3 comments about Starting from Glasgow.

1. My brother gave me this book because, like Rosemary Trollope, I had attended the Glasgow School of Art, lived in Glasgow and loved the city. Her love of Glasgow and it's people is apparent throughout these autobiographical vignettes. Glasgow, like most cities, is not a place you instantly fall in love with. You have to live there and after a while you grow to love this city and it's people. I lived there many years after she did and though I could not relate to her upper class existence, I enjoyed her stories nonetheless. It's a way of life that no longer exists and she makes no apologies for it; why should she? To think at a time when her family had indoor plumbing and telephones, my family were living in houses with earthen floors and no indoor plumbing. Indeed my Mother's first job as a young girl of 14 was to work as maidservant in these well to do houses. Though she is definately from the other side of the tracks, she tells her story with humour and understanding. Glasgow is a great place to start and reading this book I wanted to go back and start all over again.



2. 
   Originally written in 1946, Cyprys' account is remarkably free of the Judeocentric, German-whitewashing, anti-Christian, and anti-Polish tendencies of today. She devotes almost as much attention to German crimes against Poles as to those against Jews. Furthermore, Cyprys makes it clear that the Germans regarded the Poles as having no more inherent right to live than the Jews. Consider what happened when two Poles were mistakenly herded with Jews into a Treblinka-bound train: "Two gentiles in our wagon tried to explain to the Germans that they did not fit into this society and tried to show their documents. All to no avail. `Even if you are not a Jew, you are a damned Pole', yelled the German, and slapped the older woman's face, barking `Polish swine' and with his rifle butt drove her to the wagon." (p. 95).
   
   Cyprys reported a balanced range of Polish attitudes towards Jews (pp. 118-119, 127, 132), some of which varied within the same family (pp. 142-143). Ironically, she was helped by the obsessively anti-Semitic Mrs. Zosia, who felt sorry for the Jews and who aided them (pp. 220-221).
   
   In his FEAR, Jan Tomasz Gross presents a distorted view of Poles acquiring Jewish properties during the German occupation. In contrast, when mentioning how some Poles pretended to be Volksdeutsche in order to join in the German-sponsored pillage of Jewish properties, she nevertheless added: "The local mob usually guided the Germans to the rich Jewish houses and stores. With the deepest shame I must admit that there were some Jews among the scum." (pp. 25-26).
   
   One inflammatory Polonophobic Holocaust myth is the one about Jews, while being transported to the death camps and with full knowledge of their impending deaths, being forced to endure the sight of indifferent or gleeful Polish onlookers. Against such nonsense, we learn that the death trains had small, barred windows well above eye level, and with nothing to stand on in order to look out of them (p. 96). Viewing (in either direction) was nearly impossible. The author and her daughter were loaded on a Treblinka-bound train. It was only with the greatest difficulty that Cyprys was boosted up and enabled to cut through the bars to jump out and to have her daughter Eva (Ewa) get pushed out.
   
   The oft-quoted Polish remark about Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising "getting burned like bugs", although invariably presented as such, wasn't necessarily derogatory. After all, Poles used the same phrase to refer to themselves in the face of their defenselessness against German incendiary bombing during the Warsaw Uprising! (p. 200).
   
   The Germans strongly promoted alcoholism among Poles. This was done in order to degrade them (Lemkin elaborated on this) and to exploit this dependency as leverage in the denunciation of fugitive Jews (p. 174).
   
   Cyprys elaborates on the semi-collaborationist Polish Blue Police (Policja Granatowa): "There were policemen who would accept neither bribes nor ransoms but, for the sake of their ideology, would hand over the Jews. Looking at this group objectively, however, one has to say that among their ranks there were many Volksdeutsch volunteers. The activities of the Polish police aroused such hostility among the majority of the Polish people, that death sentences were passed on several policemen by the Polish underground organizations and executions were carried out by Polish lads...upon the orders of the Organization a detailed list of all policemen was kept in the Underground offices. These contained, apart from proved misconduct, evidence of their standard of living which ascertained whether a dark blue was profiteering from blackmail or extortion. These lists of evidence were kept till the Warsaw Uprising: I do not know whether they survived the insurrection." (p. 138).
   
   However, by no stretch of the imagination was the Polish Blue Police the main force in the roundups of Jews for their deaths: "On about 5 August [1942] all `workshop territories' were hermetically closed and the Germans and Ukrainians started a ruthless expulsion of anyone found outside these areas--always with the efficient help of the Jewish militia. Wherever a German or a Ukrainian did not venture the militia men would gladly fish out as many as possible of those still hidden in cellars and vaults, only to oblige the Germans." (p. 52).
   
   Most Polish blackmailers (szmalcowniki), "the scum of mankind" (p. 119), took only part of the belongings of their Jewish victims and didn't usually actually denounce Jews to the Germans (pp. 119-120). They sometimes excused their conduct by their poverty and even gave the Jews advice on how better to disguise their Jewishness (p. 140).
   
