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For Iris DeMent, Music Is The Calling That Forces Her Into The Spotlight
Published April 20, 2020 at 10:36 AM MDT
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. Since so many of us are staying home now, looking for things to see or listen to to lift our spirits or deepen our sense of connection in this period of isolation, we're going to occasionally bring out something from our archive that seems right for the moment.
Today we're going to listen to the interview and performance Terry recorded with songwriter, pianist and singer Iris DeMent, whose music was deeply influenced by the delta and the Pentecostal Church. If you don't recognize her name, maybe you know her song "Let The Mystery Be," which was used as the theme song on the HBO series "The Leftovers." Her version of the hymn "Leaning On His Everlasting Arms" (ph) was used at the end of the Coen brothers movie "True Grit."
DeMent was born in Arkansas on the delta, the youngest of 14 children. Her family moved to California when she was 3. They belonged to the Pentecostal church, where they all sang. Dement is no longer affiliated with the church. She now lives in Ames, Iowa, where she tells us she's sheltering in place and sewing a lot of masks and thinking about her mother, who was born during the 1918 influenza pandemic and who taught her how to sew.
When Terry spoke with her in 2015, Iris DeMent was seated at a piano at an Iowa Public Radio studio. She started with a recording from her album "The Trackless Woods" on which DeMent has set to music the poems of the late Russian writer Anna Akhmatova, who Stalin named an enemy of the state. This poem is about staying in Russia and fighting for what she believed. It's called "Not With Deserters."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOT WITH DESERTERS")
IRIS DEMENT: (Singing) Not with deserters from the battle, that tears my land do I belong. To their coarse praise I do not listen. They shall not have from me one song. Poor exile, you are like a prisoner to me or one upon a bed of sickness. Dark your road, oh, wanderer, of wormwood smacks your alien bread.
TERRY GROSS: Iris Dement, welcome to FRESH AIR. You've said that these poems by Anna Akhmatova spoke to you because you adopted your daughter Dasha from Siberia when she was 6, and you wanted to connect with the culture that she's from. How old was she when you started this project?
DEMENT: Dasha would have been maybe about 12 years old. I - yeah, the poems, I first started setting them about four years ago. And, you know, I was playing these song poems around the house while she was running around and playing and half the time, you know, with her headphones on, listening to pop music. And I didn't try to pull her along into that. The extent to which she absorbed that is her story to tell and yet to be seen in the future.
GROSS: Akhmatova was accused under Stalin of being an enemy of the state. Her son was imprisoned because he was her son. She lost friends who were executed. But she didn't want to flee. She wanted to stay and fight for her country and be with her country, and she thought that her poems could bring something of value to the people in Russia. Do you have that kind of faith in your own art?
DEMENT: Well, I've not had to endure the test of it to even the slightest degree that she did. But I would have to say that, yes, I do. It sounds maybe a little arrogant. I don't know. But yes, I do. I am extremely shy and never wanted to be on a stage, but the music propelled me there. When the songs started coming to me, I felt I didn't have the option, you know, to hide and avoid my most - least desirable spot in life, which is in the spotlight. So I guess that would answer your question kind of, wouldn't it? Yes, I do.
GROSS: As we've talked about places so important to you in this project for Anna Akhmatova but also in your own songs, a couple of years ago you released an album called "Sing The Delta." And the music is very inspired by the delta, where you were born and were raised till the age of 3. And then your family moved to California. You were born in Arkansas. Tell us a little bit about the music you were first exposed to.
DEMENT: Well, the music - I have a very large family. I was actually the last of 14 children. And when I was very young, my parents sold the farm and moved into town, and my dad took a factory job. And the way we wound up in California is my dad had staged a wildcat strike at the Emerson Electric plant with some other guys. And after a year of standing on the picket line, they didn't get the union. So literally, it was a last-minute thing. My dad packed up and hitched a ride out to California. And then later, my brother moved my mom and the last 10 kids out to California in the station wagon.
But the music that I heard - my mom sang pretty much nonstop. Anything she was doing, she was singing. And often we'd call it banging on the piano because the only times I remember my mom playing the piano was when things had just gotten pretty tense and awful, and she didn't feel like she could bear it anymore. She would go over there, and she'd take her singing over to the piano and kind of beat out her frustrations, which was quite a thing to witness as a child, I must say.
But - so I heard that southern gospel sound. You know, the first nonreligious singing - you know, secular, I guess they call it - singing that I heard was these country singers who would put out a country record. You know, that's how I was first introduced to Johnny Cash, and that's how I got to hear, you know, Loretta Lynn and different ones. So what I heard was gospel church music. And it was by real people, you know, people that I knew and whose lives overlapped with mine - until I was about 5 years old, so...
GROSS: So since you are seated at a piano at a studio at Iowa Public Radio, can I ask you to sing a song that you heard in church when you were young that stayed with you and that inspired you musically?
DEMENT: Yeah. There's a long list of them. And I, actually, a few years back, put out a record called "Lifeline" that was made up of all the songs that pretty much shaped me and that I lean on still. So which one?
DEMENT: I'll do "Pass Me Not." (Singing) Pass me not, oh gentle savior. Hear my humble cry. While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by. savior, oh, savior, hear my humble cry. While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by.
And then there are two other really beautiful verses, but we'll save that for another day.
GROSS: That was beautiful. You know, I...
DEMENT: That's a pretty song.
GROSS: Yeah, and you performed it so well. My guest is Iris DeMent, and she's at the piano. And she has a new album called "The Trackless Woods." So it must have been so great to think of music as something that was really holy, as something that, like, connected you to the Holy Spirit. It wasn't just, like, pop tunes coming over the radio - not that those aren't great, not that that doesn't have a whole lot of meaning (laughter).
DEMENT: Yeah, the side of it that I came from is exactly what you're talking about. I think I had developed this notion that there was something silly about the Holy Spirit idea, if you want to call it an idea, and my deep link that I had in my mind and in my work to all that. It seemed like something that I was supposed to grow out of. I started to sort of separate myself a little bit from some of those ideas. And I started having terrible things happen. Like, I couldn't remember my words - songs I'd sang my whole life. I just became paralyzed.
And it took a while. It took about a year for me to realize what I had done. And yeah, pretty much when I returned to that place where I started, which is what you brought up in the beginning - that it's the spirit that moves through us - I began to be able to do what I needed to do again with a calm. And so I learned a great lesson there. I learned to believe in it and hold onto it, whether I can explain it or not, whether anybody else can or not - 'cause I just happened to be one of those people. I'm going to go under if I don't.
And, you know, on that same note, I think another thing that I learned from my parents, who had, you know, pretty difficult, challenging lives - to put it mildly - I saw my parents use music to survive, you know. They had to have that music. My mom had to sing, and my dad had to go to church, and he had to hear that music washing over him and through him. It wasn't a, oh, this is nice (laughter); it was a, I'm not going to make it if I don't have that.
And so I felt that that's my job. That's how I think of what I do. I have to give people that lifeline, you know, that I saw my parents reach out for and that I was taught to reach out for. And so that's what I aim to do. And I guess I don't feel like I can do that without that connection to the spirit.
GROSS: There was a period of 16 years that elapsed between your albums of original songs, and it was 2012 or 2013 that you released your album "Sing The Delta." So you were just talking about this period where you felt like you weren't connecting with that spirit. Does that explain the absence of an album of original songs from you during that period?
DEMENT: You know, I think that was - would be safe to say - some of it. A lot happened during that time. As far as musically, I continued to go out and play, and much to my amazement, I still had people that would come and listen and get something out of it. And I would, too. And I made that gospel record during that time, which was - is actually the only record of mine that I can listen, to be honest. That record means a lot to me.
And there was a lot going on. I think - you know, I had a struggle for a few years with some pretty severe, you know, down-in-the-dumps kind of stuff that I was battling and just kind of trying to figure out where I needed to go next. And then, of course, in the middle of that, we also adopted our daughter, who had been orphaned until she was 6, and she came with a lot of needs, a lot of attention. And there was a lot that I had to learn about myself in order to do that job too. So I had my hands pretty full.
But I feel, just on a personal level, I can see, looking back, how much I needed that nothingness. I learned a lot, and I feel like I - I grew a lot in myself just as a person. And my - and I can bring all that to the music now. And I don't know. I just - I guess I just accepted that it went along as that was supposed to go, and I didn't do anything wrong. You know, for a long time, I felt like I was doing something wrong because the songs weren't coming. But I'm over that now. And, you know, things have their natural timing and rhythm, and I'm a part of that natural time and rhythm. And it was as it was supposed to be.
GROSS: On your album "Sing The Delta," the album that was your first original - your first album of original songs in 16 years - you have a song called "Go On Ahead And Go Home." And it's home in the sense of death, not in the sense of - you know, it's about crossing over; it's not in the sense of, like, going back to your house.
DEMENT: Yeah.
GROSS: Is there something specific that inspired the song?
DEMENT: Well, one of my older brothers passed away, and that very much led to that song. And it was my - my send-off to him, my attempt to honor his life.
GROSS: It's a beautiful song. Would you play that song, "Go On Ahead And Go Home," for us? Like, an excerpt of that song that you wrote for your brother?
DEMENT: I would love to.
GROSS: Thank you.
DEMENT: (Singing) Go on ahead, and go home. Go on ahead, and go home. Boy, you've done your best, time you took your rest in the sheltering loam. Go on ahead, and go home. Go on ahead. Go home. The spirits of the dead will meet you up ahead, and you won't be alone. Go let your momma see you smile. Go let your momma see you smile. Your momma's going to wait however long it takes, but it's sure been a while. So let your momma see you smile. Go let your momma see you smile. She's standing in the sun saying, boy, your work's been done by long, long, mile.
DAVIES: That's Iris DeMent at the piano from an interview recorded in 2015. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF IRIS DEMENT SONG, "THE NIGHT I LEARNED HOW NOT TO PRAY")
