It’s a safe bet that Smokey the Bear will not be trading in his Ranger hat for a red MAGA cap anytime soon.

It seems only Donald Trump Can Prevent Forest Fires With a Rake.

For more than 70 years that iconic phrase “Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires” has grabbed the hearts and minds  of generations of children. Whether chatting it up with celebrities on radio commercials or lecturing little cub bears on TV,  Smokey the Bear’s deep resonant voice calling attention to wildfire prevention is burned deep into our collective consciousness.

Other than Yogi, Smokey is everyone’s favorite talking bear.  But unlike Yogi who often overestimates his own cleverness, Smokey really is “smarter than the av-er-age bear.”

Especially when it comes to preventing forest fires. He’s certainly smarter than our “average” president ( who like Yogi overestimates his own cleverness ) who really believes rakes can prevent wildfires.

Apparently Trump is not fan of Smokey. A 2015 tweet is less than kind.

Is Trump telling Smokey to stand aside?

Not so fast Trumpy.

Dressed in an official rangers hat, belted blue jeans and carrying a shovel ( not a  rake) the talking bear environmental activist is not only instantly recognizable he is a piece of beloved  Americana. Smokey the Bear is in fact the longest running public service ad campaign ever and long after Trump is gone, Smokey will still be here inspiring us to prevent forest fires.

A true patriot, this red-blooded All-American bear has been around since 1944.

It was in fact WWII that sparked the idea for Smokey Bear.

The inspiration for Smokey Bear came into being in 1942 after a Japanese submarine fired shells near the coast of Santa Barbara, California that exploded on an oil field near a National Forest. With the war coming so close to our homeland, Americans panicked, fearful that incendiary shells exploding in the forests of the Pacific coast could ignite raging wildfires.

Now that so many firefighters were off at war, the government realized it was ill equipped to fight a major forest fire caused by arson, an enemy attack or started accidently. Protection of forests became a matter of national importance. People were urged to be careful to prevent fires.

War Advertising Council

To raise awareness and rally the public to the cause, the Forest Service organized the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention and enlisted the help of the  War Advertising Council  ( later the Ad Council) to convince folks it would help win the war.

With the  recent success of their “Loose Lips Sink Ships” campaign, the  Council began a new campaign to put Americans on watch for forest fires. Launching  a fire prevention poster campaign they used  slogns like “Our Carelessness, Their Secret Weapon.” Like many ad campaigns at the time the  posters  were very anti Axis and utilized overt racial sterotypes.

They soon dumped Tojo moving on to a cuter mascot- Bambi

Bambi

In 1942 Walt Disney had a box office smash with their animated movie Bambi that celebrated forests and their sweet animal inhabitants. With a stroke of luck, Disney lent the U.S. Forest Service the use of their beloved character Bambi in 1944. The poster of the sweet fawn was a huge hit proving the success of using an animal as a fire prevention symbol.

But Disney only loaned characters for a year. The Forest Service decided it needed a permanent animal mascot.

What could be more fitting than a cute bear?

Smokey is Born

Enter friendly Smokey Bear, born in August 1944. Created by artist Albert Stachle Smokey was dressed in his familiar ranger hat and dungarees advising bear cubs and children alike. His first poster declared “Smoky says –care will prevent 9 out of ten forest fires.”

First Smokey Bear Poster 1944

Smokey would last long after his war time duties.

His famous catchphrase  “Remember …Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires” first appeared in 1947 and it remained that until 2001 when they changed forest fires for wildfires.

Within a few years Smokey went from posters to broadcasts, tee shirts to toys.

He even got his own song in 1952  Smokey the Bear which added a “the”  between Smokey and Bear to keep the songs rhythm. The addition stuck and from then on that was how he was popularly known.

It wasn’t long before they began commercializing Smokey’s image. Vintage Smokey the Bear Figurines from my collection

That  same year, Smokey went to work for Uncle Sam when an act of Congress passed  removing Smokey from the public domain and under the control of Secretary of Agriculture. Now any money made from liscensing his image to toy and media companies would used for continued  forest fire prevention education

A simple idea with a simple message – to help raise awareness about the simple precaustions people can take to protect American forests, grassland, and other areas from fire .

None of them involve a rake.

Once upon a time, but not that long ago, America was the world’s peacekeeper. We stood at the apex of power, united as a country, and our commitment to our Allies absolute. Our word was our bond.

For those too young to remember, this is not a fairy tale. This was the American Way for 70 years.

Our current foreign policy is totally foreign to me.

As it apparently is to Defense Secretary James Mattis who resigned a day after Trump’s surprise plan to withdraw troops from Syria, livid at what he views as a betrayal  of the Kurds who had allied with the U.S. and now must fend for themselves.

Once upon a time we treated our allies with respect.

“One core belief I have always held is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships,” Mattis  wrote in his resignation letter.

While the U.S. remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies.

The retired four star general didn’t hide his feelings concerning Trump’s dangerous departure from U.S. foreign policy that has been our bedrock since the end of  WWII.

America World PeaceKeeper

Victorious after WWII, America saw itself as the model for the world and American Dreams were to become global ones. They said it couldn’t be done yet we had just been victorious on opposite ends of the globe.

America had come out of the war as the only major industrial power not severely damaged, the richest country on earth.

After the war much of the world was economically shattered, returning home to cities that were often just rubble of broken bricks and smoldering wood, the desolate shell of a former city not yet done burning.

In our country, our economy was booming and there wasn’t a single building demolished by bombs, a brick displaced, or window broken and the only geographical scar was the one we ourselves had made on the empty deserts of New Mexico.

Uncle Sam became a hands-on uncle globetrotting around the post war world with assurance as we assumed our rightful place as peacekeeper and policeman to the world.

If the world was broken we could fix it and like Humpty Dumpty put it back together again.

Peace is Americas Most Important Business

(L) Detail of Collage by Sally Edelstein (R) Vintage Ad Republic Steel 1951

With our sparkling Pepsodent smiles Americans would meet our obligations to the free world – spreading democracy and offering a helping hand to people all around the globe – a Coke in every refrigerator and a Chevy in every garage.

As the world’s policeman we would protect the underdog from the big bullies and keep them safe. Yes sir, when there is a wrong to right, like Mighty Mouse, Uncle Sam will join the fight!

We Like Ike

Vintage Post War Recruiting Posters Us Army
(L) 1946 Ad with General Eisenhower for the US Army “Guardian of Victory” (R) 1951 Vintage Ad Us Army and US air Force Recruiting Station “Wear the uniform known around the world as the mark of a Man”

But it was important to safeguard the hard-won victory of the war and that meant building up our peace keeping force of soldiers. A massive campaign was launched to recruit  men to join the new army and U.S. Air Force whose motto was “peace is Americas most important business!”

By our victory, we have won the respect of the world,” wrote General Dwight Eisenhower former Supreme Commander of the Army and hero of WWII in one recruiting ad. “We can lose that respect and with it our influence toward a just and peaceful world order, if we reduce our military forces  to the point where they become week or ineffective.

Ambassador of Peace

“Your Army and Your Air Force Serve the Nation and Mankind in War and Peace

A popular ad that ran in 1948 appointed the American soldier as Ambassador of Peace, whose task simply put was to help the nations of the world in their efforts to balance the peace of the world at a time when too many people have despaired of peace. inviting the reader to be his companion in arms.

 On his broad young shoulders rests a burden that few Americans in history have been called upon to bear.” the ad begins. “His task is to help the nations in their efforts to balance the peace of the world at a time when too many people have despaired of peace.

He accepts his mission soberly but with pride. To him, as to every young man who has courage love of country and a belief in Democratic ideals the present world situation is a challenge. And he has met it squarely by putting on a uniform.

American soldiers don’t have to swagger to command respect. Though their numbers may be few their friendly presence in key spots around the globe inspire confidence in millions of people who are troubled and uncertain.

Soldier or Airman he is a true Ambassador of Peace.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

For most American servicemen and women serving in the military overseas their holiday wish is simple: to be home for Christmas.

Soldiers sacrifice much for the sake of others, not the least of which is being able to spend the  holidays with their loved ones.

No Christmas song captures the soldier’s heartfelt longing more than  “I’ll Be Home for Xmas.”

The melancholy words of the soldier overseas writing a letter home, echos generations of  soldiers who long to be home but are unable to e because of the war.

The wistful holiday classic written during WWII was the perfect sentimental war-time song holding deep meaning to U.S. troops overseas and it rings as meaningful today as it did over 70 years ago when it was first recorded in 1943. It was so popular it became the most requested song ar USO shows.

Christmas on the Home Front

“Well! Look at Jimmy…pitching in on a man-sized job! Dad will be proud, when he knows” Vintage ad Carnation Milk 1943

Unlike today when service in the military is not shared by most Americans, WWII was a time when most families had at least one empty chair around the Christmas dinner table.

In the winter of 1943 the U.S. was a long way from victory despite the Allied victories at Guadalcanal, Tunisia and the surrender of Italy.

Wartime Christmas was different from the jolly ones we remembered.

Sure there were evergreen trees, and bright red  holly,  but grim necessity had forced so many things to change, now that war time rationing and shortages were in full swing. Ass the war continued nearly every item Americans ate, wore, used or lived in was rationed or regulated.

Christmas shopping continued if not with a heavy heart, then a with a strong back since shoppers were encouraged to carry all their packages home no matter how large due to cuts in delivery services. Even Xmas cards were scarce due to the paper shortage.

Guns and Butter

Holiday meals took on a war time footing

Our traditional holiday standing rib roast would have to wait till after the war since fighting men needed muscle-building meat more than we did. Unless you had an in witha butcher or patronized Mr. Black  ( on the Black Market) housewives often trudged from butcher to butcher seeeking a decent cut of meat.

Christmas would be less sweet without all the sugary treats since both sugar and butter were rationed too.

Of course we were better off than most of the boys overseas who would be eating Christmas dinner from a mess kit, so it was unpatriotic to complain.

