newyorker--2020-12-02--“Talking About Trees,” Reviewed: The Warmth and Wisdom of Four Elders of Sudanese Cinema

Great movies expand the world of cinema , and the Sudanese director Suhaib Gasmelbari ’ s documentary “ Talking About Trees ” does so in a way that looks daringly ahead while also uniting with a great pre-cinematic tradition .
( It screens digitally , from December 2nd to December 6th , in the New York African Film Festival , on the Film at Lincoln Center Web site . )
Gasmelbari sticks close to four elderly , involuntarily retired filmmakers in the city of Omdurman , where all of the movie theatres have long been closed for political reasons , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , open-air , amphitheatre-like movie house .
In the process , he observes their energetic physical engagement with the material aspect of the cinema ( past and present ) , and sees and hears them talk—about the state of things in Sudan now , about their lives in earlier years of persecution and exile , about their experiences working on movies , about their present-day effort and its inevitable confrontation with the nation ’ s current political powers and religious authorities .
What results is some of the best talk , and some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some of the warmest friendships that I ’ ve seen in a movie in quite a while .
“ Talking About Trees ” belongs to the exalted category of wisdom literature as it has been transmuted to the realm of secular texts—as in James Boswell ’ s “ The Life of Samuel Johnson , ” Johann Peter Eckermann ’ s “ Conversations with Goethe , ” or Gustav Janouch ’ s “ Conversations with Kafka.
” It ’ s one of the rare chances offered by a movie to allow viewers to spend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hasn ’ t been inflated by the self-promotional sound of their own voice in the media sphere—and whose experience of life and art has been scarred by their experience of political oppression , to which they attest with the bitter and ironic insight of survivors .
The title of the film arises from the four subjects ’ life in art during times of political crisis : it ’ s a quote , from a poem by Bertolt Brecht , that ’ s spoken by one of the participants , the filmmaker Manar Al-Hilo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ talking about trees is almost a crime because it implies silence about so many horrors !
’ ” as he tucks himself into a cot for a night ’ s rest on a movie-house roof .
Gasmelbari ’ s film—both in his own directorial practice and in the talk and action of its subjects—does both at the same time : the movie makes clear the horrors that surround the sights and pleasures of daily life , and also shows , through the men ’ s storytelling , the poetic insight that illuminates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ graceful equanimity and hearty derision , the personal experience of political horrors .
The quartet—which also includes Suliman Ibrahim , Eltayeb Mahdi , and its apparent leader , Ibrahim Shaddad—is part of ( or , rather , seems to be what ’ s left of ) the Sudanese Film Group , an organization founded in 1989 , and they ’ re joined by a young female administrator , Hana Abdelrahman Suliman , who helps them with the paperwork and the legwork involved in seeking official permission for the reopening of the theatre and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The cinema haunts “ Talking About Trees ” and obsesses its central foursome , from the very start , when the area is experiencing a power outage—they ’ ve been without electricity for four days and are meeting at night by flashlight , which gives rise to a gleefully burlesqued reënactment of a scene from “ Sunset Boulevard , ” with Shaddad , his head in a kerchief , filling in for Gloria Swanson .
Then Shaddad goes on a radio talk show called “ The Front Page ” for an episode that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ man ) call “ Sudanese Cinema : The Hero Who Died.
” Shaddad apostrophizes : “ The sudden death of a hero is the work of a traitor .
To find the cause of death , look for the traitor.
” It ’ s a brave political hint to make on the air .
In the nineteen-seventies and eighties , Sudanese cinema was developing an international profile with such films as “ Tajouj ” and “ The Tomb.
” In looking ahead to a possible future for Sudanese movies—including by cultivating new audiences @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ask the men and boys at a soccer game for recommendations on what to show—the four men also delve into their past , and that of the cinema itself .
They exhume , by flashlight , VHS tapes ( including “ The Night We Never Met ” and “ The Soft Skin ” ) and cameras and lenses .
As a test run for their public screening , they hold a private showing of Charlie Chaplin ’ s “ Modern Times.
” They find , lurking behind a movie screen , abandoned reels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ men addresses a reel with lofty irony , “ My dear , a young lover replaced you .
Digital technology is the young lover.
” ( Their screenings , private and public , are via DVD projection . )
Shaddad finds his notebooks from his years of study in Germany , in the early nineteen-sixties , and the complete dossier—with script , casting notes , location scouting , and photographs—for a film called “ Crocodile ” that he was ready to shoot , decades ago , until the military coup of 1989 put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coup , Shaddad was arrested by the new regime—a tale that he discusses with his friends in the film , in great and awful practical detail .
All the more remarkably , Shaddad , even now , transforms that experience cinematically : “ Talking About Trees ” features a strange sequence in which Shaddad , alone in an old and abandoned bathroom , lies on the floor and photographs its fixtures and surfaces , and that bathroom later becomes the setting for a film about arrest , fear , and torture , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shoots , alone , on his cell phone , with Al-Hilo as its one and only actor—a shoot that gives rise to Shaddad ’ s terrifying insights on that film ’ s subject .
The portrait of this nucleus of the Sudanese cinema is also an explicit vision—as seen in news reports , live , that participants watch—of the sham election of 2015 ( Omar al-Bashir was proudly reëlected with 94.5 per cent of the vote and then boasted of the election ’ s “ integrity ” and “ transparency ” ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gasmelbari made the movie clandestinely , and he transformed his discretion into an aesthetic : the movie has relatively few scenes from street level but many views of the city as seen from above , including from the roof and the deck of the movie theatre .
In these wide-embracing and far-seeing images , it ’ s as if the entire city were inhabited by the spirit of the cinema .

Great movies expand the world of cinema, and the Sudanese director Suhaib Gasmelbari’s documentary “Talking About Trees” does so in a way that looks daringly ahead while also uniting with a great pre-cinematic tradition. (It screens digitally, from December 2nd to December 6th, in the New York African Film Festival, on the Film at Lincoln Center Web site.) Gasmelbari sticks close to four elderly, involuntarily retired filmmakers in the city of Omdurman, where all of the movie theatres have long been closed for political reasons, as they try to reopen an abandoned, open-air, amphitheatre-like movie house. In the process, he observes their energetic physical engagement with the material aspect of the cinema (past and present), and sees and hears them talk—about the state of things in Sudan now, about their lives in earlier years of persecution and exile, about their experiences working on movies, about their present-day effort and its inevitable confrontation with the nation’s current political powers and religious authorities.
What results is some of the best talk, and some of the most dedicated collaborations, and some of the warmest friendships that I’ve seen in a movie in quite a while. “Talking About Trees” belongs to the exalted category of wisdom literature as it has been transmuted to the realm of secular texts—as in James Boswell’s “The Life of Samuel Johnson,” Johann Peter Eckermann’s “Conversations with Goethe,” or Gustav Janouch’s “Conversations with Kafka.” It’s one of the rare chances offered by a movie to allow viewers to spend time with public figures whose wisdom nonetheless hasn’t been inflated by the self-promotional sound of their own voice in the media sphere—and whose experience of life and art has been scarred by their experience of political oppression, to which they attest with the bitter and ironic insight of survivors.
The title of the film arises from the four subjects’ life in art during times of political crisis: it’s a quote, from a poem by Bertolt Brecht, that’s spoken by one of the participants, the filmmaker Manar Al-Hilo, who refers to “times when ‘talking about trees is almost a crime because it implies silence about so many horrors!’ ” as he tucks himself into a cot for a night’s rest on a movie-house roof. Gasmelbari’s film—both in his own directorial practice and in the talk and action of its subjects—does both at the same time: the movie makes clear the horrors that surround the sights and pleasures of daily life, and also shows, through the men’s storytelling, the poetic insight that illuminates and transmits, with an air of graceful equanimity and hearty derision, the personal experience of political horrors.
The quartet—which also includes Suliman Ibrahim, Eltayeb Mahdi, and its apparent leader, Ibrahim Shaddad—is part of (or, rather, seems to be what’s left of) the Sudanese Film Group, an organization founded in 1989, and they’re joined by a young female administrator, Hana Abdelrahman Suliman, who helps them with the paperwork and the legwork involved in seeking official permission for the reopening of the theatre and the scheduling of a public screening. The cinema haunts “Talking About Trees” and obsesses its central foursome, from the very start, when the area is experiencing a power outage—they’ve been without electricity for four days and are meeting at night by flashlight, which gives rise to a gleefully burlesqued reënactment of a scene from “Sunset Boulevard,” with Shaddad, his head in a kerchief, filling in for Gloria Swanson. Then Shaddad goes on a radio talk show called “The Front Page” for an episode that its hosts (a woman and a man) call “Sudanese Cinema: The Hero Who Died.” Shaddad apostrophizes: “The sudden death of a hero is the work of a traitor. To find the cause of death, look for the traitor.” It’s a brave political hint to make on the air.
In the nineteen-seventies and eighties, Sudanese cinema was developing an international profile with such films as “Tajouj” and “The Tomb.” In looking ahead to a possible future for Sudanese movies—including by cultivating new audiences, as in scenes where the filmmakers ask the men and boys at a soccer game for recommendations on what to show—the four men also delve into their past, and that of the cinema itself. They exhume, by flashlight, VHS tapes (including “The Night We Never Met” and “The Soft Skin”) and cameras and lenses. As a test run for their public screening, they hold a private showing of Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times.” They find, lurking behind a movie screen, abandoned reels of film, and one of the men addresses a reel with lofty irony, “My dear, a young lover replaced you. Digital technology is the young lover.” (Their screenings, private and public, are via DVD projection.) Shaddad finds his notebooks from his years of study in Germany, in the early nineteen-sixties, and the complete dossier—with script, casting notes, location scouting, and photographs—for a film called “Crocodile” that he was ready to shoot, decades ago, until the military coup of 1989 put an end to it.
Soon after the coup, Shaddad was arrested by the new regime—a tale that he discusses with his friends in the film, in great and awful practical detail. All the more remarkably, Shaddad, even now, transforms that experience cinematically: “Talking About Trees” features a strange sequence in which Shaddad, alone in an old and abandoned bathroom, lies on the floor and photographs its fixtures and surfaces, and that bathroom later becomes the setting for a film about arrest, fear, and torture, called “Rat,” that he shoots, alone, on his cell phone, with Al-Hilo as its one and only actor—a shoot that gives rise to Shaddad’s terrifying insights on that film’s subject.
The portrait of this nucleus of the Sudanese cinema is also an explicit vision—as seen in news reports, live, that participants watch—of the sham election of 2015 (Omar al-Bashir was proudly reëlected with 94.5 per cent of the vote and then boasted of the election’s “integrity” and “transparency”), and also of the city itself. Gasmelbari made the movie clandestinely, and he transformed his discretion into an aesthetic: the movie has relatively few scenes from street level but many views of the city as seen from above, including from the roof and the deck of the movie theatre. In these wide-embracing and far-seeing images, it’s as if the entire city were inhabited by the spirit of the cinema.


newyorker--2020-12-02--Revisiting Hitler’s Final Days in the Bunker

The Hitler parody videos began proliferating around 2006 , a couple of years after the release of “ Downfall , ” Oliver Hirschbiegel ’ s film about Hitler ’ s final days in Berlin .
In the movie ’ s climactic scene , Hitler rants in his bunker while generals and adjutants look on in horror .
In the parodies , alternate subtitles were inserted , to absurd effect .
Amy Davidson Sorkin surveyed the genre in a 2010 New Yorker piece , and the meme is still going strong a decade later .
Recent contributions include “ Hitler Reacts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Hitler Reacts to the NVIDIA GeForce , ” “ Hitler Reacts to Being in Quarantine , ” and , in recent days , a series of videos in which Hitler reacts to the 2020 Presidential election , spouting Trumpian lines .
In one , the Führer screams : “ Count all the votes ?
How dare they to do this to me .
Of course I can ’ t win if they count all the votes.
” When a secretary in the corridor outside comforts her distressed colleague , she says , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Dictators still love him.
” Comparisons between Trump and Hitler ring false on many levels , as I argued at the end of a 2018 article about recent biographies of the dictator .
Although the soon-to-be-ex-President has done staggering damage to American institutions , he has failed to bring about the kind of wholesale destruction of democratic process that Hitler accomplished in a few weeks in 1933 , not to mention the immeasurable horrors that followed .
Nevertheless , the occasion of Trump ’ s defeat permits a certain amount of historical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , although Hitler at the height of his power was a phenomenon without parallel in modern history , what he became—the cornered man in the bunker—was a psychologically commonplace creature .
The spectacle of a power-hungry narcissist receiving his comeuppance is irresistible , and it has played out innumerable times in history and fiction .
Hirschbiegel ’ s film is based on a 2002 book by Joachim Fest , and both works have the same title in German : “ Der Untergang.
” That word has long been commonplace in literature about Hitler @ @ @ @ @ @ @ volume of Volker Ullrich ’ s biography of Hitler , which has just been translated into English , is subtitled “ Die Jahre des Untergangs , 1939–1945.
” The usual translation is “ downfall , ” although the various implications of the word—literally , “ going-under ” —are difficult to capture in English .
In some contexts , Untergang simply means descent : a sunset is a Sonnenuntergang .
But it carries connotations of decline , dissolution , or destruction .
Oswald Spengler ’ s famous book about the decline of the West @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Richard Wagner ’ s anti-Semitic essay “ Jewishness in Music ” ends with the word Untergang—the composer ’ s dream of a day when Jews will disappear from the earth , whether through assimilation or through some other means .
Untergang can also be a state of transition or of spiritual transformation .
In Nietzsche ’ s “ Thus Spoke Zarathustra , ” the title character undertakes an Untergang , a going-under into the worldly realm .
In the context of Hitler , the scene of Untergang gives comforting moral closure to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ matter how high the dictator might have risen , the fable suggests , he was destined to fall in the end .
History supplies no such neat ending in the case of other genocidal dictators , such as Stalin and Mao , both of whom died of natural causes .
The endless fixation on Hitler ’ s last days therefore offers a too-easy narrative gratification : the devil is dispatched to hell , as in “ Don Giovanni.
” Moreover , the replaying of Hitler ’ s Untergang compensates for the fetishistic fascination @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through contemporary culture .
The publishing industry continues to exploit Hitler ’ s design aesthetic—Gothic type , black-white-red color scenes , swastikas—to sell books .
( Knopf ’ s edition of the Ullrich biography , expertly translated by Jefferson Chase , departs from the pattern , going for hazard yellow . )
It is widely assumed that Hirschbiegel gives a reasonably faithful idea of what life in the bunker was like .
Indeed , the art direction for “ Downfall ” was meticulously researched , and Bruno Ganz ’ s performance as Hitler @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the dictator on film : spittle-spewing rants are balanced against superficially courtly gestures and a show of soldierly devotion to the task at hand .
But the scene that spawned a thousand YouTube parodies—one in which the dictator screams at his military leaders , denounces the entire German nation as a pack of cowards , and announces that he will commit suicide rather than flee Berlin—is based , in part , on problematic sources .
The occasion was a three-hour-long briefing that took place in the map room at the bunker on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days before Hitler ’ s suicide .
The Red Army had reached the outskirts of Berlin , and Hitler was clinging to the idea that a mostly fictional combat group under the command of the S.S. general Felix Steiner could push the Russians back .
When Hitler was told that no counterattack had taken place , he apparently exploded in rage , firing accusations in every direction and announcing that the war was lost .
Hugh Trevor-Roper , in his 1947 book “ The Last Days of Hitler , ” wove together various @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contradict one another to some degree .
Ian Kershaw , in the second volume of his near-definitive Hitler biography , is similarly cautious , employing an even wider range of sources .
Fest ’ s “ Der Untergang ” —translated as “ Inside Hitler ’ s Bunker ” —draws on material that began emerging from Soviet archives in the nineteen-nineties , and that eventually received international publication in a curious document known as “ The Hitler Book.
” Researchers for the Soviet secret police prepared this narrative of Hitler ’ s collapse in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of two Hitler adjutants , Otto Günsche and Heinz Linge , who had been captured by the Red Army and interrogated at length .
Much of what they recalled can be corroborated , but some of the quotations attributed to Hitler smack of a nineteenth-century novel : “ The war is lost !
But , gentlemen , if you believe that I will leave Berlin , you are sorely mistaken !
I ’ d rather put a bullet through my head.
” Fittingly , that dialogue went straight into Hirschbiegel ’ s film @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hitler throwing colored pencils across a map .
The most curious thing about “ The Hitler Book ” is that it was intended for a single reader : Joseph Stalin .
The Soviet leader had ordered the N.K.V.D .
to gather as much information as it could about Hitler ’ s last days , partly in order to make sure that the Führer was actually dead , although Stalin was generally fascinated by his most powerful and ruthless rival .
“ The Hitler Book ” allowed Stalin to enjoy his own private staging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hitler ’ s psychological implosion , under the pressure of the invincible Red Army .
Other accounts convey a more complex picture of that April 22nd meeting .
Gerhard Herrgesell , a stenographer , told American interrogators that Hitler was “ generally composed , ” even if his face became flushed and he paced about .
In Herrgesell ’ s telling , it was the generals , especially Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl , who grew most heated , as they declared themselves “ violently opposed ” to Hitler ’ s plan to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ go elsewhere and continue the fight .
“ Keitel spoke to him in really sharp terms , ” Herrgesell recalled .
These efforts at persuasion had some effect .
Another military officer , Bernd von Loringhoven , reported that by the end of the day Hitler had overcome a condition of “ temporary weakness ” and committed himself again to the defense of Berlin .
The sequence of events that emerges from Kershaw ’ s meticulous reconstruction—elaborated in his book “ The End : The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler ’ s Germany @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way , even more unsettling than that of an all-powerful dictator plunging into dejection as his followers watch aghast .
Here , the faltering dictator is propped up and reinvigorated by his underlings .
A crucial component of Kershaw ’ s portrait of Nazi Germany is his concept of “ working toward the Führer , ” which describes how members of the Nazi hierarchy vied with each other to realize Hitler ’ s vision , even in the absence of detailed orders .
At the end , “ working toward the Führer ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his mythic role .
One can hardly ask for a clearer demonstration of how cults of personality feed as much upon the aspirations of their members as upon the ambitions of their leaders .
Ullrich , in the newly translated second volume of his Hitler biography , includes the debatable “ bullet in the head ” quotation but otherwise does justice to the tensions of the scene .
Although Kershaw ’ s two volumes are probably destined to remain the definitive work on Hitler , Ullrich delivers a persuasive , all-too-timely portrait of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inseparable from his instinct for domination and destruction .
The final paragraph contains a dark assessment of Hitler ’ s legacy : “ If his life and career teaches us anything , it is how quickly democracy can be prised from its hinges when political institutions fail and civilizing forces in society are too weak to combat the lure of authoritarianism.
” Clear-eyed American readers may conclude that all those swastika-emblazoned , Gothic-type , black-white-and-red books have taught us exactly nothing about the fragility of democracy .
Indeed , the pervasiveness of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was somehow genetically predisposed to follow a “ special path ” toward Nazism , dictatorship , and genocide—may have blinded us to our own anti-democratic drift .
In 1935 , Sinclair Lewis imagined a form of American Fascism in his novel “ It Can ’ t Happen Here.
” Crucial to the delusion that it can ’ t happen here is the conviction that it could only have happened there .
Now German historians are ending their books on Nazism with thinly veiled references to an American Untergang .
• New Yorker writers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year .
• Amanda Petrusich counts down the best music .

The Hitler parody videos began proliferating around 2006, a couple of years after the release of “Downfall,” Oliver Hirschbiegel’s film about Hitler’s final days in Berlin. In the movie’s climactic scene, Hitler rants in his bunker while generals and adjutants look on in horror. In the parodies, alternate subtitles were inserted, to absurd effect. Amy Davidson Sorkin surveyed the genre in a 2010 New Yorker piece, and the meme is still going strong a decade later. Recent contributions include “Hitler Reacts to the iPhone 12 Pro,” “Hitler Reacts to the NVIDIA GeForce,” “Hitler Reacts to Being in Quarantine,” and, in recent days, a series of videos in which Hitler reacts to the 2020 Presidential election, spouting Trumpian lines. In one, the Führer screams, “Count all the votes? How dare they to do this to me. Of course I can’t win if they count all the votes.” When a secretary in the corridor outside comforts her distressed colleague, she says, “Don’t cry, Jared. Dictators still love him.”
Comparisons between Trump and Hitler ring false on many levels, as I argued at the end of a 2018 article about recent biographies of the dictator. Although the soon-to-be-ex-President has done staggering damage to American institutions, he has failed to bring about the kind of wholesale destruction of democratic process that Hitler accomplished in a few weeks in 1933, not to mention the immeasurable horrors that followed. Nevertheless, the occasion of Trump’s defeat permits a certain amount of historical license. It might be argued that, although Hitler at the height of his power was a phenomenon without parallel in modern history, what he became—the cornered man in the bunker—was a psychologically commonplace creature. The spectacle of a power-hungry narcissist receiving his comeuppance is irresistible, and it has played out innumerable times in history and fiction.
Hirschbiegel’s film is based on a 2002 book by Joachim Fest, and both works have the same title in German: “Der Untergang.” That word has long been commonplace in literature about Hitler’s final days. The second volume of Volker Ullrich’s biography of Hitler, which has just been translated into English, is subtitled “Die Jahre des Untergangs, 1939–1945.” The usual translation is “downfall,” although the various implications of the word—literally, “going-under”—are difficult to capture in English. In some contexts, Untergang simply means descent: a sunset is a Sonnenuntergang. But it carries connotations of decline, dissolution, or destruction. Oswald Spengler’s famous book about the decline of the West is titled “Der Untergang des Abendlandes.” Richard Wagner’s anti-Semitic essay “Jewishness in Music” ends with the word Untergang—the composer’s dream of a day when Jews will disappear from the earth, whether through assimilation or through some other means. Untergang can also be a state of transition or of spiritual transformation. In Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” the title character undertakes an Untergang, a going-under into the worldly realm.
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
In the context of Hitler, the scene of Untergang gives comforting moral closure to a story of limitless horror. No matter how high the dictator might have risen, the fable suggests, he was destined to fall in the end. History supplies no such neat ending in the case of other genocidal dictators, such as Stalin and Mao, both of whom died of natural causes. The endless fixation on Hitler’s last days therefore offers a too-easy narrative gratification: the devil is dispatched to hell, as in “Don Giovanni.” Moreover, the replaying of Hitler’s Untergang compensates for the fetishistic fascination with Nazi iconography that is present all through contemporary culture. The publishing industry continues to exploit Hitler’s design aesthetic—Gothic type, black-white-red color schemes, swastikas—to sell books. (Knopf’s edition of the Ullrich biography, expertly translated by Jefferson Chase, departs from the pattern, going for hazard yellow.)
It is widely assumed that Hirschbiegel gives a reasonably faithful idea of what life in the bunker was like. Indeed, the art direction for “Downfall” was meticulously researched, and Bruno Ganz’s performance as Hitler may be the most eerily believable portrayal of the dictator on film: spittle-spewing rants are balanced against superficially courtly gestures and a show of soldierly devotion to the task at hand. But the scene that spawned a thousand YouTube parodies—one in which the dictator screams at his military leaders, denounces the entire German nation as a pack of cowards, and announces that he will commit suicide rather than flee Berlin—is based, in part, on problematic sources.
The occasion was a three-hour briefing that took place in the map room at the bunker on the afternoon of April 22nd, eight days before Hitler’s suicide. The Red Army had reached the outskirts of Berlin, and Hitler was clinging to the idea that a mostly fictional combat group under the command of the S.S. general Felix Steiner could push the Russians back. When Hitler was told that no counterattack had taken place, he apparently exploded in rage, firing accusations in every direction and announcing that the war was lost. Hugh Trevor-Roper, in his 1947 book, “The Last Days of Hitler,” wove together various first-hand testimonies, making clear that they contradict one another to some degree. Ian Kershaw, in the second volume of his near-definitive Hitler biography, is similarly cautious, employing an even wider range of sources.
Fest’s “Der Untergang”—translated as “Inside Hitler’s Bunker”—draws on material that began emerging from Soviet archives in the nineteen-nineties, and that eventually received international publication in a curious document known as “The Hitler Book.” Researchers for the Soviet secret police prepared this narrative of Hitler’s collapse in the late nineteen-forties, interweaving the testimony of two Hitler adjutants, Otto Günsche and Heinz Linge, who had been captured by the Red Army and interrogated at length. Much of what they recalled can be corroborated, but some of the quotations attributed to Hitler smack of a nineteenth-century novel: “The war is lost! But, gentlemen, if you believe that I will leave Berlin, you are sorely mistaken! I’d rather put a bullet through my head.” Fittingly, that dialogue went straight into Hirschbiegel’s film, along with a theatrical detail about Hitler throwing colored pencils across a map.
The most curious thing about “The Hitler Book” is that it was intended for a single reader: Joseph Stalin. The Soviet leader had ordered the N.K.V.D. to gather as much information as it could about Hitler’s last days, partly in order to make sure that the Führer was actually dead, although Stalin was generally fascinated by his most powerful and ruthless rival. “The Hitler Book” allowed Stalin to enjoy his own private staging of the Untergang—a lavishly detailed chronicle of Hitler’s psychological implosion, under the pressure of the invincible Red Army.
Other accounts convey a more complex picture of that April 22nd meeting. Gerhard Herrgesell, a stenographer, told American interrogators that Hitler was “generally composed,” even if his face became flushed and he paced about. In Herrgesell’s telling, it was the generals, especially Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl, who grew most heated, as they declared themselves “violently opposed” to Hitler’s plan to perish in Berlin, preferring that he go elsewhere and continue the fight. “Keitel spoke to him in really sharp terms,” Herrgesell recalled. These efforts at persuasion had some effect. Another military officer, Bernd von Loringhoven, reported that by the end of the day Hitler had overcome a condition of “temporary weakness” and committed himself again to the defense of Berlin.
The sequence of events that emerges from Kershaw’s meticulous reconstruction—elaborated in his book “The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944–1945”—is, in a way, even more unsettling than that of an all-powerful dictator plunging into dejection as his followers watch aghast. Here, the faltering dictator is propped up and reinvigorated by his underlings. A crucial component of Kershaw’s portrait of Nazi Germany is his concept of “working toward the Führer,” which describes how members of the Nazi hierarchy vied with each other to realize Hitler’s vision, even in the absence of detailed orders. At the end, “working toward the Führer” involved manhandling the Führer himself back into his mythic role. One can hardly ask for a clearer demonstration of how cults of personality feed as much upon the aspirations of their members as upon the ambitions of their leaders.
Ullrich, in the newly translated second volume of his Hitler biography, includes the debatable “bullet in the head” quotation but otherwise does justice to the tensions of the scene. Although Kershaw’s two volumes are probably destined to remain the definitive work on Hitler, Ullrich delivers a persuasive, all-too-timely portrait of a man whose undeniable political charisma was inseparable from his instinct for domination and destruction. The final paragraph contains a dark assessment of Hitler’s legacy: “If his life and career teaches us anything, it is how quickly democracy can be prised from its hinges when political institutions fail and civilizing forces in society are too weak to combat the lure of authoritarianism.”
Clear-eyed American readers may conclude that all those swastika-emblazoned, Gothic-type, black-white-and-red books have taught us exactly nothing about the fragility of democracy. Indeed, the pervasiveness of the Sonderweg school of storytelling—the idea that Germany was somehow genetically predisposed to follow a “special path” toward Nazism, dictatorship, and genocide—may have blinded us to our own anti-democratic drift. In 1935, Sinclair Lewis imagined a form of American Fascism in his novel “It Can’t Happen Here.” Crucial to the delusion that it can’t happen here is the conviction that it could only have happened there. Now German historians are ending their books on Nazism with thinly veiled references to an American Untergang.
2020 in Review


newyorker--2020-12-02--The Duelling Realities of the Coronavirus in Russia

The Russian part of my social-media feed has been making me feel as if I have lost touch with reality .
Every morning , when I log on , I see pictures of people I know living lives that look bizarrely normal .
They are eating at restaurants , socializing indoors , attending shows , receiving prizes at in-person ceremonies , and making reporting trips .
At the same time , not a day has gone by in recent weeks when someone from my extended social circle in Russia hasn ’ t died : the founder of a tiny puppet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kids ; a beloved children ’ s poet ; a literary critic I knew ; and several acquaintances ’ parents .
Once in a while , a social-media post will acknowledge the bizarre dissonance of behavior and consequences .
A book editor in Moscow posted two pictures , side by side , of people in line , one at an indoor mall and the other in what looked like an office building .
“ This is the line to shop the new Uniqlo collection , ” she wrote .
“ And this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That ’ s not including the picture of the line to pick up personal belongings of the deceased at the COVID hospital.
” Most of the time , though , the two streams—the pictures of life and the announcements of death—flow in parallel , not crossing .
Anna Temkina , a sociologist at the European University at St. Petersburg , has been puzzling over this split consciousness .
In the spring , when Russian cities , like much of the rest of Europe and some U.S. cities , were largely shut down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dozen people—mostly current and former colleagues and graduate students—to keep journals of their experience of the pandemic .
Their respondents were enthusiastic , thoughtful , and , being sociologists , skillful .
“ They were thinking hard about time and space , ” Temkina told me over Zoom , from a house she is renting outside of St. Petersburg .
“ Time , especially , changed : there was a lot of it and not enough , it was all over the place , it was impossible to structure , and the journaling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struck Temkina most , though , was what happened next .
After a two-month break in journaling , the researchers asked the same people to return to writing for ten days in September—and hit a wall .
“ A majority of them wrote back , ‘ I ’ m sorry , but I just can ’ t , ’ ” Temkina said .
“ This is when I got to really thinking about what ’ s happened to us , ” she said .
“ I think that , in the spring , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ something outside of us that was changing our reality .
But , by fall , we had become this other .
It had entered us .
We changed , and we no longer wanted to think about it.
” Temkina ’ s respondents—and , she thinks , many Russians—learned to live with the pandemic , though not necessarily with all of its precautions and limitations .
“ Everyone has struck some kind of bargain with fate , ” she said .
People go to the theatre and museums , for example , despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we maintain our identities by doing the things we ought not be doing.
” The disorientation and exhaustion of Temkina ’ s spring set of journalers will probably sound familiar to many Americans who have experienced anti-pandemic measures .
And , as in the United States , the federal government in Russia largely absented itself from designing a response , leaving it up to regional authorities to develop pandemic policies .
In St. Petersburg , local officials closed nonessential businesses in April and directed people to stay at home .
Galina Artemenko , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Zoom from St. Petersburg , that the city was empty and quiet , save for the emergency-broadcasting system , which kept blaring , “ Stay at home.
” Hospitals did not have enough P.P.E .
By the last week of April , the city ’ s official death tally from COVID-19 was twenty-seven people .
( The real death count was almost certainly much higher . )
Nine of the dead , Artemenko told me , were medical workers .
Artemenko and a friend , the AIDS activist Irina Maslova , decided to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of doctors .
They planned to deliver flowers and small posters commemorating the nine dead medical personnel to the city Health Committee building .
“ We had pictures of only two people , a neurosurgeon and an anesthesiologist , ” Artemenko told me ; the rest of the flyers listed the names of the deceased under the image of an angel .
Flowers were hard to track down , Maslova told me , over Zoom from St. Petersburg , because all the florists were shuttered .
On April 27th , the two middle-aged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pictures and two bouquets to lay at the health agency ’ s front door .
Once there , they noticed that the building across the street , the House of Radio ( the home of the city ’ s main broadcaster ) , was under renovation .
“ It had an excellent construction fence around it , ” Artemenko said .
The women attached the nine posters to the fence .
“ Two police officers appeared .
They took pictures and video and called someone .
We were prepared to get arrested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ About the same time , Temkina and her colleagues at the European University were undertaking a field study in hospitals around Russia , interviewing medical professionals ; one of the researchers got a job as an orderly to conduct ethnographic research .
( She was not undercover . )
What they found , Temkina said , was “ one failure after another .
There were P.P.E .
shortages , like elsewhere in the world , but when philanthropists tried to donate P.P.E .
to hospitals they were turned down , because the hospitals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tests meant that physicians who had been infected but recovered could not get cleared to return to work—which exacerbated the shortage of doctors .
Authorities kept changing policies on COVID hospitalizations , and when they finally settled on designating specific hospitals for COVID patients , the decision created a bottleneck .
“ There were long lines of ambulances outside of hospitals , waiting for the people they ’ d brought to be admitted , and , as a result , these ambulances were not available to respond to other calls , ” Temkina @ @ @ @ @ @ @ study showed that health-care providers felt abandoned and vulnerable .
In the days and weeks after Artemenko and Maslova hung the nine posters on the construction fence , the makeshift memorial grew rapidly .
People sent them photographs and bios of doctors and other medical professionals who had died .
After rainfall badly damaged the memorial , Maslova asked a print-shop owner she knew to reproduce the photos on waterproof plastic sheets .
By the end of June , there were sixty-six people on the wall , most of them doctors and nurses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Alexander Sharonov , forty-five , chief of anesthesiology and intensive care , Maternity Hospital No .
9 ” ; “ Konstantin Lapin , thirty-five , trauma surgeon , Kirov Military Medical Academy ” ; “ Dmitry Yarovoy , thirty-three , ophthalmologist , City Hospital No .
2.
” The fence became known as the Memory Wall .
The memorial served a pragmatic political purpose , among others .
Both the federal and local governments authorized compensation payments to families of doctors lost to the pandemic , but authorities were reluctant to release @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t worked on COVID wards .
Artemenko and Maslova told me that , by making the names of the deceased public , the memorial helped grieving families in their requests for compensation .
The government called on people to come out , in person , to vote for changes to the constitution , making Vladimir Putin President for life .
Officials staged a Victory Day parade , postponed from May .
Russians travelled on crowded trains and planes to take traditional summer vacations .
People I knew started falling ill in batches .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a few days later , report that they were sick .
An ocean away , I could play amateur contact tracer just by reading my Facebook feed .
How bad were things in Russia in the summer ?
It ’ s hard to tell , because the government hasn ’ t told the truth , nor has it told consistent lies .
In the spring , the federal government directed local authorities to classify deaths as resulting from any underlying condition—such as heart disease or H.I.V.-related illness—that may have been exacerbated by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the cause of death .
By the Health Ministry ’ s own admission , the policy was implemented inconsistently , resulting in spotty and often contradictory statistics .
According to two different government agencies , the number of people who had died of COVID in Russia by the end of September was either fewer than twenty-one thousand or just over fifty-five thousand .
( The former figure is given by the federal consumer protection authority , which , inexplicably , makes most pandemic policy ; the latter figure was calculated by the national @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Mediazona , an independent news outlet , show that , by November 22nd , nearly seventy-five thousand people had died in COVID wards .
Estimates of excess deaths point to even greater numbers .
Mediazona journalists have compiled a database of both national and regional death figures and concluded that Russia has lost a hundred and twenty thousand more people this year than it lost , on average , during the same period in the previous five years .
If this trend keeps up , it could land Russia among the top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Even according to official data , the number of people getting sick and dying is on an unrelenting upward curve , setting daily records for at least a week .
“ People visit each other at home , and they see masks only as something they need to wear to avoid getting a fine , ” Maria Leevik told me .
Leevik works as a counselor at the Botkin Infectious Disease Hospital , which was , back in April , the first hospital in St. Petersburg to be exclusively designated for COVID @ @ @ @ @ @ @ took a month off work to prepare for her dissertation defense ; during this time , she told me , she continued wearing a mask but otherwise allowed herself to “ lead a normal life , ” sometimes socializing in friends ’ kitchens for hours on end .
( Her dissertation is on behavior modifications among H.I.V.-positive men . )
Leevik told me that she almost came to believe that the pandemic was over , until she came back to work and witnessed several deaths in the course of a few weeks .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ think our wall was a push to do the work of memory , ” Artemenko said .
St. Petersburg is a city of many monuments and memorials , in part because it ’ s the former imperial capital , and in part because of the unparalleled loss and trauma that it suffered from a nine-hundred-day siege by Nazi troops , during the Second World War .
Both Artemenko and Maslova drew direct parallels between their efforts to preserve the legacy of COVID and the way that the city keeps the memory of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is that the siege ended in 1944 and was memorialized years later , whereas the coronavirus pandemic is raging and will probably kill more people in the next few weeks than it did in the past several months .
Isn ’ t it too early for monuments and museums ?
Temkina , the sociologist , suggested that the experience of living in the Soviet Union , with its forever wars and constant threat of loss , provides an analogy , albeit a rough one , for the way that Russians have adapted to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a war going on somewhere , and in this war people die—it ’ s ‘ natural , ’ ” she said .
“ There is nothing you can do about it , there is no way out , no exit and no voice , so you opt to stop noticing it emotionally.
” In Russia , unlike in the U.S. , people who disregard pandemic precautions do not fall predominantly into a particular political camp ; often , in fact , they are not COVID deniers ( or COVID dissidents , as Russians @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are just those who do not trust the government .
“ Because I ’ m living in a rental house , I have a television set here , ” Temkina said , almost apologetically—in her regular life , like most highly educated , Western-oriented Russians , she hasn ’ t watched television in years , because it ’ s controlled by the state .
But she ’ s been turning it on recently , and has discovered that the government ’ s public-health message is clear and correct : wear masks , social-distance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But it ’ s white noise , ” Temkina said .
Russians are so used to being lied to that they never believe anything .
It would be difficult , in any case , for this government to expect people to observe stay-at-home orders after herding people to the voting booths in July .
“ It becomes a game , ” Kirill Fedorov , a psychotherapist in St. Petersburg , said .
( An example : masks are required to enter the subway , so people take them off as soon as they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s father fell ill in October , was diagnosed with COVID , and spent a week on a ventilator , before dying last month at age sixty-five ; his death certificate lists “ heart and lung failure ” as the cause .
“ It is always the tragedy only of that particular family , ” Fedorov said .
“ If it hasn ’ t happened to you , it doesn ’ t exist.
” It ’ s not that Russians believe that the virus is a hoax ; it ’ s that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The “ white noise ” on the television is not part of any conversation ; there is no public sphere , and it might be said that there is no public .

The Russian part of my social-media feed has been making me feel as if I have lost touch with reality. Every morning, when I log on, I see pictures of people I know living lives that look bizarrely normal. They are eating at restaurants, socializing indoors, attending shows, receiving prizes at in-person ceremonies, and making reporting trips. At the same time, not a day has gone by in recent weeks when someone from my extended social circle in Russia hasn’t died: the founder of a tiny puppet theatre where I used to take my kids; a beloved children’s poet; a literary critic I knew; and several acquaintances’ parents. Once in a while, a social-media post will acknowledge the bizarre dissonance of behavior and consequences. A book editor in Moscow posted two pictures, side by side, of people in line, one at an indoor mall and the other in what looked like an office building. “This is the line to shop the new Uniqlo collection,” she wrote. “And this is the death-certificate line at the registry office. That’s not including the picture of the line to pick up personal belongings of the deceased at the COVID hospital.” Most of the time, though, the two streams—the pictures of life and the announcements of death—flow in parallel, not crossing.
Anna Temkina, a sociologist at the European University at St. Petersburg, has been puzzling over this split consciousness. In the spring, when Russian cities, like much of the rest of Europe and some U.S. cities, were largely shut down, Temkina and her colleagues asked several dozen people—mostly current and former colleagues and graduate students—to keep journals of their experience of the pandemic. Their respondents were enthusiastic, thoughtful, and, being sociologists, skillful. “They were thinking hard about time and space,” Temkina told me over Zoom, from a house she is renting outside of St. Petersburg. “Time, especially, changed: there was a lot of it and not enough, it was all over the place, it was impossible to structure, and the journaling helped with that a bit.” What struck Temkina most, though, was what happened next. After a two-month break in journaling, the researchers asked the same people to return to writing for ten days in September—and hit a wall. “A majority of them wrote back, ‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t,’ ” Temkina said.
“This is when I got to really thinking about what’s happened to us,” she said. “I think that, in the spring, we were struck by something other, something outside of us that was changing our reality. But, by fall, we had become this other. It had entered us. We changed, and we no longer wanted to think about it.”
Temkina’s respondents—and, she thinks, many Russians—learned to live with the pandemic, though not necessarily with all of its precautions and limitations. “Everyone has struck some kind of bargain with fate,” she said. People go to the theatre and museums, for example, despite the obvious risks. “I think we maintain our identities by doing the things we ought not be doing.”
The disorientation and exhaustion of Temkina’s spring set of journalers will probably sound familiar to many Americans who have experienced anti-pandemic measures. And, as in the United States, the federal government in Russia largely absented itself from designing a response, leaving it up to regional authorities to develop pandemic policies. In St. Petersburg, local officials closed nonessential businesses in April and directed people to stay at home. Galina Artemenko, a journalist, told me, by Zoom from St. Petersburg, that the city was empty and quiet, save for the emergency-broadcasting system, which kept blaring, “Stay at home.” Hospitals did not have enough P.P.E. By the last week of April, the city’s official death tally from COVID-19 was twenty-seven people. (The real death count was almost certainly much higher.) Nine of the dead, Artemenko told me, were medical workers.
Artemenko and a friend, the AIDS activist Irina Maslova, decided to try to draw attention to the predicament of doctors. They planned to deliver flowers and small posters commemorating the nine dead medical personnel to the city Health Committee building. “We had pictures of only two people, a neurosurgeon and an anesthesiologist,” Artemenko told me; the rest of the flyers listed the names of the deceased under the image of an angel. Flowers were hard to track down, Maslova told me, over Zoom from St. Petersburg, because all the florists were shuttered. On April 27th, the two middle-aged women traversed an empty city center with the pictures and two bouquets to lay at the health agency’s front door. Once there, they noticed that the building across the street, the House of Radio (the home of the city’s main broadcaster), was under renovation. “It had an excellent construction fence around it,” Artemenko said. The women attached the nine posters to the fence. “Two police officers appeared. They took pictures and video and called someone. We were prepared to get arrested, but they just walked away.”
About the same time, Temkina and her colleagues at the European University were undertaking a field study in hospitals around Russia, interviewing medical professionals; one of the researchers got a job as an orderly to conduct ethnographic research. (She was not undercover.) What they found, Temkina said, was “one failure after another. There were P.P.E. shortages, like elsewhere in the world, but when philanthropists tried to donate P.P.E. to hospitals they were turned down, because the hospitals are terrified of inspections.” Shortages of tests meant that physicians who had been infected but recovered could not get cleared to return to work—which exacerbated the shortage of doctors. Authorities kept changing policies on COVID hospitalizations, and when they finally settled on designating specific hospitals for COVID patients, the decision created a bottleneck. “There were long lines of ambulances outside of hospitals, waiting for the people they’d brought to be admitted, and, as a result, these ambulances were not available to respond to other calls,” Temkina said. Most of all, the study showed that health-care providers felt abandoned and vulnerable.
In the days and weeks after Artemenko and Maslova hung the nine posters on the construction fence, the makeshift memorial grew rapidly. People sent them photographs and bios of doctors and other medical professionals who had died. After rainfall badly damaged the memorial, Maslova asked a print-shop owner she knew to reproduce the photos on waterproof plastic sheets. By the end of June, there were sixty-six people on the wall, most of them doctors and nurses from St. Petersburg and its suburbs: “Alexander Sharonov, forty-five, chief of anesthesiology and intensive care, Maternity Hospital No. 9”; “Konstantin Lapin, thirty-five, trauma surgeon, Kirov Military Medical Academy”; “Dmitry Yarovoy, thirty-three, ophthalmologist, City Hospital No. 2.” The fence became known as the Memory Wall.
The memorial served a pragmatic political purpose, among others. Both the federal and local governments authorized compensation payments to families of doctors lost to the pandemic, but authorities were reluctant to release money to medical personnel who hadn’t worked on COVID wards. Artemenko and Maslova told me that, by making the names of the deceased public, the memorial helped grieving families in their requests for compensation.
In the summer, the pandemic seemed to ebb. St. Petersburg reopened for business. Sidewalk cafés popped up near the memorial. “It was nice that there were people sitting around, talking right there—there was something alive and human about it,” Artemenko told me. She would borrow a large green watering can from a Georgian café to water the many flowers at the wall.
The government called on people to come out, in person, to vote for changes to the constitution, making Vladimir Putin President for life. Officials staged a Victory Day parade, postponed from May. Russians travelled on crowded trains and planes to take traditional summer vacations. People I knew started falling ill in batches. They would post party photos and, a few days later, report that they were sick. An ocean away, I could play amateur contact tracer just by reading my Facebook feed.
How bad were things in Russia in the summer? It’s hard to tell, because the government hasn’t told the truth, nor has it told consistent lies. In the spring, the federal government directed local authorities to classify deaths as resulting from any underlying condition—such as heart disease or H.I.V.-related illness—that may have been exacerbated by the coronavirus, rather than list COVID-19 as the cause of death. By the Health Ministry’s own admission, the policy was implemented inconsistently, resulting in spotty and often contradictory statistics. According to two different government agencies, the number of people who had died of COVID in Russia by the end of September was either fewer than twenty-one thousand or just over fifty-five thousand. (The former figure is given by the federal consumer protection authority, which, inexplicably, makes most pandemic policy; the latter figure was calculated by the national statistics committee.) Internal documents obtained by Mediazona, an independent news outlet, show that, by November 22nd, nearly seventy-five thousand people had died in COVID wards. Estimates of excess deaths point to even greater numbers. Mediazona journalists have compiled a database of both national and regional death figures and concluded that Russia has lost a hundred and twenty thousand more people this year than it lost, on average, during the same period in the previous five years. If this trend keeps up, it could land Russia among the top five countries with the fastest-growing mortality rates. Even according to official data, the number of people getting sick and dying is on an unrelenting upward curve, setting daily records for at least a week.
“People visit each other at home, and they see masks only as something they need to wear to avoid getting a fine,” Maria Leevik told me. Leevik works as a counselor at the Botkin Infectious Disease Hospital, which was, back in April, the first hospital in St. Petersburg to be exclusively designated for COVID patients. In early fall, she took a month off work to prepare for her dissertation defense; during this time, she told me, she continued wearing a mask but otherwise allowed herself to “lead a normal life,” sometimes socializing in friends’ kitchens for hours on end. (Her dissertation is on behavior modifications among H.I.V.-positive men.) Leevik told me that she almost came to believe that the pandemic was over, until she came back to work and witnessed several deaths in the course of a few weeks. She returned to self-isolating.
The construction fence at the House of Radio came down on November 13th. Artemenko and Maslova arranged for the portraits of medical workers, which numbered a hundred and six, to be taken to the well-regarded Museum of Political History of Russia. They also secured permission to have a monument placed near the entrance to the Pavlov Medical University, which has lost several staff members in the pandemic. The monument will be a bronze copy of an angel created by Roman Shustrov, a well-known St. Petersburg sculptor who died of COVID in May, at the age of sixty-one. His older brother, Alexander, a mime, died of COVID a few days before him. Both men’s wives contracted the virus and recovered.
“I think our wall was a push to do the work of memory,” Artemenko said. St. Petersburg is a city of many monuments and memorials, in part because it’s the former imperial capital, and in part because of the unparalleled loss and trauma that it suffered from a nine-hundred-day siege by Nazi troops, during the Second World War. Both Artemenko and Maslova drew direct parallels between their efforts to preserve the legacy of COVID and the way that the city keeps the memory of the siege. One difference, though, is that the siege ended in 1944 and was memorialized years later, whereas the coronavirus pandemic is raging and will probably kill more people in the next few weeks than it did in the past several months. Isn’t it too early for monuments and museums?
Temkina, the sociologist, suggested that the experience of living in the Soviet Union, with its forever wars and constant threat of loss, provides an analogy, albeit a rough one, for the way that Russians have adapted to the coronavirus. “There is always a war going on somewhere, and in this war people die—it’s ‘natural,’ ” she said. “There is nothing you can do about it, there is no way out, no exit and no voice, so you opt to stop noticing it emotionally.”


newyorker--2020-12-02--White House Says Pardons Will Be Given First to Essential Frontline Criminals

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —With fewer than fifty days until the Inauguration , the White House is facing the daunting task of distributing thousands of pardons to those who are desperately in need .
In an effort to insure an orderly rollout of pardons , the Trump Administration announced that the first recipients would be essential frontline criminals .
According to the announcement , essential frontline criminals include all White House staffers and Cabinet members who have spent the past four years receiving improper emoluments , destroying evidence , and subverting democracy .
“ These essential criminals have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for the good of President Trump , ” the White House press secretary , Kayleigh McEnany , said .
“ They need to be immunized , so that they can continue their important work.
” The announcement immediately raised concerns among frontline criminals , who fear that their swelling numbers , believed to be in the tens of thousands , could mean that there would not be enough pardons to go around .
McEnany , however , sought to allay those fears .
“ President Trump has invoked the Defense Production Act @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she said .

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—With fewer than fifty days until the Inauguration, the White House is facing the daunting task of distributing thousands of pardons to those who are desperately in need.
In an effort to insure an orderly rollout of pardons, the Trump Administration announced that the first recipients would be essential front-line criminals.
According to the announcement, essential front-line criminals include all White House staffers and Cabinet members who have spent the past four years receiving improper emoluments, destroying evidence, and subverting democracy.
“These essential criminals have risked imprisonment day in, day out, for the good of President Trump,” the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said. “They need to be immunized, so that they can continue their important work.”
The announcement immediately raised concerns among front-line criminals, who fear that their swelling numbers, believed to be in the tens of thousands, could mean that there would not be enough pardons to go around.
McEnany, however, sought to allay those fears. “President Trump has invoked the Defense Production Act to ramp up the manufacturing of Sharpies,” she said.


newyorker--2020-12-03--Why Your Dog Needs to Be Leashed During Walks (But Mine Does Not)

Your unleashed pup could frighten an innocent pedestrian who suffers from a horrible fear of dogs .
It ’ s @ @ @ @ @ Your dog could get spooked by something and run into traffic .
Your unleashed dog @ @ @ @ @ dog , and you wouldn ’ t be able to pull him out of harm @ @ @ @ @ a moment of fear , your dog could even become provoked and attack another dog @ @ @ @ @ excited by a squirrel and take off after it , never to be seen again @ @ @ @ @ seem O.K .
with being off a leash , chances are it makes him feel @ @ @ @ @ in public is literally the law .
If you violate your city ’ s leash @ @ @ @ @ jailed for up to ten days .

Leashing your dog during walks is a key to letting him know that you’re his master.
(I, however, am not my dog’s master. My dog is my equal, and we are both masters of our own destinies, bounding side by side toward our meatiest dreams.)
Your unleashed pup could frighten an innocent pedestrian who suffers from a horrible fear of dogs.
(It’s too bad that your dog isn’t more like my dog, who elicits nothing but giggles of delight when his floofy figure gallops past the pupils of friends new and old.)
It’s a matter of safety! Your dog could get spooked by something and run into traffic.
(How fortunate that my dog both knows and respects all traffic laws, despite having no legal obligation to do so. He would never set paw in the street—not unless he was at a crosswalk, and he had the light.)
Your unleashed dog could get attacked by another dog, and you wouldn’t be able to pull him out of harm’s way.
(My dog would never get attacked, because he has no enemies. My dog is a national treasure; a global sensation; an intergalactic, wet-nosed angel; and the chief archeologist of countless digs in my neighbors’ back yards.)
In a moment of fear, your dog could even become provoked and attack another dog.
(This would never happen to my dog, as he was raised as a pacifist. If anything, he might be provoked to coördinate a peaceful protest to raise awareness for a social cause that he’s really passionate about. Fun fact: my dog is really passionate about all social causes.)
Your dog could get excited by a squirrel and take off after it, never to be seen again.
(And how sad that would be for your dog! My dog is too sophisticated for chasing squirrels. He indulges in more refined hobbies, like listening to classical music, collecting rare bones, and studying the potentially satanic movement patterns of our elderly mailman, Hank.)
While your dog may seem O.K. with being off a leash, chances are it makes him feel anxious.
(My dog practices fifteen minutes of transcendental meditation daily and can transport himself to a blissful state of serenity at a moment’s notice. He is also a Reiki healer and a licensed acupuncturist, graciously in-network with all major pet-insurance providers. My dog cannot speak, of course. That would be ridiculous. But he has told me through telepathy that he’d be happy to give your dog a free consultation.)
Leashing your dog in public is literally the law.
(But my dog answers to a higher power and cannot be governed by the leash restrictions of mortals and ninnies.)
If you violate your city’s leash laws, you could be jailed for up to ten days.
(Send me to jail! I will use my one phone call to contact my dog, who is ten times more brilliant than any lawyer. He’ll show up to my trial wearing a suit and four little oxford shoes, and will seduce the courtroom with his fashion sense and legal panache. My dog will snarl in objection to every flimsy argument made against me—and he’ll be foaming at the mouth, because nothing makes him sicker than the scent of injustice. The judge will be moved to tears by my dog’s passion and dismiss the case, prompting everyone in the courtroom to hoist my dog on their shoulders while chanting, “Good boy! Good boy!” Our story will be adapted into a Lifetime original movie called “Burden of Woof,” and the film’s success will catapult my dog to fame, but it won’t change him. Not the way that fame would change your dog.)


newyorker--2020-12-04--How the Fight Against COVID-19 Is Bringing About a Perilous Rise in Preventable Diseases in Poorer N

How the Fight Against COVID-19 Is Bringing About a Perilous Rise in Preventable Diseases in Poorer Nations

For many of the world ’ s poorest children , however , the suffering may have only begun .
This spring , the World Health Organization warned that the coronavirus could spread rapidly in clinics throughout lower-income nations where children assemble to receive common vaccinations .
Some of those countries , sensibly enough , in the absence of active outbreaks , suspended their childhood-vaccine programs .
Since then , however , in parts of Africa and Asia , cases of cholera , diphtheria , and pertussis have risen , and a resurgence of measles and polio has caused greater concern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ measles vaccines prevented 23.2 million deaths between 2000 and 2018 ; most measles deaths occur in children who are under the age of five .
Without a polio vaccination , at least eighteen million people who are walking around today would have been paralyzed .
In the West , the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963 .
Most low-income countries could not afford it until the mid-eighties .
This is a pattern—rich countries benefit from medical advances long before others—that has a well-documented and deadly history .
In 1980 , measles killed more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whom lived in the world ’ s poorest countries .
That figure fell steadily for decades , as the vaccine was adopted more widely , and by 2016 there were fewer than a hundred and thirty-five thousand measles infections in the world , with ninety thousand deaths .
In the past year , though , researchers from UNICEF and the W.H.O .
have reported that more than ninety-four million children missed their planned measles vaccination .
At the same time , sixty polio-eradication campaigns in twenty-eight countries were suspended .
That has already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , just a few years ago , had been nearly wiped out .
In the two nations where polio has remained endemic , Afghanistan and Pakistan , some forms of the virus have increased fivefold since 2019 .
In the coming year , as children—and viruses—begin to move around again , the spread of polio , measles , and other potentially deadly but preventable diseases will almost certainly be considerably wider .
“ For months , the world has been appropriately fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine race , ’ ’ Bruce Gellin , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sabin Vaccine Institute , told me .
But , he added , the impact of the pandemic on routine immunizations could become enormous , as lockdowns cease and people are able to mingle freely again .
“ We are in the eye of the storm , with grim predictions that we will soon see large outbreaks of measles .
And , worse , the malnutrition that results from COVID-induced stresses on social and economic systems will turn measles from a severe infection into a killer.
” Measles can be seen as a kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ systems .
The relationship between malnutrition and measles has been noted for decades ; children who die from measles are often malnourished ( and , in economically deprived regions , those who survive measles often become malnourished ) .
The possibility of an explosion of measles in the coming year is particularly ominous because it is one of the world ’ s most contagious diseases .
Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases still occur when too few individuals in a population are vaccinated , and , with measles , about ninety-five per cent of children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stop the spread .
Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000 , but the number of infections has risen since 2016—fuelled , in part , by widespread but unfounded fears of vaccines in this country and in Western Europe—and they surged in 2019 .
There were a hundred and twenty cases per one million people in 2019 , up from eighteen cases per one million in 2016 .
In 2019 , there were twelve hundred and eighty-two cases reported in this country , the highest number in decades .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 869,770 cases of measles around the globe , the most since 1996 .
Sustained outbreaks occurred in every region monitored by the organization .
There were some two hundred and seven thousand deaths—though exact statistics are hard to measure , and public-health experts agree that the number of reported cases is far short of the true number of infections .
Although measles has killed no one in the United States since 2015 , it is clear that as the infections grow so does the risk of serious injury and death .
As always @ @ @ @ @ @ @ peril are the least financially equipped to deal with the added burden .
As of September , according to both the W.H.O and UNICEF , nineteen countries were responding to twenty-nine distinct polio outbreaks , nearly all of them in Africa .
According to a report from researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine , published in The Lancet , the risks of delaying vaccination in the poorest countries will be worse than the risks of the COVID-19 pandemic itself .
In other words , disrupting the vaccine programs in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pandemic , will have the unintended effect of killing more people than would have died from COVID-19 after visiting clinics .
Now that coronavirus vaccines are on the horizon , there has been much discussion about whether the world ’ s poorest people will have access to them , and at what cost .
Many philanthropies , including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and GAVI , the Vaccine Alliance , have launched serious efforts to insure that the vaccine is not available only in rich countries .
The world ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the massive economic contraction caused by the pandemic .
The question is how bad the damage from the virus will be , and that is up to the wealthier nations .
Without their support , most people on earth will continue the battle against COVID-19 long after it is forgotten in New York or Paris .
“ COVID-19 has had a devastating effect on health services and , in particular , immunization services , worldwide , ” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus , the director-general of the W.H.O.
, said recently , in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with COVID , we have the tools and knowledge to stop diseases such as polio and measles .
What we need are the resources and commitments to put these tools and knowledge into action , ” he added .
“ If we do that , children ’ s lives will be saved.
’ ’ Public-health officials have estimated that it will cost less than a billion dollars to prepare for and treat expected increases in polio and measles in Africa and Asia over the next year or two .
Americans have already shouldered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ burden of refusing to prepare for pandemics or to take them seriously .
COVID-19 has cost us trillions of dollars .
Will we deny the world ’ s poorest people a sliver of that amount and watch as they continue to die of another preventable disease ?
More on the Coronavirus • To protect American lives and revive the economy , Donald Trump and Jared Kushner should listen to Anthony Fauci rather than trash him .
• We should look to students to conceive of appropriate school-reopening plans .
It is not too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
• A pregnant pediatrician on what children need during the crisis .
• Trump is helping tycoons who have donated to his reëlection campaign exploit the pandemic to maximize profits .
• Meet the high-finance mogul in charge of our economic recovery .
• The coronavirus is likely to reshape architecture .
What kinds of space are we willing to live and work in now ?

