they are all compelling, they are all well told, they are all full of detail. i am just curious, how you do that? >> that is a good question. all i know is that i do it and whether i do it well or not is up to the reader to tell me, but-- when i wrote "forrest gump" i wrote one novel after that. ..

and so i think -- i never even thought about why i do it. you asked me a question and i am trying to give you an answer because i think -- i don't want to keep writing over and over. if i was an expert on something like many historians are, they are experts on some field, and i kind of -- [inaudible] don't know any of them jerry well but i can do a measurable job i hope as long as people keep, like you, coming here and being interested in these things and i can keep it fresh.

when i do the writing, i don't assume the reader knows these things. i write assuming the reader doesn't know these things. so that in itself refreshing. it's like teaching. i was talking last night to a friend. i told you we went up to this place and tony clark is the dean of college communications at georgia. we were talking about this with we've mitchell down here. i said i'd do it because it is a form of teaching. you don't have to go to class and you don't have to stand in front of students and all that. they can read it or not read it, i don't care. but the ones they're read it and want to read it, if they go away with just one or two things they didn't know before that make a difference in their lives on a

happy camper. and on that happy note, let's go selling some books. [applause] thank you. >> winston groom is the author of 14 books including "forest gump," patriotic fire and conversations with the enemy he co-wrote with duncan spencer and was a finalist for the pulitzer prize. this event was hosted by the atlanta history center. to find out more, visit atlantahistorycenter.com. "vicksburg,hasia diner directore center for american jewish history at the denver city contends contrary to popular history jewish-american state publicly memorialize the

holocaust following world war ii and prior to the eichmann trial ms. diner presents literature and public displays of psalm to present her argument. the museum of jewish heritage in new york city posted this event. it's one hour. [applause] >> first i want to thank the museum of jewish heritage for opening its space for this talk. and i am very thankful also to the the new york university press that has been actively involved in arranging this, and obviously also bringing the book into life and i want to thank everybody for coming. obviously many of you are friends and family, so it is a different kind of talking experience when i'm speaking to strangers. so i appreciate everybody's presence here. so, we remember with reference and love is my most recent book. like each that came before it,

it represents a process of my identifying some problem in the past that intrigued me. some amount of time grappling with of how to conceptualize a question out this problem. there's the longer period of time spent in endless libraries and archives digging through mounds of material followed by months and months of writing and rewriting. each one of those books has a unique history in terms why i decided to write what i did and how i did each evolving into labor of love. each in fact was a chapter in my life. but we remember with reverence and love unlike those other books is a book that i actually should never have had to write. it is the only one of my books in which the initial impetus didn't come from the desire to

solve some historic puzzle or reconstruct an aspect of the past for its own sake. whether this book was very different. my decision to embark upon a came from the fact that an american jewish historians among others have been involved for several decades in the construction and the dissemination of a false history about american jews in the post world war ii period and their relationship to the holocaust. in the dominant view of that history the jews of the united states in the 20 years or so following the end of world war ii with its shuddering reali that one-third of the jewish people had been destroyed could not, would not, and did not make that horrendous reality a part of their communal culture. historians, journalists, jewish community activists and beyond have all agreed that a culture of silence stalked america.

the other white and from the left or the right, rather writing from within the jewish community or without the have converged around a communal consensus that has asserted the post world war ii american jews -- that have converged around a communal consensus that has asserted that as jews found american society opening up to them in new and welcome ways after the end of the war they decided quite affirmatively that the holocaust couldn't be part of their repertoire of concerns. the leaders of their communal institutions, the other historians have told us in particular put the lid on any talk of a holocaust making sure that the memorial was asian of the death of the 6 million at the hands of the germans and their allies did not take place. that's terrific topic had to be marginalized and particularly in

the large public sphere when confronting the american public had to be squelched. this kind of rhetoric coming out of the pants or i guess now we must say the screens, these are the keyboards, of historians, scholars, committed to the laws of evidence have been dominant since the 1980's. and when i first confronted this narrative about the past, it took me aback and caused me to wonder how this could have been. first of american jews hadn't actually an act will be decided to forget those brutal deaths and not dwell on the destruction, they would have acted in wheys that were different than probably any other human beings in any of your time in history. that is wherever and whenever human beings have lived they have memorialized the tragedies which have confronted their communities. so how amazing it must be that only the jews of the united states in the period after world

war ii deviated from that universal norm. a second i wondered at the issues of the united states really followed the orders imposed upon them by some communal elite and had decided, had agreed to the directions to remain silent about the holocaust they would have for at least that moment in time also deviated from the basic narrative of american jewish history. the kind communal discipline that i as a historian millo never existed that kind of communal discipline on a note never existed. american jewish history in that period and india for the 300 years before has in fact been the history of anarchy created for sure of multiple and constantly changing groupings scuffling with each other over the nature of judaism, joyce identity, jewish politics, jewish community life with no one able to dictate what should

be sent, when and how and finally the communal consensus that maintain that the holocaust lead. below the surface of american jewish life until the middle or the end of the 1960's i grabbed my attention because it flew in the face of my memories of the post war period triet now while i am generally very skeptical about using personal recollections as the basis for history particularly after this book i am now convinced it is totally -- their total useless such recollections can be very helpful as we is to start our historical increase. and i wondered was i misremembering the american jewish world of the 1950's and early 1960's that i grew up in in which talk of the holocaust and performances of eight or everywhere? or did my experiences of the holocaust, the ones i had remembered, was it just on usual

and did a jar profoundly with those of other american jews in other places at that time? now, had the other historians offered a more complicated and nuanced interpretation of postwar jewish history and the role of the holocaust and had they done any real scholarship i might have never written this book. but rather the state to do and restated again as a given from the years of 1945 until some say 1961 most converge around 1967 that in the united states the jews did not use the holocaust to advance their political or cultural agenda nor did they invest time or energy in telling about it or memorializing at. since my fellow historians created this version of the past i felt compelled to step in and find out what actually did happen. i wanted to know not what the

historians was thinking about women and men who constituted the jews of the united states and post war period said and did in relation to the holocaust. what did they create in terms of rituals and words and images to make their world a place which recognized the enormity of loss and how did they understand the burden which that loss placed upon them? now, before i talk about specifics of the book i just want -- just to tick off a few assumptions that i work with in putting this together. most importantly, the assumption that underlays this book is that the size and the shape and the intent and the nature of leader holocaust projects this museum as a good kick sample, ought not be considered the yardstick against which to measure the earlier efforts at more realization. that came later in the 1980's,

