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Persian poetry pulling travellers
Literary tourism is flourishing all around the world but perhaps what would be surprising to many people is its popularity in Iran. But, as Jill Worrall explains, poetry is part of the Persian soul and reveals a sharp contrast to the widespread view of Iran as a place of fundamentalism, utilitarianism and nationalism.
During the height of the protest marches in Iran that followed the 2009 presidential elections millions of Iranians turned out on the streets of their major cities.
Violence, bloodshed and anger were commonplace as protesters, angry at the re-election of former president Ahmadinejad, clashed with government forces. Few Western journalists managed to slip into the country to witness this or, if they were there already, were able to report firsthand on the marches. But award-winning foreign correspondent Robert Fisk did.
After a career in journalist spanning more than 40 years there could be little that could surprise Fisk. But, while he was marching along with an estimated million people, he was struck by something a young protester beside him was singing.
He asked for a translation and in that moment the poetry of one of Iran's most loved contemporary poets leapt from relative obscurity into the world press.
The poet is Sohrab Sepheri and in a shameless piece of one upmanship I can claim to have heard of Sepheri long before Fisk.
The love of poetry is an essential part of being Persian (not everyone in Iran is ethnically Persian but about 65 per cent of the population is). Paying homage at the graves of Iran's greatest poets and writers is a popular component of domestic tourism and many of the poets' shrines are on the overseas visitors' itineraries too.
Sepheri might be mostly unknown outside Iran but he's been enthusiastically embraced by younger Iranians. The student marching in the street of Tehran, undaunted by the police and security presence was singing lines from one of Sepheri's most famous poems, Water's Footsteps:
We should fold our umbrellas,
And walk out into the rain
We should take with us
All our ideas and memories into the rain
We should walk with all the townspeople into the rain
We should meet our friends in the rain
We should find our love in the rain
We should make love in the rain
We should play games in the rain
We should write, talk, sow morning-glory seeds in the rain
Life is a series of successive drenching.
Life is taking a dip in the basin of This Moment
But, while Sepheri might be new to Western readers, another of Iran's poets is a household name.
The Rubbiyat of Omar Khayyam, as translated by Edward Fitzgerald in the 19th century, made Khayyam the most famous Eastern poet in the Western world. Ironically, today for most Iranians, Khayyam is most revered for his contribution to mathematics, astronomy and philosophy. They are rather bemused that so many Western visitors know of him and are often astonished when the latter can reel off whole stanzas of his poetry.
Khayyam is buried not far from his birthplace in Nishapur in north-eastern Iran. He was born in 1048 and was in his early 80s when he died.
Khayyam was the only work of fiction that I ever saw my late father read (he preferred encyclopedias for light reading) and as a man of few words and very private emotions I was always intrigued by what drew him to Khayyam. Was there a deeply hidden romantic streak in Dad that was drawn to Khayyam, who wrote quatrains such as this most famous example?
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread - and Thou,
Beside me singing in the Wilderness,
And oh, Wilderness is Paradise enow.
A few years ago I made my first pilgrimage to Khayyam's tomb, along with dozens of Iranians on the same mission.
It was nearly dark when we arrived at the tomb, which is set in a grove of trees near Iran's second largest city, Mashhad. The tomb lies under an arched concrete structure that reflects Khayyam's poetic images of glasses of wine and the inverted bowl of the sky. One by one, visitors would go up to the marble tomb, gently place their fingers on the stone and recite lines of his poetry.
Somewhere in the trees, loudspeakers broadcasted sung versions of The Rubbiyat. We sat in the nearby teahouses, crossed-legged on ruby red Persian carpets, sipped tea, our faces wreathed in smoke from a hubble-bubble filled with orange-flavoured tobacco and read more of Khayyam, in Persian for the sound of it, and in English just for Dad.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit,
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
Buried in the same wooded grove as Khayyam is another of Iran's national poets, Attar. Attar died in about 1220 and was best known to Persians as a pharmacist and a Sufi (a follower of the mystic branch of Islam). His poetry can be hard to unravel but some of his advice successfully transcends the centuries:
"What you most want, what you travel around wishing to find, lose yourself as lovers lose themselves, and you'll be that."
Attar is buried in a beautiful domed pavilion covered with blue tiles, swirling calligraphy and intricate mosaics. While Attar is almost unknown in the West, one of his greatest admirers, who was also born in Iran (but who is buried in Turkey) certainly is. Rumi, one of the few Eastern poets to make Western best-seller lists, described Attar as having "traversed the seven cities of Love; we are still at the turn of one street".
Ironically, given the United States long-running suspicion of Iran, Rumi was in 2007 rated the States' most popular poet. However, if you simply ask an Iranian about Rumi they could well look at you blankly. They know him better as Jalal ad-Din.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you
Don't go back to sleep
You must ask for what you really want
Don't go back to sleep
People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch
The door is round and open
Don't go back to sleep
The poet who lies closest to most Iranians' hearts is buried far to the south, in the city of Shiraz. Shiraz, appropriately, has for centuries been known as the city of poets and nightingales, but as my Iranian friend Reza says, "alas, these days no wine".
