Richard Zimler is a luso-american author, living in Portugal for many years. His bestseller, ‘Último Cabalista de Lisboa’, is followed by his outstanding book, ‘Seventh Gate.’Remember that when the Catholic monarchs, Isabel and Fernando, in Spain let the Church kill a hundred thousand jews, with many more fleing to Morocco and Portugal.
Soon afterwards, the same happened in Portugal and many thousands of jews fled to Holland, Morocco and Istanbul. Many of those in Morocco later returned to the Algarve and we can see a well preserved cemetery and museum in Faro.
Lies and manipulations that killed democracy in Germany, allowed the rise of Hitler in 1935 and resulted in the Second World War, are well detailed in Richard Zimler's ‘Seventh Gate’, (Porto Editora). A great thriller, released in the US in 2012. History repeats itself!
Zimler returns to the theme of ethical values and the ease with which xenophobes, like Hitler, spread lies in the media and manipulate funds and stock exchanges with the support of giga companies that later offered sweets to sweet politicians.
The book describes a young Berliner girl, with gift for drawing, who has a brother with a verbal disability and a leftist father who is tortured by the Nazis and becomes one of them.
It tells of her courtship with a young neighbour who only becomes a Nazi to drive powerful cars and parade around in a uniform. With an incredible literary gift, Zimler tells us of the feelings and actions of good Germans, good professionals, all of whom have some deficiency; one is ugly and tall, another is a dwarf, another is deaf. Hitler wants to kill them, in order to have a superior Arian Germany.
Hitler used neuro-marketing to get elected, then set fire to the Reichtag to kill democracy and run the country and killed most of those who said what they thought.
Isaac, the entrepreneur and thinker of the group, studies and disseminates Judeo-Christian values not only in words, but in actions. He is very agile in avoiding death and supports the escape of his friends until he arrives at the Seventh Gate, which leads to God. The happy ending is in the Church St Madalena and in the Seven Hills of Lisbon (p.149).
"Democracy is dying, the economy being replaced by finance, good SMEs are sold or killed. Moral?"
The parallel between 1936 and today is evident. Today's neuro-marketing, to elect people like Trump, is used more accurately than back then. The half-truths disclosed by the media resemble those of Goebbels (p.197). The scandals seen on TV, involving amounts of €50,000 or €90,000, instead of the €9 billion that the giga companies annually evade, are only to distract us from what is important.
It's like Trump, exaggerating a case with North Korea or Iran, to avoid focusing on US internal problems. Or the alliance Putin+Trump, who protect the biggest cartels of arms and oil, which do not want changes. This resembles the Hitler-Stalin pact to protect the interests of Messerschmitt and BASF, which grew during the War.
By killing the Jews’ businesses, Hitler killed SMEs, especially the innovators, who competed with the gigas. These, like now in Portugal, evaded taxes, abused cheap labour, pay for advertisements in the media to void self-censorship and stop publishing the truth.
TV is diverting the attention of the citizen to what counts: democracy is dying, the economy is being replaced by finance, good SMEs are sold or killed off.
The Seventh Gate (The Sephardic Cycle #4)
by Richard Zimler
by Richard Zimler
Set in 1930s Berlin, during the Nazis' rise to power, 'The Seventh Gate' brings together Sophie Riedesel, an intelligent, artistic, and sexually adventurous 14-year-old with Isaac Zarco and his friends, most of whom are Jews, ex-circus performers and underground activists.
To order:
