The International Reader

An open letter to New York Mets ownership

2014-11-12T17:25:00.000-05:00

Editorial by: Joel Noe

Editors Location: Lyon, France

Written in response to: Mets Merized Online | metsmerizedonline.com

Dear Mr. Wilpon,

I am talking to you as a die heart fan of the ballclub you own, I am talking to you as someone who majored in finance and accounting, I am writing to you as a web developer of many e-commerce sites and online marketing strategist of ten years, and mostly I am writing because I love the team with my soul and think all the above mentioned traits have led me to the following logical statements.

Over the last few years you have publicly stated that you are broke and keep losing money because of a lack of ticket sales and so on. To satisfy a crumbling fan base you lead us to believe that we are rebuilding for the near future and indeed we are now in a position to do so if only we get more power and better defense up the middle. Furthermore, you have started out this off-season with a reasonable signing of a player that will most likely return more than the actual dollars spent to get him here and I applaud you for that.

However, as a fan who has stuck around for the hard times and a painful rebuilding process that is only now starting to bare fruitful moments I do know that many fans as I are afraid that you are not willing to trade or take on a significant amount of dollars to get us in position to win a championship in the next few years. Similarly, ever since you have been burnt by high price deals with some hefty seasons attached to it you are gun shy to pull the trigger and get us someone who can help us now as well as in the near future and further ignite the passion the burns in all of us that call ourselves Mets fans. Therefore, I am here to think this trough with you and see what business practice is best for a brand like the Mets to gain economically and in productivity.

First one needs not even state that the best way to gain revenue is by putting together a product that is a winning brand. Why? For what you gain by peaking people’s interest in your product is enormous. Take for example the English soccer team of Chelsea and the number of merchandise sold that increased by 62% after the team was sold to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich in 2003 and he invested over £100 million on new players and thus Chelsea became a winning brand. Perhaps you would argue that this is due to the popularity of the English Premier League and while that might be true to some extend I’ll ask you if you know how much merchandise sales have increased for Russian football team Rubin Kazan which in 2006 under new president Alexander P. Gusev have shelled out money to bring in big name international players and for the first time in its history made it into the EUFA League as a formidable team? The answer to that is: 88% increase and around three million jerseys sold worldwide.

Should you want to narrow this to just baseball and look how much winning teams sell worldwide in a sport that is just now getting its bearings in European markets, well, you have found the right person. I live in France ever since 2011 and when first arrived here I have seen almost everywhere people wearing either Yankee caps or Tigers jerseys. Moreover, I have seen less and less people wearing Yankee caps over the last few seasons. When I stop and ask someone why the Yankee cap most people say they know nothing about baseball but they were in NY and they bought it since it seemed to be the most popular item. Why dear Mr. Wilpon should a young kid in England who wants to be up to style want to wear a Yankee cap and the beautiful blue and orange of the Mets? Why do I see the rabbi who does not want to expose his Kipah in France wear a Yankee cap and not a Mets cap?

Let us shift focus on the actual product on the field. We do have some up and coming stars which will be the cream of the best for the next few years to come. Harvey, deGrom, Wheeler, Familia, Mejia, Duda, Black are all coming into their own and few are to come the same way. Now please assess when the best window to win a championship or at least make it to the World Series for this group is. It is either in the next few years with the help of a major power bat or in the longer term with time when your finances will be in order and then either retain the core in addition to signing some big free agents then. Now, what would you say is more logical? Spend the 20 million plus for one impact player now and win a championship in the next few years or be forces to let them go in free agency in a few years? If you wish to return profits on the Mets it is clear that we Mets fans will never let get away with not winning a championship with this core and then lose all our stars without winning anything. You got away with it when Reyes left but can you imagine if you have let Wright go? All this transpired while we had no chance of winning anything but I can assure you if you think that we will be a silent as the Marlins fans think twice.

Therefore, 20 million now and a championship is much cheaper than having to sign four or five to maximum contracts that you will be forced to do so if you wish to have the fan base support behind you and turn the Mets into a profitable entity.

I do not care who that player is as long as it is a 70% chance that he has the impact Mike Piazza had for the team. Remember how overpaying for Pedro has turned out to bring in sales in tickets and merchandise? Hear the call of your fans or I can guarantee you that you will never again make a profit of us Mets fans.

Sincerely

Joel [Rocky] Noe a die-heart fan.

Rare ‘Jewish War Heroes’ comic from 1944 found in box of donated used books

2014-11-02T10:18:00.001-05:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: National Post | Canada
First Reported by: Sarah B. Hood | National Post
Images: comicbookplus.com | National Post

Sylvia Lovegren knew she’d found something unusual while going through a box of used books, but she had no idea how rare it would turn out to be. A volunteer with the Friends of the Kelly Library at St. Michael’s College, Ms. Lovegren helps sort the 70,000 to 100,000 books donated to its fundraising sale every year.

She made the discovery while examining a collection of books relating to the Second World War in case some should be priced above the normal top price of $5. “I opened one up and I thought ‘what is this little piece of paper thing in here?

“It was just tucked inside the pages, and it looked like a comic book, and it had a very graphic design on it.”

Titled Jewish War Heroes and dated 1944, “it was in very good condition, so I thought it was something that had been issued much later,” she says. “But when I looked it up, I found that it had actually been issued during the war — and it was rather scarce. You can get a digital copy of it, but actual copies of it are very hard to come by.”

As Ms. Lovegren discovered, the comic book was the first of three issues published by the Canadian Jewish Congress to highlight the courage and dedication of Jewish soldiers at a time when some Canadians were claiming that Jews weren’t doing enough for the war effort.

In her 2012 book Nazi Germany, Canadian Responses : Confronting Antisemitism in the Shadow of War, Ruth Klein reveals that the comic books were among numerous strategies of the CJC’s War Efforts Committee “to counteract the myth about Jewish ‘shirking.’”

Ms. Klein writes that the committee opened recruiting centres in Toronto and Montreal and kept careful track of enlistment figures, which were then circulated to media. They also held rallies across the country, circulated a monthly journal called Jews in Uniform and provided practical support to soldiers in the form of “comfort boxes” sent overseas and servicemen’s centres in Canada.

The first issue of Canadian War Heroes documents the career of Hamilton native Bert “Yank” Levy, who wrote a well-known book on guerilla warfare techniques, and even made the cover of Life magazine in 1942, as well as two recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (Brigadier Frederick Hermann Kisch and Alfred Brenner); General Morrice Abraham Cohen, an aide-de-camp to Sun Yat-sen, and Soviet submarine captain Israel Fisanovitch.

Ms. Lovegren has only located a few other copies of the comic book. “There are two library-bound copies in Toronto; this one was still pristine, without anybody fiddling with the binding,” Ms. Lovegren says. “Other than that, there is a copy in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC and one in the National Library of Israel. It’s a very important little artifact. It was very thrilling to find it and to realize what it was.”
It would be tricky to fix a price on such a find, says Peter Birkemoe, owner of Toronto comic book shop The Beguiling. “With any Canadian wartime comics, it is more difficult than most comics, because there aren’t published records of sales figures like there are for things that trade hands more often; particularly for older comic books where the number of existing copies is fewer than 100.”

At auction, he says, if there was competition between bidders interested in Canadian or Jewish items, or collectors attracted by its rarity, “your low end would be in the $1,000 range; your high end would be close to five figures.”

This isn’t the first treasure that’s turned up among the donations, says Caroline Di Giovanni, President of the Friends of the Kelly Library. Past highlights include valuable nature prints, books relating to Marshall McLuhan and unique music memorabilia from Father Owen Lee, a regular panelist on the Texaco Opera Quiz. This year, notable donations include music scores, books on heraldry and Gaelic language and “a complete collection of 19^th-century Trollope books,” says Ms. Di Giovanni.

Saturday is the final day of this year’s sale. Jewish War Heroes will be on display but not for sale; the library will likely keep it.

French, German leaders visit Nazi massacre site in central France

2013-09-04T06:38:00.001-04:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: France 24 | France
First Reported by: News Writes | AFP

French President Francois Hollande and German counterpart Joachim Gauck on Wednesday pay a landmark visit to the ghost village of Oradour-sur-Glane where 642 people were massacred by Nazi troops during World War II.

Gauck is the first German leader to visit the site in west-central France, where ruins from the war have been preserved as a memorial to the dead.

At a joint press conference Tuesday ahead of the visit, Hollande praised Gauck's visit as a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation.

"You have made the choice (to visit the site), it honours you, and at the same time it forces us, once the past has been acknowledged, to go boldly into preparing the future," Hollande said.

Gauck said he had accepted the invitation to visit the site with "a mixture of gratitude and humility".

He said he would not shy away from pointing out to others during the visit that "the Germany that I have the honour of representing is a different Germany from the one that haunts their memories".

The ruins they will visit include a church where women and children were locked in, before toxic gas was released and the building set on fire.

Some 205 children aged under 15 were among victims of the June 10, 1944 atrocity which left deep scars in France.

After the war, French General Charles de Gaulle, who later became president, decided that the village should not be rebuilt but remain a memorial to the barbarity of Nazi occupation. A new village was built nearby.

In 1999, French president Jacques Chirac dedicated a memorial museum which includes items recovered from what became known as the 'Village of Martyrs'.

They include watches stopped at the time the owners were burnt alive, glasses melted from intense heat and other personal items.

The highly symbolic visit follows a 1984 commemoration when then French president Francois Mitterrand and former German chancellor Helmut Kohl joined hands while attending a memorial service for fallen soldiers at Verdun.

The Battle of Verdun (February-December 1916) claimed the lives of more than 700,000 soldiers and came to symbolise the horror of war for both the Germans and the French.

Hollande and Gauck will make speeches and visit the village square, where the residents were rounded up by German troops ostensibly to have their identity papers checked. The women and children were then locked up in the church while the men were taken to a barn where machine guns awaited.

They will be accompanied by two of the three living survivors, including Robert Hebras, 88.

Hebras, who was 19 at the time of the massacre, survived as he was buried under the corpses of others who were machine-gunned.

"I was consumed by hatred and vengeance for a long time," he said, adding that Gauck's visit came at an opportune time.

"Any earlier would have been too soon," he said, adding: "We must reconcile with the Germans."

Germany in 2010 reopened a war crimes case into the attack when a historian discovered documents implicating six suspects in their 80s.

The suspects, aged 18 and 19 at the time, allegedly ordered the inhabitants to assemble in the village square.