If most Iranian homes have a copy of the Koran on display it also likely that a beautifully illustrated and well-thumbed copy of the works of Hafez will be alongside. The writings of Hafez are read not just for pleasure but as a source of spiritual guidance and, albeit furtively, as a way to predict the future.
Hafez (his full name is Khwja Shams-ud-Dn Muhammad Hfez-e Shrz) was a 14th century mystic poet. Translated into English some of his poetry is so full of symbolism as to be almost impenetrable but the joy of Hafez for Iranians and other readers alike is that you can read it on many different levels.
Its appeal to people of all walks of life is clear during a visit to the tomb. First of all, our bus driver was able to quote great chunks of Hafez on our way there ... not an everyday occurrence in a tour bus; secondly outside the gate men holding stacks of cards bearing verses from Hafez in one hand and budgies in the other offered to tell one's fortune. The birds would pick out a card bearing both the words of Hafez and a modern-day interpretation.
Inside the walled garden, roses, wallflowers and other fragrant plants released their scent in the still evening air (sunset is considered the best time to pay homage to a Persian poet). Fountains splashed in the central courtyard, another essential ingredient for a truly romantic Persian garden.
In the centre a modest dome supported by pillars sheltered Hafez's tomb. Again every visitor would climb the steps, place a hand on the cool white marble and recite their favourite lines. Until a few years ago most visitors would then repair to a small tea house behind the tomb. Visitors, old and young, would sip their drinks and read Hafez's poetry to each other.
You only had to glance at the faces of the young couples, sometimes furtively holding hands in a country where such public displays of affection are outlawed among the unmarried, to know that in their case a more literal rather than spiritual translation of Hafez was uppermost in their minds:
I said 'I suffer because of you'. She said 'Your suffering will end'
I said 'Become my moon'. She said 'If it comes to pass'
I said 'I will barricade your image from the road of my sight'
She said 'It is a thief and it will come a different way'
I said 'The scent of your hair has led me astray in the world'
She said 'If you understand, it can also be your guide'
Every year Reza and I stand beside Hafez's tomb and read his poetry in English and Persian to our Kiwi groups. We always gather a crowd of Iranians too, enjoying both the poetry for its own sake and the fact that a group of Westerners are listening so intently. When we finish reading they applaud. We blush but we know we'll do it again the next year.
The sound of mellifluous Persian, the sunset glow in the sky, the splash of the fountains is an intoxication that Iran's poets only know too well.
The Timaru Herald


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University of Wisconsin Police Department officers responded to a report of a bicyclist who had crashed on the Temin Lake Shore Path Friday afternoon, and the man was later pronounced dead.
According to a UWPD statement, officers were alerted of the incident at 2:48 p.m. At the time, they were notified that a cyclist on the Lake Shore Path was bleeding and might not be breathing, the statement said.
Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8, said from the early stages of the investigation, it is suggested that the biker had a preexisting condition that caused a medical emergency on the path.
When officers arrived, bystanders aided in their efforts to save the cyclist's life and helped perform CPR and use a defibrillator on the individual, the statement said.
The statement said Madison Fire Department paramedics made continued efforts to save the biker's life when they arrived on the scene shortly after UWPD officers.
The cyclist was then taken to the UW Hospital Emergency Department where he were pronounced dead, according to the statement.
Resnick said this is a fairly rare occurrence but added that medical emergences can happen anywhere and any time.
"I extend the deepest sympathy and condolences to the family," Resnick said.
Resnick said there could be several, if any, days that pass before more details or information about the incident will be released.


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Credit Card Center Advertiser Disclosure†
Hi, I was wondering how Carmax or Roadloads verifies your income?
I had called Roadloans and before I kept getting disconnected, they told me that I would 3 months of personal bank statements to prove my income (being an independent contractor).
The question I have are:
1. I have received payments on a prepaid debit card. Do they accept print outs of these statements along with bank statements?
2. Do they call and verify your income with your bank? I'm just worried because in the past three months I have received more money on my card, and they don't even really have a number you can call.
3. I'm guessing a print out of my earnings wouldn't help either? Would they verify that as well? (Same situation; no number to call)
Sorry if this all seems weird, but if there is a number to call (for debit card) it's an automated deal. For the site I work on, you can only contact them by email.
3 months? wow, allt he places I applied at only require two pay stub.
tonyjones wrote:
3 months? wow, allt he places I applied at only require two pay stub.
See, online they told me they'd only need a month's worth of earnings, but I guess when I called, they said they needed 3 bank statements.
And I guess roadloans doesn't need to call and verify. They just need to see the money coming into your account.
I would apply at your local credit union or dealership. Every place denied me, honda financing approved me but they required two pay stubs and proof of residency! it was so easy!!!!!!
