Magic at War

American-Latino Ramón Galindo fought for his adopted country in two of World War Two’s key battles, surviving the war to become a  tailor, filmmaker and world  renown bird-magician.  Introduction   Ramón Galindo was born on 29 May 1921, in San Juan, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. His parents moved across the border to the U.S.A. when he was still a baby. They opened a tortilla shop in Austin, Texas and Galindo was raised there.   He was just 8 years old when share prices at the New York Stock Exchange collapsed in 1929.    Despite growing up during the decade-long Great Depression, Galindo developed an early interest in magic after his father showed him a trick.   Off to war   When the United States entered World War Two in December 1941, the 20-year-old volunteered for military service in the Texas State Guard. He completed basic soldier training at Camp Mabry, in mid-Texas, under instructors who’d fought in World War One.   A year after...

The second part of this blog about Nivelli, a German Jewish magician, continues the story of his journey through The Holocaust, and how he used magic to survive in the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp...   Magic for survival   When Nivelli arrived at the  Auschwitz II-Birkenau  ‘family camp’ he was  tattooed wi th the number #A1676. In this inhumane and impersonal environment, the Nazi guards - and even the inmates themselves - referred to each other by their numbers; such was the degeneration of life there. But, among the several thousands Jews and other   untermensch  [Nazi term: sub-humans, such as Romani people and homosexuals] in the family camp, Nivelli had an identify beyond a number. “When the S.S.  [abbreviation for Schutzstaffel, Nazi paramilitary organisation]  found out that I was ‘Nivelli, the Magician’ whom many had seen in leading theatres throughout Germany, they sought me out and commanded that I entertain ...