Prosecutors eventually identified 12 members of the regiment who were still alive after trawling through files of the Stasi secret police in the former communist East that came to light after German reunification in 1990.

A case has been opened against seven of them. The other five have already served sentences in France.

Gauck, a former East German human rights activist, has already paid two visits to the sites of Nazi mass killings in Europe; the Czech village of Lidice near Prague in 2012 and the Italian hamlet of Sant'Anna di Stazzema in March this year.

Body found floating in Lake Ontario, reportedly wrapped in garbage bag

2013-05-23T14:21:00.000-04:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Canadian Post | Canada
First Reported by: Kim Brown | National Post

The Toronto Police Marine Unit recovered a body from Lake Ontario Wednesday afternoon.
Police have identified the person as female.

Officers were on routine patrol when they found the body shortly after midday. Reports say the body was wrapped in a garbage bag.

The woman was floating about 30 metres south of the sea wall at Yonge Street and Queens Quay.
The homicide squad is handling the investigation.

78 Year Old Man Commits Suicide in Protest to Gay Marriage

2013-05-22T09:31:00.000-04:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: France24 | France
First Reported by: Jean Luc Sanna | France

A writer known for his far-right views committed suicide in the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in central Paris on Tuesday, prompting authorities to evacuate the building.

Dominique Venner, the author of many history essays that often decried immigration in France and the decline of European civilizations, was 78 years old.

Police sources say he shot himself in front of the altar of the famous church in the early afternoon, pulling out a pistol and putting it in his mouth, before pulling the trigger.

Venner’s last post on his website, published earlier in the day, appeared to indicate that his dramatic suicide was a way to protest against a recent law legalizing gay marriage in France.

He called on people to join a protest on May 26 against the controversial law.

"It is here and now that our destiny is at stake. This second is as important as the rest of a life. That is why it is important to be yourself until the last moment,” he wrote.

Notre Dame, which this year is celebrating its 850th anniversary, is one of the biggest destinations for tourists visiting the French capital.

The cathedral contained around 1,500 visitors at the time of the suicide, all of whom were then evacuated without incident, said France’s Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who visited Notre Dame following the incident.

“I can only imagine the shock for these people, both faithful and tourists,” he said.

“Notre Dame … is one of the biggest symbols of the capital and the country and we can only imagine the impact that this [act] will have.”

It was the second dramatic suicide in less than a week in Paris, after a 50-year-old man with a history of family problems shot himself dead Thursday in a primary school near the Eiffel Tower, in front of about a dozen stunned children.

Venner’s suicide was later hailed as a political gesture by National Front leader Marine Le Pen.

"All respect to Dominique Venner whose final, eminently political act was to try to wake up the people of France," Le Pen said on Twitter, though she added later that "it is in life and hope that France will renew and save itself".

Bruno Gollnisch, a senior National Front figure and member of the European Parliament also paid tribute to Venner, referring to him as an “extremely brilliant intellectual”.

"I think his dramatic gesture is a protest against the decadence of our society," Gollnisch told BFM TV.

In a final essay on his website, Venner railed against France's adoption of a "vile law" legalizing gay marriage and adoption.

The gay marriage bill has sparked numerous protests in France, with many on the right bitterly opposed to the act. The bill was finally signed into law by President François Hollande on Sunday.

Venner also denounced immigration from North Africa which, he said, was the real "peril", calling on activists to take measures to protect "French and European identities".

In what appeared to be a reference to his suicide, Venner wrote: "There will certainly need to be new, spectacular, symbolic gestures to shake off the sleepiness... and re-awaken the memories of our origins."

"We are reaching a time when words must be backed up with acts," he added.

Venner fought for France in the 1954-62 Algerian War of Independence and was a member of the OAS (Secret Armed Organization), a short-lived paramilitary group that opposed Algeria's independence from France.

He went on to have a long career publishing right-wing essays, military histories and books on weaponry and hunting.

Father Admits to Killing His Children

2013-05-22T08:58:00.001-04:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: France24 | France
First Reported by: News Writes | UK - France

A 48-year-old British national admitted to French police on Sunday that he slit the throats of his two children, aged 5 and 10. The children's bodies were discovered Saturday at his apartment in Saint-Priest, a suburb of Lyon.

A 48-year-old divorced Briton locked in a bitter custody battle confessed on Sunday that he had killed his two young children by slitting their throats near the eastern French city of Lyon.

The bodies of a five-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy were discovered on Saturday afternoon in the man's apartment in Saint-Priest, a southeastern suburb of Lyon.

The unemployed father confessed to the gruesome crime "but did not go into details of the motive", prosecutors said.

The tragedy was "linked to a bitter separation" and "the state of his visitation rights which he considered insufficient", another judicial source told AFP.

"In 2010, there was an incident of violence with his spouse which led to restrictions on his visitation rights," the source said.

He was arrested on Saturday evening in Lyon and placed in custody. A judicial official said a knife which is thought to have been the murder weapon had been found.

The man had visitation rights but only in the presence of another person, the official said, adding that this was the first time he had brought the children home to his apartment on the second floor of a four-storey building without a third party being present.

He remained in custody late Sunday and was to be presented to a prosecutor on Monday when he was expected to be charged.

Police were also questioning his ex-wife, notably to learn more about "the legal framework of the children's visits to their father".

"We understand that a British national has been arrested in France," a Foreign Office spokesman told AFP. "We are in contact with the French authorities and we await the outcome of their investigation."

Several witnesses said the man fled on roller skates after his former wife encountered him on the stairwell of the building and saw him with bloodstained clothes. She immediately alerted the police.

A neighbour said the mother was soon joined by relatives, including her brother-in-law and the children's grandparents, and was lucid although in shock.

A psychiatrist from the emergency services was immediately dispatched to give her counselling.

"They were devastated but relatively composed," the neighbour said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"She said: 'He has killed them'. I tried to comfort her saying we didn't know as yet although I knew at the bottom of my heart that they were dead."

Ahmed Benguedda, another neighbour, told AFP the couple had divorced "two or three years ago" and that the man had drinking problems and was a wife beater.

After the divorce the wife, who worked as an assistant accountant, moved out of the apartment they had jointly bought and was living in the Isere region of eastern France.

But the children were "well-balanced", said Benguedda, whose seven-year-old daughter often played with them.
"All the people in this building are in a state of shock," Benguedda said.

More neighbors were being questioned by the police on Sunday.

Alleged Auschwitz Guard Arrested in Germany on Monday

2013-05-08T12:11:00.000-04:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Der Spiegel | Germany
First Reported by: Efraim Zuroff | Simon Wiesenthal Center
Image Credit: Yad Vashem Archives | Date: May 27, 1944

Hans Lipschis, a 93-year-old thought to have been a guard at Auschwitz, was arrested in Germany on Monday. The Lithuanian-born man, who was added to the Simon Wiesenthal Center's most wanted list last month, says he was only a cook. But prosecutors believe he supported the killing in his role as a guard.

A man thought to have been a guard at the Auschwitz death camp has been arrested in Germany on suspicion of having assisted in the mass murder carried out there, the Stuttgart public prosecutor's office said on Monday.

A doctor had examined 93-year-old Hans Lipschis and found him to be fit for detention and a judge remanded him in custody. "We will try to ascertain what he did in Auschwitz," a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said.

Lipschis is believed to have been in Auschwitz from autumn 1941 until it was liberated in early 1945. He was added to the Most Wanted Nazi War Criminals list kept by the Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem in April. The Wiesenthal Center welcomed the arrest.

"This is a very positive step, we welcome the arrest, I hope this will only be the first of many arrests, trials and convictions of death camp guards," the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Efraim Zuroff told AFP news agency.

Lipschis told Welt am Sonntag newspaper in April that he had only been a cook in Auschwitz. But investigators said he was "under strong suspicion of having supported the murders in the concentration camp," the office said in a statement.

More than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, were murdered in Auschwitz.

The prosecutors office has been investigating him since November 2012. He was arrested because authorities believed he might leave the country. He has a daughter in the US, German media reported.

According to information obtained by the German news agency DPA, Lipschis was a member of the SS "Death's Head" unit that ran the camp. He later worked as a cook for the SS adminstration.

Born in Lithuania, Lipschis emigrated to the US in 1956 and settled in Chicago. He was deported in 1982 because he hadn't told US authorities about his past in the SS. He moved to Germany in 1983 and has lived in Aalen, in south-western Germany, since then.

"Charges against him are being prepared," said the prosecutor's office.

Late Push on War Crimes

The arrest followed news last month that Germany's central office for investigating Nazi war crimes had launched a major push to bring Nazi death camp guards to justice and had obtained a list of 50 former Auschwitz guards still living in Germany.

The Central Office of the Judicial Authorities for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes said it had received the list of names of Auschwitz guards from the museum at the memorial site. The office is now checking which of the men, most of whom were likely to have been members of the SS, could stand trial.

Schrimm's office is exploiting a recent re-interpretation of German criminal law in order to bring to justice people who were small cogs in the Holocaust machine -- men and women who had hitherto been spared prosecution because they couldn't be proven to have committed specific crimes, and could hide behind the argument that they were following orders.

Prosecutions have been made easier by the precedent set by the trial of Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, found guilty by a Munich court in May 2011 and sentenced to five years in jail for being an accessory to the murder of 28,060 Jews while he was a guard at Sobibor in occupied Poland.

Since the Demjanjuk trial, prosecutors no longer need to establish culpability in specific murders to secure a conviction. Having been a guard is now seen as proof enough of having assisted in murder.

The crucial piece of evidence against Demjanjuk was his SS identity card from Sobibor. He died in a nursing home in the southern Bavarian town of Bad Feilnbach in March 2012, after being released pending his appeal.

Shark Attack: French honeymooner killed in attack in Reunion

2013-05-08T11:48:00.000-04:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Le Local | France
First Reported by: Rémi Vert & Jean Roidiller | France

A French honeymooner was attacked and killed by a shark on Wednesday while he was surfing not far from the beach on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion, authorities said.

The 36-year-old was in the sea off the popular beach of Brisants de Saint-Gilles when a shark charged at him twice, prompting a nearby swimmer to raise the alert when he saw blood on the water, the local prefecture said.

Lifeguards jumped in the water to fetch the victim, who had lost a lot of blood and was in cardiac and respiratory arrest. They brought him back to the beach but were unable to revive him.

The shark had bitten the surfer on the arm and on the thigh. His wife was on the beach when the attack happened, and is being treated for shock, authorities said.

The deadly shark attack was the first this year on the island, where three people were killed by sharks in the past two years.

Last summer, another surfer in the Reunion island was attacked by a shark that tore off his arm and leg, although he survived.

Sharks are not man-eaters, but sometimes mistake humans for their natural prey, like seals or tortoises, and at other times hurt surfers as they "mouth" them out of curiosity, experts say.

Last year, 78 shark attacks were reported around the world, of which eight were fatal.

The series of shark attacks in the Reunion island has seen a number of measures implemented. Local authorities have initiated several scientific studies to try and better understand the way of life of the animals.

People have also been deployed near beaches on boats or in the water to keep an eye on swimmers and surfers and spot sharks before they attack.

Five feared dead in Malta boat accident

2013-05-08T11:36:00.000-04:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Le Local | France
First Reported by: Audry Bourésaud - AFT | France

Five French tourists were feared dead on Wednesday after their boat apparently capsized in stormy seas in Malta, where rescuers have recovered three unidentified bodies.

US Navy and Italian coast guard aircraft joined in the increasingly desperate search for five French tourists off Gozo, one of three islands that make up the Maltese archipelago.

The five had been on their way back by boat on Sunday to their yacht, El Pirata, after dinner on shore during a Mediterranean cruise, witnesses said.

Rescuers said they had recovered the bodies of two women wearing life jackets on Tuesday and the body of a man on Wednesday and that they believe they are three of the five people missing.

The man's body was plucked from the water by a Maltese army helicopter in the area, where strong winds made the search more difficult.

The capsized boat has also been found.

"We are still in the process of identifying but we have no other reports of missing people," said a spokesman for Maltese military, which is in charge of coast guard operations in the island nation.

Maltese officials named the five as Marie Grimaud, 38, Philippe Grimaud, 41, Sandrine Gaudet, 36, Elias Chonouni, 49 and his 14-year-old son Eli.

The news website Malta Today reported that Malta is in contact with French authorities.

The yacht was moored off the picturesque village of Dwejra in Gozo. The alarm was raised on Monday by the yacht's skipper, a Spaniard, who had remained on board the vessel.

Russian dash cam: restoring faith in humanity

2013-05-08T11:20:00.001-04:00

Dashboard cameras are a wonderful piece of technology. Over the past year or so, they have exploded in popularity, especially embraced by Russian motorists.

Why, a quick YouTube search using the term ‘dash cam’ turns up nearly 768,000 results, with an umpteenth portion of them showing some of the most positively, absolutely, undeniably outrageous motoring transgressions from Russian roads.It is easy to draw an unfavourable impression, but that is where this compilation comes into play.

It is some of the most heartwarming footage we have ever seen on the road.Within the first few seconds, you know things are going to end well thanks to the positively beautiful (and sappy) music, enough to conjure images of rabbits frolicking in fields of flowers, deep blue skies and rays of sunshine.For the next five minutes, you will see the absolutely simplest of actions speaking much louder than words: Countless motorists helping elderly pedestrians cross busy streets, stopping for small animals (including a family of ducks) and helping out drivers stuck in snowbanks by any means necessary — even if it means lifting up the rear end of a Lada.But that’s not all.

The most undeniably heartwarming part comes 50 seconds into the video, where one driver stops to help up someone with crutches who has fallen down.We prescribe this video to help alleviate today’s case of the Mondays.

Trust us, it will help.

The Invisible Chassidishe Maidel (Chassidic Girl)

2013-01-30T19:26:00.000-05:00

Story written by: Shula Rosen

Originally written for: The Kenyon Review | USA
Author's notable achievements: John Crowe Ransom Poetry Award | 1994

Shmuel Pearlmutter had never looked at a woman. Yes, he had a vague recollection of what his mother looked like, since he had caught a definite glance at her stooped dotage two days earlier when she fed him soup at her apartment. But an actual woman, aside from his mother, was as familiar a sight to the Jerusalem-born chossid as the Grand Canyon. However, Shmuel had to wage a continual battle against thoughts of women—instant imaginings that would fly around him with the quiet yet persistent whine of mosquitoes he could not quite slap away without striking himself. It wasn’t an uncommon problem, but it was one for which there was only one solution, aside from leaving the tragedy and the comedy that was the life of the body and uniting his soul with the angels.

No, it wasn’t his time yet to leave this world, Shmuel thought, as he navigated his way through the confused human traffic that congested Kikar Shabbat in Mea Shearim on a Friday morning. Since no one was really sure who exactly had the right-of-way in the complex pedestrian maze, just crossing the street brought the possibility of death quite near, and so he always mumbled a spontaneous prayer at the crazed intersection.

When he reached the other side of the street and made his way past stalls selling snoods for ladies, yet-to-open Torah bookstores, and takeout places doling out cartons that exhaled Shabbat delicacies, he seemed to feel a lightly perceptible embrace, a confirmation that no, he was not yet ready for death. Nor was he ready to get married. So he should stop entertaining even the merest thought of glancing at a woman. And if he was unable to get these thoughts out of his head, well then, he would force himself to visit the local shadchan, Mendel the Matchmaker, a bossy lifelong neighbor. This would be the only way to rescue his soul and mind from the gaping red jaws of transgression. In any case, that was the way he would threaten himself.

The-Invisible-Chassidishe-Maidel-2 by rockyn2233

It reminded him of the way his half-blind and almost completely toothless bubby used to warn his younger sister that if she didn’t hold the havdalah candle higher during the ritual marking the end of the Sabbath, she would be destined to marry a dwarf.

Shmuel had done it again, and now he had to make a run for it. He was ashamed that, only a second after G-d had saved his life while crossing the hazardous Kikar Shabbat, he had to avert his mind from the momentary desire to glance at the rear-end of a woman walking in front of him. He had no idea whether or not her rear-end was worth dragging his soul from its lofty perch down into a corrupt glance or not, because he managed to flick away this buzzing thought to look before his eyes obeyed. It required a vigilant, nimble mind to swat away such thoughts before they led his pupils to their target. He sometimes suffered insomnia and nervous exhaustion as a result, but a pure life required that the sentinel of the mind constantly be on duty.

Where Shmuel felt his failure most keenly was in avoiding the contemplation of the forbidden matter after the danger of gazing at it had already passed. Just after he had succeeded in not looking, he would wonder whether the turbaned woman pushing her infant in the second-hand stroller wore thick brown stockings, unkind to the eye, or faintly sheer black hose, which, if stretched, might betray a shade of flesh in the sunlight. Was her rear-end plump yet firm like the fat end of a ripe, blushing pear? He had only caught a glimpse of the back of her turbaned head, but he had become an expert at reconstructing the complete physique of a woman from an instant spent turning away from the sight of the back of her neck or the width of her shoulders, the way archeologists, from analyzing a single, remaining dry bone, can determine the age, approximate weight, the possible profession, and likely cause of death of those deceased a hundred years.

Shmuel had reached the door of the synagogue, fifteen minutes early for the morning prayers, when he realized the woman he had passed ten minutes ago was still on his mind. It was horrifically vivid, as if he were gazing into a mirror and saw her reflection instead of his, howling back at him, giving him a salacious and sinister wink. It hardly mattered that he did not actually look at the woman, but was accidentally confronted by the black stubble peeking from beneath her turban or her somewhat intimidating stiff back and broad shoulders. It didn’t matter that he obeyed the rabbinical injunction not to gaze at women, not even their little fingers, but he was gazing at the fantasy of the woman he had constructed in his mind. This is even worse, thought Shmuel, than if I had taken a good long look at her rear-end or her breasts, since as his rebbe taught, a sin in thought does more spiritual damage that a sin in action. Thought penetrates more deeply into the soul’s core than action. So why not actually look next time, thought Shmuel, perform the action with the eyes, since merely entertaining such ideas does more spiritual damage?

And Shmuel continued, “Why stop there?” At that moment, he was only half-certain the thoughts were merely theoretical, but was relieved that no one had yet shown up at the synagogue, as if his rushing thoughts might make noise, or even elicit a shriek from the imagined prey. “And why stop there?” Shmuel’s mind repeated, almost trancelike. “Why not grab her tuchis next time? Or one of her breasts? Why not both?” While he imagined fleeing into an alleyway after getting a quick handful of flesh encased in a fabric wrapping, his mind did not flee, but savored the imagined sensation.

“All right! This is it!” Shmuel said out loud, as his mind was transformed from that of a tuchis-grabbing fugitive on the lam in the back alleys of Mea Shearim to that of a stern cheder rebbe threatening an entire classroom of rowdy thoughts with the wave of a stick. “I will go talk to Mendel the Matchmaker after morning prayers. Only a modest wife can rescue my soul from the sewer of my mind.”

“She has to be a modest girl.” Shmuel gave careful instructions to the burly, tawny-bearded chossid who had laid out on his cluttered desk several pages of biographical data from relatives of prospective females.

“A virgin?” Mendel’s voice, which usually had a booming quality, held back its full force as if mocking the delicacy of the subject matter.

“Well of course a virgin!” Shmuel half-thundered, “Would you have me marry a prostitute?”

“Shmuel,” Mendel sighed, scratching the bald spot under his black velvet yarmulke with the kind of exasperated exhaustion that occurs when one feels he is being confronted with chronic yet premeditated stupidity. “Shmuel, you are thirty-six years old. What have you been doing for eighteen years instead of being married like any normal human being? . . . well . . . I can only assume it is because you are conversing with the angels while you are still a soul in a body, but Shmuel, at your age, how can I tell you this . . . ?”

“What are you saying,” Shmuel stood, pulling up his ascetic frame with sudden vehemence and shaking like an angry puppet on invisible strings. “I have to be content with an immodest woman? An apple that’s had a bite taken out of it already? You mean there isn’t a virtuous woman in all of Mea Shearim who will marry me?”

“Look,” continued Mendel, “Shmuel, at your age, the only women I have here are divorced or widowed.”

“Well, who says I need a wife my age!” Shmuel jumped forward. “To start a family, G-d willing, with a woman so old? Thirty-six?”

“I’ll have you know,” Mendel leaned back, his green eyes lacking the slightest trace of envy, blinking at a man whom he was convinced might not really know how babies are made, “That I get a mazal tov. My wife gave birth to our fifteenth child, bli ayin hara, no Evil Eye, five days ago. She is forty-eight years young. You’ll come to the bris if you don’t believe me. So having a wife aged thirty-six does not mean she won’t have children.”

“It’s not just children,” said Shmuel, sitting down again and pointing his finger in the air at Mendel, intent the Matchmaker would at least be forced to hear a clear instruction from him before ignoring it completely. “I want a modest woman. The most modest woman in the world.” His greyish eyes became wet and shone like coins, bathed in the dream of the soft palms of his salvation. “Not just any virgin. A woman who is as incapable of sin herself as she is of inspiring thoughts of sin in others. A woman who is so modest, that no one in the world even knows what she looks like.”

Shmuel’s words gave Mendel a start, and then he sat up, inspired with a fresh plan. “A woman who is so modest no one knows what she looks like?” Shmuel paused before saying “yes,” because he felt slightly intimidated that Mendel had suddenly and inexplicably begun taking him seriously. Mendel’s cheeks were flushed with enthusiasm under his beard. “I have the girl. She is young. Eighteen, I think. She has something, a quality, some would consider it a disadvantage, but it seems to fit what you are looking for.“

Shmuel had been through the routine of being matched up with girls who ranged from being mentally slow to faintly insane. “Is she a . . . dim bulb . . . or a bit . . . off in a dream world? Well, even if so, it’s fine as long as she behaves normally most of the time. But the most important quality,” stressed Shmuel, “is modesty.”

“Oh, she is modest all right,” said Mendel, his eyes dancing in celebration of G-d’s endlessly appropriate ways of fitting minor messes together at opportune times. “She is the Invisible Chassidishe Maidel. She is so modest, no one knows what she looks like.”

After six months of marriage, Shmuel was content. Not to say happy. Happiness was something Shmuel would never dare to aim for, and the conscious pursuit of it might perhaps lead to a step down into the quicksand of vanities, so it seemed safer to treasure the notion of contentment, as imperfect as it would always be. She kept the house clean, fed him meals at regular times, obeyed recipes scribbled down from his mother’s hand. She was never insistent about having marital relations, but never refused him. In any case, Shmuel heard no complaints. Her voice was but a whisper, and she was invisible. Completely invisible.

King Solomon wrote, “charm is deceptive, beauty is for nought.” The patriarch, Avraham, in the first years of marriage, never noticed his wife Sarah was beautiful because his righteousness made him immune to perceiving external beauty. Shmuel felt he might have gone beyond the experiences of even Solomon and Avraham, because after six months of marriage, he still had no idea what his wife looked like. Not the eye color, the shade of the stubble on her bald head which he assumed was covered with some kind of turban or kerchief. He did not know whether her fingers were thin and nimble or round and stubby. In fact, he had never laid eyes on her. Apparently, no one else had either. In Shmuel’s eyes, she was the most modest woman in the holiest neighborhood in the world, Mea Shearim, in Jerusalem.

It was a side effect of her complete invisibility that one day shattered Shmuel’s six-month-long ecstasy of mere contentment.

“Shmuel,” she whispered. “I have tried to be a good wife to you, so I must tell you something.” Shmuel sat down on his chair which was like a throne at the heart of his private kingdom. He felt certain she was going to tell him that, in a few months, she was going to give birth to his child.

“Shmuel, I have tried to be a good wife,” she repeated, “but I must confess something to you. Something that will make me more truly yours than ever before.”

Shmuel started, unaccustomed to such frank and tender words, but was curious to hear what would follow. “Go ahead.”

“As you can see, or rather, can’t see, I am entirely invisible. Incapable of being perceived by the naked eye. But . . . I am . . . ,” she paused for a second, deciding to take another approach in addressing the subject. “Shmuel, I am invisible, but have you ever wondered why you do not see any clothes?”

“Well,” Shmuel paused, feeling something ominous about the impending revelation. “I assume your clothing is invisible too.”

“You silly!” she giggled for the first time in six months of marriage, “Have you ever seen invisible stores selling invisible clothing for invisible people?”

For a moment, Shmuel recalled someone in yeshivah telling him that the goyim tell a story about an emperor who unwittingly walked the streets naked because he thought his clothing was invisible only to him, and no one had the courage to tell him, except for a small child, that he actually had no clothes on. Well, Shmuel thought, among the goyim, anything is possible, but here?

“Well, hasn’t it occurred to you that I am an invisible woman who is completely naked? You cannot see my clothing because I wear no clothing. There is no such thing as invisible clothing. I am modest to the world, since no one can see me, but for you, I am naked. Forever naked for your desire.”

Shmuel felt a feverish, ghostly hand clutch his shoulder and he pushed it away violently, running and sobbing out the door into the street. While groups of chassidic men, some with sidelocks bouncing, hurriedly made their way to the synagogue for evening prayers, Shmuel felt he was entitled to skip prayers because he decided that he was going to lose his mind right there on the street in protest against the Almighty and his apparent tolerance of every immodest thing on His Earth. First, Shmuel overturned a garbage can onto the street, and dozens of fish heads, chewed up bones, and empty cans were vomited into the path of cars. A tire ran over the head of a dead fish and caused it to spit forth its rancid juice which flew onto the front of Shmuel’s starched white shirt.

Next, Shmuel decided to scream at all who passed by that the holiest neighborhood in the world was being invaded by a silent army of invisible nude women who were making mischief and driving men into madness and sin. The pace of the parade of black suits and hats picked up only a bit. The turbaned women, encased in the fabric armor of respectability, pushed their carriages with a tad more urgency into the safety of small food stores, but the reaction was not the conflagration Shmuel had expected, and he felt the slap of their apparent lack of moral indignation.

Shmuel had the notion to start a fire, to burn flammable garbage, preferably well-dried soiled diapers, that would breathe fetid smoke into the stench of corruption that hung like an invisible curtain over the entire world. However, he had no matches, no lighter, and was pretty certain that, after his previous outburst, the man who ran the corner store and was in earshot would be reluctant to sell such items to him. Missing this one opportunity to start a fire in protest formed the sole reason he regretted never taking up smoking.

Shmuel went into the alley and hunted for a good round stone among broken, earth-colored bricks and rubble. He located one round rock, which to him, shone like a diamond. Some inhabitants of the neighborhood, when feeling particularly outraged about something or bored, were known to occasionally throw rocks at violators of the Sabbath or foreign girls wandering, lost in shorts. This time, Shmuel decided to throw the stone at the real culprit, the very G-d who created the stone and the concept of immodesty. Shmuel hurled the stone heavenward, but felt a dull thud on his head before he fell unconscious. The rock that had hit him rolled and rested beside his head as it landed hard on the cold pavement.

Shmuel awoke to warm palms caressing his temples, although he could not see the hands. He was lying on his bed, and his pores absorbed the warm scent of his wife as if she were a fragrant lotion. She kissed him and brought to life his growing desire. His pounding head made him unable to fight off arousal, to resist being pulled into the vortex of lovemaking. At last, Shmuel surrendered to the fire that was fast consuming his life, and he felt an urgent willingness to endure a dozen sentences in Gehinnom, the purification of the soul in the afterlife, for that one night, the first passionate night with his wife, Esther.

Nine months later, Esther gave birth to a son, and Shmuel saw Esther’s cheeks flush red with joy as she cradled the infant to her breast for the first time. He beheld the fragile softness of her milk pure skin, as fresh as the skin of the baby she suckled. Her smouldering amber eyes glistened with silvery tears, her lips, dewy like rose petals, called her husband’s name as if he were an urgently evoked blessing. Shmuel picked up his son, who looked exactly like his wife, who was not only visible now, but beautiful.

“But others now see that she is beautiful,” thought Shmuel, lifting his mind from an open volume of Talmud on the table as female well-wishers filled his home. They carried packages of food on both arms and, in their excitement, nearly interrupted each others’ abundant blessings for the mother and the child. No one referred to Esther’s former condition; the mother was healthy, the baby was healthy, G-d be praised, miracles do happen, especially in this era, when the Messiah will come. As long as the women could see she was in fit condition, healthy and normal now, no further questions were asked concerning her former invisibility. It is slander, lashon hara, to refer to a person’s past, in any case. Now that she was a mother, she would be the focus of their concern and helpful advice, served as generously as a Yiddishe grandmother piling potato kugel, dripping with shmaltz, onto a plate.

“May he grow to learn Torah, to the wedding canopy, to a life of good deeds,” went the endless chorus of blessings uttered by the steady stream of women, who delivered their kind if obligatory words, placed the gifts of food at the table in front of Shmuel, who, as a man, was denied a greeting out of sense of modesty, and made their way cheerfully out the door and back to their family responsibilities. The dozen plastic and foil containers of kugels, fish, chicken, and cakes nearly crowded out Shmuel and his volume of Talmud, but he refused to move. After all, it was his table, even though he was beginning to feel like a ghost haunting his own house.

“She is so beautiful.” Shmuel relished his wife’s modest blushes from across the room in a glance between the pyramids of food, a glance that seemed forbidden. “But these women also notice she is beautiful,” he thought. What if mothers and daughters should discuss Esther’s beauty in their homes? What if the tales of Esther, the woman who was so beautiful that G-d had to hide her beauty and make her invisible until she had a child and had to function in this world, would reach the ears of their husbands and sons? Then admiration among the women would turn to suspicion and fear that would spawn slanderous gossip, thought Shmuel. Now that Esther was visible, she would be vulnerable to the Evil Eye, which strikes almost everyone, according to the Talmud, and, according to bubbemeises, grandmothers’ tales, is responsible for untimely deaths, house fires, misbehavior in children, black moles on the skin, and mouse infestations.

Shmuel wanted to discuss these anxieties with Esther; Mendel the Matchmaker had advised Shmuel, on his wedding night, to have open communication with his wife for the sake of marital harmony. But every time Shmuel approached his wife, whose days and nights were now spent mainly on their satin Victorian couch nursing their newborn, he could hardly manage to get her attention. He brought her a plate of cookies and some tea and said, “Esther, I have something to say.”

“Oh, why won’t you latch onto my breast? Are you hungry, or do you just want me to pay attention to you?” Esther looked down at the baby and scolded him playfully.

At his wife’s utterance of the word “breast,” Shmuel jumped back, lest any further reference Esther might make to her breasts inflame his desire during the weeks following childbirth when he was forbidden by Torah law to be intimate with his wife. Shmuel returned to his volume of Talmud and averted his eyes and thoughts from his newly visible wife, whose entire focus was the child to whom she had given birth.