I went thru roadloans and they called my employer to verify my salary and time of employment. I had terrible credit. I think my fico scores were around 525 at the time. I had them for a year now and no problems... I have a high interest rate which is expected though.
anca21bi wrote:
I went thru roadloans and they called my employer to verify my salary and time of employment. I had terrible credit. I think my fico scores were around 525 at the time. I had them for a year now and no problems... I have a high interest rate which is expected though.
Ohhh, I see. Well, I asked them and they said they didn't... so I have no idea? I'm an indepedent contractor (self-employed). I just work through a site. There's no way they can confirm earnings on that site... so I hope that doesn't cause a problem and they can just decide based on my bank statements.
3 months of bank statement only applies to those who are self employed... if you are working for a company any paystubs within 30 days will do... other documents Carmax will take for self employ would be: 1099 forms, tax returns for the last 2 years, schedule C for last 2 years. If you add a cosigner they might do away with the POI
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Thursday, 11th March, 2010, 10:56 PM #1
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4E - WotBS - Adventure Path - Spoilers
I have been lurking the boards here at ENworld for a little while. I have found many valuable resources here for playing, DMing, and have enjoyed reading other groups experiences with this campaign in particular. I thought I would give back to the community by adding in my own experience with WotBS. I'll try and update this regularly as we have our sessions. One of my players makes things easy as he writes a session report and mails it out after each one so I will include it and add my own comments.
A little background of our group. Originally we started playing 4E with about 4 of us last year. 1 DM who was an experienced DM/player and two guys with experience in console/PC RPG/MMO but no table top experience. I have played table top games since I was a kid but nothing in 10 years. Immediately the two newbies fell in love and bought everything 4E related. We have an ample supply of source books, minis, dungeon tiles, and accessories. Later we added a few more players, some experienced some new. We played through the DM's "homebrew" on the fly campaign world which left much to be desired. Eventually the DM just couldn't provide enough "game" for us so I volunteered to take over and DM a campaign that would hopefully provide a little more that meets the players expectations.
I came across WotBS and read a few reviews and session reports and felt like this would do the game justice and bring some of what we were missing to the table. I felt I could add enough flair and excitement that would really grab the players attention and leave them wanting more.
Now mind you I haven't DMed anything in about 20 years, and my DM experience in the past was very limited and involved AD&D, Keep on the Borderlands and some Star Frontiers. I knew I would be rusty but I felt I could learn on the job! I began by prepping as best I could. I purchased the full War of the Burning Sky subscriptiion via this website. I downloaded all the available modules, encounter maps, visual aids, Players Guide and GM's Guide. I read through both guides and started getting familiar with the module. I ended up being a little rushed as we had just begun the Scales of War AP with our old DM after a 2 month hiatus, expecting him to be prepared for a new attempt and he fell flat on his face so the players were clamoring for more and I didn't want to lose the interest.
Immediately we scheduled to begin the campaign on the 27th of February. I had a week and a half to prep. I had everyone generate characters and forward them to me via their builder file. All in all I was going to DM a rather large group of 7 guys. However, history has proven that not all 7 can make every session so I figured on average I'd have 6 each week.
Kristov - Human Chaotic Wild Magic Sorceror -
Cheadle - Gnome Shaman -
Serasith - Dragonborn Warlord -
Erion - Human Wizard -
Trammorn - Dwarven Invoker -
Molokai - Goliath Warden -
Grull - Half Orc - Rogue -
I printed out the encounter maps and purchased a large foam poster board from Office Max. I prepped the first encounter or two by using push pins to secure the battle maps to the board which was placed in the center of our gaming table. I then covered sections of the map with black construction paper to act as a "fog of war". I prepicked all the minis I would use to represent the mobs in the encounters. I picked up the following items for the campaign:
Campaign Coins (a little expensive but awesome addition to the game)
1lb bag of acryllic gems (amazon) - I sorted in various shapes/colors to represent the types of gems and then made seperate bags to house the various values of gems the party could gain over the course of the adventure.
Paizo Weapon/Item/Treasure decks
little blue energy drink "mana potions"
I had a friend's wife make a dozen cloth draw string pouches.
With all this I prepared the treasure parcels by adding the appropriate coinage, generic items, and potions to a pouch with which I would use to hand out to the players to discover as they found them during the course of adventure. I wanted to get to the point where the players would use the campaign coins exclusively and not ever write down any coins/gems on their sheets. Anytime anything involved buying/selling/gaining/losing coins/gems we would have a physical exchange.
After prepping the encounters and treasure I came across a thread by another user where he created Monster Knowledge handouts. I printed all of them and have used them up to this point. I will address these later during the session reports.