   Underworld Poles weren't the only ones that fugitive Jews feared: "The Jewish Gestapo men who remained alive were very dangerous. Their eyes were penetrating and Jews pointed out by them were lost beyond hope." (p. 165). Cyprys personally observed them shouting Jewish slogans or singing Jewish songs in order to provoke a telltale reaction in fugitive Jews among the pedestrians (pp. 165-166).
   
   Cyprys alludes to Zegota as follows: "It goes without saying that only a fraction of the Jews in hiding knew about the existence of this committee. Those who were in touch with the patriotic `Polish intelligentsia' or people who worked in the Underground were most likely to benefit. Everything was obviously carried out in the greatest secrecy, using all available means of security." (p. 150). Complaints about Zegota aiding only a modest number of Jews are clearly off the mark.
   
   In fact, Cyprys has a very sage understanding of ALL underground activities: "In reality underground activities were extremely stressful and required a great deal of steadiness and concentration. And because it had gone on for so many years, it was exhausting even to the strongest individuals and led to many casualties." (p. 184).
   
   Cyprys provides a level of detail about the Warsaw Uprising usually done by Polish authors. We read, for instance, about the devastating effects of the German nebelwerfer ("roaring cow" or "cupboard"), and the systematic destruction of Warsaw by Germans AFTER the Uprising.



3. This is a fascinating book about a woman who escaped death innumerable times, helped others, and I won't ruin any of the rest of the story.

No comments about Growing Up Laughing.

2 comments about Golden Memories and Silver Tears.

1. I was refered this book by the grandaughter of the author, and although she didn't say go and read it, she told me about it, and it sounded VERY interesting. I went out a few days later, and I borrowed the book from the library. I stayed up all night reading, and I wished that I could just keep reading and reading, and never finish the book.



2. I purchased this book for my father's 70th birthday...it was the most excited I have ever seen him about a present. My dad grew up down the street from the author and many references in the book are about our family and the places where my dad grew up. He finished the book in days...he couldn't put it down! I plan to read it next.

No comments about Serendipity.

4 comments about Marriage, Kidneys, and Other Dark Organs : A Memoir.

1. The book is about a real life. I had a rollercoaster ride of emotions while reading this book. Venera De Bella Barles tells her story with great humor and insight. As her life progresses you will cry not from the sad stories but from laughing so hard. For a first book she has done a surpurb job. I hope to read more of her work in the future.



2. An intense and yet, humorous look into a girls growing years.
   A book well worth the read.
   E.J.Willmann



3. Wow, what a great piece of work. It was a rollercoaster, I laughed and cried, I could not put this book down. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey with the author. Di Bella Barles is so generous, she shares so much with her reader.



4. The title "Marriage, Kidneys and Other Dark Organs" by Venera DiBella Barles, would seem likely to be the perfect reading companion for a long wait in the radiology clinic, but is devoid of literal references to kidneys. It is actually a visceral trail of the author's real life experience growing up in an immigrant family household where a colorful but dominating father leaves the family raw and vulnerable. Between tears, I laughed my kishkas out. There are powerful emotional strains in these memoirs that anyone, regardless of background, can relate to, whether the understanding stems from the "school of hard knocks" or from the comfortable voyeuristic vantage point of the den recliner.

1 comments about 2943: An Immigrant Girl's Childhood in St. Louis.

1. Great book. Paints such a vivid picture of her childhood. It helped me to relate to how life must have been like for my grandmother who was also a child of immigrants. I enjoyed the book very much. I hope there is a part two of her and her siblings' teen years.

No comments about Eight Kids Living In A Chicken Shack In Maine.

No comments about My Story: Going Home Again.

No comments about The Writings of an Old Virginia Country Boy.

5 comments about Crossing Highbridge: A Memoir of Irish America (Irish Studies).

1. This beautiful memoir of growing up Irish-Catholic-female in the Bronx at midcentury began with the author's tragic loss of one of her sons to an accidental death from drugs and alcohol. In order to survive herself, she must understand: "The drive to piece together cause and effect was a belief that I had far more power than I actually did for good or ill." The bereaved mother, who is also a professor of English, sifts her past for answers. She uncovers the treasure of human characters (her father, Daniel Waters, an immigrant from Sligo, her mother from Mayo; her rebel little sister, Agnes) in their brave and lonely human settlement (Highbridge on the Hudson). She looks back on the cost of parenting alone as a divorced young mother and trying to hold her own in academe. The consolation that memory - and Waters' luminous prose - makes for her and for this reader is profoundly moving. The story of her Catholic journey, in particular, the movement from insider - the parish was Sacred Heart - to outsider, is especially strong: she tells it with a devastating brevity and one final image that I'll never forget. It rings so true. This is a courageous book about loss in which you come to see that what remains is, after all, a matter of life understood and hope.



