Mike DeNero's Neighborhood was created by superstar cartoonist Jim Hunt (http://www.jimhunt.us/). To view a synopsis of the comic strip and/or sketches of the four characters with whom you will become familiar, please click here.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: May 2009
Mike DeNero's Neighborhood was created by superstar cartoonist Jim Hunt (http://www.jimhunt.us/). To view a synopsis of the comic strip and/or sketches of the four characters with whom you will become familiar, please click here.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The 50th Anniversary of Harvey Haddix's 12-inning Gem
A Perfect Lesson Fifty Years Later
By Mike DeNero
My friend says I am obsessed with Harvey Haddix, but I don’t think he’s right. However, as I put pen to paper, and somehow simultaneously read the trailing lines of my composition, I realize that if I truly protest my friend’s opinion, I would have written that he’s dead wrong. But I didn’t. Thus, the realist in me is compelled to question whether I have crossed that delicate boundary between healthy curiosity and obsession.
But, if obsession is the appropriate descriptive term for my level of curiosity, I believe that there must also exist varying levels of obsession. Regardless, like Benjamin Franklin said of rebellion, a healthy obsession, every now and then, can be a good thing. Suffice it to say, I have been telling people for weeks that we were fast approaching the 50th anniversary of the greatest game ever pitched – that anniversary is today, May 26, 2009. And as you might have guessed, Harvey Haddix pitched that game.
Harvey Haddix is not a member of baseball’s hall of fame. His 136-113 career record and 3.63 E.R.A. does not merit induction in Cooperstown. But, he was a three time All Star who also won three Gold Glove Awards and two games in the 1960 World Series (including Game 7) to lead his Pittsburgh Pirates over the aging New York Yankees – the later accomplishment is overshadowed by Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off home run to win the series.
But despite a successful fourteen-year career in the big leagues, which began in 1952 with the St. Louis Cardinals, Haddix is viewed as one of the baseball’s tragic figures because on the evening of May 26, 1959, he pitched twelve perfect innings … and was tagged with the loss!
Harvey Haddix, suffering from flu-like symptoms, and his Pirates teammates arrived in Milwaukee that afternoon. Later that night, he would face a stacked Milwaukee Braves lineup, featuring Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, and a fellow named Joe Adcock. Lew Burdette took the mound for the Braves.
During the first twelve innings, Haddix retired all thirty-six batters he faced. He needed only 102 pitches and was never behind in the count on a single Braves hitter. His “perfect game” after nine innings was, for the moment, the eighth pitched in the history of Major League Baseball and only the first in the National League since 1880 (nearly eighty years prior).
But as the scoreless duel between Haddix and Burdette reached the bottom of the 13th inning, Braves leadoff hitter Felix Mantilla made it safely to first base on a throwing error by Pirates third baseman Don Hoak, ruining the perfect game but leaving the no-hitter intact. After he walked Hank Aaron intentionally, Haddix served up a three-run homer to Braves slugger Joe Adcock.
And that’s the story. As Haddix's pitching opponent that night, Lew Burdette, has said throughout his life, “the greatest game ever pitched I won, but I didn’t pitch it.”
History has painted Harvey Haddix as a tragic figure. But why? Because seventeen perfect games have been pitched in Major League Baseball history and due to the current definition of “perfect game” in MLB’s Rulebook -- a game in which a pitcher (or pitchers) pitches a victory that lasts a minimum of nine innings and in which no opposing player reaches base – Haddix’s feat is not counted as one of the seventeen.
So what? Haddix’s feat is widely viewed as the greatest game ever pitched, and it is probably the second most famous pitching performance in history behind Don Larsen’s perfect game in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series. Isn’t the recognition of being the man who tossed the best game in baseball’s history an accomplishment of greater magnitude than appearing on a list with seventeen other perfect game tossers?
So, as we celebrate Harvey Haddix’s feat today, fifty years later, don’t pity him. Harvey was a winner in the truest sense of the word. He never moped. In fact, he took it well. For example, the day after he pitched his masterpiece, he received a telegram from a fraternity that read: Dear Harvey, Tough S---!” Haddix stated that although the message disturbed him at first, he "thought about it for a few minutes and decided: Yeah. That says it all.”[i]
Mine is not an obsession. It is simply admiration. Not just for the pitching performance, but more for how he reacted to the so-called “tough luck.” In John McCollister’s Tales From the Pirates Dugout, there appears a wonderful black and white photograph taken sometime after May 26, 1959. Haddix is standing on the steps of a dugout firmly shaking Joe Adcock's hand. Adcock towers over the diminutive 5’ 9” Haddix. The players are smiling widely at one another; Adcock actually might be chuckling.
I look forward to the day that my sons are old enough for me to show them the photograph. Harvey Haddix and I will teach them one of life’s great lessons – respecting your opponent means you are willing to embrace him and celebrate his accomplishments, especially when he beats you.
[i] John McCollister, Tales From the Pirates Dugout (Sports Publishing LLC, 2003), 74.
Copyright © 2009 Mike DeNero's Vintage Sportscards, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
The PSA Pro Football Hall of Fame Rookies Set Registry
Register This! A Hobby and a Collector Reborn
By Keith Weinhold
Forward by Mike DeNero
- The following article was written by one of our favorite customers, Mr. Keith Weinhold, a Phillies and Eagles fan transplanted from Pennsylvania all the way to Anchorage, Alaska. While many of you are already familiar with the PSA and SGC Registries, we urge you to read Keith’s article for one simple reason: Keith is a reborn collector who recently rediscovered our wonderful hobby. As such, Keith’s prose exudes (oozes?) an unrestrained enthusiasm for, among other things, discovering rookie gems. While many of you have owned for many years some of the cards on which Keith focuses in his article, perhaps reading it will allow you to rediscover those in your own collection that may be lying dormant as you search for the next rarity, which, we might add, is another noble pursuit. Enjoy!_________
I was 18 years old in 1991, and it felt like the sportscard apocalypse was upon us. Tons of companies and product were flooding the market, cluttering the simple Topps, Fleer, and Donruss landscape that I was raised on. Besides, now I was off to start college and my mind was on what girl would mov
e into the dorm room next to me rather than Don Mattingly rookie cards. Sportscards weren’t cool anymore – and seemed to be spiraling to worthless back then as card shops were asking for one-third of book price while collectors spoke of card overpopulation.
