Saving Aaron Jastrow
By the time Aaron Jastrow enters the underground chamber, he knows as well as we do what’s about to happen. This is a poignant moment in the massive 1980’s television miniseries WAR AND REMEMBRANCE, a sweeping depiction of both the European and Pacific theaters in World War Two, based on the novel by Herman Wouk.
The saga is told from the perspective of the family of Victor ‘Pug’ Henry, a naval officer and ship captain whose two sons follow him into service as the war breaks out. Warren, the older one, is killed in the Battle of Midway. Byron, named for the poet, is a restless soul with an uneasy relationship with his father. He reveals himself to be a gifted submariner in combat in the Pacific, though before the war he spent time in Europe, where he met and married Natalie, the beautiful niece of Aaron Jastrow.
Played by Sir John Gielgud, Aaron Jastrow is a Jewish American author and professor living in Siena, Italy. He shares some of the blame for his plight, though really this is in Wouk’s preceding volume, WINDS OF WAR, where he and Natalie stay in place far too long, Jastrow shaking his head over the troubling developments throughout Europe yet not really believing anything could happen to them. By the time WAR AND REMEMBRANCE picks up, Aaron, Natalie, and her young son are on the run, trying to outwit a German agent who demands that the prominent Jastrow make propaganda broadcasts. The chess game has them moving between Lourdes, Baden-Baden, and Paris, but they are caught and sent to the concentration camp at Theresienstat, and eventually Auschwitz.
Natalie and the boy are spared, but Aaron, his usefulness as an elder ended, is sent to the ‘showers.’ The audience has already seen what happens when masses of people who’ve arrived in railroad freight cars are immediately ordered to the ‘showers.’ In the first underground chamber, they must remove all their clothing. Then, in all their embarrassing and awkward nakedness, young and old are herded into the next large chamber. They probably are actually filthy after a train ride of hundreds of miles, packed standing so tightly that they couldn’t move. Any semblances of dignity or suspicion have been defeated by exhaustion.
Once they’re in the second chamber, packed once again, the heavy doors are slammed shut behind them, and at numerous wall apertures, open canisters of Zyklon B are tossed in from above.
Zyklon B, German for ‘Cyclone B,’ is a pesticide that attacks every single cell at the level of its electron transport chain, the most vital function. The throats, eyes, and lungs of people trapped below ground are destroyed nearly instantly, creating a writhing, naked mass of convulsions and rapid death.
When Aaron Jastrow finds himself in a line proceeding into the underground shower chambers, he is simply willing himself not to panic. Below ground, he recites the prayers that have defined his soul for a lifetime, even in his final agonizing moments.
Before that, just for a moment as he reaches the metal railings and concrete stairs that lead underground, Jastrow looks up and beholds the moon in a cloudless night sky. In all its simplicity, the pale full moon is Creation’s farewell.
The heavy doors slam shut.
‘The Lord is My Shepherd . . . ‘
This is exactly where I want the scene to change. When the doors slam shut, the crowd rushes to pound them, screaming, realizing they are trapped. However, this time, a series of explosions from above silences them. Several more explosions sound, though loud as they are, the sounds are sharp and short; these are large rounds being fired. Muffled explosions shake the ground further away. Bursts of machine gun fire can be heard.
The crowd pounds desperately at the door once more, but suddenly the whole room shakes in a series of prolonged roars. Frightened eyes travel over the walls and ceiling. In the moments of breathless silence, most notably, there are no sounds of canisters dropping into the apertures.
The heavy doors are torn open, but by American soldiers shocked at what they see.
The scene I’ve been trying to imagine is when Jastrow emerges above ground once more. Those were tanks that thundered overhead, which have gone on to smash through the front gate and press into the camp. Two more enormous tanks hang back, idling like locomotives not far from the concrete stairs. Behind them are jeeps and trucks. This has already become a rear area. A white map is spread across the hood of one jeep, and a young radioman briefs a general, gesturing over the map.
Jastrow is about to be ushered in the opposite direction, to an open field where people fleeing the chamber are being met by medical personnel. The general, having heard his report, nods to the radioman but now must wait for further developments. Hands in his pockets, he turns away to stroll a few yards. This is as Jastrow is at the top of the steps. The two men’s eyes meet, and briefly they exchange nods.
