Dear Friends:
As we learned
through History, all the totalitarian regimes try to block the cultural
initiatives of people to avoid the intellectuals, academics and members of
universities reveal the true intentions and plans of the rulers.
This was one of the
tactics used by the Nazism in Germany when Hitler became ruler of this country.
From its beginnings
as European nation, Germany was a rich country in intellectual movements
and with very prestigious universities and professors.
When Hitler took the
power, his followers banned a lot of books and materials that were the thinking
of brilliant brains and a high educated society.
By the way, during
my years studying in Germany, my teachers explained to me about the terrible
oppression of the Nazis, prohibiting a lot of intellectual activities of the
population that were against the regime.
From the ashes of
this totalitarian regime, step by step, the new Germany has rebuilt its institutions and opened
doors to everybody who wants to exchange ideas and lives in a free society.
Today Germany has great libraries, museums and very
prestigious cultural centers and schools where everybody can learn about the
real values of this country and the horrible moments the own Germans lived
during the Nazism.
Myself I enjoyed
several times walking through to the great The Frankfurt Book Fair (Frankfurter
Buchmesse), the world's largest trade fair for books, based on the number of
publishing companies that come every October to Germany from U.S., U.K.,
France, China, Russia, Iran, Japan and also from small countries of Latin
America, Asia and Africa.
Returning to the
burning of books of the Nazis, I would like to comment details of an artistic
and cultural event that is holding in Kassel, a city of the Hessen state during the month
of June.
The event named
Documenta 14 has a series of activities and exhibitions linked with the new
face of the country after the Nazism.
Probably, this year,
the most interesting for visitors is the ‘Parthenon of Books’, a replica of the
Greek Parthenon built with a lot of books that were prohibited during the times
Hitler and also for other totalitarian regimes across the world.
This artistic
monument was built by the Argentine artist Marta Minujín. It is a temple with
towering metal columns covered with nearly 50,000 books that were or are banned
somewhere in the world.
The artist erected the
‘Parthenon of Books’ in a square where the Nazis once burned books in the old
city of Kassel. It includes a lot of books gathered through
donations worldwide also from other countries that suffered the lash of
totalitarian governments.
This art creation of
Marta Minujín gives us new evidences of how the Germans lived under the
totalitarian regime that controlled all the activities of the population with
the surveillance of the Gestapo, the secret police of Hitler. And also, it shows how other totalitarian
regimes continue trying to close the mouth and eyes of the citizens of the
world who want freedom and respect for their civil rights.
Documenta is an
exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by the artist Arnold Bode in
1955 as part of a Federal Horticultural Show which took place in Kassel at that time with the intention of show the modern
art banishing and repressing by the Nazis.
This first Documenta
featured many artists who are generally considered to have had a significant
influence on modern art. The more recent exhibitions feature art from all
continents; nonetheless most of it is site-specific.
Every Documenta is
limited to 100 days of exhibition, which is why it is often referred to as the
"museum of 100 days".
Documenta is not a
selling exhibition. It often coincides with three other major art world events:
the Art Basel, Venice Biennale and “Skulptur Projekte Münster”.
The name of the
exhibition is an invented word. It was invented by Arnold Bode in 1955 to
demonstrate the intention to be a documentation of modern art which was not
available for the German public during the Nazi era.
A lot of reflections
can to our minds when we see how the totalitarian regimes try to suffocate the
intellectual activities of the people and how they persecute to everybody who
doesn’t follow the directions of the ruler and his followers.
We, the human
beings, can survive long time with a little food and water, but we cannot
survive when the persecution of gangs and mafias of totalitarian rulers hit our
own skin and try to destroy our brains with physical and/or intellectual
torture.
Definitely, the freedom
of speech and expression – books, art… - that the First Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution protects are more than a daily ration of bread and water.
--------------
Next, you can read
some of my last comments in the blog of the WSJ – Journal Community during the
last few days.
Domingo A. Trassens
Email: d.a.trassens@gmail.com
WORLD RETHINK
Rethinking the world
with you
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Wall Street Journal
– Journal Community page:
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(Domingo Trassens)
(More than 9300
recommendations received from other members since the new Journal Community
started in 2014 and 7900 in the previous JC.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MY BLOG COMMENTS
Mr. Spicer: You are
learning that is very difficult to be a good spokesman of the Trump White
House.
06/21/2017 04:47:37 PM
1 Recommendation
Republican Karen
Handel showed to the country that the GOP remains alive.
06/21/2017 02:47:25 AM
3 Recommendations
The killing of Otto
Warmbier is crime that the North Korean regime has to pay with very painful
price. Patience came to an end.
If the American student had been Israeli, by now the North Korean dictator was dead.
06/21/2017 01:54:11 AM
2 Recommendations
(This story comments
several cases of teens who are fixing broken smart-phones with initiative and
good work.)
It is great to see
teens and youngsters with initiative, smart brains and looking the way to earn
money with their own work. Go ahead!
Today with the tools
and technical literature they have, the teens who want to work, and they have
initiative, they can make great works and earn good money.
These teens are the
future generation that we need to rebuild America like in its first times.
The teens who only
demand from others and they don't put their own effort to make a good work
don't deserve our respect.
