Saturday, August 31, 2013
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Look at your earth!
"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it." - Physicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson
"Look at your fish!"
That was the simple four-word command given by noted 19th century naturalist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz to his research students at Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School, and it drove them crazy.
Samuel Scudder, an entomologist who studied under him, wrote about that phrase in his 1874 essay, "In the Laboratory With Agassiz," where he recalled that after his initial meeting with the good professor, he was left alone with a single dead fish for hours on end, with no tools but his eyes, ears, and fingers.
When Agassiz would return, Scudder would tell him what he had learned about the specimen. Agassiz would nod, and demand he find more before leaving once again.
"Look at your fish!" he would exhort.
And so the dance went on for three days. Each time Scudder thought he couldn't possibly find anything new about his dead friend, he would notice something else that would send him careening off in some other direction. By the end of the drill, he had thoroughly analyzed every facet of the carcass laid out before him and said that in retrospect, it was an invaluable exercise.
"This was the best entomological lesson I ever had - a lesson, whose influence has extended to the details of every subsequent study; a legacy the professor has left to me, as he has left it to many others, of inestimable value, which we could not buy, with which we cannot part," he wrote.
That, pure and simple, is science. But how things have changed since 1874.
Maybe it's been the super-effective misrepresentation of scientists in the media, or just that Americans, to be honest, barely have any sort of grasp on or understanding of the subject itself. But it somehow has become vogue to look upon those who spend their lives studying the world around them as crackpot alarmists who are no more than pandering mouthpieces for a certain political party.
It can be heard everywhere, from the editorial boards of conservative publications to the mumblings of drugged-up loons on AM radio, and it absolutely must stop.
Humanity, with its notoriously short memory, evidently has forgotten that everything we have, all the great pieces and processes that have elevated us to this planet's throne, we owe to science. It's always been our inventions - the obsidian arrowhead, the printing press, the radio, the combustion engine - that have separated us from the rest of the animal kingdom, and it all has come from the use of the scientific method.
We revel in the fruits of science, and rightly so. We love our tablets and wireless Internet and GPS systems, and imagining life without them is horrifying to a lot of folks.
Well, why, then, when scientists tell us that they are literally certain that our carbon emissions are warming this planet at an accelerated rate, do we, who have no background in the subject, look at them like they're the ones who don't know what they're talking about?
Why, as a recent New York Times story reported, when you can now see the "tremendous wildfires" and "gargantuan sandstorms" rage across the palette of the earth from space, and the "gunmetal exhalation of coal and fuel smoke" spread over China, do we believe that our actions don't affect the ecosystem around us?
Bill Maher once said that you can't pick the science you like, because the same process that led to the development of the iPhone is the one that's telling us that we must turn our vicious, parasitic demolition of this planet around before it's too late. And even though it all sounds like crazy talk to those who bask in ignorance, shooting messengers and hiding heads in the sand won't change that.
The scientists, after all, are just the ones looking at the fish.
We're the ones pretending it can still swim.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
"Look at your fish!"
That was the simple four-word command given by noted 19th century naturalist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz to his research students at Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School, and it drove them crazy.
 |
| Aggasiz |
Samuel Scudder, an entomologist who studied under him, wrote about that phrase in his 1874 essay, "In the Laboratory With Agassiz," where he recalled that after his initial meeting with the good professor, he was left alone with a single dead fish for hours on end, with no tools but his eyes, ears, and fingers.
When Agassiz would return, Scudder would tell him what he had learned about the specimen. Agassiz would nod, and demand he find more before leaving once again.
"Look at your fish!" he would exhort.
And so the dance went on for three days. Each time Scudder thought he couldn't possibly find anything new about his dead friend, he would notice something else that would send him careening off in some other direction. By the end of the drill, he had thoroughly analyzed every facet of the carcass laid out before him and said that in retrospect, it was an invaluable exercise.
"This was the best entomological lesson I ever had - a lesson, whose influence has extended to the details of every subsequent study; a legacy the professor has left to me, as he has left it to many others, of inestimable value, which we could not buy, with which we cannot part," he wrote.
That, pure and simple, is science. But how things have changed since 1874.
Maybe it's been the super-effective misrepresentation of scientists in the media, or just that Americans, to be honest, barely have any sort of grasp on or understanding of the subject itself. But it somehow has become vogue to look upon those who spend their lives studying the world around them as crackpot alarmists who are no more than pandering mouthpieces for a certain political party.
