Did you know that Charlie Chaplin was a Jew?

Regardless of what your answer is, the reality is that, no, you did not know that.

Do you know why you didn’t know that, even if you’ve heard it before?

You didn’t know it because it’s simply not true.

It is, however, a very common rumor. A rumor with very interesting origins that go back to Chaplin’s mustache-sake himself; Adolph Hitler.

We all know the gag. Charlie Chaplin’s, “Little Tramp,” character, gets mistaken for Hitler, because of their coincidentally similar mustache. Oh, what an ironic and comical spectacle!

But it wasn’t a coincidence.

It isn't even ironic.

As they say, truth is stranger than fiction.

Adolph Hitler, a notorious film aficionado, first grew a so-called, “toothbrush mustache,” as an homage to a man who was then and still is to this day, a legend of cinema. The man who originally made that accessory iconic.

A talented British performer, by the name of Charles Spencer Chaplin.

It would seem that his admiration dimmed however, by the time he declared Chaplin to be a Jew, given his reasonably well known objections to those of the Jewish faith.

You see, in 1940, prior to the United States’ entry into WWII, Chaplin made a satirical talkie called, “The Great Dictator.” He (playing alongside his mustache, as well as Paulette Goddard) portrays a power-hungry, vicious, insecure, totalitarian ruler, bent on world domination.

Needless to say, the role ruffled a few of the fuhrer’s finer feathers.

Hitler immediately went on the offensive. He commissioned his Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebels, to spread the word that Charlie Chaplin was a Jew and reportedly declared with agitation that Chaplin, “had his brain circumsized.”

I guess that in spite of being spurned, Hitler felt that he deserved to hang onto the mustache after the breakup.

Still more interesting is the fact that, to begin with, Chaplin was Romani. I.e. a, “gypsy.” A race of itinerant peoples’ actually very similar in both backstory and culture to the Jews and equally despised by Hitler.

This story has always represented a multitude of ironic idiosyncrasies and a sort of sense of living symbolism.

But one of the most stark revelations of this anecdote is that misinformation has long been a commodity peddled to the masses.

Worse, it has generally been a very successful device, because it plays the credulity and herd mentality of people (to add even more irony, a phenomenon warned against in, "The Great Dictator,") as well as their desire for spectacle and a perceived common enemy to unite them.

Chaplin initially refuted reports that he was a Jew, simply because, well... He wasn’t a Jew.

Eventually, however, he came to realize that his denials were being seen as something to reinforce the notion that being a Jew was in fact a bad or shameful thing. Being acutely aware of and sensitive to this brand of stigmatization, given his origins within an often persecuted, itinerant ethnic group; Chaplin eventually ceased to deny the rumor and decided that it would be best left to the people to draw whatever conclusions they would.

And they did.

It would be nice if, “fake news,” was only a present and isolated phenomenon.

It would be nice if the spread of hatred and divisiveness, by use of deceit or hyperbole, was a recent innovation.

It would be nice if everyone was out to help you and to tell you the truth, because they are duty-bound and driven by their high standing on their rung of an infallible honor system.

Unfortunately, they're not.

It is not the duty of the exploitative not to exploit.

It is not the burden of the loathsome to inform the masses.

The first words on the charter that is the basis of all for which this country stands begins, “We the people.”

These words give us not only rights, privileges and a supposed guarantee of accountability from our elected officials.

They give us a responsibility to ourselves.

It is our duty, our burden and our imperative to be accountable for ourselves, by ourselves.

To seek the truth. To illuminate that which is in the shadows and elucidate that which drifts in the mire.

To be informed and to inform others. Assuming they'll willingly accept our information.

We the people, have a moral and ethical responsibility to ourselves and to our country. To uphold the truth in all forms. To speak the truth aloud, when it’s being pushed into a realm of silence and to venerate it above all else.

To bear the burden of reason and carry the yoke of justice.

We must understand that even freedom comes at a cost.

After all, as Mark Twain apparently said 12 years after he died, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has had time to step into its pants.”

They say I have amnesia – retrograde amnesia, to be exact. I cannot remember anything that happened to me before waking up to sunlight on my face and a boy screaming. They say he is my brother; I don’t remember.