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. Today we're presenting an interview from our archive which we thought would be nice to listen to during these difficult days. Let's get back to Terry's 2015 conversation with singer and songwriter Iris DeMent.
GROSS: Your parents were Pentecostals and you grew up in the Pentecostal church. What were some of the things you witnessed when people would feel, like, overcome by the spirit?
DEMENT: Well, you would see people dance - they call dancing in the spirit. They called it being slain in the spirit. You would fall over. People would talk in tongues. I can remember sitting on the pew on Sunday night - and we were in church a lot, at least three times a week - but I can remember a young fellow going into a trance-like state and leaping, like, over the backs of the pews and going over my head a time or two. That was one of the more extreme expressions. So...
GROSS: Was it the kind of church where everybody sang, as opposed to their being a separate group of singers?
DEMENT: We had both. I mean, there was lots of - there was the congregational singing. We had a choir. And then there would be different groups, you know. And my sisters had a group - the big DeMent sisters. And when I was 5, you know, there was a - the little DeMent sisters were formed and, you know, I...
DEMENT: I messed up the first performance, which I don't think I ever quite got over. But one thing that I remember, even as a child, is music. I was talking earlier about my discomfort with performing. I didn't like that side of it. Even at a very young age, I felt the music really deeply, and I felt very grown up in the music. I didn't have a sense of myself as being a little kid. I felt this big stuff going on in me.
I remember that first performance, I forgot my words. And I remember the audience beginning to laugh, but they weren't laughing - they were laughing in that way that I realized they thought I was cute, and it really troubled me because I didn't - it wasn't that I was embarrassed so much that I'd forgotten my words. I probably would have just gotten right on with it there, you know? But it was that awareness that oh, this is a performance. I don't know, have an - a minimizing opinion of me or of - it felt really weird. I didn't like that.
And I really shied away from performance after that for a long time. I would - you know, I would sing in church, and I'd take a solo now and again. But I found myself waiting till everyone would leave the home so I could really sing, you know. And there's like 10 kids in the house so it - I had to wait around a long time...
DEMENT: ...To get a little quiet. But it was always very private, and I always felt very protective of it. I didn't want to be a show to somebody.
GROSS: Your mother sang at church, right?
DEMENT: She sang at church. She was - she sang in the audience, and she sometimes did solos. My mom had that same thing I have. It was always very hard for her to get up and sing. She'd get very nervous and rattled and - but yes, she did. And her and my dad, they've had - they'd have knock-down drag-outs every time they'd do a duet together because my dad had a very different approach to the music. You know, he knew how to read, and he had the timing. And he was a beautiful singer, too, and musician. My mom was very instinctual, and she'd go off in - on her own beat and everything, which was beautiful, but she wasn't a group singer. She wasn't a group anything, to tell you the truth. But - so it was funny to watch them try to pull that off. And somehow, they managed a long life together (laughter).
DAVIES: That's singer and songwriter Iris DeMent speaking with Terry Gross in 2015. We'll hear more of her interview and performance after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF IRIS DEMENT SONG, "LEANING ON THE EVERLASTING ARMS")
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross back with her 2015 interview with songwriter and singer Iris DeMent, an interview we thought would be nice to hear while so many of us are at home in this period of social distancing. When they recorded the interview, DeMent was at the piano with her guitar by her side in a studio at Iowa Public Radio. She just released her album "The Trackless Woods." One of her early songs, "Let The Mystery Be," was used as the theme of the HBO series "The Leftovers."
DeMent's music is influenced by the Pentecostal church her family belong to and sang in. She was born in Arkansas on the Delta, the youngest of 14 children. When we left off, she was telling Terry about how her mother loved to sing but had to do it her own way, which made it difficult to sing duets in church with DeMent's father.
GROSS: You recorded a duet with your mother. That's on your first album, "Infamous Angel." And I'd like to play that duet. It's of the song "Higher Ground." Do you want to introduce this recording for us?
DEMENT: Oh, it's funny that you moved into that because I just remembered - I was talking in that - what I was saying about my mom, how she just had to do things her own way. I brought her in. That was my first record, and that was her first time to go to Nashville. And it had been my mom's dream to go off and be a singer in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry way back in the day. Keep in mind my mom was born in 1918, so we're going way back there. And she never made it - married my dad had a bunch of kids instead. But when my - I did my first record, I brought her to Nashville. And we got in the studio, and I wanted her to sing that song with me. And the original plan was that she would harmonize with me, which was - I don't know. It just - the producer - everybody thought, well, that's how this should go. It's my record.
So we get in there. We did that a bunch of times, and, oh, it was just awful. It was awful. It just wouldn't work. Mom couldn't get with it, and we decided to just give up on it. We didn't say that, but we stopped, and we were starting to leave the room. All the players were leaving. And my mom grabbed the lyrics. She said, let's get on in there. And she told the piano player what key to play it in, and we - she just did the song, and we just followed her. And at the end - I don't know if you can hear it, but at the end she says, now that was my key.
So - and it was great. I was so happy. You know, and I'm her kid. You know, she's gone now. But it felt so right to be in there and have mom being mom and me being the kid. I loved it, and she sang beautifully. And - but there again, it's that thing. She just had her own deal all the way around. And it wasn't a hateful thing. It was like, if I'm going to be here, I got to be the thing I am. And the timing and everything, I've got to do it my way. It's a beautiful thing to witness. And that's what she did.
GROSS: So let's hear the duet with my guest Iris DeMent and her mother recorded in - this from a 1992 album, would have made your mother on 74 at the time.
DEMENT: Probably. Yeah, that sounds about right.
GROSS: OK. Here we go.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HIGHER GROUND")
IRIS DEMENT AND FLORA MAE DEMENT: (Singing) I want to scale the utmost heights and catch a glimpse of glory bright. But still, I'll pray till heaven I've found. Lord, lead me on to higher ground. Lord, lift me up and let me stand by faith on heaven's table land, a higher plain than I have found. Lord, plant my feet on higher ground. Lord, lift me up and let me stand by faith on heaven's table land, a higher plain than I have found. Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.
FLORA MAE DEMENT: See; that was my key.
GROSS: So that's Iris DeMent duetting with her mother on Iris DeMent's 1992 album "Infamous Angel." So did her voice influence your voice?
DEMENT: Oh, God, yes. In fact, I - you know, I won't do it, but I can mimic my mother's voice almost to the tee. And I've been doing that since I was a kid. But, you know, so much of that was my mom - you know, I was aware that the things she loved and really, really wanted in life didn't happen. And she didn't see, you know, the avenue to the - to get to the place she wanted to go.
GROSS: Which was singing professionally.
DEMENT: Yeah, she wanted to be a professional singer. And then my dad showed up at church one day with six kids. His wife had died, and they knew each other. They knew each other when they were kids, and she knew she was supposed to marry him and help him raise those kids. And then, of course, she went and had eight more, so her hands were more than full. And I think - you know, well, there's no doubt about it. I mean, there was this merging of my great love for music that went way, way back to the time I was a child and my desire to bring her out into the place in the world that she had wanted to go to. So I always felt like every step of the way in my musical life, my mom was walking with me. I was bringing her along with me, and that's how I wanted it. I don't have any regrets about that.
DAVIES: If you're just joining us, we're listening to an interview Terry Gross recorded with singer and songwriter Iris Dement in 2015. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF IRIS DEMENT SONG, "THERE'S A WHOLE LOT OF HEAVEN")
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. While all of us are dealing in one way or another with the impact of the pandemic, we're going to our archives for an interview we hope you'll enjoy. Let's get back to Terry's 2015 interview with singer and songwriter Iris DeMent.
GROSS: We've been talking a lot about church and the music you grew up with from the church and in the church. And you know, so much of your music seems connected to that music - that church music that you grew up with. And this is an interesting twist on that, your song "Let The Mystery Be." And that is now the theme song of the second season of the HBO series "The Leftovers." And that series is about people who have just inexplicably vanished off the face of the earth. And some people think it might be the rapture or some other godly or mystical or just mysterious superstitious thing that happened. No one really knows.
But you didn't write this for the series. This is from years ago. And it sounds to me like a song from - by somebody who is now secular and saying, I don't know about the answer. I'm not sure if there is a God, but I'm content to live with the mystery.
DEMENT: Yeah. I wrote that about 25 years ago. And yes, that is true. But I think, you know, nowadays, the thing - for where I am now maybe, the way I would describe it is I have - I don't know about God and all that stuff, and I'm not, you know, connected to a particular religion. But I like to think of it as my preacher friend Sam Mann talks about it - it's the - what always was, what is and always will be. You know, you can maybe sum that up and call it God if you want to; I don't know. But I feel that. And I tie my music up with that.
GROSS: Would you sing some of "Let The Mystery Be" for us?
DEMENT: OK.
(Singing) Everybody is wondering what and where they all came from. And everybody is worried about where they'll go when the whole thing's done. No one knows for certain, so it's all about the same to me. I think I'm going to let that mystery be. Some say once gone, you're gone forever, and some may say that you come back. Some say you rest in the arms of a savior if in sinful ways you lack. Some say that they're coming back in a garden, bunch of carrots and little sweet peas. I think I'm going to let that mystery be.
GROSS: That's a great song. That's Iris DeMent singing her song "Let The Mystery Be," which is now being used as the theme song on HBO's Season 2 of "The Leftovers."
So is there a story behind your song "Let The Mystery Be"?
DEMENT: Not really. Isn't that disappointing? I mean, you know, we talked a lot about my religious upbringing. And - well, we didn't get a whole lot into how I kind of ventured away from that. When I was 16, I quit going to church because - you know, when I was a little kid, we would - you know, like, I can remember standing on the street. I was, like, the kid on the sidewalk with my tambourine trying to get other little kids saved. That was - you know, I was that little girl.
GROSS: Were you doing that on your own, or were you asked to do that?
DEMENT: Well, it was groups. I mean, we would often do that before Sunday night service, go out into the neighborhood. The preacher would preach a little sermon. And you know, a group of us - you know, it might be my mom and different people in the church and a couple little kids. I would be one of them. And we would sing, you know, and try to get the kids in.
I remember one day standing on the street and seeing these kids on their bicycle who looked like me and realizing, wow, an hour ago I was on - in front of my house riding my bike, and I look just like you. And now you're across the street, and this thing - this religious belief has kicked in that's made me feel like you and I are a universe apart. And I didn't like that; that bothered me. Even when I was a kid, something felt a little ajar there.
So - but for a long time, when I is growing up, I decided OK, you know, if this story's true that everybody that doesn't think and act and carry on like we do is going to the fiery furnace - by the way, my parents didn't say that to me, but the church did. So I went with that story wholeheartedly, you know? And I made it my job to try to get my school friends saved. I thought well, could there be another priority? I mean if - you know, if my friends are going to burn in the fiery furnace, how can I be thinking of anything else? I can't eat my lunch. So I took that really seriously.
And I remember one day asking somebody at the church - well, I need some New Testaments to give to all the kids at school. You know, that'll help them stay out of the fiery furnace. And I remember one - the person I asked kind of smiled at me, that thing I was talking about earlier, like, oh, a cute little kid. And I realized, you don't believe this stuff - you know? And so there was a lot of little things like that along the way that started heading me into another direction.
And by the time I was 16, I didn't believe that story, you know, that there was all this separation between me and all these other people in the world just because they didn't claim Jesus Christ as their personal savior. I didn't buy it. And I have to say, it wasn't my choice to not buy it because it meant having to leave the church, and I loved going to church. I loved the music. I loved, you know, the community and the family. So it was actually a very sad day for me to have to own up to that in myself and know that if I was going to live with any personal integrity, I had to leave. So that's what I did.
And music to me was tangled up in the church. I didn't know what to do with myself. So I mean, that's probably why I didn't start writing till I was 25. And you know, and then...
GROSS: That's really old to start writing. I mean...
GROSS: ...Most people who write songs start writing in their teens.
DEMENT: I know. And I'm not kidding you, too. When I say start writing, I mean I didn't write two lines until I was 25.
GROSS: So what happened?
DEMENT: And...
GROSS: What happened when you were 25 that got you writing?
DEMENT: Well, I dropped out of high school, and I went back to school when I was 23. I'd followed a boyfriend of mine back to Topeka, Kan. I got my nerve up to apply to a college - Washburn University, which was very intimidating, you know, because I hadn't been to school since 10th grade. I didn't have any confidence in myself on that level.
But I got in, and I had this wonderful English Comp 101, I guess it was, the beginning level of English. And my dream from the time I was a kid - I really wanted to write stories. And I was in that class, and she would give us these assignments to write short stories. Well, my grammar was a mess. My spelling was bad. But she would write these beautiful notes every time every time I'd turn in a story. And that - I get - I hadn't thought about in a long time. I get a little choked up. She was so kind to me and so - just little simple teacher notes, you know? But her red pen - you know, she'd say these really kind things and - you know, you have an imagination. You got the - and it encouraged me. She didn't criticize what I didn't know how to do.
And so I just sunk myself into that class. So at the end of that semester, I signed up for the next semester. And something had happened, and I suddenly couldn't focus on school because all I wanted to do is write songs.
GROSS: Would you play that first song that you wrote, "Our Town"? Maybe just play a verse of it.
DEMENT: Yep.
GROSS: And you want to introduce it for us, tell us what you were thinking when you wrote it?
DEMENT: Well, I remember that when I wrote this song, I hitched a ride. I didn't have a car at that time. And I was living in Topeka, and I hitched a ride with somebody I worked with who was going down to Oklahoma. And my brother that I talked about earlier was living in Oklahoma at that time. And I remember passing through this little town that was, you know, your typical dead town there in the Midwest - a lot of boarded-up windows, little white buildings with peeling paint - and all the life had gone right on out of it. And that was the first time in my life that I felt a song coming on. Like, it wasn't just me trying to make something happen. It felt very different. And I just started seeing all these visions of the life that had gone on there.
And so when I got down to my brother's house - and I remember asking him if I could borrow his guitar, and I'd promised I'd bring it back on my next visit, and he was nice enough to let me. And when I got home from that trip - it might've been a day or two later - I remember sitting down on the floor. And I had had all those images, you know, in my mind I guess my brain had been working on on the trip. And next thing you know, this song came out, and it came out just exactly how it is now. It's one of those rare ones for me that I didn't have to fool around with or change. It was just there, and it was my first song.
GROSS: Would you play a bit of that song for us?
(Singing) And you know the sun's setting fast. Just like they say, nothing good ever lasts. Go on now. Kiss it goodbye. But hold on to your lover 'cause your heart's bound to die. Go on now. Say goodbye to our town, to our town. Can't you see the sun setting down on our town, on our town? Goodnight. Up the street beside that red neon light, that's where I met my baby on a hot summer's night. He was the tender, and I ordered a beer. It's been 40 years, and I'm still sitting here. But I could see the sun setting fast. Just like they say, nothing good ever lasts. Go on now, and kiss it goodbye. But hold on to your lover 'cause your heart's bound to die. Go on now, and say goodbye to our town, to our town. I could see the sun has gone down on our town, on our town. Goodnight.
GROSS: Thank you. That's Iris DeMent playing for us. And that's the first song that she wrote, "Our Town."
When you realized you could write songs, did you think, like, where is that coming from?
DEMENT: Well, no, I didn't because, you know - I probably sound a little like a broken record just talking to you. It's almost surprising me a little to be reminded of how much my present life and my working life was so tangled up in that church, spiritual experience from so long ago. But I had always been taught, you know, growing up that you're supposed to get a calling. They would call it that in church. You know, pray for your calling. Pray for your calling.
And a faith healer - we had believed - you know, had a lot of faith healers in our church. But this woman came through once, and she was a faith healer. And I'd never seen a woman preacher or, you know, woman faith healer. And she was very - you know, I'm not sure now that I'm adult what all she was up to, but as a kid, watching her move and what she was doing, I was really impressed.
And I really remember thinking that was what I wanted to be. I want to grow up, and I wanted to do that. I saw her, and I began to pray that God would give me the gift of healing. I wanted to be a healer. And I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed, and I was quite a serious prayer (ph). And it never happened. And here I was. You know, I'm leaving the church, and I still hadn't got my calling. So I was pretty disillusioned, you know, into my mid-20s, whatever. I was - there was a deep part of me that was very saddened, you know, and let down because I'd believed that that would happen. It never did.
And when that song came to me, it was as if somebody else walked in the room. And I can still remember - like, it wasn't, like, an auditory thing but it was, like, a message. I heard, there you have it, Iris. And I knew what that meant. I knew that meant, that's your calling. That's what you're going to do. And I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. There was no ounce of doubt. In even all those years I wasn't writing, there wasn't an ounce of doubt of that. I can't even explain that to you, but I knew that that was that thing I had been waiting for.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SONG, "SHENANDOAH")
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's interview with singer and songwriter Iris DeMent.
GROSS: So I'd love it if you'd close with a song, if you'd play us a song. And how about a song from your latest album, "The Trackless Woods," which features poems by the Russian writer Anna - and I'm not sure whether it's Akhmatova or Akhmatova. You say you've heard it both ways, so I've just said it both ways.
GROSS: So hopefully we're covered.
DEMENT: That's a good plan.
GROSS: And for people just tuning in, she was a Russian writer who was declared an enemy of the state by Stalin and suffered a lot as a result of being a dissident. But she wanted to stay and do her songs. And the song that I'd like you to do to close is called "The Last Toast." Would you say a few words about this poem before you sing it for us?
DEMENT: Well, I love all these poems on this record. I can't even hardly quite get over it still that - they've just come to mean so much to me. I guess you could call it - she might've been meaning to sound a little more humor maybe than what - how I delivered it, but I don't know that I have - I think the song pretty much speaks for itself. So maybe I'll just jump right into this one. (Singing) I drink to the house already destroyed. And my whole life, too awful to tell. To the loneliness we together enjoyed, I drink to you as well. To the eyes with deadly cold imbued, to the lips that betrayed me with lies, to the world for being so cruel and rude, and God, who didn't save us or try.
GROSS: Iris DeMent, thank you so much.
DEMENT: Thank you.
DAVIES: Our interview with Iris DeMent was recorded in 2015 after her album "The Trackless Woods" was released. Our thanks to Iowa Public Radio, where this interview was recorded. Since our interview, Iris DeMent tells us she's continued to work on writing new songs for an album she hopes to record in the future. And these days, she's doing what everyone else is - sheltering in place - and making a lot of masks while doing it.
She also wrote this about her friend John Prine. Like so many of you, I'm deeply saddened by the passing of John Prine. It is my prayer that all the love he gave to this world will be returned tenfold to his family, the ones he cherished the most, and that that love will help sustain them through their grief.
(CHRIS THILE AND BRAD MEHLDAU'S "INDEPENDENCE DAY")
DAVIES: Monday on FRESH AIR, actress Zoe Kazan. She's now co-starring in the HBO series "The Plot Against America" based on the Philip Roth novel. Her other films include "Ruby Sparks," "The Big Sick" and "The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs." Zoe Kazan is the granddaughter of Elia Kazan, who directed the films "On The Waterfront" and "A Streetcar Named Desire" and who testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s. I hope you can join us.
FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Mooj Zadie, Thea Chaloner and Seth Kelley. Our associate producer of digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross, I'm Dave Davies.
(CHRIS THILE AND BRAD MEHLDAU'S "INDEPENDENCE DAY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


text:
After Sihanoukville: When a Belt and Road sideshow closes up shop
TOPICS:CambodiaGambling
Photo:Dmitry Makeev
As the Cambodian government bans online gambling, the story of Sihanoukville has become a cautionary tale of Hun Sen's attempts to shape the course of Chinese investment.
After several years of booming construction and rising foreign investment, the hot streak for the Cambodian beach town of Sihanoukville has gone cold. In late December, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced a permanent ban on online gambling, leaving thousands of Cambodian workers jobless.
Sihanoukville's new developments, from hotels to restaurants and infrastructure projects, have been built on Chinese demand, which is married to the casino industry. Gambling is illegal in China, apart from Macau, and while the Cambodian government bars its citizens from gambling, foreign nationals had been permitted to gamble online, until last year.
Chinese interest in Sihanoukville has also been driven by the city's role in Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which promises investment in infrastructure and further economic integration. Hun Sen's new ban suggests that the Cambodian state desires more control over runaway development—aiming to keep the highways, airports and economic zones, but drop the casinos.
Sihanoukville was transformed by Chinese seeking gambling opportunities
Sihanoukville is the latest case of a Southeast Asian city remade in the name of investment. Most of the new money in Sihanoukville is Chinese—90% of businesses in Sihanoukville are now Chinese-owned.
The city's Cambodian population more than tripled in less than a decade to more than 300,000 people. The Chinese community may number around 80,000 now. The city produces 5-10 times as much trash as it did in 2015—now 1,000 tons per day.
Much of Sihanoukville's development was driven by the Chinese demand for online gambling. One business owner in the gaming industry told Southeast Asia Globe that as much as 85-90% of revenues at Sihanoukville's casinos came from online gambling.
But some of the money pouring into Sihanoukville is also reportedly associated with Chinese cartels, with money laundering and undocumented labour reportedly becoming major issues. Concerns over crime may have played a role in the Cambodian government's decision to put an end to online gambling.
A report by the Cambodian Ministry of Interior revealed that in the first quarter of 2019, the number of foreigners detained for criminal activity increased by nearly 50% from the same period the year before and out of 341 foreigners detained, 241 were Chinese. It's worth noting that the prevalence of Chinese crime reflects that the majority of foreigners in Cambodia are Chinese—the majority of foreign nationals who were victims of crime were also Chinese, according to the report.
The tide is going out for Chinese developers
Hun Sen declared a temporary ban on online gambling last August, citing threats to Cambodia's "social order", but announced that the ban would be made permanent in December. So far, at least 56 casinos in Preah Sihanouk province have closed, laying off over 7,000 casino workers. Many of those left without work have protested unpaid wages. The government reported that nearly 500,000 Chinese nationals have left Cambodia since Hun Sen's announcement.
The impacts of the ban have not been limited to casino employees. Developers have stopped construction on major projects and put many Cambodian labourers out of work. Property and land sales have slowed to a comparative crawl.
Since the ban, nearly 800 restaurants have closed and restaurant revenues have dropped to 15% of what they were. The cost of leasing commercial space in downtown Sihanoukville has dropped 80-85%. Many local residents who launched or expanded businesses to cater to Chinese demand have been left struggling to make back their money or pay off loans.
The impacts also aren't limited to those from the Sihanoukville area. Workers descended on Sihanoukville from around the country in search of high-paying construction jobs, some offering US$13 or more per day, in a country that just raised its minimum monthly wage to US$190.
Sihanoukville Autonomous Port – Cambodia
Photo: Dmitry Makeev
Hun Sen is struggling to keep Sihanoukville's state-sponsored boom on track
Foreign investment in Sihanoukville began to rise dramatically in 2016 as the city became a key point on Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, with Chinese companies backing port projects. Beijing has also signed a deal with the Cambodian government allowing the Chinese military to use the nearby Ream naval base. The new Dara Sakor airport under construction nearby is being developed by Chinese companies and China has sponsored a US$2 billion highway connecting Phnom Penh to the coast.
As in much of Cambodia, Chinese support in Sihanoukville has helped the Cambodian government to set a new development agenda. Last March, government spokesman Phay Siphan gave a two-hour press conference extolling plans to build a "city of miracles" in Sihanoukville, comparing its future to Singapore, Silicon Valley and Las Vegas.
But as the boom continued, it also brought negative consequences, even before the casino money ran out. Last June, a seven-story Chinese construction project collapsed, killing 28 people. A Cambodian provincial court charged five Chinese nationals, two for manslaughter, three for conspiracy in the crime.
After this and other incidents, residents in the area, construction workers and civil society groups voiced concerns over Chinese developers violating Cambodian law. Workers marched in Phnom Penh, calling for authorities to crack down on unregistered contractors and unregulated projects.
The Cambodian government's attempts to control development in Sihanoukville are also having a negative impact on some local residents. In the highly-popular Otres Beach area, the government is pushing local residents out to make room for high-value construction.
In mid-January, the government dismantled and bulldozed nearly 300 stalls belonging to vendors in the Otres Beach area. On January 20, a crowd of vendors from Otres protested outside Hun Sen's residence to oppose the move and demand compensation. They called for the prime minister to intervene and provide them with an alternative location for their businesses, as well as land titles to offer them more security than they had at Otres.
The government has also demolished almost 300 homes for encroaching on Sihanoukville's canals as it moves to redevelop the waterways. It's unclear whether the residents will receive any compensation.
Sihanoukville won't be Las Vegas, but it's still on the Belt and Road
Chinese developers haven't entirely abandoned Sihanoukville. Some are hoping to ride out the slump and envision a different future for the city, post-gambling frenzy.
As Yang Degang, a Chinese business leader and factory owner in Sihanoukville, told Nikkei Asian Review this month, "Chinese people are very resilient. We stay here because under the bubbles, there is beer."
But while coveted Chinese investment brings economic gains, they come at a price. Cambodian political analyst Meas Ny spoke about the risks of Chinese development projects. "Social dialogue usually does not happen," he said. "They don't care to ask about local concerns until huge impacts take place—and they solve it later."
Sihanoukville is a reminder of the consequences of tying one city's development too closely to volatile foreign investment. It remains to be seen whether Chinese developers try to salvage their businesses from the resulting quagmire—evidence of a pattern that may only become more common as the Belt and Road expands.
Cambodia's oil dreams offer development, independence but risk corruption
Water levels on the Mekong River are declining sharply: Who is to blame?
Shifting sand between Cambodia and Singapore: Why lawyers are now involved
Cambodia's Angkor Wat to see new theme park and resort by casino firm NagaCorp

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
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Alpine Fire (Höhenfeuer) (1985)
Fredi M. Murer
"Höhenfeuer" is both a story of childhood and of a love affair: The deaf-born "Bub" and his sister "Belli" live with their parents on a remote farm in the mountains. The father intentionally resists the modern age: "I'd rather beat him to death than put him in a home". After school Belli is not only a servant in her own home but also her younger brother's teacher. From early childhood, they have been an inseparable pair. They love one another. "Holy Mother of God, what sort of children have I?" wails the resigned mother, when the two children do things that are not "normal". This is just the beginning of the story… Had the film been made 100 years ago – it would have been a saga.
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Anna annA (1996)
Greti Kläy, Jürgen Brauer
9-year-old Anna goes to school and spends her free afternoons with her dolls. One day, however, everything turns out differently: when she copies herself in the school's photocopier, it spits out a second Anna. An exciting game of mistaken identity begins!
Anna Göldin - The Last Witch (1991)
Gertrud Pinkus
Glarus, november 1981: the little daughter of a distinguished family finds in her milk at breakfast some pins. The maid Anna Göldin arouses suspicion, a woman of complex sensuality. Both, master and daughter, are under a spell. Anna Göldin is at once dismissed. After that, the daughter is for weeks spitting out 106 pins and her left leg is getting paralyzed. Anna Göldin is getting accused, having bewitched the child. She is fetched back to Glarus. And she can heal the child. Therefor she produces evidence of being a witch. During torture she admits all accusations. On June 18, 1782 she is put to death. Anna Göldin ist he last woman in Europe, who is convicted as a witch by an official high court.
Another history (1993)
Tula Roy
Another History tells Swiss history between 1910 and 1991 from a female perspective. In her three-part documentary, Tula Roy presents interviews with politically active women as well as contemporary witnesses and uses visual and audio documents to illuminate the struggle of women for their rights, their left-wing movements, labor struggles and anti-fascist commitment.
Azzurro (2000)
Denis Rabaglia
75-year-old Giuseppe De Metrio has spent 30 years in Geneva, as foreign worker for the Broyer company. Upon retirement, he returned to Puglia, Italy, where his family had continued to live. His only grandchild, 7-year-old Carla, is blind. The whole family looks forward hopefully to the day when Carla's sight can be restored by means of a cornea transplantation. After a heart attack, Giuseppe decides to wait no longer and returns to Switzerland to ask his former boss Mr. Broyer for the money necessary for the operation, as an old promise binds the two men. Intended as a 48-hour trip, Giuseppe and Carla's visit in Switzerland becomes a journey that both grandfather and granddaughter never dreamt of.
Battle Of The Queens (2011)
Nicolas Steiner
A film from and about rural Europe capturing a timeless cultural event: a series of head-to-head fights of cows, not bulls, set in a valley in sunny Southern Switzerland. The fights are sudden snorting seesaws, explosions of mass and muscle, archaic and wild. We follow three concurrent story lines: an anxious farmer with his beloved contender, a neurotic unemployed reporter from Zurich come to find a story and a gang of adolescent boys on mopeds trying to catch a pretty girl's eye. This black and white film tries to capture the balance between fascinating tradition and modernity.
Bonditis (1967)
Karl Suter
Charles mort ou vif (1969)
Alain Tanner
The film paints the portrait of an old man who decides to abandon his comfortable bourgeois way of life and live with a Bohemian couple. There he rediscovers his freedom to think and his joie de vivre.
Corn in Parliament (2003)
Jean-Stéphane Bron
"Mais im Bundeshuus-le génie helvétique" ("Corn in Parliament") is a vertiginous journey down the corridors of the Federal Parliament building in Bern. Constructed as a feature film, it follows the adventures of a parliamentary committee established to create a bill on genetic engineering (Gen-Lex). This political thriller reveals both sides of the coin, namely that of those who have invested, economic interests and of those who fear the negative effects of this revolutionary technology. Amusing, tender, and humane, all the while clearly illustrating the limits of the system, the film functions as a tale of universal power.
Das Menschlein Matthias (1941)
Edmund Heuberger
Matthias is the illegitimate son of a factory worker. He lives as an indentured child labourer at his dictatorial aunt's remote guesthouse. The only thing he knows in life are hard work and hard punches. After a sudden death in the family, the unhappy boy finds the opportunity to make his way to his mother. This 1941 literary adaptation is an almost forgotten jewel of Swiss film history that offers an impressive insight into Eastern Switzerland's embroidery industry.
Day is done (2011)
Thomas Imbach
A smokestack stubbornly pierces the sky. Trains rumble by down below. Lights come on in the buildings as night falls. There is a man behind the camera, looking for an image – of himself? Of the world? Of society? By day and night, in rain and snow, he stands filming at the window of his studio. Periodically we hear people leaving messages on his answering machine. They talk about the weather while on vacation and congratulate him on his birthday. His father dies, a child is born, the young family begins to fall apart. Time passes. Slowly the cityscape morphs into the inner landscape of the man behind the camera.
Der Berg (1990)
1922: For the first time, the lonely weather station on the Säntis summit is occupied by a married couple. The unemployed Joseph Manser marries the pregnant Lena overnight and thus gets the post. But the weather warden couple have an adversary who feels cheated out of the job - he wants to take command on the mountain and climbs after the two. A showdown ensues at the weather station. - The film is based on true events.
Der Erfinder (1980)
Kurt Gloor
In this interesting World War I drama, Bruno Ganz gives a compelling performance as Jakob, an obsessive inventor who lives in a Swiss village. He receives unconditional support from his friend Otti (Walo Luond), but that is about all; the other villagers do not tolerate Jakob's eccentricities very well, and regard him as a crackpot. He perserveres in spite of this obstacle and finally invents a viable carriage that does not run on wheels but on a tread. Unfortunately for Jakob, the military have already come up with the same invention: the tank. The discovery finally breaks him, and he is quickly shuttled off to an asylum.
Der Fall (1972)
Kurt Früh
In this Swiss film noir a private investigator stumbles onto a case involving blackmail and an oversexed, under-aged girl. He finds the girl, and, tragically, becomes involved with her.
Der Freund (2007)
Micha Lewinsky
Emil has fallen in love with Larissa. But before the two can really get to know one another, Larissa dies unexpectedly. And Emil, who only wants to obscure the sad truth about Larissa's death, is mistaken for her former boyfriend. Larissa's family takes a sincere liking to Emil; her sister Nora even begins to take an interest in the young man who had apparently been with Larissa during the last weeks of her life. Emil is suddenly needed and finds he is able to console Larissa's family. But the closer his relationship with Nora becomes, all the more difficult it becomes for Emil to live with his fabricated past.
Derborence (1985)
Francis Reusser
The newly-wed Antoine climbs an alp with the elderly Séraphin. A few weeks later a terrible landslide takes people and animals to their death. There are no survivors. The few who have escaped the disaster inform the village. Thérèse, Antoine's young wife, is pregnant. It's difficult for her to see her pregnancy through and adjust to her role as a young widow. Two months later, Antoine manages to free himself from the rubble. The villagers think he's a ghost. Finally they come to accept the fact he is alive. But he cannot accept the fact he is the only survivor. He returns to the mountain, convinced that Séraphin is still alive. At dawn, Thérèse discovers his disappearance. She wants to look for him among the debris, in order to "snatch from the dead something still alive".
Die Herbstzeitlosen (2006)
Bettina Oberli
Since the death of her husband, Martha, 80-year-old, has lost her zest for life. In her village in the Emmental, especially her friends Lisi, Hanni and Frieda are concerned about her. After discussion, they decide to help her realise a long-held dream: to open a lingerie boutique. The news causes consternation in the little town of Trub.
Dilemma (1940)
Edmund Heuberger, Paul Besson
17-year-old Edith is partying at her friend's house in Zurich and is dragged to a nightclub by the unscrupulous seducer Jean, who gets her drunk and abuses her. When she becomes pregnant, she asks her father, who is a gynecologist, to perform an abortion. He refuses at first, but eventually performs the procedure - with fatal consequences.
Fuori dalle corde (2007)
Fulvio Bernasconi
Robi Engler
Rock musician Benji leads a charmed life until the day the evil Maestro steals his shadow in order to take possession of Benji's musical talent. At first, Benji loses the ability to play, then he slowly becomes invisible. Desperate to help his friend, Globi follows the Maestro to his old "Opera house" and discovers that the villain has been stealing the shadows of all the gifted musicians, so that he may rule the world of music. With Globi's help, Benji and his musical partner Lucinda set out to regain their stolen shadows. Will the three of them be able to conquer the evil Maestro and save Benji's life?
Grauzone (1979)
"Grauzone" is the film by Fredi M. Murer that anticipated the 1980s movement in 1978. A mysterious epidemic haunts Switzerland. The symptoms: a sudden urge to go outside, sudden melancholy, general sensitization. An unintentionally published advertisement informs about the wave of illness and triggers uncertainty, which also penetrates the uniform suburban idyll of Zurich. Julia and her husband Alfred live here, who, in addition to his work as a commercial employee, leads a double life as an eavesdropping specialist and is increasingly plunged into a crisis of meaning.
Grounding - The Last Days Of Swissair (2003)
Michael Steiner
The demise of airline Swissair in 2001 was a huge blow to Switzerland's economy and to the country's morale. It was a sad day for Swiss history when the airline's fleet was grounded on 2 October 2001. Grounding is set during the last days of the doomed airline, and tells the story of manager Mario A. Corti's unhappy fate, the last, unlucky CEO at the traditional airline company, as well as of all those nameless people who lost almost everything in the maelstrom of Swissair's downfall: their job, home and their belief in Switzerland.
Handicapped Love (1978)
Marlies Graf Dätwyler
Four young people with physical disabilities try to overcome their isolation and the difficulties of living together. In a vacation home, they talk openly with people with and without disabilities about the challenges they face in relationships and sexuality.
HD Soldier Läppli (1959)
Alfred Rasser
Läppli is arrested as a supposed opponent of the army and misses the general mobilisation. Eventually he arrives at the barracks after all. There, as HD Läppli, he drives every superior mad in record time with his obtuseness and sense of justice.
Heidi (1952)
Heidi (Elsbeth Sigmund), a young orphan girl living with her aunt (Elsie Attenhofer) in Frankfurt, is forced to move to the Swiss Alps to live with her ornery grandfather (Heinrich Gretler). At first, he resents her presence, but, after a short while, Heidi manages to pierce his gruff exterior, and the two become close. She also befriends a young shepherd named Peter (Thomas Klameth). After three years, Heidi's aunt arrives and demands Heidi's return to Frankfurt.
Heidi und Peter (1955)
Franz Schnyder
The second part of the famous story on Heidi. Returning from Frankfurt, she applies her new knowlegdes.
Hell (2011)
Tim Fehlbaum
In 2016 the sun has turned the entire world into a scorched and barren wasteland. The humans who have survived are either resourceful or violent, and sometimes both. Marie, her little sister Leonie, and best friend Phillip, are in a car headed to the mountains - rumor has it there is water there. Along the way they meet Tom, a first-rate mechanic. But can they trust him? Fraught with deep distrust, the group is lured into an ambush where their real battle for survival begins.
Ursula Meier
A family's peaceful existence is threatened when a busy highway is opened only meters away from their isolated house in the middle of nowhere. Refusing to move, Marthe, Michel and their three children find innovative ways to adapt to their new environment. They continue their happy-go-lucky routine despite the daily stress of hundreds of noisy speeding cars. But suspicions about the highway's unknown long-term dangers cause family tension. Remaining in the disrupted household might not be so easy, but it's still their home.
Il Bacio di Tosca (1984)
Giuseppe Verdi's «finest work», as he himself described it, still stands today on the Piazza Buonarroti in Milan. It is the «Casa di riposo», founded by Verdi in 1896 for «people who are less fortunate than I» - people who never made a big career, and people who have long spent their dream salaries. Today they live, all long forgotten, in a small room with a suitcase full of memories.
Jonah Who Will be 25 in the Year 2000 (1976)
The European equivalent of "The Return of the Secaucus 7," this Swiss film looks at the lives of several men and women in their 30s as they confront the slim gains of the "revolutionary" sixties. Max, a dissatisfied copy editor; Myriam, a redhead into tantric sex; and Marie, a supermarket checker who gives unauthorized discounts to the elderly, search for renewed meaning on a communal farm. The title character, a six-year-old child, is the carrier of their hopes for the future.
