END OF THE YEAR - MISSY SPEAKS

Hello My Dear "Steady" Readers!

This Holiday Season has been an unusual one for me.  I've remet relatives I haven't seen in years and met for the first time one I'm not related to, but a family member is: a son of my cousin's birth father came in from another country. I was not nervous about meeting him but others were nervous about it.  You see, my cousin's birth father and a relative of mine who was the birth mother many years ago when being an unwed mother was just not done in polite society were estranged. The two families would not even walk on the same side of the street back in the day. The unwed mother suffered terribly and never wed, while the unwed father did, again and again. And all these years later, a man in his senior years, their son, for the first time, had representatives of both sides of this long ago drama at the same table, holding hands as we closed our eyes and said a prayer before our meal.

I introduced myself to this man within moments of his entering the house, as a cousin from "the other side," and it took a while for him to realize what I was saying. No one had warned him. Now, what I was not prepared for was to like him very much.  In fact I was attracted to him, though of course not going to act upon it. Of course neither of us are actually responsible for what happened in those World War II years and none of us are responsible for the actions of people who were alive when we had not yet been born!

Still, it got me thinking about how much things have changed because so very many women are unwed mother's these days (and to be fair there are unwed father's involved too!).  As so many women who were Courtesans or Mistresses have had to, raising a child aside.

Home from the festivities that went better than anyone could have imagined, I decided to check on my blog here, MISTRESS MANIFESTO.  I know some mistresses are reading this blog as well as many more "mistress curious." 

Long ago I promised myself that I would not research and write only for hits.  (I even took down the Jim Morrison - Pamela and Patricia Triad for some time because that subject got too many hits, and I wanted my readers to go further in their reading and understanding.)  Well, I looked at the Google Stat's that are provided free with Google Blogger, and strangely I saw these extreme spikes of hits happening around Christmas.  In my heart I knew what was happening.  It wasn't those too busy with the holidays to read MISTRESS MANIFESTO, it was those who were at home, maybe even home alone for a week or so when the one they love is out of town.

A Mistress isn't always a Classic and Kept or living around another person. Adultery need not occur for someone to be a Mistress and these days with so many people living together without ever saying "I DO" it get's more difficult to even define a Mistress. But often Secret Romances go on hold around this time of the year when one person (or both) is more dedicated to family. Just as Secret Romances also often begin around this time; think about the Office Party and one too many, my friends.

Thank You for reading my blog.  I do work hard at it, and I know that it is appreciated.


Missy

YOU'D BE SO NICE TO COME HOME TO - JULIE LONDON

HOLIDAYS

G.K. CHESTERTON SAID

"Romance is the deepest thing in life, romance is deeper even than reality."

WARMING UP

I don't know about you, but once in a while I long to be stuck in a well stocked cabin in the woods, where no one knows where I am and can't find me for a few days. Not that I have the survival skills to endure before the long winter is over out in the wilderness, but sometimes I long for the quietude that our ancestors took for granted. No cell phones, no landlines, no radio, television - no interruption.


A fire burning to keep me warm.
A pot of chili or stew cooking.
A good loaf of fresh bread.
Butter.
Writing paper and pen.



I want to hear the snowflakes falling and hitting the window pane, hear the blood moving through my veins, but mostly know my own thoughts.


Missy

NO TWO ALIKE

SNOWFALL - SINGERS UNLIMITED

SNOWFLAKES

CHERI - BELLE EPOQUE MISTRESSES IN FRANCE : A FILM ABOUT AN OLDER COURTESAN AND A MUCH YOUNGER MAN

Lea, acted by Michelle Pfeiffer, is a French, pre- World War I Paris, Bell Epoch courtesan who has, until she meets a certain younger man, she calls Cheri, prideful of not ever really falling in love enough to be hurt.  Cheri was turned over to Lea by a somewhat older courtesan, a bit of a rival, who wants her son to get a good education in sex.  Now that she has fallen in love and done her job well, her rival match-makes her son with an age-appropriate and pure young daughter of yet another Courtesan. 

Lea uses all that she knows about being a woman, sex but not just, to get him back.

Taking place at a time when some Courtesans became wealthy, independent women by investing their money right, we none-the-less realize how small their world and opportunities are.  What they want for their children is a more normal life and a rise into respectability.

Lea wins the young man back. How can he forget his perfect lover when his wife is so, well, inexperienced?  In actuality Lea must turn him away when he comes back to her. an act of the most ferocious, selfless love. Her wisdom as she approaches mid-life is heartbreaking, which is why this is a good, thought-provoking and entertaining film.  And it's great to see the actress Kathy Bates in a role in which she is seductive.

C 2017  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  film review  Missy Rapport

FALLING

A GOOD WOMAN : MRS. ERLYNNE AS THE WISE MISTRESS

Mrs. Erlynne, is acted by Helen Hunt, as the 40ish Serial Mistress who sets her sights on Amalfi, Italy for a season in 1930.  Mrs. Erlynne hasn't actually been married for years and she understands what motivates her and why she has chosen the lifestyle she has, considering the bad reputation she must endure.  Marriages isn't for her; generally, it's boring.