Fast forward to 2008: while poking around on eBay last year, the meaning of some previously foreign-looking acronyms – such as “SGC”, “PSA”, and “POP” crystallized. It looked like some vintage cards were popular and valuable, attracting dozens of bidders.
Well, I had no idea about the advent of professional grading in sportscards – and coincidentally, its genesis came in 1991 when I got out of cards. These third-party companies authenticate, grade, then finally encapsulate an owner’s cards in tamper-evident holders. Then, look at this, the cards that I dreamed of as an ‘80s kid are all for sale in online marketplaces! There’s a T206 Ty Cobb tobacco card, a 1958 Jim Brown rookie card – you mean I can own these now? Also, some of these cards that I previously thought of as “overpopulated,” like a Ryne Sandberg or John Elway rookie, are actually scarce and highly desirable in P
SA Gem Mint 10 condition.
Soon I was embracing this new way of buying cards remotely, all with confidence in professional grading. This year, I “discovered” Set Registries. How cool is this? I can log onto the grading companies’ websites, enter the certification number from the card’s holder, and voila! My collection can be ranked against others, and the whole world can see my cards. I can conveniently view my uploaded card scans in my collection securely from anywhere – even my office desk at work…uh, not like anyone has ever done that.
As a reborn collector, my interests have oscillated across an arc. One place the interest has settled is in PSA’s Pro Football Hall Of Fame Rookies Set – every football HOF player’s rookie card comprises this 199-card set. As I acquire new cards, PSA uses attributes assigned to each card’s certification number based on it’s value (e.g., a Bart Starr has greater weight than a Thurman Thomas), and the condition of my particular card to give an overall rank my set.
What a worthwhile set to pursue! Beginning with the earliest cards, the 1933 Goudey Sport Kings Red Grange exhibits a simple design, highlighted by Grange’s striped numberless jersey and maskless helmet above silhouetted players on a field. The bright colors of the 1935 National Chicle football rookie cards provide a historical reminder that footballers played multiple positions then – the cards of halfbacks Clark Hinkle and Ken Strong are shown placekicking. Of course, the ’35 Chicles include “The Holy Grail Of Football Cards,” Bronko Nagurski - a vintage antiquity where highly graded examples have crossed a family heirloom threshold.
Post-war, card production resumed with Bowman’s black-and-white set released in 1948. Three cards from the set have made their way into the Football HOF Rookies Set. Bowman’s colored counterparts - 1948 Leaf cards – claim a whopping 6% of the set. These slabs are often cut off-centered and can suffer bleeding problems, yet their popularity is undiminished as they include twelve legendary figures such as Sid Luckman, Doak Walker, Steve Van Buren, Sammy Baugh, and Chuck Bednarik.
The 1950, 1951, and 1952 Bowman cards are well-represented Football Hall Of Fame rookies, and building around these comely pasteboard 
gems is what lured me into the set. It’s remarkable that in the early ‘50s, when football was not the most popular sport in America and in fact baseball was living its Golden Age, that the Bowman Chewing Gum Company would sculpt such remarkable cardboard football masterpieces. Their efforts culminate with the 1951 Bowman #4 Norm Van Brocklin card. Azure hues fade from this card’s edges into the center of the card, where it looks like “The Flying Dutchman” Van Brocklin is peering down the field to throw to one of his two fellow Hall Of Fame receivers, Elroy Hirsch and Tom Fears (Hirsch and Fears belong to this set as 1950 Bowman cards). The Van Brocklin is accentuated with a goldenrod color, and check the mega-cool Rams logo. Additionally, Bowman used a thick, enduring paper stock.
In addition to the Van Brocklin, brilliant color and composition are displayed on other cards in this set from the era. The 1951 Bowman Arnie Weinmeister and Emlen Tunnell, and the 1952 Bowman Ollie Matson are examples with such great visual appeal that they transcend mere cardboard rectangles and are virtually miniature works of art. Their attractiveness effervesces to other period pieces to the extent where I’ve consid
ering registration in a 1951 or 1952 Bowman Football Registry.
The 1955 Topps All-American issue, Topps’ first foray into continuous football card production, features college greats. This Football HOF Rookies Registry Set adopts the seven “AAs” that also became Pro HOFers, highlighted by Ernie Nevers and Don Hutson. Six cards from Topps’ two-paneled 1957 set qualify for inclusion – and they’re guys that you might have heard of - Dick “Night Train” Lane, Bart Starr, Johnny Unitas, and Paul Hornung. These ‘57s show the player in both an action pose and portrait image – with two different background colors. The behemoth card to round out the ‘50s is unequivocally the 1958 Topps #62 Jimmy Brown card. This joint is the bizz-omb, yo. Is that what the kids are saying these days? Anyway, the greatest rusher of all-time appears in an unforgettable slashing run pose, centered inside a black-ringed oval.
The 1962, 1963, and 1965 Topps issues are the best designs of their decade, unlike their uninspiring counterparts from the Philadelphia Chewing Gum Company. The Topps issues include historically important and visually handsome cards from 1962 including Mike Ditka and Fran Tarkenton, 1963 Topps Ray Nitschke, and an iconic football card image,
that of one “Broadway” Joe Namath on his 1965 Topps card, #122. The latter is an enormously popular card with strong price appreciation potential, yet is often found in lower grade and suffers from tilt cuts.
Once a competitive Set Registry collector embraces ‘70s cards, a PSA Mint 9 is nearly a prerequisite for a high rank, and a PSA Gem Mint 10 the standard for ‘80s cards. The more desirable cards from these decades are the 1971 Terry Bradshaw (with hair), 1972 Roger Staubach, 1984 John Elway. Not even a relatively high population of 1981 Joe Montanas (over 1,000 in PSA 9 alone) can erode the popularity of “Joe Cool” Montana rookies. Some entries from the defunct USFL comprise the Set Composite.
The best thing about this Set Registry is that it turns a static collection kept in a closet into a dynamic, interactive, displayed one. Cards come to life. I can use it as a way to show off what I have, add scans, leave comments about each of my cards, and allow visitors to share their comments about my set as well. There’s even a lively Message Board just for this Set Registry on PSA’s Website. I can be as competitive as I want to be. Currently my set ranks a pedestrian 27th out of 89 active sets, yet a lot changes here. In fact, if I don’t add any cards, I’ll probably be out of the Top 30 next month. This Registry feels like it’s “where the action is”. I never knew that collecting could be so much fun again.
*** To view Keith’s PSA’s Pro Football Hall Of Fame Rookies Set on the PSA Registry, click here. He invites you to leave your comments. ***
Copyright © 2009 Keith Weinhold and Mike DeNero's Vintage Sportscards, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Mike DeNero's Neighborhood: April 2009
Mike DeNero's Neighborhood was created by superstar cartoonist Jim Hunt (http://www.jimhunt.us/). To view a synopsis of the comic strip and/or sketches of the four characters with whom you will become familiar, please click here.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
1957-58 Topps Basketball Set
Chuck Taylors, Musty Gyms, the Hardwood, and the Emergence of a Legend:
The 1957-58 Topps Basketball Set
(by Mike DeNero)
On the night of April 12, 1958, one year after leading his Boston Celtics to the championship in his rookie season, the greatest player in NBA history limped through the sixth and final game of the NBA Finals with a heavy cast on his right ankle. Rather than nurse the torn ligaments and chip fracture he suffered in Game 3, he flew from Boston to St. Louis and arrived at his team’s hotel after midnight the evening before the game. Upon seeing his injured center suddenly appear in the lobby, his coach, Red Auerbach, asked, “what are you doing here, and how does it (the ankle) feel?” “I didn’t come out here to watch the game,” he replied. “I came to play.”[i]
As he hobbled through Game 6, he could only exert an impossible but gallant effort to stop the opposing team’s star, future hall of famer Bob Pettit, from pouring in 50 points to secure the 1957-58 NBA Championship for the St. Louis Hawks, as the Hawks beat the Celtics 110-109.
That night, the gre
atest player in NBA history must have resolved to win the NBA title ... several more times.
We use the term “winner” too often in sports, as one victory, or even one championship, does not a winner make. Rather, “winners” win things ... and win them often. Bill Russell was a winner; perhaps the quintessential winner. His team reclaimed the NBA title the next season (1958-59) and held it in their grasp for the next eight years and ten of the next eleven. Yes, winners win things.
Bill Russell bubble gum cards are tough to find; only a few different ones were made. His rookie card from the 1957-58 Topps Basketball set is, along with the 1948 Bowman George Mikan, one of the top two basketball cards ever produced. The card’s obverse features a brilliant image; a determined Russell defending an overmatched opponent. The identity of the opposing player is irrelevant. Further, it is doubtful that he attempted a shot over the towering and intimidating Russell. Even if he had, the most dominating defensive player ever would have probably swatted the ball as it arced hopelessly toward the hoop.
The 1957-58 Topps Basketball Set and NBA Season
The eighty card 1957-58 set was Topps’ initial foray into basketball cards. It is also one of only three basketball issues released prior to 1969 – Bowman issued a 72-card set in 1948 and Fleer produced a 66-card set in 1961. As the sole basketball set compiled in the 1950’s, it is the vintage collector’s only opportunity to get a sense of the golden age of the NBA. Accordingly, each player is pictured wearing a tight uniform with short shorts and mid-calf white socks tucked neatly into canvas Chuck Taylors. In the background of many action shots appears a sparse “crowd” sitting in a dimly lit, musty arena (some teams played in nothing more than glorified gymnasiums). In fact, during the 1957-58 season, the NBA’s aggregate regular season attendance totaled less than 1.2 million (1,167,462[ii]); thus the average game was witnessed in person by a mere 4,824 spectators (the NBA averaged more than 10,000 fans per game for the first time nearly twenty years later during the 1975-76 season).[iii]
While baseball enjoyed its heyday in the 1950’s, partially due to the dominance of the New York teams (the Yankees, Giants, and Brooklyn Dodgers), pro football only began to appear on fans’ radar after the legendary 1958 NFL Championship between the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts. Basketball, ho
wever, was a mere afterthought, at best, despite being described in Sports Illustrated’s October 27, 1958 issue as “an engrossing display of grace, finesse and power. ... This is the human body in purposeful action, in economy of motion, a sight to gratify the eye of anyone with an instinct for sport.”[iv]
After all, the NBA, which was the result of a merger between two fleeting professional leagues, was formed only eight years prior in the summer of 1949. While the league boasted seventeen franchises that season, it quickly contracted to eleven in 1950 and eight in 1954, the same season that welcomed the 24-second shot clock, a rule change that might have saved the league, as battles such as the 19-18 slugfest between the Pistons and Lakers in 1950 always lurked as a possibility.[v]
As it had since 1954-55, the 1957-58 season opened with eight teams divided into two divisions, each team playing a 72-game schedule. The Eastern Division included the New York Knickerbockers, Syracuse Nationals, Philadelphia Warriors, and the defending NBA champion and division winning Boston Celtics, while the Western Division featured the Cincinnati Royals, Minneapolis Lakers,
Detroit Pistons, and the division winning St. Louis Hawks. Interestingly, six teams made the playoffs with division winners receiving a first round bye.
As NBA rules limited the number of players on each roster to ten,[vi] it appears that Topps included within its 1957-58 Basketball set nearly each player who began the season on an NBA roster, as each team is represented by ten cards. Thus, while the 80-card set, at first glance, appears to be sparsely populated, it is actually remarkably complete. However, the exclusion of a rookie card of Celtics legendary guard Sam Jones (nicknamed “The Shooter,” and “Mr. Clutch”) is the exception that proves the rule. Jones, who became one of the NBA’s first African-American stars, was drafted by the Celtics before the 1957-58 season, proceeded to win ten championships in twelve seasons, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (the “Basketball Hall of Fame”) in 1984, and was named to the NBA’s 50th Anniversary All-Time Team. Unfortunately for the vintage collector, Topps was unable to predict Jones’ forthcoming accomplishments at the time, and decided not to include him in the set.
While Topps made sure that the set is a near complete representation of the NBA’s 1957-58 player personnel, it appears to have paid less attention to its quality control of the printing process. Many of the 2 1/2” X 3 1/2” sized cards (now the standard) that survived the past fifty years are off-center and exhibit white “snow” on the obverse, two characteristics that make it very difficult to acquire high grade examples. The reverse of each card (many of which appear to be upside-down, another curious printing result) includes a card number, the subject player’s biographical information, including certain of his career and previous year’s statistics, and a drawing of a generic basketball player standing in front of a growth chart whose height matches that of the subject player, a novel feature that drew the novice fan’s attention to a characteristic shared by many basketball players (a trait quite obvious to today’s fans). While there are thirty single printed cards in the set, forty-nine double printed, and one quadruple printed (#24, hall of famer Bob Pettit), all of the cards are extremely rare, compared to their baseball and football counterparts released the same year.
Curiously (or not), only ten of the set’s eighty cards picture African-American players, comprising just 12.5% of the entire set. While the NBA’s color barrier was officially broken in 1950, teams remained reluctant to integrate to a great extent. For example, in Bill Russell’s rookie season (1956-57), twenty-two different African-American players appeared in an NBA game, slightly less than 22% of all players who appeared in an NBA game that season.[vii] By 1960, 26% of the NBA’s players were African-American.[viii]
Many believe that the small percentage of African-American players in the NBA at the time can be explained by the unofficial “quota” system that existed throughout the 1950’s (and even into the 1960’s), due to the alleged stranglehold that Harlem Globetrotters owner, Abe Saperstein (who solely recruited African-American players), had on the NBA owners. As most NBA bosses also owned the arenas in which their teams played, they apparently made mo
re money from Globetrotters appearances than they did from their own teams’ games.[ix] While this theory may seem far-fetched, there exists some statistical support for this alleged cow towing to Saperstein – in its December 9, 1957 issue, Sports Illustrated reported that during the 1956-57 season, total aggregate attendance at the 307 NBA games played (including regular season, playoff, and championship contests) was 1,707,229 while attendance at Harlem Globetrotters games was 1,976,703.[x]
In addition to all of these characteristics, the 1957-58 Topps Basketball set’s most notable inclusions are twenty-one hall of famers (e.g., Bob Cousy, Tommy Heinsohn, Bob Pettit, Bill Russell), twenty of which are also “rookie” cards (although many appearing on “rookie” cards were veterans at the time), cards that represent a player’s sole appearance on a bu
bble gum card (e.g., Maurice Stokes, the 1956-57 Rookie of the Year who was paralyzed after suffering a head injury during one of the 1957-58 season’s final games), and six cards featuring players named to the NBA’s 50th Anniversary All-Time Team: Bill Sharman, Dolph Schayes, Bill Russell, Bob Pettit, Bob Cousy, and Paul Arizin.
The sheer number of hall of famers is particularly notable. Today, it seems quite odd that twenty-one players in a league of eighty could later be enshrined into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Regardless of the Hall’s possible overpopulation, the result is a set that features one of the game’s “legends” on every four cards, an incredible bang for the vintage collecting buck!
The Bill Russell Rookie Card: the Set’s Crown Jewel
While the 1957-58 Topps Basketball set features many gems, the Bill Russell rookie card is its crown jewel. While the set also includes several rookie cards, Russell’s is one of only a few featuring a young player at the beginning of his career – he entered the NBA the previous season (at the age of twenty-two) after leading his collegiate squad, the University of San Francisco Dons, to back-to-back NCAA Championships and captaining the United States team to the gold medal in 1956 at the Games of the XVI Olympiad, held in Melbourne, Australia. Russell went on to win his first Most Valuable Player Award during the 1957-58 season, averaging 22.7 points and 16.55 rebounds per game.
We have heard, countless times, that a picture is worth a thousand words. That cliché could not better describe the image featured on the obverse of the Bill Russell rookie card. As the vintage collector peers at the look of sheer determination on Russell’s face, as he is pictured defending an overmatched opponent, he or she can almost guess the magnitude of Russell’s forthcoming career accomplishments.
In his thirteen NBA seasons, he won five MVP Awards. While never a prolific scorer or focal point of the Boston Celtics’ offense (averaging 15.1 career points per game), he was undoubtedly the game’s greatest ever defensive player, averaging 22.5 career rebounds per game and several blocked shots (however, blocked shots were not recorded as a statistic until the 1973-74 season[xi]).
But most importantly, Bill Russell was a winner. And as a true winner, he won often. In his thirteen seasons, he led the Boston Celtics to eleven NBA titles, including a string of eight straight from 1958-59 through 1965-66, and back-to-back titles to close out his career as both player and coach. While it is admittedly impossible to reduce the accomplishments of such a legend to mere box scores or statistics, his performance in series-deciding post-season games is perhaps the closest we can come to quantifying his mark on the game. He played in eleven of them and averaged 18 points and 29.4 rebounds per game. Most importantly, his Celtics triumphed in each of those eleven series-deciding games.
There are sets and individual cards that teach us not only about our beloved hobby, but the history of sport as well. Some cards also help us understand the mere mortals whom countless of us have idolized. The 1957-58 Topps Basketball set accomplishes both. It provides the vintage collector a window to the golden days of a new league that would become an international phenomenon in the years to come. And, perhaps most importantly, by featuring one of the greatest basketball cards ever issued, the Bill Russell rookie, it helps us appreciate the greatest player to ever lace up a pair of black canvas Converse Chuck Taylor high tops.[xii]
Copyright © 2009 Mike DeNero's Vintage Sportscards, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Endnotes
[i] “Event & Discoveries,” Sports Illustrated, April 21, 1958, 24, available at http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/cover/toc/7560/index.htm. [ii] The Association for Professional Basketball Research, “NBA/ABA Home Attendance Totals,” available at http://www.apbr.org/attendance.html. [iii] Id. [iv] Jeremiah Tax, “Roundball Bounces Back,” Sports Illustrated, October 27, 1958, 31, available at http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1003012/index.htm. [v] Rob Fleder et al., Sports Illustrated: The Basketball Book (Time Inc. Home Entertainment, 2007), 67. Immediately, teams averaged 93.1 points per game for the 1954-55 season, up from 79.5 in 1953-54. Id. [vi] Tax, “Roundball Bounces Back,” Sports Illustrated, October 27, 1958, 31, available at http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1003012/index.htm. [vii] Terry Pluto, Tall Tales: The Glory Years of the NBA, in the Words of the Men Who Played, Coached, and Built, (Simon & Schuster, 1992), 75. [viii] Id. [ix] See John Taylor, The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Golden Age of Basketball (Ballantine Books: New York, 2005), 27. [x] Roy Terrell, “The American Game,” Sports Illustrated, October 27, 1958, pg. 29, available at http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1132873/index.htm. [xi] Steve Aschburner, “Historical Black Hole Leaves League Defensive Records to Speculation,” January 6, 2009, SportsIllustrated.com, at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/steve_aschburner/01/06/all.time/. [xii] Angus Lind, “Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars Still Popular After Decades of Wear,” The Times-Picayune, March 11, 2008, http://blog.nola.com/anguslind/2008/03/converse_chuck_taylor_all_star.html.Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Start Spreadin' the Fantastic News
Start Spreadin’ the Fantastic News!
by Mike C. DeNero
horseshoes and screams at the top of his lungs, “Baseball is coming! Baseball is coming!”
