Who Is Really the Winner of a Daring Dive Off the Coast Of Portugal?
Written by Cheryl Freier, author/illustrator
Once a year, a group of the world’s best divers compete in the Red Bull competition in Portugal. The divers live up to the challenge of jumping off a 95 foot cliff into the waters of the sea. It is a breathtaking experience for the few seconds that the diver is arched into shape and aims herself or himself to hit the water with the least resistance. The diver from the country of Columbia, Orlando Duque has won the vote of the judges and has placed first place for 9 years. In 2012 he placed second place.
There are moments in our lives that we perform to our utmost resilience and skills even though we do not face the challenge of jumping off a 95 foot cliff. Our victories are unseen, unmeasured, and there is very little reward for many times. The feat of overcoming the challenge does not go unnoticed by G-d, however, for he is the final judge. Joseph Freier faced many threatening challenges for survival during WWII and he lived up to the challenges and survived. His prize was survival and the prize was more valuable than other prize.
Read author Cheryl Freier’s first book on the story of Joseph Freier in WWII, The Grayling: Hidden Truth Poems, and read her other novels written in memoriam of her husband, Martin Freier, who was Joseph Freier’s son. Read her fifth novel, which is just being presented to the public this month and the name of the book is Echoes Resounding from the Past: Hidden Truth Poems. (information obtained from National Geographic, March, 2014.)

The Sameness of So Many Areas Surprises Me Every Time
Written by Cheryl Freier
I came across a captivating picture of two horses while reading a magazine. As I grew up on a farm, I was always entranced with the wonder of the beauty and simplicity of some of the domesticated animals. The picture of a graceful bay horse, shaking its mane, and hoofing his front legs into the sand in the front of himself has remained with me for many, many years. But this picture of two white horse–both with a sheen of gold along their bodies, with golden tails in full-length—just about reaching the floor, with shimmering golden-colored manes, which flow with the winds and fly high like the wings of angels, is particularly captivating to me. Why? Because the horses can be anywhere—in any country in the world and the scenery in which they are traveling could be a scene in the open fields of North Dakota, or Idaho, or any other state where the land is pristine pure and undeveloped for miles and miles. The picture of these two horses was taken in the Krug Mountains of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Joseph Freier and his family escaped the Nazi Holocaust by escaping to the woods and then traveling through the Tatra Mountains. The scenery to them as my mother-in-law expressed to me, “was a scene from Heaven and so pure and peaceful”. Although there were no beautiful horses to be seen at the time, the area was, nevertheless, teaming with natural wildlife and that added to the beauty of the mountains in Slovakia. Read my latest book. It is available to the public. It is called: Echoes Resounding from the Past: Hidden Truth Poems. You will find the reading experience a very moving experience. Read my other novels, too. (article taken from: National Geographic, March 2014.)

Thankfully, There Is Always Survival When The Food Chains In The Waters Of The Earth Are Intact
Written by Cheryl Freier (author/illustrator)
When one thinks of waters, one always wants to think about pure and pristine waters. Such were the waters that Joseph Freier and his family found in the woods near the Tatra Mountains in Slovakia during WWII. The waters of the lake sustained their thirst and provided the bountiful sustenance of the grayling fish, which they ate to their heart’s delight.
As there is concern today about the melting of ice and the rising waters of the earth, there was an interesting article about an expedition on the ship Polaris. The heading of this expedition was for the large and far-off archipelago around Franz Josef Land, which comprises some 192 islands. Scientists aboard the ship tested the waters for the complexities of the copepods; these are minute crustaceans, which nevertheless have a direct affect upon the food chains in the Arctic Ocean.
Cheryl Freier is the author of a new novel, which is entitled: Echoes Resounding From The Past: Hidden truth Poems. Read for your reading pleasure; read for your sense of adventure. Read to see the connections from the past to the present. Cheryl Freier’s website is www.thegraylinghiddentruthpoems.com and a second website in which she posts blogs is www.cherylfreiersite.wordpress.com. (source for information on the Franz Josef Land is the National Geographic The First Stonehenge, August, 2014.)

