Saturday, August 04, 2018

Blind Item #9 - Reader Blind Item - Kindness

Testimony of a young survivor of this horrific policy describes the day they were liberated.  One of the officers involved, an extremely handsome man with an unflappable demeanor, led a team of men who were there to photographically document what had happened.   He and his team were not from America. The officer personally helped the survivors and made sure many of them got the help they needed not to mention food and other supplies as well as transport to where they needed to go for those well enough to travel.  He was the go to guy for helping all the victims who were kept in this location.  He would receive a number of medals for his overall conduct and service during this huge conflict of the last century.
A few years later, the survivor had immigrated to the home country of the officer and happened to go to a movie.  The star was the officer.  In the years that followed, the survivor followed the officer’s career as he went from teen heartthrob to mature adult making films that would be described as intellectual and arty and somewhat experimental.  He was also known for not making any attempt to hide his sexuality, not out, no one was then, but not in the closet either, as well as his excellent fashion sense and the series of books he wrote later in life (some of which deal with his harrowing war experiences).  He was not as big in the USA as his home country but was deeply respected.
Towards the end of the officer’s life, the survivor was able to meet him and thank him for what he did.  The officer as cool as ever said it was his duty as a human being.

32 comments:

Spitbite said...

Dirk Bogarde?

slits said...

+1

Loved Dirk Bogarde throughout his career

gauloise said...

Great guess. Definitely Bogarde, He was a photographer in the war and one of the first officers to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp

Flashy Vic said...

Thought of Dirk Bogarde too.
I read his autobiography - A Postillion Struck By Lightning - which hinted at his sexuality without stating it and glossed right over his war record (which is a thing which tends to be done with those celebrities who actually did something during WW2, e.g. David Niven, James Stewart, Clark Gable)
And still a good interesting read.

Unknown said...

Wow. I didn't know that. What an awful thing to have to document.

interestingconsequences said...

Dirk Bogarde or David Niven but I think David Niven was a ladies' man.

Both Sterling Hayden and Anthony Quayle were in special ops during the war also - but both were in the Yugoslave / Greece / Adriatic areas.

Mac said...

Nice to read these stories about the good guys. Too bad they all seem to be in the distant past. Now it seems it is just the bad guys and the hollow virtue signalers, and often they are one and the same.

I had to google Dirk as his name wasn't immediately known to me, and yes it is definitely him.
I will say that this photo made me laugh, and not in a mean way... it is just this has to be the GAYEST cowboy I have ever seen.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_rSys7BsukV8/TSCzAMrLUjI/AAAAAAAAAXg/YmOn5R8cZm0/s400/Dirk3.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X-sqDZOPHEk/Tk1Dxsh-7GI/AAAAAAAACUw/Vwrlv3ktJUU/s320/3926474792_07cb5b282d%255B1%255D.jpg

Sounds like a good guy, may he RIP.

plot said...

"Too bad they all seem to be in the distant past. Now it seems it is just the bad guys and the hollow virtue signalers"

So which is it? Do you want to know about the good things famous people do? Or do you want them to shut up about their good deeds so as not to be labeled "virtue signalers"?

It took a lot of years before we knew about the important military history of people like Bogarde, Johnny Cash and Mel Brooks. Maybe you should just be patient.

DejaBlue said...

No, just you.

Mac said...
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Mac said...
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Mac said...

For everyone else who might be interested. While I was reading up on Dirk Bogarde I found this photo -
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8c/62/4b/8c624ba342b54f7f9d73d9849a79b23e--capucine-special-people.jpg
I of course immediately took note of how stunningly beautiful the woman in the photo is, and how sad she looked. I ended up tracking who she was down. I had never heard of her before, but she was a model named Capucine who ended up committing "suicide", and of course right there in the photos was her with Woody Allen.

Why is that twisted little twerp always around these damaged, ultimately tragic women? Either he gravitates toward that type or he helps create them.

And yes, that is just conjecture and off topic. I hope he gets his skeletons yanked out of his closet sooner rather than later.

RIP Capucine and Dirk.

Mac said...

@map - Oh shut up you divisive twat. Did You run everyone out of your own life, so now you have to troll here?
What a false dichotomy you setup there. Completely unsupported by anything I actually said, but instead just projected from your twisted little mind.
Of all things to argue about, my simple wish for more good guys? fuck off.

sandybrook said...

Capucine was actually a pretty famous actress in European films and somewhat famous here too. I guess as she got older and her career slowed she got depressed and jumped to suicide.

BestMan said...

Speaking of Monster Icon

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-6015987/Cocaine-groupies-searing-riffs-new-biography-Jimmy-Page.html

VDOVault said...

That generation of men & women that survived the Great Depression & fought in WWII was amazing.

DejaBlue said...

A documentary about Luchino Visconti and his family - one of the most fascinating films I've ever watched. Dirk Bogarde was probably the love of his life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gqVqanAL2g&feature=share

Paul Saint John said...

Too bad Dirk Bogarde chose to play an old pedophile in the film "Death in Venice".
Come to think of it, he also played a Nazi officer who fell in love with an underage Jewish prisoner, Charlotte Rampling, in The Night Porter. Sick film.

flyingtiger said...

Dirk Bogarde. He is the only candidate that was gay. Sterling Hayden or David Niven were not. It was always presumed that Dirk was gay, but it was not polite to say so in those days. There are many examples. In the Singer not the song, his character reforms because he has a crush on a priest.
I thought Appointment in London was his best movie.The night porter was his most sinister.

Mac said...

Dirk sounded quite admirable at first take. I wonder how much of that story was studio PR spin, because the more I became intrigued and searched, the more the shine came off of him.
Oh well, I guess the quote was right - If we live long enough we all become the villain.

Unknown said...

My dad was liberated from Bergen Belsen. This post gave me chills. My dad was in the first barracks by the gate. They took the survivors basically "across the street" because they needed to be cleaned before anything else could be done. He was then sent a place for displaced children in the Netherlands. He was eventually reunited with my grandfather the only other surviving relative. Fast forward to today--my dad is a retired attorney living it up in Santa Barbara. I'm not religious at all but God bless those Brits who helped him.

Actually, the guys who took him out were Scotsmen. He had a little pouch with pictures of our family that he'd managed to take from camp to camp. They wouldn't let my dad take his pics because they were so bug infested.

One more Belsen story. That was the 3rd camp my dad was at during the war. By the time they (the people with him on the transport) got to Belsen they knew the deal with toxic gas in the showers. The group was sent into the showers and people started singing the prayer for the dead and then... water came out of the spigots!

Mac said...

Wow! Amazing story, thank for sharing it! Glad your father made it through it all.

Tricia13 said...

Me too❤️
Thank you for sharing that@Unknown...

AppleThief4Elliot said...

I love when the day ends with a kindness blind.

kelli grrrl said...

@Unknown - What a powerful story! Thank you for sharing..😀

Unknown said...

Very Nice and Interesting Post

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Best Goats, Succes Goats
Positive Life Goats, Image Skanks
Future Goats- الماعز لجميع الأحجام والأشكال .... سوف يحبونك منذ وقت طويل

Unknown said...

Wow. Your dad should write his memoirs.

RedRobin said...

I get that this is a reader’s blind. But the authorized biography of Bogarde by John Coldstream says there’s no evidence of him being at the Belsen concentration camp. In fact, Bogarde’s letters to his family during that time were rather cheerful recounting of local scenery. Unknown (thank you for sharing such a personal account) says Scotsmen liberated the camp.

Somethings not adding up here.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the kind responses.

The British army liberated Belsen. The commander of the specific unit, Lt.Col Leonard Berney,wrote a book about the experience entitled "Liberating Belsen Concentration Camp." (I haven't read past the first chapter.) The specific soldiers that helped my dad were from Scotland.

Bill Beard said...

Holodomor?

D Brown said...

@sandybrook - while there are multiple stories the reason for Capucine's suicide appears to be health related. Apparently she had major spinal surgery several years before and didn't completely recover. Allegations of depression, declining career and money problems all seem to be the result of her health issues.

Unknown said...

Thank you for this! I read Hammer of the Gods years ago and still can’t get enough.

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