It can be heard everywhere, from the editorial boards of conservative publications to the mumblings of drugged-up loons on AM radio, and it absolutely must stop.
Humanity, with its notoriously short memory, evidently has forgotten that everything we have, all the great pieces and processes that have elevated us to this planet's throne, we owe to science. It's always been our inventions - the obsidian arrowhead, the printing press, the radio, the combustion engine - that have separated us from the rest of the animal kingdom, and it all has come from the use of the scientific method.
We revel in the fruits of science, and rightly so. We love our tablets and wireless Internet and GPS systems, and imagining life without them is horrifying to a lot of folks.
Well, why, then, when scientists tell us that they are literally certain that our carbon emissions are warming this planet at an accelerated rate, do we, who have no background in the subject, look at them like they're the ones who don't know what they're talking about?
Why, as a recent New York Times story reported, when you can now see the "tremendous wildfires" and "gargantuan sandstorms" rage across the palette of the earth from space, and the "gunmetal exhalation of coal and fuel smoke" spread over China, do we believe that our actions don't affect the ecosystem around us?
Bill Maher once said that you can't pick the science you like, because the same process that led to the development of the iPhone is the one that's telling us that we must turn our vicious, parasitic demolition of this planet around before it's too late. And even though it all sounds like crazy talk to those who bask in ignorance, shooting messengers and hiding heads in the sand won't change that.
The scientists, after all, are just the ones looking at the fish.
We're the ones pretending it can still swim.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
Monday, August 26, 2013
Pequannock looks to promote increased use of rain gardens
It's a new twist on an old concept: dig slight depressions into the ground to act as a traditional sort of catch-basin for rainwater — but this time, add various types of indigenous plants that thrive in wet environments so as to increase the basin's efficacy.
The finished rain garden in Andover Township that Pequannock Township Engineer Joe Golden, along with a number of citizens and volunteers, constructed.Seen here is the Andover garden when it was still a work in progress. Golden is attempting to bring rain gardens to Pequannock as a way of conserving water and making a dent in local flooding issues.
That small change not only makes the basin more aesthetically pleasing, but also better at sopping up runoff before it washes away soil and carries pollutants into the water system.
Although these "rain gardens" are still a relatively new concept in the stormwater management field, they've gained traction with Pequannock Township Engineer Joe Golden, who recently completed an application for a $2,000 grant from Rutgers University's "Sustainable Jersey" program in order to fund a local course on the practice.
His plan, he said in a Thursday afternoon phone conversation, is to use the money to hold the class, and then have those that attend construct a demo rain garden somewhere on public property so other residents can see firsthand how they work.
Golden is already certified by the university as a rain garden specialist and trainer, and has built several of his own, including one at an Andover Township school that helped that town win a NJ Governor's Award for stormwater management in 2010.
He's hoping to do something similar in Pequannock, which, what with its sandy, permeable soil and perennial flooding issues, is the ideal spot for both public and private plots.
"Rain gardens typically get about 30 percent more [water] infiltration than a lawn does," he said. "If every lawn had a rain garden, we'd have 30 percent less water [running off]… and if every property in the area installed one, we would actually maybe make a dent in the flooding."
Even if it never helped the flooding, however, the small parcels — Golden's own at his Sussex County home measures about 20-by-8 feet — are excellent for water conservation, and the combination of grass, plants, and mulch at the edge of a parking lot or gutter downspout helps "eat away the bad stuff" that might otherwise drain into local rivers.
"You put it on the end of a driveway, and it takes out the oil," he said. "It cleans the water before it gets into the ground... it's been very successful in some other communities."
Plus, he said, they are "very attractive," and can entice hummingbirds, monarch butterflies, and other bits of nature into the area.
The course would most likely be free, he said, and the town's garden, wherever it may be, could be labeled with signs and become a sort of ecosystem exhibit as well. He's hoping to find out whether Pequannock secured the grant sometime in September, and the work could be done in the spring.
He meets with the town Green Team on Monday night to discuss the plans further.
Meanwhile, the Township Council voiced support for the plan when its members heard about it at their Aug. 13 meeting, with Councilwoman Cathy Winterfield saying the concept is "pretty exciting" and Mayor Rich Phelan noting that it "sounds cool."
Councilman Jay Vanderhoff, who has an extensive background in the landscaping field, said he heard that a number of town Green Teams and environmental clubs are getting behind the idea and doing it in their own municipalities.
"It's a good project," he said.
Golden urged any residents interested in possibly taking part in a class on rain gardens to contact him at the township's engineering office at 973-835-5700.
Email:janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/221119081_Pequannock_looks_to_promote_increased_use_of_rain_gardens.html?page=all
The finished rain garden in Andover Township that Pequannock Township Engineer Joe Golden, along with a number of citizens and volunteers, constructed.Seen here is the Andover garden when it was still a work in progress. Golden is attempting to bring rain gardens to Pequannock as a way of conserving water and making a dent in local flooding issues.
That small change not only makes the basin more aesthetically pleasing, but also better at sopping up runoff before it washes away soil and carries pollutants into the water system.
Although these "rain gardens" are still a relatively new concept in the stormwater management field, they've gained traction with Pequannock Township Engineer Joe Golden, who recently completed an application for a $2,000 grant from Rutgers University's "Sustainable Jersey" program in order to fund a local course on the practice.
His plan, he said in a Thursday afternoon phone conversation, is to use the money to hold the class, and then have those that attend construct a demo rain garden somewhere on public property so other residents can see firsthand how they work.
Golden is already certified by the university as a rain garden specialist and trainer, and has built several of his own, including one at an Andover Township school that helped that town win a NJ Governor's Award for stormwater management in 2010.
He's hoping to do something similar in Pequannock, which, what with its sandy, permeable soil and perennial flooding issues, is the ideal spot for both public and private plots.
"Rain gardens typically get about 30 percent more [water] infiltration than a lawn does," he said. "If every lawn had a rain garden, we'd have 30 percent less water [running off]… and if every property in the area installed one, we would actually maybe make a dent in the flooding."
Even if it never helped the flooding, however, the small parcels — Golden's own at his Sussex County home measures about 20-by-8 feet — are excellent for water conservation, and the combination of grass, plants, and mulch at the edge of a parking lot or gutter downspout helps "eat away the bad stuff" that might otherwise drain into local rivers.
"You put it on the end of a driveway, and it takes out the oil," he said. "It cleans the water before it gets into the ground... it's been very successful in some other communities."
Plus, he said, they are "very attractive," and can entice hummingbirds, monarch butterflies, and other bits of nature into the area.
The course would most likely be free, he said, and the town's garden, wherever it may be, could be labeled with signs and become a sort of ecosystem exhibit as well. He's hoping to find out whether Pequannock secured the grant sometime in September, and the work could be done in the spring.
He meets with the town Green Team on Monday night to discuss the plans further.
Meanwhile, the Township Council voiced support for the plan when its members heard about it at their Aug. 13 meeting, with Councilwoman Cathy Winterfield saying the concept is "pretty exciting" and Mayor Rich Phelan noting that it "sounds cool."
Councilman Jay Vanderhoff, who has an extensive background in the landscaping field, said he heard that a number of town Green Teams and environmental clubs are getting behind the idea and doing it in their own municipalities.
"It's a good project," he said.
Golden urged any residents interested in possibly taking part in a class on rain gardens to contact him at the township's engineering office at 973-835-5700.
Email:janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/221119081_Pequannock_looks_to_promote_increased_use_of_rain_gardens.html?page=all
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
Businesses don't care - do we?
At the risk of sounding quite a bit more crotchety than my 29 years should allow, I've got to say that it seems to be getting more and more difficult to find products of any sort that are truly "built to last" these days.
It doesn't matter whether it's (several) watches from a Connecticut-based company that embarrassingly tumble off your wrist, boxing gloves from a prominent manufacturer that come in ripped again and again due to a lack of quality control, or the cell phone that arrives from an online dealer permanently fixed to the "Glitch Out and Die" setting - it's garbage.
Everything is built from plastic when it should be metal and made in China or India or Bangladesh when it should be made in the USA. Everything is cheap, everything is disposable.
For a long time, during that mythical "golden age" of American manufacturing, it seemed like we were different. Our guys took pride in what they did, and the business owners themselves seemed to live closer to that old adage that your business was only as good as its reputation.
Of course, that might be an overly nostalgic (and maybe even false) notion of how things were, but it should be true, even if it isn't. And if it was, the corporations now, these international conglomerates of sub-holdings and parent companies birthed from the era of globalization, have forgotten it, and their awful customer service proves that they're not particularly keen on remembering.
I'm not a businessman, and I don't pretend that I understand retail, wholesale or any of the other terms that were never uttered within 500 feet of the hall that housed the English majors at Montclair State.
But I do understand that doing one thing, and doing it really, really well - whether it's forging knives, teaching piano, or putting out a newspaper - is often a recipe for success.
Diversification can sometimes equal death, especially when, in the pursuit of larger profit margins, a company forgets what its original purpose was.
I used to be the sort that hated calling up and harassing businesses about their pathetic products (a trait I often attributed to my own long stretch in a retail setting), but my frustration has simply boiled over.
Now, I'm just surprised that they've apparently escaped the cascade of angry phone calls that so often accompany widespread consumer wrath.
Maybe we feel that no matter what we say, the products we buy will keep getting smaller, cheaper, and flimsier. Or maybe we've just lowered our collective standards enough that we barely even notice that a pair of jeans doesn't last through one winter anymore.
We should not let that continue. Even if it's a losing fight, it's worth it to give them a call or send them an email just to let them know, "Hey, I'm paying attention, and I hate what you're doing with your product."
Most times they'll blow you off, but once in a while, I'll get one that actually fools me into thinking they're sincere when they thank me for "bringing this to our attention."
Sometimes, they offer a deal or discount to go along with their fake gratitude, and even though they're probably still making something on it, it makes me feel better.
It's not much, but you take what you can get. Just like them.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/220233001_Businesses_don_t_care_-_do_we_.html
It doesn't matter whether it's (several) watches from a Connecticut-based company that embarrassingly tumble off your wrist, boxing gloves from a prominent manufacturer that come in ripped again and again due to a lack of quality control, or the cell phone that arrives from an online dealer permanently fixed to the "Glitch Out and Die" setting - it's garbage.
Everything is built from plastic when it should be metal and made in China or India or Bangladesh when it should be made in the USA. Everything is cheap, everything is disposable.
For a long time, during that mythical "golden age" of American manufacturing, it seemed like we were different. Our guys took pride in what they did, and the business owners themselves seemed to live closer to that old adage that your business was only as good as its reputation.
Of course, that might be an overly nostalgic (and maybe even false) notion of how things were, but it should be true, even if it isn't. And if it was, the corporations now, these international conglomerates of sub-holdings and parent companies birthed from the era of globalization, have forgotten it, and their awful customer service proves that they're not particularly keen on remembering.
I'm not a businessman, and I don't pretend that I understand retail, wholesale or any of the other terms that were never uttered within 500 feet of the hall that housed the English majors at Montclair State.
But I do understand that doing one thing, and doing it really, really well - whether it's forging knives, teaching piano, or putting out a newspaper - is often a recipe for success.
Diversification can sometimes equal death, especially when, in the pursuit of larger profit margins, a company forgets what its original purpose was.
I used to be the sort that hated calling up and harassing businesses about their pathetic products (a trait I often attributed to my own long stretch in a retail setting), but my frustration has simply boiled over.
Now, I'm just surprised that they've apparently escaped the cascade of angry phone calls that so often accompany widespread consumer wrath.
Maybe we feel that no matter what we say, the products we buy will keep getting smaller, cheaper, and flimsier. Or maybe we've just lowered our collective standards enough that we barely even notice that a pair of jeans doesn't last through one winter anymore.
We should not let that continue. Even if it's a losing fight, it's worth it to give them a call or send them an email just to let them know, "Hey, I'm paying attention, and I hate what you're doing with your product."
Most times they'll blow you off, but once in a while, I'll get one that actually fools me into thinking they're sincere when they thank me for "bringing this to our attention."
Sometimes, they offer a deal or discount to go along with their fake gratitude, and even though they're probably still making something on it, it makes me feel better.
It's not much, but you take what you can get. Just like them.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/220233001_Businesses_don_t_care_-_do_we_.html
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Pequannock residents share Holocaust experience in Cedar Crest documentary
The choice in front of 16-year-old Paul Graf Loewner was stark: escape through the window, dodge the inevitable barrage of German bullets, and hide out for however long the war continued… or go with the Nazis who’d walked up to his door.
"My mother wanted me to escape through the window, and I was ready to go, but my father said it was too dangerous," Loewner said last week as he sat in a cushioned chair in the Cedar Crest Retirement Community’s TV studio. "I couldn’t do it…but I should have listened to my mother."
Loewner did not escape, and he and his father were herded into a cattle car and sent from his small village outside the Slovakian capital of Bratislava to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany.