Julias Disappearance (2009)
Christoph Schaub
A comedy about aging, youth and other eternal truths. Of all days, precisely on her fiftieth birthday, Julia has to experience that age makes you invisible. Frustrated, she goes shopping and makes an acquaintance, spontaneously deciding to spend the evening with this stranger, rather than with the guests of her own birthday party. They wait for her in a restaurant, all dressed up and groomed, lively debating the years that have passed. The truths and wisdom of Julia's closest friends on aging and growing old are drowned increasingly in sufficient quantities of alcohol. In the mean time, on her eightieth birthday, Leonie, sulking over the loss of youth, is rebelling against her daughter, the senior citizen's home, conventions, and old age in general - and joyfully sabotaging the party in her honor.
L'invitation (1973)
Claude Goretta
After the death of his mother, a middle-aged insurance salesman inherits her small cottage. Selling the cottage, which is attractively located near the center of a big city, makes him a rich man and he buys a large house in the countryside. The salesman then decides to throw a big garden party and invite all his colleagues from the office. Loosened by large amounts of alcohol, the guests gradually shed all their inhibitions and reveal their innermost frustrations.
La Flèche Bleue (1996)
Enzo D'Alò
Enchanted toys come to life to do battle with a holiday-hating villain who is bent on stopping Christmas.
La Salamandre (1971)
Rosemonde the Salamander is a young girl who gets by thanks to low-paid jobs of all kinds. She is suspected of attempting to kill the uncle with whom she lives. A journalist and a writer are hired to get to the bottom of this mystery, as the basis for a television film scenario. They are unsuccessful however. The truth about Rosemonde and her special appreciation of life continue to elude these two amateur detectives.
Anna Luif
Thirteen-year-old Sandra isn't happy to be the new girl in town, but then she falls in love with Mike, the boy next door. Everything seems perfect, until the day the young couple witness Mike's mother having an affair. Mike is devastated, but what he does not realize is that his mother's ardent lover is actually Sandra's father, an old childhood sweetheart. Divided by her loyalty to her father and her feelings for Mike, Sandra decides to keep her father's identity a secret. However, she can't keep up the charade for much longer, and whatever she decides, it is bound to have serious consequences.
Max & Co (2007)
Frédéric Guillaume
15-year-old Max sets off for Saint-Hilare in search of his father, the famous troubadour Johnny Bigoude, who disappeared shortly before Max's birth. He is waylaid by Sam, a rascally fairground entertainer, and introduced to the delights of the amazing Fly Swatter Festival. When Max finally gets there, Saint-Hilare turns out to be the private kingdom of Bzzz & Co., infamous manufacturers of flyswatters, run by the degenerate Rodolfo. Musical virtuoso Max makes a big impression, especially on smart, lovely, resourceful Felicie, who convinces Rodolfo to hire him...
Max Haufler, der Stumme (1983)
Richard Dindo
Max Haufler hated acting, but while he left his mark on Swiss filmmaking of the 1950s with his character roles, success as a film director eluded him. He tried in vain in the last years of his life to film the novel "Der Stumme" by Otto F. Walter. Max Haufler fought for his dream - until it broke him.
Messidor (1979)
Project initially entrusted to Maurice Pialat, who had already begun to film it under the title of "Meurtrières" (see the special edition of Les Inrockuptibles devoted to Pialat), Messidor is based on a crime story which hit the headlines in France in the 1970s: two adolescent girls run away and go on a criminal spree which ends in their deaths. On the face of it, this subject is remote from the world we associate with Tanner, since a violent story of this kind and its social background would seem to impose the realistic, even naturalistic form always shunned by the Swiss director. Moreover, Tanner is instinctively averse to filming physical violence. "Killing a person", he says, "is generally a gratuitous special effect." Consequently, of all Tanner's films Messidor is the only one in which someone dies of non-natural causes. It is also Tanner's most sombre work, characterised by a despair unmitigated by his usual verbal and situational humour. This is because Tanner accepted the project only on condition that he could recast the original idea and use this violent story as a vehicle for more personal preoccupations: the limits of freedom (already treated in his previous film) are here related to the girls' frantic flight in the Swiss countryside. What interests him is the possible sullying of this place of excessive peace and quiet, now transformed into a field of experience and criminal fun-and-games by the two characters..
Misery and Fortune of Women (1929)
Edouard Tissé
This short film shows the contrast between the good conditions in which a rich woman makes an abortion and the miserable and dangerous condition in which a poor woman has to do an abortion.
Off season (1992)
The scene of the action is a closed-down, dilapidated hotel in the Swiss mountains which has been lying empty for some time. The hotel used to belong to the narrator's grandparents, and it was there that he was born and brought up. He visits the hotel for the last tim with the intention of losing himself in memories connected with the old building.
Pane e tulipani - Breads and Tulips (2000)
Silvio Soldini
An endearing light comedy about a woman who spontaneously becomes a resident of Venice after her family left her begin. While enjoying the wonderful people she meets she achieves a new life and the first time independent of her family.
Reise der Hoffnung (1990)
Xavier Koller
The story of a Turkish couple, who start their "Journey of Hope" from a small village in South-East Turkey to Switzerland in order to escape poverty. They are taking their son, who is the brightest of their eight children. From Izmir they travel to Genoa with a freighter. In Italy they are taken by smugglers to the Alps and sent on towards Switzerland, despite the snow and the cold. Father and son are separated from Meryem. Will anyone reach the land of promise?
San Gottardo (1977)
Villi Hermann
In this docudrama, the real star is a railroad tunnel. First built, at the instigation of a banker and an engineer, in 1872 under appalling conditions, it was widened to accommodate automobiles in 1972. The tunnel links the Rhineland in Germany with Italy and goes through the Swiss mountains. The many lives lost in the building of the first tunnel were considered to be one of the costs for economic progress. In one re-enactment, a strike for better conditions is severely dealt with by the military. Even in 1972, though working conditions were better, most of the men working on the tunnel were poor immigrant workers, with almost no power to negotiate better treatment.
Seelische Grausamkeit (1961)
Hannes Schmidhauser
On a summer morning, the opening of the trial in the Zurich District Court is announced for 8 o'clock. On trial is the divorce case of Marlene Faber and Nick Merk. The couple is waiting outside the courtroom for their divorce and is reviewing their marriage once again: From the honeymoon over the first quarrels until the end.
Signer's Suitcase (1995)
Peter Liechti
A kind of road movie which travels in the grooves of magically charged landscapes across Europe. From the Swiss Alps to eastern Poland, from Stromboli to Iceland… the film is a large-scale attempt to achieve the ideal cruising speed. Roman Signer marks the stages of the journey with his own highly personal set of instruments – strikingly succinct interventions full of underlying humour. The film is also a journey through mental and emotional states. A tightrope walk between devilment and melancholy. Danger – including mental danger – develops into a sensual stimulus. Sudden crashes and abrupt changes of mood create the rhythm and the climate of the film. "Chamber of music" is how Signer describes his exploits with rocket and fuse, "sculptural chamber music".
Sommersprossen (1968)
Helmut Förnbacher
Strähl (2004)
Summer Games - Giochi d'estate (2011)
Rolando Colla
Midsummer by the sea in the Maremma in Tuscany. Vincenzo and Adriana, trapped in emotional dependency, make one last desperate attempt to save their marriage. Their 12-year-old son Nic processes the trauma from his father's violent outbursts in games with other children. Although he is well integrated in his group of friends, he finds it extremely difficult to express what he feels for Marie, who is the same age and suffers from her own relationship with her father. A film about the first steps towards a life of one's own.
The Boat Is Full (1981)
During World War II, Switzerland severely limited refugees: "Our boat is full." A train from Germany halts briefly in an isolated corner of Switzerland. Six people jump off seeking asylum: four Jews, a French child, and a German soldier. They seek temporary refuge with a couple who run a village inn. They pose as a family: the deserter as husband, Judith as his wife, an old man from Vienna as her father, his granddaughter and the French lad, whom they beg to keep silent, as their children. Judith's teenage brother poses as a soldier. The fabrication unravels through chance and the local constable's exact investigation. Whom will the Swiss allow to stay? Who gets deported?
The Lacemaker (1977)
The shy Pomme (Isabelle Huppert) meets the philosophy student François on holiday in Normandy. François becomes her first lover and she moves in with him: head over heels in love, the young and inexperienced couple return to Paris with big dreams. But their social and cultural differences stand in the way of happiness. The student she had unconsciously saved herself for will, without meaning to, ruin Pomme.
The Unknown Man of Shandigor (1967)
Jean-Louis Roy
The Woman's Greatest Value Is Her Silence (1979)
The film deals with an imigrant woman from southern Italy, who lives in Frankfurt in the 1970s. Unusual about this film is the way of the storytelling. The original plan was to make a documentary, but none of the female protagonists were willing to be seen in front of the camera. The fear to expose their own family was too big. The law of "omerta" exists in the diaspora as well. A southern italian proverb states: "The girls greatest value is her beauty - the womans greatest value is her silence". For this reason, in the film only the sound of Maria M. from Basilicata, can be heard. She remains anonemous. In the movie, southern italian emigrants act in Maria's story. In fact, they end up playing themselves, which gives the film several layers and adds a refreshing sense of humor.
Titeuf, le film (2011)
Zep "Zep"
Titeuf has just learned that all the boys in his class have been invited to Nadia's birthday party – except for him! That same evening his parents inform him that they are going to separate.
Tonight or Never (1972)
Schmid's satire on 19th-century class relations is also a thinly veiled commentary on the failure of the 1968 political revolution. Once a year, an aristocratic Austrian family holds a traditional feast at which masters and servants trade places. A troupe of actors (including cult cabaret artist Ingrid Caven) are hired to entertain the guests, performing fragments from the "cultural scrap heap": GONE WITH THE WIND, Madame Bovary, Tennessee Williams, Swan Lake. The decadent proceedings take on a dangerous edge when the actors incite the servants to revolt against their masters-but is the Revolution also part of the act?
Ur-Musig (1993)
Cyrill Schläpfer
The Film UR-MUSIG authored by Cyrill Schlaepfer is a musical journey into the remaining worlds of authentic and traditional Swiss folkmusic. It's unconventional form as a symphony of sounds, music, pictures and landscapes (soundscapes) caught the attention of the audience at it's successful premiere at the International Filmfestival Locarno 1993. After beeing showcased at many differnent Music- and Filmfestivals in Switzerland and abroad the award winning film UR-MUSIG got it's famous cult-reputation by continuous screening of more than 2 years in Zurich.
Verflixt verliebt (2004)
Argentinian biology student Miro falls madly in love with young actress Mercedes, but is without a clue as to how to win her love. Then, a series of misunderstandings put him in the hot seat as a famous film director. Miro grabs his chance to shoot a film with Mercedes as his leading lady, hoping that she will fall for him. Whilst his plan is crazy, it is simple enough and Cupid is on his side. But Miro hasn't reckoned with film students Peter and Luigi who wish to shoot a "making-of" documentary of the great Argentinian "director"at work.
Visages d'enfants (1925)
Jacques Feyder
Faces of Children (Visages d'enfants), a masterpiece, was filmed on location in the Haut-Valais region of Switzerland, with spectacular mountain scenery adding important atmosphere to the characters' complex emotions. The film is about the effect on a sensitive boy (again Jean Forest, who is heartrending) of his mother's death and his father's remarriage.
Wir Bergler in den Bergen (1974)
An ethnographic documentary film in three movements, along the lines of a symphony. The three movements reflect the three differing stages of development co-existing within the mountainous canton. In Göschenen, at the foot of the Gotthard, which straddles Europe's North-South axis, industrialization took hold long ago, and the mountain farmers of old now work in offices and factories. In the Schächtental, however, the traditional family-centric mountain economy survives. Meanwhile, the village of Bristen in the Maderanertal is in the throes of upheaval: while the traditional farming communities still exist, nigh on 250 inhabitants leave the area daily to go to work or school.
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text:
using Microsoft.Owin;
using Owin;
using IdentityAdmin.Logging;
using Serilog;
using Autofac;
using OpenIDConnect.IdentityManager;
using OpenIDConnect.IdentityAdmin;
using OpenIDConnect.IdentityServer;