“His name in Israel will be Aaron Ben Shmuel,” the rabbi announced above the cries of the baby following his circumcision. The sandek, who had the honor of holding the baby during the ritual, handed the quivering baby to a bystander, who gave the baby a cloth dipped in red wine to suck for comfort. Aaron was passed through several pairs of hands until he reached his father, Shmuel, who clumsily grasped the small body which was now still. As Aaron sucked the wine from the cloth, his eyes were uplifted, and, for a second, the baby had the appearance of a holy mystic rapt in contemplation, before fixing his eyes on Shmuel with the silent, puzzled question: “And who are you?”

“You can grab him, you know. He isn’t made of glass.” Mendel the Matchmaker snatched the baby from Shmuel and demonstrated the correct method of infant manipulation. “They like you to grab them firmly. It makes them feel protected.” Mendel held the baby up as he would a loaf of store-bought challah, squeezing it slightly to see if the loaf of bread had not turned stale before the Sabbath. Aaron, while sucking on the wine-soaked cloth, drifted to sleep in the arms of the stranger and expert father.

“How am I ever going to know what to do with him?” Shmuel asked Mendel. “I can’t even hold him correctly.”

“You’ll learn,” said Mendel. “Trust me. I have fifteen children, bli ayin hara, no Evil Eye. If I can do it, so can you.” Mendel took a dull knife in his left hand and smeared hummus on his roll, which he awkwardly kept steady with his left forearm while holding the sleeping newborn in the the curve of his right arm.

“How will I learn?” Shmuel eyed the food on the table and decided he wasn’t hungry.

“Like we learn anything in life,” chewed Mendel. “By messing up.”

“What if I mess up the baby?” Shmuel suddenly felt irritated that Mendel was eating during the discussion and felt a desire to either grab his son from Mendel’s arms or throw Mendel’s roll across the table.

“We mess them up. It happens. Especially the oldest. That is why the Torah gives the lion’s share of the inheritance to the oldest child. As compensation for the parents’ mistakes.”

“I don’t want to do this!” Shmuel stood. “I’m going to leave!” he declared, not certain whether he meant leaving the bris to go home, leaving Mea Shearim, or leaving the world. As Shmuel rushed to the door, Mendel stood and gave him a parting gift.

“Shmuel, here,” he handed his friend the newborn. “Don’t forget your son.”

It was not the custom in Esther’s family for mothers to attend their sons’ circumcision ceremonies. Shmuel wasn’t sure whether this was to safeguard the mother’s modesty or to spare her from witnessing such a procedure on a child she had just given birth to a few days earlier. Although he was sure his house would still be filled with female relatives and guests assisting his wife, Shmuel felt a sudden urgency to speak to her.

About what, he only had a vague idea. His head was rushing with burning love for her and terror for the fate of all three of them. No longer nervous about holding the baby, Shmuel ran down the street, and almost pushed a few slow, stout, turbaned women aside. He had to hurry home while the child was asleep and he could get Esther’s attention. He had to look into her eyes at a time when there would be no distractions.

Shmuel felt a sudden thud on the top of his head and saw a torrent of miniature rain pouring down the brim of his hat and soaking his beard. Laughter broke out of an open window above him, and the head of a pimply twelve-year-old boy with ginger sidelocks nearly disappeared into the apartment. Shmuel put his left hand on his head in search of the weapon and found it; the remains of a small, clear plastic bag that was the boy’s makeshift water balloon. Aaron’s eyes opened and held Shmuel in a confused gaze, since he still wasn’t sure who this dripping man was, before he cried. Now the baby was awake, and the private moment Shmuel wanted to steal away to speak with Esther was lost forever, thanks to a mindless prank. Shmuel, with his crying son in hand, ran to the entrance of the building so he could ascend the staircase and, even with only one free arm, strangle the young assailant.

“Fishel!” Mendel, who had been walking behind Shmuel, called to his son, the water balloon thrower, whose head reappeared. “You are going to be punished! Where is your mother?”

“Busy with the baby,” Fishel answered meekly. “Their fifteenth baby,” Shmuel silently recalled Mendel telling him. “Bli ayin hara. No Evil Eye.”

“This is chaos!” protested Shmuel above the cries of the infant. “Can’t your wife control that kid?!”

“Rainfall, women, and children,” Mendel laughed. “If we had any ability at all to control these things, G-d would never have given them to us as blessings.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Shula Rosen recently wrote, directed, and acted in an evening of monologues, "Women of Valor," expressing two true experiences of unusual orthodox Jewish women. The play premiered at the Stage One Festival, Jerusalem, 2012. Currently, she is working on a novel, Zelda's Demon, and was awarded the John Crowe Ransom Poetry Award at Kenyon College in 1994.

Lost Foods of New York City: Vichyssoise

2013-01-20T11:39:00.000-05:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Capital New York | USA
First Reported by: Leah Koenig | CNY - USA

Quick: what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of cold soup?

Chances are pretty good that it’s gazpacho, or perhaps some kind of smoothie-textured fruit soup. But flash back a century and any New Yorker’s answer to that question would undoubtedly have been one and the same: vichyssoise—the ultra-creamy, chilled potato and leek soup that stole the city’s (and the country's) heart in the early 1900s.

Vichyssoise has, as its name suggests, distinctly French roots, but its soul belongs to Manhattan. The dish was created by a chef named Louis Diat, who modeled it after a beloved leek and potato soup his doting mother made him as a boy growing up in Montmarault, France. In 1910, the 25-year-old Diat moved to New York to be chef de cuisine at the just-opened Ritz-Carlton hotel. Seven years later, he offered his first bowl of crème vichyssoise glacée to hotel diners.

The soup was a feat of seasonal magic making. Diat's mother's version had been served like most soups are: warm. But according to Diat’s 1957 obituary in the New York Times, "The hotel took special pride in its summer roof-garden restaurant, and [Monsieur] Louis worked hard at dishes to tempt appetites stunned by New York summers." His ingenious solution was to take the hearty potage of his youth, thin it with ample amounts of milk and cream, and serve it chilled. He named the dish after Vichy, the well-known spa near his hometown.

Customers were immediately delighted. A 1950 New Yorker profile of Diat reported that he “put [the soup] on the menu every evening that summer, and every summer thereafter. He took it off during the cold weather, but got so many requests for it in all temperatures…that in 1923, he put it on year-round."

Like many New York hotel chefs before him, Chef Diat specialized in developing flamboyant, French-inspired recipes, which he liked to name after customers and celebrities. During his remarkable 41-year tenure, he dreamed up countless dishes including: Chicken Gloria Swanson (chicken sautéed in white wine and cream and served with mushrooms and truffles), Fillet of Sole Lincoln (sole cooked with oysters and shrimp) and Pears Mary Garden (stewed pears crowned with raspberry ice and sauce). But Diat's greatest and longest-lasting legacy was his vichyssoise.

The soup soon migrated from the Ritz-Carlton to menus across New York and the country, where it stayed popular for decades. As late as 1960, nearly half a century after it was first introduced, pioneering food writer Clementine Paddleford wrote, "Today, every New York restaurant of any rating serves the soup, and no two alike." In 1971, vichyssoise gained real (if unfortunate) street cred as a truly “American food” by landing at the center of a botulism scare. A tainted can of Bon Vivant-brand vichyssoise was traced to the death of a man in Westchester County, New York and the paralysis of his wife. As a result, the food company recalled the offending product and, thanks to its heavily tarnished image, filed for bankruptcy a month later.

Today, vichyssoise is not an entirely lost food. Classic and updated versions are available at a handful of restaurants across the city—like the caviar-dotted ramp vichyssoise served at Saxon and Parole or Lucien’s cucumber and mint vichyssoise made with fat-free buttermilk and garnished with grilled shrimp. But Diat's original is simply too French and too rich to enjoy wide rotation in today's rustic-food-minded, fat-phobic culture.

Luckily, in the privacy of one's own kitchen, there is no one around to shame you out of folding heart-stopping amounts of butter, whole milk, and heavy cream into the soup pot. And while Diat insisted that his soup be served icy cold, if that does not appeal or the season doesn’t quite call for it, it tastes equally delicious warm.

Crème Vichyssoise Glacée
Recipe slightly adapted from the one included in Chef Louis Diat's 'New York Times' obituary.

Serves 8-10

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 leeks (white and light green parts only), thinly sliced
1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced
5 medium Yukon Gold potatoes (about 2 pounds), peeled and thinly sliced
4 cups chicken broth or water
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 cups whole milk
2 cups half-and-half
1 cup heavy cream
chopped chives to garnish, optional

Melt the butter in a large pot set over medium heat. Add the leeks and onion and let cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 10 minutes. Add potatoes and stir to coat. Add broth (or water) and salt, and bring the mixture to a boil. Lower heat and simmer, covered, until potatoes are very soft, 30–40 minutes. Remove soup from heat, season with pepper, and puree in a standard blender working in batches (or with an immersion blender) until smooth.
Return pureed soup to a pot set over medium heat. Add milk and half-and-half and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
Stir in heavy cream and pass soup through a fine mesh sieve, discarding any solids. Let cool, then cover and chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours before serving (the soup thickens slightly while chilling). Garnish with chives if desired.

8-year-old promises to lead English League One side to elite in 3 years

2013-01-20T10:34:00.000-05:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Russia Today| Russia
First Reported by: Elana K. | RT.com

Mac Wilson, an 8-year old lad, could get his first job at English League One club Doncaster after he wrote a letter describing his vision for the team’s development, which reached the table of club chair John Ryan.

Ryan was so impressed with young Mac’s application for the vacancy left by Dean Saunders’ departure that he invited him in for an interview.

“My daughter Claire was with me at the time that I got Mac’s letter and my first thought was to give him a ring,” the Doncaster Free Press quoted him as saying.

“I got his dad on the phone and asked if I could speak to Mac with regards to the vacancy at Rovers,” Ryan said. “He came on the phone and I asked him whether he would like to come down for an interview. I invited them both down on Saturday for a look round, meet the players and to give him an interview.”

In his letter, Mac promised to get the team in the Premier League in three years. “I thought that was a very positive statement,” Ryan said.

Mac’s dad Adi said the boy was convinced his older brother was playing a trick on him. “We sent off the email for a bit of fun really. All credit to John for responding. Mac has been absolutely full of it since he got in touch and so excited,” the same source quoted Adi as saying.

