Böcker av Ayad Gharbawi

DG: Most people who met you mentioned the strength of your eyes. They were "shining", "blank" and "cruel", Kubizek's mother recalled.Kubizek: "Never in my life have I seen any other person whose appearance was so completely dominated by the eyes … In fact, Adolf spoke with his eyes, and even when his lips were silent, one knew what he wanted to say."DG: Kubizek asked you many times if you found work, and you replied, "Of course not." Doesn't that suggest a dismissive attitude towards work, Herr Hitler?Hitler: I disagree. As I told you I worked whenever -DG: Yes, you said that, but I'm talking about another attribute of yours. Your bohemianism. Hitler [Chuckling]: Was I bohemian because I was enraptured by Wagnerian operas? And was I bohemian because I wanted to be an artist? But then I will readily admit to you that in all my life, I only wished to be a simple artist, maybe even going so far as to Italy, wandering about there as an unknown painter.DG: Not at all, Herr Hitler. Being an artist does not necessarily make you a bohemian. Your bohemianism exhibited itself because you airily daydreamed all your life yet without any actual action. It just so happened, not one of these daydreams were remotely connected to the realities of your real world and life.

How well do we know Hitler? Is he mad? If so, is he still criminally culpable for his crimes? Assuming one accepts the existence of evil, is he evil?If Hitler is a criminal, what about the acts of other leaders? Is Churchill equal to Hitler, when we note he starved three million Bengalis in 1943? Why is Churchill not also an immoral man for being the first leader to use chemical weapons post-1918? The French ultimately killed one million Algerians whose crime was to seek independence. The Americans dropped more bombs on Laos than all bombs dropped throughout World War Two. Is that not a crime too? But who thinks of LBJ and Nixon as mass murderers, on par with Hitler? Bush the father and son, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown ensure over half a million Iraqis starved to death, thanks to the sanctions they imposed. Are they not mass murderers? If not, why is that?If Hitler is mad, what about the significant number of Germans who fanatically followed him? Were they too mad? Can an entire nation be mad?Why did the Allies conspicuously avoid disrupting Hitler's Holocaust?What about Hitler's disciples - how do they explain their deeds?This novel is an interrogation of the mind not only of Hitler, but of his fanatic disciples who carried out mass murders on a daily basis and who were on the surface 'normal' men and women.

Hitler: And when they next asked him about my personality, just like you are doing throughout these conversations, seeking to hear abnormalities in my mind, Dr. Bloch again rebuked them saying, and I quote his words:Dr. Bloch: While Hitler was not a mother's boy in the usual sense, I never witnessed a closer attachment. Their love had been mutual. Klara Hitler adored her son. For example, she admired his watercolour paintings and drawings and supported his artistic ambitions in opposition to his father at what cost to herself one may guess. Hitler was the saddest man I had ever seen. [Following Klara's death]. DG: Yes, if we are quoting the good doctor, as you call him, he also said this of your pious, frugal mother: Dr. Bloch: "Sie würde sich im Grabe herumdrehen, wenn sie wüsste, was aus ihm geworden ist." ("She would turn in her grave if she knew what became of him."DG: Later, in an interview, dated March 14th, 1941, he said the following:Dr. Bloch: At the time Frau Hitler was in her early forties. She was a simple modest, kindly woman. She was tall, had brownish hair which she kept neatly plaited, and a long, oval face with beautifully expressive gray-blue eyes. She was desperately worried about the responsibilities thrust upon her by her husband's death. Alois, twenty-three years her senior, had always managed the family. Now the job was hers.It was readily apparent that son Adolf was too young and altogether too frail to become a farmer. So, her best move seemed to be to sell the place and rent a small apartment. This she did, soon after her husband's death. With the proceeds of this sale and the small pension which came to her because of her husband's government position, she managed to hold her family together.The Hitler's had only a few friends. One stood out above the others; the widow of the postmaster who lived in the same house.The limited budget allowed not even the smallest extravagance. We had the usual provincial opera in Linz; not good, and not bad. Those who would hear the best went to Vienna. Seats in the gallery of our theater, the Schauspielhaus, sold for the equivalent of 10 to 15 cents in American money. Yet occupying one of those seats to hear an indifferent troupe sing Lohengrin was such a memorable occasion that Hitler records it in Mein Kampf!The family diet was, of necessity, simple and rugged. Food was cheap and plentiful in Linz; and the Hitler family ate much the same diet as other people in their circumstances. Meat would be served perhaps twice a week. Most of the meals they sat down to consisted of cabbage or potato soup, bread, dumplings and a pitcher of pear and apple cider.For clothing, they wore the rough woollen cloth we call Loden. Adolf, of course, dressed in the uniform of all small boys; leather shorts, embroidered suspenders, a small green hat with a feather in its band ....He was tall, sallow, old for his age. He was neither robust nor sickly. Perhaps "frail looking" would best describe him. His eyes - inherited from his mother- were large, melancholy and thoughtful. To a very large extent this boy lived within himself. What dreams he dreamed I do not know.Outwardly, his love for his mother was his most striking feature. While he was not a 'mother's boy' in the usual sense, I have never witnessed a closer attachment. Some insist that this love verged on the pathological. As a former intimate of the family, I do not believe this is true.Klara Hitler adored her son, the youngest of the family. She allowed him his own way wherever possible. His father had insisted that he become an official. He rebelled and won his mother to his side.

1. Can Germans Be Defined as Insane and Evil Because of Their Ardent Support of Hitler? 2. Hitler - "You Know, I Was Not Born an Anti-Semite. I Learned to Be an Anti-Semite." 3. Henriette von Schirach - The Only German Who Directly Protested to Hitler For His Maltreatment of the Jews

Dorothy Gale continues on her journey seeking a way out to get back home from the ravages of war-time Berlin, 1945.On the yellow brick road, she meets and converses with her Father, her insidiously bitter mother Adeliza, the Bad Dorothy Witch, Hades, Lucifer, author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, Theater of Cruelty creator and poet Antonin Artaud, Peruvian dancer Helba Huara [part of Henry Miller and Anais Nin bohemian group] , Hitler's officer, SS-Gruppenführer Fegelein, Cambodian genocidal leader, Pol Pot, vorarephiliac and cannibal Armin Meiwes, avant-garde film director Maya Deren, journalist Martha Gellhorn, Mother Theresa, novelist Virginia Woolf, pop artist Andy Warhol, serial killer Ted Bundy and Shakespeare's Ophelia.

These are a selection of poems by Ayad Gharbawi. Wide-ranging poems in their purview on life and the choices facing Man. Persisting reminders tormenting awash with a dryness hurtful Punctured living watersGruesome mental scars Uncertainties debilitating Dangling insanityNooses chasing each otherThunderously excitingFestering gashesHere between myselfBetween us And so, what you feltOr whatever you feel for meI never fathomed what exactly was it