To begin the adventure I decided to have each character receive a semi anonymous letter at their tavern/inn/home which requested their presence at the Poison Apple Pub. I wrote a similar letter to each character in MSWord using a fancy calligraphy font. I added a tid bit of something to each latter for each character to make it feel a little more personal. I printed each letter on copper parchment paper I picked up from OfficeMax. I then folded and sealed each letter using a Wax Seal. The seal was a symbol (Fluer De Lis) and then signed by "The Resistance". The letter stressed the importance of their participation and for them to be discrete. I then handed these out to each character to begin the campaign.
Next Post will be Session #1
I might come back and edit this post adding some pictures of the game table, coins, and things I have done.
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Results 1 to 5 of 66
Thread: Game of chance!
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February 21st, 2013 03:21 AM #21Senior Member
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You are Charlotte Rose, and finally engaged! Your partner Nathaniel James just proposed to you! A few months later, you are married and you are about to head off on to your honeymoon, where you are going to:
Your favourite genre of movies/books/tv shows are:
3. Comdies: Los Angeles, USA
A few weeks later, you and your newlywed find out you are expecting! 9 months later:
What time of the day is it for you right now?
3. Evening-You had twin girls!
Names: Elsie Violet & Willa Pearl
A couple of years later you try again! Success!
1. If your name starts with a vowel: It's a Boy!
Name: Hugh Oliver
Suprise! You are pregnant again just after your youngest turns 1!
You can decide what gender your child is-but I choose the name!
Your favourite colour is:Yellow- Sienna Marigold
3 years later, you fall pregnant with multiples!
What colour are your eyes?:
Brown- Triplets: Charlie Madden, Evelyn Audrey & Iris Adelaide
After trying for a few more years, you're unsuccessful. So you adopt. You adopt from:
If your birthday is in: BOYS
Jan-Feb - Ethiopia - Name: Asha Taye
Charlotte & Nate
Elsie & Willa http://img.ehowcdn.com/article-new/e...ls-800x800.jpg
Hugh http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/sh...-kids-book.jpg
Sienna http://ris.fashion.telegraph.co.uk/R...a_2196707a.jpg
Charlie, Evie & Iris http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L09UYEbT3t.../Image025e.jpg
Asha http://www.holtinternational.org/eth...s/eth-baby.jpg


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Here's how she described it to Essence magazine:
Interviewer: You detail your stormy marriage to Anthony 'Treach' Criss, from Naughty by Nature, and the years of abuse he put you through. Have you ever had an opportunity to talk to him, post-divorce, about how it affected you?
PEPA: No, and honestly, he's the one person I'm nervous about reading this, but I had to do it. How do I not tell that part of my life story? This book is not so much about my abuse, but my road to recovery.
Interviewer: For years, there had been industry whisperings about you and Treach's tumultuous marriage. Has he ever reached out to you to apologize?
PEPA: No, and I want to make it clear it is what it is. From what I know, people grow and that might have been who he was in the past. I can't speak for who he is now. Hopefully, this was then. He really is a great father to his kids. I don't want to make him out to be the bad guy. Again, the real story I wanted to tell is more about why I allowed these things to happen to me.
Interviewer: That's truly a blessing. In your book you say that your decision to change your patterns with abusive relationships had to do with your son, Tyran, and Egypt, your daughter with Treach. Did they ever witness the physical abuse and question you about it?
PEPA: No, never physical, but they were often present during yelling and screaming matches. People forget that verbal abuse is equally unhealthy. My kids used to see me crying and depressed all the time, and that can affect kids as well.
You know, we suspected something like this was going on in their marriage. Thankfully she got out of it….


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Vlodia belonged to the brigade of Volinitz and he was the commissar. He continued in a similar job after the war, serving in the department of propaganda and education in the region of Molodechno. Vlodia lived very much in the past, and all that happened during the war was still alive inside him. He loved talking about those old days and recalling the missions of the Partisan units. He would tell of the dedication of the Jewish fighters and tell of their large part in all the missions. One day he asked all the surviving members who were still in the area to go to Volkoviczina, the base of many Partisan missions. For me this was a very bitter reminder of the time of the annihilation of the residents of Kurenets and the surrounding area, and in spite of his excitement about this, I could not take part in it. Although I didn't take part in this nostalgic mission, our friendship still remained strong and he still saw me as his confidant.
In the year 1948, there was much talk in the USSR of new treatment by the authorities for different nationals, and it was decided to give the various nationalities some independence. This was manifested by taking away the political jobs of those who came from other areas and giving them to people who were born locally. So Vlodia's job as politruk for education and propaganda was taken from him and given to a Belarussian. Vlodia was very bitter, and I think in many ways he wanted me to express how he felt to Volinitz, the hero of the Soviet Union who was from here and very popular and loved by the public and the authorities. He figured he could help him keep his job. Eventually, though, the plan to take his job away was canceled and he returned to work there.