Eventually, the Nazis tried to separate them so they could be put in different cell blocks; when a scared Loewner wouldn’t let go of his father’s hand, a guard struck him behind the ear and knocked him down.
He would see his father just a few more times before being sent to Buchenwald. After that, he never saw him — or his mother — again.
"They probably killed him the way we watched the others [get killed]," he said, looking away.
He scraped by in the dismal camp, seeing other inmates being starved and shot and murdered, until the American tanks from General George Patton’s Third Army liberated the camp on April 11, 1945.
"We were safe. We were liberated," he said with a slight accent, a jubilant smile crossing his face. "I thought it was the greatest happiness in my life up to then to be liberated."
Although the comfortable TV studio is a far cry from the cold floor of a cattle car, after seven decades, Loewner finds his memories are vivid.
And it’s memories like those that he, along with 18 other residents from the retirement community, have shared in the 90-minute documentary about the Holocaust entitled "Never Forgotten."
It was Cedar Crest producer Mike Dygos’ first feature-length production, and he called it a "huge accomplishment," especially because he already knew so many of the residents.
"To sit here and hear these stories coming out of these residents’ mouths — we see these people everyday, we see them in the hallway, and then all of a sudden they’re telling this crazy story that you can’t believe anyone would be able to survive… To attach a person you know to a story like that, it really makes the Holocaust real," the 26-year-old Dygos said.
Producer and coordinator Larry Curan, also 26, agreed, and said that learning about the Holocaust from books, as he had in school, was nothing like hearing the stories told in the voice of one who’d lived through it.
"That’s why this piece is so powerful: because every single one of these is a first-hand account of what actually happened," he said. "It was amazing to hear some of the things that we heard people say."
Producer Doris Sinofsky, age 85, was in high school during World War II, and said that she, like most Americans, had no idea that the Holocaust was even going on in Europe.
Although she would eventually marry a Jewish man, she still hadn’t heard the stories of the concentration camps in such an up-close-and-personal way until she watched the interviews being recorded.
Sometimes, she said, she had to leave the studio during the filming — especially when the women told their narratives.
"The things that they went through was just beyond comprehension. It was awful," she said.
The producers agreed that the hardest seat to be in, however, was not in production — it was on stage, across from the survivors, prompting them to relive the greatest horrors of their lives. The man who occupied that seat, they said, quickly became the axle around which the project revolved.
Bert Moore, the community’s 63-year-old pastoral ministries manager (a position he described as "essentially a chaplain"), came to Cedar Crest five years ago after a 25-year career as a Navy chaplain, and had already formed relationships with many in the Jewish community. After putting out the initial word that the production team wanted volunteers to speak about the Holocaust for a documentary, it only seemed natural that he would conduct the interviews.
"It kind of fit right in," he said.
In the end, about 35 hours’ worth of interviews were recorded, and all three producers were effusive in their praise of how Moore handled what could have been a difficult job.
"For someone who has never done interviewing on TV before, he really fit the role perfectly, and it had to do with his compassion," Dygos said. "Him being able to ask the right questions, and then listen to the people and be able to off their stories… We got a lot of things we really weren’t expecting."
Sinofsky agreed, and said that there were several points where, during a given interview, she would think that there was simply nothing left to say — and then Moore would ask a poignant question and the floodgates would open once more.
The chaplain simply said he tried not to make the residents feel uncomfortable.
"I don’t know that I necessarily thought it through that much," he said with a laugh. "I guess it was that I would listen to their story, and ask a question that would take them to the next step — if it seemed to me like there was a gap, I would try to bounce back and say, ‘What happened here?’"
It was also important, he said, to focus on not only the residents’ experiences in the Holocaust, but on the post-war years as well — when they immigrated, when they married, what they did for a profession, and how they ended up at the quiet retirement community in the woods of northern Pequannock. Their resilience throughout their lives, he said, was astounding.
"The thing that kept coming back to me was how amazing it was that they could have this kind of life experience, and be able to put that behind them, and move on, and have successful lives and raise families," he said. "To see how they could survive that, and turn their lives around, and I would say contribute to society in a very positive way — it was such a huge dichotomy."
There seems to be quite an audience for that sort of message. Sinofsky said the documentary has already been sent to a number of libraries and schools, and the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., may eventually store the dozens of hours of raw footage. "Never Forgotten" has even won a Telly Award, which honors the "very best film and video productions" from local, regional, and cable TV," according to its website.