But Uncle Sam tried to be a genial host over the holidays for our fighting soldiers and he promised a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings. In fact Armour promised its readers in the 1942 ad that: “This Christmas, millions of men in the service will find their holiday meal as bountiful as they enjoyed at home.”

So many traditional gifts were also unavailable.

That new pair of roller skates for Jr. would be hard to find since metals were desperately needed for war duty,  perfume for Mom was near impossible to get since the alcohol used to produce  it was vital to the war, and the holiday Whitman’s box of chocolates for Grandma was hard to come by because so many were going to our fighting men here and abroad.

A new Hoover vaccum always on M’Lady’s wish list would have to wait. Manufacturing had halted turning to making material s of war.  In its stead Hoover suggested a gift War Bonds for Christmas:

This Christmas a war Bond is just about the finest present we can think of.

Some day there’ll be Victory…Some day those War bonds will turn into US currency, …for when the Good Day comes to pay for new electric cleaners and automobiles and refrigerators and stoves.”

Fondly remembered things would mean more than ever.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

Vintage Christmas advertisement Stromberg Carlson 1943
The company was currently devoting all their energy to making communications equipment to help speed victory so new radios were not. being produced. “If there are families who are getting courage from their pre war Stromberg Carlsons this Christmas,” the copy reads, “we are deeply thankful.”

The all too familiar trajectory of the American family’s Christmas in wartime was summed up in one sentimental wartime ad.

This Stromberg-Carlson radio that ran during Christmas time 1943 tugged at the heartstrings. It featured one such war-torn family, that gained strength thanks to the music from their Stromberg Carlson radio.

It seemed the only thing that got Lorraine Babbitt through Xmas that year was music.

Bing Crosby had really out done himself last Christmas season with his dreamy White Christmas.” How could Der Bingle possibly top himself this year,” she wondered.

The baritone crooner didn’t disappoint.

His Christmas time offering for 1943 “I’ll be Home for Christmas” caused lumps to form in everyone’s throats from the home front to the front lines.

The heartfelt words of the soldier overseas writing a letter home could have been anyone’s son, brother or husband. It certainly could have been Lorraine’s husband John.

 I’ll Be Home for Xmas

You can plan on me

Please have snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree

I’ll be home for Xmas, if only in my dreams

Lorraine would play that 78 record of the melancholy song over and over as if merely wishing John home for Xmas would make it so. Lorraine grew forlorn, her  thoughts drifting back to a happier time , Christmas 1940, a full year before Pearl Harbor and our last Christmas of peace for a while.

Silent night, Holy night…All is calm…”

“She was back three years ago and John was leading her into the room…and then she saw it the radio with a big red ribbon around it! She hadn’t said a word…just turned and kissed John…the kids had squealed with delight.”

The Caisson” go rollin along”…

By 1942, her husband John had been drafted  but was granted a Christmas furlough much to the delight of Lorraine.

”Last year, John came home from camp unexpectedly…it was last-minute leave and they’d had no warning. That was a wonderful Christmas…with the kids wearing Johns uniform and marching to the music. If war were only marching and music…”Lorraine muses to herself wistfully.

“There’s a long, long trail a-winding…”

Illustration from Vintage WWII Christmas advertisement Stromberg Carlson 1943

Now it was Christmas 1943.

“In a few minutes it will be Christmas again… Christmas without John,” Lorraine shares with the reader. “Tomorrow will be bad…there will be memories that hurt…but the children must have a real Christmas…the children. Tonight she’d sit and listen to music…and, in the soft sweet strains, she’d reach across the world and be with John…tonight.”

If only in her dreams…..

Merry Christmas to all and to all who can’t be with their loved ones for the holidays.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2018.

The image of a gleeful Donald Trump serving up greasy fast food  on glittering silver platters to college football Champions in the splendor of the White House State Dining Room caused quite a social media stir.

For some it was nothing short of a democratic homage to Great American fast food, while others were aghast at the tackiness of it. Still others couldn’t help but take note that serving junk food on silver platters is a perfect metaphor for Trumps entire presidency.

But there is a precedent for President’s serving  guests a more laid back fast food feast.

When it comes casual cuisine, Donald T loves his Mickey D’s but it may come as a surprise that FDR fancied Nathan’s hot dogs. When it came to enjoying the food of the common folk, Frankie D.’s heart was all a flutter for frankfurters.

Seventy years ago the lowly hot dog was ennobled by Royalty when it was served by President Franklin Roosevelt at a picnic at his country home for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England.

A diplomatic visit made gastronomic history. The Royals ate their first hot dog.

History is Made

It was not an insignificant visit. For the first time in American history a King of England set foot on U.S. soil.

The Royals had been on a hectic 4-day American tour in the spring of 1939. Arriving in Washington DC in June, the King and Queen had been treated to all the formalities one would expect from a State visit. In the same opulent State Dining room where 70 years later platters of Big Macs and McNuggets would be served by the glow of ornate candelabras, the Royal couple were feted with a formal state dinner.

After a whirlwind tour of DC, and a visit to the N.Y. World’s Fair where they were given the red carpet treatment,   FDR invited the weary Monarchs to a casual picnic at his bucolic home in Hyde Park, N.Y. The Hudson Valley provided an informal backdrop for this visit of the British sovereigns and the nation’s first family.

Eleanor Roosevelt decided no All American picnic would be complete without hot dogs.

But these would be no ordinary dogs.

No, these would be Coney Island hot dogs. Since Nathans considered itself “the king of hot dogs” it made sense that their dogs were fit for a King. So straight from Surf Avenue in Brooklyn to upper crust Hyde Park the hot dogs were ordered.

When word got out that plebian hot dogs were to be served to the King and Queen of England  the public was dubious at best.

Snobs everywhere including Roosevelt’s own mother balked at the thought of a hot dog being presented to His Majesty.  His proper mother Sara Delano  was horrified not only at the choice of food  but of inviting cooks, gardeners and other staffers to the picnic.

Snooty folks looked down on the lowly frankfurter, though in fact the hot dog could trace its family history farther back than any living king.

A Hot Dog Makes Him Lose Control

But the pearl clutchers could relax.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth loved it. For the royal couple this was a novelty never having sampled a hot dog before. The King it was said had been looking forward to sampling “this most favorite American snack.”

Sitting on the front porch of FDR’s new stone cottage overlooking the Hudson River was the perfect relaxed setting to enjoy the picnic.  The hot dogs were served on a silver tray but the Royals like everyone else ate off paper plates,  albeit on a table and not balancing it like others on their laps.

Unsure how to properly chow down on a hot dog encased in a doughy bun,  the Queen politely asked the President for some etiquette advise how to navigate a hot dog.

“Very simple. Push it into your mouth and keep pushing it until it is all gone,” the President  was supposed to have said. Demurely, the Queen elected to use a knife and fork instead.

The King seemed to have no such reservation and enjoyed it with gusto, so much so he asked for seconds, which made front page headlines the next day. The “N.Y. Times”headline announced: “King Tries Hot Dog and Asks For More.” According to the article, “the King enjoyed his 2 hots dogs with beer.”

It was in fact front page stuff when King George VI attacked the hot dog at the Little White House picnic at Hyde Park. Wires burned with descriptions of the event and wireless, radio, and cable carried the word around the world.

Headlines ranged from “King Bites Dog;” “With Mustard, is Royal Order” and “First Lady Triumphant; Royalty Eats Hot Dogs.”

Hot Dog Summit

Crafty as always, FDR had more on his mind than a menu when he called for this picnic . To him this would be an opportunity. Call it hot dog diplomacy.

The trip was undertaken in the shadows of WWII and Britain needed U.S. support. At the time, U.S. foreign policy was isolationists. On the brink of war, FDR realized the necessity of fostering closer political and social ties with Britain.

He needed to win the hearts of the American people.

Roosevelt  planned every minute detail of the visit to ensure the King’s success in winning over sympathy and support of the American people. The picnic was the perfect setting  for FDR to show that despite being royalty they were “just folks”

FDR hoped the visit would change the perceptions of the American people which in turn allowed him to do more for Britain.

Three months after the picnic England declared war on Germany and FDR was able to convince Congress and the American people to take steps to aid Britain while still maintaining American neutrality.

Did these hot dogs help save the Western world from Nazis?

That’s hard to say but several years later entrenched in the War ourselves, Roosevelt was such a fan of Hot Dog Diplomacy he had Nathan’s hot dogs sent to Yalta when he met with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.

The rest is history.

It was June 1944. It was wartime.

While my father Marvin was spit-polishing his regulation army boots in the jungles of New Guinea, on the other side of the globe my teenage bobby soxer mother Betty polished up her saddles shoes in Brooklyn, N.Y. Though worlds apart, they both suffered – as did most Americans –from a bad case of jitters.

That June, American’s wartime nerves were completed jangled in anticipation of the long-awaited Allied landing in France. The plans to open a “Second Front” in the war had been in the works for years.

It was all top secret. No one knew where or when it was coming, just that a giant invasion was imminent. Rumors were rampant as was the nail-biting.

When D-Day finally did come most people were fast asleep.

Working the Swing Shift

Unless you were like Rosie the Riveter working the night shift at the defense plant, chances are you wouldn’t learn the news until morning. Reports of the the Normandy invasion was likely served up along with your morning eggs and war-rationed bacon.

That is unless you were a nocturnal creature like my 17 year old future mother Betty. A lifelong night owl this high school senior was burning the midnight oil as usual on June 6th.

Mindlessly flipping through a brand new magazine named Seventeen,  the radio played softly in the background. Suddenly at 12:41am  the music on NBC radio was interrupted with the news flash that the invasion of Nazi occupied Europe had begun.

Or had it?

When the long-awaited announcement came, my mother recalled,  it was brief, simple and in German. Quoting a report monitored in London, the Associated Press stated, “the German News Agency Transocean said today in a broadcast that the Allied invasion has begun.”

Betty raced to wake her parents up with the breaking news.

