Photographs and Time

Now that our place is at least semi-settled, I have embarked (perhaps prematurely) on the Herculean task of sorting bags and boxes of photographs that had accumulated over the decades when printed pictures were still in vogue. We have been lugging these fossils behind us on every move, never finding the energy and time to provide them with some rationale. At the moment overlapping piles of photos are lying about the living room, each crying for further attention and systematizing. Yesterday I purchased an album which allows the display of larger photographs and filled it last night with no difficulty. Its contents span not just decades but even centuries! The first is a picture taken in 1897 of assembled students and teachers in front of the Pine Grove School in Calabogie, Ontario. The school, a rough-hewn wooden structure disappeared in a fire many years ago, but the photograph captures the solemn faces of 44 students and four adults, including my twelve-year old grandmother, Alberta Stewart (later Craig), her twin sister Jessica, their younger brothers, twins Edwin and Edgar, and Murray. All five children of that family of 13 children are wearing clothing clearly made of the same materials, undoubtedly tailored by their mother.

Below these children is a picture taken in the summer of 1942 or 43 on Ann St in Belleville, Ont. In the still ubiquitous black and white photo are two little girls, their arms about one another, standing on the grass in front of their semi-detached house. The younger, me, in a period of which I have but the vaguest of memories is squinting at the camera (held most likely by my dad) with a shy smile, while the slightly older girl (by 19 months), my big sister Linda, is smiling down at me with the fondness of an older, more confident child. The pictures continue their recorded moments through the decades as one turns the pages: Linda and I a couple of years later photographed at Argue Photography where my mother’s sister Ethel (always called Chick) was working; (happily, Chick lived with us at that time); Linda and I with Alma, my mother’s formidable older sister; a jump to 1947 or 48 in Ottawa at the church wedding of Chick to Alan Argue, the returned soldier brother of Chick’s Belleville employer. Mom is the pictured bridesmaid and her parents, my Craig grandparents appear proudly in the group shot. A few more black and white pics: my handsome father about age 40, my sister’s wedding to Darcy Brooks with the attending parents; (I am missing from the picture as I was then ensconced in the novitiate of the colloquially called Hotel Dieu nuns near Kingston); Linda and Darcy came to see me on their honeymoon. I know that Linda found it painful that I was not with her at her wedding, a fact that moves me now as I think of those times. The last black and white before we move to splendid, though in some ways not as nuanced, coloured photos, is of me at age 25 in the costume of the happy baccalaureate. Interesting to look into one’s own face in a staged photo of that nature. One looks so well put together and in many ways, of course, one is, and yet so much is uncertain and unexplored.

The pictures rapidly jump then into colours and into a whole other era: pictures of Elizabeth at age four when we lived at one of the Therafields’ properties east of Orangeville; of Elizabeth and Catherine, three and seven at Howland Ave; several pictures of the three of us when I had the Yarmouth Rd house; a great shot of Catherine, 15, with Christine and Julia Pagel taken at DJ and Liz’s place at Fletcher Lake; a few shots of Mark and me on our travels; a picture that I have always loved, that I think of as a Madonna shot of Catherine holding baby Emily, as Theoren, age two, who has climbed up beside his mother, is tenderly kissing her cheek; Catherine and Eli happily smiling at the camera with their two lovely babies; a picture taken in Orillia of two-year old Theoren, who often came to stay with us, with Mark and me, the happy grandparents; a shot of Mark and me, splendidly attired about to cut our wedding cake; and last though never least, the graduation picture of our beautiful niece, Tracy, daughter of my long deceased sister Valerie.

This small set of pictures that I have organized into an album is only the beginning of an attempt to make the pictorial history of our lives more accessible. Practically all of the others are the standard 4x6 size and will fit into easily procured folders. It will take some time to put them into order and to assign each its place. I’m happy to have entered into this process, however, as in doing so I find myself sliding back and forth between eras, remembering and meditating on the events and the relationships that each has contained. It seems a fitting activity for someone like me, at this time of my life, to pull out these strands and to reflect on them, what they have been and what they are now in what I call my life-to-date.

A Holocaust Remembrance Event

A week filled with occasions and it isn’t over yet! On Tuesday my friend Roz Katz of the famous Harbord bakery family came to visit, bringing with her the traditional Jewish gifts upon entering a new home – bread and salt. Lovely to be ushered into another’s traditions in such a generous manner. Martha came as well for our first eye-to-eye visit in many months. And, Billie, our soon-to-be-10 granddaughter (or, as we call it, a double digit person), stayed over with us two nights while her mom, Elizabeth, bore down on material for the exam that will clinch her accreditation as an addiction counsellor. Billie is such an interesting kid. I could say much more but I have other things I want to get to this morning, so I will save Billie stories for another day.