1990's, i guess the 2,000's loss for sure larger, better organized, more systematic, and much more connected to the general american culture. but that does not mean that a previous generation collaborated in a conspiracy of silence. secondly, i assume in this book that it mattered very little with my subject -- again, the women and men of post world war dominica -- had to say about this event. it didn't matter what they called it. did they call it a catastrophe with a lowercase literacy or catastrophe with an upper case letters si? did the call at 6 million hitler times, one young woman called it the dark reign of terror under hitler. they called holocaust, nazi holocaust, hit for holocaust, if the holocaust had eight

lowercase or uppercase h. none of that mattered and they invested little time trying to figure out what to call it. they knew what it was and the act upon it. and finally, i assume here that memorials to not have to be limited to slabs of marble in the ground or join and buildings which dominate the cityscape. they took all sorts of forms and shapes and manifestations, books, but dedications, liturgies, political and communal work, communal gatherings, songs, dances, pageants, please all functioned as memorials in as much as those who created them considered them to be exactly that. and those who attended or those events consumed these works also understood we are told very directly that these were created for a memorial purpose. so, what i would like to do is do a brief journey through the book to just get a kind of flavor for what is in here.

this isn't a reading perce but i do have to have a copy of the book and i am just going to read some quotes, some little snippets i quote in here so i am not reading my own at all. you can engage with that if you want on your own. so at the most basic level i wanted to look at what were literally memorials. memorial's plain and simple. physical memorials, rick sable in cemeteries. plaques in buildings, synagogue memorial looks, the involvement of american jews in funding a holocaust memorial in europe mainly the documentation center in france as well as their role in the building of not a sham. printing memorials, the memorial books created by put together by primarily polish jews memorializing the towns they had come from. a book dedications, memorial day

is, memorial programs, the use of the jewish calendar to yom kippur, passover and so on to function as memorial time. the creation of liturgies and other works to make these moments in jewish time to be remembered. so i'm going to share just one brief part of the text that i think is very much reflected of this and anybody who has been to pass over at my house is very familiar with this and this is a one-page text compost by a committee organized by the american jewish congress in 1952 and every year hundreds of thousands of copies of this text were mailed to jewish organizations around the country and it was reprinted in jewish magazines and jewish newspapers and translated into yiddish and

so on serve the text was called the cedar ritual of remembrance and a very brief reading but it is in english and hebrew and opens with the following words. on this night of the cedar we remember with reverence and the loved, the title obviously the book, the 6 million of our people european exile who perished at the hands of a tyrant more wicked than the faeroe who in sleeve donner fathers and egypt. come said he let us cut them off from being the people the name of israel be remembered no more. and a slew the blameless and the pure men, women and little ones with a purse of poison and burned them with fire. but we will abstain from drilling on the deeds of the evil ones last week in the image of god in which man was created. the text went on with a paragraph about the uprising and ended with a very powerful from the depth of their affliction the martyrs' lifted their place in a song of faith and coming of

the masada when justice and brotherhood will drain on on the mn and those assembled were not surprisingly to sing. so the culture, the process of creating a memorial and a words and physical objects loomed large. some however chose to go beyond just remembering but rather were convinced that the world, the american world, the american jewish world, children in particular needed to know and they engaged in a process of trying to create a historic record of what had happened and sought to keep the constant, to foster a constantly and ever-growing body of literature which brought the narrative of the catastrophe to the public. scholarship, okay first and foremost the building of archives which anyone who's worked in an archived knows what

a slow and laborious process that is. scholarly journals, early scholarly works, memoirs of holocaust survivors and testimony, writings in the jewish press, the creation of literature and english, yiddish and hebrew all went on all took upon themselves the chore of telling what had happened and quite bluntly knowing that germany under the nazis had slaughtered 6 million jews. they were very concerned the story be heard within the jewish world and in the larger american one. so, again, just a quote and reading from one of the original sources i found, and this happened to be a really sort of ephemeral source in that it was a letter to the editor that appeared in the "boston globe" that is so happen somebody collected and put it in the

final on the papers of the jewish labor committee and i would have never gone for the boston globe to see if there were any letters to the editor of the subject but fortunately for me somebody eclectic because it will be very powerful story. so i'm going to read the letter from the 1959 boston may issue of the "boston globe." and it's from mr. kudluwitz. i'm writing to tell of a drastic error in the may 4th globe in an article covering the warsaw ghetto memorial. i want to pause for a moment and note this means somebody at the school had contacted the globe and told them that there was going to be in warsaw ghetto memorial program. we could assume this is something of a global would have known about on its l in the. so, again back to mr. kudluwitz

to get it was printed. now here is a quote from the may 4th globe. children of the parents are butryn squall blight to the campbells and later a reading in german date a portrait of life in the ghetto and massacre by the nazis. that's the end of the quote. now mr. kudluwitz. in the first place if your reporter -- your report to should have inquired as to the language used if it were unfamiliar to him. in the second place, it should have been apparent to the reporter that whatever language would have been used it certainly would not have been german. [laughter] this was a memorial observance paying tribute to the 6 million jews who died at the hands of the german nazis. therefore it would seem to sing the praises to the jews in the german language. the children of the school rendered their portrayal in yiddish, the language used by the jews in eastern europe and taught at the school itself.

