And Abraham awoke in the middle of the night and said to his only son, Isaac, “I have had a dream where the voice of the Lord sayeth that I must sacrifice my only son, so put your pants on.”
And Isaac trembled and said, “So what did you say? I mean when He brought this whole thing up?”
“What am I going to say?” Abraham said. “I’m standing there at two A.M. I’m in my underwear with the Creator of the Universe. Should I argue?”
“Well, did he say why he wants me sacrificed?” Isaac asked his father.
But Abraham said, “The faithful do not question. Now let’s go because I have a heavy day tomorrow.”
And Sarah who heard Abraham’s plan grew vexed and said, “How doth thou know it was the Lord and not, say, thy friend who loveth practical jokes, for the Lord hateth practical jokes and whosoever shall pull one shall be delivered into the hands of his enemies whether they pay the delivery charge or not.”
And Abraham answered, “Because I know it was the Lord. It was a deep, resonant voice, well modulated, and nobody in the desert can get a rumble in it like that.”
And Sarah said, “And thou art willing to carry out this senseless act?” But Abraham told her, “Frankly yes, for to question the Lord’s word is one of the worst things a person can do, particularly with the economy in the state it’s in.”
And so he took Isaac to a certain place and prepared to sacrifice him but at the last minute the Lord stayed Abraham’s hand and said, “How could thou doest such a thing?”
And Abraham said, “But thou said —”
“Never mind what I said,” the Lord spake. “Doth thou listen to every crazy idea that comes thy way?” And Abraham grew ashamed. “Er - not really … no.”
“I jokingly suggest thou sacrifice Isaac and thou immediately runs out to do it.”
And Abraham fell to his knees, “See, I never know when you’re kidding.”
And the Lord thundered, “No sense of humor. I can’t believe it.”
“But doth this not prove I love thee, that I was willing to donate mine only son on thy whim?”
And the Lord said, “It proves that some men will follow any order no matter how asinine as long as it comes from a resonant, well-modulated voice.”
And with that, the Lord bid Abraham get some rest and check with him tomorrow.
Last saturday Michael & me made a bike tour near Regensburg. We drove through the woods, across the fields, up and down the hills. A few times Michael led us through the fileds full of nettle. It burnt a little, but the day was beautiful, sunny, the air in the woods was as fresh as it only can be, and nothing could spoil our happiness. Simply fantastic. Finally we reached the point some 200m over the Danube wih a nice view. From there we started our descend
There was a steep narrow path leading down, on the very edge of the woods. On one side there were trees, on the other side the abyss. Between the path and the abys some thoughtfull people have put a wire fence. But, for whatever reasons, they used barbed wire.
The rest is clear, isn’t it? At one point I lost my bike under me and flew over the barbed wire, cut myself on the leg, shoulder and arm, hooked to the wire with my pants and held to it with my left hand, not to fall down. Quickly I jumped back, checked the bike, and continued (slowly…) to ride down.
At the end we sat in a nice beer garden on the bank of the Danube and drank weizen beer. Michael made a few photos. Afterwards I took a shower and drove to the University Clinic to receive antitetanus vaccine. They were very kind and gave me two, for I have never received any in my life.
Yesterday I told Daniel that our cat Mietzi had a rage attack and scratched me, so that I had to throw her out. At first he believed.
Child abuse does not happen only in catholic church, of course. It happens everywhere, every time. But some naive people are surprised that it is also practiced by priests. As more and more cases emerge and more and more victims start to talk about their experiences from the youth, a big picture assembles itself. And it is becoming apparent that catholic church was systematically trying to hide this cases from the public, as much as possible, and to pretend that nothing was happening:
“Very much more serious is the role of Joseph Ratzinger, before the church decided to make him supreme leader, in obstructing justice on a global scale. After his promotion to cardinal, he was put in charge of the so-called “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (formerly known as the Inquisition). In 2001, Pope John Paul II placed this department in charge of the investigation of child rape and torture by Catholic priests. In May of that year, Ratzinger issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In it, he reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime. But that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church’s own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated “in the most secretive way … restrained by a perpetual silence … and everyone … is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office … under the penalty of excommunication.” (my italics). Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children, but exposing the offense could get you into serious trouble. And this is the church that warns us against moral relativism! (See, for more on this appalling document, two reports in the London Observer of April 24, 2005, by Jamie Doward.)”