After so many false starts her parents were apprehensive, cautious to celebrate. Only a week ago a report had come over the radio from Sweden that the invasion had been going on a week. The public panicked worried about the whereabouts of sons and brothers, husbands, and friends. As false reports kept trickling in and eventually proven false, the public remained in suspense keeping nerves at fever pitch.

Skeptical, her father Arthur was unconvinced.

Like many, he didn’t trust this first report because Transocean was an official publication of the Nazi party. As the evening wore on radio announcers warned in the early bulletins that the news could be propaganda intended to lull partisan guerrillas in France and other German-occupied countries to lay down their arms thinking America and its allies had arrived to take their places.

Besides which only the night before President Roosevelt had spoken to the nation on the radio and offered no hint as to what would occur only a few hours later.

Fake News

There had been so many false starts.

Three days earlier on June 3 millions of Americans heard radio reports with breaking news from the Associated Press that the invasion had begun: “Flash…Eisenhowers headquarters announces Allied landings in France.”

Noting the unconfirmed information, the CBS announcer told the audience to stay tuned. Less than three minutes later the Associated Press killed the erroneous story.  Apparently a  new AP employee had made an practice tape about the invasion that was accidently broadcast throughout America

It was too late.

The airwaves were soon filled with fake news. Radio stations NBC and the Mutual Broadcasting System followed CBS, reporting that D-Day had begun. In an instant, the “news” swept the nation. Shocked radio listeners telephoned friends. Jubilation, back slapping, and celebration ensued.

Announcements were made at public and sporting events. A baseball-loving friend of the family attending a Giants and Pirates game at the Polo Grounds, recalled them pausing the game when the invasion was announced. “We interrupt this game to bring you a special announcement the allies have invaded France.”

“The potency of the words stirred millions into electric activity,” reported the Brooklyn Daily Eagle the next day. Those words stayed with Betty’s doubting parents now.

Until there was firm confirmation her parents went back to sleep. With butterflies in her stomach, Betty stayed glued to the radio.

Finally at 3:32 am General Eisenhower’s  London headquarters issue a statement confirming that the invasion in Normandy had begun. The Army Signal Corps, in a report called Communique Number One, said, “Under the command of General Eisenhower, Allied naval forces supported by strong air forces began landing Allied armies this morning on the northern coast of France.”

Betty listened attentively as General Eisenhower’s Order of the Day, a message recorded for the troops going into the invasion, was read over American radio stations.

You are about to embark on the great crusade toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you… I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle.

Reading the report of the invasion, NBC correspondent Robert St. John said, “Men and women of the United States, this is a momentous hour in world history. This is the invasion of  Hitler’s Europe. The zero hour.”

The long-awaited invasion of northwest Europe was underway.

D-Day had arrived

As dawn broke the predictable sounds of the clip clop of the milkmans horse making his rounds, belied the unpredictability that lay ahead.

It was to be anything but a usual day.

While  New Yorkers slowly started their day, thousands of troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and had already been fighting for hours. As 160,000 Allied soldiers began to swarm the Normandy beaches on an ocean away, newspaper editors scrambled to put out a special early editions heralding a seminal moment of World War II.

Arthur pored over the special 6am edition of The N.Y. Times “Allied Armies Land in France in the Havre-Cherbourg Area,” the banner headline on the new front page said. “Great Invasion is Under Way.”

While  her parents would stay hovered around the radio, Betty and her older sister Judy decided to head into the city.

The steamy subway was jammed packed with other anxious Americans. Some were going to rallies, some to places of worship for specially scheduled services to pray, some just to be around other citizens and some to Times Square to watch the D-Day news break on the Times Ticker, the electric news ticker, “The Zipper” that displayed headlines within a minute of a story breaking.

Watching the D-Day news break on the Times Ticker in Times Square Photo: Library of Congress

Special religious Services were held throughout New York City on D-Day. Photo: Library Of Congress

D-Day Rally Madison Square Park, NY 1June 6, 1944 Photo Library of Congress

There was a huge D-Day rally that afternoon in Madison Sq Park held by WNYC featuring speeches and songs presided over by the city’s mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Thousands would attend. Huddled together there was much cheering, tempered by the somber reality of the grave losses that would lay ahead.

Mayor La Guardia at the D-Day Rally Madison Square Park, NYC Photo: Library of Congress

La Guardia led the city in a prayer, telling those gathered—and those listening at home on their radios:

We, the people of the City of New York, in meeting assembled, send forth our prayers to the Almighty God for the safety and spiritual welfare of every one of you and humbly petition Him to bring total victory to your arms in the great and valiant struggle for the liberation of the world from tyranny.

Thoughts and Prayers

That night  like millions of others Betty and her family listened attentively as  President Roosevelt went on the radio addressing the American people directly for the first time.

Because the date and timing of the Normandy invasion had been so top secret, during the national radio broadcast the night before 5 about the Allied liberation of Rome, President Roosevelt had made no mention of the Normandy operation, already underway at that time.

Now the  President felt the need to explain his earlier silence.

Shortly before he went on the air, he added several handwritten lines to the opening of his speech that addressed that point.  “Last night, when I spoke to you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.”

The President’s address itself was truly a prayer with Roosvelt asking God to bless the American work effort. He called on the American people to continue their prayers into the coming day.

For the duration of the war, there would be a lot of  thoughts and prayers.

Now on the 75th anniversary of D-Day we recall with pride  and respect the sacrifics made by the men and women who participated in what is til the largets naval air and land operation in history.

With gratitude to the greatetst generation!

There is a stench in America; a foul stain so deep on our country no amount of soap can wash it away.

The noxious stink emanating from our southern border is less from the unsanitary camps holding these poor abused migrant children, than from the rotting corrosion of our core values.

They are decaying in plain sight in the hot sun.

Trump and his sordid administration has sullied and befouled what our great country once stood for, and this may be the most heinous of all.

The bright and shiny post war country left to us by the greatest generation is now deeply tarnished, the dark layers of filth so widespread it feels unrecognizable. Our country has more than lost its luster. We have allowed our moral compass to crumble as we permit the inhumanity to continue to be perpetrated upon innocent children at these camps on our soil.

Not Our Kids

“These are not our kids” claims Fox News host  Brian Kilmeade defending Trump’s draconian family separation policy.

Therefore, in that cruel logic  these children don’t need basic necessities like soap, or toothpaste, toothbrushes or clean diapers. Since they are not “our kids” they can linger in overcrowded cages in soiled clothing, sleep on hard floors, be subjected to subpar conditions worse than American jails.

After all, the congenial host continued “….  It’s not like Trump was doing this to the people of Idaho or Texas.”

You know, “real people.”

And because they are not  “Our kids” donations of soap, diapers, and wipes from American citizens who wanted to help the hundreds of children in Texas shelters, are cruely turned away.

In our wealthy, consumer culture awash with unlimted choices of soap , how is it possible that we can we deny any child  a simple bar of soap?

This is not my America.

There was a time not so long ago when America was guided by a post war spirit of generosity. The America that took shape in the shadow of WWII  was an America which led the forces against evil.

And starvation. And injustices against humanity .

Give Those Poor Kids in Europe a Break!

After WWII American democracy provided the ideas and the moral basis on which a new world might be ordered.

At the end of  the  War in 1945 the world faced a huge humanitarian crisis.

While America escaped destruction virtually alone of all the countries, the old world was in ruins. The war left large swaths of destruction that crippled and led to massive food shortages in Europe and Asia. Thousands of children were without food, clothing and sanitation.

America did not shirk its responsibilities. It didn’t matter that these were not “our kids.” Nor that they were not on our shores.

Following the lead of our government, most  American felt there was something that they could contribute.

It was part of our tradition. Folks sent CARE packages, conserved food and contributed in any way they could.

In cooperation with the government, advertisers also offered ways for the average American to feel like they were doing their share.

Ironically exactly 70 years ago in the spring of 1949 during another humanitarian crises, an ad ran in Life Magazine asking for help in sending soap to needy children overseas.

CARE  had partnered with Swan soap in an effort to offer soap to millions in Europe. Wanting to ward off the dangers of disease and epidemics they acknowledged the vital importance of hygiene.

Next to food, one of the scarecest and most desperately needed things in Europe today is soap.” the copy read.

The health of babies and little children is endangered by lack of soap. As you know, cleanliness helps prevent disease. Nothing combats  like soap.

It was true 70 years ago. It is true today

Give those poor kids in Europe a break!

You can help! Here’s here’s how you can send them Swan Soap through CARE- at no cost to you

Lever Brothers will send Swan- 1 cake for every 2 wrappers to CARE the great non profit government approved organization which delivers CARE packages to the needy in Eurpe. CARE guarantees delivery.

Your cake of swan for needy kids costs only the tiney chore of sending in your Swan wrappers. You help millions overseas get  a better break!

Which Way Will These Twigs Incline?

A 1946 postwar advertisement from from the National  Dairy Association  dramatically points out the serious societal damage that occur if problems affecting these needy children are not addressed in the present. The very health of our society depended on not neglecting their needs.

Remember the old saying “As the twig is bent…”? It applies just as truly to the children of Europe and Asia as it does to those right here.

They can grow to strong good citizenship. Or warped in mind and body, embittered by constant hunger- listen to another Hitler a few years from now.

What you do in this critical hour will help decide their future.

Not only for yout consciences sake but because it is perhaps the best form of insurance against another war- won’t you back up in every possible way our promise to send food.

The irreprible damage being done today to these migrant  children on American soil and to our society will remain with us for decades to come if  nothing is done to right this wrong.

It is a stain that will be hard to remove.

Copyright (©) 2019 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

No, the Kurds did not help us in Normandy, but who can forget their brave heroics at the Bowling Green Massacre?

The Kurds fought courageously in Kentucky.

Yes, it won’t be long before Kellyane Conway waxes poetic thinking of the valient Kurds at that fictitious battle.

The annual vigil attended by thousands at N.Y.C.’s Bowling Green, commemorates not only the victims of that awful terrorist massacre but the heroics and guts displayed by the Kurds.