Scarlett Johansson acts as newlywed Meg Windermere who is vacationing with her husband. New to marriage and assured of her status in her set, she's been raised by a relative believing that her mother died when she was young.  Beautiful, trusting and sweet, the town gossips fill her in on the wicked ways of the world, but before her innocence can be robbed from her, Mrs. Erlynne shows up, and the gossip about the woman intrigues her.

Mrs. Erlynne, a Serial Mistress, is also a wise woman. She is quite expert at having men pay her bills - until their wives shut down her lines of credit.  Said to have fled New York and unpaid hotel bills, why is she really in Amalfi?

Is she, as the gossips say, a common prostitute, or a woman trying to make her way up in high society by eventually marrying the right man, someone who can live with her sins?  

In the end, Mrs. Erlynne decides she will not reveal her important secret to Meg, and allow her to believe her dead mother is her guardian angel.

Helen Hunt's mistress rather aches with repressed emotions.

C 2017 film review Mistress Manifesto Blogspot

SNOWFLAKE

SHAMPOO - A MISTRESS FILM THAT STARS WARREN BEATTY, GOLDIE HAHN, and JULIE CHRISTIE

Are all hairdressers gay?  George *(Warren Beatty) isn't.  In fact women are seduced not only by his beautiful trendy looks, and we presume sexual experise, but because he makes them feel beautiful and look beautiful.  He's one popular guy.  Some of the greatest women in town want private appointments with him, only trusting their hair - and their bodies too sometimes - to him.  Carrie Fisher plays the daughter who quizzes him at a home visit to see if he's sleeping with her mom.

At home he has a girlfriend Jill (Goldie Hawn).

He's sleeping with the wife of the businessman he approaches for financing to open his own salon.  Jill is used to waiting around for him, or going by the salon he works at to see him and being brushed aside. It's not till the end of the film that she asks him to move out because he admits that he sleeps around. He thinks sleeping around is part of his job. 

Jill is shocked but behaves in a noble manner, even if it is the 1960's.  Called "one of the American Film Institutes Funniest Movies" to that date, and nominated for four Academy Awards, I didn't quite get that this was a racy farce.  George isn't just sleeping with the investors wife, but also his mistress - Julie Christie's character.

Now here is what I noted while viewing the film, which is still a very popular one to borrow or rent:

The business man Lester's mistress - Christie - used to be George's girlfriend and they still like each other and are sexually attracted to each other - but being pragmatic, she's moved on him because he can support her.  As George becomes more frantic to own his own salon, he begins to part from Jill, saying that she needs someone who can "Take care of her."  Finances are supreme in his mind.

One gets the impression that perhaps when George is through with a woman or she is through with him, he releases his responsibility by urging her to a richer man. Of course George isn't doing so bad even if he's just the hottest hairdresser in town at one of the busiest and best salons.

This film's worth a watch because it got all that acclaim years ago!


Through the years I've heard that the George character was based on hairdresser Jay Sebring who was eventually killed by the Manson Murderers along with actress Sharon Tate.  Can't prove it, but thought that was interesting. If so, I'll bet the detectives considered that the murderer might be a man jealous over a woman.

C 2017  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  film review  Missy Rapport

LET IT SNOW - THE PUPPINI SISTERS

PUPPINI SISTERS

GEOMETRY

INTO THE HOLIDAYS with MISTRESS MANIFESTO

Run the word Mistress into your public library database and up will come a whole lot of fiction, depictions of Mistresses as strong women, ruled by desire and ruled by a need to compete with other women and win/deserve the love of a man worth waiting for. 

No doubt about it, many women have a fantasy of becoming a Mistress.  For some an escape fantasy.  From dreary job prospects, from a so-so marriage, from boredom. 

Coming up, I'm going to review three "Mistress Films" that you might enjoy seeing, and then I'm personally going to kick back.
 

SNOWFLAKE

BLAME IT ON MY YOUTH : KEITH JARRETT TRIO

SNOWFLAKES

LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT

THANK YOU

OK, TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND LET IT OUT - LET'S GIVE THANKS

I always wanted to cover some NAZI MISTRESSES, and I kept putting it off, because it's an especially tough subject and there seemed to be no good time to do so.  How can a woman love a man who is a murderer, blatantly so, as Amon Goth was?
How did Nazi's manage to do what they did?
Pure evil? Mass Hypnosis? Conformity? Rationalization?

These are things we should think about, absolutely.  The posts are there for you to get back to another time, because I know you need to take a deep breath and let it out. 
I know that you are ready for the American Holidays, beginning tomorrow, Thanksgiving, our celebration of Prosperity, as well as a celebration of our appreciation of the Freedoms of our Country, the United States of America, and being free of tyranny is part of that..

So, now's the time to redirect your thoughts to the Good in our world.

This past year I've met a few people who by my way of thinking qualify as Saints because of the selflessness they exhibit in kindness and service to others.

Here are two examples.

I know a woman, Betty, who agreed to have Power of Attorney to another woman, Mazie, when Mazie's husband died. They had known each other for over 30 years when he died.  Mazie, once brilliant and highly educated with a good career, has Alzheimer's and over the last six years Betty has done everything to give this a woman the best quality of life possible, though there came the day when she had to move her out of her house and into an Assisted Living home, something she feels bad about. Now Mazie sits in the corner paging through picture books, but Betty even tries to find her picture books she'd actually be interested in.

