Alex Kudera's Blog, page 45

Yom Kippur Eve

"This Yom Kippur Eve in the ghetto is unique. In the apartments, people are cooking in big pots, as if nothing is the matter. People are washing and scouring (as if everything around them were normal)."
~~ from The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939—1944 by Herman Kruk

a life here

"But I've already won, I've made a life here."

~~ from Joan Is Okay by Weike Wang

Snatchers

"The whole city is depressed about the men who have disappeared. Groups of Snatchers wander around the streets and courtyards, snatch men wherever they can, and drag them off. The excuse is that they are taken 'for work,' but seldom does anyone come back."

~~ from The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939—1944 by Herman Kruk

strife

"What do you mean by strife? I asked. Because in my head I was picturing labor camps and starvation. Having grown up in the streets or been born with a congenital defect, having never had a chance to prove myself or to get my education—that was strife."

~~ from Joan Is Okay by Weike Wang

We're on break,

but we'll be back.

the jaws of the wolf

"Thousands of people have worked, thousands have been dragged off, thousands went off voluntarily. Only I, the whole time, for 10 weeks, have been hiding, however threatened with the severest consequences. I shall not willingly crawl into the jaws of the wolf. That's what I've decided."

~~ from The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939—1944 by Herman Kruk

Happy Valentine's Day, Walter Benjamin

"I dropped her off there, and as the sleigh was already pulling away, I once again drew her hand to my lips, right in the middle of the street. She stood there a long time, waving. I waved back from the sleigh. At first she seemed to turn around as she walked away, then I lost sight of her. Holding my large suitcase on my knees, I rode through the twilit streets to the station in tears."

~~ from Moscow Diary by Walter Benjamin

an honest profession

"Author: Sir, why did you become a publisher? We shall have the answer by return mail. But permit me to say one thing in advance. I figure in your records as number 27. You have published five of my books; in other words, you have put your money five times on number 27. I am sorry that number 27 did not prove a winner. Incidentally, you took only coupled bets. Only because I come next to your lucky number 28 . . . Now you know why you became a publisher. You might just as well have entered an honest profession, like your esteemed father."

~~ from One-Way Street by Walter Benjamin

agitation = death

It's a coincidence, of course, but like Russian literary figure Andrei Bely, 1960s radical turned adjunct activist Mario Savio died at 53. 

good prose

"Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven."

~~ from One-Way Street by Walter Benjamin