Uncle Karl

A Christmas story from 'Left Field'. "A regular guest at our house was Karl Henrik Køster, a Danish neurosurgeon who’d met my father in Bergen-Belsen when they were both serving in the RAMC. They became close friends and my sisters and I called him Uncle Karl. Because he always came to stay in December, this large man with his deep voice and Nordic accent was Father Christmas, though now I realise he looked more like Karl Marx. Uncle Karl always arrived with a large bottle of Cherry Heering, a Danish liqueur, and gifts for us children. I remember the nine-inch-high brightly-painted wooden soldier with its red tunic and blue trousers. It had moveable arms and a detachable lance which was quickly lost. Karl Henrik was a surgeon at Copenhagen’s Bispebjerg hospital. After operating on a wounded member of the Resistance, medical students asked him to help hide 40 Jews while their escape by boat to Sweden was organised. But how to get them into the hospital? Karl Henrik organised a ‘funeral’ with dark cars, black clothes and flowers. 140 turned up and all of them had to be hidden. He then arranged for ambulances to take them to the coast. In all, he and his hospital saved 2,000 Jews. Then their luck ran out. One day, when leaving his apartment he passed the Gestapo on the stairs. They asked him where Dr Køster could be found. As he left the building he passed the body of a medical student shot in the back. He then followed the same route as those he had helped save and escaped by boat to Sweden. He made his way to the UK and joined the British army. His wife Doris was at home and the Gestapo imprisoned her … The last my father knew of Karl was when he heard from a mutual friend that he had, as my father put it, ‘taken up with his secretary’. He had no idea what happened to poor Doris. Karl committed suicide in the 1980s and didn’t live to see the 1998 Disney film made about his life, Miracle at Midnight, directed by Ken Cameron which starred Sam Waterson as Karl and Mia Farrow as Doris. I recently came across words of his explaining why he acted as he did. ‘It was the natural thing to do. I would have helped any group of Danes being persecuted. The Germans picking on the Jews made as much sense to me as picking on redheads.’ " 

Jeremy Corbyn

I met Jeremy Corbyn in my local pub this evening. He talked about his day in Brussels and I told him about my day at Unbound. I said 'Left Field' was being published soon and that he features in several chapters. He was involved in helping me instigate an enquiry at our local hospital when a neighbour committed suicide. In the chapter 'Ships at Sea' I explained that my politics had been summed up in a lifetime's opposition to joining any parliamentary party, but that I had now had to add a postscript. Because of him, I have joined the Labour Party. He has accepted a copy of the book and wants to attend the launch. It's not too late for you to pledge your copy and, if bought before the end of the year, your name will be printed in the book.

Behind God's Back

In 1994 Anne Aylor wrote 'Behind God's Back' after visiting War Child's operations in Mostar. The New Republic asked to publish it, but wanted the article to focus on the charity's mobile bakery which was feeding the besieged town. She felt the whole piece was important and so, 20 years later, it will appear in 'Left Field'. Here is an excerpt: “I meet Hamid, the official responsible for food distribution in the city. Over whiskey, he explains his view of the conflict. ‘Before the war the mosques were empty. Even now, after all this talk of us “Muslims”, there are still only a few old women there at prayer time. The bridge was our life and they took that from us. They took what was most important. This war has nothing to do with religion. When you hear the muezzin call, you can tell the time.’ He adds, ‘I used to live in West Mostar, close to the cathedral. I loved that cathedral and I loved its clock. I used to look out at it from my flat. When the clock stopped because some idiot damaged the building, I was very sad because I couldn’t tell the time any more. It removed something important in my life. You know,’ he said, ‘that clock on the cathedral and the call to prayer from the mosque are one and the same.'  

Questions for Tony Benn's son

1. Is your leader a 'terrorist sympathiser'?
2. The Lancet estimated that, "as of July, 2006, there have been 654,965 excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war, which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area.” Do you accept these figures and if so, do you worry about your responsibility for supporting the UK's involvement in this carnage?
3. Why did you support the sanctions against Iraq prior to the 2003 occupation. When former UN Humanitarian Coordinators in Iraq Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday described their effect as a 'genocide' of children, were they talking rubbish?
4. Are you aware that many of the bombs dropped on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya contained depleted uranium. Have you asked the Ministry of Defence whether these 'cancer-inducing' components are to be used in any forthcoming Syria bombing?
5. I often dream about my dad. I wake up smiling. Do you have the same experience?

in praise of disobedience

This weekend is the first anniversary of my admission to hospital for an operation on a subdural haematoma. I was at the 'Disobedient Objects' exhibition at the V & A. On display, suffragette teapots, battered pan lids that had helped bring down the Argentine government, a Palestinian sling-shot made from the tongue of a shoe and homemade shields made to look like book covers. My behaviour was as surreal as the exhibits and I went directly from the V & A to A & E. You can read about all this in an article I wrote for Huffington Post and later in 'Left Field'. One year on and I am alive, recovered and on my way to join the disobedient at Downing Street to oppose bombing Syria. I have nothing but contempt for our tinpot bombardiers. Cameron's sole experience of war would have been his time on the parade ground at school. Ex-chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir David Richards, once told the PM that 'being in the Combined Cadet Force at Eton did not qualify him to decide the tactics of complex military options.' I know, I don't trust Sir David either. My trust is with Jeremy Corbyn and those who join me in Whitehall at midday. 

Standing in the light

Ex-Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, General Wesley Clark, made this comment eight years ago.“We’re going to take out seven countries in 5 years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”. Hasn't exactly gone to chronological plan, but they are still working on it. My friend Haifa Zangana, novelist, short story writer and political columnist, invited me to a showing of 'Whose Peace Will it Be' at the P1 Studio London last night. Directed by the Belgian filmmaker, Luc Pien, it was deliberately not a film about the atrocities that have been committed in Iraq—and now far beyond its borders. Pien spoke with writers, poets, academics and refugees. As well as Haifa, they included Zainab Khan and Intisar al Obaidy, artist Rashad Salim, film maker Al Daraji and academic Mundher Adhami. Harold Pinter said, “We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people.” Yet out of this degradation the survivors emerge, defiantly standing in the light and speaking for themselves and for a civilisation that belongs to all of us. Don't forget to be at Downing Street at midday on Saturday. We still have to act against Clark's seven-country plan and stand in the light. More on Haifa Zangana in Left Field

Syriza, Inside the Labyrinth

Last week I went to the the launch of the new Left Book Club at Conway Hall. Their first publication is Kevin Ovenden's 'Syriza, Inside the Labyrinth'. As a fervent follower of Kevin's insightful blogs on Greece and much else I am looking forward to reading this one. Set up in 1936 the first LBC had 57,000 members, and 1.500 discussion groups in workplaces and communities. Writing in today's Guardian, Ian Jack wonders, “could anything like that success happen again? At first sight, it would seem mad to think so. A book is an antique method of political dissemination ... But too many recent examples suggest the case is far from clear-cut. Thomas Piketty, Richard Wilkinson, Naomi Klein, Bill Mckibben: it was the printed book that contained their ideas, rather than social media. A form devised in the 15^th century is proving remarkable resilient. A book, lke a fire, is something people can gather round. It can be - see reading groups and literary festivals – the focus of a good night out, or the first provocative stage in a more serious process. Or both.” Well said. My own upcoming memoir is a great coming together of social media – which has raised more than enough funding to publish – with a traditional physical publication at the end. Not forgetting the E-book. So, read Kevin's book and check out 'Left Field'.