Honoring Two World War II Liberations

On May 7, 1985, a clear and sunny late spring day in Alabama, my father, my aunts (his sisters), my husband and children, our dog and cats, maybe my sister and cousin — all gathered outside on the patio to eat. Dessert was a huge pound cake I had made — dad’s favorite — with real butter and bourbon instead of vanilla. My paternal grandmother, who may never had had a drop of whiskey in her life, taught me that little trick. So, how did she know the bourbon would make a great substitute?
We were there to celebrate dad’s 70th birthday. Seems like we celebrated most occasions with food, lots of food.

After eating too much, I saw dad sort of staring into space. I asked him if he wanted anything.

Still kind of off in space he said, “You know, on my 30th birthday, I was wandering the streets of Moosburg with a friend from camp begging for food. He was an architect, as I recall. No thanks, I don’t need any more food.”
Preserving the Past for the Future
 
 

The tower at Stalag VIIA. More pictures are available at
 http://www.moosburg.org/info/stalag/indeng.html
 
At Thanksgiving 2012, my sister, Susan Cravey, first cousin, Emory Kimbrough, and I were in my study going through the fragile scrapbook my mother had put together during those years, trying to decided how to save and preserve all the pictures, telegrams, documents, letters, pieces of parachute, German money — all manner of stuff. I came across a yellowed crumbling piece of paper which was a handout to the POWs explaining how they should eat in the days after being liberated and in a starving condition. It read something like the following (on the Web at http://ww2db.com/doc.php?q=165):
 
Hints on Diet During Recuperative Leave for Liberated Prisoners of War
1 Jan 1945
As a result of the privations you have endured as a prisoner of war, you have probably lost weight, and it is natural to think that the more food you eat the sooner will you recover your lost weight and strength. But you must remember that your physique as well as your weight may be temporarily below par, and this includes your digestive system. Just as you need rest at first and your muscles require gradual retraining, so your digestive system requires rest at first and then retraining in the handling of the sort of foods you normally like to eat.
To get your digestive system back to normal as quickly as possible a few simple rules that you should follow, especially if you are having trouble with your digestion, are given in the dietetic instructions below. You should show these notes and the following instructions to anyone who is giving you your meals, so that they can understand why you have to be careful about eating for a time, and what they should give you to eat.

1. Don't overload your stomach. Avoid heavy meals, and instead, eat small amounts frequently. Try eating three light meals a day, with three snacks of biscuits and milk variety - two between meals and one last thing at night.
2. Remember that your digestion is weak, and at first give your stomach foods easy to handle.
   Eat: Foods such as milk and milk puddings, eggs, cereals, toast or bread, biscuits, preserves, cake, and fish and tender meat if you can eat these without discomfort.
   Avoid at first: Fatty or fried foods, bulky vegetables, raw salads or fruit, highly seasoned dishes, twice-cooked meats, pickles and spices, rich, heavy puddings and pastries, strong tea and coffee.
   Beer and other alcoholic drinks are hard on a weak stomach, and you should take these very sparingly, if at all, for the first few days at least.

 
Freedom
Tomorrow marks the 69th Anniversary of two major World War II Liberations that were occurring at just about the same moments on April 29, 1945: first, the unspeakable Dachau, on which much has been written and reported and which we can all honor in our own ways. (See http://www.thirdreichruins.com/dachau.htm, for example.)

And of Stalag VIIA, Moosburg, Germany. Moosburg, (sometimes spelled Moosberg), as that stalag has come to be known, was built to hold about 10,000 German Prisoners of War (POWs).

On 30 April, 1945, the New York Times wrongly reported: "Huge Prison Camp Liberated...27,000 American and British prisoners of war at a large camp at Moosburg."
The following day, the Times printed a correction: "The Fourteenth Armored Division liberated 110,000 Allied prisoners of war at Stalag 7A at Moosburg, instead of the 27,000 prisoners previously reported. This was Germany's largest prisoner of war camp."
 
