Red-Letter Days and Months Report of October's Celebratory Ovember Is Upon Us and That Is Not Necessar Now, 74 Years Later, Oktyobr Has at Last Shed Its Event
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Aji\ Information Volume XLVI No. 11 November 1991 £3 (to non-members) Don't m/ss . A reflection on anniversaries Our 50th Anniversary Dinner. A special 'stop press' Red-letter days and months report of October's celebratory ovember is upon us and that is not necessar Now, 74 years later, Oktyobr has at last shed its event. p9 ily — in the Northern hemisphere - a good commemorative significance in Russian, and once N thing. The month of November (which the again become a month like any other. Although the French Revolution renamed Brumaire after brume, use of October as a sort of mantra was utterly bogus, fog) starts with the macabre rituals of All Souls' Day since the events of late 1917 were occasions for regret Class: the and Hallowe'en - not to mention the Mexican Day of rather than commemoration, it is an interesting fact the Dead. that certain dates in history do seem to have an almost English Historically, too, November unfolds in a series of mystical significance. Disease? macabre anniversaries: Guy Fawkes' Day, Poppy On 20 August 1968 Soviet tanks rolled into Prague; Day, Crystal Night and the Bolshevik Revolution. The on 20 August 1991 the hard-line junta sent tanks into ne of Soviets dubbed the last event, which actually occurred Moscow. Lady in November, the October Revolution because it had On 28 June 1399 the Serbs went down to defeat by Bird- taken place in the days of their unreformed calendar. the Turks at Kossovo; on 28 June 1914 a Serb O October is also, of course, more evocative than assassinated the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand wood's supporters November of the poet Keats' 'season of mists and at Sarajevo; on 28 June 1991 Slovenia seceded from described the jury mellow fruitfulness'. At any rate, after 1917 October, Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. or Red October, became a shibboleth and was used German history, too, has its recurring red-letter day that found her for naming anything from periodicals to metro of widely disparate significance. On 9 November guilty as 'not stations, and from children's homes to collective 1918 the Kaiser abdicated paving the way for the containing a farms. Armistice; on 9 November 1923 Hitler staged the single person of bloody Munich Putsch, only to receive kid-glove quality'. It is a treatment from the very authorities he had tried to comment from overthrow; on 9 November 1938 the Nazis unleashed which one can the Kristallnacht pogrom showing the Heart of draw some Darkness in the heart of Europe; on 9 November comfort. It 1991 the Berlin Wall came down, ending the division suggests that the of the two Germanies. snobbery fuelling In the aftermath of the Wall's collapse many people old-style feared that a unified Germany would bestride Europe antisemitism like a colossus. This fear has so far proved groundless. debars its Bonn sat on the sidelines in the Gulf War, and is now proponents from advocating military peace-keeping action in Yugo making common slavia without being able to commit its own troops. cause with the Grand German gestures are not only ruled by the skinhead thugs Constitution, but also by the financial cost of who haunt incorporating the near-bankrupt five Eastern Lander Mosley's old into the economy. stamping grounds The danger emanating from the unified Germans, in the East End. does not, for the foreseeable future at any rate, seem In this instance to lie in their being too mindful of past 'greatness'. It class, far from lies in forgetfulness - by, for instance, allowing the being the cause euphoric recollection of 9 November 1991 to overlay, of the 'English and blot out, the shameful memory of 9 November disease', seems to 1938. That date, which left an entire nation bearing be an Synagogue furnisbiniis itraf;i;ed out and piled up for public the mark of Cain, must never be overtaken by antidote. D burning. Germany, l^.iS. oblivion. •emim a»T»E^a?«'ssmsm '^i^'^.f^JAr'X'*^. ."•< AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 1991 The Day of the Jackal Profile ondon University Examination Board, moving with the times, has placed Man of harmony LFrederick Forsyth's thriller on the A- However, by the time of the AJR's level syllabus for English Literature. Plans founding they had settled in Bedford which are also afoot to make a Jeffrey Archer was to be home ever after. Hans not only novel a set text. Shakespeare, it appears, is joined the Association early on. 