I met Shauna long ago and never really got to talking to her until recently. She always impressed me as a fashionista, because she seems to change her eyeglasses, hair and nails frequently, coordinating them with various colorful outfits. So I sat with her and asked her if she was on her way home and she said no, she was going to see a relative in a home where he must receive round the clock care for the rest of his life.  Shauna lives at least an hour and a half to two and a half hours, depending on how transportation is running, from the Nursing Home her relative lives in.  Eight years ago he was in a terrible accident and wasn't supposed to live.  The doctors determined they would pull the plug.  Shauna told God that if he would allow this relative to live, she would visit him every day.  And she has, not missing a day in EIGHT YEARS! 
I said, "You are so dedicated and loyal!" 
She said, "No it's God.  He's the one who opens my eyes each morning and when my eyes are open, then I know I have to get dressed and go!"  Here I thought I was sitting with a fashionista, but really I was sitting with a SAINT!

These people are exceptional.

I'll bet there is someone in your life who you are grateful for.  Remember to thank them!
Missy
C 2017 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved

RUTH IRENE KALDER : MISTRESS OF NAZI WAR CRIMINAL AMON GOTH

OSKAR SCHINDLER

The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities,

and the True Story Behind the List

by David M. Crowe

Westview Press - A member of Perseus Books Group

(The primary reference for this month's subject)

RUTH IRENE KALDER

Ruth Kalder started out as a secretary to Oskar Schindler at a business he had in 1942.  He brought her along to one of Amon Goth's luxurious parties at the mansion in which he lived in above the death camp at Plaszow. Amon, married with two children, is said to have fallen in love with her at first sight but also told her he would never divorce.  His wife and the children remained in Vienna. She was an actress from Beslau (today Wroclaw, Poland).  Amon was from a well to do Viennese publishing family.  It's said that he had two personalities, one the Viennese gentleman.  His legendary temper could turn fast. 

Ruth loved her rich life at the mansion above the camp.  Her days were filled with horseback riding, tennis, and sunbathing on the balcony that had a view of the camp, a camp she claims to have never visited.  For two years she lived with Amon, and while she may have somehow been blissfully unaware of the killings and whippings that occurred at the camp, many of them carried out by the violent man who loved to kill that she slept beside, she was not innocent of the way he treated his two Jewish maid-slaves, one of whom is depicted in the film "Schindler's List."  She stopped him from raping one of them, Helen, when she came upon his tearing off the woman's clothes off.  It's unlikely this was the first time the woman was raped by him.  One witness depicted in the film, Itzhak Stern, said that the maid Helen was "the most unfortunate of all the inmates at the Plaszow Camp" and that she suffered under Amon Goth "more than ten lifetimes." (Page 261)

Ruth called Amon by his childhood nickname, "Mony,"and is said to have adored him.  She would tell the daughter they had together, Monica Christiane, that he was a ladies man with a beautiful singing voice.  He was hung when Monica was 10 months old, and the truth about her father was withheld from her in her childhood. It became a long painful struggle for Monica to come to terms with the monster her father really was, but since research was being done around Oskar Schindler, she did interviews in which she said that Schindler could never have saved Jews if it were not for the friendship and cooperation of her father.

Ruth told her daughter when she was about 12 that her father only killed Jews for "sanitation" reasons.

 * Along with his wife, this number goes to about 1300.

WHERE LIGHT and SHADOW MEET by EMILIE SCHINDLER, OSKAR's WIFE, ON THEIR MISTRESS ACCOMMODATING MARRIAGE

Written by Emilie Schindler with Erika Rosenberg  C 1996

 and translated from the original Spanish by Dolores M. Koch

W.W. Norton and Company Publishers

also

Editorial Planeta Argentina

EXCERPTS and NOTES:

(Pages 50 -51 About living in Cracow, Poland as a married couple beginning in 1941.)

"We lived in an apartment that Oskar had purchased from a very wealthy Jewish family.  The luxury was evident in the porcelain vases, Persian rugs, tapestries, and heavy velvet curtains. The windows opened on the Planty, a group of parks that followed the contours of the old city walls near the Wawel fortress.

Before I finally moved to Cracow, Oskar used to take his lovers to the apartment, especially two* of them:  Amelia and a Polish women Viktoria Klonowska. Amelia worked with him in counterintelligence, while Viktoria, thanks to her contacts with high authorities, improved Oskar's connections with the Gestapo."  *here I eliminate the name of one of them as in other books it's said that her memory was wrong),

"Before I moved in with Oskar again, I had visited his apartment many times.  Whenever I arrived, his lovers would vanish into thin air, although Oskar did not manage to conceal entirely what was going on during my absence. I had realized that he was not sleeping alone, but I chose to look the other way. I knew much more than he imagined, and even got to know some of his women personally." 

(Page 60 - About OSKAR and GOETH (i.e Amon Goth)

"Edith**, his lover, tried to appease him when he was in an indiscriminate killing rage, but she seldom succeeded in turning him away from this bloody practice.

It was Oskar who had introduced her to Goeth. They had a daughter, who has never admitted to her father's crimes.  Edith currently lives in the Unites States and has tried to distance herself from this part of history.  She remarried, then divorce, and now lives with another man."  **Here again the name of Goth's mistress is incorrect.  It should not be Edith but Ruth. I wonder about this name change since Ruth is a more "Jewish" name.