Can The Ness Of Brodgar Have Something In Common With A Bunker Built For Survival During WWII?
Written by Cheryl Freier, author and illustrator

I just became familiar with the Ness of Brodgar, which is located off of the coast of Scotland. It is an extraordinary find, which was found about 10 years ago in 2002. Proven to go back one-thousand years—one of the facets of its uniqueness is that there is no other site in Europe that matches its design or structural development. The central purpose of the community was to worship; it is a feat of building a habitat in a marshland when waters from the ice age were still rising. Evidence suggests from the outline and structure of the buildings that superior knowledge was known in the construction of the stone houses; evidences suggests that this community setting might have been used solely for the purpose of worshipping.
Just a little over 70 years ago, Joseph Freier and his family fled the Nazi onslaught in WWII; they escaped into the woods near the Tatra Mountains; Joseph and his sons built an underground bunker; it was sophisticated enough to house a family of five children and two adults. They also built a stove to cook their food. Safety and concealment from the Nazis was their main purpose, but they did have one Bible; they tried to follow the prayer times, as they prayed in the hollowed-out circumferences of their bunker. I often wonder if anything remained of their bunker, but time will tell as it tells all.
Cheryl Freier has just published her fifth novel, Echoes Resounding From The Past: Hidden Truth Poems; she is a novelist whose concentration is on WWII. Read Echoes Resounding From The Past and become entranced with the way the past repeats itself throughout history. Read two of her other books: The Grayling: Hidden Truth Poems, and The Wild Grasses: Hidden Truth Poems to find out more about the family’s journey for survival in war-torn Europe during WWII. Cheryl’s website is www.thegraylinghiddentruthpoems.com. (information on the Ness of Brodgar found in the “National Geographic”, August 2014 edition).

A major historical development will be taking place soon at the end of this month: there will be the commemoration for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the remaining victims of Auschwitz after the victory against Germany and the end of WWII.
My mother-in-law and her family had many harrowing escapes during the war. I wrote about the family’s experiences in four previous novels. The fifth novel, which will soon be printed and presented to the public, told the story about Anna’s four sons; they were brought to a farm to hide in a hidden room which was built in the back of a barn. They did escape the Germans but there were at least one or two narrow and harrowing escapes. The name of the book is: Echoes Resounding From The Past: Hidden Truth Poems; and I promise that you will have the sense of wonder and appreciation for the freedom that we have in this country, when you finish reading the book.
It was in the late part of the summer of 1944 that the family fled to the woods. This time was worse than ever. They knew that the Nazis had come to kill for the final solution. They knew that the Nazis wanted to kill off all of the Jews before the war ended and that the Nazis were struggling to overcome the recent victories that the Americans, and British, and French had against them.
The Freier family fled to the woods, which boarded near Micholovce, Slovakia in order to escape the onslaught of the German army. They ran from their home almost naked, in summer clothes—hardly clothed and chilled by the cold of the long, cold summer nights. When they heard gunshots in the background, and tanks firing their fierce rounds of ammunition, they got down on their knees and prayed for their lives. Joseph told his wife Anna, “We must all crawl through the woods. We have no choice but to crawl and hope for the best”. They did manage to escape the fiercest onslaught that had ever come to the people of the town of Micholovce. When the family stopped for the first time in the woods, they realized that they had stumbled upon an oasis. Small quince tree, ripe with fruit dotted the landscape and they were near a lake. The family fished for the grayling fish, and they ate the fish, and they were sustained. Week later they were found by Joseph’s trusted foreman and a friend that both men trusted. They were brought food and clothing, which they warmly welcomed and were grateful for. They continued with this type of routine—fishing for the grayling, and eating the food that was delivered, and eating from the forest’s bounty, until the winter of 1944 and 1945, which was the coldest and the fiercest ever. The snow continued to fall for weeks. The temperature was icy cold and every- thing outside up above their underground bunker was frozen solid.
On the night before Christmas of 1944, my mother-in-law, Anna, climbed out of her bunker to pray to G-d to save her five children, and her husband, and herself, who were literally starving to death. She stood there in the middle of the pitch-black dark night in no-man’s land—deep in the heart of the woods that few people had ever seen. The chill dulled her thoughts. She was no longer afraid of dying; she stood there, almost rigid—in tattered and torn clothing, and in boots that no longer fit her feet—they had become so cold. She prayed to G-d to save her family for as she expressed with all of her strength that she had left, “they were innocent and deserved to live. At that moment, she remembered the many times that she had herself visited the Christian poor and had brought them wood to heat their stoves and their chimneys. The winter’s weather had been so severe that they were unable to find food in the forest.
At the moment that she ended her prayers, she heard voices—they were voices from people, the sounds of people traveling through the woods in the darkness of the night and singing. At that moment, she admitted to me that she didn’t even care if they were Nazi soldiers. She and her family had to have food. She looked in the direction where the sound of the singing was coming from, and she saw sleighs in the distance; she saw lights from lighted torches. She called out to these people, “I am here. I am here”, and they heard her, and they brought her and her family food to eat for the Christmas and the New Year, and they announced the new year.
I would like to ask if anyone has any information on the church in Slovakia that these people who risked their lives, belonged to. I would like to know if these people were partisans from Slovakia? If anyone has any information, please email me the information at cfreier2003@yahoo.com. If I can find the names of the people and more information, then I will have the material, the validation which I am seeking, so I can write my sixth novel on the family’s experiences of the very cold winter of 1944 and 1945 during World War II.
I thank you for reading my article.
I am Cheryl Freier, the wife of Martin Freier, who was a survivor.
http://www.thegraylinghiddentruthpoems.com