I grew up with COSMOS series; I loved Carl Sagan, with his calm voice and eloquent but simple way of expressing the truths of science and the power of genuine curiosity about the world. His work has had a profound influence on me. What for some was the bible, or Snowwhite fairytale, for me was the Cosmos book. I still can vividly remember the day when I got it as present from my grandmother: she took me to the book store and bought the book for me, knowing how much I liked the series. I was around 10 years old.
It is rather astonishing today, with all the scientific advances and evidence amassed since the release of Cosmos series, that the creationists, religious leaders and charlatans seem to gain overhand against scientific approach and logical view of the world. It is frightening how many Americans, for example, are ready to dismiss evolution and require that creationism be taught in schools, alongside, or instead of, scientifically proofed theories. Is the science today reaching its zenith but in the same time loosing battle against simple and comforting explanations offered first-hand by pseudo-scientists? How can it be that even some college educated friends I have are not able to distinguish the difference between faith and science, and are seriously discussing about putting equation sign between the two?! It can not be just lack of knowledge, although it certainly can play a part in it; it seems to me that there is a serious flaw in the education systems around the world. The scientific method, based on endless and arduous “experiment-theory-proofs” cycles is not properly taught. The most exciting voyage of Homo Sapiens, the adventurous quest for truth based on reason and observation of the world as it really is and not as we would want it to be, the long way of how we came to the knowledge of today and how much more there lies ahead to be discovered, is per default not taught in schools at all. What we learn in school are only the names of the scientists and their laws, rules and results, endless equations and discovery dates, but nothing more. More often than not we are taught not to reason, but to adopt. Not to ask questions, but to believe in answers. Not to experiment, but to accept. Who was trained in this way may naturally have difficulties in distinguishing science from faith.
For most people science is becoming similar to shamanism, something that “common” people can not understand, due to its supposed complexity and distance from life. Math is literally THE Horror for almost each pupil and his parents; many will even question its necessity for everyday life. Some of the most significant scientific theories of today, theories of Evolution and Relativism, for example, are considered “just another theories”, although firmly confirmed by strong evidence. Many people are afraid of science, because of its potentials to destroy our world, forgetting how much it already improved our lives and longevity. It seems that science is becoming a monster who has to be tamed and put away, the frightening oracle who is unrelentlessly revealing the astonishing complexity of life and the world around us. The simple answers and “truths” of religion, the rules of superstition, the astrology revelations and transcendental swindling seem much more attractive in respect.
But science is no monster. It is one of the most beautiful achievements of free human spirit and persistence. Its basic principles can be understood by everybody, its methods we unconsciously apply to our surroundings every day, and its countless results we wear, use and live with, without ever thinking about it. When properly taught, math, physics, astronomy, linguistics, history and philosophy, to name just some faces of science, can be deeply thought provoking and influential. It is our duty as intelligent beings to use our most powerful evolutionary tool to examine and understand the world around us. It is in our nature to ask questions, to be curious, to look for interconnections in the reality we live in. Everyone of us can be a scientist. The only requirement is to have the courage to wide open the eyes and see the world as it is, and not as we would like it to be.
It makes me sad to see that the tidal wave of faith is raising, seriously threatening to drown the remarkable achievements of human curiosity for knowledge. Furthermore, it is deeply disturbing that the people who despise science, its methods and its results, may come in the possession of its powers; by this I am not only thinking of Middle East dictators thirsty of nuclear power, but also about leaders of westerns democracies who consult fortune-tellers before making decisions, or whose most important book is the bible. If the majority in one society dismisses reasoning in favour of faith, the basic principle of democracy will bring the most eloquent faith-based populists in power. The change they would be able to enforce, using democratic means, could have had immense consequences not only for us but also for generations to come.
I want to believe that such scenario is not really possible. Against all previous challenges in history, some of which had thrown us back for hundreds of years, human curiosity, courage, and the quest for logical explanations brought us here today, to the best of all previous worlds, and it is highly unlikely that we will all choose another way now. Although there is still unbearably much suffering in our contemporary world it can not be argued that human beings in general never enjoyed the better quality of life than now. Using science and our compassion to improve the life of all people on this planet will not only save lives but also disseminate the power of reason. But we have a lot to work on it, and we have to teach scientific approach, encourage discussion, ask questions, exchange knowledge, and firmly defend our convictions in every situation. And we must never stop discovering the beauties of the universe around us revealed through science.