06/20/2017 08:41:25 PM
29 Recommendations
(This story comments
that Ford decided to import the Focus model directly from China after it canceled the project to build a
factory in Mexico.)
A Chinese Ford is
not a American Ford.
06/20/2017 07:22:42 PM
4 Recommendations
For Amazon, it is
cheap to use its own retail systems in the delivery of books, to deliver boxed
food.
06/20/2017 12:29:25 AM
2 Recommendations
Posted In Zuckerberg’s
Opiate for the Masses
(The Facebook’s CEO
made a big speech only talking about the incomes of the “millennials”.)
Mr. Zuckerberg only
thinks in the incomes of the “millennial generation”, but he doesn’t care for
the low income of real American workers and the elder people who work for short
money because their retirements are not enough for a basic decent way of
living. He lives in a fantasy sphere around his elite.
(Another WSJ blogger
defined Mr. Zuckerberg as “a hypocrite” and a lot of readers agreed.) 06/20/2017 12:20:41 AM
6 Recommendations
Megyn Kelly is only
an invention of a fictitious media without deed professional roots. Her
discussions with Mr. Trump showed the level of her stupidities.
06/20/2017 12:03:36 AM
2 Recommendations
Posted In Car
Crashes Into Police Van in Paris
Today London, Paris and Brussels are horror capitals.
06/19/2017 11:46:05 PM
3 Recommendations
Everybody with human
feelings and strong principles of freedom and justice shares heartfelt sympathy
to Otto Warmbier's family.
Barbaric treatments
are normal in the North Korean regime. Remember, how the dictator killed
several members of his family and the rockets he use to execute one or two of
his generals who didn't hear his bored meetings.
06/19/2017 11:29:52 PM
4 Recommendations
Technology giants
always have big tentacles.
06/18/2017 11:45:57 PM
2 Recommendations
Terrific race in the
technology world!
06/18/2017 11:33:25 PM
0 Recommendations
Posted In Israel
Gives Secret Aid to Syrian Rebels
Probably, Israelis
want to build good "links" with Syria thinking in a post-Assad future.
06/18/2017 09:19:57 PM
2 Recommendations
Posted In I
Just Called to Say, ‘I Love You, Dad’
(Last Sunday, a lot
of people remembered their Dads with good feelings and gifts.)
"I love You,
Dad" has a lot of more value than the more expensive gifts of the world.
06/18/2017 09:09:15 PM
3 Recommendations
Helmul Kohl was a
German leader who engineered and pushed forward the Unified Germany and started
the building of the European Union together with the French.
06/17/2017 08:47:57 PM
2 Recommendations
Amazon is a retail
leader with an original business model and strong technology infrastructure
focused to the services for consumers.
06/17/2017 08:31:26 PM
2 Recommendations
This is a regrettable
image of lands where live Americans who make America great too.
06/17/2017 06:27:14 PM
2 Recommendations
Posted In Washington
Isn’t Istanbul
The incident in Washington with the Erdogan's bullies is a good picture
how dictatorship regimes act.
06/17/2017 04:01:55 AM
5 Recommendations
It is true that
others never returned from the North Korean "paradise", but the crime
committed against Otto Warmbier doesn't have pardon.
Only monsters can
enjoy with this kind of crimes. This looks like a terror movie.
06/16/2017 04:28:21 PM
4 Recommendations
Amazon is becoming a
huge "empire" with multi-faces businesses. Pending question: Is
this good for the economy?
06/16/2017 04:01:52 PM
5 Recommendations
Can more American
troops in Afghanistan improve the gloomy current scenario?
06/14/2017 01:51:57 PM
2 Recommendations
After September 11,
I never wanted to live in a tower... Here, you see one of the reasons.
06/14/2017 06:06:59 AM
14 Recommendations
Really, after
killing Yahoo, Marissa Mayer does not deserve $187 million.
06/13/2017 08:48:12 PM
2 Recommendations
The History of
Technology will remember forever that Marissa Mayer was the Yahoo's killer.
06/13/2017 08:13:20 PM
2 Recommendations
Ms. Mayer came to
Yahoo with very good expectations, but her performance as CEO was very poor.
06/13/2017 08:06:06 PM
3 Recommendations
Documenta in Kassel is a wonderful art-cultural experience of
the best of our human intellect.
06/12/2017 11:36:33 PM
2 Recommendations
Christians cannot
return to the Muslim countries because the religious persecution is growing in
a very bad direction.
06/12/2017 11:14:52 PM
2 Recommendations
Today, Theresa May
has not enough power to continue leading Brexit.
06/12/2017 08:23:10 PM
2 Recommendations
It looks like Labor
Department has not new good ideas.
06/11/2017 08:21:15 PM
2 Recommendations
This is not the
first incident where Afghan troops kill U.S. soldiers.
I suspect that
perhaps they are Taliban fans embedded in the Afghanistan's army.
06/10/2017 09:44:40 PM
2 Recommendations
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCES:
1) News releases and
other material of Documenta 14, Kassel, Germany.
2) External Sources:
Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and a series of newspapers from Germany, U.K., France, Canada and Japan.
2) Own Sources: My
own research for previous publishing projects like TTT of Comlab Corp and
others.
Website: http://world-rethink.blogspot.com/