On This Anniversary Of the Liberation Of Auschwitz, We Must Think About The World At War During World War II and About Auschwitz: The two Ideas Are Inseparable
Cheryl Freier, writer
At the end of the month of January, there will be a dedication for the remembrance of the liberation of interred prisoners from the Auschwitz Camp that was located in Poland. Much has been written about the history of World War II and no doubt in the many generations to come, more will be written on the major battles, and about the most illustrious and remembered generals like General Patton, and General Dwight Eisenhower, and General McArthur, thankfully. More will be written on Hitler and his band of generals who challenged the world to a duel for freedom and nearly won.
Recently I read an article on the Yahoo website that an archeologist was now delving into the logistics issues in several of the countries where the war took place. Investigations were being made in the woods and country sides of these countries to find remnants of WWII; the archeologists were searching for man-made dug-out craters which proved that fighting took place in this area, and they were searching for remnants of supply depots and other proofs that fighting between armies took place in the area. Their search for information on the ground was fueled by a desire of these archeologists to analyze the terrain for reasons for the loss or the gain from the battle. Actually, this idea is quite sophisticated and novel in nature in that archeologist, accordingly have always been known to dig up artifacts of civilizations that existed hundreds and thousands of years ago.
With all that is written about the topic in historical annals and with all that is analyzed for competency, and brilliance, and strategic mistakes, we must remember the central part of the issue—-the heart of the matter is how the Nazi occupation affected the average man and woman and their families. We must think about the other form of destruction not only the destruction of property. We must think about how every person living under the occupation had to assume an entirely different persona and the destruction of the individual. The war bred hate amongst people. The war caused numerable ways of suffering besides the destruction of soldiers dying on the battlefields. The concept of peace was destroyed and if the war had not been brilliantly won, the peace of the world would have been destroyed for all of these 70 years.
But let us talk about another damage that is very rarely discussed. The war showed people that there was a beast within some of us that if unbridled would unleash the power over life and death. This brings us to the heart of the matter of the destruction of our psyche for hundreds and hundreds of years to come. The war showed all people that one man could shout hate and all would follow and shout hate. The war showed us that one man could command armies of soldiers for his own aggrandizement. The war showed us that some of us were capable of imprisoning innocent people and killing them.
The lesson of the war and the lesson of the extermination camps is one lesson in the same. It shows that we must resist temptation to do wrong. It shows that we must become believers in ourselves and in our goodness and prompt those programs that assist us with this peaceful way of thinking. We must have reverence for another human being even if we do not like them. The lessons of Auschwitz will go down in history as the failure of man to have within himself enough sense of righteousness so that the extreme of concentration camps never would have come into existence.
Never before in the history of mankind was a killing machine developed for the purpose of eradicating a whole group of people. We must pray for the strength to follow endeavors that help people and do good and reverence for their entire lifetime. Ultimately, then mankind can recover from the destruction of the war.
Cheryl Freier is the author of five novels which expound on the Holocaust. Her fifth novel, entitled Echoes Resounding From the Past will be available to the public in a week or so.