Tomorrow Spittin’ Grits will honor that liberation of 110,000 German POWs, including my father, by running a two-part account by G. M. Strong, the son of another of those POWs, a piece which he wrote commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Liberation. Following is the Preface to his account:
 

Liberation of Stalag VIIA, April 29, 1945

Today is the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Stalag VIIA Moosburg, Germany. Thousands of Allied airmen and soldiers, as many as 80,000 were in the Lager (all nationalities). Some had been POWs for over 4 years. American and British airmen had been marched in the bitter cold in January from Sagan SL III and from SL IV. This was the single largest liberation of POWs in Europe and a day not to be forgotten. As one of Patton's tanks tore a huge hole in the wire, thousands of men were now free once more. As the American flag rose over the clock tower in the town there was first silence and then pandemonium of cheers and tears. Later, when General Patton came in and addressed the Kriegies, his first words to them were said to be, "I'll bet you sons-a-b*****s are glad to see me.” They were. My dad was one of them. Bless'em all.
 
 
The Lt. Col. John Thomas Cravey WWII USAAF
and USAF Careers Collection

™
The Lt. Col. John Thomas Cravey WWII USAAF and USAF Careers Collection is protected by copyright_© 

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Spring 2014: A Lone Firefly

We are now at the spring equinox. We’ve had a bad winter and all the signs of spring are late. Except for one that I know of.
Last night, sitting on the patio wrapped in a throw, I saw the first firefly, twinkling, blinking, blinging, alone, against the dark night sky and woods behind my house. At first I thought it had to be a tower’s light blinking like a metronome; then I thought a faint star, blinking as the trees swayed; then a small aircraft aiming for the airport runway lights. No, it was none of those.
Solitary and alone, it blinked and twinkled randomly inside an imaginary square of space against a dark background. At least the blinking seemed random from the perspective of being a human rather than another lonely firefly.
Suddenly I wondered if fireflies can be alone. What happens to a lone twinking, twinking, twinking firefly unable to fulfill it biological imperative to blink and mate?
 
 

Except where noted, pictures are found at: http://www.firefly.org/firefly-pictures.html
 
 
I thought of the upcoming Night of the Fairies. Could it come this early, after such a cold winter? I will be alert every night. Meanwhile, below is the original Spittin’ Grits post about that magical night:

Night of the Fairies
I saw the first lone glittering light just after dark one evening last week, but the nights are still cool, going down to the low 40s. Still, I know the Night of the Fairies must be close; a few seasonably warm days and nights is all it will take. I will watch each night.
I first saw this phenomenon in 1999, I think. It was astonishing. This event happens each year sometime after the spring equinox depending on how early we begin to get warm days and nights. Late March and early April days and nights in the lower South can come as a surprise. They whisper a promise just as winter is dying. Most of us gardeners end up planting our flowers too early in still cold soil, and they end up damaged or dead from the last inevitable cold spell.
This night was in early April, when the days warm up and linger for just a while into the night, nights for a fire in the patio fire pit, for wrapping up in a shawl, and for just sitting. This night I could barely see at the edge of the woods the silhouetted trees’ new growth. Spring would come.
My eyes on the wood’s growing darkness, dusk turned into early evening. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the darkness was transformed with small, twinkling lights rising in unison up from the earth.
 

A million glittering stars against a dark sky. A Fairy Woodland come to life. Shakespeare’s Titania and Oberon waking in spring before their midsummer night’s dream. Thumbelina. Tinkerbelle. Fairies from the children’s books my grandmother read to me. A spectacle of diamonds and crystals.
 
The art poster of Arthur Rackham’s Titania, Queen of the Fairies, from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” can be purchased here:http://www.artsycraftsy.com/rackham/msd_titania.html
 

 Fairies away! We shall chide downright if longer I stay!

 
 

As the glittering mass rose up from the wood’s bed of moist leaves, they began to float away from each other, some higher and higher, some drifting into the backyards of the surrounding houses, some toward the patio. They magically became fireflies for the upcoming summer.
 
“It must be the night they rise from hibernation,” I said out loud to no one. I stood transfixed.
 
