RKS History: A Jewish Escape Route from Nazi Germany: The Haavara Transfer

“The Haavara Transfer involved a transaction between the Reich’s authorities and a group of Zionist businesses based at the Hanotea orange plantation in Natania just outside of Tel Aviv. Whereas the British mandate restricted immigration (to Palestine) by applicants without financial means, anyone equipped with at least 1,000 Palestinian pounds was granted free entry under a so called “capitalist visa”. The Haavara Transfer was designed to take advantage of this loophole. The scheme operated by allowing German Jews to make payments into a fund in Berlin in exchange for certificates crediting them with sufficient Palestinian pounds to allow them to obtain the coveted visa. Hanotea for its part used the funds deposited in Berlin to buy German goods for export to Palestine. The emigrants were reimbursed in Palestinian pounds when German goods were sold to Jewish or Arab customers. In effect, the arrangement ensured that every Reichsmark of capital exported by a German-Jewish emigrant was matched by a compensating export order….Haavara became one the most efficient means for Jews to export capital from Germany, In total 50,000 people, one tenth of the German Jewish population in 1933 were able to use the scheme to make good their escape. “

The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy: Adam Tooze, Penguin Books 2006

“The Penniless Pensioner; Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous” : Chapter 16 Eastern European Espionage

My work for the Central Intelligence Agency caused me no moral dilemma. My assignment was simply to be somewhat of an academic traveller. I was a student of Eastern European politics so I had every reason to be visiting Eastern Europe. I was to hang out in various universities in Eastern Europe and gauge the sentiment of students living behind the “Iron Curtain” about living there and their willingness to challenge the existing power structure. CIA operatives had already done the heavy lifting and I was simply adding a more “youthful” perspective to their findings. Over 3 summers “on vacation” I visited Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Eastern Germany. I was a popular figure in many a university campus with my Frisbee and a healthy supply of blue jeans. Just about all students once familiar with me expressed their frustration of living in a “Marxist state” that never walked the talk. Special privileges for party members whether it be special shops with western consumer goods or the best holidays and flats. Making matters worse were the presence of Soviet troops “occupying” many Eastern European countries. There were small “party cadres” at some universities but the majority of students despised these “opportunists”.  

So all in all it was easy work. I was keeping an eye on corrupt governments and their student victims. I also gained invaluable academic knowledge about Eastern European regimes. Waiting regularly in lines for food was a common occurrence in several Eastern European countries and yes you could read about it in the comfort of a North American campus but to have to line up for a loaf of bread or chunk of cheese was one of those unique real-life experiences. On occasion I was tailed by local security forces but my movements were unhindered unlike in the Soviet Union where visitors had to be at certain destinations at certain times and regularly report to local police offices to “register” themselves.

It is amazing how many spaghetti dinners I cooked in student kitchens. Many had never had a spaghetti dinner before. Sometimes the ground horsemeat gave it a heavy flavour though.

RKS Literature: Passage of the Day: House Love

“Love is a house with many rooms, this room to feed the love, this one to entertain it, this one to clean it, this one to dress it, this one to allow it to rest, and each of the rooms can also just as well be the room for laughing or the room for listening or the room for telling one’s secrets or the room for sulking or the room for apologizing or the room for intimate togetherness, and, of course  there are rooms for the new members of the household. Love is a house in which plumbing brings bubbly new emotions every morning, and sewers flush out disputes, and bright windows open up to admit fresh air of renewed goodwill. “

Yann Martel “The High Mountains of Portugal”, Vintage Canada 2016.

RKS Wine: Yes, Ontario Makes Sauvignon Blanc: Nyarai Cellars

Ontario can make great Sauvignon Blanc and if it could only break the neck hold of New Zealand perhaps, we might taste more of it. There is some atrocious Zealie Sauvignon Blanc out there where it masquerades as a best seller but that is another story for another day.

Nyarai Cellars is a virtual winery meaning (under the stewardship of Steve Byfield) it has no winemaking facilities and actual vines in the ground it can call its own. But it uses the facilities of West Avenue Cider House in Freelton, Ontario quite nicely thank you.” Virtual winemaker” in France might be called a “negociant”.

On the nose it is different than most Zealie Sauvignon Blancs because it doesn’t grab you right off the bat with that herbal greenness and cat’s pee. This one has a good deal of tropicality to it with pineapple, guava, honey, passion fruit with that Sauvignon Blancness buried deep in its core just enough to tip you off you are indeed imbibing Sauvignon Blanc.

