The Bookworm Beat 10/6/16 — the illustrated edition and open thread

Please pardon the blog silence today. I contacted the Holocaust Museum about turning over some of my mother’s WWII effects because she wouldn’t have been in a Japanese concentration camp but for her Dad’s efforts to keep her away from Rommel’s forces (who in the end never made it to Palestine). The gal I spoke to was interested and asked if Mom had recorded an oral history. I said, “No.” And then, when sorting through her WWII papers in order to scan them, promptly found an oral history that someone recorded. I’ve spent the day transcribing it.

It’s so Mom. I know all the stories, although some of the details are new. What’s really “Mom” about it is the scrambled syntax. I don’t know if being multilingual made her do that, or if it was just the way her mind worked. All I know is that it’s quite amusing the way her sentences break down into small, very un-English chunks of thought. I’ll be working on this for several days to come, but I don’t think it will interfere with future blogging.

Here’s the illustrated edition I promised, with more to come today or tomorrow: