Recently we watched Miracle At Midnight, the 1998 made-for-TV Disney movie starring Sam Waterston and Mia Farrow. It is a dramatised account of the true-to-life events in 1943 Denmark. When World War II broke out in 1939, Denmark attempted to avoid being a target of Nazi aggression by adopting a policy of neutrality. This didn't work out as well as they had hoped, as evinced by the fact that Germany occupied Denmark in 1940. Whatever one may think of the questionable decisions made by the Danish government, they definitely deserve praise in one regard: despite pressure from the Germans, they steadfastly refused to treat their Jewish citizens any different than the rest of the population. The Nazis eventually got tired of this defiance and Adolf Hitler ordered that the Danish Jews be deported and taken to concentration camps. This order was to be carried out on Oct. 1, the first night of Rosh Hashanah, because it was assumed that all of the Jewish community would be at home with their families. By this time however, there was an active resistance to the Nazis in Denmark, and they set about to warn/rescue their Jewish neighbours and friends. When the Nazis started entering Jewish homes on that night, they found them deserted. It is this event that the movie centers around. Miracle At Midnight stays very close to the actual historical account and is based on the experiences of the Koster family. Dr. Karl Koster was the chief of medicine at Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen at the time. When word got around about the Nazi plans, Koster sprang into action. His family hid Jews in their attic at home, and he organised the entire hospital to facilitate the rescue efforts. Jews were smuggled to and from the hospital in ambulances, were admitted as patients, and even filled the nurses' apartments on site. In the course of a few days, the hospital staff housed and transported over a thousand Jews, taking them to the coast where fishing boats, leisure crafts, and even row boats were enlisted to ferry them to neutral Sweden. This effort was not without cost; some nurses and doctors were caught and even killed by the Gestapo for aiding and abetting their Jewish countrymen. Koster's wife was also arrested; they weren't reunited until after the war. Dr. Koster's son Henrik was also involved in rescuing Jews as, unknown to his parents, he was a member of a resistance cell operating out of his university. Imagine... a time when students were opposing actual fascists instead of going about in cosplay outfits, calling everyone who didn't agree with them Nazis. Amazing. In the end, of the 8000 Jewish citizens of Denmark, over 7,200 of them were safely transported to Sweden. About 500 ended up in a German camp, but the Danish government and citizens routinely sent them food and care packages, and the government demanded to be allowed to send regular inspection teams to check on their people. The Germans agreed to this because they feared that Denmark would revolt and cut off their food transports, which were supplying the German army. Another true-to-life character who appears in the film is Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German diplomat. During the 1930's he had worked for the Nazi party's Office of Foreign Affairs, but found himself so disgusted by their beliefs and behaviours that he resigned and went to work for a private shipping company. In 1939 however, the Nazi government assigned (ordered) him to work as a maritime attache at the German embassy in Copenhagen. There he found himself working with Werner Best, head of the local Gestapo. Best told Duckwitz of the planned deportation/imprisonment of Danish Jews; horrified, Duckwitz petitioned Berlin to reverse this order. When this failed, he secretly contacted the Prime Minister of Sweden and asked him if he was willing to take in Jewish refugees. When he got a positive response, Duckwitz leaked the news and date of the planned Nazi seizure of Jews to a Danish politician who went to the leaders of the Jewish community and warned them of what was coming. As word spread quietly, the Danish people got to work. Miracle At Midnight is a film of the quality you would expect of a made-for-TV Disney movie. Its production value and acting is fine, gets the job done, and tells the story creditably. Fortunately, it doesn't have to work hard to be dramatic, because the events described in it are exciting on their own, without embellishment. Most importantly, the film details an event during World War II which is little known, but should be celebrated. Dr. Koster's wife Doris (played by Mia Farrow) strikes a very real and human note in the film. She wants to help their Jewish friends and neighbours, but she's terrified for her own family. What will happen to their children if they are found harbouring Jews in their home? This is easily understandable to anyone who has children in their lives that they cherish and protect; it's one