“Beware,” the headlines intone in macabre print. As the Dow Jones plummets and unemployment soars, more steroid scandal this way comes, just in time for baseball season, and this time it directly implicates some of the best baggers in the history of our national pastime. The blue sky has given way to heavy, dark clouds. Smells like acid rain. Imminent perjury charges loom over the allegedly Rocket-fueled Clemens. Positive steroid tests were unsealed in a legal matter involving Bobby Bonds’ kid -- you know, the irascible one who broke that record. Miguel Tejada lay prostrate and sobbing through an interpreter after pleading guilty to perjury. Alex [insert favorite pejorative nickname] Rodriguez took time away from “yoga” with Madonna to admit he juiced up and lied. And then there’s the remaining 103 names on the “confidential” list of 104 and, of course, the
Mitchell Report and its lingering cast of deadbeats. All this, remember, on top of a recent history replete with congressional hearings, Slammin’ Sammy’s corked bat, and Charlie Hustle’s gambling habit.
So, please, don’t bother me with talk of scandal and corruption. I have my fill of that living on Capitol Hill. Anyone who thinks that baseball is purer than that rotten lot we call human beings is shooting up with something more dangerous than HGH. The American and National Leagues have long been populated with drunkards (e.g., Mantle), alleged gamblers (e.g., J. McGraw), and borderline psychopaths (e.g., Cobb), and engaged in scandal -- including cheating (e.g., Shoeless Joe Jackson). But in its defense, baseball always works to right its wrongs.
Let’s look at racism, for instance, that most insidious poison. Baseball had a dream long before Martin Luther King’s time-honored speech from the Lincoln Memorial and, in fact, was desegregated well before America. Jackie Robinson entered the National League in 1947, seven years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education. And while even staunch conservatives couldn’t conceal their pride during the monumental inauguration of our country’s first African-American President l
ast month, Major League Baseball voted Robinson into Cooperstown in 1962, almost fifty years earlier.
And don’t trouble me with the so-called steroid-induced stats problem. The different eras in baseball never yielded any pure reading of relative statistical determinations. Just as we’ve had honest players and juiced players, we’ve had dead balls and juiced balls. We’ve had pitchers who pitched complete games and every third or fourth day replaced by five game rotations, middle relievers, and closers. Exeunt stamina and durability, “Enter Sandman.” We’ve had seemingly mile-long ballparks replaced by carnival-like short fences. Sportswriter Frank Deford said it best: “Baseball statistics are not quite as pure as the mandarins of the game would have you believe. The various eras [of baseball] are distinctively different from one another. The 1890s, without foul strikes, equate very nicely to the recent years, with steroids.”[1] Bottom line: stats and records are fun, if useful; but their unreliability and fallibility does not a catastrophe make.
And don’t bore me with sour economic news. You can have your IRAs and 401(k)s. I invest in baseball. And my investments are up. When it rains, I don’t sit in front of my iMAC and check my sinking stock portfo
lio. I teach my kids about baseball. I break out my 1909 T206 Cobb (bat off shoulder), 1934 Goudey Gehrig (with bat on shoulder), and 1954 Johnston Cookies Aaron and start telling stories. I teach them about investing in a way that resonates (e.g., T206 Honus Wagner vs. the Dow Jones). And my young children love arithmetic. How could they not when it involves Yankees legends: Babe Ruth (number 3) + Lou Gehrig (number 4) = Mickey Mantle (number 7)? (You have to try it: Yogi Berra - Babe Ruth = ________)[2].
And when the sun shines, we go to the ballpark. Major leagues and minor leagues. Box seats and bleacher seats. Last year, I took my five-year old son to Yankee Stadium before it shut down. On the Amtrak up from Washington, D.C., we watched videos on the lives of Ruth, Mantle, and DiMaggio. The following day we sat in the same stadium where those players became legends. And in the fifth inning, with the Yankees falling hopelessly behind the Mets, my son left his own mark on the Cathedral by starting the “Let’s Go Yankees!” chant. Some drunk guy turned around to me and said, “You know, Dad, you can die now.” And he’s right.
The game ended, as always, with Frank Sinatra crooning “Start Spreadin’ the News!” And so I will. It’s fantastic news, by the way. Baseball is coming . . . in all its glory. If I can afford a ticket to the ballgame, I’ll see you there. Otherwise, I’ll be watching from home. And smiling.
Copyright © 2009 Mike DeNero's Vintage Sportscards, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
_____________
Notes
[1] Deford, Frank. The Old Ball Game: How John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, and the New York Giants Created Modern Baseball. New York: Grove Press, 2005, p.41.[2] Yogi Berra (8) - Babe Ruth (3) = Joe DiMaggio (5).
Monday, March 16, 2009
The 1934-37 Garbaty Film Stars Sets
Cigarettes, Starlets, and Nazis:
The Historical Tale of the Garbaty Film Stars Sets
(by Mike DeNero & Kyleigh Spencer)
Each set of cards is history from an original source. – Jefferson Burdick
The Garbaty Cigarette Company
Moritz Garbaty and his family (wife, Ella, and eight year-old son, Thomas) escaped from Nazi Germany in December 1938. Just days before, Moritz was the majority owner and President of one of the most successful businesses in Berlin, the Garbaty Cigarette Company, started by his father, Josef, nearly fifty years earlier. 
While Josef and Moritz owned and managed the company, it was known for the multitude of popular cigarette brands it produced, its generous financial support of a local Jewish orphanage, and its worker-friendly environment, offering unemployment insurance, free meals in its cafeteria, a laundromat, a library, a choir, a newspaper, and even a sports club. Today’s vintage card collectors are familiar with the Garbaty Cigarette Company for producing (from 1934 through 1937) the three greatest sets of cigarette cards featuring film stars ever made.
As Moritz Garbaty and his family boarded the New Amsterdam bound for America, little did he know that an actress featured prominently in the film stars sets inadvertently play
ed a pivotal role in necessitating their escape from Nazi Germany.
The Nazis’ Control of the German Film Industry ed a pivotal role in necessitating their escape from Nazi Germany.
While the German film industry technically remained in the hands of private investors who preferred to produce light-hearted and entertaining films -- and the Nazis believed that movies were a perfect medium to keep the masses entertained -- the Reich Film Chamber, however, ensured that the movie-going experience was censored heavily and infiltrated with propaganda, forcing cinemas to show newsreels and a propaganda film before each feature.
During this period of political and cultural transformation, American culture was “both admired and vilified.”[2] Hollywood movies, in particular, were tremendously popular with the Reich’s pre-war audiences – in fact, Adolph Hitler adored Mickey Mouse, and Swedish-born Hollywood legend Greta Garbo was hailed by the German press as “the essence of race.”[3]
The Garbaty Film Stars Sets (1934 through 1937)
In the center of Nazi Germany's pre-war years, the Garbaty Cigarette 
Company released three sets of incredibly striking cigarette cards: Moderne Schönheitsgalerie (Gallery of Modern Beauty) in 1934; Galerie Schöner-Frauen Des Films (Gallery of Beautiful Women in Film) in 1936; and Film-Lieblinge (Film Favorites) in 1937. Each card has a full color, embossed surface, while the back of each card informs the collector of how to purchase an album (cost: one Reichmark) to house the cards. A cigarette brand logo and other information about the cost of the cigarette boxes in which the cards were inserted also appear on the backs. Interestingly, the word “Garbat
y” is nowhere to be seen. While most cards measure 2 1/16 X 2 7/16, a select forty in the 200-card Film-Lieblinge set are much larger, measuring 2 7/16 X 3 1/4.
The Moderne Schönheitsgalerie Set: Series One and Two
The Moderne Schönheitsgalerie set, issued in two 300-card series, primarily featured German and Hollywood actresses (Series One also pictured some popular female athletes; Series Two also included a few actors, such as Clark Gable and Robert Montgomery). Each card’s surface is varnished (in addition to being embossed) and the backs feature the logo of one of the company’s most popular brands, Kurmark Cigarettes.[4] There are several dozen unique borders in each 300-card series. In our review of Series One, we counted a minimum of 50 unique borders within the first 150 cards alone.
All of the great Hollywood stars of the day made their way into the set. As German audiences especially adored Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, each is pictured on twelve cards! Clara Bow, Rita Cansino (before her name change to Hayworth), Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Kay Francis, Janet Gaynor, Jean Harlow, Helen Hayes, Katharine Hepburn, Myriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Jeanette MacDonald, Maureen O’Sullivan, Ginger Rogers, Norma Shearer, little Shirley Temple, Claire Trevor, Mae West, and Loretta Young are all included, to name a few.
Some of the more interesting subjects, however, are the German actresses. For example, Emmy Sonnemann appears on card #190. In April 1935, Emmy became the second Mrs. Hermann Göring (following World War II, Göring was convicted at the Nuremberg Trials of various war crimes -- the night before he was to be hanged, he committed suicide by ingesting cyanide). Emmy served a one-year post-war prison term after a German court convicted her of being a Nazi.
The Galerie Schöner-Frauen Des Film Set
As the nation prepared to host the Games of the XI Olympiad in 1936,[5] the Garbaty Cigarette Company re
leased the Schöner-Frauen Des Films set (Gallery of Beautiful Women in Film), a scaled-down 224 cards with matte finish. The Passion brand logo appears on the backs, which could account for the set’s rarity (i.e., because Passion was less popular than Kurmark, which included the Moderne Schönheitsgalerie cards, the Galerie Schöner-Frauen Des Films set is more rare today).[6]
We estimate there are nearly 200 unique borders within the 224-card set. Twenty-four even feature borders with a cut-out design, a curiosity because the other 200 cards are identical to the 200 card F
ilmsterne (Film Stars) set released that same year by Aurelia Cigarette Company. Perhaps the Garbaty Cigarette Company added the additional twenty-four ornate cards to make the Galerie Schöner-Frauen Des Films set more desirable than their competitor’s Filmsterne set.
ilmsterne (Film Stars) set released that same year by Aurelia Cigarette Company. Perhaps the Garbaty Cigarette Company added the additional twenty-four ornate cards to make the Galerie Schöner-Frauen Des Films set more desirable than their competitor’s Filmsterne set. Once again, several dozen German and Hollywood actresses are pictured in the set. While the set includes several cards of the most popular actresses – e.g., four of Greta Garbo, two each of Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Claude
tte Colbert, Jean Harlow, and Rita Cansino (Hayworth) – several other lesser known but equally fascinating, actresses, who were popular in Germany at the time, are included.
d on seven cards.[12] It is rumored that in retaliation for her refusal to appear in Nazi propaganda films (along with the fact that she allegedly had a Jewish lover), the Gestapo threw her out of a hotel window in 1937 (thus, perhaps her premature death was not due to “epilepsy,” as the German press reported).
The Garbaty Film-Lieblinge (Film Favorites) set, released in packages of Passion Cigarettes in 1937,[13] includes 200 cards, 160 identical in size to those in the previous two Garbaty sets and 40 that are much larger, measuring 2 7/16 X 3 1/4. The larger cards picture Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Rita Cansino (Hayworth), Jean Harlow, Shirley Temple, Carole Lombard, and Clark Gable, to name a few. In addition to the presence of the Passion brand logo, the backs offered the collector an excha
nge program for the first time – one large card could be exchanged for another of its size or two smaller cards. While the surfaces are embossed and exhibit a matte finish, the borders are far less ornate than those “framing” the previous two sets.
The Garbaty Cards and the Nazi Ideal
nge program for the first time – one large card could be exchanged for another of its size or two smaller cards. While the surfaces are embossed and exhibit a matte finish, the borders are far less ornate than those “framing” the previous two sets.