okay? and since the appearance of your article hour school has received numerous telephone calls questioning our use of german in the program. [laughter] we would appreciate a retraction of your error. now nobody collected there was a retraction or not. but the point i think is well taken by that little stray document that we're and when individuals involved with jewish communal life down the opportunity to tell the story and make sure it was told correctly they move forward with this task and did not feel the need to bury the story and not tell the world. now, the reason to remember and the reason to tell, again i think they represented what we might consider to be i think i am willing to go out on a limb it seems basic human nature and that in the event of such stupendous porter could not --

one couldn't imagine it wouldn't have been memorialized and it would not have been shared within the community and from the community to the larger american neighbors. but in particular a series of tours or tasks and burdens fell upon the shoulders of the american jewelry and the use the narrative of the holocaust in fact fulfill what they understood to be there to responsibilities. so first those responsibilities involved assisting the survivors of the holocaust triet fund-raising political maneuvering both in the name of the survivors, both required the telling of the story. both directed at the jews of the united states but they were always constantly conscious of the it to involve the larger american public. the jews of the united states in fact were the only body in the world able to provide the financial support for the

survivors in their years of need and indeed the amount of money collected by american jews in the aftermath of the holocaust is still considered to be the single largest humanitarian relief effort in history hasn't been overshadowed by the tsunami really for any of the other horrendous tragedies that have occurred in its aftermath. so this was something only the jews of the united states could do as they sought to improve conditions in the displaced persons camp, open access to palestine to the survivors and facilitate migration to the united states and all of these required the sympathy of the american public as a whole. brochures, flyers, advertisements in newspapers both jewish in general spots on radio and television shows designed to raise money, heightened awareness and barbour political support all told the same story over and over again,

two-thirds of european jewry had perished under the nazi regime but one-third managed to stay alive and those who did needed vast amounts of assistance. fund-raising calls essentially needed the historical narrative to tell what had happened in order to maximize the sympathy on the part of the public. the references to the catastrophe need not have been lengthy and indeed the material hardly lend itself to extensive extensive treatment but it needed to direct the listeners, viewers and readers to the connection between the devastation that constituted the holocaust and the needs of the survivors. again i'm just going to share one small example of this. so in 1950 the jews of charleston south carolina celebrated 200 years of jewish life in the state of south carolina and they brought a player right now from new york to write a historical pageant on

the history of this jewish community. the playwright did in fact do as charged and he created a play entitled those who live in the sun which was performed in both charleston and was taken to feeders and other kinds of the news all over the state. the plea involved a huge cast of costumed characters, the play recreated the history of the jews at the state from the end of the 18th century down to the present seemingly not a place to tell the story of the holocaust or need to garner support for survivors. yet the story of the play opens in, quote, barrett 17 displaced persons center bavaria and the center administrative office on a december night, 1950. and so the play is told through the eyes and consciousness of the family of survivors, the

shuman family, a mother and father and two children who witnessed the history of charleston in this cast of thousands played, and at the end of each act, the family of survivors comes back on the stage and comments on what they had seen and they finally ended by stating that a small displaced family from poland, quote, has now the hope of life they hope to reach in charleston and were that not enough to make kind of clear the point of the play was not to tell the history of charleston to garner support for the survivors the head of the united jewish charities of charleston came on the stage every night the play was performed in charleston and told the play that ran for a week that several hundred families of survivors had come to that city

in particular and they, like the shuman's wanted to make a new life for themselves and what not the good people of the city open up their jobs and homes and sympathy to these newcomers. so too the engagement of american jews with germany in the post war period was something that involved not only telling within their own community but germany had done, but trying to make sure that americans particularly those with power and influence knew the story of what germany had done and understood its implications in the post war world. as the jews of the united states through their communal organizations and institutions saw it was their responsibility to lean on the american government to bring the perpetrators to the bar of justice. to make sure that germany did

not free militarize. that the united states government uses considerable power to make sure that they often had it in quotes, former nazis. the didn't consider them former at all. but former nazis not return to public life on tarnished and that right wing pro or mosul prudhoe nazi groups not flourish in germany again that the use of germany in particular learn what had been done by the third rife and in addition american jewish organizations played an extremely important role in hammering out the various agreements with starting in the late 1940's with federal republic of germany, which went on to compensate the jewish people for that which it had stolen from them. all of this created a reality that despite the cold war and american and west germany's favorite status in the american public opinion as a bulwark against the soviet union american jews in their public

sphere to come ashore of holding germany's feet to the fire and to do so required that once again they repeat the details large and small as to what germany had done. this took multiple forms, letters to public officials, letters to the press and the cities they lived in, organizing public meetings, in fighting notable and influential mullen choose to participate with them, writing articles and the like. so again, just one example of this. ..

government the government of the united states was shocked that our government did not publicly protest to the fact that there are more than 20 west german publishing firms that publish memoirs of leading nazis..

a range of political issues of the day, including but not limited to civil-rights, the efforts to change the immigration laws of the united states, those laws that had been on the books since the 1920's and based on explicitly racial and national categories, lobbying for the genocide convention, exposing the eastern bloc anti-semitism, exposing suppression of civil liberties in this great anticommunists heyday of the posed for period, combatting proliferation of

right-wing groups and seeking to win support for israel, all the loud or required american jews to, differently, talk about the holocaust within their own communal circles and to the larger public as the opportunities arose. that is, they couch their political working in the idiom of the holocaust. they did not pose in a clear difference between working on these political projects and folding references to the catastrophe in to their public works. i mentioned in that very brief introduction to that part of the book, the genocide convention and so let me just say something about that. it was the document itself was written by man named, a former polis and jewish jurist, who survived although most of his family did not in his work in the united states was completely underwritten by the american jewish committee which paid four, gave him retainers selika

continue to survive, and he wrote this document which he submitted then to the united nations because the united nations passed it and it was on the premise that every government around the world, every member of the u.n. would pass this convention. now it became-- it was a treaty and it became very awkward one for example the soviet union passed it, when the west german, when west germany passed it come and gone and done and the united states did not. in fact parenthetically the united states did not pass the genocide convention until 1989 but throughout the history the post-war period from the late 1940's, the mid-1950s, the late 1950's, early 1960's everytime the genocide convention came up in front of the united states american jews rallied to see it supported. indeed, congressman robert pastor meyer of madison, wisconsin was one of its major

supporters in the late 1950's that are there any people other than jews who are interested in this particular piece of legislation? but, when the genocide convention first came up in front of the senate foreign relations committee, several prominent american jews spoke on its behalf, so let's just hear what they said to this very prestigious body of the united states senators. so, at first the president of the american jewish-- so as he said to the centers, we are concerned with genocide, not only because 6 million jews were recently murdered but because it is a crime against humanity. likewise, david almond, the president of the national advisory committee which is the closest thing we can think of as the jewish community consensus although he surely was not, this

was basically all of the national jewish organizations, local jewish community council soundalike made the same point as he addressed the senators. the jewish people have been perhaps more often than any others the victims of genocidal crimes. not fewer than 6 million of them were destroyed by the nazis and so far, therefore "in the name of the six major national jewish organizations and the 28 jewish community councils, he said it will stand as a statue to all future generations and will mark the time when the nations in noble younis and resolved that such carnage as the nazis brought should not again be visited upon any people on the face of the earth." in all of their political works, the holocaust lyndon large. finally, when advocating for survivors, when working to keep germany's the to the fire, striking to affect political change on the ground in america

all of those required that american jews tell the holocaust dori to the american public as well as to themselves. but there was a final chore which they often took which fell on their shoulders and their shoulders alone. one of the most common troops of the post for period stated the following. the nazis did not just destroys 6 million jews but they destroyed the heartland of jewish culture. the murdered jews, the post-war american jewish narrative asserted have been the wellsprings of u.s. authenticity and learning. they have provided the culture resources which american jewry depended on. rabbis, teachers, ideas from across the political spectrum, right to left, religious, communists, is secular, every jewish idea they said came from europe. now with their destruction and the american jews had to go it alone. they, the jews of the united states, long considered to be the least intense, the most

shallow, least and authentic jury had to make up for what had been lost. the holocaust was used by posed for communal leaders whether advocating for greater religious observance, more jewish education common sense of bike connection to the giddins language or the hebrew language or the flourishing of artistic productivity. they cited it as the reason to commit greater financial resources to projects of all kinds. schools, seminaries, publishing diverse, the arts and beyond and as the reason to bring greater human-resources to one jewish undertaking after another. whatever the particular process, calls by leaders to the jewish to become more jewish in oppose where period got expressed in reference to the holocaust, sallai final quote and this is from-- since was the 1950's she was mrs. sheldon blacken i don't

know what your first name was. i kind of haiti's sider that way but i have no choice. she was a lecturer and officer of the national federation of temple sisterhoods, the organized women of the reform movement. in her annual message of 1954, when she sent to temple sisterhoods around the country, she wrote in a pamphlet called the child in the jewish,, that times are great. it is really not for me to speak of this now. and yet, it is, so she supported her own saying i don't want to talk about that. then she said from the destruction of european jewry from the american jury upon his shoulder the burden of responsibility now rests, to the sanctuary of our individual homes, these are stepping stones. there is no halfway when we walk on steppingstones. we take them or we sank and i will no more be counted among our people. the home, the jewish, is the

beginning of salvation. so, where they survey the american jewish world, and where they came up with ideas as to how to improve it, to make it more intensely jewish, the holocaust became the leming force which motivated, if not their actions of their rhetoric. in all of this the jews of the united states had few guides from the past to help them in doing this. for reasons they did not believe they were in fact able to do what for example jews in the middle ages had done in terms of creating liturgies that got codify into the prayerbook. they believe they were not capable of doing that so the past of not offer them a guy. they also had no authority structure to tell them what to do, no one to tell them what to call it, nobody to tell them when to talk about it. they had no partners, for our

domestic to leave their share with them or provide models as to how to do it. they did it by themselves. all of what they did and all of which shows up in this book was done on an experimental, the grassroots, a more fincen spontaneous level. because it had those characteristics, or because those were the characteristics of this holocaust memorial project of the post-war period, that might perhaps give us one reason, when we try to understand why all of this material got lost and why the historians to begin with, as well as the public at large never knew about any of this, and were able to assume that none of this happened, that the holocaust had been a taboo topic, suppressed by the leadership and of no interest to the masses. so i want to bring this to a close with asking a question, which i will only hint at an answer because it is a

complicated subject in the hour is late. and i hope you will have some questions, but the question is, why did this past history of engagement with the holocaust get a raised? how was it possible for historians and others to claim with utter conviction that the holocaust had no residents in american jewish life in the post-war period and with nobody in a sense come up before me to ask them to, to come front their statements? so, again, the hour is late. this is a long story in and of itself so i want to bring my talk to a close just by saying that for some historians, journalists and other contemporary commentators it would have been very difficult to condemn oppose ward for being too fervent in their embrace of the exception, of the acceptance being offered to them by posed

for liberalism and still a knowledge that the jewish women and men of america willingly made their communities places to enshrine the holocaust, and despite their great desire to integrate into the american mainstream, they still use their political agency to act in the name of the holocaust of the station. on the other hand, it is equally impossible for yet another swath of observers to claim that only in the defense of israel as a posed 1967 occupier other of land did american jews seized on the holocaust as a p.o.w. for four element in there communal culture. these commentators could not from their political position recognize that the holocaust had always been on center stage and didn't get martialed merely to defend a political position, in the wake of 1967. those would give-- those who created the myth of silence had political agendas that blinded

them to the widespread grassroots spontaneous process by which text spytechs, artifacts by artifacts and d by deed american jews in the post-war years made themselves the custodians of the memory of the holocaust and made it a powerful element in there communal culture. those who created the myth of silence made it impossible for me, in fact, to remain silent in the face of their writings. thank you. [applause] i am told by actually stayed almost within my time limit so we have about ten, 15 minutes or so for questions and i am asked to ask you to stand. okay, so any-- >> i am very fascinated by what you have to say.