thing to decide to risk your own life for a noble cause, and quite another to risk those your children. It would give anyone pause, to have to decide to put one's own family at risk in order to save someone else's. And yet the Kosters- and many others- did just that. Also, kudos to Disney for not sweeping it under the rug that the Kosters were Christians; it's not emphasised by any means but neither is it overlooked entirely, something I'm pretty sure wouldn't occur today. There's even a bit of scripture quoted, from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 26:35-36 "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me." The events described in Miracle At Midnight are heartening, because they show what people can accomplish when they are determined to do what is right, no matter the cost. They also show that there is power to be reckoned with when people work together for a common, righteous goal. The Jewish escape to Sweden could not have happened if just Dr. Koster and a few other people decided to do something. Danes from every walk of life tasked themselves with working to save their fellow citizens and, by and large, they managed to do so. "What made the courageous effort of the staff at Bispebjerg Hospital even more remarkable was the fact that it was not the exception, but the norm. From King Christian X – whose brusque answer to the Nazi demand that Denmark do something about its “Jewish Problem” was that Denmark had no Jewish problem because its Jews were equal Danes: “Viking Jews” he called them – to the humble street cleaner, all took part. Tens of thousands of Danes, businessmen, professors, clergy, taxi drivers, fishwives, farmers, train conductors, even policemen, took up the challenge to sabotage the Nazi effort to destroy the Jewish community of Denmark. The authorities refused to co-operate, and the bishops circulated a pastoral letter to be read to all congregations denouncing the Nazi attempt as un-Christian, and urging their parishioners to help their Jewish fellow citizens." - Little Dunkirk: A Very Different Holocaust Story "Almost as astounding as the spontaneous Danish rescue of the Jews, was the joyous welcome they received on returning. Most remarkable of all was the fact that their Danish neighbours had carefully safeguarded Jewish businesses, houses and even personal property. Dr. Nathan Bamberger, whose father was the rabbi of the famous old Leader-straede Synagogue during the rescue, recalls with wonder that “when we returned to our home, which we had had to leave so suddenly on the eve of Rosh Hashanah 1943, all the settings at our dining table were still exactly as we had left them.” - Little Dunkirk: A Very Different Holocaust Story It makes you wonder what the Holocaust would have looked like if other European countries had behaved in this manner.
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Magic For Marigold is a novel by L.M. Montgomery published in 1929, though it's actually an amalgamation of/ expansion on four short stories that she had written previously. It is the story of young Marigold Lesley, being raised by her mother and a variety of older relatives (her father died before she was born). This has never been one of my favourite of Montgomery's works; I don't think it quite successfully makes the leap from being a number of short stories welded together to working as a novel. I don't think I'd picked up my copy since Junior High. But it has some great moments, and I'd forgotten how much I like the character of Old Grandmother. After Marigold is born, there is a family gathering to decide the baby's name, much to her mother's dismay (she wants to call her baby Marigold): "I think the baby should be called after one of our missionaries. It's a shame that we have three foreign missionaries in the connection and not one of them has a namesake--even if they are only fourth cousins. I suggest we call her Harriet after the oldest one." "But," said Aunt Anne, "that would be slighting Ellen and Louise." "Well," said Young Grandmother haughtily--Young Grandmother was haughty because nobody had suggested naming the baby after her--"call her the whole three names, Harriet Ellen Louise Lesley. Then no fourth cousin need feel slighted." The suggestion seemed to find favour. Lorraine caught her breath anxiously and looked at Uncle Klon. But rescue came from another quarter. "Have you ever," said Old Grandmother with a wicked chuckle, "thought what the initials spell?" They hadn't. They did. Nothing more was said about missionaries. |
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Trees, trees against the sky -
O I have loved them well!
There are pleasures you cannot buy,
Treasurers you cannot sell,
And not the smallest of these
Is the gift and glory of trees. . . .
So I gaze and I know now why
It is good to live - and to die. . . .
Trees and the Infinite Sky.
Robert William Service
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