Since Vlodia often mentioned the names of Jewish people who took part in the fight, others would say to him, I'm getting tired of your talking about Itzkaleh Einbender and Nyomka Shulman, Bertha Dimmenstein, etc. as if they were the only heroes of the Soviet Union. But these complaints didn't stop Vlodia. He never changed his mind about the role Jews played in the Resistance, and he constantly mentioned in conversation a need to write stories about it in the paper. He wanted to collect all the names of, and detailed information about, the members of the Resistance, Jews and non-Jews. So Vlodia wrote detailed stories about all the missions of the unit and gave them to the secretary of the Communist Party in Molodechno. The secretary was not very excited about the article and said, This is very strange. The Soviet people fought heroically and sacrificed themselves, and now people come around and try to stick this heroic Russian bravery onto the Jews. Until 1953, Vlodia was not able to publish this information, and they didn't even return his original material.
In 1953 they started investigating me, and I am sure it had something to do with Vlodia's story, since in his essay he mentioned my name as one of the members who was still alive in Russia. During the investigation they kept asking me about my missions during my days as a Partisan and why I had decided to work in the German printing house in Vileyka and to serve the enemies of the Soviet Union. During the investigation I kept repeating the story and the explanation as I wrote them here. I emphasized that it was not my idea that I wasn't a member of the Partisans, but I could not convince the investigators until finally Vlodia sent a letter to the investigators explaining how I helped the Partisans by printing pamphlets and by going to the forest, and how I was instructed to go to Vileyka by the Partisans. After the letter they me go, but Vlodia continued to try to get the story published.
In 1956, my wife and children and I went with Vlodia's family to vacation near an amusement park. They had a shooting range in this place where you had to shoot five bottles that stood next to each other. As people watched me shooting, someone yelled, Let's see what this Jew can do, in a mocking voice. Five times I aimed, and each time I made a bottle fall. Vlodia became very excited and said, Yes, yes, we knew how to fight. But who wants to hear about it? He ended the conversation with a hint of disappointment.
During that year, my wife went to the market with Mikhla the daughter of Shaptai Gordon (nee Alperovich?), the sister of Riva. She had heard from her something very exciting that filled us with hope, something about the dream that we couldn't talk about, the dream to immigrate to Israel. Mikhla told her that she had received a letter from my cousin Leah nee Gurevich Shogol saying that she was able to go to Poland, and there she found out that the Polish authorities allowed everyone who lived in Poland before the war to return there so that families could stay together. In the letter she hinted that there was a possibility of emigrating from Poland to Israel. One night we met at the house of Mikhla and Leibl, the son of Alte Zimmerman from Kurenets, and we found out that many of the Jewish families ofKurenets who had survived were also trying to leave Russia through Poland. They decided that I should go to Moscow to the Polish consulate and ask for permission for four families to go to Poland: Moshe Alperovich's, Mikhla and Leibl Zimmerman's, Riva and Shimon Zimmerman's, and mine.
Here I must tell you that my cousin Leah Shogol (the daughter of my first cousin Nathan) did much to help. Since there were family ties, she asked to unite the families. In the Polish consulate in Moscow, I didn't encounter any difficulties. They seemed to want the citizens of the former Polish state to return, but then I had to go to the Department of the Interior. It took a long time for the four families to receive permission.
Here I would like to talk about David Katz. In 1945, the head of the printing house, Leiblin, asked me to find a job for a Jew by the name of David Katz, who had no profession. He was a native of the town of Kerve near Molodechno, and during the war he lived in the forest. On the day he returned to his town after the victory, the residents of Kerve attacked him and tied him to a tree and started beating him. They treated him with brutality and accused him of being an American spy. When the police came by, instead of imprisoning the thugs, they imprisoned David Katz for being an American spy. When Leiblin, who was involved in the Communist Party, found out about it, he talked to the authorities on behalf of David and explained that he was a very simple man who could speak only Yiddish and that it was totally irrational to think he could be an American spy. So now I gave him a job mixing the chemicals. Katzan, whomI mentioned before, was a true anti-Semite; he tortured David on a regular basis and was ready to kill him. One day I found that the pail used to mix the burning lead was filled with water, and if it had been put in the boiler it would have exploded and killed the person in charge of it, who was David Katz. After a short investigation I found it was Katzan who had filled it with water. I immediately called him and said that it was totally unacceptable. I can tell you this because during the days of the war when I was fighting the German tanks, you collaborated with them and you fixed their tanks.