When I was in India last year I really enjoyed Indian cuisine. It is mainly vegetarian, but they also make delicious meat based meals, all of them consisting of small chops of meat cooked and served in diverse thick sauces, sometimes very spicey. You can eat it with rice or with Indian bread, a crêpe-like pastry. The meals offered were mainly of chicken meat, but also of goat, fish, and pig. No cows, of course.
During one lunch I praised to my hosts the meal I was eating. Content to hear it they hurried to explain me that I will not find cow meat in Indian menus: “We Hindu do not eat cows, you know. Cow is our holy animal.” I knew it - who doesn’t? - but I just nodded politely. Then it occurred to me that Muslims do not eat pigs: “And your neighbours, Muslims…? Isn’t it so that they do not eat pigs?” - “Right”, my host nodded in approval, “in their religion the pig is holy animal!”
Now that was not the way I knew about it! Pig is supposed to be a dirty animal in Islam, and therefore prohibited. I have never heard that it was regarded as a holy animal. Nevertheless I was not in the mood of correcting my kind host in theological matters, so I just said what was obvious: “So it means that you are eating their Holy Animal, and they are eating yours, right?” - “Well, yes…” he answered reluctantly, with an unsure expression: “now when you put it that way, yes… we eat holy animals of one another.”
For the rest of the lunch no more words were spoken.
The photos I posted on 20th December last year were all shot in the immediate vicinity of Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the Central Railway Station in Mumbai. Inside the station photographing was prohibited, as my guide cautiously indicated to me, so we went inside through a dirty understreet passage and just strolled around. It was Sunday morning and I was on a day trip to Mumbai down-town. My guide was a kind young doctor, born and living in Mumbai, whose name I unfortunately can not remember anymore. The day was sunny and hot, and the humid air on the streets was sweet and heavy, polluted by exhaust gases; but inside the station I immediately sensed the smell of tracks and trains, the smell that I liked since my childhood and which for a brief moment filled me with joy. The station was pretty much empty, an unusual situation comparing to other days of the week. This was one of the busiest railway stations in India; on all other days it was always full of people. When Ajmal Kasab and Ismail Khan walked in the station on the evening of 26th November 2008 and opened fire from their kalashnikovs, the place was packed full. They fired at the crowd of unarmed people, threw grenades on police officers and killed and severely injured more than 150 persons. When they left the building the platform I was standing on was covered with dead and dying people.
After the attacks Mumbai police prohibited unauthorised photographing inside the station and increased the security measures. I noticed two police officers sitting at the table in one corner near the main gate and stepped closer, curious to see what they were doing. Maybe they will somehow allow me to take photos anyway? As I neared them I saw that they were inspecting their automatic rifles. One weapon lay on the table, and the officer was checking the leather belt. They seemed not to be paying any attention to me. I stood there watching them for some time, until I realized that the muzzle of the weapon was pointed directly to my belly. I stepped aside.
As I was looking around it occurred to me that I was unconsciously looking for blood stains on the floor. I was standing in the middle of a broad platform surrounded by several people waiting for their trains. In front of me there were old trains with bars on the windows and special wagons reserved only for women (always the first ones - was it the sign of respect in one apparently segregating act?). Few fishermen from the suburbs passed by carrying fresh fish in bowls above their heads, children were chasing each other, sun rays were streaking through the ceiling windows high above. In my conciousness I noticed all this, but in the same time I knew that it was not what I was looking for, the present was like a curtain that I tried whole time to pull away, to see behind it. I was actually looking for blood and dead bodies, searching for bullet holes in the walls, imagining the moment when shootings started, trying to hear the explosions and screams of the victims. I was standing in a slaughter field amidst tens of dead bodies. I felt a tension in my belly, right there where the muzzle of that police officer’s rifle was pointed to just a few moments ago. All of a sudden my desire to make photos seemed deeply inappropriate. I desperately wanted to come back to reality, to forget the horror that happened here one year ago, but it was impossible. My guide asked me if I want him to try to get a permission to make some photos, but I refused. I had enough.
