Target practice

Yet another first

zinnnggggg.........

Just keeping track of the voting . . .

As long as we're changing place names . . .

The Sound of Truth

Francoise von Trapp
Fandbrin thearand 6 at 6:16 PM ·

My friends often wonder why I roll my eyes whenever they send me ‘Sound of Music’ references. They tell me - “it’s such a great movie! You’re famous!”

What they don’t get is that the true story is a far cry from the lighthearted musical, in which my father's family escapes the Nazis by hiding in a convent and then climbing over the mountain into Switzerland.

In reality, they put on their hiking clothes and caught the last train to Italy before the borders closed for a proposed “hiking holiday”. They were very, very lucky to have Italian passports - as my grandfather, Georg, was born in Zadar - then a part Italy, making them Italian citizens.

They spent some time in the Netherlands before sailing on the American Farmer out of Southampton for the U.S., with a sponsor and a singing contract for a U.S. tour. They had very little money. Real Nazis were not bumbling fools who could be outsmarted by some clever nuns. They we’re dangerous killers. My family was lucky to get out alive.

Have you ever been to Dachau, a town near Munich that was the location of a Nazi concentration camp during the time of the holocaust? I have. It’s easily accessible by train and bus. The camp, now a museum, sits right on the edge of a residential community. Only a fence separates it from a street with homes on it. Before I went there, I thought it must be all by itself, way out in the country. Inside the compound, the camp is eerily quiet. There are no signs of life. No birdsong. The camp was built to house 6,000 people. By the time it was liberated by U.S. soldiers at the end of WWII, there were 60K people being housed there in squalid conditions. It was a work camp, not a death camp like Auschwitz. But it still had a gas chamber used to kill those who were too weak to work or who had committed some violation, or simply to make room for more prisoners.

When you walk around Dachau and imagine all the atrocities that took place there and the proximity of the neighborhoods outside the walls, it is impossible to believe that the residents of Dachau did not know what was happening there - despite what the records say. From second floor rooms, you could have seen over the wall. When the crematorium was operating, you could smell the burning flesh. How could they NOT know? They were either in denial or lived in fear for their own lives.

Don’t be mistaken to think the Nazis were only after Jews. Inmates included homosexuals, Catholics, Roma gypsies, anyone who did not fit the ideal of the Aryan race, as well as intellectuals who dared question the motivation of the Nazis. Physically and mentally disabled people were rounded up and sent to the death camps, as they could not be of service at places like Dachau.*

While walking through the museum and reading all the stories, I realized that Dachau’s proximity to Salzburg made it the location my family would have been shipped to if they had not left on that train to Italy. Make no mistake, they would have been arrested - my grandfather for refusing a position to oversee a Nazi submarine base in the Adriatic, my father for declining an offer to run a department in one of Vienna’s main hospitals, and the family for refusing an invitation to sing at Hitler’s birthday. As my grandmother Maria wrote in her book, quoting my grandfather, “One does not say no three times to Hitler.”

If they had gone to Dachau, would they have been among the survivors when it was liberated in 1945? Doubtful, as they left in 1938. There would have been no musical career, no Sound of Music, and certainly no me.
If you think this can’t happen again and, in the USA, think again. There are clear indicators that recent actions taken by Trump and Elon Musk mirror those of Adolf Hitler when he took over Germany.

Musk’s comments and actions demonstrate that he supports the far right - as evidenced by his Nazi salute and also his investment and promotion of Germany’s far-right AfD party. He seems to believe that as the richest man in the world, he is above the rule of law and the US constitution.

And then there is yesterday’s news that Marco Rubio and Donald Trump are considering El Salvador’s offer to house not only deportees, but U.S. citizens convicted of crimes in its new detention camp built to hold 40K inmates.

Please don’t turn a blind eye to what’s happening right over that wall by writing this off as “posturing”. If you voted for Trump because you didn’t agree with the policies of the Harris Administration, or you were concerned about rising food prices, or the fentanyl crisis, or abortion laws, or immigration, or DEI initiatives, or gay marriage and transgender rights; or that you believed him when he said he wasn’t affiliated with Project 25, or whatever he did that convinced you to vote for him, it’s not too late for you to help stop what’s going on. Because it's wrong and our democracy IS at stake. The Democrats in Congress are already mobilizing. Please, please contact your Republican Congresspeople and get them to mobilize too.

*Just added a correction above: the mentally ill and disabled were not actually sent to Dachau, a work camp. They were sent to death camps.
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Aw, shucks.

Thanks for the heart! Lub dub!


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AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

Just got off the phone with Roku support, two hours spent trying to get the audio back on my TV. They kept sending a code to my email, it wasn't showing up in my inbox. They had me try to restart the TV using the QR code, same issue with email. After putting me on hold for several minutes, they finally told me that the problem is with their server and I need to call them back in an hour to start over. Some days I do miss the rabbit ears with tin foil flags. grrrrrrrrrr.............

UPDATE --- just had the followup call, they actually told me to call back when there is someone here to help! Interesting customer support, yes?!


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How are the D senators responding on the Vought vote

to which the chair responds "no debate during the vote"; can anyone hear what they are saying?


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Ask them.