Genie lights a 'touch-paper' ....

noun: touch-paper

1. a strip of paper impregnated with nitre, for setting light to fireworks or explosive substances.
   • used in reference to an action that is likely to cause anger or controversy.
     "it was an intervention by the umpire that lit the blue touchpaper"

​[Editorial note for Genie's Precursory Chapter. This is the story of Genie Baskir written by and about Genie Baskir from her own perspective. It describes how and why she became the second member of 'The Trio' whose combined story is now being documented for the first time under the banner of 'Pebble Theatre'.

Because Genie refers to key personnel and key events outside of her own account, and because readers may not be familiar with either the people or places referred to, additional information has been added.

This publication makes no apologies whatsoever for anyone who becomes offended by what they read. This work represents the act of shining a light into dark corners into which others fear to look. These are dark corners where offenders against the human rights of other individuals do not want you to look.

The authors do not claim to have uncovered all of the details, because this is still an ongoing work of discovery, and when new information comes to light that varies the accounts rendered so far by revealing alternative interpretative information, modifications in the form of additions, deletions or variations will be made to this precursory text before it is published in a finalized format. Additional information to that effect is always welcomed, providing it is thoroughly sourced with documented references that can be accessed by the Editors of this work. Genie now continues in her own words ....]

When I was a girl my father disallowed any criticism of Israel.

He worshipped the State [of Israel]. Any commentary had to be glowing and flattering. He would not answer the obvious question: "Why didn't he and my mother come immediately to Palestine in 1945?" Instead they waited in Bergan Belsen as 'Displaced Persons' until 1949 to leave  for the USA. [But], the USA was not accepting refugees or D.P.'s.

[Bergen-Belsen is located in Lower Saxony, northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen. It was a Nazi concentration camp liberated by the British Army on April 15, 1945, who gave its occupants the collective name 'Displaced Persons'. Although many survivors of the Nazi period returned to their countries of origin, many of the twelve thousand Jewish people remained behind. The camp was finally closed in September 1950. Please visit: https://bergen-belsen.stiftung-ng.de/en/history/thedisplacedpersonscamp1945-1950/ for more information.] 
 
The story of Jewish Holocaust survivors getting into the USA is the same as war criminals and undesirables ... by hook or by crook. A small secret only revealed by Alan Gerson in his autobiography, and understood only by the cognoscenti. Father's secret was that he understood that Israel was founded by Marxists as the Marxist paradise, and he was having none of that business about "having survived the Red Army and Stalin", etc.

[Please visit: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/us/allan-gerson-dead.html for the remarkable obituary of Alan Gerson which connects the past with today.]

There is a film called 'Defiance' starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber as the Bielski brothers who sort of established a kibbutz of hiding Jews in a Belarusian forest. The brothers end up in Brooklyn as cab drivers, I believe, and when we were still living in the Bronx the family went often with Father to see them. Father appears by default in the film as a Russian officer. The question is how the Bielski brothers were able to obtain material and ordinance and basic food stuffs. Father was stealing it for them from the Red Army. As the bothers would tell their story they would never identify who else was there because American citizenship for survivors was as tenuous as for the war criminals. I only understood who this other family was after seeing the movie.

[Please visit: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/33/ for more information about this forest. This next section links to yesterday's edition written by Genie Baskir concerning her involvement with Abe Nathan's 'Voice of Peace' offshore radio station. See: Genie introduces herself .... ]

​My father was an acknowledged hero in Israel because of his exploits for Jews against Stalin during World War II. However, I found Israel to be the most awful place I had ever been in. Americans were insulted and abused and money was always and then they wanted us to go home. The only friendly Jews were the religious fanatics who wanted me to marry into their sects and drop babies every year. They also wanted American money.

Once when I was very young and the news was going on about the Cold War, I asked my father why the USSR hated us so much. His answer: "The Russians don't hate us. They want to be us."

[The next part of Genie's story connects to her original meeting with Mervyn Hagger. For details please refer to the end of a previous edition of the main storyline."]

If I recall correctly, I believe I answered an advert in the 'Dallas Morning News' in March of 1981.

[Please see: Genie's story .... ]

Mervyn's explanations have crystallized other memories [in my mind about] 'City Digest' and Grey [Pierson]. When I was putting out the 'Diana' issue, Grey [Pierson] was on my case [and he was constantly abusing my accommodating nature so much that I was sinking into a depression. He did not want the magazine that IFAP and IFAC were intending [to create.] He wanted 'D' magazine and Wick Allison's  vision. Grey literally said he wanted to be Wick Allison.

[Please see this obituary for more about Wick Allison: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/remembering-wick-allison-d-magazine/ ]

I didn't understand IFAC and IFAP and the grandiose signs on Grey's law office doors but I thought they were comical and because I didn't know about the behind the scenes stuff I didn't understand the [relationship between the financial backers and Grey Pierson], and I certainly didn't know that they were close Pierson relations.

Grey [Pierson] wanted me to become close with his female cousin who I called 'Scarlett'. She was married very young to a a rich plumber if I recall. Because I didn't know she was a close relation [to the Pierson family], I was truly injured when Grey [Pierson] lit into me venomously about my nickname for her. Grey [Pierson]  insisted that 'Scarlett' and I bond over lunches out even though she didn't want any more to do with me than I with her. We had nothing in common. I was an intellectual and she was not. I did enjoy talking fashion with her, but she didn't want to know me. At that time I chalked this up to my being Jewish and that was confirmed by Lawrence West.
​
'Scarlett's' father was owned a gift shop in Tyler, Texas. I [am familiar with] this [type of] business because my mother was comptroller for the same [kind of] businesses in Nanuet in New York State. [My mother became] wealthy [as a result of her work. In Tyler, the primary investor in IFAP, which was the parent company of 'City Digest Corporation'], also owned the franchised Tyler edition of 'City Digest'  [magazine, but] I didn't deal too much with that.

Genie's story continues tomorrow ....