“I mean most people don’t know that,” Conway commented,” because it didn’t get covered.” Like many alternative facts.

Kurds and WWII

But the fact is the Kurds did help us fight in WWII.

First as part of the counteroffensive to the Nazi backed Iraqi coups of 1941. Then later, they served courageously in Albania, Italy and Greece.

Right next to GI Joe.

What my WWII veteran father had done in the war and what the war had done to him was never clear.

The torch had been passed to a new generation, President  John Kennedy told us, and passed directly into the hands of those who had been soldiers in the Second World War, men like JFK himself and my father and his friends. Most of the suburban balding men I grew up with had returned triumphant  to confetti and parades from the greatest of all wars, WWII.

Like most men of Dad’s generation, silence was a heroic virtue. Just like the memories of the war hung in the far recesses of his mind, so in the recesses of the stuffy attic hung his army dress jacket reeking of moth balls covered with mysterious bars and ribbons, the only tangible evidence that he had actually been in the war.

Every year on Veterans day Dad would bring down the jacket to try on, a yearly reminder of a past life we had no part of.

Pacific Theater

In 1942, my father had been drafted and eventually deployed to the South Pacific.

He had wanted to go to Europe to knock out the Nazis but got sent to the exotic locale of New Guinea instead.  I assumed that was a stroke of luck because he always made his experience in the Pacific Theater sound more like some Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour “On the Road” movie than an episode of Combat.

Despite the bloody battle of Biak which was occurring while he was there, it sounded to me like they were always busy chasing exotic local girls dressed in sarongs, or firing off zingers to one another instead of being ambushed by some Japs hidden in a pillbox.

Post War Adjustment

When your GI Joe steps out of Khakis into a blue pin stripe and he’s home for keeps, you’ll enjoy Chesterfield’s together. Vintage Ad 1945

Whatever private battles these returning vets fought, they went into some underground bunker never to resurface.

Though of course there was a fuss for the returning GIs in 1945, Americans were told in numerous magazine articles that the GI “suffered no ill effects.”

“All the ex GI’s believed war brought out the best in a man. Most men came out of battle pretty much the same way they went in- and surprisingly many of those who are affected the change is for the better. Once his nerves snap back into place, it’ll be as if he never made the trip at all.”

70 years ago NATO was born in the aftermath of WWII out of a desire to prevent WWIII.

Conceived out of necessity, this enduring alliance was initially forged to prevent Soviet expansionism. The shared democratic values of its members formed a unique bond. An alliance meant to provide reliability in an unreliable world.

For 70 years Europeans have known that America’s foreign policy and priorities would be consistent with theirs.

Until now

DonaldTrump’s flip flops and broadsides against NATO have rattled this long and formidable military alliance that largely defined the global post-war order. His veiled threats to pull out plays right into Putin’s hands.

From its Cold War inception, Russia has bristled at the formation of NATO, wanting nothing less than a dissolution of the organization. The North Atlantic Treaty was at heart a military alliance intended as a defense against the Russians.

It is likely Trump has never bothered to understand why the partnership was formed in the first place.

All roads lead to Russia.

The Hungry Bear

The fear of Soviet aggression and the spread of communism defined the post-WWII world.

Cast as the Evil Empire during the cold war, an expansionist Russia was viewed as a “hungry bear” whose insatiable appetite needed to be controlled.  The media was flooded with maps depicting the Soviet Unions aggressive tendencies appearing ominously, splotched in red, depicting the global pattern of the spread of the Red offensive

Convinced that comrades in the Kremlin were busy spinning a web of control,  hell-bent on forcibly enslaving free people everywhere,  the U.S. and her western European allies needed to contain the cunning Russian bear.

Or a cold war could turn very hot.

Bear Hug

WWII Soviet Allies (L) Life Magazine cover 3/29/43 featuring warm and fuzzy Joseph “Uncle Joe” Stalin (R) Life magazine cover 2/12/45 featuring our brave ally a Soviet Soldier courageously driving on to Berlin

The big chill almost made us forget that only a few years earlier  this big brutal Russian bear had been our warm and fuzzy teddy bear of a wartime ally

During  WWII,  no one could hold a candle to those brave Stalingrad sacrificing red white and blue Russians. Led by twinkly-eyed pipe smoking “Uncle Joe Stalin they were our comrades in fighting the Nazis.

Songwriters cheered and praised our Soviet comrades as we whistled “You Can’t Brush Off a Russian” and “Stalin Wasn’t Stall’in.” Selling the Soviets to us like a bottle of Pepsi, one ditty went:

“The Soviet Union hits the spot

12 million soldiers that’s a lot

Timashen and Stalin too

The Soviet Union is Red white and blue.”

The Big Chill  

As the war came to a close the Soviets and Americans converged in Berlin, toasting each other at their shared victory.

The guns fell silent in Europe in May 1945 but the post-WWII world would have very little peace. A hot war might have ended with those 2 fiery Atomic Blasts in Japan but another war a cold one began with our former allies in arms, the Russians.

By 1946 the world was changing at a dizzying pace.

Maps had been redrawn, swelling and shrinking the areas of countries creating new boundaries, as cards were re-shuffled and friendships dissolved. Like so many war born marriages, it turned out our grand alliance with the Soviets was more a marriage of convenience. Uncle Joe, our warm and fuzzy teddy bear quickly turned into a cold-blooded grizzly bear ready to gobble up crippled Europe turning its starving shivering population into godless Communists. As Soviet tanks angrily roamed Eastern European streets, Churchill warned of an Iron Curtain descending over Europe.

Our war born goodwill faded as quickly as Elizabeth Arden’s vanishing cream.

Better Dead Than Red

Convinced the Russians had embarked on an aggressive campaign to destroy our government, establishing the American Way of Life as ideal became even more crucial during this time contrasting it to the “Ruthless, Godless Communist” way of repression. We were to be on alert to the menace of Communism.

As the cold war was heating up a series of events in the late 1940’s pointed to the fact that the security of Western Europe was tied to the security of the U.S. The threat of Soviet invasion of Western Europe pushing further into the freedom-loving democracies hung over the continent.

As if shifting gears between enemy and ally was as effortless as the automatic transmission in your Chevrolet the considerable fury and fear that had fueled our hatred of those bloodless Nazis had been and swiftly rerouted to those Godless Russian commies.

Germany, in fact, was a constant cause of concern.

After the war, Germany had been carved up into 4 occupied zones between the Allied victors of WWII. Berlin itself was divided up into Communist East Berlin and democratic West Berlin. But Berlin was stuck deep inside the Soviet-occupied parts of East Germany. West Berlin was a thriving, cosmopolitan city.  In Soviet East Berlin the destruction of the war was still visible, the people far from prosperous, with luxury items scarce. Every year tens of thousands of East Berliners fled to capitalist West Germany.

The fear was that the Soviets wanted Germany to be the communist centerpiece of Europe. With Germany a Soviet satellite, Stalin licked his chops with the thought of Western Europe falling under the domination of the USSR.  In June 1948 the Soviets imposed a blockade of Berlin in hopes of starving the Western Allies out of Berlin.

The same year the Soviets launched a coup in Czechoslovakia overthrowing a democratic government. They had already placed a communist government in power in Poland and extended its sway to every Eastern European country it occupied since 1945.

Atomic Blast

Adding fuel to the fire, America’s nuclear monopoly came to an abrupt end in 1949.

We were just digesting the Communist take over of China when on a hot summer morning in August the Soviets detonated an Atom Bomb sending a shock wave around the world. Many feared an impending war with Russia. As long as the aggression existed in the form of the Evil Empire and “their unrelenting drive to enslave humanity” the threat of an unwanted nuclear war would cast a long shadow.

The clear Soviet provocations created the urgency for the collective defense of Western Europe.

This was the grave backdrop as talks proceeded on a North Atlantic Treaty.

Europe was still clawing its way out of the destruction of the war and to be credible, any collective defense had to include the U.S. and Canada. After the war much of the world was economically shattered, returning home to cities that were often just rubble of broken bricks and smoldering wood, the desolate shell of a former city not yet done burning.

In our country, our economy was booming and there wasn’t a single building demolished by bombs, a brick displaced, or window broken and the only geographical scar was the one we ourselves had made on the empty deserts of New Mexico.

America had come out of the war as the only major industrial power not severely damaged, the richest country on earth.

President Harry Truman signing the North Atlantic Treaty which marked the beginning of NATO in a special signing ceremony on Aug. 24, 1949

European leaders met with U.S. defense, military and diplomates at the Pentagon exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented alliance.

All members agreed to defend one another – that is still the core of the alliance. It was a security pact stating that a military attack against one would be considered an attack against them all. NATO was both a military alliance  and also ideological.  These were all liberal democracies and the will to push back against totalitarianism and  Communism ran deep.

The North Atlantic Treaty, signed by twelve nations on a Monday afternoon in April of 1949 in Washington D.C., saw the United States accept the lead in the free world’s postwar resistance to Communist aggression and subversion.

We accepted our banner as leaders of the Free World with pride and purpose and commitment

Today

Today NATO is the strongest, most successful alliance in history

But it has never been just a purely military alliance. There is a special emotional bond between America and the European allies. It is a political alliance as well based on the common aspirations of its members of freedom and peace. As the NATO treaty states its members are determined to safeguard individual freedom and rule of law. These values are far from obsolete

But these principles are under assault today. Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, the terrorism of the Islamic State spreading from the Middle East to the capitals of Europe, authoritarian regimes developing nuclear weapons — as different as these challenges are, they have one thread in common: They  come from those who oppose the international order. They try to undermine or even change the rules that have governed the age of democracy and prosperity since World War II.

The democracies of NATO need to stand together to overcome these challenges.

Copyright (©) 2019 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

From the Archives:

December 7, 1941

Just as 9/11  is a marker for this current generation, and November 22 was for mine, Sunday, December 7, 1941, was a where-were-you-when-kind of day that was seared permanently in the memory of the greatest generation, including my parents.