I don’t want to imply by any lack of note that we have completed the task of settling our home. It is taking on definite outlines but the details are still happening on a day-to-day, when time is available, basis. Other than the on-going consolidation and disposal of the detritus of moving – papers, boxes, and other assorted unwanted items, little was accomplished yesterday, for example. Between sessions, Billie activities and visiting, banking essentials consequent on the now completed purchase of our Puerto Vallarta condo (Hooray!), I managed to attend a panel discussion after a brief film at the Jackman Humanities Building just down the street from us at 170 St George – the former Medical Arts building on the north-west corner of St George and Bloor.

Since last fall when I attended a one day conference on the Holocaust presented by the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto, I have received emails from them almost daily announcing the vast array of lectures, films, and discussions that they arrange on the university campus, often in conjunction with other groups or faculties. Yesterday’s was the first I have been able to attend since the fall and it was one of particular interest to me, so I arranged to have Mark pick up Billie after school. This event was co-sponsored by the Centre for Jewish Studies, the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at U of T, and, the Azrieli Foundation’s Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Foundation. Its title was Hungary 1944: The Fate of the Jews and the Roma. A brief film based on the Azrieli’s newly published memoir by George Stern called Vanished Boyhood, was followed by a panel presentation featuring: Laszlo Borhi, a visiting professor whose work has been focussed mainly on the political life of Hungary; Anna Porter, author of Kasztner’s Train; Susan Papp, who does research related to survivors’ memoirs; and, Tibor Lukacs, founder of the United Roma of Hamiliton. The panel was ably chaired by the head of the Centre for Jewish Studies, whose name eludes me at the moment. Each speaker had 15-20 minutes to present one small piece of the huge mosaic implied by the event’s title. This year is the 70^th anniversary of the invasion of Hungary by German troops and the rapidly organized deportation of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz where the vast majority were immediately sent to the gas chambers and annihilation.

I will focus here only on the remarks made by Professor Borhi because he was able to outline some of the decisions made by the Hungarian government that had fateful consequences for the Jewish citizens who had been a part of that society for centuries. After WWI and the Paris Conference the outlines of Europe were drawn in ways accentuating the independence of nation states that had formerly been part of large, multi-national empires. Hungary had, for example, been an important part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With its dissolution Hungary lost about a third of its land –Transylvania, as well as an area given to the newly formed Yugoslavia – and, a large number of its citizens. As in Germany there was tremendous bitterness about these losses. The economically straightened circumstances and ideological upheavals across the continent after the war and during the 1930s, contributed to the country and its people turning inward. Losing the balance needed in multi-cultural societies for tolerance and peaceful co-existence, the populous veered more toward nationalism and a consequent marginalization of those who were considered not to be “truly” Hungarian. Anti-Semitism found fruitful soil in this climate, though never the ideologically driven anti-Semitism which in Germany led to the deliberate enactment of the Holocaust.

When in 1938 the Munich agreement opened the possibilities of reclaiming lands taken from countries in Eastern Europe, the Hungarian government saw a possible advantage for itself. In 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union moved to partition Poland. Hungary mobilized at the same time, taking back some of its own lost territories, thus allying itself to Germany in the eyes of the western powers. In fact Hungary remained neutral in the early global war, only entering on the side of Germany when in 1941 Hitler ordered the invasion of the USSR. During that part of the war Jewish men were called up for labour service. Battalions were sent to various fronts to build roads, bridges, or other needed facilities. The conditions under which they were quartered and cared for were abysmal and about 40,000 of the 50,000 conscripted died from disease, starvation and cold. Previous to this era Jewish men had fought alongside other Hungarian soldiers, receiving identical treatment and being rewarded with medals and promotions. The alliance with Germany and the right-wing, anti-Semitic climate in Hungary militated against their equal treatment, but did not degenerate into the establishment of ghettos or concentration camps for the Jewish population.

