The Arts

Love, Loyalty, and Suspense in World War II France

“Postmistress” is a euphemism for “messenger,” which was the role that Nanée, an American heiress, played while in Paris, prior to the German invasion.  Initially, she and her compatriots focused on getting well-known artists and intellectuals — many but not all of them Jewish — out of Nazi Germany and into safety in France. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison

Comic-Con on the Come-Up

Comic-Con@Home once again took place online this past summer due to Covid fears. However, Comic-Con also hosted a live convention in San Diego this year, perplexingly on Thanksgiving weekend. So, I took my tryptophan-laden self, picked up my recently Black Friday bruised wallet, and headed downtown to see an all new and all different Con, one from 30 years ago. [Shor M. Masori]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Lifestyles, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Shor M. Masori

San Diego Civic Youth Ballet Builds Skills and Self-Confidence

The San Diego Civic Youth Ballet was founded in 1945 and makes its home in Balboa Park.  As the resident dance school, the company puts on three shows a year at Casa del Prado Theater.  In addition to the classic and holiday favorite The Nutcracker, there is a full-length spring ballet, and a summer gem, Fairy Tales in the Park.  When possible, the company takes its performances to the community to share the joy of storytelling through movement.  I had the great fortune to speak with a former, and current student, Sara Goldman. [Eva Trieger]

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Eva Trieger, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County

Israeli Philharmonic String Quartet to Perform in La Jolla Dec. 8

– Celebrating the Israel Philharmonic’s 85th anniversary, the Israel Philharmonic String Quartet is touring the United States. Their San Diego stop will be Wednesday evening, December 8 in the Baker-Baum Concert Hall at the Conrad, 7600 Fay St. in La Jolla. The hour-long concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. and feature single movements from quartets by Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Ravel, and Haydn. There will be a Gala Reception prior to the concert, sponsored by Sharon and Richard Gabriel and a dessert following the concert. 

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Eileen Wingard, Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, USA

Southern Belles Tolling Among Many Delightful Roustabouts Accents

If your objective is silliness and hilarity, you will be unable to escape both at the Roustabouts return to LIVE theater with “For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls.” This collection of skits was penned by Christopher Durang, legendary playwright and Tony award winner. The brilliant cadre of actors could only be improved by being complimented by Artistic Director, Phil Johnson. [Eva Trieger]

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Eva Trieger, San Diego County, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

Music Was The Flashlight: A Profile of Yale Strom

Strom is known in the modern Jewish world, and certainly around San Diego, for his accomplishments as a violinist, composer, filmmaker, writer, photographer, and playwright. He’s conducted significant research in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans among the Jewish and Roma communities, as well as toured with his klezmer band Hot Pstromi Trio. They compose their own New Jewish music combining klezmer with Chasidic nigunim, Roma, jazz, classical, Balkan and Sephardic motifs. [Danielle Levsky]

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Lifestyles, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, San Diego County, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Journalist Documents Little Known Concentration Camp Near Paris

French journalist Anne Sinclair confesses she had long felt guilty about not asking her late paternal grandfather Léonce Schwartz to tell her about his internment at a little-known concentration camp on the outskirts of Paris.  Known by the French as the Royallieu-Compiegne Concentration Camp, and by the Nazi Germans as Frontstalag 122, it was not as well-known as Drancy, the notorious French transit point to the Nazi killing camps in Poland.  However, the prisoners there were treated just as callously.  Starvation, lice, frostbite were common ailments purposely neglected by the Nazis in their effort to humiliate and winnow the French Jewish population [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish History

After-Effects of Children Witnessing War

Yalom’s goal was “to understand the effects of…wartime experience on children living in Europe and the United States.” Her six friends provided intimate vignettes of terror, trauma, aerial bombing, bomb shelters, and hunger. They endured and became accomplished, but not unscarred, They are likely “the last individuals who can remember World War II” and they will soon “vanish.” She explored the concept of witnesses in her 2015 work, Compelled to Witness, Women Memoirs of the French Revolution. [Oliver Pollak

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Oliver Pollak