Life in a Northern Town

Last night I listened to The Poet & The Poem on the way home from Bozeman. This episode featured an amazing story/project that made me drive really slow so I could listen to the whole thing. It was an autobiography and poetry by holocaust survivor (who has since died), Hilda Stern Cohen (click HERE to read more). Gail Rosen performs readings acompanied by music that was inspired by the poetry, much of it in German, much of it in melancholy minor chords and reminiscent of Jewish folk songs or German opera. It was amazing and I want to read her book and see the DVD that is coming out of the performance I heard last night. I loved how her husband described that she was raised an orthodox Jew and was very precocious in the doctrine and in her testimony and faith, and how that faith was the prism by which she experienced life and was the one thing she would not let the nazi's take from her. She became a religion teacher in Baltimore after the war. She began her religious education at the Jewish school in Wurzburg, birthplace of my husband. How ya like THAT connection?

I love Yellowstone Public Radio. LOOOOOVE it.