But perhaps the most important part, said 84-year-old resident Leopold Lowy, is what can be gained by exposing the public to the horror of the Holocaust: the assurance that such a thing will never come to pass again.
A Czechoslovakian native, he lost both parents during the war years, and was on his own in a Jewish orphanage at age 12. Later, he was sent to the infamous Auschwitz before ending up at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
A lifetime later, Auschwitz remains an open wound.
"No word, no book, no pictures can describe hell on earth… That’s all I have to say. Buchenwald was very close to it, but at least in Buchenwald, they may have starved you to death, worked you to death, but not gassed," he said, his face darkening for a moment. "But this is all past. I came here, and I started a new life… You can’t live in your past. You have to look to your future."
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/community/218318131_Pequannock_residents_share_Holocaust_experience_in_Cedar_Crest_documentary.html?page=all
 |
| Paul Loewner |
"My mother wanted me to escape through the window, and I was ready to go, but my father said it was too dangerous," Loewner said last week as he sat in a cushioned chair in the Cedar Crest Retirement Community’s TV studio. "I couldn’t do it…but I should have listened to my mother."
Loewner did not escape, and he and his father were herded into a cattle car and sent from his small village outside the Slovakian capital of Bratislava to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany.
Eventually, the Nazis tried to separate them so they could be put in different cell blocks; when a scared Loewner wouldn’t let go of his father’s hand, a guard struck him behind the ear and knocked him down.
He would see his father just a few more times before being sent to Buchenwald. After that, he never saw him — or his mother — again.
"They probably killed him the way we watched the others [get killed]," he said, looking away.
He scraped by in the dismal camp, seeing other inmates being starved and shot and murdered, until the American tanks from General George Patton’s Third Army liberated the camp on April 11, 1945.
"We were safe. We were liberated," he said with a slight accent, a jubilant smile crossing his face. "I thought it was the greatest happiness in my life up to then to be liberated."
Although the comfortable TV studio is a far cry from the cold floor of a cattle car, after seven decades, Loewner finds his memories are vivid.
And it’s memories like those that he, along with 18 other residents from the retirement community, have shared in the 90-minute documentary about the Holocaust entitled "Never Forgotten."
It was Cedar Crest producer Mike Dygos’ first feature-length production, and he called it a "huge accomplishment," especially because he already knew so many of the residents.
"To sit here and hear these stories coming out of these residents’ mouths — we see these people everyday, we see them in the hallway, and then all of a sudden they’re telling this crazy story that you can’t believe anyone would be able to survive… To attach a person you know to a story like that, it really makes the Holocaust real," the 26-year-old Dygos said.
Producer and coordinator Larry Curan, also 26, agreed, and said that learning about the Holocaust from books, as he had in school, was nothing like hearing the stories told in the voice of one who’d lived through it.
 |
| Loewner, as a child, with his sister |
"That’s why this piece is so powerful: because every single one of these is a first-hand account of what actually happened," he said. "It was amazing to hear some of the things that we heard people say."
Producer Doris Sinofsky, age 85, was in high school during World War II, and said that she, like most Americans, had no idea that the Holocaust was even going on in Europe.
Although she would eventually marry a Jewish man, she still hadn’t heard the stories of the concentration camps in such an up-close-and-personal way until she watched the interviews being recorded.
Sometimes, she said, she had to leave the studio during the filming — especially when the women told their narratives.
"The things that they went through was just beyond comprehension. It was awful," she said.
The producers agreed that the hardest seat to be in, however, was not in production — it was on stage, across from the survivors, prompting them to relive the greatest horrors of their lives. The man who occupied that seat, they said, quickly became the axle around which the project revolved.
Bert Moore, the community’s 63-year-old pastoral ministries manager (a position he described as "essentially a chaplain"), came to Cedar Crest five years ago after a 25-year career as a Navy chaplain, and had already formed relationships with many in the Jewish community. After putting out the initial word that the production team wanted volunteers to speak about the Holocaust for a documentary, it only seemed natural that he would conduct the interviews.
"It kind of fit right in," he said.
In the end, about 35 hours’ worth of interviews were recorded, and all three producers were effusive in their praise of how Moore handled what could have been a difficult job.
"For someone who has never done interviewing on TV before, he really fit the role perfectly, and it had to do with his compassion," Dygos said. "Him being able to ask the right questions, and then listen to the people and be able to off their stories… We got a lot of things we really weren’t expecting."