Someone slipped up one day, a guy around my age named Elijah. He was telling me how we were friends and that I lost my memory because of an ischemic stroke. I had tried to interfere in a fight between my prom date and my ex-boyfriend, Oliver, – “Classic Alice,” Elijah had said then – and my ex had shoved me out of the way a little too hard. That was when I collapsed, though it wasn’t just from the shove. I had started speaking ‘gibberish’ before the fight broke out, but it had all happened so quickly that my friends didn’t have time to be concerned. I stumbled between the guys before the coincidental moment.

Because it wasn’t my lack of balance or inability to speak that had me brought to the hospital, it was the blood streaming down my split lip. I was lucky that Oliver had shoved me, otherwise it would have been longer before I had gotten help.

I’m lucky; I know I am. I have only been in the hospital for six days and I can already remember traces of the confusion I felt during the fight. The feeling of my feet floating in air before being grabbed back to the ground. The people dancing around me in a circle.

The thing is: that’s not all I remember. I have had brief flashes of an angular face yelling at me, grabbing my arms so that red crescent moons were left behind on pallid skin. Dark hair – my hair – flying around my arms only to be pulled behind me, yanking on my scalp.

I may not remember everything right now, but I know that I don’t want to. I think something bad happened before prom, and I’m not certain anyone else knows, except for Oliver. Because, it is his face that I see (according to the pictures brought to me), and, as desperately as my family and Elijah want me to regain my memory, I can’t bring myself to want the same. People bringing in pictures from before makes my situation worse – because it’s helping. This current guilt is nothing compared to the pain from the past.

The more my memory comes back, the more I treasure my amnesia. It doesn’t make any sense except to say that I am beginning to believe that I am too weak to handle the truth of my life. I am terrified, and I can’t remember feeling a similar emotion except for in my lost memories that are beginning to not feel so lost.

Their life was in need of a Wellington, yes, curly

and easy to kill. Their life was in need of a silly

distraction, something to swap for a pill. They

hadn’t a clue where to find such a thing and feared

for that when they do, it’d make so much noise that

the neighbors would wake and say take it back to the

zoo.

To me, Easter isn’t about the Easter Bunny, chocolate, or egg hunts. Easter isn’t about that stuff, it’s about my Saviour who died for me.

His name is Jesus. He was the only begotten Son of God who came down to Earth, died on the Cross, and rose again on the third day. He saved me from my sins and everytime someone mentions Easter, I don’t think about bunnies or chocolate, I think about Him, Jesus, and I can only thank God that He saved me.

He can save you too. You can be forgiven for all the bad things you’ve done and you can have eternal life! The God who created the universes wants to save you. Will you take Him up on the offer?

Bailamos debajo de una luna llena,

Y ignoramos el resto del mundo.

Solo nosotros por siempre.

Pues, es que pensé.

Nunca éramos en la misma pagina

Porque siempre querías su espacio.

Lo te dí, pero me repagaste

Con un beso en la muñeca de ella.

No somos juntos ahora,

Y no estáramos otra vez.

Pero, detrás de mis lagrimas,

Espero que estés feliz.

ROMANTIC MEMORIES

We danced under a full moon

And ignored the rest of the world.

Just us forever.

Well, that's what I thought.

We were never on the same page

Because you always wanted your space.

I gave it to you, and you repaid me

With a kiss on her cheek.

We aren't together now,

And we won't be ever again.

But, behind my tears,

I hope you are happy.

As if I wasn't lost enough in my sollipsism, suddenly, the challenge strips me of use of others' personal pronouns. Here I was thinking that with writing I would connect to the world and no longer stand tall as me and myself. Here I was thinking that I could give up the selfish I to eye myself to eye and not let me be, only, for me. Seems not, seems that I is I in this room too and any stirring in the mental melting pot I've pushed towards is just neurons firing right back at me.

But, at least, I have me, for myself, when my two arms hug me. And I have me, for myself, to smirk with when I look in the mirror. And I have me, for myself, in silence to understand my I mine unconditionally.

