Grief.  It’s a place I visit.  I’ve been there so many times it feels like a familiar cabin in the woods, a place where my heart hurts and I cry without warning.  A film runs over and over, playing out a story.  Occasionally my mind refuses the story and tries to make it not have  Read the Rest…

Traudl Junge was 13 years old when Hitler came to power. Having never known her father, her childhood was dominated by her tyrannical grandfather. Traudl describes herself as late in developing and raised to be subservient.  The Hitler Youth movement was her final preparation for adult life. “I was a thoughtless young girl,” Traudl said when she was  Read the Rest…

There’s almost nothing I like better than sleuthing out a new song.  This week, as it continues to be World War II at my house, the latter interest has intersected with the former.  Just as one gets used to seeing the same news footage of D-Day, of the Zyklon-B can, and of the liberation of  Read the Rest…