Sinofsky agreed, and said that there were several points where, during a given interview, she would think that there was simply nothing left to say — and then Moore would ask a poignant question and the floodgates would open once more.
The chaplain simply said he tried not to make the residents feel uncomfortable.
"I don’t know that I necessarily thought it through that much," he said with a laugh. "I guess it was that I would listen to their story, and ask a question that would take them to the next step — if it seemed to me like there was a gap, I would try to bounce back and say, ‘What happened here?’"
It was also important, he said, to focus on not only the residents’ experiences in the Holocaust, but on the post-war years as well — when they immigrated, when they married, what they did for a profession, and how they ended up at the quiet retirement community in the woods of northern Pequannock. Their resilience throughout their lives, he said, was astounding.
"The thing that kept coming back to me was how amazing it was that they could have this kind of life experience, and be able to put that behind them, and move on, and have successful lives and raise families," he said. "To see how they could survive that, and turn their lives around, and I would say contribute to society in a very positive way — it was such a huge dichotomy."
There seems to be quite an audience for that sort of message. Sinofsky said the documentary has already been sent to a number of libraries and schools, and the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., may eventually store the dozens of hours of raw footage. "Never Forgotten" has even won a Telly Award, which honors the "very best film and video productions" from local, regional, and cable TV," according to its website.
But perhaps the most important part, said 84-year-old resident Leopold Lowy, is what can be gained by exposing the public to the horror of the Holocaust: the assurance that such a thing will never come to pass again.
A Czechoslovakian native, he lost both parents during the war years, and was on his own in a Jewish orphanage at age 12. Later, he was sent to the infamous Auschwitz before ending up at the Buchenwald concentration camp.
A lifetime later, Auschwitz remains an open wound.
"No word, no book, no pictures can describe hell on earth… That’s all I have to say. Buchenwald was very close to it, but at least in Buchenwald, they may have starved you to death, worked you to death, but not gassed," he said, his face darkening for a moment. "But this is all past. I came here, and I started a new life… You can’t live in your past. You have to look to your future."
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/community/218318131_Pequannock_residents_share_Holocaust_experience_in_Cedar_Crest_documentary.html?page=all
Technorati Tags: New Jersey, Pequannock, Holocaust, Buchenwald, Auschwitz, World War II, History, Europe
Thursday, August 1, 2013
In Paterson, that's just the way things go
When the massive brick wall of a three-story Ryle Avenue mill collapsed on July 16, sending the roof tumbling through two floors and debris shooting into the road, it instantly became the perfect metaphor for its hometown.
The building, although it was a part of local history, had been slated for demolition because it lacked structural integrity. But, as is so often the case in the city's seized-up bureaucracy, the process stalled, and so there it sat, a rotting reminder of Paterson's once-fearsome industrial muscle, dying with one last howl as Father Time finished the job that local officials could not.
Once, mills like that made up the heart of a New Jersey manufacturing juggernaut that harnessed the power of the 77-foot-high Great Falls to produce textiles, firearms, locomotive parts, and so much silk that the word found a home in the city's nickname.
And, like so many in the state who have some Italian blood in them, my family roots wind their way back to those hulking brick-and-mortar behemoths along the Passaic — growing up, I heard many a story about my own great-grandfather, a sharply-dressed, wealthy man who owned one during Paterson's heyday.
When I was a kid, I would try to imagine what it looked like during his time, when it was a thriving boomtown of shops and tenements fueled by the energy of thousands of European immigrants streaming off the ships every day. All I could see then, through the thick glass of a car windshield, was a shattered shell that looked moments away from imploding.
But hey, it was the 80s, wasn't it? White flight, urban blight, the crack epidemic, and outsourcing took their toll, and finding a safe downtown anywhere was difficult. Hoboken was in shambles, Newark was long dead, Jersey City was rough as ever. Times Square was filled with hookers and pushers and peep shows, and the Bronx, with its crumbling buildings and tagged up facades, could have been Beirut's stunt double.
Years later, though, there's less of an excuse. Jersey City is rebounding, parts of Newark burn bright, and Hoboken is exclusive. Times Square is again the glittering jewel it was meant to be, and even the Bronx has made headway.
And then, barely limping along, there is Paterson, torn up and hemorrhaging blood from the twin bullet holes of crime and corruption.
Where is the redevelopment? Where is the falling crime rate? Why, after all these years and all these millions spent, has nothing changed?
