MINIATURES

At Dachau, I saw the list of people incarcerated in that infamous concentration camp. Poets, writers, artists, politicians, and musicians – all were listed. Dachau, after all, was one of the places where Adolf Hitler began his Nazification program in Germany. Artists and intellectuals were among the very first targeted for identification and arrest. It's true what they say: after they burned books, they started burning people. Going to the list of musicians, one name really caught my attention: Herbert Zipper. Interestingly, in the mid-1980s, when I was a violinist of the old Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO I) at the Manila Metropolitan Theater, I recall seeing two pictures hanging on the wall – one of MSO founder, Alexander Lippay, and the other of Herbert Zipper, the orchestra's famous Viennese conductor. Herbert Zipper, a Jew from Vienna, was born on April 24, 1904, to a prosperous family. He studied composition and conducting under renowned names like Maurice Ravel and Richa...

Rizal Stance? Primary sources and what others termed as established facts point out that José Rizal disowned the 1896 Revolution led by Andres Bonifacio and the Katipunan. In his manifesto to the Filipino people, written during his trial, he stated: "On my return from Spain, I learned that my name had been used as a war cry among some who were in arms". ... .  " From the beginning, when I had news of what was being planned, I opposed it, fought it, and demonstrated its absolute impossibility. this is the truth, and there are living witnesses of my words. I was convinced that the idea ( the revolution) was highly absurd and what was worse, would bring suffering. I did more. When later, in spite of my counsels, the movement broke out. I spontaneously offered not only my services but my life and even my name to be used in any manner  thought opportune in order to suppress the rebellion."   "Holding this ideas, I cannot do less than to condemn, and I do conde...

       Jose Rizal's mother(center), sisters and nieces In the morning of December 29, 1896, a day before his execution, José Rizal wrote a short note to his family. It was an urgent call of a man seeking to be heard by his family for the last time, a wish, hours before death, to see his loved ones for the final time. The note reads: "My dear Parents and Brother-Sisters, I would like to see each one of you before dying, though it may cause much pain. Come the most valiant. I have some important things to say. Your son and brother who loves you," That something inside the alcohol burner turned out to be the immortal untitled poem we now know as "Mi Ultimo Adios." But what was inside the shoes? In the late afternoon of the same day, the women members of the Rizal family came to Fort Santiago to bid goodbye. First was the mother, Doña Teodora Alonzo. They had only a few minutes to speak. It was said that they were held apart by the guards. That mother and son ended ...