The war was still over there, though the news was full of muffled but ominous portents. From the Far East came reports of Japanese troop movement in Indochina and that Saturday night FDR would make a last-minute appeal to the Japanese Emperor Hirohito for direct talks but to no avail.

Like most Americans, my mother and her family did not expect to be at war the next day or the next week or even the next month, but they knew in their hearts it was inevitable.

When was the big question.

Business as Usual

So like everyone else, my mother’s family went about their business.

The day before Pearl Harbor there were only 15 shopping days to Xmas and the department stores were having one of the biggest shopping sprees in years.

Goods were plentiful but pricier than last year. Nylons were replacing silk stockings which had been scarce because of the darn embargo on Japanese silk thread. But Stern’s Department Store in N.Y. offered them at “one special buy all you want price” of $1.75 a pair. A fifth of scotch was 3 bucks, but in two Christmases these items, as well as many others, would be next to impossible to find.

A Night on The Town

Saturday night in NYC where my mother’s family lived, was a mass of Christmas shoppers and visitors streaming into restaurants, night clubs theaters and movies, ready to paint the town red.

That evening my grandparents were Broadway-bound with tickets to see the critically acclaimed Lillian Hellman production of Watch on the Rhine at the Martin Beck Theater.  It’s portrayal of a family who struggles to combat the menace of fascism in Europe during WWII responded directly to the political climate of the day, and the continuing debate on American neutrality in the War.

Warnings

While the audience absorbed the words of Lillian Hellman’s warning that “all who chose to ignore the international crisis were helping to perpetuate it and that no one could count himself or herself free of danger,” 6 carriers of the Pearl Harbor striking force under Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo sliced through the blue waves of the Pacific a few hundred miles north of Hawaii.

Pearl Harbor in the News

(L) 1939 Vintage advertisement- Matson Cruise Line to Hawaii “A Voyage as Colorful as Hawaii’s flowered isles”

 Picking up a copy of the Sunday “Herald Tribune” on their way back to Brooklyn after the show, my grandfather  read in the rotogravure section an article about the naval base at Pearl Harbor, “the point of Defense of our West Coast.”

The pictures of silvery sands mingled with warplanes flying over Diamond Head. As the newspaper article pointed out, the lucky lei-draped tourist vacationing there would be too busy eyeing the hula girls to notice the Army pillboxes since they were cleverly concealed from prying eyes. The accompanying pictures showed an idyllic tropical setting, causing my grandmother to make a mental note to visit there sometime soon.

It was difficult for many Americans to understand what was happening in the Pacific. We were preoccupied with Hitler.

Enchanted Isles

Another factor was plain and simple geography.

Until the air age, islands like Midway and Iwo Jima were practically worthless. Like most Americans, most of what my parents did know about the Pacific had been invented by Hollywood. The south Seas were pictured as exotic isles where lazy winds whispered in the palm fronds and native girls wore sarongs like Dorothy Lamour.

1938 Vintage ads Dole Pineapple Juice

The closest most Americans would get to those enchanted Isles of Hawaii would be courtesy of Dole. Whether as canned juice or slices, exotic pineapple from Honolulu Hawaii had become immensely popular over the past decade due to its unusual health values.

Pearl Harbor a once unfamiliar name for most Americans who weren’t quite sure where it was, would grow increasingly familiar all too soon.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy

The next day, Sunday, the eastern seaboard was quiet but jittery with the news of the surprise attack.

Along with millions of Americans, my mother first learned of the attack when her father turned on the big mahogany RCA Radio to hear his favorite CBS broadcast of the NY Philharmonic concert at 3pm. That Sunday most people gathered around their radios listening for whatever news they could get about Pearl Harbor.

On anything but a mundane Monday, 60,000,000 jittery Americans would remember exactly where they were when they turned on their radios at noon to listen to President Roosevelt speak of that day that would live in infamy!

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Donald Trump’s passion for plumbing has not been equaled by another  U.S. President since Richard Nixon and the plumbers. Finally, Trump has something else besides impeachment in common with our 37th president. Speculation mounts that his new fascination with plumbing is due to the fact that he and his administration have been floating in a fetid cesspool these past many years.

Now Trump has  gone on a tirade vowing to make America’s toilets great again

Trump continues to bemoan a fading America. He wants to make good on his promise to his followers to “Make America Great” again by taking them back to that mythical time when America was great. You know, mid-century America, when minorities were marginalized and women objectified. A happy carefree white America where neighbors could wish each other Merry Xmas with abandon and immigrants hadn’t come to your town yet.

Where asbestos was utilized with unbridled enthusiasm and clean water ran through sturdy lead pipes. And the toilet worked with just one effortless flush. Not the Obama-sanctioned, liberal lavatories of today requiring 10-15 strenuous flushings before everything goes where it needs to go.

We have a situation where we’re looking very strongly at sinks and showers, and other elements of bathrooms,” Trump recently said. “You turn on the faucet, you don’t get any water… They take a shower, the water comes dripping out. People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times,” Trump lamented.

Trump might not be concerned about carbon reduction, oil drilling, or pipeline expansion but he’s on top of toilet flushes.

The right to flush efficiently is an American right.

American toilets once set the standard for the world. In fact, American Standard was the gold standard of toilets. Now our credibility in the world is flushed down the tubes. Literally. Trump wants to remedy that and return us to our rightful standing.

Let’s go back to those times and make American Toilets Great Again!”

Post War Promises

Once upon a time, the U.S.A stood united and confident at the apex of global power and consumer abundance. WWII soldiers came back to a robust America, the American dream gift wrapped just for then. The first thing they wanted was a new home to start a family. Backed by the GI bill, many could afford a new house.

With the end of the war, the greater possibilities of the world of tomorrow had come alive. And that included well-functioning, new-as-tomorrow-toilets.

Freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, and the right to flush efficiently, that’s an American birthright.  As is an endless supply of water streaming from our showerheads.  That’s what our boys were fighting for.

The drab years of WWII were behind us, the pent up hunger born of war sacrifices and denial were unleashed. What awaited was a world of never before things. Never before because it was never possible before, things that would make you proud of your choice and the envy of others.

Color drenched full-page ads filled the magazines tempting the new homeowner. Mid-century bathrooms were lavishly displayed in a rainbow of hues. Modern fixtures and toilets had transformed from solid white porcelain to an array of decorative colors.

The post-war world of convenience was a colorful carefree world of frost-free effortless fun, a world of unparalleled ease, no fuss no muss. And that included toilets as well. Mid-century  America was on the move. Who had time for 15 flushes?

Americans were bubbling over with optimism.

If the world was rosy it was reflected in our bathrooms that began blooming in color. Pink bathrooms glowed with post-war promises, sunny yellow toilets and tubs cheerfully beckoned and turquoise tempted.

Like so many others in the mid-1950s, my parents headed to the suburbs, a land of newly built homes. While their own parents may have been content to remain behind in decaying cities, these fresh-faced vets and their families were ready for the modern suburbs of swing sets split levels and colorful brand new bathrooms.

Like most brides, my mother knew choosing a home and its bathroom fixtures were the most important decisions she would ever make. There was no time for dull old- infashioned bathrooms. Tile and bathroom fixtures in bright and contrasting colors made bathrooms lively and new as tomorrow.

“The most important decision a man and wife may ever make!” declares the headline from this late 1940s.

Look deep into the hearts of 2 people about to say “I do” and you’ll see a dream house. For marriage means a home. And buying a house is the most important decision a man and wife may ever make. That’s why it’s so important to plan a home with care for the health and comfort of family. To contribute to their health and comfort has been the privilege of American Standard for many years. Guard their health and comfort and peace of mind- with products that mean the American Standard mark.

In fact, it was the large pink and grey tiled bathroom of the model house on Western Park Drive that my parents would eventually purchase in 1955 that sealed the deal.

As my young mother stepped onto the small pink and grey rectangular mosaic tiling in the large bathroom, her heart swooned.

The Pepto Bismol pink bathroom fixtures with its accent dove gray tiles were all she had hoped for. Gone were the somber dark greens and maroon bathrooms of her youth. A smart and cheerful bathroom was modern living at its best.

My mother could envision herself taking a hot, bubble bath in the pink bathtub that filled to the top in a jiff.

Smiling she thought of her toddlers getting toilet trained on that cool, pink porcelain toilet. “As easy to clean as a porcelain platter,” boasted one ad. And flushing was child’s play with these hi-flow toilets. In the end, it was the no-clog pink toilet with a powerful one-time flush that sealed the deal.

Just thinking of those hi-flow flush toilets would help her to “wake up and smile!” As her Aunt Ida said, “Where else but in America could you count on only one flush. Oy, only in America!”

It was what made America great.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

For most American servicemen and women serving in the military overseas their holiday wish is simple: to be home for Christmas.

Soldiers sacrifice much for the sake of others, not the least of which is being able to spend the holidays with their loved ones.

As we gather with our loved ones, let us remember those who serve and sacrifice.

A Merry Christmas to one and all!

It can’t happen here.

Yet it can and it is.

This year is ending in an epidemic of anti-Semitism. It must end. The ugly past has become present in the most horrifying way as anti-semitic vandalism has exploded. This past weekend, the 9th anti-semitic attack in NY in the past week occurred on the seventh night of Hanukkah when celebrating Jews were attacked by a machete-wielding man in Monsey NY.

As a Jew, as a New Yorker and as a concerned  American, I am filled with fear.

A year ago I was haunted by the ghosts of antisemitism. On a Shabbat morning, it reared its ugly head at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh when a heavily armed white supremacist took out 11 lives in less than 11 minutes.

One year later I would like to report that the attacks have dissipated. That vandalism has stopped. That buildings are no longer defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti, cemeteries desecrated, and swastikas have disappeared from walls of schools. I would like to report that anti-Semitism has faded, retreated into the recesses of memory.

I would dearly like to say I no longer live in fear.