(Page 115  - after the war - during the five years in Regensburg, Germany where the Schindlers found themselves to be 2nd class Germans and unwanted.)

"One evening while we were at the movies watching a romantic film, I felt a terrible pain in my lower abdomen.  At first I tried to pay no attention to it, but it became more and more unbearable, and I developed a high fever.  We rushed to the town hospital, where I was admitted right away.

An operation was performed the following day. I had a dead baby inside of me. As a result of that operation, I could no longer think of having children on my own.  (Note this was her fourth miscarriage. Oskar had two children after their marriage with another mistress, this one a woman he had once been involved with before as a teenager.)

Still in pain, and under the influence of anesthesia, I opened my eyes and saw Oskar's smiling face. To my surprise, he was not alone. His companion was Gisa, his lover, whom he would later drag along with him to Argentina.  In my condition I could not really grasp what was happening, but I felt a tremendous letdown in every fiber of my body.

I wept disconsolately. As I began to understand the real situation, I blamed myself for having believed that Oskar would ever change..."

(Pages 117-118 - MONEY and LOVE)

"I had often considered the possibility of leaving him, of starting a new life without him, without his lie4s, without his repeat deceits and constant insincere repenting.   But my religious ideas, my belief in God and the teachings of the Church, dissuaded me from doing so..... I had no choice but to adapt, to tighten my lips and close my eyes to Oskar's neglect and indifference.  I shed many bitter tears because of him, but in my time I toughened up.  I stopped crying and immersed myself in my work.

(Page 128 - in ARGENTINA - OSKARS LOVE AFFAIRS)

When I was walking in town or attending some get-together, I used to look at all the women and ask myself which ones and with how many of them had Oskar had affairs.  The answer became easier over time: surely with all those who would allow it.  The interesting thing was that these conquests required no effort on his part.  With his natural seductiveness, it was the women who were constantly after him.

(Page 129)

..." Oskar was aware that women noticed him, and he seemed to feel an obligation to play his part in these casual affairs. But once he got involved - and this he confessed to me more than once when, repentant, he came back to my arms - he did not know how to break free.

(Page 130 - GISA, whom OSKAR took to ARGENTINA with him, as well as Emilie!)

The strangest thing of all was that Oskar's infidelities had the approval and collaboration of some of our best friends.  When we passed through Munich after the war, we stayed with a Jewish family who had been with us at Brunnlitz.  The woman had a friend named Gisa, then a fairly common Jewish nickname.  Oskar quickly started a liaison with her. The affair flourished with the help of the lady of the house, who provided a room for Oskar and Gisa to enjoy their romantic union whenever my husband went to Munich with the excuse of having to take care of some business. What Oskar did not tell me when he brought the tickets for South America was that Gisa would be coming with us.  When I found out, just before packing, I did not have the energy for futile reproaches anymore.  As absurd as it may seem, I clung to the hope that once in Argentina., I would again be Oskar Schindler's only woman.  It proved to be a false hope.

Fortunately we moved to San Vincente , which offered its main advantage that it was quite far from the Belgrano neighborhood, where the inevitable Gisa lived.  She used my husband for all he was worth, made him give her jewelry and even an authentic otter coat.  When he returned to Germany for good (abandoning both wife and mistress in Argentina) Gisa felt forsaken and wrote letters to him full of reproaches. One day I received a few lines from Oskar asking me to speak to her and try to persuade her to stop her epistolary insults, and to tell her that if she kept threateing him, he would never come back to her.  (She did not.) 

NOTE: They lived about an hour away from each other.  Oskar in the capital with Gisa, who he spent most of his time with.  Obviously, in my opinion, the marriage had been long dead but there was no divorce.)

NOTE: Oscar continued to sporadically send his wife letters, often insensitive to her hard work and poverty in Argentina.  She began to throw them in the fire without reading them.  B'nai B'rith eventually bought her a house and sent her money, about $300 a month, to live out her old age in Argentina.  37 years after he left Argentina, due to the Spielberg film, she was able to visit her husband's grave for the first time. It's in the last scene when survivors and their descendants walk down the hill to his grave to put stones on it.

STEVEN SPIELBERG's FILM SHINDLER'S LIST : EMILIE CATCHES HER HUSBAND ONE MORE TIME

Shindler's List is the film called Steven Spielberg's Opus. 
If you haven't seen the film, it's a must. 

The original title of this post was STEVEN SPIELBERG's FILM SHINDLER'S LIST : EMILIE CATCHES HER HUSBAND ONE MORE TIME and the video is gone.

In the film Oskar Schindler's wife comes to visit him and his Mistress is there with him and quickly leaves.  All he has to say to his wife is how embarrassed the woman must be.  For the purposes of the film the Mistress is seen as a sexual being, as if she is only there for sex with Oskar. Is Emilie Schindler accepting or long suffering her husband's infidelities?

June 2021 

ENEMIES A LOVE STORY based on the book by ISAAC BASHIVIS SINGER

Ron Silver, as the man Herman Broder who has Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome because of his Holocaust experiences, Angelica Huston as the wife who was thought to be dead in the Holocaust, but who comes to New York alive - their children dead, Lena Olin as the mistress (who is married to another, older, man and lives with her mother), a Holocaust survivor who was in the camps, Margaret Sophie Stein is the Polish peasant who saved his life and who he wed out of gratitude. She wishes to become a Jew and becomes pregnant.