Rovers season-ticket holder Mac was officially invited to the Keepmoat Stadium to watch the Rovers, lead by a caretaker boss Brian Flynn, play Leyton Orient on Saturday.

The young man’s future with the club will be announced shortly but one thing is certain: He has hit the ground running. One of the best young coaches in the sport, Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas, wrote his famous letter to Sir Bobby Robson when he was 17, so Mac has some time as handicap.

Gold rush: Man finds massive 5.5 kg gold nugget in Australia

2013-01-20T10:13:00.000-05:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Russia Today| Russia
First Reported by: Elana K. | RT.com

Searching for gold may not be such a hopeless thing to do, if you know where to look. Apparently a local prospector in Ballarat, Australia knew where to look, as he has found a gold nugget weighing 5.5 kilograms, worth up to half a million dollars.

The name of the lucky man, who discovered the precious nugget, is being kept secret, the Courier newspaper reports.

Experts at the Ballarat Mining Exchange Gold Shop, who took the gold nugget for evaluation, say it was found about 60 centimeters below the surface of the earth. Gold nuggets of such enormous size are extremely rare.

The amateur gold-hunter reportedly used a cutting edge $6000 detector that helped him make the find of his life.

According to the gold shop owner Cordell Kent, if the nugget was sold just on the basis of gold content it’s market value would be around $300,000. However its size and natural shape make it worth more than that.
"If you are silly enough to melt it down, it would be worth just under $300,000 on market value but as a nugget at this size and shape, it's worth significantly more than that," he said. "A finding like this gives people hope. It's my dream to find something like that, and I've been prospecting for more than two decades," he added.

It is expected the nugget will be sold to a collector or possibly a museum within Australia

Healthy Fixes for Junk Food Cravings

2013-01-16T12:52:00.001-05:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Calorie Count| USA
First Reported by: Carolyn R. | USA

The thought of satisfying your sweet tooth and junk food cravings probably conjures up images of chocolate chip cookies, salty fries, and Cherry Garcia ice cream. These delectable treats wouldn't be a daily doable if you're aiming for a healthy calorie-controlled menu, but there are ways to satisfy cravings with foods that can be a part of your daily diet. These fixes will help you enjoy the healthiest “junk food” in your own kitchen.

Pie Pushers

If pies are your calorie nemesis, a few fruity swaps and sweet spices can save you hundreds of calories and offer the same texture and taste that you expect from a dessert.

Bake apples with cinnamon and instant oatmeal for a crispy apple pie fix.
Grill peaches coated in a sprinkle of brown sugar and vanilla extract, served with Greek yogurt will do for peaches and cream.
Broil grapefruit with a little grated ginger and a swirl of honey and add a crumbled graham cracker for crunch.

Ice Cream Lovers

A frozen banana (peel and chop prior to freezing), and a tablespoon of cocoa powder blended together makes a great swap for chocolate ice cream. You can try using an ice cream maker to make avocado ice cream as well, but bear in mind you'll still have to add milk and/or cream (vegans use soy milk), and sugar of some kind to get closer to the texture and taste.

While avocado ice cream won't save you many calories, at least you'll boost the healthy fat quotient. This lime ice cream option also looks scrumptious. Of course, there are more simple options such as freezing flavored Greek yogurt, but thawing in the refrigerator or microwaving for 10 to 20 seconds can be hit or miss depending on the yogurt brand.

Fried Food Fiends

The crispy, salty, satiating fat-feel of deep-fried foods is what attracts many to
fast-food places, but you can drive home and still get your fried food fix without as many calories. Julienned and baked sweet potato, carrots, or even green beans make excellent "fries". Just be sure to add the spices that make them work: a little salt and pepper, grated Parmesan cheese, and garlic powder will do the trick. Use olive oil spray on these to ensure a bit of crispiness and you're in fry heaven. For onion rings or fried chicken you can afford to use a light batter and get your bake on. Some use whole-wheat flour, corn flakes, and/or breadcrumbs, a little milk or beer, and eggs. A light spray of oil will do the crispy trick in most cases.

Cheese Chompers

The taste of cheese is all its own and replacing isn't as easy as you might think. This means pairing lower calorie cheeses such as grated Parmesan, crumbled feta, and goat cheese with healthier options and limiting how much of it you eat. Add a serving to salsa, hummus, or salad dressing to get that cheesy taste and dip in sliced fruit or veggies to get the fiber that will keep your hunger at bay. When you're eating it alone, go for smoked, spiced, and full-fat and eat slowly so that your taste buds can fully savor the flavor.

As long as you keep to a serving every once in a while, you can enjoy the tastiest treats the food universe has to offer. Don't deprive yourself of the food you love, but when you know you've had much too much, try a tip to keep you from going overboard.

Your thoughts...Where are you on the junk food spectrum? Do you skip them at all costs, eat the calorie-laden real thing within moderation, or have you found healthy swaps that are just as satisfying?

Scammers use worthless rubles to pocket cash

2013-01-16T11:50:00.000-05:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: The Local| Switzerland
First Reported by: Malcolm Curtis | TL - Switzerland

Scammers are using foreign coins to defraud public transport companies of money from ticket vending machines in the cantons of Vaud and Geneva, according to a report.

The technique is simple enough.

Fraudsters insert coins that are similar to Swiss ones, such as the five-franc piece, into the vending machine.

They then punch in a request for the cheapest possible ticket and pocket the returned change.

Two citizens from Eastern European countries were caught last fall after they trousered 1,400 francs from Lausanne public transport (TL) vending machines, 20 Minutes reported online.

The used old Russian rubles no longer in circulation, which the vending machines identified as five-franc pieces, the newspaper said.

Valérie Maire, a spokeswoman for TL, said the transit authority now has means to detect such fraudulent schemes.

“The introduction of improper coins triggers an alarm,” Maire told 20 Minutes.

“TL staff can intervene rapidly and blow the whistle on the fraudster,” she said.

Since such scammers often stay a long time in front of vending machines to make as much money as possible they also attract attention, she said.

New vending machines that are more sensitive to foreign currency will solve the problem and they are reportedly being introduced progressively in Lausanne and Geneva.

In Geneva, the problem reflects its status as an international city.

The Geneva transport authority (TPG) reported that 15,000 foreign coins were inserted in its vending machines last year, 20 Minutes said.

TPG is not disclosing what its losses were.

The Geneva transport system has a total of 872 ticket vending machines, including 522 older models that do not give change, according to information on its website.

The new machines, 350 in all, give change and accept euros in addition to francs and a variety of credit and debit cards.

Teenager Dies Playing Russian Roulette With Friends

2013-01-16T11:38:00.000-05:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Ad Rem Press| USA
First Reported by: Ad Rem Press| USA

LARGO, FLORIDA- A teenager passed away in Florida after shooting himself in the head with a .38 caliber handgun during a game of ‘Russian Roulette’ he was playing with three of his friends.

Thorin Montgomery, 17, took the first turn in this deadly game that also involved three other teenagers aged 16,18 and 19.

The four teens were near the victims home when the tragedy happened.

Russian Roulette is a game of chance in which a player places a live round in a revolver, spins the cylinder, places the muzzle against his or her head and pulls the trigger. The game, which originated in Russia, kills about 10 people per year and has been featured in several films.

Local authorities are investigating the source of the gun.

When Road Trips Go Wrong

2013-01-16T11:25:00.000-05:00

Editorial by: Boutique Homes

Traveling is fun, but it’s also risky. Leaving your comfort zone increases the likelihood that something might go awry, especially when it comes to driving in countries other than your own. In some cases, like the one above, horribly awry. But while such stories might be mortifying in the moment, they give us plenty to laugh about afterwards. Never forget that the root of comedy is tragedy e.g. me slipping on a banana peel is tragic, you slipping on a banana peel is hilarious. With that in mind, we’re proud to present: When Road Trips Go Wrong.

Since it’s still winter for now, we’ll start with some photos of drivers failing to navigate icy roads properly. This driver sure caught a break.

This one didn’t.

Kind of gives a new meaning to the phrase “scared straight.”

At the very least, that guy doing the balancing act above was able to get into his car. Not sure what the procedure is for when your car is completely encased in ice (we live in California.) Can any snowbound readers enlighten us?

Not that driving in the rain is fool-proof either, especially when combined with, you know, a giant log flying off the back of a truck and straight at your head.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that driving behind a produce truck is any safer; you might end up being attacked by potatoes.

When driving abroad, make sure you understand the terrain. Even the most heavy duty of vehicles can fall victim to an unfortunately located swamp.

But all Hummer drivers can take comfort in their ability to mercilessly (and literally) crush their parking competition.

Speaking of parking, always be sure to choose a spot that’s not under a giant volleyball.

Or on an airport runway.

Or directly under the path of a falling tree.

If you hire your own limo driver, make sure he understands how to drive in the city. We can still hear the San Franciscans laughing about this one.

Hah, we hear you say, I’m going to avoid all of this by taking the bus. Sorry to say it, but even buses get into tight spots.

Everyone makes mistakes, such as hitting the accelerator when you mean to reverse.

Or hitting reverse when you mean to go forward.

Trying to squeeze your car, no matter how small, onto a pedestrian walkway is never advisable.

Ultimately, traveling is a lot like life. Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. The important thing is to keep moving forward.

But not into the pool or local Chinese restaurant.

Last but not least, we know that beach parking can be difficult to find in the summer months, but if you choose to leave your vehicle right by the shore, always remember when high tide rolls in. You’ve only got one chance: get it wrong and your car will be swimming with the fishes before too long. MT

'High school girls selling sex to boys': principal

2013-01-15T11:04:00.000-05:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: The Local | Norway
First Reported by: Østlandets Blad | Norway

Girls at a secondary school in south-eastern Norway are selling sex to boys during school hours, shocked parents learned in a letter sent to them by the school principal.

High school pupils in Kråkstad and Skotbu were asked to take the letter home to their parents this week. In the letter, the children’s guardians were requested to contact the school to certify that they had read it, newspaper Østlandets Blad reports.

"The school has received notification from a reliable source that secondary school girls in secondary are selling sex to boys at school. The school does not have much knowledge of who is doing this or the extent to which it is happening,” principal Marit Rismyhr wrote.

The principal added that she and the school nurse planned to go around to each of the secondary school classes to inform them that the school was treating the matter as very serious and wanted it to stop immediately.

Many parents have reacted angrily to the school’s decision to send the letter, Østlandets Blad said.
“The school is making very serious allegations here against pupils aged from 12 or 13 to 16 who are under the age of sexual consent,” said one father, who asked not to be named, to the newspaper.

