A TRAIN IN WINTER – AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF WOMEN, FRIENDSHIP, AND RESISTANCE IN OCCUPIED FRANCE by Caroline Mooehead

Caroline Moorehead. A Train in Winter – An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France (New York: Harper Collins, 2011). 317 pages. Additional materials in an Appendix, Source Notes, and Bibliography.

(NON-FICTION: HISTORY)

Reviewed by Chuck Dayton

This work of non-fiction is written by Caroline Moorehead who lives in London and Italy. In this work, she interviews women who survived the “Paris Roundup” of French Resistance workers by the Nazis and collaborating French police. In January 1943, they were sent to their final destination, Auschwitz on the only train from Paris with all women (230). Only 49 would return to France.

This is a remarkable but emotionally difficult-to-read account from interviews, diaries, and collected papers of this phenomenal group of women. Those who survived the atrocities of imprisonment credited the closeness achieved by the women while imprisoned as a reason for survival. Some helped in the camps as quasi nurses, some helped the weaker of the women on work details, but all shared food, talked with each other every night, and kept each other warm. Death was all around them, including many of their group.

To me, an interesting aspect of the book is the experience of the women who came back to France after the liberation of the camps. Many were faced with children they left behind who no longer knew them, others with no spouses, parents or children surviving. Some started over. Some just gave up from the guilt of having survived when so many died. Interestingly, many of the women noted that they actually missed their shared time together with other women as it had been in the camps and reported they were lonely upon return to their homes. Some tried to talk to others about their experiences, only to become silent on the subject. One woman, speaking to a group, was told she could not be telling the truth because if she were, she would not have survived the experiences.

This is an important book, I think, to help us remember how cruel fellow human beings can be under the leadership of a deranged person. A poll in France as recently as the 1980’s showed that about 34% of French people aged between 18 and 44 did not think that the existence of gas chambers had been clearly proven. Let us strive to never forget.

CRADLE TO CRADLE: REMAKING THE WAY WE MAKE THINGS by William McDonough & Michael Braungart

William McDonough & Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle: remaking the way we make things (New York: North Point Press; a division of Farrar. Straus & Giroux, 2002).

(NON-FICTION)    

 

Audio Version: Read by Stephen Hoye (Tantor Audio, 2008).

Reviewed by Wilda Morris

I sometimes feel as though there is no hope for the environment. We are depleting and destroying a large proportion of the world’s non-renewable resources. An ever-increasing number of people are within reach of television programs and movies which project images of North American life styles. Millions see and want luxuries they had not previously known existed. Advertising encourages this phenomenon.

I read in Cradle to Cradle that fabrics used in furniture, drapes and carpets contain dangerous chemicals; our computers contain more than a thousand different materials, including toxic gases, mercury and acids; and the shoes in which we walk or run through the forest preserve (in order to enjoy nature) are leaving deleterious substances in our footprints.

However, Cradle to Cradle has given me a sliver of hope. “Reduce, reuse, recycle” is not the right approach, the authors argue. It will not end the “cradle to grave” approach to manufacturing which started with the industrial revolution. McDonough (an architect) and Braungart (a chemist) have a different “design assignment.” They believe it is possible to create:

“*  buildings that. . . produce more energy than they consume and purify their own waste water

*  factories that produce effluents that are drinking water

*  products that. . . do not become useless waste but can be tossed onto the ground to decompose and become food for plants and animals and nutrients for soil; or, alternately, that can return to industrial cycles to supply high-quality raw materials for new products

. . .

*  transportation that improves the quality of life while delivering goods and services

*  a world of abundance, not one of limits, pollution, and waste.”  (Pp. 90-91)

The authors use the image of the cherry tree, which produces more blossoms and fruit than needed, but this “waste” is converted into nutrients for its environment. If you do not believe the vision embodied by McDonough’s and Braungart’s design assignment is possible, I encourage you to read Cradle to Cradle (or listen to the book on CD). You will learn about projects already completed or underway which join the best intentions of environmentalists and manufacturers. You may not agree with everything you read, but the book may help you envision a new approach to protecting the environment.

THE END OF FOOD by Paul Roberts

The End of Food by Paul Roberts (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008; Mariner Books; Reprint edition, 2009).Also available on Kindle and CD.

(Non-fiction)

Reviewed by Wilda Morris

Paul Roberts argues that “On nearly every level, we are reaching the end of what may one day be called the ‘golden age’ of food, a brief, near-miraculous period during which the things we ate seemed to grow only more plentiful, more secure, more nutritious, and simply better with each passing year” (xii). The modern food system is an economic system which treats food like other consumer products, which has meant increasingly larger scales of production to provide high volume at lower costs, continuous innovation to create new products, and distribution channels not unlike those of toys or DVDs. But, according to Roberts, food is not suited to the kind of mass production and distribution. The system has contributed to obesity, the development of food-borne pathogens against which we have no defense, failed programs against world hunger which have increased malnutrition in some areas of the world, while putting small producers out of business. The current food system will make it exceedingly difficult for human beings to respond to changes which will result if predictions of global warming are correct. Rising fuel costs and the depletion of water resources threaten the system.

The book is organized “somewhat like the economic system it seeks to reveal” (xxv). Roberts begins with a history of the food economy, then, in chapter 2, discusses how food became industrialized. Nestlé, the world’s largest food distributor is used as the primary example. Then Roberts looks at the ways in which large food companies leveraged size and market share to take control of the supply chain, driving smaller produces from the market and changing the nature of food. He discusses how these changes resulted in a decline in the nutritional quality of food as the system demanded more and more processing, and how this has contributed to diabetes and other health issues.

Roberts discusses how the benefits of globalizing the food system have been balanced by new dangers, including easier transmission of diseases and greater vulnerability to increases in energy costs.  Increased control by large corporations centered in the US, Europe, Brazil and China has excluded millions of people, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, without adequate food or nutrition. The US Department of Agriculture has been complicit in the creation of many problems for other countries by its support of US agribusiness. I found the case study of Kenya and its food issues quite eye-opening.

According to Roberts, if we are to overcome problems related to food-borne disease; soil contamination; water, energy and land scarcity, we need to completely overhaul our food system and reduce our meat consumption. Neither transgenic nor organic food will solve the problem. Other options are available, but there is resistance to needed changes from the large corporations benefiting from the current system, not to mention politicians who want the support of these magnates. There is also resistance to the required changes in culture: eating less meat; doing more of our own cooking instead of reaching for the most processed—and often most convenient—products. and so on.

This book provides much for us to chew on, as we consider where our food comes from and how it comes to us.

Note: Page numbers are from the paperback edition.