Herman loves all these women in different ways.


A fine work by Issac Bashivis Singer, full of complexities. Such situations did happen post World War II. The Red Cross (there's a link in the Kathleen Kennedy month) did it's best to reunite people who were separated by the war and the death camps and to this day will try to help people locate lost relatives. I'll never forget the first time I saw an old man survivor with his Nazi death camp tattoo, a number on his arm, dehumanizing him. Since then I've attended Holocaust memorials, gone to hear a Shindler's List survivor speak, and learned a lot about Naziism. 

SHOULD YOU OUT YOUR EX ON THE INTERNET? WILL IT FEEL GOOD?

A friend of mine, Lorna, is furious with a man she was seeing, because he cheated on her.  She's in pain and not in a philosophical mode. 
She pointed out to me that there are a number of opportunities to "out" a bad man on the internet.  She gave me a list that includes LemonDate.com, The Dick List, Cheater News, and DontDateHimGirl.

I said "Don't do it!"

I actually don't think it's a very good idea to out anyone on the Internet.  Ultimately it will only feel good for a short while.  It's not therapy.  And it's actually not fair because Internet is the world, not just your town.  You may think that you're warning other women away, and you can certainly do that among your friends and local social group, who maybe should have warned YOU in the first place.  But you are also putting your personal business out there too.  Lorna if she does this, may come off to some people as a woman who is so pro-women that she doesn't want anyone to get involved with her ex, but is also advertising herself as the kind of woman who goes out with losers and cheats. I hate to say it, but losers and cheats seem to know one another.
Who is to be believed?

Anyone who has been the victim of mean spirited gossip knows that sometimes people lie, or at least exaggerate.  For instance, a typical mean thing that some men do is claim to others that they "had" you, when they didn't, not even close.  These men are not well in the mind but they manage to stop other men from asking you out. 

I'm not sure I understand Internet dating or clubs.  I think you should go out there and meet people in person.

When the Yahoo scandal broke - years after it should have - I got notifications on my Yahoo accounts, much older than my Google accounts, that I had reason to worry.  One account was deluged with dating clubs which appeared to be of Chinese origin.  Another account, I learned someone had signed me up for Vietnamese girls, cute, sexy, and looking for American men, and marriage. (OK, maybe they thought I needed to include these girls on my blog as mistresses?)  I feel sorry for girls who have to offer themselves this way.  As for the Chinese dating clubs, they sure weren't going to get a date with me first of all since I'm all the way in the United States but also, I'm not looking! 

There is another reason why I don't advise you out someone as a "cheat."

When I was growing up almost every adult I knew was partnered.  I didn't even think of certain relatives of mine as individuals.  How you went from being a barely pubescent kid to one of those adults who was partnered was mysterious, this thing called love.  Every year I got older and realized how much more complicated life really is.  There are a lot of assumptions about partnering, such as that if it's "True Love," then the partners are never tempted or explorative.  Whatever satisfied them when they first got together will satisfy them for life - or even eternity!  In truth, long term couples go through a lot of changes in their relationships through the years.  We are amazed at the couple that make it fifty years without ever finding someone outside their marriage of interest.

When you are not even married, these days there are so very many kinds of relationships to (hopefully) choose, that I'm not sure the way things were supposed to work is how they do!
Does virginity count?  Yes, to far fewer than it used to.  Is a first marriage simply a "starter marriage," and a divorce a rite of passage?  What about all the people who prefer not to be monogamous or who are, but one person at a time?

If you feel very strongly that you not be "cheated" upon at this time in your life, you must talk to your potential partner, and say that, and you must agree to be in the relationship where that is not allowed or split up!  Lorna is a beautiful woman but one who gives her heart without knowing if she's being given one back.  She had no agreement to be with Larry exclusively and he knew that and did what he did.

All names changed.

C 2017 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved.

WOMEN IN NAZI GERMANY - WHAT REALLY WAS THEIR ROLE?

HOWLINGPIXEL.COM - WOMEN IN NAZI GERMANY

Picture from the HowlingPixel site.

If interested in EVA BRAUN, the Mistress of ADOLF HITLER, search for her using the imbedded search block on the side bar.  She was the Mistress of the Month here in June 2010.  Perhaps the best known Nazi Mistress, Eva also seemed to me to be a woman who tried to embody Nazi ideals of womenhood by being athletic.  However, as HowlingPixel does at this linked site, the average woman was expected to be an ideal wife and mother, and submissive to the Nazi ideals.  Thought I'd post this link because there are a great number of photos and a fairly extensive study of the Nazi cultural phenomena.

RIGHTEOUS GENTILE OSKAR SCHINDLER's MISTRESSES : AURELIE SCHLEGEL, EVA "MARTA" KISZA, and GISELLA SCHEIN

OSKAR SCHINDLER

The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities,

and the True Story Behind the List

by David M. Crowe

Westview Press - A member of Perseus Books Group

(The primary reference for this month's subject)

 

That list of women's names up there on the title needs an explanation. 