“It seems that the type of sexual activity, the number of pupils involved, and the extent to which it is happening have not yet been established. Is it really necessary then to direct suspicions against all of the pupils with this kind of letter?”

Local police said they intended to speak to the school to find out more about the allegations.

Alleged Russian spy couple in 'Cold War' trial

2013-01-15T10:48:00.000-05:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Der Spiegle | Germany
First Reported by: Martin Rupp | DS -Germany

A married couple accused of spying for the Russian secret services for more than 20 years went on trial in Germany on Tuesday, in one of the biggest espionage court cases since the Cold War.

The pair, identified only by codenames Andreas and Heidrun Anschlag (which means attack in German), are said to have been planted in West Germany from 1988 by the Soviet Union's KGB and later used by its SVR successor secret service.

The defendants declined to confirm any details about their real identities or the charges against them as the trial got underway in the higher regional court in the southwestern city of Stuttgart.

Defence lawyer Horst-Dieter Pötschke said they had Russian citizenship.

Prosecutors say one of them arrived in still divided Germany in 1988 -- a year before the Berlin Wall fell -- and the other in 1990, posing as Austrian citizens who had been born and grew up in South America.

According to the Federal Prosecutor's Office, light could only be shed on the final three years of their alleged activities as agents.

They had "the mission from SVR headquarters to obtain NATO and EU political and military secrets", federal public prosecutor Wolfgang Siegmund said, adding: "Particularly also geo-strategic findings on the relationship of NATO and the EU with the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia."

Prosecutors say the couple set up a "middle-class existence" to cover up their activity for the secret services.

Andreas Anschlag studied engineering and worked in the auto industry while Heidrun was a housewife. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung weekly, even their own daughter had no idea about their double lives.

The couple allegedly passed on documents they obtained from a Dutch official in the foreign ministry between 2008 and 2011.

The court heard that the official, Raymond Valentino Poeteray, obtained several hundred pages of classified, partly secret documents from different Dutch embassies and received more than €72,000 for his efforts.

The accused left the documents in "dead-letter boxes", for example under certain trees, from where they were picked up by employees of the Russian consulate general in the western city of Bonn, according to the federal prosecutor.

Heidrun Anschlag was responsible for communicating with the SVR via short-wave radio, the court heard.

The pair, who were allegedly jointly paid around €100,000 a year, communicated with their Moscow masters using text messages, satellite phones and hidden messages in comments in YouTube videos under agreed names, it heard.

In mid-2011, Siegmund said the pair had received orders to withdraw from Germany because of the risk of being exposed and were preparing to do so when they were arrested in October of that year.

They face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

On the sidelines of the trial, defence lawyer Pötschke said the documents in question were "of average quality" and "so, no so-called grave damage occurred" to Germany.

The trial is expected to last until the end of June.

Germany's domestic intelligence services discovered the couple after receiving a tip from the FBI in the United States, which unmasked Russian SVR agents on its own soil.

Der Spiegel magazine dubbed it "one of the most spectacular cases since the end of the Cold War."

When the first of the two defendants arrived in Germany, the Russian security services were still the Soviet Union's KGB and President Vladimir Putin was a KGB operative in the East German city of Dresden.

Serial cow killers baffle French farmers

2013-01-15T10:30:00.000-05:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Le Parisien. | France
First Reported by: Ben McPartland | LP -France
Photo by: Wendi Domeni

Who is slaughtering all the cows? That is the question being asked in the quaint village of Reignac, in Bordeaux’s famous wine region in the south west of France.

Since late November last year police have received reports of seven violent attacks against farm animals, leaving local farmers furious and increasingly concerned. In a bid to stem the bloodletting farmers have reportedly taken to patrolling their fields at night armed with loaded guns.

In the seven attacks four cows and a ram have been killed by a gunshot to the head whilst two other cows were left severely injured after being mutilated. In most cases the attackers helped themselves to the meat from the bodies of the dead beasts.

According to a report in the regional newspaper Sud-Ouest, the attacks occur each time at night under the light of a full moon.

The newspaper carries details of one incident in which a cow was completely mutilated.

“They cut it in two and took the right shoulder, the right leg and all the loin,” the animal’s owner, farmer Jean Claude Leroy told the paper.

In another incident just before Christmas a cow was killed by hammer blows to the head before its ear, testicles and neck were removed.

The village is awash with theories over who could be behind the killings.

“I think they have some knowledge of butchery, even if they sometimes butcher the cow in any old way,” another local farmer Xavier Chiché told French daily Le Parisien.

Others including the mayor of Reignac Alain Gandré believe the attackers could be from the local region or have been given help from someone local.

"They are amateurs, but knowledgeable amateurs," said the mayor.

Local police have said they are not ruling out any motive for the attacks including possible revenge, or simply theft for personal or commercial reasons.

“Samples have been taken and ballistic tests are being carried out,” police captain Jean-Yves Martin told Le Parisien.

Cleaning lady steals train and crashes into house

2013-01-15T09:58:00.000-05:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Tidningarnas Telegrambyra | Sweden
First Reported by: Jorg Niekstom | TT - Sweded
Photo by: Jonas Ekströmer | Scanpix - Sweden

Officials remain baffled as to why a cleaning lady commandeered a train in the upscale Stockholm suburb of Saltsjöbaden early Tuesday morning and crashed it into a house, where it remains while crews work out how to safely remove the wreckage.

“The woman started driving the train from the Neglinge train station, which is two stops from Saltsjöbaden, and usually a three-minute ride,” SL spokesman Jesper Pettersson told The Local.

When the train reached the final stop on the line at around 3am, it careened off the tracks and into the first-floor kitchen of one of the house's three flats, causing severe damage.

No passengers were on the train at the time, but a woman was trapped in the wreckage for two hours before rescue crews managed to get her out.

“We still don’t know why she was in the driver’s seat or whether the incident was an accident. There’s a police investigation underway and we’re waiting for them for clarification.”

The cleaner, who is in her twenties, was flown by helicopter to the Karolinska University Hospital for treatment of what emergency workers described as "serious" injuries.

She has since been ordered detained on suspicion of public devastation (allmänfarlig ödeläggelse).

According to the Expressen newspaper, there were five residents from three different families sleeping in the building at the time of the accident.

"It's incredibly lucky that no one in the house was injured," police spokesman Ulf Lindgren told the TT news agency.

"The head of the emergency services crew has ordered the house to be evacuated for safety reasons."

As of 1.30pm, the derailed train was still inside the house, according to Pettersson, while emergency services determine how to remove it.

“It’s important to find out if the structure of the house can cope with the removal of the train, no one wants to risk the building’s integrity,” he told The Local.

A spokesman for subcontractor Arriva, which is responsible for operating the line, characterized the incident as a theft.

"It was a cleaner who for unknown reasons stole the train," Arriva spokesman Tomas Hedenius told Aftonbladet.

"She was a cleaner. Somehow she managed to get in and steal one of the trains. We're investigating how it could have happened."

In the wake of the incident, local politicians have called upon SL to beef up security procedures.

"It shouldn't be possible for unauthorized people to drive our trains," Christer G Wennerholm, a Moderate member of the Stockholm County Council's traffic committee, said in a statement.

Replacement buses are taking commuters between the Neglinge and Saltsjöbaden stops on the Saltsjöbanan train line, according to SL, although the rest of the line is functioning normally.

Jesper Pettersson at SL promised the incident will result in a "major review" of the company's current security system.

Ikea: sorry for East German prison labour

2012-11-18T16:25:00.002-05:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Der Local | Germany
First Reported by: Cole Froesch | AFP - Germany

Swedish furniture giant Ikea apologised on Friday for using East German political prisoners as forced labour to build furniture in the 1970s and 80s.

After initially denying revelations made this April on SVTSveriges Television, Ikea on Friday admitted that prisoners had been used to make its products in East Germany.

“We deeply regret that this could happen,” said sustainability manager Jeanette Skjelmose in a statement.

Auditors Ernst and Young combed through tens of thousands of documents from the Ikea and German federal archives to produce the report, which Ikea presented at the Stasi victim association UOKG headquarters in Berlin.

Although steps were apparently taken to ensure prisoners were not used, the company did not “have the well-organised control system we have today and clearly did not do enough to prevent this type of production method,” Skjelmose added.

There were managers in the company at the time who knew there was a chance it was happening, the report revealed.

Since the investigation began in May, around 90 people have been interviewed – including prisoners who made the furniture. Both former and current staff were asked to fill out questionnaires and a hotline was made available for those with information.

Before being brought up on SVT, a German television documentary aired on WDR in July 2011 first accused Ikea of using prisoners. The company said in May that they had looked into it, and the accusations were false.

During the 1970s, Ikea developed a strong manufacturing presence in the GDR (German Democratic Republic), establishing operations in 65 locations across the country to produce parts and furniture.

The report came under fire before it was released, as academics questioned why Ikea had paid Ernst & Young to carry out the investigation.

Klaus Schröder, a political scientist at Berlin's Free University, said, "It would have been simpler to come and ask us because we are the experts on this subject."

Roland Schulz, vice-president of an association representing victims of the socialist regime in East Germany, dismissed the report as "unscientific."

"Ikea as the guilty party is itself conducting the investigation rather than leaving it to unbiased sources. Therefore we strongly doubt the validity of the results," he added.

He called for historians and political scientists to carry out a more thorough investigation.

But UOKG president Rainer Wagner told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper that Ikea's efforts were "a start" and called on other firms to investigate their past.

The UOKG and other victims' groups have called for a compensation fund to be set up for former East German forced workers.

'Other Swedes in the Gulag complicate Wallenberg search'

2012-08-27T18:36:00.000-04:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Le Local | Sweden
First Reported by: Susanne Berger | US-Germany

Was a “Swedish Prisoner” who was seen in Lwow in 1946 held in Vladimir Prison a decade later? And was this prisoner Raoul Wallenberg or an unidentified Swedish Red Cross official? Contributor Susanne Berger explains how the confusion about other Swedish prisoners in the Gulag complicates the search into Wallenberg’s fate.

In October 1956, in his first interview with Swedish officials after his release from Vladimir prison, Austrian citizen Otto Schöggel stated that while in Vladimir in the spring of 1955, he had briefly spent time with a Swedish prisoner.

He described the person he met as very weak, partially paralyzed and receiving special injections to build up his strength.