On the palate you can pick up some gentle tannins with a smidge of honey. Apple, baked pear with cinnamon and brown sugar. Acids are gentle making this a sippable wine but Nyarai suggests green salads with fresh herbs and goat cheese, steamed shellfish or asparagus risotto. Given the poor quality of winter Peruvian and Mexican asparagus I would let that risotto wait until local asparagus is out in May! Given a miniscule amount of local Swiss Chard is still available I might try a Chard/Butternut squash risotto prepared with two cups of this wine of course. The slight sweetness to the wine would suit the butternut squash and its acidity would be a nice play on the Chard.

Serve chilled but not cold. The wine gains complexity and length when served cool as opposed to cold!

This wine is available online at www.nyaraicellars.ca

Ninety cases were made.

(Nyarai Cellars 2021 Sauvignon Blanc VQA Niagara Peninsula, Nyarai Cellars, St. Davids, Ontario, $23.95, 750 mL, 13%, RKS Wine Rating 88/100).

RKS Film: “Free Puppies”: And There is Always One More

This year I wrote a serialized novel “Reggie the Egyptian Rescue Dog”. Reggie was a small pet kept by his master Anwar in Cairo. Anwar was arrested for writing articles critical of the government and was never seen again. Reggie led a harrowing life on the street hunted down by animal control whose ideas about animal control were poisoning and shooting dogs. Reggie was attacked by another dog and found unconscious in the street and taken by an animal loving policeman to an animal shelter and survived later being transported to Canada to a happy life. So in writing about Reggie I had to be Reggie and feel his terror, anxiety and fear. So I connected with this documentary immediately. If you want to read about Reggie here is an early chapter https://setthebarlifestyle.wordpress.com/2021/07/20/reggie-the-egyptian-rescue-dog-my-life-in-egypt-a-childrens-story/

“Free Puppies” can mean there is no charge for a rescue dog or by taking them from unsafe and neglectful situations they are free. In Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee there are groups of ladies that rescue stray and neglected dogs and do their best to find homes for them whether it means driving vans full of them 16 hours to Wisconsin or putting them on a jet to Rochester.

I must hand it to the filmmakers for not making this a depressing and tawdry work that overwhelms the viewer with images of suffering. It is an informative film explaining why there is such a huge amount of rescue dogs in the southern United States. Much of the problem is caused by poverty and ignorance rather than intentional cruelty.

There are basic things you must do as a dog owner and do that you have a friend for life that is not simply a pet but a family member so if you are a dog owner that cares for your special canine charge this is a painful film that is bound to invoke anger.

The film is a tribute to these “rescue ladies” with their passion for offering dogs salvation. Spend some time with them and the message is clear spaying and neutering dogs is the answer and that is a matter of education that will avoid having to transport them en masse to safer states.

“Free Puppies” will be released on VOD/DVD in the United States and Canada on December 13.

A film by Samantha Wishman and Christina Thomas.

You can see the trailer here https://vimeo.com/769921775

RKS Literature: German Big Business and National Socialism

“The meeting of 20February1933 and its aftermath are the most notorious instances of the willingness of German big business to assist Hitler in establishing his dictatorial regime. The evidence cannot be dodged. Nothing suggests that the leaders of German big business were filled with ideological fervor for National Socialism, before or after February 1933. Nor did Hitler ask Krupp & Co. to sign up to an agenda of violent anti-Semitism or a war of conquest. The speech he gave to the businessmen in Goering’s villa was not the speech he had given to the generals a few weeks earlier in which he had openly spoken about rearmament and the need for territorial expansion. But what Hitler did promise was an end to parliamentary democracy and the destruction of the German left and for this most of German big business was willing to make a substantial down-payment.”

“The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy”, Adam Tooze, Penguin Books 2006.”

RKS Wine: Cave Spring 2019 Cabernet Franc

As for aromatics dense black cherry, cherry cola, blackberries interlaced with chocolate covered cherries. On the palate tannins are on the light side and the acids are well integrated into the wine. Lots of blackberry with a wide swath of blueberry. The finish of this medium-bodied wine is moderately long.

The wine was aged for 14 months in 225 and 500 litre oak barrels of which 10% was new. The wine will cruise into 2026 nicely.

The warm fall weather of 2019 permitted harvesting up to November 7th!

The winery suggests roasted poultry or turkey, beef brisket, Mitaki mushroom roast, vegetarian burritos, roasted red pepper and eggplant dishes for a wine match. I can agree with that apart from the roasted poultry or turkey where I would prefer a Cave Spring Chardonnay.

1,600 cases of this tightly disciplined Cabernet Franc produced.