I can’t say any of that.

Anti-Semitic acts just like my anxiety have not ebbed.

I am still afraid. For my community and for myself. Acts of anti-Semitism haven’t disappeared. They have increased. Over the past year, we have seen hate enter our most sacred spaces. According to the Anti Defamation League, the nationwide count of anti-Semitic incidents are at record levels.

The FBI states that Jews were victims in 60% of religiously motivated hate crimes in the US in 2019 with 105% increase in physical assaults over the previous year.

This post bears repeating until the anti-Semitic attacks stop.

From the Vault:

Haunted by the Ghosts of Anti Semitism

The frightening ghosts and goblins of anti-Semitism past have arisen from their slumber. This virulent strain of hate never really disappeared, merely reawakened.

And it is deadly.

I am scared.

I am haunted.

I am a Jew.

I am haunted by the solemn voice of my childhood Rabbi whose thunderous High Holiday sermons referencing the Holocaust declared “Never Again,” sentiments echoed by Hebrew school teachers.

I am haunted by the countless conversations overhead as a child of anxious parents and family friends debating plaintively … “could it happen here?”

I am haunted by the knowledge that for my parent’s generation, a generation of Jews who lived a life of assimilation yet kept one eye open for that display of anti-Semitism that has always lived right below the surface.

I am haunted by the fact that my parent’s generation was right to believe that anti-Semitism never really left …that it was just a matter of time.

And that time is now.

Never Forget

Among the tragic victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting were several seniors with living memories of the Holocaust. Just as the number of Holocaust survivors is dwindling so are those who have first-hand memories of that horrific time.

That Greatest Generation who bore witness to the greatest atrocity of our time, the Holocaust, also bore witness to some of the most virulent anti-Semitic periods here in America.

People like my parents.

The Holocaust

Photo by Margaret Bourke-White Life Magazine

By the spring of 1945, the unspeakable details of the European concentration camps began slowly being spoken about.

Through the war, few Americans were aware of its scale. Like most Americans, my mother and her family had their first glimpse of that atrocity when gruesome and heartbreaking images of the Holocaust appeared in print for the first time in the May 7, 1945 issue of “Life” magazine.

Photo by Margaret Bourke White Life Magazine

It was unimaginable – Jewish bodies stacked like hardwood found at a liberated concentration camp. The gruesome display of haunted living corpses, smoldering piles of charred bodies, the atrocities that the allied troops had uncovered. The graphic images recorded for all time by Margaret Bourke-White were bone-chilling and would be seared into my 19-year-old mother’s mind.

This abomination was the unthinkable culmination of nearly two decades of growing anti-Semitism that she and other Jews had witnessed.

1930’s

Unlike me, my parents had grown up with the constant assumption of anti-Semitism.

It was a childhood punctuated by parades of marching brown-shirted men with outstretched arms and swastikas, cemeteries desecrated and synagogues vandalized. Incendiary anti-Semitism spewed over the airwaves and grand public halls were filled by hateful Nazi rallies spreading vile propaganda.

Perceived as greedy, dishonest and all too powerful, Jews were restricted where they could go and where they could enjoy themselves.

This was America in the 1930’s.

Despite the fact that many, like my grandfather, had served their country in the Great War and felt themselves to be “real Americans,” no matter how assimilated, the Jew was still the “other.”

Many hotels, clubs, and colleges restricted or prohibited Jews from visiting, attending, or becoming members. That was the norm for my parents. Jews were barred from prestigious law firms, admitted to medical schools on a quota basis and excluded from employment by the phrase “Christian.”

A suspicious public still saw Jewish people as different, unassimilable, and threatening. When my mother visited a college friend in Ohio a group gathered at the train station to sneak a peek at “the Jew” to see whether it was true they actually had horns.

“Beware of World Jewry”

As Hitler was rising to power in Germany the U.S. was producing its own anti-Semitic demagogues.

Though the news of the Nazi persecution moved from the front page to the inside of the newspapers, Jews were not only frightened with what was happening in Germany,  there was the unspoken fear – “Could it happen here?”

One of the most popular and dangerous voices was Father Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest and propaganda king who peddled hate, spouting vile anti-Semitism on his radio program. No flash in the pan, this popular program attracted 40 million listeners for over a decade.

To Coughlin, the New Deal became the “Jew Deal,” liberals were communists and the faithful must “Think Christian,” “Buy Christian” and “Beware of World Jewry.” By the late 1930’s Father Coughlin was speaking out in favor of the Nazis and blaming Jews for political and economic troubles.

Jewish World Conspiracy

Henry Fords articles in The Dearborn Independent attracted the attention of Adolph Hitler 1920

That familiar “Globalism” trope had dovetailed nicely with Henry Ford who a few years earlier had outlined the “Jewish World Conspiracy” in his newspaper the “Dearborn Independent.”

His anti-Semitic views echoed the fears and assumptions of many Americans. The articles referred to Jews as the root of Americas and the world’s ills and were reproduced in the book “The International Jew: The Worlds Foremost Problem.”

Suffice to say my grandparents only purchased Chryslers for their motoring pleasure.

Even Lucky Lindy, my father’s childhood idol, became a Nazi Sympathizer.

All-American hero Charles Lindberg began espousing “America First” a slogan embraced by Nazi-friendly Americans in the 1930’s. No friend of the Jews he famously commented: “We are all disturbed about the effect of the Jewish influence in our press, radio, and motion pictures.”

“Jews Will Not Replace Us”

Even as Americans read about the Jews being attacked on the streets of Nazi Germany there was great resistance for increasing immigration quotas fearing the potential flood of undesirable immigrants.

As the waiting lists for U.S. immigration visas swelled so did anti-Semitism.

By 1939 bills in Congress were proposed to end all immigration for 5 years. Speeches by Senators insisted that the time had come to “Save America for Americans.”

While those exclusionary words echoed in our halls of Congress, the fated “St. Louis” the  German ocean liner filled with Jewish refugees was refused entry into the U.S. and turned back.

That same year the German American Bund held an “Americanization” rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden denouncing Jews and their conspiracies. The rally was attended by 20,000 uniformed men wearing swastika armbands and carrying Nazi banners.

Never Again

With the end of WWII, the sober realities of what hate could bring were made manifest.

After the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed perhaps the hope was the world would be cleansed of that virulent strain of hate. Perhaps the greatest generation hoped to eradicate anti-Semitism as they had with polio.

So yes, gone would be the overt anti-Semitism of my parent’s youth, but it was never far from their minds.

For my own childhood, anti-Semitism seemed to be a relic of the past. Because I would grow up living in an unprecedented time of acceptance for Jews it would be easy for me to be lulled into a sense of security.

Because what happened in Nazi Germany was such a terrible atrocity it felt impossible to imagine ourselves capable of causing anything that resembled it. Certainly, societies would stop, reverse, and repair long before plunging into such appalling depths.

I wanted to think “never again” was a statement of fact. In my America, that kind of hate can’t exist.

Except it can.

And it does.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Get ready to set your clocks back, kids.

No, it’s not daylight savings time yet, but it’s about to get darker a lot earlier than many of us hoped for.

A woman whose religious beliefs require her to absolute obedience to a husband lest she is “shamed, shunned or humiliated” is poised to occupy the same seat as Ruth Bader Ginsburg that tireless champion of gender equality.

Trump’s nomination of right-wing conservative Amy Barrett threatens a systemic unraveling of decades hard-won and hard-fought-for fights that have given American women some semblance of autonomy and control in their lives.

This transition feels impossible but it’s not.

Women have had their autonomy and freedom pulled out from them before. After WWII a massive campaign went into effect to get the independent working women of America back to the home, hearth, and hubby and the mid-century mythologizing of the happy housewife and her family went into full tilt.  Women transitioned from working woman to a homemaker with seemingly push-button ease.

75 years ago images of working women suddenly disappeared from the media and it took them over 30 years to return.

During WWII women might have thought that they were finally free, out in the world …until they weren’t.

Women went from serving the country to serving hubby a beer. L) Vintage ad Canada Drive 1944 (R) Vintage Schlitz Ad 1953

One day, dedicated working women were glorified, proudly featured in articles and advertisements; the next they vanished, replaced by dewy-eyed brides, and happy homemakers with nothing more taxing on their minds than getting rid of ring around the collar.

In a blink of an eye, women went from serving the country to serving hubby a beer.

But this wasn’t a campaign to raise awareness. It was a tactical decision.

Most of these women didn’t opt out of working; it was more like they were pushed out by Uncle Sam: “Here’s your pillbox hat. What’s your hurry!”

As fierce as Uncle Sam’s Rosie the Riveter campaign was  (deployed in WWII to recruit women into the depleted workforce) once victory was in view a decidedly different, equally aggressive, operation was launched aimed at these same women.

Women transitioned from working woman to a homemaker with push buttons ease. (L) Woman war worker -Vintage ad General Electric 1943 (R) Housewife vintage ad

Not unlike the post war US defense policy, the media went on a permanent war footing against positive portrayals of women in the workplace.

It was now all-out war to get the ladies back into their soon to be fully-loaded Kelvinator kitchens and into high heels.

It would be more than a decade until this secret campaign would reveal itself: “Operation: June Cleaver” would be a huge success!

My mother Betty along with millions of other women of the greatest generation would be one of it’s casualties.

All Out War

Vintage WWII Recruitment Poster

It was wartime.

The patriotism was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Everywhere you looked, posters, ads, and articles appeared applauding the resourcefulness and ingenuity of Americas working woman, that patriotic lass who had stepped up to fill the shoes of the boys who had gone off to war.

Rosie the Riveter rides the greyhound bus to her job

No effort was spared to get these ladies out of their homes and into the defense plants.

The campaign orchestrated by  Uncle Sam’s Office of War Information in collaboration with Madison Avenue,  women’s magazines, radio producers, and Hollywood, tried overnight to make wearing overalls and operating a lathe glamorous.

When Uncle Sam came calling, these ladies “leaned in” and took over the manpower.

