Writers – The Art Place

Ellie Wiesel

Ellie was sent to a concentration and a death camp in Hitler’s Germany during WWII because he was Jewish. He survived ; his father did not. He tells a most important historical event through the eyes of one who lived it, who starved through it, who died inside because of it. He tells it well.

Adolf Hitler determined that all Jewish people were corrupting his idea of perfect race. Hitler was a madman. He killed 6 million Jewish men, women, and children, old and young alike and many more of various races and reasons. Many of the German people during WWII went along with him either out of fear , ignorance or hunger for power; and some helped the people whom Hitler targeted. “War is like an x-ray” I cannot remember who said it, but it is painfully true. It reveals what is inside each of us. Is there good or evil? War will tell us.

We must remember the Holocaust. We must read and learn and not forget the terrible crimes committed against the Jewish people, especially now, as painful and difficult as it is to remember that humanity could be so cruel and inhumane to other humans. If we forget; God help us all. We cannot forget the evil that lies within us. and we cannot stop asking God to remove it. In his time in the concentration camps, Ellie lost his faith and abandoned the idea of an Almighty God, his question – Where was God? I get it, I do not judge him, or critisize him. When we suffer, we ask; when we suffer we lose faith and sometimes we reject God, we blame him. I think in some ways that is why God came to us, broken and bloody and then died. He came so we could blame him and we did. We all did.

We are so weak, we are so frail and fragile.

Winston Churchill

April 28, 2021April 28, 2021Leave a comment

“Let men of science and learning expound their knowledge and prize and probe with their research every detail of the records which have been preserved to us from those dim ages. All they will do is fortify the grand simplicity and essential accuracy of the recorded truths which have lighted so far the pilgrimage of men.”
Winston Churchill

Temple Grandin

April 28, 2021Leave a comment

“I am different not less”
Temple Grandin

April 2 was autism awareness day. Temple Grandin is an autistic woman. She is one of my hero’s, because she used her differences to make a difference in the world,. She recognized the beauty and value in different kind of people, but many people haven’t even heard of temple Grandin. She wrote a fantastic book called ‘thinking in pictures”, there’s also a movie about her life called temple Grandin. Temple graduated high school and college and went on to re-design over half of the cattle processing plants in America so that they would be more humane. She is an amazing woman. Here’s more info from biography.com.

Who Is Temple Grandin? “

Temple Grandin was diagnosed with autism as a child and went on to pursue work in psychology and animal science. She has become a leading advocate for autistic communities and has also written books and provided consultation on the humane treatment of animals. In 2010, HBO released an Emmy Award-winning film on Grandin’s life. “born August 29, 1947 is an American scientist and activist. She is a prominent proponent for the humane treatment of livestock for slaughter and author of more than 60 scientific papers on animal behavior. Grandin is a consultant to the livestock industry, where she offers advice on animal behavior, and is also an autism spokesperson. “The world needs all types of minds. -Temple Grandin

Mr. Frankyl

February 2, 2021April 28, 2021Leave a comment

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” – Victor Frankl

Viktor Frankl survived a nazi concentration camp, though his mother father and wife did not. He determined as a neurologist, psychiatrist and philosopher that attitude is the last of the human freedoms and it cannot be taken from a man when everything else can be and for him as an Austrian Jewish man everything was taken. how can We not admire this man, who took particular interest in studying depression and suicide, set up counseling centers and headed a female suicide prevention program seeking to decrease teen suicide. After seeing his family murdered and suffered in a concentration camp he somehow rose from the ashes returned to Vienna and became head of the neurological department publishing the well known book, “man’s search for meaning.” Our lives are weighed down every day with things we cannot change or control and I think the temptation is to crumble beneath this reality. Unless we change our approach. Viktor is proof that humanity has the inborn ability to be resilient. His life is evidence of an inner dimension of strength that permeates our DNA and transcends the darkness in the world. He says this, “what is to give light must endure burning.” Not only is Viktor himself evidence of resiliency in mankind, but of reality that suffering produces something far beyond anything we can produce synthetically, suffering is the organic way life emerges. And even in suffering we have a choice in how we will respond; even in our darkest hour there is a shred of freedom and hope and light.