…entre nazismo e comunismo, venha o diabo e escolha

A few weeks ago I was talking about an interview published in the newspaper Público with the writer José Milhazes about his book Os Blumthal. Today I write my impressions on the first pages of the author that reflect the first twenty-two years of Estonia independence.

The first thing that catches my eye is the access that Mr Milhazes has had to different archives (Estonian Ministry of the Interior, State Archive of Estonia ...) to carry out this investigation.

The book begins with a Preamble and continues with ten chapters. Small book if you count its pages (163), but dense if you open it in your hands.

In the Preamble, José presents us, in a dozen paragraphs, the country of his wife. An European country that hasn´t had aristocracy. How is this possible?

In this first part we are shown the desire, the illusion of people who take advantage of the independence of the Russian Empire to introduce the communist ideology, as a dream of something great that can make people happier and the obstacles that are found as the years go by.

I am overwhelmed by the faith and the hope of these people who are capable of everything to achieve their purpose, that after all are ideologias, que não olham a meios para atingir os fins… 

…Quando eu estava internada num hospital gravemente enferma, a minha mãe pediu-lhe que me preparasse uma salada e me viesse visitar…a Mamma respondeu: <<Não posso, não posso falhar à reunião do partido.>>

It seems incredible to me that there are those who, like Henrich Ross, spend more than fifteen years in a Stalinist concentration camp for violating a Soviet order and to defend the Party once it returns from its ‘rehabilitation’.

Very rich the footnotes, which without being very extensive, give an idea of the personalities of the actors and help us to know a little where they develop. Let's put the cases of Osvald Tuul or Voldemar Teppich.

Of course I did not know anything about the so-called zones of assentamentos: specific region of the Russian Empire where the Jews could live, their residence was forbidden in the other territories of Russia.

Nor did I know the tricks —stolen documents or deceased people— that these activists had to invent (nicknames, false names) to disorient the police authorities. Form of conspiracy that was expanded by all the communist organizations of the world.

From time to time, José Milhazes vents:

Nemhum dos regimes tinha qualquer consideração pelas pessoas, pelos individuos, tratando-os apenas como peças de engrenagens diabólicas montadas para construir utopías com ideologías alegadamente opostas, mas, na prática, com resultados muito semelhantes.

Truly, with the data handled by the author, he could well have written a novel, a fiction story that surely would have reported, if not more recognition, greater economic profitability, because as I have read in this first part of the book could have got a 500-page bestseller adding ‘straw’ to the subject. But Mr Milhazes is consistent with his convictions and that must be respected: he doesn´t want to make fantasy to serve as a script for a successful film. Mr Milhazes warns of the moment we live and how dangerous things are around us.

From my Borstal

LDR

Os Blumthal: Uma História Real de Vidas Sacrificadas às piores Utopias e Tiranias do Século XX. 2018, José Milhazes e Oficina do Livro. Afragide. Portugal