in terms of mass media, i know this is your life featured the holocaust-- this nat not get talked about? the other landmark that everybody talks about is the miniseries about the holocaust with threats weaver which was 72 i think. how does the year in this story? >> the miniseries holocaust which i believe was 78 is beyond my timeframe because that already took place in this kind of intense holocaust conscious period, supposedly launched by this-- by 1967, but this is your life, and people who are not familiar with that, i imagine everybody remembers the program or is familiar with the program. ralph edwards i think was the name of the post-- it was a beautifully written about by jeffrey schandler in his book,

while america watched which was a history of the holocaust on american television. so come of that program was not a typical at all, so in a variety of then use, both directed with the jewish world and being to the larger american public, there were endless examples of programs being dedicated to talking about survivors by featuring individual survivors to tell their stories, to talk about the holocaust in some other way, so it was not unusual. that particular program was very interesting because the united jewish appeal played a role in getting it on television, so it wasn't just ralph edwards thinking this was a great story but it was very much an example of an american jewish organization in the heyday of fund-raising for survivors, saw this as a very powerful weapon

or a very powerful tool in the arousing public concern about, public knowledge and playing on the heart strings because it was a very heart wrenching story. when holocaust survivors came to american communities through the aegis of the hebrew aid society, the immigrant aid society, local jewish social service agencies which then where to sort of take care of their needs, consistently placed articles in the local newspapers, telling stories about the survivors who would come to their towns, to be it indianapolis, pittsburgh, cleveland, cincinnati so they planted articles and these town newspapers, telling about the survivor families. days beared no details in terms of telling what horrendous experiences these people had had. but, they add that all the

stories on a very upbeat and happy no, saying now they are living in milwaukee or now they are living in flint, and they have jobs and they are eating well and like is that wonderful for them. and come in some cases i was able in the archives to find a press release is written by the to his social service agencies and say that they were printed verbatim in the local newspaper, so you see in a sense a direct connection between the jewish communal organization wanting that story out there in the newspapers picking up on it. yes, robert. you have to stand up. >> i am just curious, were there celebrities or others, who publicly identified with events or activities?

>> absolutely, you tipped off to a very important ones, eddie cantor, so be tucker, all of them were out raising money. and, like using their not in considerable fame to protest over policies that they found, in terms of when jews were still in db camps to protest. eddie cantor at one point to got a full ad in the new york times when an american general, who had some oversight on the displaced persons camps in germany, made what sounded like what he considered an anti-semitic remarks. i don't think any of us would question that. basically these paulison jews were a bunch of whiners and things could not possibly have been so bad. so eddie cantor to got a full page ad in "the new york times" saying generals meth i think it was, i thought hitler was dead.

deanne peers, richard tucker, many of these others, singers, and record labels, some of the most mainstream labels recorded holocaust songs, at the hem of the partisans, so a lot of the jewish celebrities were out there telling that story. by the way leonard bernstein still a fairly young man, but already with a visibility, some went to give concerts' and ferrin vault, which was the dd camp which people had been taken to, so this was a very much across the board enterprise. yes maam, and a microphone is going to come to you. >> eastern europe, where i come from, it was ravaged by the

second world war. the official american ford's-- which was true, but the jewish aspect was sort of kept ferry, i would say, low-key, almost nonexistent at least when i was growing up so i just wonder how it was the united states, how was the country's official version of the second world war? what is the aspect of holocaust mentioned? was it mentions sufficiently, or not? if you can't comment on that. >> this is a great question and it was basically contrasting what happened in eastern europe at the end of the war and for decades beyond, where the story of the suffering of the people of poland or the ukraine and so on was very much told but the jewish part of it was either wiped out or was very marginalized. what was the official u.s. narrative? well, i mean it is certainly the

story of what happened to the jews was very much part of what we might consider to be how americans told that story. that is, again the book passes the official sources but there is-- it is always very complicated. i will give a couple of examples and in part because it was not exactly my project. i was in exactly looking at the americans although i was looking at wendy's jews were engaging with the americans. a film was made, a film was made by the u.s. army, footage that was shown at the nuremberg trials and the united states government did not want that films shown in the united states. this was an army project. they said it shouldn't be shown around the country, so every single american jewish organization protested and they said, it has to be shown because they failed. it never got shunned, but the

intent of what i call my people, that is, my subject was to have that out there. likewise, as early as, the early 1950's, when book started getting published in english, which told some aspect of the holocaust-- some aspect of the history of the holocaust local jewish community organizations would buy of dozens and dozens of copies of these books and plays them in libraries, because they didn't believe that the public library would buy them or that public school libraries would buy them, so they bought them and put them in junior high school, high school libraries and at their meetings they might argue, is a particular book a appropriate for junior high school, high school or college but whatever the answer to that, they saw that as their responsibility because they didn't think they would get anyone else to do it. by the late 1950's, these same

jewish, local jewish community groups because member there is no national structure, began to approach the superintendents of the schools about the possibility of teaching, as they said something about the tragedy of the jews under nazism in public schools. again, they failed in every case, where they tried, but as they as understood it, this was something that ought to be done and from their point of view, the larger american society could not take enough interest, so your question is did they do it correctly? well, certainly the people who i was studying did not think it was done appropriately or extensively enough and this was the chore that road on their shoulders. yes, sir. yes. >> thank you. my question is on the survivor community. i did not know from your

presentation about american jews, jews that were here let's say during the holocaust. my question is how active were survivors in trying to-- >> could you repeat one part? >> how active for survivors once they came here? in other words, this notion i believe many survivors did not want to talk about it, so-and-so did not want to tell his daughter. so, my question is, and if that is true-- my question is aside from the american jews not being part of the holocaust, what did this survivor-- do with anything? >> this is one of the secondary projects that goes on in this book because one of the other myths of silence as it were, subsidiary of myth of silence is that the survivors came to the united states in the that they wouldn't talk or sometimes it is said, with no evidence, that they were told by american jews that nobody wanted to hear their

story and they should just be grateful and not to talk about it. the evidence in the archives and in the community, the jewish communal press is the actual the opposite. obviously it does not mean that everybody's spoke revi betty wrote but there are vast amounts of writings by survivors in yiddish, eventually in english about their ordeals. they participate in both larger jewish communal events, as well as organizing their own. they create institutions, which are very much part of the memorial project, and which are politically active. so, okay i am going to give too little examples of this because again there is so much. in the late 1950's a group of survivors in new york created a summer camp for their own children called camp pinchuk, camp continuity.