 

OSKAR SCHINDLER, the man who is credited with saving about 1100* Jews from certain death during the Holocaust, by having them work for him at his factory and insisting they move with him to another, the subject of a film called "Schindler's List," often called director Steven Spielberg's Opus, was a womanizer.  He never took his marriage vows to Emilie Pelzl seriously.  (I don't think most men who have a Mistress are also having one-nighters, flings, quickies, affairs, or are as insensitive to their wives as this man!)  He had a whole lot going on at all times. Oskar Schindler was complicated.  He was possibly addicted to risk.  He somehow made the time for several Mistresses, women with whom he had long relationships with, and his wife, whose book I will include this month, knew it all along. 

 

EMELIE PELZL was 20 and Oskar was a little younger when they met and were married quickly, her farm family more prosperous than his, but both households effected by the terminal illnesses of a parent. Other than attraction and the innocence of youth, it's difficult to know what was behind the marriage really, perhaps pragmatism.  Oskar's father was alcoholic and so was he, a lifelong ailment. I have to wonder if he was self medicating a mental illness. As a new husband, Oskar used most of Emilie's dowry to buy an exotic car manufactured originally for the Shah of Iran, without consideration for her, a car that would be the one they escaped from their factory in when the War, World War II, was over.  

 

From the very beginning of their marriage, and for the rest of their lives, Oskar Schindler had the pattern of a charming sociopath, apparently sexually gifted and attractive, a "Whatever it takes," and "Where's the money?," kind of man who changed his side to the side that was winning more than once.  This is important because there is controversy over if he should have been judged to be a Righteous Gentile (1962 in Israel), ultimately selfless, or not.  Officially, he is, as there were many survivors who spoke up for him.  I do believe it's possible that the atrocities that he witnesses created a profound change in him.  Yet when it came to women, his was a never-ending series of adventures and misadventures.

 

These last few sentences are my opinion, my take, on this perplexing man, rooted in this book, and the author, David M. Crowe, researched extensively, and was eager to let us readers know how the truth and the film varied. In fact, the film did what it was meant to do, got much right, and took artistic license as screen writers and film directors and movie studios almost always do.  I've personally watched it a half a dozen times.  In fact, it was watching the film again, and seeing the scenes in which Oskar Schindler, and his associate, the certifiably evil Amon Goth, who headed the Plaszow Forced Labor Camp, where he indulged himself in daily indiscriminate killing, interplay and have their mistresses, that inspired this month's topic.

 

I wanted to know "Who were those Mistresses?  We're they all really spies? How involved in the murder of Jews and other people taken prisoner were they? Is this another story about powerless women who are trapped in the role society expects of them?"  And so I began to read around the subject, many articles on the internet, as well as some book recommendations.  I'll include the Mistress of Amon Goth, Ruth Irene Kalder, in this month's reading.  Additionally, there are a couple women whose names would not fit on the title bar above who Oskar Schindler is known to have had as girlfriends and Mistresses.. 

 

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In somewhat of a chronological order here are the MISTRESSES of Oskar Schindler that we know about and a little background for each:

 

Oskar and his wife Emilie met in the fall of 1927 and married March 6, 1928.  At the time he was a traveling salesman. They moved in with his parents and younger sister where Emilie was overburdened with family care while he was gone for business. In 1928 Oskar was racing motorcycles. Emilie would spend her life being the dependable, responsible, hard working, and stable one.

  

*************

 

AURELIE SCHLEGEL : After Oskar Schindler married, he went back with a teenage love, Aurelie, a local girl in Czechoslovakia, who he proceeded to have two children with, a boy and a girl.  The boy, named Oskar Junior, may have ended up a mentally ill street person.  It does not seem as if Schindler took any responsibility for the children. This second family and the use of her dowry to buy the expensive car was not enough for the young newly married Emilie to leave him.

Oskar's many jobs included running a driving school. Then spent 18 months in the Czechoslovak army, went back to the sales job he had when he first met his wife, and during 1931-1932 was arrested for public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, assault, and other misdemeanor charges several times. 

 

In 1938, now about 30 years old and just out of prison, Schindler applied to be a member of the Nazi Party. He was accepted as a provisional member February 2, 1939. They overlooked his character and arrests apparently, though he told the truth about having been. He had to prove he had no Jewish blood and that Emilie was not of Jewish blood. From this point his paid work and party affiliation seem to be intertwined. It is thought that Oskar Shindler's assignments lead to the Nazi invasion of Poland in September of 1939.

 

*************

 

1939 - Oskar and Emilie moved to Moravska Ostrava but he kept a separate apartment. Emilie lived in their house from 1939-1941 and then joined him in Krakow.

 

IRENA DVORZAKOWA lived in the separate apartment, which Oskar paid for, though she did work for a steel manufacturing company.  April 1945 was the last he came there, probably the end of their relationship, but she did not move out until late 1945 or early 1946.

 

During this period of time, it's possible that Oskar was a spy.  (In my opinion he could have been a double agent, maybe even a triple agent.) 

 

 **************

 

 

EWA "MARTA" KISZA  (aka EVA KISCH and later EVA KISCH SCHEUER)  Eva is the person depicted in the scene in Shindler's list in which she and Oscar are on horseback and from Lasota Hill and see the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto.  The scene is fiction, but the history happened and it's believed that it was about this time that Oskar realized that the Nazis were committing genocide, that this wasn't just a typical war.  It's possible he believed as most people did that the Jews were being taken to work camps, not systematically murdered.