[assembly: OwinStartup(typeof(OpenIDConnect.Host.Startup))]

namespace OpenIDConnect.Host
{
    public class Startup
    {
        public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app)
        {
            Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
                .MinimumLevel.Debug()
                .WriteTo.Trace()
                .CreateLogger();

            var builder = new ContainerBuilder();

            Modules.Register(builder);

            var container = builder.Build();

            using (var scope = container.BeginLifetimeScope())
            {
                app.Map("/core", coreApp =>
                {
                    scope.Resolve<IdentityServerBootstrapper>().Run(coreApp);
                });

                app.Map("/admin", adminApp =>
                {
                    scope.Resolve<IdentityAdminBootstrapper>().Run(adminApp);
                });

                app.Map("/manage", manageApp =>
                {
                    scope.Resolve<IdentityManagerBootstrapper>().Run(manageApp);
                });
                //app.Map("/memory", memoryApp =>
                //{
               // using IdentityManager;
               // using IdentityManager.Configuration;
               // using System.Collections.Generic;

                //    var factory = new IdentityManagerServiceFactory
                //    {

                //    };

                //    var rand = new System.Random();
                //    var users = new List<InMemoryUser>();
                //    var roles = new List<InMemoryRole>();

                //    factory.Register(new Registration<ICollection<InMemoryUser>>(users));
                //    factory.Register(new Registration<ICollection<InMemoryRole>>(roles));
                //    factory.IdentityManagerService = new Registration<IIdentityManagerService, InMemoryIdentityManagerService>();