 
The photo below is one of a series of time-lapse pictures of fireflies: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/12/stunning-time-lapse-photographs-of-gold-fireflies-in-japan/
 

The cold air caught my attention and I moved closer to the fire.
The fireflies continued this fantastical ritual for some nights to come, but as spring became early summer, they emerged from this place in fewer and fewer numbers. They simply appeared in the summer nights.
I wondered that night if this performance was some kind of gift or sign, never to return again, like a rainbow’s pot of gold.
Each year I have waited for this Night of the Fairies. It has returned year after year. It could happen tonight or tomorrow night.
But this special gift also brings some sadness. Several years after this first event, I asked my daughter to watch for it with me. It happened. I thought this kind of beauty could add something to my daughter’s dismal existence that was dominated by her addictions to drugs. She watched in what I thought was a sense of wonder.
“Oh, man,” she said. “This is cool. It’s like being on LSD.”
I think that night was my first intimation that my daughter’s kind of addiction is a lot bigger than herself and me and her father all put together. By then it seemed that the addictions were also bigger than treatment programs.
Unfortunately, that fear has been borne out.
Anyway, I will be watching the woods for the next several nights, waiting for this annual gift. I look forward to showing it to my granddaughter, Joanna Leigh.

Technorati Tags: spring equinox,fireflies,Night of the Fairies,Titania,Midsummer Night's Dream

Lesson One: Get Over It

 

“Jo,” called Joanna Leigh from the bottom of the stairs. “Can you come here?”

 

“What ‘cha need, honey?” I called back from my study, located up the stairs and down the hall.

 

“I need you.”

 

I got up and walked down the hall and to the stair landing. There she stood at the bottom of the stairs. “What do you need?” I asked, thinking that everything looked ok. She started up, so I began walking back to my study. She followed.

 

My granddaughter has a bit of “separation anxiety” layered over the normal (I think) dose of “fear of the dark.” If I leave the kitchen and she suddenly doesn’t hear “kitchen noises” as she’s watching favorite programs in the den, she comes looking for me. She follows me around, even if I have to take the garbage out. Truth? It drives me crazy even as I understand why: Her mommy disappeared on her.

 

So, she followed me into my study instead of going to her room, which is right at the top of the stairs. I said, “You can go in your room and draw at your art table or read a book or change Saige’s clothes while I finish what I’m working on.”

 

“But I can’t,” she said.

 

“What??” I replied too harshly. “This is exasperating, Joanna Leigh.”

 

“But my room is dark. And Papa’s room is dark. And his bathroom is dark.”

 

“Ok, you and I are going to go turn on some lights. But first, we need to have a talk about this AGAIN. What are you scared of?”

 

“I don’t know. It’s just that I saw some eyes looking at me under my bed.”

 

“Joanna Leigh,” I said, “you are absolutely going to have to get over this. There are NO eyes under your bed. If you’re stay scared like this, you’ll never be able to explore stuff, go places, have fun. You’ve got to GET OVER IT, I said.

 

She dropped her eyes. Then she said, “Can I write that down on your note pad?”

 

She pointed to the yellow sticky notes. “Yes, here.” She wrote on several yellow stickies while I tried to finish what I was doing.

 

Still it drives me nutsy, and I’ve been trying to help her overcome those ideas. One of my main goals is to help her find a good sense of independence. She’s going to have to take care of herself sooner than she should have to, I’m afraid.

 

Lesson Two: Deal with It

The next evening, she came into my study and said, “Jo, how do I get over it?”

 

Oh, I felt so bad. Am I being too harsh? Am I making her more insecure? And on and on with my own fears that I’m not doing a good job raising my granddaughter, who will have to face difficulties at too young an age.

 

“Honey, you just have to look at your fears straight in the face and deal with it. You have to practice not being afraid. And deal with it.”

 

She thought. Then she said, “You mean like Elsa and Ana had to face theirs in ‘Frozen’?”

 

Lesson Three: The Big One

 

The last lesson was for me.

 

The next morning I went in her room to straighten up and make up her bed. I found these taped to headboard and vanity:

 

Below: This sticky on her headboard says: “From Jo (me) to Joanna (Joanna Leigh); (right) says To Joanna (Joanna Leigh) From Joanna (herself, a reminder)

 

 

Later I went to straighten up the kitchen. On the counter I found this:

 

Lesson: Am I lucky, or what?

 

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