And that's enough to break away my doubt, because I think therefore I'm ready, to move forward and share all that is me. And if that little me feels cornered in the midst of my surroundings, then I'm to say that there's me-s all over to be me with.

And there are.

Remember when I played? I did, and took out the treasure map from under my bed, confidently placed the chess pieces down as stand-in figures of the adventurers. I hid behind a tree, ran as if I was part of an old-fashioned buggy video game, I looted the sights of the South Downs at dawn, as I huddled for warmth, enveloped all around.

Remember when I learnt? I did, and adapted my actions so that I'm not offensive and backwards, so that I'm always a new person and a child at the same time. A sponge, not of the freeloading type, but a soaker to take in with wild eyed fascination of all the liquids and viscosities, of all the shapes and patterns, of all the abstract and concrete that I could fit in my little nooks and crannies.

Remember when I loved? I did, and gave up myself to the dance of two, sometimes more. I gave and took, I built a house to live in and left much later when I needed my feet to move, wheels to carry me, a boat to feel the breeze in. I laughed as my hand was held; kissed when passion overtook me; cried when hurt was around me in such proximity.

I could never do that just me. And I could never have done that without me. So, here I am, me, I as I, alone but never lonely.

I remember the day I woke up deaf. 

     I became deaf when on a Tuesday morning last year. I went groggily downstairs, not even wondering why I didn't hear myself yawn. Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a magazine. 

       Mom noticed my presence and greeted me with a smile. I waved, and mom mouthed good morning, sweetie. I furrowed my eyebrows and began to ask why she wasn't talking. 

       But I stopped in the middle when I couldn't hear myself. 

      I kept repeating words over and over, wiggling and popping my ears. Nothing was changing. Everything was silent and still. 

      By then I was freaking out and having a panic attack. Mom had rushed over to me in worry. Tears were sloping down my face, and I felt how my breathing was all shaky. 

      Mom finally tilted my chin up so I was forced to look up. Everything was blurry, but I lip-read: what's wrong, Avalon?

       I said I couldn't hear anything, and all color drained from mom's face, which just caused me to sob harder. I remember mom and I just sitting on the stairs, crying together for hours. 

     It's called Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSHL), which is loosing your hearing overnight. Apperantly mine happened because of malformation in my inner ears. Only one out of ten people with SSHL have it in both ears. I guess it was so bad that hearing aids didn't work on me, either. 

        But we moved on. Mom, Dad, all of my school classmates, and other important people in my life learned sign language. I used a whiteboard sometimes, but I preferred sign. My life isn't perfect, but I get along fine. 

A dimly lit bistro, with smoky lights, and thick, smoke-filled air. Patrons, regulars, and first-timers, all mix together in an indistinguishable blur as I sit in the corner: alone at a table for two, but I'm not being served. I'm not one to be in a relationship, but why am I waiting? Why aren't I ordering a drink, or two, or eight, to drown myself in a liquor-tainted haze?

I stare silently outside the foggy glass, at the street outside, the crowd passing by the window-side booth without a second glance at the lonely figure slumped over a long-forgotten menu, eyes not registering any of the words printed on the worn paper.

The buzzing of moths head-butting the flickering light bulb overhead rhymes with the clink of glasses and tinkle of utensils on plates around me. I can hear a mother and a daughter conversing in whispered tones, verging on an argument. For a second, I wish to be there instead of the middle-aged woman trying to control the anger bubbling up inside, directed at the defiant teenager. At least I would have someone to talk to, even if the words would be hostile.

Loneliness and bachelorhood go hand in hand, I suppose.  

Wedding rings are a thing of the past - that sepia-tinted photograph of naivety. No one would want an old man of thirty. I am nothing special to those enchanting vixens of twenty-five. 

And that's when I see a pair of soulful eyes, a scalp of hastily brushed brown hair, and an awkward tug at a perfectly acceptable knee-length skirt. A shy smile that draws my attention to velvet lips.

Beauty in motion, but unbeknownst to the cloudy-headed people in the room. 

I step forward, hoping for the figure to be real and not a mind-addled spectre. 

I might give love another chance after all.