in the manuals for the counselors, the camp directors talked very explicitly that this camp is focused on the children of holocaust survivors. every book has the name of some hero catastrophe and counselors should make sure that the names on their bunk, not just the names but they actually do programming and around their hero, and the camp was not just the children of survivors. in their advertisements for this camp they also made the point as to who had founded the camp and what one of its themes would be. second lake, just about the same point in time, again in and late 1950's, the american jews were, had really agitated by the rise of the american not the party

under george lincoln rockwell, and well he probably only have about 20 followers, he created quite a stir. his followers, they all wore storm trooper uniforms with swastikas and they were most vocal when they announce that they were going to take it in new york come washington kempe boston, chicago the opening of the movie, texas. they were going to disrupt the opening of this movie. now, until that point in time, the jewish communal consensus was that when demagogues like rockwell sort of sprout up, the best rettig jews to ignore them because what they wanted were headlines, and if nobody goes out to counter demonstrate, there will be no headlines and they will fade away. the survivors, every one of those communities very vociferously organized and said to the local jewish community

councils, we are going to go out and pick it. we cannot just sit back while rockwell is parading around in the nazi uniform and saying obviously quite propulsive stuff, and so we have a sense in that little vignette the degree to which they not only organized, but emerged by, within ten years of coming to the united states is a political force that began to make a dent on the way in which american organized american jury did its business so it is a very good question. yes sir. you are going to need a microphone. [inaudible] >> what do they know now or what did they know then? >> what do they know now? >> i am not the person to answer that. all i can say is that many

states have mandatory holocaust curriculum, new york, new jersey, florida, illinois, maryland, so i think book books like ali wiesel's night is a standard high school curriculum. certainly there have been some studies that say very few kids know but they are all so many studies that say if he gave most american high school students a map of the united states they couldn't even locate the state they lived in so i am not sure, so i think what they take away from and i am not able to answer, but now it is very much a part of the way in which american and modern history is taught. yes maam. you will have to wait for the microphone because nobody will hear you. >> i was a social studies teacher in new york city for 20

years and as late as 1983, when they pass the round textbooks for us to approve to purchase, nothing was said about the holocaust or concentration camps, and when i approached my assistant principal who was also jewish, she said,-- said they ae not in the textbooks. >> again, i think that there certainly since then there has been mandatory curricula for new york state passed. yes, one more question over there. okay. >> i found your comments fascinating and it reminded me of, i was a product of-- before the eichmann trial or actually in the early 1960's at the national camp ago the holocaust was a very important part of the

it educational systems of people identified with it, people used it and then i also thought you when you were speaking tonight of leon and his influence in the american jewish committee to take one-third of exodus that deals with the holocaust. he then came out with-- so it wasn't until after 67, but there's one thing that i wanted to ask you about, with do you deal with it, or maybe to related issues. i can remember in 1960 in boston, there was a meeting sponsored by the american jewish committee and it was all about and frank. they were going to present the end frank on television and they organized all the jewish communities but to some extent there was a sanitized version and the idea was she is not jewish, she is universal. to what extent is the conflict within the american jewish community? for example the american jewish committee and its educational program in explaining why hitler, for being sort of day,

we departed from history. to what extent does the conflict within the american jewish committee over the whole issue of to universalize that, do we make it jewish, etc.? >> okay, so first of all let me say since you are a young judea graduate, that i actually saw the news letters of young judea from 1945 on and there wasn't an issue of that newsletter in which the holocaust was not present, and it was and other jewish youth groups, so your memories are very much in line. it is just do you need to take it even further back. so, was there conflict? well, since there's nobody to say how american jews should think about this topic or any other there was tremendous conflicts which segment of american jewry believed its idea of how to memorialize and how to think about and how to articulate the issues of the holocaust and its lessons, they

each took their own positions of the reform had to say what fits their ideology and the american jewish community had to say what would fit its ideology and the jewish labor committee, and the orthodox said what they at its. there was no consensus, it certainly at many points in time, they were at each other's throats, not wanting any other group to kind of get these sort of lion's share of credit for being the custodians of the memory of the holocaust because whatever that the other faction was, it was going to do it wrong. so, what that on some level i think is an example of the kind of grassroots spontaneity of this. it was never organized from the top down, but completely from the bottom up. so for example, even that little reading if i may quote from this

a direct remember rants orthodox rabbis were very opposed to it. not because they were callous about the holocaust but they said we don't have the right to add anything to the fix text. and come up we are very unhappy that some publishing companies were actually printing this text in the hud got up. they said, you can't do that so conflict was all over the place but in a sense the conflict was exactly why the scholars say, the leaders told them not to talk, couldn't possibly have been right because no matter what anybody said, some group or another was going to do with its way. okay, thank you very much. [applause] >> hasia diner is the author of several books, including the jews of the united states ander works praiser, a history of u.s.

women in america from colonial times to the present. she is an american jewish history professor as well as the director of the center for american jewish history at new york university. for more information about the author visit hebrew judiah.edu. >> hason kwame jeffries, what is the black belt? >> the black belt as the region of the self that extends from virginia, because the va all the way to texas and its historical roots or origins really date back to the antebellum period. it is a place where african-americans formed a majority of the population, a string of counties where

african-americans formed eight population but were plantation agriculture primarily cotton, really served as the economic engine for the region, said that dates back to the ante-bellum era, but that stretches for word to the middle of the 20 a century and beyond, where african-americans, a string of counties where african-americans form the majority of the black population and agriculture remain dominant. but then in each state, the black belt forms the state region so in alabama, the alabama black belt with a string of about 50 counties stretching from the border of georgia to central alabama to the border of mississippi. >> what is that bill's political significance? >> it is critical because that is the heart of the african-american population in alabama but also in all these other states with the exception mississippi where you have the mississippi delta but in most of the southern states, that is where you find african-americans

in majority populations. in alabama african-americans represent 80% of the population so when we think about the migrations of african-americans, the great migrations in the first after world war i and world war ii, they are coming out of the black belt itself so does not only the center of the african-american population but it serves as the court for the emerging black populations in the urban areas of the north and west. >> tell us about lowndes county, alabama. >> lowndes county is geographically located between montgomery and selma. montgomery to the east and selma to the west. it was founded, established in the 1830's, and by 1865, it has a long history but by 1865 it was the center of cotton production. but it also developed-- >> and so a lot of slavery?

