Book Review-What did you do during the war sister?

This book was unlike any other books that I have had the pleasure to read. It is a historical novella based on historical records. The author, Prof. Dennis Turner, had the good fortune of being given the task of telling the stories based on letters that were stored in the archives of the Sister of Notre Dame de Namur in Cincinnati OH. It was a treasure trove of firsthand records from the letters written by the sisters who lived in Belgium during the second world war.  The sisters had written assiduously about their experiences in  German occupied Belgium at that time to their sisters in the United States. Their accounts of the war form the foundation of this story.

What makes this account unique is that the author chose to cleverly weave a fictional account that is based on letters and historical records in order to unify the disparate accounts. He was able to gain access to both in Cincinnati and in Belgium by serendipity, a nun of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Dayton was a colleague of Prof. Turner’s wife, and he was drawn into the project due to that friendship. The story telling is clever because of the use of fictional narrative form to pull together the personal recollections from the nuns’ letters while the author placed the personal accounts in historical perspective as he integrated the fact from history with the personal accounts of history. Prof. Turner has successfully worked all the details from the historical and the personal into a cohesive and cogent narrative, allowing us to delve into the minutiae of the effects of war on those affected by war as well as giving us allowing us to see history from a most personal and intimate view point. It is no surprise that the research is impeccable and the attention to details extraordinary. The author is a professor of law at the University of Dayton and a renowned law expert. His undergraduate degree in History no doubt served as an invaluable compass for the directions that this book and shaped the organization of the narrative. The impeccable  research on the letters, the stitching of the details  into a cogent and flowing form, and then integrating the bits into a readable and interesting whole was a labor of love.

The story revolves around a fictional character, sister Christina, an amalgam of all the sisters who wrote the letters. Prof. Turner gave the character life by giving her a midwestern life, she is an American nun from Dayton Ohio. The opening chapter shows Sister Christina a brief background: her upbringing, her world views, and her reason for pursuing the religious life. This background chapter gives the reader a peak to her as a character and to explain who she is as well as give a boost of realism to the narrative.

The story proceeds with sister Christina travelling to Belgium in 1938 to join the Sisters of Notre Dame of Namur.  She had been trained in the Cincinnati motherhouse but needed to complete her training in Belgium.

As a side note, the author did the readers a great favor by making three critical decisions: one is to name the chapters with the time and the place to note when and where the action takes place; the second critical decision is to provide an extensive and complete set of end notes. The third decision was to include several photos, both old photos taken during the period of the story and during Prof. Turner’s research trips to Belgium.  All three decisions paid dividends as I was able to trace the story chronologically and me to answer the critical question: which part of this narrative is historical. The pictures gave me the reassurance that I was indeed reading about real people and real places. The author did not overtly insert too much fictional accounts to entice the reader, he stayed true to the story he was given.

The story is told in chronological format. For those of us who are somewhat knowledgeable about the Second World War the dates helped put the story in perspective. The Germans had not yet invaded Belgium as the story began, the narrative picked up during the diplomacy phase of the negotiations as Belgium was attempting to ward off the inevitable. Sister Christina related some of the realpolitik during the negotiations between Belgian King and the Germans. This detail added yet another interesting perspective to the story without seeming pedantic.

Some  of the initial narrative was devoted to describing the daily lives of the nuns. Prof. Turner described a typical day in the life of a nun in Belgium during the 1940s. It was not an easy life obviously; the details evoke strong feelings of admiration and some disbelief, but this part of the book laid the foundation for the reader to understand the nature of Sister Christina’s story.  

As the drumbeat of war became louder in Belgium, numerous travails befell Sister Christina and the nuns in her abbey as she navigated the changing fortunes of war. We were able to experience the war through the eyes of Sister Christina and the nuns. Sister Christina related the conditions of the abbey as well as the shifting sands of circumstance that are both interior and exterior to their narrow existence in the abbey. The material hardships were immense while being under German occupation added an immense amount of terror to their psychological hardship. At the same time, the narrative was inspiring because of how the sisters were able to improvise, adapt, and overcome the material and psychological hardships that fortune dealt them.

The  stories about the cleverness of the nuns as they attempted to hide refugees, some Jewish children, and wounded Americans within the abbeys were funny, terror filled, and tense, they were harrowing and exciting at the same time.

Most of the dramatizations on World War Two in film and television relates the battlefield narrative.  It is rare to find a historically rigorous account of civilians enduring the hardships of the war in Europe without Hollywood dramatization. This book gives us a unique perspective and takes a different turn from the familiar.

Another interesting side note is that these letters were written after the nuns’ has had time to think, consider, and reflect upon their experience, so they have had time to digest the meaning of these experiences and placed their importance in the context of their life experiences, their religious beliefs and training. The letters were indeed quite unique in their sentiments. It is particularly fortuitous that Prof. Turner recreated the  ethos of the time and place beautifully with his deft handling of the material.