For residents of the world’s wealthier nations, the highly promising coronavirus vaccines that are about to be approved, along with those that are still in development, guarantee that the pandemic will end. Not soon enough, and certainly not before a winter of continued death and darkness is behind us. But, eventually, it will end. Then, after countless recriminations—Why did we have no proper testing or tracing? How did we allow the President and his team to catastrophically mismanage the worst public-health crisis in a century?—we will move on.
For many of the world’s poorest children, however, the suffering may have only begun. This spring, the World Health Organization warned that the coronavirus could spread rapidly in clinics throughout lower-income nations where children assemble to receive common vaccinations. Some of those countries, sensibly enough, in the absence of active outbreaks, suspended their childhood-vaccine programs. Since then, however, in parts of Africa and Asia, cases of cholera, diphtheria, and pertussis have risen, and a resurgence of measles and polio has caused greater concern. According to W.H.O. models, measles vaccines prevented 23.2 million deaths between 2000 and 2018; most measles deaths occur in children who are under the age of five. Without a polio vaccination, at least eighteen million people who are walking around today would have been paralyzed.
In the West, the measles vaccine was introduced in 1963. Most low-income countries could not afford it until the mid-eighties. This is a pattern—rich countries benefit from medical advances long before others—that has a well-documented and deadly history. In 1980, measles killed more than two million children, most of whom lived in the world’s poorest countries. That figure fell steadily for decades, as the vaccine was adopted more widely, and by 2016 there were fewer than a hundred and thirty-five thousand measles infections in the world, with ninety thousand deaths. In the past year, though, researchers from UNICEF and the W.H.O. have reported that more than ninety-four million children missed their planned measles vaccination. At the same time, sixty polio-eradication campaigns in twenty-eight countries were suspended. That has already caused new outbreaks of a disease that, just a few years ago, had been nearly wiped out. In the two nations where polio has remained endemic, Afghanistan and Pakistan, some forms of the virus have increased fivefold since 2019. In the coming year, as children—and viruses—begin to move around again, the spread of polio, measles, and other potentially deadly but preventable diseases will almost certainly be considerably wider.
“For months, the world has been appropriately fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine race,’’ Bruce Gellin, the president of global immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, told me. But, he added, the impact of the pandemic on routine immunizations could become enormous, as lockdowns cease and people are able to mingle freely again. “We are in the eye of the storm, with grim predictions that we will soon see large outbreaks of measles. And, worse, the malnutrition that results from COVID-induced stresses on social and economic systems will turn measles from a severe infection into a killer.” Measles can be seen as a kind of index for poverty and weakened public-health systems. The relationship between malnutrition and measles has been noted for decades; children who die from measles are often malnourished (and, in economically deprived regions, those who survive measles often become malnourished).
The possibility of an explosion of measles in the coming year is particularly ominous because it is one of the world’s most contagious diseases. Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases still occur when too few individuals in a population are vaccinated, and, with measles, about ninety-five per cent of children need to be vaccinated in order to stop the spread. Measles was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000, but the number of infections has risen since 2016—fuelled, in part, by widespread but unfounded fears of vaccines in this country and in Western Europe—and they surged in 2019. There were a hundred and twenty cases per one million people in 2019, up from eighteen cases per one million in 2016. In 2019, there were twelve hundred and eighty-two cases reported in this country, the highest number in decades. The same year, the W.H.O. reported 869,770 cases of measles around the globe, the most since 1996. Sustained outbreaks occurred in every region monitored by the organization. There were some two hundred and seven thousand deaths—though exact statistics are hard to measure, and public-health experts agree that the number of reported cases is far short of the true number of infections. Although measles has killed no one in the United States since 2015, it is clear that as the infections grow so does the risk of serious injury and death.
As always, the countries that face the greatest peril are the least financially equipped to deal with the added burden. As of September, according to both the W.H.O and UNICEF, nineteen countries were responding to twenty-nine distinct polio outbreaks, nearly all of them in Africa. According to a report from researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, published in The Lancet, the risks of delaying vaccination in the poorest countries will be worse than the risks of the COVID-19 pandemic itself. In other words, disrupting the vaccine programs in Africa, in an effort to curb the pandemic, will have the unintended effect of killing more people than would have died from COVID-19 after visiting clinics.
Now that coronavirus vaccines are on the horizon, there has been much discussion about whether the world’s poorest people will have access to them, and at what cost. Many philanthropies, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, have launched serious efforts to insure that the vaccine is not available only in rich countries. The world’s poorest people will certainly suffer the most from the massive economic contraction caused by the pandemic. The question is how bad the damage from the virus will be, and that is up to the wealthier nations. Without their support, most people on earth will continue the battle against COVID-19 long after it is forgotten in New York or Paris.
“COVID-19 has had a devastating effect on health services and, in particular, immunization services, worldwide,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the W.H.O., said recently, in a public statement. “But, unlike with COVID, we have the tools and knowledge to stop diseases such as polio and measles. What we need are the resources and commitments to put these tools and knowledge into action,” he added. “If we do that, children’s lives will be saved.’’ Public-health officials have estimated that it will cost less than a billion dollars to prepare for and treat expected increases in polio and measles in Africa and Asia over the next year or two. Americans have already shouldered the enormous financial, and moral, burden of refusing to prepare for pandemics or to take them seriously. COVID-19 has cost us trillions of dollars. Will we deny the world’s poorest people a sliver of that amount and watch as they continue to die of another preventable disease?
More on the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-12-03--Barr Begs Trump Not to Let One Isolated Incident of Honesty Wipe Out Two Years of Lying

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —With his job on the line , Attorney General William Barr begged Donald J.
@ @ @ @ @ isolated incident of honesty wipe out two years of wonderful lying .
According to those @ @ @ @ @ meeting between the two men , Barr desperately sought to remind Trump of the steady @ @ @ @ @ he had spewed during his tenure as the President ’ s toadying lackey .
“ @ @ @ @ @ the Mueller report exonerated you ?
” Barr pleaded .
“ That was a great @ @ @ @ @ it ?
” “ And remember when I said that no tear gas was used @ @ @ @ @ Park ?
” he said .
“ We ’ ve had so many good times @ @ @ @ @ tried to excuse his one moment of honesty as “ temporary insanity ” and assured @ @ @ @ @ never happen again.
” “ Even the greatest liars slip and tell the truth sometimes @ @ @ @ @

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—With his job on the line, Attorney General William Barr begged Donald J. Trump not to let one isolated incident of honesty wipe out two years of wonderful lying.
According to those who witnessed the Oval Office meeting between the two men, Barr desperately sought to remind Trump of the steady stream of outrageous whoppers that he had spewed during his tenure as the President’s toadying lackey.
“What about when I said the Mueller report exonerated you?” Barr pleaded. “That was a great one, wasn’t it?”
“And remember when I said that no tear gas was used on the protesters in Lafayette Park?” he said. “We’ve had so many good times together.”
The Attorney General tried to excuse his one moment of honesty as “temporary insanity” and assured Trump that it would “never happen again.”
“Even the greatest liars slip and tell the truth sometimes,” he said.
“I don’t,” Trump frostily replied.