>> absolutely, the plantation slavery revolving around cotton was the absolute court, but over time it remains an agrarian economy, tied to the exploitation of african-american labor in the post emancipation period dealing with sharecropping, all the way through the post world war ii era, but african-americans remain the majority of the population. 30% like but in 1965 there were precisely zero registered black voters though it is a white minority. >> zero? >> oh, not a small percentage, as the row. and it is 80% african-american. the reason for that was because of this long legacy of racial violence. african-americans were excluded largely because, from the political process, largely because of their need as

exploitable labor is, but it was made possible by the use and long memory of violence dating back to the emancipation period. so, local people but then also those who were familiar with lowndes county referred to it as bloody lowndes because of this long history of really a vicious form of violent white supremacy. >> so, what happened, professor, in 1966 in lowndes county, alabama? >> it is amazing because the beginning of 1965, this really is the remarkable story, 80% black, zero registered black voters but by the end of 1966, a local movement of local african-american activists and sncc organizers had not only-- >> sncc? >> this didn't not violate civil rights organization that develop the project and the beginning of 1965 led by stokley carmichael,

who we always associate with black power. by the end of 1966 not only had they succeeded in registering the majority of african-american voters, but they had created an independent countywide, a political party to challenge the local white democrats for control of the county court house. it did not just create a political party that was a mere shadow or of the normal democratic party, which recalled the around politics, but they created a radically democratic party that said all people have their rights and hold with them them the possibility to control or make the decisions that affect their lives, so they said domestic workers, sharecroppers, people with limited education, african-americans who have been disenfranchised ought to become the sheriff, ought to have a right to become probate judges

and the like. so, it is really a remarkable story of transition impossibility going from complete absolute exclusion to challenging white supremacy to the creation of ascendent political party. >> how did that happen? >> it was a long process of grassroots organizing. it begins in early march with a handful of people who decided that we are going to try to register to vote, so they go down to the courthouse, and all of them are turned away. they are asked to leave their names, to identify who they were, which was a dangerous thing, because now the white community knew who they were and they were exposed to the possibilities of economic and physical retaliation. >> and, was there retaliation? >> and there was. as the movement begins to grow, person by person, household by helsel, community by communities, african-americans are evicted en masse.

by the end of december they have to form a tent city and that is just one aspect. night riders, repeatedly targeted african-american leaders but then also people in tent city, anybody who house and were associated with sncc activists were targeted for racial violence. people lost their jobs for the many people had to leave the county, and some never came back, but there was this long process, despite the violence, despite the possibility that they would lose their job, they continue to organize and not just around the vote. that was the initial catalyst, but like so much of the african-american freedom struggle that gets ignored, they quickly moved beyond the vote to fight for equality-- quality education by improving schools. of the schools were still segregated a decade after brown. do desegregate white schools, the primary white schools that

were there, to improve and increase the opportunities for black farmers, so they were organizing black farmers and then of course moving beyond the vote to actually organizing independent political parties to gain control of the county court house. >> in lowndes county, 80% african-american in 1966. what kind of participation in the lowndes county freedom organization was there? >> it was slow at first. >> ilana fear? >> a lot of fear in people were-- it is funny because once the carmichael and sncc move into lowndes county in the beginning of 1966 they consciously make a decision not to talk about creating an independent political party because they knew that folks would say how was this going to wear? in other words they knew that the democratic party wasn't necessarily for them but they said what is this alternative that you are talking about and is it really possible? after developing a the nine months of movement experiences

people say, know what? the local democrats are not going to let us and and they are doing all these things. jonathan dns, a sncc volunteer, is murdered in cold blood in august of 65 set reflecting on these movement experiences lead people slowly by dozens at first and by may of 66 when they hold their convention, about 900 people participated in the county. about 5,000 eligible black voters showed up in this primary that gets them on the ballot and by the time the november election, you have roughly about 2,000 to 2200 african-americans casting their ballots in the vote. so, but so many others were turned away. and, those living on sharecropping farms, were still afraid but the many teachers were afraid for fear of losing their jobs. >> professor, how did they go from zero registered voters to

the number of registered voters that they had? how did they get around all of the obstacles? >> that is this low and hard work of canvasing as stokley carmichael call that. the principal obstacle at the time was there. it was a legitimate fear of white violence that by knocking on the stores, tapping into social networks, tapping into community networks, drawing people in person by person, family by family and saying look, we are all in this together and if you want to change your lived conditions, one of the things that sncc organizers talked about, they said this is an politics for the sake of politics. this is actually, if you want to change your life circumstances, if you want page wrote then you need to join the movement. if you want to have a say in the decisions that affect your lives, where your children go to school, then you need to join

the movement. it was slow going. they knocked on doors and people would look at them and say look, they were very courteous but we don't want to get into that mess. we know it is dangerous. but it begins to build momentum not only run the vote but then also are brown these broader ideas in beings, which i call freedom rides. it is that combination of civil rights, the vote but then also human-rights, education, quality housing and it is talking to people about that that really gets them involved and offering them a program for securing yet, that gets people to sign up to join and make a public decision to also support the movement. >> who was john hewlett? >> john hewlett is a central figure in the lowndes county freedom struggle. he is a local%, to grows up in lowndes county in gordon's bill, and in the 1940 zachary graduate from high school he moved to

birmingham and works in the steel mills. then he returns to lowndes county in the late '50s and while he was in birmingham he worked with the movement there, working with fred shuttlesworth and the alabama christian movement for human rights, and then when he returns to lowndes county he is talking to people and try to get them interested in a voter registration campaign. folks are saying, it is too dangerous, too risky but in 1965 he is able to get a couple of people to go down with him and he serves eventually as the chairperson of the local movement organization, the question of the-- movement for human rights and the chairperson for the lowndes county freedom organization, the independent political party with that the ballot symbol of the black panther. he does not run for office in 1966 but in 1970 he is actually elected as the first african-american share of in lowndes county in the book talks