The book’s existence serves as a timeless reflection upon the chaos of that man has wrought upon ourselves, the goodness and the badness that the self-inflicted chaos had brought to  the lives of those who experienced it. It was an enjoyable and instructive sojourn into a time and a place that elicited my curiosity.

This is great story telling.

Volleyball Coaching Life-The Volleyball Coaching Family

Earlier this week something happened within the world of collegiate volleyball coaching that was significant. Everyone knows or have heard tidbits of what happened, but I will briefly describe what happened in a nutshell.

A recruiting service owner send out an email to all of the Division I coaches, there were over 350 people on that list. In this email the recruiting service owner joked on the profile of one of his customers, a 16-year-old recruit that had paid his company. The joke was not particularly overt or funny, but it was racist and extremely offensive, especially to Asian Americans. Of which I am one.

What would possess a middle-aged businessman to send something like that out to all the potential or present customers for his service is beyond me. It is risky, especially given what is going on in society today, and more importantly, it revealed his ignorance, privilege, and lack of character.

What I do want to talk about is the response of the Division 1 head coaches that were on the email list. I saw some of the emails responses from those coaches, and they were directed bluntly and honestly at the recruiting service owner. They were unconstrained and honest in their response. Many mocked him, many put their foot down by declaring: we don't want to deal with somebody like you anymore, so they cancelled their subscription. Many coaches pointed out the fact that he had written he unfunny little joke on the profile of a 16-year-old girl whom he is representing, and as leaders in the sport, we should set a much better example, be a better role model than what was represented by the comment. We should always strive to do better.

The first response that I had read came from a coach who I know and I respect. He is a coach of a highly placed team in the collegiate ranks. He is at the top of his profession and he didn't need to step up and say the things he did but I am glad that he did because knowing him, he felt like he needed to step up to his own moral standards. He was unequivocal in his condemnation of this man's comments. He demonstrated his leadership at that critical moment. He knew that he was exposing himself to all the other head coaches in the Division 1ranks.  He chose to make a statement, he took a step forward and did not just stand in place, and he told the world of collegiate volleyball coaching that this kind of behavior is not acceptable.

It was a very bold move in my estimation because this was not a preplanned, professionally produced video or a well-crafted written statement coming from the keyboards of some well-oiled publicity machine. The was not a calculated statement on black lives matter, filtered and edited by the legal sharks and intentionally tuned to not offend anyone, to deliberately leave no skin in the game. This was a visceral and genuine reaction. He very clearly told the man: you should not have gone there. Even though he did not threaten to punitively punish those recruits who had signed up with this company, he did clearly state that the relationship has changed for the worst, if not been destroyed. To make that statement took a fortitude that most people in this age of spin doctoring and obsequious cowering would not even consider.

I was also happy to see that he was not the only one who stood up to be counted. Many Division 1 coaches tweeted their disgust at the recruiting service and they said plainly that this is unacceptable. There were enough Division 1 coaches who responded by canceling their subscription that the owner apologized en masse. Unfortunately he had already defended himself multiple times in private emails to the chain of coaches, saying that: I was just joking, I was having a bad day, and I still believe in what I said I just said it in a bad way: it was a no apology apology. The usual public: I'm sorry that you felt bad about what I said but I'm not sorry that I said it statement. Which is typical of many of the weasels who populate that business. After having been called out many times, and after seeing his business suffer catastrophically, he finally relented and wrote a very contrite and sincere sounding apology. He decided to step down from his own company in deference to bringing in someone else to run his company, someone less reactionary and supposedly more ‘woke’. I am reserving judgment, they need to show me. Walk the walk.

Getting back to the coaches, even though I was not privy to all of the exploding email chain that resulted from the incidence - so I don't know exactly what all these coaches said ˗ I do know that there were enough cancellations to make this man panic and resign. Assuming the best of fellow coaches, I am proud of the volleyball coaching community, actually it is an even more intimate relationship. I would say we are a volleyball coaching family. As a minority person in this volleyball coaching family, I have always been made comfortably welcomed and felt a part of that community. I still wonder, in the deep recesses of my mind, however, whether I had the right to have that peace of mind, or I would wonder whether I was being a fool for believing that this was indeed a family.

I've been at coaching for a little over 20 years and I've always felt that way, there has never been any overt statements being made or actions being taken regarding my minority status, but I have always been on guard and prepared to respond in case something happened to change. The unity and immediate response shown by the Division 1 coaches made me that much more comfortable with my assumptions, even though I am still on guard, it is a bad habit, a survival instinct driven habit.

This instance, in the greater scheme of things, does not mean much, but it meant everything symbolically to everybody that is involved with volleyball, it meant the world to me. It made me feel comforted that my fellow coaches stood up and acted, swiftly and decisively. It made me feel proud that we are all a part of a family that is willing to uphold the highest moral and ethical standards in doing what we do: teach and lead the future generations.

I now send a message to the Division 1 coaches who were so vocal in doing the right thing. To quote Jack Buck, former St. Louis Cardinal announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, I am standing, and I am applauding you.