Working girls were the new glamor girls and for impressionable teens like my mother Betty, it was empowering.

What a difference a year makes. McCalls Magazine went from table setting tips pictured on the left 1941, to a war worker plotting her blueprint for a bomber on the right, 1942. Women were no longer pictured as weak, non mechanical incapable of leadership or unsuited for the challenges of the world.“The day of the lady loafer is almost over.” boasted Margaret Hickey chairperson of the Women’s Advisory Committee to the War Manpower Commission

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, our very notion of a woman’s place was decimated.

A public more accustomed to seeing their women depicted in dainty dresses while luxing the family dishes were now being bombarded with images of hardy gals dressed in coveralls and bright bandanas doing a mans job

There was nothing a woman couldn’t do and the media couldn’t stop gushing about her.

You’re No Sissy Now!

Typical of these positive ads was one from Kotex.  Geared to high school girls like my mother, it typified the wartime emphasis on female strength: “Remember when the boys used to say that girls were made of sugar and spice and all things nice? Those days are gone forever…you’re no sissy now!…”

Talk about girl power!

For a 16-year-old girl, it was all thrilling. All around Betty were wives mothers and older women actively engaged in non-traditional work; women who had a feeling of accomplishment proud to be part of the war effort. These jobs gave them confidence and a new sense of their capabilities.

Betty Co-ed

(L) Vintage Illustration 1948 by Harry Fredman “Women’s Home Companion” (R) Vintage Brenda Starr Comic Book 1940s

By the fall of 1945, Betty was a college freshman at the University of Connecticut who took her studies seriously.

As editor of Brooklyn’s Erasmus High School newspaper, she had dreams of being a star reporter for a big city daily. But no sob sister stories for her- she didn’t want to get stuck covering the usual girl beat of weddings and social clubs.

No sir, she fancied herself more as a glamorous foreign correspondent type like Martha Gellhorn one of the greatest war correspondents of the twentieth century and the only woman to land at Normandy on D-Day. Married to Ernest Hemingway they traveled the front lines together.

Perhaps, Betty pondered, one day she might even report from the front lines standing by her beau Stanley a Marine serving overseas.

A Fellah Needs a Girl

“Hats off to the Woman of the Year” begins this 1942 ad from Mutual Life Insurance, lavishing praise on Americas working woman.

Our fighting boys were proud of these women.

Throughout the war, the armed forces newspaper, The Stars and Stripes had been bursting with pride with uplifting, home-front stories of the swell of patriotic cuties in blue overalls and hair bandanas, standing shoulder to shoulder with their men, taking up the load for Uncle Sam.

But as the war drew to a close, Uncle Sam started whistling a different tune, as in a widely circulated War Dept. brochure proclaiming that: “A woman is merely a substitute, like using plastic instead of metal.”

Fueled by fears there wouldn’t be enough jobs for returning servicemen and that Depression conditions might return, the campaign to get women out of the workforce began in earnest. That, coupled with pent-up desires of both women and men to start a family were unleashed, producing an unprecedented idealization of the nuclear family.

The ideal of the family served as a national unifier becoming a symbol of what the American system was all about. It’s what they were fighting for.

Motherhood and the proliferation of baby images were churned out from 1944-1946. Women were about to be enshrined as wives and mothers .

With the same secrecy of the Potsdam conference, a final meeting between Uncle Sam and his media allies commenced to clarify “the post-war administration of women” and the rebuilding of the American family.

Those same glowing home front stories now took a more scolding tone accusing these same patriotic girls of doing “unwomanly” jobs and taking jobs away from the returning men.

The Way We Were

GI Joe gets his job back ((L) Vintage Texaco ad praising the working woman 1943 . R) Texaco ad 1945 “I’ll be a Texaco service man again when I get home.”

Articles and advertisements began to appear, that seemed to speak directly to the battle fatigued boys overseas. One ad for instance featured a soldier in combat wistfully daydreaming about the peaceful world he has left behind, yearning for the familiarity of home: “I want my girl back just as she is.”

The media assured the boys  the American Dream would be there when they returned, that “life would be just as you left it.”

Including your job…and your best girl.

Blue Print For The American Dream

“… Yes these were the things I was fighting for, waiting for…the soldier asserts.” Vintage ad Kelvinator 1945

No series of advertisements served up a bigger helping of the post-war  American Dream than the brashly sentimental ads of Nash-Kelvinator.

The ads took on the tone of a letter often written by the hometown gal he left behind who had plenty to dream about too.

In this ad from 1945 the soldier pleads that once he comes home:

“…don’t let anyone tamper with a way of living that works so well.”

“Never fear darling,” – his sweetheart writes him back, that’s the way we all want it. Everything will be here, just as you left it, just as you want it…when you come back to me!

And when you come back from the war you will find, just as you left them, everything your letters tell me you hold dear.

….inside in the living room you’ll find your easy chair, your footstool and your slippers, just as they always were each night before you went away to war.

When you come back you will find nothing changed. Those at home promised that. Here in your town your children are still free to sleep and laugh and play…still free to look at the sky, clear-eyed and unafraid…our house still stands lovely as it always was…

“…Yes, back home to the same town to the same job , you liked so much…to the same America we have always known and loved…where you can work and plan and build…where together we can do things we’ve always dreamed of…where we and our children are free to make our lives what we want them to be…where there is no limits…

…where nothing has changed.

And We’ll Live Happily Every After

”You’ve said, That’s the America I want when I come home again. Ads promised GI Joe that His wife and son will make life what it ought to be once more.

“That’s the America I fought for…that’s the America I’ll be looking for when I come home.”

The way things were.

But the fairy tale American Dream didn’t include a working woman.

I Want My Girl Back Just As She Is

Overseas, Betty’s beau Stanley worried.

With Victory in Europe nearing, Seargent First Class Stanley began to echo his GI buddies concerns: “Exactly what was getting into these dames anyway?”

Looking longingly at the pin-up of Betty Grable on his Barracks locker, he began to question what the heck they were fightin’ for if all the girls back home had their heads filled with a lot of hot air and plain baloney.

Would the women be willing to return to the home after the war, they worried in unison.

Even Hemingway was resentful of his glamorous wife Martha Gellhorn’s long absences during her reporting assignments. He famously wrote her “Are you a war correspondent or a wife in my bed? Needless to say They divorced in 1945

Stanley thought about Betty away from home, at college susceptible to all kinds of ideas and nonsense.

He knew she had her heart set on being an ace reporter, solving mysteries, and having fabulous adventures. But he didn’t really want her globetrotting around the world in search of sensational stories, not to mention the steamy romances.

And even if Betty did stay at home in N.Y. and get that job as a reporter for a daily paper, he still worried.

Newsrooms were he-man territory. They were smoked filled, grubby joints with spittoons on the floor and racy pin-ups on the wall.

He imagined her going out after work with the boys, downing whiskey at some smoky watering hole, staying out late betting on some palooka. This Sergeant First Class didn’t want his wife shouting at boxing matches when she should be home darning his socks and cooking a casserole for him. …and taking care of the children.

Back Home For Keeps

The big push back

Stanley was right. Back at school, Betty’s head was being filled with all kinds of ideas and nonsense. But not what he feared.

Operation June Cleaver had begun on the homefront.

Suddenly it seemed, wherever you turned a fierce campaign was being launched with ominous warnings aimed at the modern women.

It was now important to keep your man in the driver’s seat. It was soon feared that the masculinization of career women would drive him away.

The women’s magazines once filled with glowing stories of courageous women  were now filled with threatening articles implying that careers and higher education were leading to the masculinization of women with dangerous consequences to the country, the home, the children.

If a woman held an important professional position, they implied, she would lose her womanly qualities affecting the ability of the women as well as her husband to obtain sexual gratification!

And if a career woman had children, watch out.

She turned them into “juvenile delinquents,” “criminals” and “confirmed alcoholics.”

Or worse…she could end up an old maid.

The Tide had Turned

(L) Vintage Magazine cover Colliers 1944 (R) Vintage Tide ad

With victory the tide had turned against working women.

Gone were the ads telling women they could do anything a man could do. Gone were the ads congratulating women for performing double duty on the homefront so brilliantly.

Instead, ads began appeared affirming the new conventional wisdom – there was no more important job than wife and mother.

7-UP ads ceased claiming it would produce a good disposition in women in order to win a better job as the ad on the left proclaims, to boasting the beverage would help them be happy homemakers and bring good family cheer.

Up In smoke

Women’s aspirations would soon go up in smoke. During the war, Chesterfield had frequent ad supporting military recruitment and factory work. By 1946 they featured a bride.

Nuclear Family

The ideal of the family served as a national unifier becoming a symbol of what the American system was all about.

It’s what they were fighting for.

After Rosie the Riveter finished her stint on the assembly line, Uncle Sam wanted her to keep up the same wartime production…only this time, in bed.

The family was about to go nuclear.

Here Come the baby boomers Vintage ad Swan Soap 1945

Ashamed at even thinking of being a career girl, Betty worried not only about losing her femininity but whether Stanley would leave her when he returned?

Betty felt so dull and droopy.  Now all she could dream about was marriage and a warm and cozy home together, just like she and Stanley talked about.

With Victory here, all thoughts turned to the future.

Post War Promises: Occupation:Wife

There was no more important job than being a wife and mother. So important in fact that in 1946 The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company offered “wife insurance” in case the poor widowed hubby was left having to cook, clean, shop, do laundry, …etc for himself!

Like many war born romances, Betty’s relationship with Stanley soon fizzled out.

But in the fall of 1945 with a post-war bounce in her step, Betty returned to school more determined than ever to excel, clear in the things that were really important.

She came to the realization that the highest value and only real worthwhile commitment for a woman was the fulfillment of themselves as wives and mothers.

A barrage of books and an onslaught of articles bombarded the media convincing women to stay home. Working women became the target of vehement attacks by academia, industry, and politicians. In fact, now the conventional wisdom was that women who wanted to continue working outside the home were neurotic.