On This Anniversary Of the Liberation Of Auschwitz, We Must Think About The World At War During World War II and About Auschwitz: The two Ideas Are Inseparable
Cheryl Freier, writer
At the end of the month of January, there will be a dedication for the remembrance of the liberation of interred prisoners from the Auschwitz Camp that was located in Poland. Much has been written about the history of World War II and no doubt in the many generations to come, more will be written on the major battles, and about the most illustrious and remembered generals like General Patton, and General Dwight Eisenhower, and General McArthur, thankfully. More will be written on Hitler and his band of generals who challenged the world to a duel for freedom and nearly won.
Recently I read an article on the Yahoo website that an archeologist was now delving into the logistics issues in several of the countries where the war took place. Investigations were being made in the woods and country sides of these countries to find remnants of WWII; the archeologists were searching for man-made dug-out craters which proved that fighting took place in this area, and they were searching for remnants of supply depots and other proofs that fighting between armies took place in the area. Their search for information on the ground was fueled by a desire of these archeologists to analyze the terrain for reasons for the loss or the gain from the battle. Actually, this idea is quite sophisticated and novel in nature in that archeologist, accordingly have always been known to dig up artifacts of civilizations that existed hundreds and thousands of years ago.
With all that is written about the topic in historical annals and with all that is analyzed for competency, and brilliance, and strategic mistakes, we must remember the central part of the issue—-the heart of the matter is how the Nazi occupation affected the average man and woman and their families. We must think about the other form of destruction not only the destruction of property. We must think about how every person living under the occupation had to assume an entirely different persona and the destruction of the individual. The war bred hate amongst people. The war caused numerable ways of suffering besides the destruction of soldiers dying on the battlefields. The concept of peace was destroyed and if the war had not been brilliantly won, the peace of the world would have been destroyed for all of these 70 years.
But let us talk about another damage that is very rarely discussed. The war showed people that there was a beast within some of us that if unbridled would unleash the power over life and death. This brings us to the heart of the matter of the destruction of our psyche for hundreds and hundreds of years to come. The war showed all people that one man could shout hate and all would follow and shout hate. The war showed us that one man could command armies of soldiers for his own aggrandizement. The war showed us that some of us were capable of imprisoning innocent people and killing them.
The lesson of the war and the lesson of the extermination camps is one lesson in the same. It shows that we must resist temptation to do wrong. It shows that we must become believers in ourselves and in our goodness and prompt those programs that assist us with this peaceful way of thinking. We must have reverence for another human being even if we do not like them. The lessons of Auschwitz will go down in history as the failure of man to have within himself enough sense of righteousness so that the extreme of concentration camps never would have come into existence.
Never before in the history of mankind was a killing machine developed for the purpose of eradicating a whole group of people. We must pray for the strength to follow endeavors that help people and do good and reverence for their entire lifetime. Ultimately, then mankind can recover from the destruction of the war.
Cheryl Freier is the author of five novels which expound on the Holocaust. Her fifth novel, entitled Echoes Resounding From the Past will be available to the public in a week or so.

On This Anniversary Of the Liberation Of Auschwitz, We Must Think About The World At War During World War II and About Auschwitz: The two Ideas Are Inseparable
Cheryl Freier, writer
At the end of the month of January, there will be a dedication for the remembrance of the liberation of interred prisoners from the Auschwitz Camp that was located in Poland. Much has been written about the history of World War II and no doubt in the many generations to come, more will be written on the major battles, and about the most illustrious and remembered generals like General Patton, and General Dwight Eisenhower, and General McArthur, thankfully. More will be written on Hitler and his band of generals who challenged the world to a duel for freedom and nearly won.
Recently I read an article on the Yahoo website that an archeologist was now delving into the logistics issues in several of the countries where the war took place. Investigations were being made in the woods and country sides of these countries to find remnants of WWII; the archeologists were searching for man-made dug-out craters which proved that fighting took place in this area, and they were searching for remnants of supply depots and other proofs that fighting between armies took place in the area. Their search for information on the ground was fueled by a desire of these archeologists to analyze the terrain for reasons for the loss or the gain from the battle. Actually, this idea is quite sophisticated and novel in nature in that archeologist, accordingly have always been known to dig up artifacts of civilizations that existed hundreds and thousands of years ago.
With all that is written about the topic in historical annals and with all that is analyzed for competency, and brilliance, and strategic mistakes, we must remember the central part of the issue—-the heart of the matter is how the Nazi occupation affected the average man and woman and their families. We must think about the other form of destruction not only the destruction of property. We must think about how every person living under the occupation had to assume an entirely different persona and the destruction of the individual. The war bred hate amongst people. The war caused numerable ways of suffering besides the destruction of soldiers dying on the battlefields. The concept of peace was destroyed and if the war had not been brilliantly won, the peace of the world would have been destroyed for all of these 70 years.
But let us talk about another damage that is very rarely discussed. The war showed people that there was a beast within some of us that if unbridled would unleash the power over life and death. This brings us to the heart of the matter of the destruction of our psyche for hundreds and hundreds of years to come. The war showed all people that one man could shout hate and all would follow and shout hate. The war showed us that one man could command armies of soldiers for his own aggrandizement. The war showed us that some of us were capable of imprisoning innocent people and killing them.
The lesson of the war and the lesson of the extermination camps is one lesson in the same. It shows that we must resist temptation to do wrong. It shows that we must become believers in ourselves and in our goodness and prompt those programs that assist us with this peaceful way of thinking. We must have reverence for another human being even if we do not like them. The lessons of Auschwitz will go down in history as the failure of man to have within himself enough sense of righteousness so that the extreme of concentration camps never would have come into existence.
Never before in the history of mankind was a killing machine developed for the purpose of eradicating a whole group of people. We must pray for the strength to follow endeavors that help people and do good and reverence for their entire lifetime. Ultimately, then mankind can recover from the destruction of the war.
Cheryl Freier is the author of five novels which expound on the Holocaust. Her fifth novel, entitled Echoes Resounding From the Past will be available to the public in a week or so.