As we were hurrying towards one of the exits on the other end I was thinking that there actually must be many places on the face of the Earth where people died violently. Millions of years of evolution of genus Homo are immensely long time. Thousands and thousands of places were soaked in blood and covered with dead human bodies. So many of our predecessors lived and died without a trace, decayed and forever disappeared everywhere on this planet. Had I believed in ghosts I would have to accept that they were “living” with us now everywhere, in every corner of the only world we know, inhabiting every house and every home in hundreds. But I do not believe in ghosts, and neither in God. I do not think that one continues to live after death in some other form, and that a life has a purpose not revealed to us. I am convinced that we all have only this one life, and that life itself is the highest value. And when I stand in the place where I KNOW that many people lost their lives in a violent way, killed in the name of “higher” purpose, I feel frightened. Murdering a human being is like destroying a world. Our duty is to preserve life and minimise suffering. Nothing else. We are all brothers and sisters, and we do not need any religion to see it, if we just bother to think.
There was an old-fashioned scale short before the exit from the station. It bore the text “EASTERN SCALES” on it, a platform to stand on, and an opening for inserting coins. My guide urged me with a smile to step on it and measure my weight. I complied absently. After a short while the machine spat out a small yellowish card. On one side it read “HEALTH CARD - KILOGRAMS 92 - KEEP FIT - EASTERN SCALES - 49434″. It was wrong. My weight was 82. I turned the other side and read the personal message under the title “BUY YOUR OWN TICKET”: “You will emerge triumphant from your most serious reverses. A happy and comfortable old age”. As we emerged from the station to the sunny street I wondered how many nameless victims of Kasab and Khan got that very same message on the day they were murdered.
At this age I see no purpose in celebrating own birthdays anymore. Actually there is no real reason at all to celebrate the number of full earth’s evolutions around the sun since one left mother’s uterus, but we desperately need this kind of events to socialize wit our surroundings; if I remember how many more sinless rituals fulfill our everyday life I could not imagine what would we actually do in our lives without them
For my 37th birthday I present you with this cool BBC documentary about our nearest relatives
Serbian Ministry of (mal)education has published “A collection of exercises in Serbian language” for the entrance exam for enrollment in secondary schools. Questions are related to the school textbooks that children use every day. So is the national fairytale “Mute tongue” also in the textbook for the eighth grade (13 years old pupils). This is a story about a shepherd who, after rescuing a snake, received as a gift from her the ability to understand animals. So he learns from the mare that his wife is pregnant and smiles on hearing it; his wife, however, wants to know why is he smiling, but he must not disclose the secret of his gift. As the woman persistently continues to question him, shepherd, advised by the rooster, takes the club and beats her.
So far, so good. A fairytale is a fairytale and we can not question the attitudes of medieval narrators. But in the collection of exercises (which the Ministry has approved) the correct answers to the following questions are these:
1. Shepherd’s wife in the fairytale deserves to be punished because of
- her inappropriate curiosity and negligence (fantastic)
2. Reader would have wished to have the power of the main character in order to
- deal with every situation correctly and therefore always be in the service of justice and good (even better)
3. Shepherd shows the following characteristics:
- curiosity, devotion and loyalty, persistency, honesty and kindness (aggression is not mentioned)
Mi smo dobro, preko dana je skoro normalno ali nocu
udaraju. Juce smo proslavili mali jubilej:
komandu su pogodili pedeseti put. Opet je ispalo ono
staklo iznad ulaznih vrata. Tata je rekao da ce ga jos
sad staviti, a sledeci put cemo zazidati.
Sve je sada mnogo lakse, kada se samo setim 1999. dok su
oni jos imali rakete i avione, onda je stvarno gruvalo.
Onda su presli na gadjanje dinamitom iz aviona
(kako smo ih samo gadjali prackama) i konacno nas gadjaju
kopljima i sekirama (vrhunske izrade). Inace
vode imamo dovoljno, svaki put kad pada kisa skupljamo je
u burence. Sto se hrane tice, sada je prolece pa ima
narcisa. Juce smo rucali divnu supu od domaceg vrapca,
bareni bastenski korov sa macjim filetima.
Pili smo divno vino (neidentifikovanog porekla),
a na kraju smo se pocastili sa kolacem od narcisa sa
malo blata (umesto cokolade). Milica i Teri su sa
zadovoljstvom polizali ostatke (mada znas da posle
Lekica malo sta ostane). Jutros sam se setao gradom.
Rov Kneza Mihajla je pun ljudi, bila su i neka dogadjanja
u Terazijskoj rupi.Najgore mi je sto sam svaki put
mokar jer moram da preplivam Savu. Inace u krater na
Slaviji su postavili neke kioske pa sada mnogo lepse
izgleda. Dobro je da nocu ne trebaju svetiljke jer
sve svetli od one trece atomske bombe.Steta sto su onu
cetvrtu ispustili u Francuskoj, pa em sto nema vise
Francuske, em bi nama bilo nocu jos svetlije.
Inace sutra je isplata drugog dela penzije za novembar
2004. Mama rece da ce obe marke da da za hranu.Videla je
divne macje polutke. Inace u skoli nista novo,
mnogo je lakse raditi sa odeljenjima od po 7-9 ucenika.
Izgleda da je radijacija ucinila svoje, pa su i djaci
bolji. Olgica treba da ide sa svojim maturantima na
ekskurziju,verovatno ce ici na Karaburmu da gledaju
najveci krater na Balkanu. Zao mi je sto se pobise
Rusi i Ameri pa smo mi nekako pali u drugi plan,
a i nivo mora je nesto visi otkako je Amerika potonula.
Nasi kumovi su na vreme otisli, sada su na ostrvu
Brace Jerkovic (jedino sto ratuju sa Vozdovcem,
hoce samostalnost za svoje ostrvo sa 213 stanovnika).
Ali ni ratovi nisu ko sto su bili, nema vise krupnog
kamenja. Svakodnevno gledamo TV (imamo neki stari ram,
pa svaki dan neko drugi stane iza njega pa kao
pravi program). Kao sto vidis nije tako strasno,
pisi kako je na vasem malom ostrvu.
Ja sam O.K. sto se ne bi moglo reci i za stakla na
mojoj kuci. Puno te pozdravljam i nadam se da ste ti i
tvoji takodje dobro!
Humor iz vremena NATO kampanje. Autor: nepoznat
————————
F-117 “Stealth” shot down
During the NATO bombing of Serbia between March 24th and June 10th 1999, Serbian army managed to shoot down one F-117 “stealth” aircraft in the fields some 50 kilometres north-west from Belgrade. For a few days all media in Serbia was full of reports about this great “success”, many people were ridiculously happy about it, and some even visited the site to express their joy by dancing on aircraft’s remains.
As it always is, after some time no one was interested any more in this pile of scratch; as I heard, it seems that some nearby Roma took the remains of F-117’s tail and wings to renew their shabby housings. But they were not to enjoy its protection for very long, for Russian intelligence was just as much interested in it: materials used in this most advanced killing machinery were NATO top secret. Despite of the protests of F-117’s new proprietors every single peace of metal was consequently taken away, and ended - if you want to believe in it - in Russia.
There are no seats with row number 13 in Lufthansa airplanes. In fact, not only row 13 but also the row 17 is missing. If you thought that this was the case only with Lufthansa then you are dead wrong - many other airlines avoid certain numbers in their aircrafts. As the matter of fact, Japan-based All Nippon Airways omits rows 4, 9 and 13! Why? Of yourse, the answer is clear - because all these numbers are generally considered “unlucky” in different cultures. In Christianity and Viking folklore for example, the number 13 is associated with bad luck, and even has a specifically recognized phobia, “Triskaidekaphobia”, a word which was coined in 1911. Seventeen is considered unlucky in Italy because rearranging the letters in the Roman numerals for 17 could spell “VIXI” which means “I lived” in Italian. Number four is generally avoided in Japan because it sounds like the word for death in their language (“Tetraphobia”) and the word for nine sounds like the word for torture.
But how about the fact that number 13 is actually considered “lucky” in Sikhism, since 13 is tera in Punjabi, which also means “yours” (as in, “I am yours, O Lord”)? Or the fact that Italian Alitalia’s Boeing 777s have thirteenth row while the rest of their fleet does not?!
I believe that education against superstition should be a part of common school programme, as well as education against religious, nationalistic and other ideological rubbish: as long as people are ready to believe that numbers, black cats or broken mirrors can bring misfortune, or that a horseshoe, knocking on wooden material or saying some special words can keep misfortune away, they will never be truly free and never be real masters of their own destiny. It may sound unimportant in comparison to a number of significant and disputed issues in the world today, but I am sure that connection between superstition and many cases of human suffering is much deeper than it may appear at the first sight.