By 1943 it was clear to many observers that Germany could not win the war. Hungary and other countries began secret talks with the Allies seeking separate peace treaties. One advantage for the Allies in peace with countries like Hungary and Romania was the possibility of mounting an assault into Europe through areas bordering on or close to the Black Sea.  However, plans were already developing to mount the second front in Normandy. A major concern for the Allies was finding ways to keep the Axis forces away from the Atlantic coast when the attack would be launched. Professor Borhi quoted from correspondence among the Allies revealing that it would be to their advantage if Hitler knew of the secret peace overtures. Germany could not afford to have that vulnerable area left open to Allied incursions and would most likely invade the “betraying” countries. The Allies also had known for some time about the death camps in the east and had been warned that should the Germans invade Hungary its population of about three-quarters of a million Jews would be placed in extreme jeopardy. Nonetheless, the “secret” talks were leaked or in some fashion discovered. On March 19, 1944 German armies marched into Hungary, assuming political and military control of the country.

With them came Adolph Eichmann with his group of 300 assistants to put into effect a prearranged plan to collect and transport Jews to Auschwitz. Within weeks tens of thousands of Jews were forced into camps; between the middle of May and the end of June, 1944 over 300,000 had been sent to Auschwitz. Most were gassed immediately upon arrival, only a few were taken into forced labour groups. A further 150,000 were sent over the next few weeks. As the Soviet armies drew closer to Hungary, international pressure placed on the Hungarian government to stop the deportations had effect by mid-July. The Germans, under pressure now from several directions, acquiesced.

In the discussion following the presentations questions about the co-operation of Hungarians in the round-up and deportation of Jews during this period of German domination were raised. Clearly some members of the Hungarian military and police, as well as private citizens, were complicit. Some panellists and people in the audience had family members who had survived the attempts of the Germans to kill them. These relatives told stories of Hungarians who betrayed or abused them as well as other tales of Hungarians who protected and hid them from the Germans. There are no easy demarcations that can be made within any population in this respect.

The event was well attended; the room at the Jackman building was full with a dozen or so people standing. Quite a few were university people – teachers and students – but there were also others like myself, drawn by their own reasons to attend, being interested in this profound and disturbing period of our common human history. Being right here in the heart of the Annex and close to the university, I can easily avail myself of these opportunities.

Because this post relates to the blog that I wrote in the fall when Mark and I traveled to Eastern Europe to visit sites of the Holocaust, I plan to also post it on that blog, at www.ajourneytowardtheholocaust.blogspot.com  

Life on the Not-So Sunny Side

Our place is beginning to look less like a garage sale and more like a home. Most of the boxes are emptied; books are in shelves, and objets await their designations; there are even pictures on the living room walls and in my office. Sitting here in my big recliner (a remnant from Mark’s former office), I had the lovely fantasy of having a flying visit from a Mary Poppins-type character, who with a song and a bit of magic would command all of the remaining bits and pieces to rise into the air and to disport themselves in an orderly fashion into suitable resting places. It won’t happen but that’s OK. We are day by day claiming this apartment even as we sort out, sometimes with a few assorted “words” our disparate views on how things should look.

The weather continues to be stubbornly chilly, unusually for this late in March. Because we haven’t gone through the long winter acclimatizing ourselves to the cold (poor us!), we may be more sensitive to its rigours than some of our neighbours. But everyone exclaims about the weather. The sunny days (like yesterday) are encouraging. They transform the otherwise rather dirty and gloomy streetscapes into places of activity and energy. We walked east on Bloor to the Manulife building at Bay, hugging the sunny side of the street, covering our ears with scarves, to visit some of our former haunts from when we lived on Cumberland. How everyone longs to be able to walk about with leisure, enjoying the city without defending against frostbite! But still, soon we’ll be complaining about the heat.

On Friday I walked west along Bloor to make a deposit at my bank at Euclid. On that stretch of about a mile, there and back, I counted five people begging for change. None of them looked very well. To be sure, each of them has a story that would explain how they have come to this pass. I don’t speak to them and I don’t give them anything. This is the received wisdom of dealing with people who are begging. It will only encourage them, etc. But I know from my brushes with members of this population in a former life when I was studying homeless women and the hostels set up to assist them here in Toronto, that the underlying causes of people thus located are complex and multiple and the possibilities of alleviating their conditions are not great.

Up along Eglinton Ave near our Croydon Rd home there were no people begging, not that I ever saw at any rate. Bloor along this stretch holds an extremely diverse community which perhaps lends itself better both to people in need and people who are willing to give a little to help. One tends to find a niche where one can find a needed resource – a basic law of evolutionary biology. In Puerto Vallarta one never saw young, able-bodied people begging. There were a few older women who would sit on the malecon looking dusty and sad, tiny and pathetic, who would gaze at passersby, wordlessly soliciting their charity. Gringos tended to ignore them though I saw a number of young Mexicanos putting coins in their cups, seeing women who doubtlessly reminded them of members of their own families.

