Graypanther sent me a copy of Leon Uris’s Mila 18. (Thank you, Gray.) I particularly enjoyed the character-and-story sections. The history and battle areas were informative. All in all, I’m glad I read it. The only other Uris I’ve read was Exodus, and that was a long time ago. Right now The Haj, another Gray gift, is three books away on the unread shelf.
Did Mila 18 lead me to any additional insight on the current Israel-Palestine conflict? I don’t think so. To me the problem is so complex and there’s so much history that I’m having trouble wrapping around my mind around any of it. The holocaust was horrible. It’s also fascinating in a sick and twisted way. Thus I enjoy—for lack of a better word—reading about it. But now: has Israel turned into the cat, making the Palestinians the mice? I have no idea.
Anyway, back to Mila 18 and specifics:
1) The most terrifying events in the book: 1) The Germans agree to trade prisoners of war with the Jews at an unbelievable exchange rate of one German to five Jews. Of course the rate turns out to be believable when it becomes known that every returned Jew is an amputee. The scene of them walking back into Poland is heartbreaking. 2) Near the end of the book, Uris describes 36 hours a band of Jewish rebels survive in the Warsaw sewers. Graphically. Those two scenes will stay with me for a long time.
2) About a hospital: “In the makeshift maternity ward, infants sucked at empty breasts and screamed angrily at what life had dealt them in their few hours on earth.” (page 115) How’s that for summing up horror in one succinct sentence?
3) “Shrieker learned many lessons intuitively as a Nazi. One of the purists axioms was that intellectuals were weak men. They espoused noble ideas which he did not understand. They argued ideals, but they were not ready to die for them as he was for Nazism. Those so-called thinkers were exactly opposite of what they posed to be. They were all talk. They were cowards." (page 125) Must not make comparisons between Nazi Germany and the USA today. Must not. Must not.
4) “The Communists were being hounded by the Nazis even more unmercifully than the Jews. The Gestapo had a single order covering them: FIND THEM AND SHOOT THEM.” (page 145) I didn’t know that. But is it better or worse than: round them up, make their lives hell and then kill them?
5) “Nazi bureaucracy. You see, we have to put a hundred people to work making orders and then another hundred countermanding them. Another hundred sorting paper clips. That pays off our obligations to the party faithful. We shall rule the world in triplicate.” (page 155) Must not, must not. "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
6) A journalist in the process of burning out says, “We sound the great trumpet and no one hears us. Free men with full bellies don’t want to believe that a black native in Ethiopia concerns them or that the bombing of an open city in Spain is the prelude to the bombing of London.” (page 180) Or that supporting a corrupt regime in the Middle East can make that country’s citizens hate us.
7) The Catholic Church appears frequently in Mila 18. Sometimes its priests are the good guys. “To (them) it was a simple basic rule that the saving of lives was the carrying out of Christ’s work.” (308)
8) And sometimes they’re not. Gabriela, a good Catholic, goes to ask a priest to help the Jews. He refuses but still holds out his hand for the respectful kiss. “She looked at his hand. ‘You are not the representative of Jesus Christ my father taught me of,’ she said, and walked from the room.” (page 311) You go, Gabby!
9) A Nazi explains that “In the concentration camps we reduce our political enemy until he takes the physical appearance of a subhuman. This makes us supermen by comparison.” (page 403) But of course. How clear cut. And logical.
10) A test to become a member of the SS involves having a sixteen-year-old boy train a dog. At the end of a year the boy is instructed to strangle the dog with his bare hands. Those who do so join the SS. “And this … is the supreme state of absolute obedience which we Germans have attained.” (page 404) Clearly, a goal worth achieving. Not!
Bottom line: Will I read more Uris? Sure. One more book, at least.
Last edited by humphreysmar; 08/29/09 03:55 PM.