That’s the scene. If that moment in which Jastrow regards the moon captures the universe’s indifference, then that nod conveys deliverance: You’re safe now. The hero’s strength is as much in his steadiness and quiet as it is the awesome array of forces at his command.
That’s the imagery that danced in my head as I got my second coronavirus shot, an occasion that was far too low key for its importance.
I’ve used a number of metaphors, all of them heroic, some military, to describe the battle against the Coronavirus pandemic. It’s probably in bad taste to compare this to the murder of millions of Jews in a world war, but I was searching for some kind of vivid juxtaposition between Evil and those who have defeated it. In April a year ago, when a medical expert explained the pathology of the disease, which begins with oxidative damage in the cells of the endothelium and leads to clotting in the bloodstream, I thought, He’s broken the code. Now we can sink the U-Boats.
Little did I know that Pfizer and Moderna had already created mRNA vaccines they were injecting into the arms of test subjects. They had not only broken the code, they had outwitted it completely. The good guys are even better than I thought.
Reality also has lessons on the brutality my naive little fantasy overlooks - both in terms of liberating concentration camps and in the pandemic.
Troops from the Soviet Union liberated Auschwitz, so a better example of Americans crashing through the gates would be Dachau, on April 29, 1945.
Having attacked Germany from two different directions, American and Soviet forces, when they linked, effectively cut the country in two. As the Americans swiftly captured territory, they received orders concerning Dachau: surround it so no one escapes, and touch nothing, said the intelligence and legal advisors in the Allied command.
When American troops were spotted moving outside the fence line, a huge, wildly excited crowd poured out of the buildings inside the camp and rushed the wire, cheering. However, very grim discoveries awaited the Americans. In a train of freight cars outside the camp, they found some 3000 mostly naked, skeletal bodies. In various buildings inside the camp were similarly discarded piles of corpses.
They did not react well. Groups of SS guards either trying to escape or surrender were shot on sight. The vicious Alsatian dogs used to terrorize prisoners were machine gunned in their kennels. The camp commandant, who had stood with his staff and a Red Cross official to surrender in orderly fashion, was hauled off to the train to account for the finding. He did not return from the trip.
Accounts vary, which has caused controversy, but it’s been said that American soldiers handed over weapons so that vengeful Jewish prisoners could execute their tormentors.
Two separate American forces converged upon Dachau without coordination from above. Tactically this could be dangerous, two units entering the same area, firing ahead of themselves while not knowing much about the other. In this case the battle was over jurisdiction. As an enormous supply column bearing food and medicine drew closer, the officers’ first meeting ended in pushing and shoving, weapons drawn, and threats flying back and forth. The Americans were clearly traumatized by what they found and had racked up a number of their own war crimes in short order. The entire situation was written up and presented to General George Patton. Upon considering what they’d been through, he elected not to act.
This might provide a sense of the horror faced by medical workers during the course of the pandemic. Starting at about midnight after my second Pfizer shot, I had the chills and some wild fever dreams in what little sleep I got. It was just enough to let me know I didn’t want any part of the real battle.
(STRONG Gym Advanced template - PPST3)
Week of: 5/17/21 De-Load week
MONDAY
1. Squat: 3 sets of 8; Tom 315
2. Romanian Deads 4 sets of 6 275
3. 4 sets of shrugs 400
4. reverse hypers (3x10)
5. abs; banded pulldowns
TUESDAY
1. Bench press: 3 sets of 3; 80% Tom 220
2. Incline bench: 2x2 220
3. 5 sets of 10 Hanging rows
4. Barbell curls: 4 sets of 8
Conditioning (second session)
sled pull 2 miles; 20, 0 (and six 50-yard runs)
THURSDAY
1. Deadlift: 3 reps, 425; 2 sets at 90% - same reps 382.5
2. Squats: 90% of Monday; then work up to 405 single
3. Reverse Hypers (3x10)
4. abs: hollow rockers
FRIDAY
1. Press: 3x3 at 80% Tom 160
2. Floor press 252.5 2x2
3. Pull ups (5x10)
4. Barbell curls: 4 sets of 5-8
5. 3 sets kettlebell sit ups
SATURDAY - Conditioning
swim 1 mile or row 6000 meters