One of the first things that jumps out about these sets is the sheer number of cards, a total of 600 in the Moderne Schönheitsgalerie set alone. Compared to similar sets available in other countries at that time, t
he Garbaty sets were unusually large. The way the Hollywood stars – still immensely popular despite the Reich's best efforts to control the number of Hollywood films imported for viewing – are scattered among the numerous German ensemble actresses emphasizes that they are no better than other characters in the "cast." Ironically, many of these ensemble actors appeared in so many films that they became famous in their own right.[16] Paradoxically, then, the sets are an ensemble of stars -- the stars become Das Volk!
A second indicator of Nazi influence is how eerily similar all of the images appear. Despite the infinite variety of borders, subjects, and poses, a homogeneous quality emerges. Each image began as a publicithe Garbaty sets were unusually large. The way the Hollywood stars – still immensely popular despite the Reich's best efforts to control the number of Hollywood films imported for viewing – are scattered among the numerous German ensemble actresses emphasizes that they are no better than other characters in the "cast." Ironically, many of these ensemble actors appeared in so many films that they became famous in their own right.[16] Paradoxically, then, the sets are an ensemble of stars -- the stars become Das Volk!
y photograph or film still, then was doctored to a startling degree. In some, the artist redrew all but the most basic shape of the subject’s face, with the finished product sometimes bearing only a passing resemblance to the original photograph. Card after card depicts a translucent skinned woman with impossibly rosy cheeks, resulting in Germanic looking subjects regardless of their country of origin – an ensemble cast conforming to the Aryan ideal. Those actresses whose features are too far outside the ideal to be “Aryanized” are clearly depicted as exotic, such as Anna May Wong in traditional Chinese attire and Conchita Montenegro with her bangle bracelets and chunky earrings.
t unique in the world of tobacco cards. They do not resemble the typical frames of that period, but are a rather fanciful, free-wheeling take on Art Deco forms of the day.
by their first names and last initials (e.g., Myriam H.).[18] Might the eight actresses have been Jewish and their missing last names be the result of forced censorship by the Nazis (most likely, the Reich Film Chamber) or self-censorship by the Garbaty Cigarette Company? While this assertion may seem far-fetched, we note the tale of a book published in 1934, Das Deutsche Fuhrerlexicon (German Leadership Directory), featuring brief biographies of the prominent men in the Nazi Party. Because the directory was still being printed during the “Night of the Long
Knives” (a purge of the Nazi Party ordered by Hitler during the summer of 1934, resulting in over 100 political executions), once released, the directory would have featured murdered members. The solution? White out the pictures and biographical information of the dead party members and release the book as-is, with hundreds of blank spots.
The ensemble nature of the sets, the homogenization of the female images to conform to the Aryan ideal, the abrupt change in border styles, and the missing last names of certain actresses all point to Nazi influence in the production of the Garbaty film stars sets. But the cards – or at least those that featured one actress, Lida Baarova, in particular – may have an even more fascinating and chilling connection to the Garbaty Cigarette Company's fate under the Third Reich.
The Czech Actress, the "Night of the Broken Glass," and the Aryanization of the Garbaty Cigarette Company
Czech actress, Lida Baarova, who is featured prominently in all three sets, was just 21 years-old when she met Jo
seph Goebbels at the Berlin Olympics in 1936, describing him as “a master of the hunt, whom nobody and nothing could escape”[19] – incidentally, Goebbels was notorious for his extramarital affairs, many involving actresses. Their relationship turned romantic during the winter of 1936-37; by October 1938, Goebbels’ sought to divorce his wife, Magda. The soap opera continued when Magda, known as the First Lady of the Third Reich due to her undying affection for the Fuhrer (and perhaps the fact all six of her children sported first names starting with the letter “H”), told Hitler of the affair. The Fuhrer sprang into action, forbade a divorce and ordered Goebbels to break up with Baarova. Goebbels “acquiesced” but reportedly attempted suicide shortly thereafter.[20] Soon, the Gestapo began to harass Baarova, resulting in her decision to flee Germany. 
While Baarova returned to her native Prague for the remainder of her life, her countrymen never forgave her indiscretions with Goebbels. She died penniless at the age of 86.
Days after ending his affair with Baarova, Goebbels seized an opportunity to win back Hitler’s favor.[21] That moment arrived after a Jewish youth named Herschel Grynszpan murdered a German diplomat in Paris, an act of revenge for the deportation of his family to Poland. Goebbels orchestrated the “German” retaliation against the Jews, Kristallnacht (“Night of the Broken Glass”), a night of terror during which the Nazis murdered more than 200 Jews (and caused several hundred more to commit suicide), burned, vandalized, and destroyed several thousand synagogues and Jewish-owned business, and transported nearly 30,000 Jewish men to concentration camps.
On Kristallnacht, after hearing rumors that the Gestapo were ordered to arrest Jewish men (especially those of considerable wealth), Moritz Garbaty hid in a garden house owned by his secretary, a Catholic woman, on the outskirts of Berlin. Moritz’ son, Thomas, who was eight years-old at the time, recalls the Gestapo coming to the family’s home to arrest his father, but leaving shortly thereafter. That night, the Gestapo did manage to arrest Thomas’s uncle, Eugene, but released him after the Garbaty family bribed the Head of the Berlin Police Department, Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf (incidentally, von Helldorf would be hanged in 1944 due to his rumored involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler).
Within days of Kristallnacht, and as a vital step toward the completion of Germany’s Aryanization (the transfer of assets and businesses from Jews to “Germans”), the Garbaty family was forced to sell its cigarette company, undoubtedly at a bargain price. Thereafter, the family resolved to flee the Reich but von Helldorf controlled the issuance of passports to Jews, and Moritz’ father, Josef, was too ill to escape.
Thomas Garbaty, now 78 years-old, told us of his father’s final “donation” to the “von Helldorf Fund” (the colloquial name for a bribe), a payment that secured Josef’s safety (until his death of natural causes less than a year later[22]) and passports for Thomas and his parents. When we asked him to approximate the dollar amount of the bribe, Thomas stated, “huge sums of money, huge sums of money; probably beyond one-million dollars.”[23]
___________________________
Epilogue
An essay chronicling the Garbaty Cigarette Company featured in a collection titled Juden in Berlin: 1938-1945 includes several captivating images scattered throughout; none more so than two featured on the essay’s final page. The first is a photo of Thomas and his parents, Moritz and Ella, on the New Amsterdam bound for Hoboken, New Jersey in July 1939. In the photo, each person is sporting sunglasses while resting on a lounge chair on the ship’s deck; young Thomas is in knickers. The second photo was taken on September 13, 1942, three years after the family’s arrival in America. In this picture, Moritz has his arm around twelve year-old Thomas; both are standing on the observation deck of the Empire State Building with the Manhattan skyline displayed gloriously in the background. The image is priceless; Moritz and Thomas are dressed like any other American father and son of the day. They appear as if they might be heading to the ballpark to root for their home team, or, perhaps, to their local cinema house to see a film featuring their favorite Hollywood stars.