In the old days one horror of life in Mexico, as in India and other countries, consisted of the mutilation of children, the damaged products used to elicit income from the compassionate. On Olas Altas, the main (though but several blocks in length) corridor of human traffic in the Zona Romantico area south of the River Cuale, an attractive and presentable young man sits on a regular basis in a wheelchair in front of one of the ubiquitous OXXO convenience stores. His right leg is twisted in an uncomfortable-looking manner, being looped over his left, clearly marking him as impossibly crippled. Was this an inflicted condition or simply one of the many thousands of congenital malformations that the health system in Mexico has never had the necessary resources to correct in a child’s early life? Last year I encountered this fellow often as we lived close by his customary spot. Never did he ask for money or even indicate in any fashion that that was the purpose of his day-long vigils. It took me a while to twig to that idea. In the meantime we had established some friendly rapport as he spoke English rather well. I never did give him anything, feeling perhaps foolishly that the relationship that we had established was more of a friendly acquaintance and that for me to suddenly treat him as an object of my benevolence would change the nature of our exchange and rob it of its freshness and delight. This year I saw him only toward the end of our stay and found myself avoiding him out of some embarrassment of my own. This coming winter though, I will go back to talking with him and ask him directly about his life and situation. I have seen that he has friends who care for him; he clearly has a life of some personal happiness.

Well, enough said for this morning’s letter. Press the No Comment spot at the end of this letter to say hello, or. stop bothering me with your drivel, or anything. And now back to the domestic tasks at hand. Cheers.

A Week In

It’s Saturday morning, one week into our new life on Major St, a great day to sleep in and enjoy the quiet of the neighbourhood. But perversely, we are awake and up by 6 AM, downstairs and already at the Saturday Globe and Mail over breakfast. It’s been a week of struggling through the accumulated baggage of decades, trussed up in various packages and strewn about our new abode in daunting profusion. I used the “free” option on Craigslist to download 15 boxes of books to a quick-off-the-mark lad, grateful for his sudden windfall. The fellah who showed up to fix the freezer was taken aback when I asked him if he would like a set of dishes. “Um,” he said, “um, well, could I see them?” I showed them. “They’re bee-oot-i-ful,” he exhaled, and left with four boxes from the cottage that my kids had eschewed. That was fun. Mostly though, it’s been one box at a time, loading the floor-to-ceiling shelves on both sides of our living room with first my books and then with Mark’s. Room left over for bric-a-brac/objets collected mainly from our travels.

Yesterday we met briefly with Mitch, our lawyer, to sign documents passing our house on Croydon over to the new owners. The bank holding our mortgage had been promising on a daily basis to send a final accounting for its repayment but had failed to do so. Without this piece in the vast jigsaw of lawyerly works, the deal could not close. Mitch used all the pressure the laws allow: if you don’t get this document to me this morning, the house will not close; the buyers will sue; the owners will in turn sue you for failure to comply with their request. They got it to him within the hour. The deal closed. The lawyer for the buyers then mistakenly sent the final cheque to a law firm representing other parties in a second deal that he was closing yesterday. Still, by late afternoon we were able to collect the residue of mortgage, real estate fees, lawyer’s fees, HST, and disbursements, and deposit it in my bank. Now begins the complicated dance of arranging payments for places Mexican.

Throughout all of the activities of this week we have sampled many of the delights of our new hood: food collection at the close-by Metro and Sobey’s, fruit from the Vietnamese market at Manning and Bloor, suppers on the go at Pizza-Pizza, Big Sushi, the Eastern Mediterranean kitchen by the Bloor Cinema, and even a breakfast sandwich at Tim Horton’s. In celebration of “closing day” yesterday we took in a documentary about the decades-long relationship between Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman. Tonight we have been invited to dinner by neighbours across the street, alerted to our move by a mutual friend – how’s that for wonderful!!