(Cave Spring 2019 Cabernet Franc VQA Beamsville Bench, Cave Spring Vineyard, Jordan, Ontario, $18.95, 750 mL, 14%, RKS Wine Rating 92/100).

“The Penniless Pensioner: Misaligned, Maligned but Marvellous”: Chapter 15: Fishing with the Central Intelligence Agency

You have read that I had been approached at McGill University by The Royal Canadian Mounted Police to act as an informant to turn in and rat on “student revolutionaries”. That idea was distasteful so I walked away from that “opportunity”. I was an Eastern European political scholar and of course I made summer plans to visit Yugoslavia Bulgaria and Romania to further my studies. One spring afternoon after having left the visa centre of the Bulgarian Consulate in Montreal with a student entry visa in hand a huge black 240SL Mercedes pulled up alongside me as I was walking up Stanley Street. I was asked to come join two men in the back seat. I refused and one of the men said, “It’s about your mother.” I couldn’t resist. They said we were going for a ride and in 75 minutes we were having iced tea at Tudhope’s Marina in the small Vermont Town of North Hero. After the iced tea the Mercedes and its men walked me down to the docks at the marina. Three men dressed as fisherman picked me up in a “cabin cruiser” and we had a nice little “fishing expedition”.

I was in the friendly clutches of operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency.  Off we cruised on the placid waters of Lake Champlain. We spent 50 minutes trolling by McCormick’s Reef and Gull Island arriving at a small uninhabited island called Knight’s Island. We dropped our lines in the water and had a chat. I was informed the CIA had conducted an exhaustive background search on me and they were willing to do me a favour if I would do them a few in the context of “Operation Berlin Wall Humpty Dumpty”.

The CIA knew exactly the whereabouts of Abdul. You know the bastard brother of my former sweetie Minah who blew my mother’s plane from the sky in an errant attempt to snuff me. He had fled to North Korea then North Vietnam and now was in Tripoli operating a McFalafel franchise. The CIA would treat Abdul with “extreme prejudice” if I decided to participate in their covert operation. They had my attention as did the bass chomping on my nightcrawler hooked onto my Lake Champlain Spinner.

RKS Literature: Passage of the Day: What Did the French Revolution Accomplish?

“If we disregard various incidental developments which briefly modified its aspect at different periods and in different lands, and study it as it was essentially, we find that the chief permanent achievement of the French Revolution was the suppression of those political institutions, commonly described as feudal, which for many centuries had held unquestioned sway in most European countries. The Revolution set out to replace them with a new social and political order, at once simple and more uniform, based on the concept of equality of all men.”

“The Old Regime and the French Revolution”, Alexis de Tocqueville 1856

RKS Wines: Wines of Chile: Emiliana Organic Vineyards: On the Softer Side of Red?

As we continue our Wines of Chile adventure the best we can as we are not amongst Chilean wineries we might ask if Chile can produce a memorable Pinot Noir. Chile can produce full throttle Carmenère, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. Can it tone down matters a bit and make a gentler Pinot Noir like it can make a Grenache?

We try an Emiliana Organic Vineyards 2020 Signos de Origen Pinot Noir from Valle Casablanca. Yeah play it again Sam! The Casablanca Valley is Chile’s premier cool-climate wine region known for gentle Pacific Ocean breezes, early morning fog and old granitic clay soils that make it one of Chile’s top white wine producers. The higher warmer frost-free elevations are conducive to red varieties such as Merlot and Syrah, while the lower, cooler area are favourable for crisp fruity whites with a characteristic minerality that makes Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay the stars of the Casablanca Valley.

On the nose relaxed and mellow notes of cherry, raspberry, strawberry, cherry cola and beet juice. On the palate immediately the verdict is that this is a full throttle Pinot Noir I have experienced previously. Not all Pinot Noirs must be silky and sensual! You might want to call this one aggressive with a big mouthfeel with a peppery overlay. It may be in a hurry to impress you with its burliness but in doing so it loses much of its strawberry and cherry-based fruit charm. Additionally, that barnyard present upon opening the bottle failed to blow off entirely and as you swirl the glass to let it escape it just smells up right back at you.

Many Pinot Noirs are excellent sipping wines but this roguish chap requires some rough and tumble Chilean cuisine which not having visited Chile I can’t pair it with local foods. I would vote for a spicy sausage on a bun lathered up with red pepper jelly.

(Emiliana Organic Vineyards Signos de Origen Organic 2020 Pinot Noir, DO Valle Casablanca, Chile, $19.95, 750 mL, 13% (Vegan), RKS Wine Rating 86/100).