 

Ewa , the Polish form of Eva, was a Czech from Silesia, an area that had been taken over by Poland in 1939 ( Pg 121)  She lost her job as a teacher and then made her living smuggling goods across the Polish - Czech border. Though she was engaged to be married, in about 1943, she became Oscar's Mistress.  The Polish authotires were suspicious of all the trips she and Oskar made.  She decided to flee to Czecholosvaliea with her fiancée, but the police shot him and killed him when they tried this escape.  She was put into prison in Lvov.  When she was released she went to live with Oskar.  Called "His Wartime Mistress," he set her up in a small shop selling the enamelware that he made such as kettles and bowls.

 

Called Marta, she was complicit in a maneuver in which Oskar took advantage of his Nazi Party affiliation and contacts and in October of 1939, he decided to take over the business of Shlomo Wiener, the owner of the largest kitchenware, ironware, and cutlery businesses in Poland, which he and his brother Julius ran. What Oskar did was premeditated.

 

He had the business signed over to him, returned the next day to tell them he was the Trustee of the business and Marta his representative.  He told Shlomo not to show his face, and had Julius teach him how to run the business.  He paid the two men a monthly salary a bit less than they had paid themselves, and showed up with Marta every day to talk the business with Julius.  (Julius would later call Marta "a soulless puppet, necessary only for official purposes" (Page 128)

Then, the day came in which the generally respectful Oskar, changed, and became verbally abusive and even physically abusive.  Julius was beaten severely by the Gestapo, and black and blue and bleeding, was afraid to leave his house. Soon Oskar cut the brothers off financially, and so they no longer had the means to live.  The Weiners later believed that Oskar helping Jews live in 1944 and 1945 was only to create an alibi for himself! (Page 126)

Marta went to parties with Oskar that Amon Goth threw, lavish parties where there was plenty of food and alcohol, with the death camp he ran down the hill.   (The scenes in the film "Schindler's List" don't begin to reveal his depravity, for which he was eventually tried as a war criminal and sentenced to hanging.


EVA "MARTA" and her brother, along with 7 Jewish workers hoping to find relatives in France or Switzerland, along with Oskar and his wife, escaped when the war ended from the factory, using the car he had bought from his wife's dowry years before, and a truck.  (Page 467)  On the road the women feared being raped by Russian soldiers.  Eventually the party separated.

 

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GISELLA SCHEIN 

AKA GISA

Watch for the upcoming review of the book Where Light and Shadow Meet by Emilie Schindler, Oskar's wife, on the mistress- accommodating marriage.  Oskar took both his wife and Gisa out of the country. But did he take either of them back to Europe with him?







Overall, Oskar Schindler seems to have been out of control of his life in so many ways, I have to remind myself that it is possible that beneath all this personal chaos, he had a heart, and eventually a deeper understanding of his life and times.



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ARE YOU SEXUALLY SATISFIED AS A KEPT PERSON?

It's commonly thought that the reason a person has an affair is because they are NOT, and that the reason a person gets Kept is because they satisfy...  But we're not all about stereotypes here, so I'm wondering... ARE YOU KEPT AND SEXUALLY SATISFIED?  Or is the time you see your loved one so limited that you are not?


Missy

SYLVIA - the film - AMIERA CASAR as ASSIA WEVILL

 Gwyneth Paltrow as poet Sylvia Plath, a bit mad and very driven to be a successful published poet.  Daniel Craig as the already known and esteemed poet Ted Hughes, Sylvia's husband, and Amiera Casar as Assia Wevill, this 2003 film focused on Sylvia and favored her a bit.


In the film, the Plath's and the Wevills become friends of sorts.  The Wevills come for dinner and Sylvia is acting a bit odd.  She's not in a hostess mood after all.  It doesn't help that Assia and Ted have a kiss in the kitchen.  The Wevills are asked to leave.  They pretend understanding the stress Sylvia is under, a poet and motherhood and Ted.


Is this really how the affair between Ted and Assia began?
Was Ted already on the way out of his marriage in his mind, finding being married to another poet, a demanding woman, too much to bear?
Was Sylvia's behavior too crazy for most men to deal with?


If you haven't seen this one, it's worth a watch.  Then you decide.

WRITING POETRY

EVEN MISTRESSES HAVE FAMILY CARE AND INHERITANCE ISSUES : OPINIION BY MISSY

QUESTION FOR MISSY

Dear Missy

My parents are elderly.  My sister Hannah moved in with them a few years ago to be there so they won't have to go into an assisted living.  Basically, the house keeps appreciating and she's hoping to get the house when they die, so long as there is no liens against it for their care.

I work full time but I'm also Kept.  I kept it a secret but my sister saw me with Henry a few times and asked me who he is, and stupidly I told her our arrangement.  Henry's not rich and I live in an apartment which I pay the rent on.  Henry has helped me decorate and is there for me in any emergencies and has given me some generous gifts, not a monthly income or a retirement. My sister seems to think that I will never have to worry about my own old age financially.  I don't think that's true.  I think that when both of my parents have died, the house should be sold and we should split the money.  My sister points out that she gave up a lot of freedom to move in with them and thinks she is earning the house.

Any advice for me?