Being here, just being back in Toronto I am aware of the difference in pace of the town from that of Puerto Vallarta. Years ago, about 35 or so, visiting Houston with Maurice, I was struck by the intensity of the lives of all his siblings. Everything seemed set to a faster tempo. The dominant explanatory theme seemed to be the threat of personal bankruptcy if one suffered a major health problem without insurance. We have to work and to work hard and be savvy to avoid that catastrophe. OK. But was that all there was? Could growing up under the threat of nuclear annihilation as did that generation be a part of the tension? Whatever. It was a puzzle to me. Now I sense the same intensity and consequent tension and anxiety here in Toronto. It has been building for decades, of course, and has done so despite our relative ease about the safety of our health system. I can feel it now that I have returned from the relaxed life in Mexico. I sense it right in my chest, a tightening that signals something like: hurry up, hurry up; what’s next? have I forgotten something? I hear it in the voices of friends and my daughters as they describe all they need to do just to keep ahead of their own lives. It’s exhausting. In the Globe this morning Elizabeth Renzetti who is married to Doug Saunders, another G&M smarty-pants, writes about this way of living as she reviews Brigid Schulte’s new book, Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has The Time. As she says, the wheel turns because we keep running. It’s actually quite addictive to live that way. We stimulate our adrenals, get hyped, and life seems boring or unsatisfying if there’s no buzz of action. A perfect recipe for the unexamined life. It’s not easy to back off succumbing to an accelerated pace either. It can only be done with deliberation, by as Schulte says, learning to say no, and I think also by deliberately taking times in which we do nothing and allow ourselves to catch up with whatever is going on in the deeper stream of who we happen to be, letting ourselves rest in a sense that who we are in ourselves is just fine, to paraphrase Winnicott, being a “good enough” person.

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A Beginning

Mark and I returned to Toronto on March 7, proceeded to pack up our Croydon Rd house and moved to Major St. on the following Saturday. It was a difficult move, compounded by several factors: our garage was filled with items (mainly books) brought down from Orillia when we leased our condo shortly before leaving for Puerto Vallarta; Mark’s profession and mine demand the keeping of files for up to ten years after completion of the work – massive boxes, especially of his documents had to be transported and stored; we moved from a three bedroom house with a large basement office to a two bedroom apartment with limited storage space in the unfinished basement; the living area of the Croydon house is located on the second floor, the bedrooms on the third, and Mark’s office in the basement, and the Major St apartment is on the second and third floors of an 1875 heritage house – far too many stairs for all involved; and, we had decided to give our older couch to Elizabeth, buying two new couches and a small pull-out piece from IKEA – these arrived the afternoon of the move in boxes! – two of the three remain unassembled. Our moving crew gave amazing service; they were all three of Russian/Ukrainian background. The youngest, in Canada for just a few months, spoke some English which he had studied in school. They were with us from 9 AM to 8:30 that evening, struggling up the antique staircases of this interesting house with our array of far-too-many possessions.

And so we are moved in but not in any sense settled. The Croydon Rd house demands further attention to ready it for the prospective buyers – it will change hands on Friday. Elizabeth has taken on the job of cleaning; I have been going back and forth transporting bags and boxes of unwanted things to the Sally Ann and bringing over pictures and other things that required a more delicate hand. With respect to the Major St house, the bottom line is that after five days here we remain in an advanced state of chaos, despite all efforts to the contrary. It is clear that getting truly settled will take some time and cannot be rushed. Mark has been busy with a series of heritage reports all due this week. I have managed to give some order to the room that I will use as an office and to the kitchen, though neither of these are in a finished state. The living room has an amazing profusion of built-in book shelves which encourages our unfortunate proclivity toward collection. Much of my time has been spent emptying boxes of books and situating them helter/skelter.

But enough of the moving report. We are here and I am glad. I wanted it badly and I have it. And so now I must be patient and let the process run its course. One pleasant effect of living full-time in the city is that we can avail ourselves of the Globe’s offer to bring the New York Times to our door every Sunday morning. This service began last Sunday. Surrounded by cast-off newspapers that had sheltered dishes and precious commodities in their removal boxes, we welcomed this new arrival. In the book section there was an interview with Philip Roth who said many interesting things about his writing life and about himself. Roth stopped writing altogether about five years ago, finding the break a great relief. Saying that writing, like any other job is hard work, he went on about his own particular experience: “Morning after morning for 50 years, I faced the next page defenseless and unprepared. Writing for me was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life. It was also my good luck that happiness didn’t matter to me and I had no compassion for myself. Though why such a task should have fallen to me I have no idea. Maybe writing protected me against even worse menace.” Wow! This statement begs so many questions about Roth, but also goes a long way to explaining him. It only makes me want to read more of his works and to meditate with him upon the themes that he found himself exploring.

But for now I must return to the task of making our apartment into a comfortable home, the home in the Annex for which I have longed lo, these many years.