                //    memoryApp.UseIdentityManager(new IdentityManagerOptions
                //    {
                //        Factory = factory,
                //    });
                //});
            }
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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text:
← Czechoslovak Airmen's Memorial, Prague
Why and How →
Arnost Mrtvy – to Poland and France
Posted on 19 February 2012	by fcafa
When Germany occupied Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939, Arnošt Mrtvý was serving in the Czechoslovak Air Force. Within days of the occupation the Air Force was disbanded. Arnošt, like many other of his fellow Air Force collegues, decided to go to Poland to join Czechoslovak military units being formed there.
Some extracts from his diary for escape to Poland and journey to France are:
Arnošt went to the train station of Vrbátky, on the way meeting and talking to several local people and to Mrs Kubalíková at the train station – she didn't want her son Vojta Kubalík to join Arnošt as she was afraid they would both be shot. She pleaded with Arnošt not to ask Vojta to go. Arnošt bought ticket to Olomouc and lied that Vojta would go with him only there and they would both return in the afternoon. However, Vojta couldn't be persuaded NOT to go.
Train left at 7 am and arrived to Olomouc at 7.45 am. They continued by another train to Moravská Ostrava together with friend Jašíček and an unknown man Eudl, who also wanted to flee to Poland. Arrived at 12:45, bought cigarettes and food and walked across Slezská, Ostrava to Kašovice near Polish border where they slept.
The four men walked in the direction of the border in the morning, but had to ask locals where the border was. People were kind but dissuaded them from crossing the border. Then suddenly they encountered a border guard at his watch post, but he wasn't concerned about them and they walked on heeding the words of a local girl who said the border was formed by a river and an alley of trees. They split into pairs and after 50 mtrs reached Poland. Arnošt sighed the greatest sigh of relief in his life. It was a heavenly feeling, he wrote. They crossed the border at exactly 8 am and spoke to friendly Polish people. It was a most beautifully sunny day and they were happy to be out of reach of the Hakenkreuz and the Hitlerian murderers. They remembered their loved ones and knew they wouldn't meet them again until after the liberation.
They dried their shoes and went to the local pub ''U Skutu." They changed their money and got 1 zloty for 9,50 Czech crowns from the pub keeper. They found Poland very expensive judging by the price of the cigarettes. They continued walking to the main road, caught a bus heading for Český Těšín, paid 1 zloty for a ticket. Mr. Eudl took them to a Jewish parish house in Český Těšín. They each got 1,50 zloty to get to Bielsko and a rabbi invited them for lunch to a restaurant. It was the Saturday sabbath, hence they had Jewish lunch which they didn't like, but ate it anyway. Took the bus at 12:30 to Bielsko. Here they went to the Jewish parish house again, got food and slept in the Polish country for the first time. Slept well, had breakfast, got train tickets to Krakow in the morning. Tickets were 2,50 zloty per person and were paid for by the Jews. Left Bielsko at 6:45 and Arnošt estimated about 90% of local population were Jews.
2.7. Krakow
''Arrived to Krakow at 9:15 am. Surprised by the large size of train station and town, estimated 350,000 inhabitants. ''Our man Eudl took lead and brought us to our consulate. There we sorted out the necessary formalities and left consulate as de-facto Czechoslovak soldiers, but not legally. Czechoslovak legions don't exist here as was mistakenly believed in ČSR. As soon as we entered the consulate, I was surprised to see so many Czechs and amongst them I recognized Sgt Murcek, Sgt Flekal, Lt Fiala, Lt Kimlička, Lt Horák and many other pilots from 2nd Regiment, Olomouc. I also met my friend from the Sqn – Karel Šťastný. We were accommodated in ''Dom Turysticný'' where we were taken aback by finding perhaps 250 volunteers, of which ¾ were pilots.''
Arnošt describes Krakow as beautiful town with many churches, a castle, park ring around ton with many women and children and many photographers who they believed to be ''narks.'' (secret policemen) "I don't like to write this, but unfortunately it is true that 40% of local women are rather dirty, but one must admire, though, that all of them without exception have wonderful bosoms. One can find anything in this town. The big river Wisla where I see small steamboats for the first time. The town is expensive, but as far as the language is concerned, we can understand each other well." In hills behind Krakow is the of mound of Gen Pilsudski and the rebel Kosciusko. ''The town has a beautiful soccer field where we also had a match with leading league club Wisla 7:5 (exchange of national flags). Ours lost, we aren't used to playing together. Drinking water in Krakow was very bad."
With other Czechoslovak escapee's in Poland, Arnošt is 4th from left in back row.
Krakow 3.7.
Taking care of formalities (photos), learn French in the moring. Former officers teach us. Then bathing in Wisla where it' s like on the beach (many people).
"Swimming and sunbathing at Wisla (we have nothing to do). I must remark that we are hungry. For breakfast only 2 buns and 1/8 milk or tea. Lunch is the worst – tiny piece of bran bread 5x5cm and 4cm thick, a drop of veggie soup and some beans (soja perhaps) and that's it and we tighten our belts up after such lunch. I don't eat much, but I could eat 5 lunches. Dinner consists of tea and bread or bread and 1/8 soured milk, or bread and drop of soup, we're losing weight, resembling shadows."
Krakow 6 7.
"Today we had to declare "I pledge that after the arrival to France I will join the Foreign Legion if for whatever reason it won't be possible to place me in another part of the army. At the same time, I am aware that if I don't uphold this pledge, I will be deported back home across the German border (to ČSR)."
Krakow 12.7.
"We have little to eat which means hunger. We're all suntanned like Indians and eat ice-cream – there's plenty of it here and cheap. We also expect departure for France in the near future. Our lads don't believe they only console us. We're disconcerted especially when we see that local people aren't for the war. As far as we are concerned, we are all for war and we get all nervous being stuck here doing nothing. We also get two fags a day. Whoever smoked this drag will never say it's a cigarette, but hay or something."
Malý Bronowice, Czechoslovak airmen assemble in exile to carry on the fight with Nazi Germany. All in civilian clothing after their escape from their homeland. Many of them were never to return.
"Today we move to a hut camp in Bronowice, only 5 km from Krakow. The rest is as per usual. We sleep on plain hay, no blankets unfortunately. We see beautiful countryside from this place. In this hut are accommodated pilots, artillerists, infantrymen. The food is good here. Military life has started here. I meet Vojta Kubalík every day and we remember home and acquaintances together. Too bad we can't write home. Surely they believe we're dead…In Krakow we got 1 zloty each day. In Bronowice no army pay at all.
Here I must add the shot we heard the night before we crossed the border was shot at my friend Antonin Zaoral who was fleeing at that moment. It missed him."
Bronowice 22.7.
"Everything is as per normal, except we were visited by esteemed personalities like vice-consul of the Czech Government minister Bechyne, writer Langer, deputy Úhlíř, monsignore Šrámek, etc. I am sorry that Eudl hasn't returned from Protectorate. He is allegedly a courier. Was supposed to be back. I am curious whether he left my letters at home. If he was caught on his way back, god help him. Darned Gestapo and SS."
Tuesday, Bronowice-Krakow 25.7.
"Today we found out that tonight we'll go from Poland to France. Our transport should have 190 pilots – only pilots are going. Infantry stays, but will supposedly follow us in one week. We had to return all government issued items. I have no travel bag. Knowing I am leaving, I have to say good bye to Vojta Kubalík and Jašíček. Vojta came to me before I went to him, all pale and sad. I am truly taken aback and must admit I was so touched I could cry. Vojta did weep, I believe."
Czechoslovak airmen en-route from Krakow to Gdansk.
We went to Krakow railway station. There we took a train at 19:30 for Gdynia. It was raining all the time. Before arriving to Gdynia, we were surprised by the amount of swamps, forests and great lakes. Arrival to Gdynia at 9 am. It keeps on raining. Town is beautiful. We had lunch here and afterwards went to the customs office where they were checking out our lads. I didn't have anything to show. A famous pilot-acrobat , 1st Lt Novak, is amongst us. We also saw here the famous Polish tennis player "Kiepura" and his wife. Several pilots from our group stayed here, amongst them from 1st regiment Technical Sgt Murcek, Technical Sgt Flekal and fellow countryman Sgt František from Otaslavice, near Prostějov and other mates stayed in the Polish army with the Air Force. I decided for France. We got a message in Gdynia, that the Polish government decided as follows: who wants to, can stay in the Polish air force under certain conditions.
I decided for France. I don't like the Polish Army, it is poorly equipped. I firmly believe that Hitler will attack Poland and of course will meet with a bad end. I don't want to be escaping for the second time. Poland is terribly militarily equipped. As far as Polish bombers, they are the best in the world, but the rest…isn't worth anything. Polish cigarettes are terrible. The bread is awful. The food consisted only of potatoes, beer was bad.
Gdynia, 29th July 1939
SS Kastelholm.
We boarded a smallish Swedish ship "Kastelholm" It was exactly 16:00 hrs when I first entered the sea. The crew were pleasant, sailors fine, the sea dirty green with countless small silvery waves, mood aboard good. Bad weather will hopefully improve. Departure of ship exactly at 16:00 hrs. Storm is beginning. At first the swinging of the ship didn't do anything to us, but when the waves reached 5-10m, first mates began to vomit. Myself and others didn't, but it became fatal to us later, we all vomited including the captain. The endless shoreline is vanishing on the horizon and in the immense distance the sea joins the lead-grey sky. Then the wind tore apart the clouds and the sunset was unforgettable. There is a lot of enjoyment aboard ship – the radio plays and we sing accompanied on a guitar, we are remembering our dear ones wondering whether they also think of us
At- sea, Thursday 27.7.1939
We run to the deck in the morning and in awe watch the German shoreline on our left. We are sunbathing. Food is excellent. We feel we have been on the sea for eternity… At dusk we slowly enter Danish waters. We raise the Danish flag and we are in the harbor – Copenhagen.
Copenhagen – wonderful town. We skirt small island which make unforgettable impression. We meet the first German merchant ship flying the hakenkreuz. The crew of that ship was probably surprised that we didn't greet them (even though we do it to all the ships we meet). We skirt the shores of Denmark and stop in Frederikhafen. So that in the morning of 28th July 1939 at 8:10 am we were in Denmark. The weather is fantastic with burning sun so that I got sunburned. We got a huge crate of ice cream from some gentleman who gave it to us when he found out we were Czechs. We left the port at 14:15 pm, the sea is restless and plays with our small ship, which is only 50m long, but only has 1st and 2nd class and that's why we live like barons.
Sea restless, it rains, brief storm with lightning, we think we sail in milk as we can' t see anything at all. We are lead by our experienced captain, who has spent 32 years at sea. He is praising us that he hadn't had passengers like us before, others would be vomiting in this storm, but we got used to the sea quickly. We know we are leaving the Danish shore and entering the German waters. The storm got so bad it seems we will have to land in Germany. But the captain of the ship knows the significance of our journey and therefore said that he would sail on even if the ship had to sink. He knows very well what fate would await us in Germany. But the night was calm. In the morning we run on the top deck and we see endless sea, sea, sea everywhere. No shore in sight. It makes strange impression at first, but one gets used to everything.
Sea, Sunday 30.7.
Everything is normal, we travel at 20-28 knots. We know that we already go through La Manche and on the right is England..At night at 3 am on 31st July we stopped in French waters. French flag is raised. We wait for sunrise, we are all awake. We wait for the pilot, but he doesn't turn up until 8:30, so we didn't land in the French war port until 9 am. We say good bye to the crew and get off on the French soil.
First steps on land were strange for us, we swing as we were used to do on sea. Here we saw the first French soldiers. We were surprised by their uniforms, the cut and everything resembles the Czech Army. We had a very good breakfast. Hear strange language. We each received 15 Fr. Then we boarded a train. They have super equipped wagons. We are all surprised by the hospitality. We left French port Calais on 31st July 1939 at 12:30pm. Trains ride here at amazing speed about 100 -110km/hr… we feel that soon we must be in Paris. We see the Eiffel Tower from a distance.
We arrived to Paris at 17:30 pm on 31/7/1939. We are welcomed by our people, that means Czechs who left home country earlier. Amongst them I see Lt Mrázek of 33 Sqn and Lt Zbořil of 14 Sqn, part of 2nd Flight Regiment Olomouc. They are in civilian clothing just like ourselves. They transported us in lorries across Paris to the barracks. The journey across Paris was interesting…It's blatant that local soldiers salute too little; on the contrary they are dandies with hands in their pockets… Many restaurants at each corner. As far as women, they wear make up like dolls, but they are pretty.
Wine is cheap here, about 2,50 Fr per litre which equals about 2 Czech Crowns. One cannot be surprised to see so many tipsy people…There are plenty of brothels, you can see orgies here and one is right ashamed – it is like an animal. Paris at night is a chapter on its own, I don't even want to mention it….We stay in the part of Paris called Exelman or Paris XVI. The house where we live is a former cigarette paper factory Zig Zag. This house is in Rue Erlanger 60. The occupants are uniquely Czech pilots. Besides us there is a garrison of 20 Frenchmen, who guard here. We are billeted quite well. We sleep on paillasses on the floor, and have 3 blankets. We have breakfast in the barracks of "Capt Guynemer", a famous French pilot. (Otherwise it's also the Ministry of War – aviation). Next to the barracks is a factory airfield. Breakfast is usually at 7 am and we have: black coffee with ½ chocolate bar, or cheese and bread, which isn't like ours, it is white and tastes like rolls.
Lunch from 12 to 2pm and dinner at 7 pm also here. That there is plenty of food – enough to say that after lunch it's like a stable here, a lot of garbage….We look forward to lunch – there is enough and we arrived from Poland skinny like greyhounds. As far as myself is concerned, I had 62kg, even though my normal weight is 75kg. We have steak for lunch, half raw as is common in France, then cheese, wine, tomatoes, bread, soup, sardines, fish and so on everyone eats what he wants and always eats well. The same for dinner.
Our boys drink wine like water. The wine spoils us. So far we do nothing and as far as wake up call is concerned, there is none, one gets up whenever and it's the same in the evening, some come home all night long, even in the morning. I also suffer consequences of sunstroke. I had fever, and that was fatal as I got terrible fever blisters on both lips and couldn't eat. As far as language is concerned, some of the guys are chatting already. The French admire us. The prostitutes fought among themselves to be with our guys (the beasties wanted to raise their rates to 15-20 Frs, but it didn't happen. Ordinary rate was 10 Frs.
We also have very severe pilot physical examinations – the wine influences blood pressure.) Otherwise all the formalities are repeated, like photography and ID cards…Every now and then we remember Poland and how the other comrades are doing, who stayed there. Every day we remember our families and dear ones, how they are doing in the distant home country under he yoke of the hakenkreuz. I am afraid to write letters because there is a severe censorship. I musn't write that I am learning French….
Karel Šťastný, Bohumil Netopil and Arnošt Mrtvý with l'Arme d'Air, 1940.
When France capitulated, Arnošt was successfully evacuated to England where he joined the RAF as a Volunteer Reserve. He was posted to 313 Sqn.
At about 19:00, on 19 April 1944, whilst on Ramrod 753, escorting a formation of Marauder light bombers, his Spitfire MJ558 was shot down by a Luftwaffe Fw-190A. He bailed out but whilst descending in his parachute, he was shot at by a German flak unit and killed.
He is interred at Schoonselhof Cemetery, Antwerp.
The assistance of Dr. Jiři Trojan, Marc Segers, Milena Kolaříková and Ministerstvo obrany České republiky with this article is very much appreciated.
Article last updated: 6 May 2013.
This entry was posted in France, Into exile, Poland. Bookmark the permalink.
2 Responses to Arnost Mrtvy – to Poland and France
John Granville-Overton says:
I have 2 photos of SGT Mrtvy taken by my father Eric Buckie who was attached to 313 Squadron.
One was with him and a crashed spitfire at Portreath and another at Hornchurch with his friends Sgt Truhlar,. Sgt Spacek, F/L Richter and P/O Jicha (The Ace)
Jiří Kaspar says:
Sgt. Arnost Mrtvy is mentioned in the book ´Vzpominky na padle kamarady´ by Frantisek Fajtl, the Mlada fronta Publ. 1980 in a story dedicated to another member of No 313 Sqn F/Sgt Prokop Brazda.
Please leave your comment on this article. Cancel reply
Karel Kuttelwascher - One of the Few
Karel Valasek - Evasion and PoW
Josef Koukal - one of 'The Few'
Wellington aircraft of 311 Sqn
Vaclav Jicha - one of the Few


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There is a woman online who got pregnant at 47!
There is a woman on the FertilityFriend.com board who got pregnant at 47!!! It is not her first pregnancy, but she had been trying for a long time with meds, IUIs, the whole nine yards, finally she gave up! And 3 months after giving up, she was pregnant naturally. She is 9 weeks pregnant I think, and certainly an inspiring story!
A good friend of mine told me that she has a friend who got pregnant and had 2 babies one after the other, her first was when she was 46 and the 2nd was at 48! So first timers can have babies at our age!!!
I'm 48 and pregnant (again), VERY unexpectedly. I lost the last two pregnancies, at 44 and 47.