive investigation of Hermitage art thefts
MOSCOW (Reuters)The husband of a curator at the center of a stolen art scandal in Russia said he and his wife were so poor that they stole artifacts from the Hermitage museum to buy insulin for her diabetes, according to his lawyer. Nikolai Zavadsky, 54, was charged with theft and his lawyer said he admits pawning art from the museum. His wife, Larisa, was a curator at the Hermitage. She died suddenly at work at the start of an inventory that revealed $5 million worth of artifacts in her charge were missing. His testimony was that he believed he was in a difcult nancial position and therefore (he and his wife) went down this path, Zavadskys lawyer Lyudmila Mikhailova told Reuters. The thefts happened over several years. Asked about reports Zavadsky said he needed the extra money to buy insulin for his diabetic wife, the lawyer said: Yes, those were his words. He said his wife started to bring these things home from the Hermitage and he was not doing well professionally and he did not reject this (idea) ... He does not deny it; he took all the things to pawnbrokers, Mikhailova said. The Hermitage, in the Tsars Winter Palace, is one of Russias leading museums. It houses a huge collection including works by painters from Leonardo da Vinci to Claude Monet. The lawyer said Zavadsky earns 3,000 rubles ($112) a month as a history lecturer. It is not known how much his wife earned. The national average wage is about $400. Russias Federal Culture Agency issued Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky with a reprimand over the theft. It said he failed to carry out his duties in the appropriate way, Interfax news agency reported. Police are also holding Zavadskys son and a St. Petersburg antiques dealer. Russian media said a fourth man had been detained and that police believed

Book Likens Iraq War to Shotgun Wedding

Author says war is a failure on many fronts
NEW YORK (Reuters)With titles like Fiasco and The End of Iraq, the latest books on the Iraq war make depressing reading for Americans. Even an author who supports the Bush administration likens the war to a shotgun wedding. Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks debuted at the top of The New York Times nonction bestseller list recently. It argues there was no post-invasion plan and documents serious errors in U.S. military strategy. Its not a book of my opinions, said Ricks, senior Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post, noting his book is based on numerous on-the-record interviews with military ofcers and U.S. ofcials and thousands of documents. Ricks argues that bad civil-military coordination, insufcient troops and a failure to adopt a counter-insurgency strategy immediately after the invasion caused many of the troubles in Iraq, including abuse by U.S. troops. Bing West, an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration who wrote two books on Iraq, said Ricks does an excellent job of basically detailing the war to date. It obviously cant be the last word because theres more to come in the war, West, a former Marine, told Reuters. What I like is he names names and he names sources. Ricks said of reactions so far, I doubt that (Secretary of Defense Donald) Rumsfelds ofce is happy but military people have been very warm. One battalion commander (in Iraq) wrote to me and said Thank you for writing what weve been saying privately. Another major new book on the war is by Fouad Ajami, an American professor of Middle East studies who has frequently advised Bush and his closest aides. He said the aim of his book, The Foreigners Gift, was to shed light on Iraq and its people from an Arab point of view. Ajami, who maintains the Iraq war was legitimate, writes about meeting leading Iraqi gures such as Grand Ayatollah Ali alSistani, a reclusive cleric who wields huge inuence among Iraqs majority Shiites. Ajami argues that Iraqs present woes stem from Sunni Arabs refusal to yield power to Shiites. An academic who worked for Rumsfelds former deputy Paul Wolfowitz at Johns Hopkins University and a Shiite born in Lebanon, Ajami says he is one of the very few people whos friendly to the Bush Administration in academia. Yet he too paints a bleak picture of Iraq and the war. It was a shotgun wedding. We went into a country we did not know, in a region that we really didnt fully understand, Ajami told Reuters. One of the questions that haunts this war is if they knew then what they know now... If theyd known what the casualties would be in blood and treasure, would they have pulled the trigger? I dont know the answer.

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ART INVENTORY: Staffers examine a storage room of the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg. The 221 items stolen from Russias legendary Hermitage museum were worth $100 million, much more than the $5 million acknowledged when the thefts were announced. he masterminded the theft. Zavadskys lawyer said he was only responsible for stealing about 50 of the 221 items known to be missing. It seems likely that someone else ... was also stealing items, said Mikhailova. The Hermitage theft came to light when museum staff carried out their rst comprehensive inventory for decades. The theft of more than 200 silver and enamel pieces from the Hermitage exposed years of under-funding and neglect at Russias museums, with staff paid paltry wages and no cash for adequate security. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a nationwide inventory of cultural treasures to establish how many more artworks could be missing in the aftermath of the thefts. Putin told ministers to set up a commission to start work on the audit by Sept. 1, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said. He has given an instruction that the Interior Ministry, Culture Ministry, Federal Security Service, Prosecutor-Generals ofce and other agencies should take part in the work of the commission, Itar-Tass news agency quoted Medvedev as saying. Ofcials said that $5 million worth of enamel and silver artifacts had been stolen from the Hermitage. It is home to thousands of priceless artifacts including paintings by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. St. Petersburg native Putin has personally guided U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair around the Hermitage, which is housed in a huge tsarist palace. Police have detained the son and husband of a curator and a local antiques dealer. Piotrovsky said about 150 million rubles ($5.61 million) would be spent on improving security next year. At least 221 artifacts have gone missing. Three pieces were found in a left luggage room at a St. Petersburg train station after an anonymous phone call, RIA news agency reported. A total of 16 artifacts have now been recovered. Russian museums, galleries and archives have been chronically under-funded for years. The theft of art treasures in Russia boomed after the fall of the Soviet Union, with criminal gangs raiding collections for sale to lucrative markets abroad.