Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Juneteenth

  A  L  O  H  A    FRIENDS !
Yellow Rose Of Texas by Songs Of The Civil War on Grooveshark
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 " My grandfather always said 
that living is like
 licking honey 
off a thorn. "

Louis Adamic














" A memory
 is what is left 
when something happens 
and does not completely 
un-happen.  "

Edward de Bono














" Memory is a child 
walking along a seashore.  
You never can tell
 what small pebble
 it will pick up and store away
 among its treasured things.  "

Pierce Harris









 " Every man's memory
 is his private literature.  "

Aldous Huxley


" God gave us memories
 that we might have roses 
in December.  "

J.M. Barrie


 And
there are memories
that it is our
duty
to remember 

Happy Juneteenth!

On June 19th, 1865
US Army Major General 
Gordon Granger
landed at Galveston, Texas
bringing the news
that the US Civil War
was over,
and that slaves
were now free-

two and on half years
AFTER
President Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation.
January 1, 1863

Texas was far away,
but with the arrival
of the General's troops
freedom had at last 
come! 
(Surrender had been signed
in April of 1865)



In a similar vein:





From:
 Dwight D. Eisenhower
 Memorial Commission, 
Washington, DC
 
HERE
" On April 4, 1945, elements of
 the United States Army
captured the Ohrdruf concentration camp 
outside the town of Gotha 
in south central Germany. . . .

. . . .. Bodies were piled 
throughout the camp. 
 There was evidence everywhere 
of systematic butchery. 
Many of the mounds of
 dead bodies were still smoldering
 from failed attempts
 by the departing SS guards 
to burn them. 
The stench was horrible.. . . 
 General Eisenhower 
immediately arranged to meet 
Generals Bradley and Patton at Ohrdruf 
on the morning of April 12th. 

By that time, Buchenwald itself
 had been captured.
 Consequently, Ike decided to 
extend the group’s visit to include a tour 
of the Buchenwald
 extermination camp
 the next day. 

Eisenhower also ordered 
every American soldier in the area 
who was not on the front lines 
to visit Ohrdruf and Buchenwald.

 He wanted them to see 
 for themselves
 what they were fighting
 against. . . . 



Later on Ike wrote to Mamie, 
“I never dreamed that such cruelty, 
bestiality, and savagery 
could really exist in this world.” . . . . 

[And he had just fought a savage war! Cloudia]

He cabled General Marshall 
encouraging him to bring
 Congressmen and journalists
 with him.. . . .


General Eisenhower understood 
that many people
 would be unable to comprehend 
the full scope of this horror. 

He also understood
 that any human deeds
 that were so utterly evil
 might eventually be challenged 
or even denied 
as being literally 
unbelievable.

 For these reasons
 he ordered 
that all the civilian news media 
and military combat camera units
 be required to visit the camps
 and record their observations
 in print, pictures and film. 

As he explained to General Marshall, 

“I made the visit deliberately,
 in order to be in a position to give
 first-hand evidence of these things
 if ever, in the future,
 there develops a tendency to charge
 these allegations 
 merely to
 ‘propaganda.’” 


His prediction proved correct. 
 When some groups, even today,
 attempt to deny
 that the Holocaust ever happened
 they must confront
 the massive official record, 
including both written evidence
 and thousands of pictures, 
that Eisenhower ordered to be assembled. . . .  "


© Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission, Washington, DC, 2004 





  >  <  }  }  ( ° >



 Thanks for swimming
these wine-dark seas of memory
with me.

Let us enjoy our Summer
all the more
to honor the people
- fragile, people just like ourselves-
who overcame
literal darkness.

Let us promise ourselves
to be more like them.



Today's Germans & Texans
bear no responsibiltiy
for the past
even as they 
live
history's lingering
effects,
 those regrettable,
and those 
ennobling.

                      Warmly,  cloudia