According to the interview protocol, Schöggel also indicated that he remembered the man telling him that he had once been held prisoner in the Ukrainian town of Lwow. The unknown Swede had supposedly been imprisoned in Lwow “for approximately eleven months, on his way to Lubyanka prison in Moscow”.

Over the next few years, Schöggel would repeat his story of a secret Swedish prisoner in Vladimir, one of the Soviet Union’s most important isolator facilities, insisting that the Swede he had met was the missing Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

Schöggel was known as a notorious story teller and informant. Yet, to their credit, Swedish officials did not dismiss Schöggel’s story out of hand.

They noted that there had been several earlier accounts of a Swedish prisoner held in Lwow, most notably the testimonies given by Adolphe Coen and Aron Gabor.

Swedish author Bengt Jangfeldt has analyzed these statements in some detail in his recent biography about Raoul Wallenberg (“Raoul Wallenberg”, 2012)

Both Coen and Gabor said that they heard of or personally met a Swedish prisoner in a former cloister complex called Brygitki which served as a prison facility in Lwow in 1946/1947.

Jangfeldt claims that in particular the information Coen received from this “Swede” could have been provided only by Raoul Wallenberg, including details about documents and valuables he was carrying at the time of his arrest by Soviet troops in January 1945.

A closer examination of Coen’s and Gabor’s testimonies shows that the Swedish prisoner they had encountered was referred to by others most often as a "Red Cross official.”

This description could well have applied to Raoul Wallenberg who worked closely with both Swedish and International Red Cross representatives during his humanitarian mission in Budapest in 1944.

There are, however, other possibilities to consider as well.

In 1957, a former German prisoner by the name of Ludwig Hunoldt testified that in 1950, in Vladimir prison, he had met a Red Cross official called “Eriksson” who had been arrested in 1944/45 in Eastern Europe, in “Sofia, Bucharest or Budapest”.

At the time, he had been working together with two Swedish colleagues, "managing the transition of Nazi Germany's diplomatic missions in the Balkans."

Hunoldt described “Eriksson” as about 50 years old and very weak after having just undergone an operation on his gallbladder. “Eriksson” claimed to be a Swedish citizen, with a wife in “Uppsala or Lund”.

He was most definitely not identical with Raoul Wallenberg.

Hunoldt’s testimony was both very detailed and deemed reliable by former Cabinet Secretary Leif Leifland who interviewed him. Surprisingly, however, Hunoldt’s information elicited no follow-up from the Swedish Foreign Ministry.

It would be easy to conclude that witnesses like Coen, Gabor, Hunoldt and Schöggel had simply received incomplete or confusing information, if strikingly similar statements had not been given by several other former prisoners in the Soviet Union.

One such testimony was provided by Karl Spuller, also a former German P.O.W., who reported hearing a detailed report from a friend in 1954, concerning three Swedish Red Cross officials.

The men had supposedly been imprisoned in Lubyanka for several years, following their arrest “in Romania or Bulgaria” at the very end of 1944 or early 1945. Spuller’s friend related that the men had told him how after their arrival in Lubyanka prison their backpacks had been taken from them by the guards.

In return, they had been forced to sign a receipt which itemized their belongings. Spuller stated that one of the men had been especially upset about the loss of his camera.

The three “Swedes” had been sentenced only in 1949, to 25 years imprisonment for espionage. Two of them were described as having been in good health, while the third had been left ill and weak from imprisonment. Could the men have been Swiss instead, Swedish investigators wanted to know? No, Spuller said, he was quite certain that the discussion had concerned Swedish citizens.

Yet another testimony was provided by a man called Fritz Bauer who said that in 1955, on a transport to a labour camp in the Ukraine, he had met a former Red Cross official named “Johansson” who had been arrested in Romania in 1944/45.

Johansson said that he was a Swedish citizen and that his wife continued to live in Sweden, “in a university town”.

The case profile of these Red Cross men – Swedish “officials” arrested in Eastern Europe in 1944/45 – is so similar to that of Raoul Wallenberg that their presence could have caused enormous confusion among witnesses.

Returning to the “Swede” reportedly seen in Lwow in 1946/47: It cannot be excluded that he was one of the as yet unidentified Red Cross officials supposedly arrested in Eastern Europe in 1944/45 and that he together with his colleagues was held in Lwow on his way to Moscow. Lwow was a known transit point for prisoners arrested in Eastern and Central Europe.

Similarly, taking into account the statement by Otto Schöggel, it is possible that this Swedish prisoner in Lwow later was transferred to Lubyanka and from there to Vladimir prison.

Jangfeldt’s (and Schöggel's) theory that the Swede in Lwow in 1946/47 was Raoul Wallenberg cannot be entirely dismissed. However, it seems unlikely that Wallenberg would have been moved to Lwow in late 1946, after he had already spent almost two years under investigation in Moscow.

Also, several witnesses have claimed to have been in knocking contact with Wallenberg during this time in Lefortovo prison, until early 1947. Still, the matter awaits full resolution.

Soviet and now Russian authorities have always claimed that Wallenberg died in Lubyanka prison in July 1947, yet no conclusive proof for his death has ever been presented. If Wallenberg was instead at some point transferred to an isolator prison such as Vladimir, his presence could have further complicated an already highly complex situation.

In 2000, the former consultants to an official Swedish-Russian Working Group that investigated the Raoul Wallenberg case in Russia, Marvin Makinen and Ari Kaplan conducted an extensive study of the prisoner population of Vladimir prison, especially Section II (Korpus II) which housed the hospital section where Schöggel claimed to have met an unknown Swede and Hunoldt reportedly had met “Eriksson”.

No record for a prisoner named "Eriksson" or one matching his description has been found.

This raises the possibility that “Eriksson’s” card is missing and those of his two colleagues could be missing as well. If that is so, could other cards also have disappeared, including perhaps that of Raoul Wallenberg?

Makinen and Kaplan, together with Wallenberg expert Susan Mesinai, are currently investigating the statements of several other former prisoners who say they met a Swedish prisoner in Vladimir, accused of espionage, in the years 1955 -1970.

The central questions are: Was this prisoner Raoul Wallenberg or another Swede? And, in fact, how many “Swedes” were held in Vladimir altogether after 1947?

For the moment, researchers are left with many pressing questions and few answers:

To begin with, it needs to be clarified if any “Swedish” representatives affiliated with the Red Cross or associated help organizations were arrested in Eastern Europe in 1944/45.

Similarly, it needs to be determined if any “Swedish” prisoners or persons affiliated with the Red Cross were ever held in a prison facilities in Lwow and Moscow in 1946/47.

So far, Russian officials have not permitted direct and uncensored review of prison registration and interrogation registers where the presence of such individuals may have been recorded.

Nor have they provided full information about all Swedish nationals imprisoned in Vladimir.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry too has not been able to identify “Eriksson” and his two colleagues. The task may be complicated by the fact that they may well have been expatriate Swedes, or mixed nationals, such as native Germans with Swedish wives or even so-called “stateless” individuals.

Nevertheless, with a concerted effort it should be possible to clarify these issues. By removing a major element of confusion, proper identification of the three unknown “Swedish” Red Cross officials would undoubtedly help to move the search for Raoul Wallenberg a big step forward.

Wedding ring returned 70 years after Nazi arrest

2012-07-19T19:26:00.000-04:00

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Le Local | Norway
First Reported by: Stavanger Aftenblad | NTB

The daughter of a Norwegian resistance fighter has had her father’s wedding ring and pocket watch returned 70 years after the Gestapo arrested him and sent him to a concentration camp.

Erling Berg Pedersen was arrested by Hitler’s secret police in August 1942 for working as an editor on a newspaper deemed illegal by the Nazi regime. In 1943 he was sent to the Natzweiler concentration camp in eastern France where all his valuables were confiscated.

While he survived the camp and returned to Norway in 1945, he never saw his treasured ring or watch again.

But recently a courier turned up at his daughter Marit Dunseth’s front door with a package containing the items plundered by the Nazis, newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad reports.

“I’m deeply moved and very grateful to the people who made these efforts on our behalf,” she told the newspaper.

Dunseth learned how her father’s name had cropped up on a list of prisoners of war whose valuables had been recovered.

Since Nazi officials kept detailed records of their plunder, the list published on the website of the International Tracing Service (ITS) was able to show that the wedding band and watch had belonged to Dunseth’s dad. ITS stores the valuables but does not have sufficient resources to establish contact with the families of victims, the newspaper said.

A Dutch woman with ties to a World War II memorial centre in the town of Amersfoort found Pedersen’s name on the list and contacted Norwegian genealogists, who were able to track down his family.

The ring bore the inscription “Your Haldis. 22.8.1938”, a reference to his wife’s name and the date they were engaged. The pocket watch is believed to have been an heirloom from his uncle, grandfather, or great-grandfather.

Erling Berg Pedersen died in 2008, aged 94.

The International Reader

An open letter to New York Mets ownership

Rare ‘Jewish War Heroes’ comic from 1944 found in box of donated used books

French, German leaders visit Nazi massacre site in central France

Body found floating in Lake Ontario, reportedly wrapped in garbage bag

78 Year Old Man Commits Suicide in Protest to Gay Marriage

Father Admits to Killing His Children

Alleged Auschwitz Guard Arrested in Germany on Monday

A doctor had examined 93-year-old Hans Lipschis and found him to be fit for detention and a judge remanded him in custody. "We will try to ascertain what he did in Auschwitz," a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said.

Shark Attack: French honeymooner killed in attack in Reunion

Five feared dead in Malta boat accident

Russian dash cam: restoring faith in humanity

The Invisible Chassidishe Maidel (Chassidic Girl)

Lost Foods of New York City: Vichyssoise

8-year-old promises to lead English League One side to elite in 3 years

Gold rush: ­Man finds massive 5.5 kg gold nugget in Australia

Healthy Fixes for Junk Food Cravings

Scammers use worthless rubles to pocket cash

Teenager Dies Playing Russian Roulette With Friends

When Road Trips Go Wrong

'High school girls selling sex to boys': principal

Alleged Russian spy couple in 'Cold War' trial

Serial cow killers baffle French farmers

Cleaning lady steals train and crashes into house

Ikea: sorry for East German prison labour

'Other Swedes in the Gulag complicate Wallenberg search'

Wedding ring returned 70 years after Nazi arrest

Gold rush: Man finds massive 5.5 kg gold nugget in Australia