A few times David was able to escape the beatings, but one time at the
Molodechno train station a few men jumped him and beat him up. He went to the
hospital for several days, and when he left he was blind in one eye. He could
no longer work at mixing the lead, and we found him a job cutting paper. But
soon David and the rest of us realized we had no life in the Soviet Union. He
immigrated to Poland and then to Israel long before I was able to reach the
Vlodia contacted the central archive in Minsk, where you could find information on the different Partisan units, and then he expressed his wish to write the story. To my surprise, they were very receptive to this idea and gave their full assistance. So a few days later, a few workers from the Minsk archives arrived in Molodechno and met with Vlodia. They said that they should visit all the places tied to those events. We left Molodechno in two cars, together with the three people from the Minsk archives. First we went to Kurenets, to the house that once belonged to Nathan Gurevich, who was already in Israel at that point. The house was situated on Smorgon Street, which was renamed Partisan Street. This house was one of the only ones left in the market, and now it was Partisan Street. Two Russian teachers lived there. At first when we went there, the two teachers were worried that we had been sent by the authorities to confiscate the apartment that now belonged to them. When we explained our true mission to them, they relaxed. We told them that during the war a Resistance unit that fought the Nazis had come there. They said they had encountered things in the apartment that surprised them. They found the double walls in the attic, and in certain areas the floor was collapsing. I explained to them that this was the house of my uncle, that the area that was collapsing was the cowshed, and that under the ground there was a hiding place where I printed pamphlets against the Nazis, first for the unit in Kurenets, and later for the unit that started in Volkoviczina. As I was telling the story, I remembered that many years earlier I had hidden a knife that I found in our cowshed, wrapped in cloth. Although sixteen years had passed, I wanted to find it. So we started digging in the cowshed and I found it. The knife was all rusted. After telling them some more details, we continued on our way.
We visited the mother of Motyokevich, a member of the Volkoviczina fighters, in the village of Ivonzovitz. As I told you before, the Nazis executed her husband because they weren't able to find her son, who had been sent by the Underground to work for the Nazis as a police officer, and at that post he had managed to kill some Nazi policemen. We also visited the place where Elik Alperovich was killed, and there I told them about Mrs. Haikovitz who waited for us and notified us that the Germans were in town, thus saving our lives. Once again, Vlodia wrote the story and gave it to the publisher of the newspaper in Molodechno, and once again he was told that there was too much about Jews in the story. He then gave the story to another newspaper, Znanaya Nyunisti (Flag of the Youth) and they ran a full-page story; in its center was a picture of the wooden home of Nathan Gurevich and also pictures of a few members of the Partisan group, among them my picture. The material was edited by Irena Magzis and by Alexander Harkevich, who was a Russian.
They edited it as they wished. They mentioned the names of all the Jews who took part in the fighting except for Zalman Gurevich and Josef Norman, who had left the Soviet Union. They made it clear that Jews were a major part of this unit. After the piece was published, Irena Magzis was investigated and fired. Shortly thereafter, they printed the same article in the daily of Molodechno, Salinskaya Gazetta, but in this article they didn't include my picture. At that point I had already asked to leave the Soviet Union for Poland, so it made me unworthy, although the head of the newspaper said it wouldn't be right to include a picture of someone who worked for the paper. This was in 1959. As soon as people found out I was going to leave the USSR, Vlodia came to me and said, You shouldn't do it. Now that you have become known in these articles in the paper, it could affect your future greatly.
Volinitz also came to convince me to stay. I couldn't tell them that my true aim was to go to Israel; rather, I explained that I was born a Polish citizen and that I wished to return to my nation. However, they were both disappointed and parted from me greatly upset. This was November of 1959. During the last evening of my work with the printing press, they had a celebration where they showed much love and respect for me. That evening I also said my good-byes to Kostya and Agassia. They cried quietly while we separated, remembering the strong connection to my family. Kostya told me that he was ready to follow me to the ends of the earth. While we were sitting in our apartment, a big group of young people who worked in the printing house suddenly came in to say their good-byes. They brought a garushka and vodka bottles and started celebrating. They said that they had left in the middle of work to send me off. I begged them to go back to work, and I promised to stay and let them in when they were done. At around midnight they began to come, singing and dancing and drinking as only Russians can, and they stayed until the morning hours. And this is how we left the Soviet Union.
We stayed more than a year in Poland, and in 1960 we arrived in Israel.
I would like to mention something here about the killing of the fifty-four. I wrote about our meeting when he was about fifteen years old when we escaped from Kurenets, in June of 1941. He told me how his family wanted to make sure that he would survive and urged him to go to Russia across the old border. After he separated from his father and the rest of his family he went, alone with a small bag on his back, away from the town, and when he reached the edge of Dolhinov Street, the street that would take you east, a Jewish resident of the town saw him from his window and came out. He called to him in a mocking voice, You are also escaping from town? If I, an adult, will live, we will find a way to work it out with the Germans. I don't panic and escape, so what reason do you have, a young and healthy person, to spread fear and rumors of disasters? Go, you wild guy, go home. Don't unnecessarily plant seeds of fear among the population. Abba ignored this respected elderly Jew's advice and left the town. And for that he could now sit with me and tell of all that he experienced during those years of the Holocaust. But so many years earlier, who knew what would be the right thing to do? So I must point out here that confusion was natural in those horrible days.