Terri in Toledo


ANSWER FROM MISSY

Hi Terri,

If your parents are cognitive, I think you should sit down and talk to them, as well as get some advice from an attorney, since I don't know the law in Toledo. If  Hannah is actually campaigning against you then she probably told them, "Hey Terri is a Kept Woman, she's got this Henry helping her."  So tell them you have a special man in your life, Henry, but you're not married to him and may never be, and that you think you will need some inheritance from them to support you in your old age.  Tell them you can't tap into his retirement or Social Security, that you work full time and what you expect to have to live on, emphasize your independence.  You're not a Classic Mistress.  You're a Modern one whose generous man provides extras, things if you had to you could live without.

You never know who will outlive who.

Missy

SYLVIA PLATH IN DEVON - A YEAR'S TURNING by ELIZABETH SIGMUND and GAIL CROWTHER

A short book with lots of reference books to its credit, SYLVIA PLATH IN DEVON, covers the last year of Sylvia Plath's life.  It's as well the personal memoir of author Elizabeth Sigmund, a friend and neighbor of  the poet. This is the year in which Plath's novel Ariel as well as many of her greatest poems were written. This literary work by Sylvia was about her life that year.

EXCERPTS:

(Pages 68 - 69)  

"There has been much written about the weekend visit of the Wevills in all of Plath's biographies.  It seems any attempt to try and accurately sum up this weekend relies on conjecture, gossip, and stories told long after the event.  Biographies explore the possibility that Assia Wevill travelled to Devon with the express purpose of seducing Ted Hughes, and that while she was there sexual tension between herself and Hughes was evident.  Other reports claim Plath picked up on this attraction and acted appallingly, insisting that the Wevills depart early.  Interestingly, one person who was present at the weekend, David Wevill (Assia's husband), has given his own account stating that he recalls a perfectly pleasant weekend, with Plath charming company and he and Assia departing on the day scheduled.  He did note Plath's nerviness and is quoted in 'Bitter Fame' as stating that often a look of terror would pass across her face as though she was having the most terrible thoughts.,  But he liked Plath and found her good company.  He did not detect anything amiss during the stay in Court Green.  

(Page 70)

"Two days after her visit, Assia Wevill mailed Plath a thank you letter which included a piece of tapestry complete with threat in response to Plath expressing a desire to take up needlepoint...

COMMENTARY BY MISSY

But Ted Hughes did in fact leave his wife and two children and perhaps when and where an affair with Assia began is unknown, but he did have an affair, and it would seem to be a serious one. I do not think that every woman who has an affair with a man should be called a Mistress, that the term is dramatically overused in the media, but I also continually seek to define the term. It's clear that Plath may have sensed something between her husband and Assia, even if a scene or scenes as depicted in the film staring Gwyneth Paltrow as Sylvia Plath, and apparently many other books dwell on the tense dinner.

EXCERPTS:

(Page 84)

"Returning to Court Green alone and unaware of her husbands whereabouts left Plath in a terrible state.

COMMENTARY: No kidding!  She's an American in a foreign country, married with two small children, one an infant, has no way to support herself and them, is not a feminist, her mother in America is a difficulty person and can't be relied on in that moment.

(Page 84)
At some stage between 19-20 September, Hughes pre-arranged telegram arrived. Whether Plath found out about his whereabouts in Spain at this time is unknown  but on one of these nights, she fled to the home of Winifred Davies in a highly distressed states.  What occurred during those hours is recounted in a letter from Davies to Aurelia Plath.  Plath, it seemed, had realized that Hughes had no intention of returning, and had therefore definably decided upon separation...

COMMENTARY:
This paragraph refers to the expose that Ted had preplanned a vacation trip with Assia to Spain and that he had friends cover for him by sending Sylvia this and that, as if he himself had walked to the mailbox.  Actually he was enjoying himself with Assia without apparent concern for Sylvia's emotional state.

(Page 75 - Covering the previous July before this late September realization.)

COMMENTARY
Plath used the imagery of a "circle a womb of marble" to assert that bareness was a theme that reoccurred in her work and personal letters. "The women that Ted Hughes became involved with are, according to Plath, all barren. This belief of Plath's is interesting and certainly Elizabeth Sigmund recalls that Plath was especially proud of being the bearer of Hughes's children. It was important to her that he was the father, and she felt certain that one of the women he subsequently became involved with in her lifetime intended to have children with him.  Given that Assia Wevill became pregnant just before Plath's death (and subsequently had an abortion), Sigmund believes that if Plath had known of this pregnancy it would have upset her greatly.

(Page 86)

October, London....  ..."Assia Wevill phoned Nathaniel Tarn to talk about her ten days in Spain with Hughes.  She explained how this secret meeting had been arranged as early as August.  Wevill also told Tarn how well she and Hughes worked together and that they were planning to write a film script.

(Page 88)
Ted Hughes arrived  back gome.  Assia Wevill had gone to Germany with her husband and so Hughes decided to leave London and return to Devon...

(Pages 88-89)  Ted Hughes left his marriage and Assia Wevill informed Tarn that she was to be named as co-respondent in the Plath-Hughes divorce.

COMMENTARY

The book states that Hughes and Hughes estate attempted to and did repeatedly aim to censor the truth about Sylvia Plath as well as the terms and conditions of her marriage to Ted Hughes, for the sake of their children perhaps, but more likely his own reputation.
This book looks at archival letters and other documents as well as memories of neighbor and friend Sigmund.  


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