Shandor looked very much like my father, and I was the same age as his son. His wife just threw him out after a heavy fight, so he brought some wine to the Danube pier and drank it while watching tourists passing by. Few coincidences, one bottle of sweet wine, one night in Budapest. And two sentimental fools.
Visiting Berchtesgaden, a little town in southern Germany where Adolf Hitler had his summer residence, Solana and I found a small museum, “Documentation centre”, high in the Alps, at the place where one of the houses that made up this huge complex of buildings and tunnels connecting them once stood. The day was a perfect autumn day, with warm sunshine, clear blue skies, and green, orange and brown slopes of the mountains all around us: the view from the terrace was almost as copied off the colorful postcards of this silent places where Hannibal once lost almost all of his elephants; but we both sat there depressed, as it always happens when one is confronted with evidence of man’s infinite will for barbarism. The sunshine, the blue skies, endless mountains painted in autumn colors: impotent contrast to piles of dead bodies puoring out of black and white photos, to hundreds of documents describing the building of the highway to catastrophe costing over 50 million lives, to recorded voices of villains shouting, threatening, preaching hatred and violence. And there, in the middle of this grim exhibition, I discovered two documents bearing the name of my hometown: a photo of hanged men in Pancevo in April 1941, and a report, already known to me, about the executions of Jews and Roma near Pancevo in October 1941. Strange, I thought, that out of thousands of other documents and “famous” places from that era someone has choosen these two documents for display here, in Hitler’s favorite vacation place, and put up the name of some small Serbian city alongside Auswitz and Treblinka. More importantly, it immediately reminded me that I have translated this morbid report from First lieutenant Walther more than a year ago, wanting to publish it on photobunt, but postponing it until October comes and eventually forgetting to do it, as it often happens in life; I even have in my car a plastic rose from the memorial built after the war on the executions site. Discovery of Pancevo in Berchtesgaden reminded me that now it was October again; so I knew what I have to do when I come back home.
Executions in Pancevo on 27-30th of October 1941.
Classified
4th November 1941
Infantry regiment 734
Br. B. Nr. 437/41 geh. Ia
704th Infantry division
S u b j.: Sanction measures
1 enclosure
In this enclosure First lieutenant Walther presents a report to the Regiment 9./I.R. 433 about the execution of Jews and Gypsies on the 27th and 30th of Oct. 1941. Please take note.
In accordance with an arrangement made by the SS department, I took the selected Jews and Gypsies from the prison camp in Belgrade. The trucks provided to me by Field Command Unit 599 proved to be inappropriate for two reasons:
1. They were driven by civilians. The secrecy was therefore not guaranteed.
2. They all were without cover or tarpaulin, so that the population of the city saw whom we had on the vehicles and where we drove. Wives of the Jews gathered in front of the camp and howled and screamed as we drove off.
The location where the shooting was carried out was very favorable. It was situated north of Pancevo, directly on the road Pancevo-Jabuka, with an embankment so high that a man can only climb up with considerable effort. Opposite to this embankment was a swamp area, and behind it a river. When flooded (as it was on 29.10.), the water nearly reaches up to the embankment. Escape of the prisoners could therefore be prevented with only a few men. Also favorable was the sandy soil, which eased the digging of the pits and thus shortened the work time.
After arrival, about 1 1/2 - 2 km before the selected location, the prisoners got off and reached it by foot. The trucks with the civil drivers were sent back immediately, in order to provide them with as few as possible reference points for suspicion. I then ordered that the road be closed for all traffic, because of safety and secrecy reasons.
The execution place was secured by 3 IM.G. (heavy machine guns - translation note) and 12 guards:
1. Against escape attempts by the prisoners.
2. For self protection against any assaults of Serbian gangs.
Digging the pits required the longest time, while the shooting was very fast. (100 men 40 minutes)
Luggage and valuable items were collected before and transported in my truck, in order to hand them over to the NSV.
Shooting Jews is simpler than gypsies. One must admit that Jews go very calmly into death - they stand very calmly - while the gypsies howl, cry and continuously move, even if they are already standing at the place of execution. Some have even jumped into the pit before the salvo hit them and tried to pretend as if they were dead.
Initially my soldiers were not impressed upon. On the second day however it became already apparent that some of them do not possess the nerves to take part in executions over an extended period of time. My personal impression is that one has no mental inhibitions during the shooting; these however emerge some days after, when one is able to reflect on it in the evening and in peace.
W a l t h e r
First lieutenant
The paragraph in bold was emphasized by me. The transcript of the original “Walther report” in German language is to be found here.
Many thanks to Allison and Solana for correcting the translation.
Once there was a man who had a beautiful horse. But one day the horse broke out of the barn and escaped. The people said “Oh, what misfortune, your horse is gone!”; but the man just shrugged his shoulders and answered “Fortune… misfortune… what is it?”. Several days after, the horse came back, followed by the herd of wild horses. Now everybody said “Oh, you are so fortunate, you have many horses now!”; but the man just answered “Fortune… misfortune… what is it?”. After a while, the man’s son decided to tame the horses. But on attempting to do so, a wild horse threw him down and he broke his leg. “Oh what misfortune!” everybody said, “Because of the horses your son is now injured!”; but the man only answered - “Fortune… misfortune… what is it?”
After some time solders came into the village. A war was going on, and they took all young men with them to distant battles. They took everybody, but they left one boy behind - the man’s son, because of his broken leg.
“Fortune… misfortune… what is it?”
Me injecting anti-thrombosis medicine, three years ago as my leg was broken
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This is a “self-buy” pumpkin field shop, near Regensburg. For all the pumpkins you want to buy, you should put the money in the metal box that is fixed to a concrete-filled blue barrel. The prices are listed on the table above the cash box.
Goran has no fear. Not in life and, as this story illustrates, also not in dreams. A few years ago he told me this dream; I find it so interesting that I must share it with you. With his approval, of course
Goran’s summer dream:
Goran and his wife are on vacation, in Montenegro, in wonderful Bay of Kotor (I strongly recommend this place, if you haven’t yet seen a lot of the world: some years ago I was almost in love with this piece of Montenegro coast. A real nature’s pearl. And Montenegro people can really be very nice). So Goran is walking along the shore, alone, as he notices that everybody escapes from the water in panic. “What’s going on?”, he thinks, as the people are running by in despair. Then he sees a big shark’s fin in the sea. Not one - several of them. And big. So, brave and noble as he is, without thinking twice, he immediately jumps in the waters, swims to the beasts, and kills them all with a knife that he somehow has with himself (it is dream! in real life he never carries a knife. So after this dream I gave him one Swiss Army Pocket Knife as a present. A man can never know. And anyway, it can be very handy for shortening nails and opening bottles).
As he swims back, he notices that the crowd ashore is still very upset: it seems that there is still something in the waters. Maybe one of the sharks survived? So he turns around and what can he see: another big shark is coming, a really big one, bigger than those that he has just sent away to the Eternal Seas. So he goes back again, directly towards the beast, and as the shark opens its huge jaws with hundreds of sharp teeth, he just places a big stick with knives on both ends directly in its mouth and - snap! - as the shark shuts the mouth it simply kills itself! (Of course he had the stick with him - it is a dream! But I did not present him with a stick afterwards).
So now Goran swims again back towards the shore, content as he only can be, when a big shadow casts over the entire Bay. “What is now going on?”, he thinks, irritated, as he slowly turns back again. “What could it be now - another shark? No way.” But this time there is something truly terrifying in the Bay: one really, really big shark fin in the middle of the sea. BIGGER than all the previous ones. MOTHER SHARK. Just BIG, BIG, BIG. With a fin as BIG as the Vrmac hill behind it. And angry, also, because her children are dead. So Goran swims back once more, fearless, determined to join her with her children. When he comes near, the mother shark opens her enormous jaws, ready to swallow him in one bite; but he just - jumps inside. And as the mouth closes behind him he starts thrusting his knife above himself, and in all directions, thrusting, thrusting, thrusting, until the shark gives up and dies. Then he just swims ashore, not looking behind, to the beach where no one can see him, and walks back to the hotel room.
His wife Emina, all crying and dressed in black, has already heard that he died in the uneven battle with the sharks. As he enters the room, she weeps: „You… no… it cannot be! You are… they told me… you are… dead!“. „Who? Me? Dead?! Come on! Don’t cry, it’s all right… And give me something to eat, I am starving!“.
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