After four years of escape, service in the Red Army, disease, and other troubles, Abba Nerutsky returned to Kurenets as a young man of nineteen. As soon as he heard that Kurenets was free, all he wished was to return there. Although he was told that there was no reason to return to Kurenets, that he wouldn't find anyone alive, he still knew he must go there. As long as he didn't fulfill this wish, he would not be able to rest. So for twenty days he traveled in different freight trains until he arrived in Molodechno. During those days and nights he rode through desolate towns where everything was destroyed. From Molodechno he took another freight train to Vileyka and jumped off the train when it stopped for a minute. Then he took the old, familiar road between the two towns, the one with the cedar trees. When I arrived at the place where the town was once located, I saw a desolate and destroyed field filled with broken homes, and I could only see the famous cloister that belonged to them, coming up from the ground. When I arrived at the place that was once the central market, I found that it was empty of homes and people. This was the early morning hour and I was all alone. I sat on a mound of destruction and started crying, not knowing what I should do with myself. While I was sitting there crying quietly, a Christian man came to me and in a voice that had much empathy he started talking. I found out that this was our Bakatz. At this point I didn't know of his generous deeds for the Jewish community of our town. He told me about what occurred here during the war years. He tried to console me by saying that there were other remnants who had survived and gathered here after returning from the forest.
Abba Nerutsky told me that he later encountered members of his distant family. He met Itzhak Zimmerman and his wife Rachel and their two children. He became like their son, and they moved to the house where he was able to recover and find a job. Now Abba told me a story about the killing of the fifty-four. I always felt I belonged to those fifty-four. It was only through the intervention of Mataroz that I was able to survive. Despite the fact that I was able to survive close encounters with death many times, this incident of the fifty-four was the most prominent in my memory. Abba Nerutsky told me that he and other survivors, among them Meir Mackler, took the bones of the fifty-four from the killing field fifteen years later and brought them for Jewish burial. This took place after he became a resident of Vileyka, where he married and worked in the warehouse. He told me about the first year after they returned from the forest, how they met for Yom Kippur in the house of Ruven Dimmenstein and prayed deeply and cried desperately. When he moved to Molodechno and later Vileyka, he kept coming to Kurenets to visit the graveyard. One day when he came to visit, a villager who knew that he was a Jew originally from Kurenets told him that she came from the village of Kalinn and that when she went to the forest near Mikolinova to gather mushrooms, she arrived at the area where they had originally killed the fifty-four. The woman said, I went to gather mushrooms, but then I arrived at the place where the graves of your brothers were located. A huge fear came over me. I saw in the ground, near the graves, many bones of people. When Abba Nerutsky investigated the story, he found out that the residents of the area kept coming to search the graves, thinking that there might be some valuables that had been buried with the people. Immediately, together with Meir Meckler, he searched the graves and found out that the woman was telling the truth. So they gathered the bones and returned them to their graves without saying anything to the authorities.
Every year on the ninth of the Jewish month of Av, they would gather with the survivors and go to the cemetery in Kurenets, where they would mourn the dead. One year on the ninth of Av, they found that the graves were open again and the bones were strewn about, so once again they gathered the bones and returned them to the graves. In the year 1957, during the ninth of Av, many came to Kurenets. The Fiddler family came from Vilna, and one Jew came all the way from Arkhangelsk. During that day they had a meeting to discuss what to do. They decided to take the remnants of the fifty-four from the killing field and bring them for Jewish burial in the old Jewish cemetery of Kurenets. Since many of the Jews were planning to leave the Soviet Union and go to Poland, they knew that this was the last chance to fulfill this commandment and that it should not be left undone. They decided to do it secretly and not notify the authorities, who would not allow such an undertaking.
During the day they hired a horse and buggy, and Abba, who was responsible for the warehouses of Vileyka, brought some new sacks made of burlap and some digging tools, and they quietly went about doing their holy mission. They divided themselves into two groups. One group dug open the original graves and gathered the remnants into the sacks. The second group went to the old cemetery and dug two graves, one for men, the other for women. We did it, said Abba, with broken hearts and our bare hands. We did it deliberately that day, so we could touch our dear ones without anyfilter. Many tears were spilled during those hours, and as much as we could, we separated the bodies of men from women according to the clothes that they wore and other signs, such as long hair and braids. We did it very carefully. Among us there were some women: Chanka Minkov, or Chanka Nehamasheina's (as she was better known) and her daughter Masha, Tzirka Shklir, Zelda (nee Botwinnik) Alperovich (the second wife of Orchik) from Rakov, and Nachamka Zimmerman. They were among the people who gathered the bones. Among the people was Yankeleh Orchik's (Alperovich), who was one who was taken with the fifty-four; I told you the story of how he was able to escape and in the forest help many to survive. Nachamka Zimmerman was able to identify, among the bodies, Pesia Yente Zukovzky, the mother of Chaim Zukovzky and Dvoshel Zukovzky, the gentle soul, the talented Kurenets teacher who founded the youth movement Hashomer Ha'zair in Kurenets. Nachamka was able to recognize the clothes of Pesia Yente, who was hiding at her house together with her son Chaim when the Nazis came to take them, and recognized the clothes she was wearing when she was taken away. People said the clothes survived all those years because of something special in the land in the area that kept them in good shape.