Copyright © 2009 Mike DeNero's Vintage Sportscards, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Endnotes
[1] Sabine Hake, Popular Cinema of the Third Reich (University of Texas Press, 2001), 28. [2] Sabine Hake, Popular Cinema of the Third Reich (University of Texas Press, 2001), 130.
[3] Sabine Hake, Popular Cinema of the Third Reich (University of Texas Press, 2001), 132 (internal citation omitted).
[4] The cards were inserted in Kurmark boxes.
[5] For a brief period during the Berlin Olympics, the Nazis toned down their anti-Semitic attacks, due to Hitler’s fear that the “international criticism of his government [could] result in the transfer of the [Berlin Olympics] to another country.” (See United States Holocaust Museum, “The Nuremberg Race Laws,” available at http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/nlaw.htm). The Reich put its best foot forward for a time, and “even removed some of the signs [reading] ‘Jews Unwelcome’ from public places.” (See id.).
The Berlin Games are largely remembered for the performance of American sprinter Jesse Owens, who captured four gold medals in track & field, and the dominance of the German squad, which captured 89 medals, 33 more than the United States, which placed second in the overall medal count. That result caused the Fuhrer to beam; as Albert Speer noted in his memoirs, Inside The Third Reich:
"Each of the German victories, and there were a surprising number of these, made him happy, but he was highly annoyed by the series of triumphs by the marvelous colored American runner, Jesse Owens. People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive, Hitler said with a shrug; their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games. Hitler was also jolted by the jubilation of the Berliners when the French team filed solemnly into the Olympic Stadium ... If I am correctly interpreting Hitler's expression at the time, he was more disturbed than pleased by the Berliners' cheers." (Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs (Simon & Schuster, 1997), 73).
[6] In a recent eBay search for cards from the Galerie Schöner-Frauen Des Films set, we found one international seller with approximately one dozen individual cards for sale. The cards were graded by a grading company that we do not recognize. Each card is actually a card from the Sultan Filmsterne set but mislabeled as a card from the Galerie Schöner-Frauen Des Films set.
[7] Lil Dagover also appears on multiple cards in the Moderne Schönheitsgalerie and Film-Lieblinge set.
[8] See Guido Knopp, Hitler’s Women (Routledge, 2003), 242; see also Fabrice d’Almeida, High Society in the Third Reich (Polity, 2009), 52.
[9] Also spelled “Chekhova.” Tschechowa also appears on multiple cards in the Moderne Schönheitsgalerie and Film-Lieblinge set.
[10] Fabrice d’Almeida, High Society in the Third Reich (Polity, 2009), 52.
[11] See generally, Anthony Beever, The Mystery of Olga Chekhova (Viking, 2004).
[12] Renate Müller also appears on several cards in the Galerie Schöner-Frauen Des Films set but was not included in the Film-Lieblinge set.
[13] Like the Galerie Schöner-Frauen Des Films set, we have found cards from this set to be incredibly difficult to locate.
[14] See generally, Erica Carter, Dietrich's Ghosts: The Sublime and the Beautiful in Third Reich Film (London: BFI Publishing, 2004), 56-83.
[15] A popular slogan in Germany at the time was “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” (One people, one nation, one leader).
[16] But this view of stardom was not unique to the Reich. As Erica Carter opined in Dietrich’s Ghosts, during the Weimar Republic in the late 1920s, many campaigned against star fees and sought government regulation to help the financially struggling German film industry.
[17] See generally, Barron, Stephanie, "Degenerate Art" The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (New York: Harry N. Abrams Publishing and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991). Pieces created by some of the greatest artists of the day were “exhibited”: Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Max Beckmann, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, to name a few.
[18] The eight actresses are identified as Nina von P. (#240), Gert S. (#242), AnneMarie S. (#244), Katja M. (#246), Gertrud O. (#248), Marion P. (#249), Myriam H. (#270), and Francis B. (#282).
[19] Peter Conradi, “Goebbels Mistress Tells Tales from the Grave,” review of The Sweet Bitterness of My Life, by Lida Baarova, The Sunday Times, January 21, 2001, available at http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/01/01/STimesBaarova.html.
[20] New World Encyclopedia, “Joseph Goebbels,” available at http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Joseph_Goebbels.
[21] Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis (W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), 145.
[22] A woman named Sophie Boroschek (born 1910) managed and maintained Josef’s home, the Villa Garbaty. Sophie would later be transported, along with 1,000 other Jewish men, women, and children, from Berlin to Auschwitz on May 17, 1943. Immediately upon their arrival at Auschwitz, 805 were murdered in the gas chamber. Two months later, on August 2, 1943, Sophie and 85 other men and women were transported from Auschwitz to another concentration camp, Natzweiler-Strutthof, located in Alsace, France. All 86 were murdered in the gas chamber sometime between August 11-13. Immediately, the victims’ still warm bodies were transported to the nearby Institute for Anatomy at the Reichsuniversity Strassburg (the “Anatomy Institute”) for “research purposes” -- the order to murder the 86 selected individuals came from Ahnenerbe (ancestral inheritance), a “scientific organization,” that planned to display their skeletons in an exhibition at the Anatomy Institute as evidence for Nazi “Rassenideologe“ (human race ideology). However, before the “exhibit” began, Allied troops discovered the bodies, which were chemically preserved and hidden in a basement. See generally, Hans-Joachim Lang, “Die Namen der Nummern,” available at http://www.die-namen-der-nummern.de/index.html; Roseanne Leeson & Peter Lande, “Natzweiler Medical Experiments, Natzweiler-Strutthof Camp: A Small List with a Big Lesson,” available at http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Holocaust/0154_Natzweiler_medical.html.
[23] Thomas Garbaty Interview, February 27, 2009. Using the Consumer Price Index, one million dollars in 1938 would be worth $15,280,553 today. See "Six Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1774 to the Present," available at http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