about, what is the trajectory of black politics from the moment ford? but the movement does not happen without him, horridly to does not happen in the way that it does without john hewlett. >> in 1966, did the lowndes county freedom organization have electoral success? >> no-- >> why not? >> for a couple of reasons. in the november election, they run seven african-american candidates for local office and all are defeated by a couple hundred votes. for a myriad of reasons. one was intimidation on election day i white polling officials, ballot fraud and some voter to cannery, sending people to the wrong polling sites, bringing in, trucking yen from plantations african-american workers in giving them ballots

to say < this is the ballot in the to the people you were voting four, obviously all white democrats and that is it. so they had no choice so then, some faulty organizing, organizers and the movement said we were not as prepared as we could have been. we had a transportation system but it was not as effective that it could've been. we are still young at this and there's still some people we have to bring in, but they tried and they came close, so, individually they were not successful but because they receive 40% of the total vote, which is a remarkable number, the percentage for a startup third party and 80% of the african-american vote, they were able to get on the ballot. to be able to be recognized by the state, said the black panther, which later on the

black panther party adopts the black panther symbol, becomes a permanent presence for the immediate future in the state of alabama for elections. >> was the republican party a viable option at all? >> not an option at all. it was a single party state, so it was democrats are nothing and in fact, they entertain. local folk entertain the idea of joining the democratic party in voting democratic, but as soon as they began to register en masse, when the voting rights act is signed in 1965 and the federal register ars the men, because of the pressure they are putting on the local people, who they were to register en masse, the democratic party says, we are going to raise the filing fees from $5.50 to five under dollars and $1,000, so the

average african-american in lowndes county was making $900 which was well below the poverty level, a year, a year which was well below the poverty levels of the democratic party purposefully, this was the county of george wallace, the state party symbol at the time was right supremacy for the right, that was their slogan. they were purposely tried to exclude them and that was part of the political education process that local people were going through and weighing their options. so the republican party was nonexistent at the local level. with the democrats are nothing and they said there is no room for us in the democratic party. >> hason kwame jeffries tell us about lowndes county, alabama today. >> lowndes county today has come a long way politically. african-americans, by 1980 had gained control of the county courthouse, were sitting in a majority of the seats in public office, local public office, but

although the politics changed in terms of black representation, very little else changed, so african-americans gain political power but they didn't gain economic power and as a result of that, poverty still is extremely high. it is one of the poorest counties not only in alabama, but in the state as a whole. so political power then translated into economic power. there was also the question-- i mean one of the things that happens in this moment is they create this really radically democratic, a new kind of politics, what i call freedom politics mixing this democratic organizing philosophy with these human rights, civil rights goals and that was the core of the freedom of the independent party, but after a while, once in office, even though that was really the political inspiration for gaining political power and

those black elected officials, including hewlett began to move away from those freedom politics, the democratic politics that were at the core of the movement into more traditional american politics. not only is there not the economic change people heddell forbush even in the political realm, stokley carmichael the coins the phrase black power, says black power visibility is not necessarily black power because it does not translate into african-american empowerment of the people in sadly we did not have that as well in lowndes county today. >> how long did john hewlett service sheriff? >> 24 years and he really becomes the center of black politics and eventually develop some opposition on the african-american side of people who were looking at him as a political boss and contesting, saying what happened to the freedom politics that you were so instrumental in?

so come of the decisions that the makes, and then in 1994, he leaves the sheriff's office and becomes probate judge, stays in office until 2000 and then hands it off to his son, john hewlett jr., who remains probate judge today, and you lit actually just passed away recently, just three years ago in 1996 but is legacy remains politically not only the movement legacy politically through his son as probate judge. >> "bloody lowndes," civil-rights and black power in alabama's black belt, hason kwame jeffries, what is your day job? >> assistant professor of history at the ohio state university. african-american history, civil-rights movement, black power and also u.s. history. >> this is your first book? >> this is my first book. >> published by new york university press. >> absolutely.

>> booktv is asking, what are you reading? >> former house historian, ray smock, what are you reading? >> right now i'm reading richard bernstein's book on the founding fathers, founding fathers reconsidered which is a new book that is just out. richard is a wonderful writer who characterizes the founding fathers of this country, looks at them with fresh eyes, and it is just a wonderful book. another one that is closely related is also by richard beach mos a new book out on the constitutional convention, the men of the constitutional convention, so those are the two books i am reading simultaneously right now. >> rick perlstein, author of

"nixonland," what he reading? >> i am reading the culture of narcissism, which is a classic book that came out in 1979, a surprise bestseller even though it is a very piece of intellectual argumentation, supposedly read by president carter and supposedly in formed a speech he gave in which argued that america was suffering from this crisis of confidence, and i am reading it because i'm doing research on the 1970's for my next book. >> what are you learning from it? >> a lot about psychoanalysis and object relations theory and there is like melody klein. it is a very tense and difficult work. even though with a bestseller i can imagine too many people read it. >> for descriptions of our programs log on to booktv.org. you can click on the viewer input tab and e-mail us, tell us what you are reading and what you think of our programs. >> elizabeth and michael norman recount the conflict of the bataan peninsula in the

philippines. america's first large-scale land battle of world war ii from january to april of 1942. 76,000 american and filipino soldiers and toward a 41 month imprisonment which included hard labor and torture, politics and prose bookstore in washington d.c. hosted the event. it is an hour. >> okay, good evening. we will get started. good evening and welcome to politics and prose bookstore. eyes schedular in-store events t-rec politics and prose, so for everyone here i wanted to say thank you for being here this evening, for supporting the bookstore, supporting our offence anton night supporting elizabeth and michael norman for their new book, tears and the darkness. we are very excited to have them here, to talk about this book, which really would be hard for me to contribute any higher praise than the book has, then

the book has already received. it is something may be of a sleeper, which i know the author's probably would not want to label it as, but this book is really, the reviews it has received in numerous places in "the new york times" and then this week will be debuting on the times bestsellers list at number 15, 16, somewhere around there. what we have noticed the with people coming in and buying the book, it is encouraging for a book to come out and be received this way, and it is an interesting line in "the new york times" review, which said, it was the clear that this wall, but this will many other books written on this subject, the bataan death march and this chapter of world war ii history, it was not clear that this wall needed another brick but then you pick up michael norman and