'It was still up there with Forsyth and Archer, but suggested' he says 'that I might assist in the examiners want to make his plays more recruiting meinbers. So I spent my week accessible to students by giving them new ends with my parents in London and called titles. first at the AJR office in Finchley Road, to Anthony and Cleopatra is going to be collect lists with names and addresses of known as Death on the Nile, Julius Caesar potential members, chiefly in West London. as Bloodstains in the Forum, King Lear as There was little 'sales resistance' and meet Single Parent Royal in Retirement, Macbeth ing so many members of our community as Scot on the Rocks, Romeo and Juliet as made the job interesting.' Teenage Love before the Pill, Hamlet as His real job meanwhile was teaching Danish pastry at the Oedipus Cafe, The inusic at schools in Bedford — though, as Merchant of Venice as Rock around the before in Berlin, he did not limit his service Rialto, Richard II as The King with a kink, to the Orphic muse to classroom teaching. Richard III as The Hunchback of St Paul's, The Freyhans are long-time stalwarts of and Henry VIII as Der lustige Witiver. the Bedford Music club providing hospi Othello is still under debate, with some tality at their home to visiting performers members favouring Mixed marriage in the like Menuhin, Tortelier and Brendel. (Apro Med, and others Jalousie, or How to make a Hans I reyban. pos of musical luminaries they also have a Venetian blind. To disabuse students of the link with Sir David Willcocks - both as notion that writers don't do a real job, in ith a piano-playing father and a guest conductor of Bedford Musical some cases not only the work but also its mother who had trained as a Society, and as teacher of their sons at author will appear under a new guise. Thus Wsinger Berlin-born Hans Freyhan Cambridge.) John Milton's Samson Agonistes will figure was virtually predestined to lead a life given In addition Hans has long been music as Short back and sides by Cromwell's PR over to music. He studied piano from the critic of the Bedfordshire Times, as well as man on the exam paper, and Henry Field (relatively late) age of nine - and later the author of the programme notes for our ing's Tom Jones as Elvis from Ebbw Vale hy cello and the organ. In 1928 he read annual AJR and Self Aid charity concerts. the Beak of Bow Street. musicology, and other subjects, at Freiburg He is truly a man of harmony - not only in n R.G. University, preparatory to attending a its literal meaning, but also in the wider three-year course for music teachers at sense of harmonising his membership of the Berlin. Here the exam requirements refugee community with participation in the included an hour-long piano recital of Bach life of the town that has become his true and Beethoven from memory (!). He passed home. Let your body nonetheless and became a trainee teacher in D Richard Grunberger Berlin grammar schools. Halfway through take a holiday that school year the Nazis came to power Whilst enjoying good quality hotels and excel and the creeping ghettoisation of Gerinan FOR THOSE YOU CARE MOST ABOUT lent cuisine, why not ease your aches and Jewry began. pains with the famous Fango mud treatments or Thalassotherapy as well as Health, Beauty Hans Freyhan obtained employment at and Fitness Courses. Jewish schools; as a teacher for the Adass Springdene n ABANO, MONTEGROTTO, ISCHIA, Jisroel he also conducted the synagogue A modern nursing home with IN ITALY choir (and wrote music criticism for the 26 yrs of excellence in health D YVERDON IN SWITZERLAND C. V. Zeitung.) care to the community. Licensed by Barnet area health [J BIARRITZ IN FRANCE He avoided the Kristallnacht round-up by authority and recognised by Scheduled flights from Heathrow or Gatwick going into hiding. In January 1939 he came BUPA & PPP. and regional airports. HYDROTHERAPY & Prices with or without treatments. to England, followed by his wife Kate PHYSIOTHERAPY Private car transfers included. whom he had met in far-off idyllic Freiburg provided by full time chartered FOR FREE COLOUR BROCHURE CONTACT: cares physiotherapists for inpatients days ten years ealier. and outpatients. Over here the couple initially faced finan cial problems but were cheered by the SPRINGDENE 55 Oakleigh Park North, Whetstone, London N.20 of Westminster Linnitedaai^ friendliness of people. War brought further 081-446 2117 276 PRESTON ROAD, HARROW HA3 OQA upheavals; the enforced move from the SPRINGVIEW 6-10 Crescent Road, Enfield. Our 'invasion coast', Hans' internment, and completely new/ purpose built hotel style retirement *'»^ TEL: 081-904 2202 f^^ home. All rooms with bathroom en-suite from £305 24hr answerphone 081-908 1515 *iIA Kate's, and their little son's evacuation from per week. 081-446 2117. blitzed London. AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 1991 desirable event'. GBS, then probably the in the U.S. it was nominated for an Oscar — Art and power most famous writer in the world - whom but not in its country of origin.