2. This profoundly moving memoir of growing up Irish/Catholic/female in the midcentury Bronx began with the author's need to understand the loss of her son to accidental death by drugs and alcohol. As she puts it, "the drive to piece together cause and effect was a belief that I had far more power than I actually did for good or ill." She sifts the past out of psychological necessity, desperate, guilty, and finds ordinary treasure: in human characters - her father, an immigrant from Sligo, her mother from Mayo, a feisty and lovable little sister, Agnes, and, above all, in her beautiful and enigmatic lost child of the flaming red hair, Brian Patrick - and also in their brave and lonely human places (Highbridge on Hudson, Long Island). She looks back for clues to her loss from the perspective of a divorced single mother trying to juggle children and hold her own in academe (she's now a professor of English). Memory sifted through the prism of such luminous prose and honest emotion offers a gentle and moving consolation to this reader. The story of the author's Catholic journey, from insider - the parish was Sacred Heart - to outsider is told with devastating brevity. I'll never forget the final image of women's exclusion. It rings so true. The abyss is present in Waters' world, but to me this is a book of hope



3. I could relate to nearly everything that Miss Waters wrote about in Crossing Highbridge, because I came from that Irish Catholic enclave, I knew the Waters family long ago, and I went to Sacred Heart with Maureen's sister, Agnes.

   Maureen Waters is a gifted writer who combines history, philosophy, religion, and the socio-econimic conditions in a working class environment in the 1940's and 1950's, with utter grace, and at the same time, the reader can experience some strong emotions of saddness and joy.




4. I was able to identify with nearly everything Miss Waters wrote about her Irish Catholic upbringing in Highbridge, because I too came from the same place, and I knew her sister Agnes many, many years ago. However, if I had not had the privilege of knowing Maureen and her literary family, I would still have been able to appreciate the writer's gift of style where she combined gracefully, history, philosophy, religion along with the socioeconomic conditions of the 1940's and 1950's growing up in Highbridge.



5. Frank McCourt must've penned a primer for those who write autobiographies profiling their rise out of quintessential Irish childhood to become successful teachers, pub owners or actors in the Big Apple. If not, we'll develop a one, having slogged through a few Irish experience autobiographies in the past few years. CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE, a soulful reflection penned by Maureen Waters, fits the bill. The first of her family not born in Ireland, Ms. Waters left a secure Irish Catholic Bronx neighborhood to become professor of English at Queens' College. In HIGHBRIDGE Waters revisits her old neighborhood and youth in an attempt to exorcise a few demons and make sense of tragic loss.
   
   Speaking of school, name a primordial recollection that separates Catholic childhood experiences from those of the less fortunate. Stumped? Parochial school--does anything compare? I recall nuns swooping like hawks about the classroom slapping the ten-thumbed hands of boys while praising the girls, all who had mastered the fine motor skill control requisite to master the Palmer method of penmanship And priests, remember their surprise visits? They dashed about classrooms rooting out the heathens who failed to memorize today's catechism. Waters pens a charming reunion visit to that school we loved, where Sister Immaculata, or Sister Alvera, or Sister Whoever, ruled the roost with an iron claw, er, fist.
   
   Waters infuses a recognizable dose of Irish Catholic guilt. To wit: "You want to be a teacher? Are you daft Maureen? The proper thing, young lady, is to save yourself, marry a decent man and have a dozen children!" Or the refrain heard by many a young Irish lad, "Pat, the family hasn't ordained a priest in two generations. Your mother and I want you to consider the seminary." Familial guilt threads its way through CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE.
   
   No growing-up-Irish spiel should lack a smattering of old-country angst, and it doesn't hurt to parade a skeleton or two out of the family closet in the offing. Forced by her father to work the family farm at an age when she should've been in school, Water's Mayo-born mother exuded the lifelong melancholy of lost opportunity; melancholy she wore on her shirtsleeve. According to Waters, an aunt told her that her maternal grandfather beat the six daughters, including Maureen's mother, Agnes. Also prone to unleashing impressive levels of violence, maternal grandpa Ruane was once hush-hushed off to a mental institution. Further, Water's father, Daniel, witnessed his share of perverse Black and Tan justice and senseless political murder while caught in the flame of Ireland's republican fire of the 1920s. Waters also lost an uncle in a failed attack on a Sligo military garrison during the Free State revolution. There's more--but perhaps these are skeletons better left in the closet.
   
   Which leads us to the subject of humor rampant in Irish tragicomedy. CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE is bound with all the Irish charm and storytelling one would expect---but not the leprechaun-like humor. Waters might've survived unscathed an abusive marriage, the lofty expectations of the Church, the vagaries of a difficult mother, and a professional career bound by the shackles of sexism, but the loss of a son in a tragic accident stopped her in her tracks. Waters wrote CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE, she offers, as a step to recovery and to pay homage to those who had gone before her. Writing with the passion of someone who needs to unlock the past in order to make sense of the present, she keeps an optimistic eye on the future. CROSSING HIGHBRIDGE is a worthwhile read.
   
   Along with her title of Professor of English, Maureen Waters' résumé includes, Director of Irish Studies at Queens College in New York.