After they gathered all the bones, they took them to the Jewish cemetery and covered the new graves with earth. They recited prayers of mourning and left the area, hoping that the authorities would never find out about what they had done. But the authorities did find out and started investigating them, emphasizing that this could cause disease since they had used their bare hands to transfer the bones. Abba said that if they were so worried about the public health situation, why were they not concerned about the many times the graves were opened by the villagers, who didn't use any special care when they exposed the dead bodies during their treasure hunts. On the other hand, we, who did it out of special commitment to our dear ones, you now find a reason to complain and to punish us? Abba said it to them in a very bitter way. He said that among the investigators there were some sensitive people who understood him and this whole affair ended with no complications. Since most of the people left the area to go to Poland on their way to Israel, they had no time to put gravestones in the cemetery.
Since I didn't take part in these events, and I feel much guilt and see it as a failure on my part, I would like to end my story with this chronicle. I would like to add that in my chronicles I want to bring up not only brave deeds, but also our failures and our inability to fight during those horrible days. We shouldn't be ashamed to express it, because without reporting it, something of the dark atmosphere of those days would be denied, and we would not get a true image of the time.
Top: In the little town of Kurenets in Belarus, the town that is located on the road between Molodechno and Lake Narutz, at Partisan Street #1 there stands a home not different from other homes. Now the family of the teacher Moskvitzeva lives here. They arrived here a short time ago. When they first came, they found strange things in the cowshed that was adjacent to the home. They found a deep area that had been dug out under the floor, and they also found a double wall in the attic. They were very surprised and wondered what the reason for it was. Now this is what happened here some years before:
In the dug-out area under the cowshed, a small oil lamp burned. There, Nachum Alperovich was situated. He had stains of printing dyes and he was sweating. His hands moved quickly, nervously looking for letters. Slowly the letters became words, and here is the first pamphlet: Farmer! Keep your bread. Don't give one seed to the fascists. Help the Partisans.
The first victim of the unit was Ilia (Eliyau) Alperovich from Kurenets, and this is what happened: The Partisan atriad rested after a mission. Ilia Alperovich was the guard. When he realized the Germans had surrounded the unit, he fired a warning shot. There was a bitter battle and the atriad retreated. The shots stopped for no clear reason. Afterward we found out that Eliyau was caught and wounded, and he purposely told the Germans that there was a very large force of Partisans, about 250 people, with the most modern weapons. That was why the Germans stopped shooting and retreated, leaving about forty of their people killed.
When we returned to the base we buried young Ilia with military honors. Only a
few of the unit's members were lucky and survived to see the day of liberation.
Heroic deaths among the members of this unit were Zina Bitzyon, Vladimir and
Nadzadeh Sobol, Bertha Dimmenstein, Victor Sokholov, Yitzhak Einbender, Yora
Bilshov, Binyamin Shulman, Nikolai and Alexander Sherutzin, Noach Dinnestein,
and other heroes, sons and daughters of the Soviet nation. Among the survivors
were Piotr Mikhailovich Donilotskin, the secretary of propaganda of the party
in the town of Molodechno; Nikolai Motyokevich, an engineer and an architect;
Nachum Alperovich, a chief typesetter of the district; Ivan Sherutzin, a member
in the Kollhoz named for Yakov Kolles in the Vileyka district; and Mikhail
Basilik, the leaderof the firefighters in Molodechno.
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text:
A California Highway Patrol Officer and two other drivers were injured in a head-on collision involving four vehicles at 6:33 a.m. on southbound Interstate 5 at Bowman Road.
The Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team (MAIT) is onsite looking into the matter, CHP spokesman said.
Initial reports are that a northbound vehicle lost control for unknown reasons, crossed the center divider and hit the CHP officer ?pretty much head-on? before it spun out and hit two more, he said.
The CHP officer was taken to St. Elizabeth Community Hospital for minor injuries where he was treated and released, the spokesman said.
Two of the involved drivers were taken to the hospital, but the extent of their injuries is unknown at this time, he said.
According to the CHP Website, traffic was backed up about 7:30 a.m. almost to the Gas Point Road exit.
The website indicated traffic breaks were being run from the Cottonwood Hill to slow traffic.
Involved vehicles included a gold Nissan Titan Crew Cab and a Toyota Scion.
Nothing further was available.
Staff Writer Julie Zeeb can be reached at 527-2153, extension 115, or at email@example.com
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text: I had the Org Inc for 2 years and the Inc 2 for about a month. I could go either way on this one. I really like both of them. I have to say though, when using the Inc 2 in my car doc with Nav, I like the Inc 2 better. I think I would get this phone today if they would wave the $30 "upgrade" fee... That fee leaves a bad vibe with me...!