I write letters to my Grandpa pretty frequently. I really love hearing what he has to say about what's going on in Ishpeming Michigan. Sometimes he sends me articles out of the Mining Journal, or he updates me on what the Kiwanis Club is doing that week. Today I received a letter from Grandpa about Maus and his experience as an English teacher during the sixties in a predominantly Jewish community. I'd like to share some of this letter with you.
December 3, 2011
Dear Nellie,
Oak Park Michigan grew to a couple square miles adjacent to Eight Mile road; Detroit's northern border. Jews from all over Detroit built homes there and gained status there as the City of Oak Park's distinctly majority population. They hired police, firemen, city employees, and planned the zone location of residential and business neighborhoods. Oak Park High, a middle school, and elementary middle schools were built and located in perimeter neighborhoods, and OPH was located in the center within walking distance of public parks, six tennis courts, and a baseball field. OPH's football was out the back door of Oak Park High.
Jews had emigrated to Detroit in the late 19th and early twentieth century and settled in all parts of that city. The invasion of Detroit by blacks in search of a life on the North safe from the South and sought to seek jobs in the auto and auto parts supply industries and in retail and places of small business.
The city of Oak Park seemed to be an answer to their prayers. Some gentiles lived there. The poor could not afford the cost of housing there. The city's founding fathers planned a model city where Jews and gentiles could live, work, and pray in the place of worship of their choice in peace and safety.
I taught in Oak Park High for four years. Seventy-five percent of our 1,600 hundred students were Jews. I was told by an OPH councilor that eighty-five percent of our students who enrolled at the University of Michigan, graduated.
...
I taught and learned from my brightest OPH students. Mary Beth Stulberg was the daughter of two Wayne State University professors. She taught me there is no such thing as a Jewish race. The Diaspora scattered Jews all over the world. Some married gentiles. All assimilated into their new countries became Russian, German, Italian, Rumanian, Pole, Chinese, and on and on around the world. I had used the phrase Jewish race, and Mary Beth spoke right up and corrected my error.
...
Alan and David Ruby were Burt Ruby's sons. Burt had been a Greco Roman wrestler on the Hungarian Olympic team. He, his wife, and mother must have escaped Nazi Germany just before Hitler rocketed into power.
My friend Aaron told me Alan had graduated from MSU in two years, completed law school, and practices law in California now. Barry Bonds was one of his clients.
As a junior, Alan was in my class of eighteen students in American Literature. We had been reading Henry David Thoreau, and I tried to interest my students in recent Passive Resistance against the British government to win Indian independence. ML King had inspired his people to fight for his rights as American citizens, passively.
Alan listened to our discussion attentively. When all who wished to, had spoken, Alan was recognized. "Mr. Wenzel, what do you think would have happened if German citizens announced their plans to speak in public against Adolf Hitler" Alan said and continued, "The Nazis would have set up machine guns and mowed those protestors down in the streets."
Near the end of another of my American Lit classes an attractive, blue eyed blond said,
"Mr. Wenzel have you heard of the neat new gas, Cyclone B? Six and a half million Jews can't be wrong."
Nervous laughter occurred.
Alan faced the girl and spoke right up, "Eighteen members of my family died in those death camps. I do not think humor is an appropriate response to the murder of millions of our people."
We had a moment of silence. We all realized passive resistance was suicide under a dictatorship. It can be dangerous even in a democracy. Three young men were kidnapped and murdered because of their Civil Rights activity in Mississippi.
Nellie, you know six and a half million Jews were exterminated in Nazi death camps in Poland and Germany during WWII because they were born Jews. Five million Christians and non-believers were also murdered for opposing Hitler.
"Maus" is well worth the read.
Nellie, as you know six and a half million Jews were erased from the human race just because they were born Jews. Another five million "ethnic" minorities were somberly executed for suspicion of opposing Adolf Hitler.
Maus was created by Art Spieglman to give some meaning to the inexplicable deaths of his mother and father's friends and relatives; and to explain how Auswitz lived in their memories for the rest of their lives and robbed them of peace and normal life forever.
It helped make the Holocost real, and us to never permit such an atrocity to happen again.
...
The black and white color of Spiegelman's pages remind me of newspaper pages from 1941 to 1945. The grim, dark shadows of each page are appropriate to the authors subject. His book reminds me of old silent movies. Spiegelman flips the pages of history to share the terror Jews felt before boarding trains to such dehumanizing places and the unknown time they spent awaiting their fate.
Thank you, Nellie, for lending me your book, Maus. I will order a copy for our library, and show the book to teachers for use in their classes. Only time will tell whether this is a one time success of originality for this story of a particular event, or will become a new genre for publication. It's certain people have less and less time to read. Younger, I could have easily read this story in one sitting. It was that compelling!
Love,
Grandpa
Thanks Grandpa. Have no fear, it is a new genre for publication. I'm even taking a class on it!
