Somehow We Survive

“We have passed through the eye of the needle!” my father was fond of saying. And indeed we had. Now, after four years and four months of German occupation, we had survived. Neither morality nor faith had anything to do with our survival but survive we did. Money, sex and luck all had a hand in it. Germany, the most powerful nation in Europe, had decreed that all Jews were to be exterminated, not only the adults but especially the children. Once the children had been murdered, the “Jewish Question” would have been resolved once and for all. The Allied armies had finally swept through Belgium and liberated us after we had spent twenty-seven months in hiding. Our parents, Hilaire and Frieda Rosenberg went about trying to resume some semblance of family life; my sister Ruth and I would be going back to school after nearly three years of interrupted studies. It would take years for me to fathom the enormity of what we had been through, to understand why we did survive. Our parents were gamblers and people they knew through the Casinos hid us. Hilaire made large amounts of money in black-market dealings with the Germans so we could pay for the cupidity of those who would hide us. Frieda had an affair with an SS officer who warned us when we had to go into hiding. After attending the 1991 Conference of Hidden Children in New York City I knew that this unusual story of survival had to be written. Thus began a journey to a second liberation, an understanding that although they had been less than perfect parents, Hilaire and Frieda did all they humanly could do to ensure the survival of this nucleus of our family.

Keorapetse Kgositsile, South Africa's second poet laureate, was a political activist, teacher, and poet. He lived, wrote, and taught in the United States for a significant part of his life and collaborated with many influential and highly regarded writers, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Sterling Plumpp, Dudley Randall, and George Kent. This comprehensive collection of Kgositsile's new and collected works spans almost fifty years. During his lifetime, Kgositsile dedicated the majority of his poems to people or movements, documenting the struggle against racism, Western imperialism, and racial capitalism, and celebrating human creativity, particularly music, as an inherent and essential aspect of the global liberation struggle. This collection demonstrates the commitment to equality, justice, and egalitarianism fostered by cultural workers within the mass liberation movement. As the introduction notes, Kgositsile had an "undisputed ability to honor the truth in all its complexity, with a musicality that draws on the repository of memory and history, rebuilt through the rhythms and cadences of jazz." Addressing themes of Black solidarity, displacement, and anticolonialism, Kgositsile's prose is fiery, witty, and filled with conviction. This collection showcases a voice that wanted to change the world--and did.

Thirty-six essays from 2000 to 2009 chronicling America's struggles with terrorism and freedom. The first of these essays was written over a year before the events of 9/11/01. The last was written in 2009. The second was written the day of 9/11 and published the next week. These essays and articles are a kind of chronological examination of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq and the consequences for life here in the United States post 9/11. You may judge for yourself with the hindsight of history how accurate were my analyses, predictions, and descriptions of these events of the past decade and a half. Those who forget the lessons of history...

The Descent is the story of a woman who, crushed by a devastating separation, sets off on an inner journey to discover her true self, her heart, and free it from its shields, shackles and chains to be able to live her life fully, with joy and passion. Sophia is guided by her dreams. When she experiences her entire life crashing down around her, she finds herself buried under debris, mud and darkness. She crawls her way deeper into the darkness, to find what is hidden there. Each chapter begins with a dream, image and sometimes internal bodywork, followed by meaning, understanding and real life events and feelings around what is happening. Sophia, guided by her dreams, peels layer after layer of abuse-driven protection and barriers, unblocking constrictions and delving deep into darkness and pain to find the innermost beauty of a shining soul, trapped under many layers of protection, self-hate, guilt and fear, created from suffering to provide self-defence. Her dreams reveal the truth about herself, helping her understand who she truly is. She starts to understand her truth and her hidden unconscious. Sophia is drawn down into investigating her shadow, curious about what is hidden there, desiring to live a more fulfilled, aware, whole and happy life. What she encounters is at times surprising and heartbreaking, at times hopeful and joy-releasing. Discovering what has been hidden leads her to a new life, full of joy and understanding, compassion and forgiveness, contentment and peace. The Descent is written in a way that shows how dreams can lead us, how their symbolism can be interpreted and how they can be used to help guide us in our lives. It is a fascinating read for those who are feeling lost in life, as well as anyone who enjoys the story of an ordinary woman’s discovery of herself.