People are terrified to even drive through, and cringe when their GPS sends them across the river` for a "shortcut." Just last month, a kid from my hometown died in the street from a gunshot wound to the neck in a neighborhood described as "the Wild West," and days ago a man was arrested for nonchalantly carrying a fully-loaded machine gun on East 16th.
The state still runs the utterly failed school system, the police force has been gut-punched by massive cutbacks, and the murder rate is unchanged. All the while, the city administration, instead of addressing the myriad of problems, recently announced that it's ready to move ahead on an initiative to — get this — debut a line a of bottled water that would be named after the Great Falls.
What the hell is going on?
Undoubtedly, some will say that I'm focusing on Paterson's many negatives at the expense of its positives — and they'd be right — but that's only because I badly want this madness to end.
And don't get me wrong, I don't know how you fix things; I'm not a municipal planner or a police chief or a mayor. But I do know that if it can be done in New York, it can be done anywhere, and that a real, solid effort to turn the city around must be made — and soon — before Paterson starts challenging Camden for a title that it wants no part of.
Otherwise, it will continue its long descent, and decaying silk mills will be the least of the worries.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/217869481_In_Paterson__that_s_just_the_way_things_go.html?page=all
Tags: Paterson, Silk City, Great Falls, New Jersey, History, Politics
The building, although it was a part of local history, had been slated for demolition because it lacked structural integrity. But, as is so often the case in the city's seized-up bureaucracy, the process stalled, and so there it sat, a rotting reminder of Paterson's once-fearsome industrial muscle, dying with one last howl as Father Time finished the job that local officials could not.
Once, mills like that made up the heart of a New Jersey manufacturing juggernaut that harnessed the power of the 77-foot-high Great Falls to produce textiles, firearms, locomotive parts, and so much silk that the word found a home in the city's nickname.
And, like so many in the state who have some Italian blood in them, my family roots wind their way back to those hulking brick-and-mortar behemoths along the Passaic — growing up, I heard many a story about my own great-grandfather, a sharply-dressed, wealthy man who owned one during Paterson's heyday.
When I was a kid, I would try to imagine what it looked like during his time, when it was a thriving boomtown of shops and tenements fueled by the energy of thousands of European immigrants streaming off the ships every day. All I could see then, through the thick glass of a car windshield, was a shattered shell that looked moments away from imploding.
But hey, it was the 80s, wasn't it? White flight, urban blight, the crack epidemic, and outsourcing took their toll, and finding a safe downtown anywhere was difficult. Hoboken was in shambles, Newark was long dead, Jersey City was rough as ever. Times Square was filled with hookers and pushers and peep shows, and the Bronx, with its crumbling buildings and tagged up facades, could have been Beirut's stunt double.
Years later, though, there's less of an excuse. Jersey City is rebounding, parts of Newark burn bright, and Hoboken is exclusive. Times Square is again the glittering jewel it was meant to be, and even the Bronx has made headway.
And then, barely limping along, there is Paterson, torn up and hemorrhaging blood from the twin bullet holes of crime and corruption.
Where is the redevelopment? Where is the falling crime rate? Why, after all these years and all these millions spent, has nothing changed?
People are terrified to even drive through, and cringe when their GPS sends them across the river` for a "shortcut." Just last month, a kid from my hometown died in the street from a gunshot wound to the neck in a neighborhood described as "the Wild West," and days ago a man was arrested for nonchalantly carrying a fully-loaded machine gun on East 16th.
The state still runs the utterly failed school system, the police force has been gut-punched by massive cutbacks, and the murder rate is unchanged. All the while, the city administration, instead of addressing the myriad of problems, recently announced that it's ready to move ahead on an initiative to — get this — debut a line a of bottled water that would be named after the Great Falls.
What the hell is going on?
Undoubtedly, some will say that I'm focusing on Paterson's many negatives at the expense of its positives — and they'd be right — but that's only because I badly want this madness to end.
And don't get me wrong, I don't know how you fix things; I'm not a municipal planner or a police chief or a mayor. But I do know that if it can be done in New York, it can be done anywhere, and that a real, solid effort to turn the city around must be made — and soon — before Paterson starts challenging Camden for a title that it wants no part of.
Otherwise, it will continue its long descent, and decaying silk mills will be the least of the worries.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/217869481_In_Paterson__that_s_just_the_way_things_go.html?page=all
Tags: Paterson, Silk City, Great Falls, New Jersey, History, Politics
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