Women’s magazines soon replaced the WWII working girl with a loving Mother who became the reigning cover girl for years, solidifying the only real worthwhile commitment for a woman was the fulfillment of themselves as wives and mothers. L) McCalls Cover 1942, (R) Ladies Home Journal cover 1946 illustration Al Parker

In her Junior year in college, a crippling cloud of pessimism had drifted over the fate of the modern American Woman and the American family.

According to a 1947 bestselling book both were in dire danger.

In sociology classes all across the country earnest student like my mother cast aside Margaret Mead and devoted college papers to a dense cerebral book co-authored by Marynia Farnham and Ferdinand Lundberg, a shrink and sociologist, called “Modern Woman: The Lost Sex.”

If there were unhappiness and uncertainty in modern life they wrote, it had a sexual reason: the modern woman had denied her femininity and her womanly role.

Only by accepting her place as a wife, mother homemaker, and by erasing her “masculine aggressive” outside interests would a woman be content. Women who avoided this natural state were “neurotically disturbed women”.

Feminism was, “at it’s core, a deep illness.”

Mission Accomplished

Operation: June Cleaver – Mission Accomplished. (L) Vintage 1944 Saturday Evening Post Cover of Rosie the Riveter illustration by Robert Riggs (R) Vintage 1955 Saturday Evening Cover – illustration by Steve Dohanos

Operation June Cleaver was a success! Mission Accomplished!

During the post-war years, the Culture of Containment was not just foreign policy but applied to women and their identities as much as it did to the Soviets. Women were to contain their aspirations

It would be a long fifteen years before another, young Jewish woman named Betty, would step forward and write about “the problem that has no name.” So for now my mother Betty would follow in the footsteps of yet another Betty, ol’ reliable Betty Crocker, and become the perfect homemaker.

A tale of 2 Betty’s (L) Betty Crocker Vintage Ad 1950s (R) Betty Friedan

Copyright (©) 2020 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Last night the President of the United State of America refused to condemn white supremacy, enabling and ennobling them. On national TV. The same America whose story of the triumph of good over evil was the lessons of WWII.

Now emboldened, white supremacists are feeling proud of themselves and their president. For them, it was a victory. For the rest of us, it was a profound moment of disbelief, shame, and grief for our country. This collective national trauma has left many in a state of fear.

We are in danger, folks.

Out and Proud

That an American president could encourage the Proud Boys whose founder once ranted about the “10 Things I Hate About Jews” is unimaginable. As a 65-year-old New York Jewish woman who long thought antisemitism was a thing of the past and a husband who is a Holocaust survivor, we have had to navigate the ugliness of the Trump era together.

Nazi flags flapped and Seig Heils offered in Charlottesville eerily reminiscent of Nazi Germany L) Image via Andy Campbell Twitter R) Nazi Germany

When I saw the Nazi flag being waved proudly through the streets of Charlottesville, the hate-filled slogans like “Jews will not replace us,” chanted by neo-Nazis, all I could see was a little Polish boy, homeless, hungry and cold, living in a crowded Displaced Persons camp for 4 years in post-WWII Germany.

When I heard our President espousing the Proud Boys, the alt-right hate group founded by Holocaust denier Gavin McInnes, a man who mocks Jews “whiny paranoid fear of Nazis,” I saw the same little boy who would never know what it was like to grow up with a grandfather, a grandmother,  uncles, or aunts.

Because the holocaust did happen, Mr. McInnes.

I know this because this lonely little Polish boy born without a home and without an extended family would one day grow up to be my all-American husband. My in-laws were Holocaust survivors bearing witness to unspeakable horrors.

(L) Holocaust Denier vandalism, Seattle (R) My mother in laws family in Poland 1939. Within a year everyone but one would be executed by the Nazis.

His extended family were among the millions of unarmed Jewish civilians men women and children brutally slaughtered by the Nazis in the towns of Eastern Europe. Others were gassed in camps. Those swastikas wearing forebearers are the inspiration to today’s hate-filled Americans offering Sieg Heils on the streets of an American town.

Now 75 years later, that same little boy who would eventually grow up to be an American citizen and a public defender, defending the rights of our indigent, had to tragically hear his own President talk about the “good people” at the torchlit Nazi parade. And describe the “good genes” of a Minnesota crowd, eerily evoking Hitler’s eugenics.

In some ways, the past is always present in the little boy who lives within this man. With wounds too deep to ever heal, the decades-old walls built to cover pain too hard to feel and block out what is too hard to remember, remain impenetrable. Along with parts of himself, the trauma lives buried, its toxic damage leaching out over 75 years, affecting generations of loved ones later. Including his wife.

Though not my own history the damage from his tragedy becomes part of mine.

Marvel Comics The Greatest Superheroes of WWII

I had always felt fortunate to have been born when I was, a full decade after the end of WWII which in a child’s mind is an eternity. The Nazi atrocities of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Belzec seemed ancient history. Storm Troopers in their black boots and their angry red flags emblazoned with swastikas became harmless villains easily beaten in movies, comics, and television. We had been victorious in our fight against Hitler resulting in the ultimate defeat of the ultimate evil.

The sober realities of what hate could bring were made manifest. After the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed the hope was the world would be cleansed of that virulent strain of hate. Perhaps that greatest generation hoped to eradicate anti-Semitism as they had with polio.

For my own childhood in suburban 1960’s Long Island, anti-Semitism seemed to be a relic of the past. Because I would grow up living in an unprecedented time of acceptance for Jews it would be easy for me to be lulled into a sense of security.

How glad I was to be a Jew in America safe and immune from that kind of hate. The unthinkable atrocities in Europe could never happen in our democracy we were told.

I wanted to think “never again” was a statement of fact. In my America, that kind of hate can’t exist. Except it can.

The specter of anti-Semitism has always hovered around us, the shadowy world of hate like a sinister ghost I chose not to want to see.

But even as an assimilated American Jew I learned through osmosis the coded language and dog whistles of hate and bigotry. To Jewish eyes and Jewish ears, the tropes of today are familiar, as familiar as the ancient prayers of Kaddish said in temple.

Of course through the years, a reviled swastika scrawled on a wall or an ugly anti-Semitic rant might rear its ugly head causing a queasy uneasy feeling to wash over me, but I could be confident that the perpetrators of this hateful act were swiftly and firmly denounced.

The European Jewish story was history, an unthinkable tragedy important to remember, but unimaginable here.

But now the unthinkable is entering American Jews’ thoughts. Including mine.

Top, White supremacy vandalism Wellsville, NY (B) Vintage Captain America 1941 punching out Hitler

I no longer feel protected in my own country least of all by our president with his appalling lack of leadership and empathy. The hatred, bigotry, and violence in Charlottesville came from “many sides” our President insisted, but the fact is only one side was carrying swastika flags, the flag of Nazi Germany.

It is unthinkable that the President of the United States,  the leader of a country that over 70 years ago sacrificed hundreds and thousands of the greatest generation to ensure the demise of that same evil,  not vigorously condemn Americans who marched and spout the hate of the Third Reich.

Now as I observe my husband as he watches the horror of what has been unleashed in our country, I see the little boy confronted by that noxious symbol of hate once again, and the trauma that has long been buried gets stirred up. The look is of pain but so deep in the recesses, he is unable to speak of it.

Today my 75-year-old husband struggles with cognitive decline. But this hate that has been unleashed and encouraged by our President is something he understands even if he can’t find the words to express them.

I will be his voice. And it is loud, it is outraged, and it is frightened.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2020. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The waiting had been agonizing.

Rumors and intimations both good and bad were rampant.  The anxieties and melodrama made biding our time excruciating. Would we be victorious and vanquish an evil authoritarian once and for all? Tension was at a fever pitch. We had been waiting for so long.

Exhausted after four strained and stress-filled years, American’s erupted in celebration when the news came in.

Finally, when the long-awaited victory was declared we were jubilant.

Spontaneously we took to the streets en masse, crying, cheering, singing, and dancing. Strangers hugged with abandon, and the sounds of champagne corks popping competed with the sounds of horns blaring. Celebratory champagne that had been saved from four years earlier was giddily drunk with gusto, generously shared with neighbors, and passer-bys. The festivities echoed the relief we all were feeling as the tensions melted away for the moment. We knew all the fighting had not fully ended but grateful for the thought of a return to normalcy.

This was American on Tuesday, May 8 1945 May VE Day. After winning our battle with Fascist Germany, it marked the official end of the war in Europe.

This was also America on Saturday, Nov 7, 2020, after Joe Biden was finally declared the next President of the United States. Within hours of the electoral race being called that morning on cable news, Americans took to the streets to celebrate a Biden/Harris victory. As a previous generation had fought a bloody war to preserve democracy,  so we, embattled voters saved our nation from losing our most precious gift. Our freedoms.

Donald Trump had yet to surrender the 2020 election. Just like Japan in May 1945.

As I watched the celebration in Times Square, the scene resembled nothing short of New Year’s Eve with the crowds of euphoric New Yorkers flooding the streets in excitement. But I couldn’t help but also be reminded of the massive WWII celebrations once held in that same place. The ones my mother had been a part of so many years ago.

For the past few years, I often thought how relieved I was that my greatest generation parents weren’t alive to see what had become of their America under Trump. Now I wish they had been here to see this jubilation and mass celebration erupting on the streets at Trump’s defeat.  Especially the celebrations in Times Square the place that for decades New Yorkers gathered in collective celebration.

VE Celebration May 1945 NYC Times Sq

The Crossroads of the World was overrun with ecstatic New Yorkers on VE Day 75 years ago. Including my nearly 19-year-old mother Betty. So much of the war and its celebrations and tragedies seemed so connected to that storied area of N.Y.C. For decades Time Square functioned as a town square. And during the war, it felt like the center of the universe.

The sight of New Yorkers congregating in Times Square gathered around the scrolling New York Times news “zipper” was a scene familiar during the war years as people waited anxiously to learn of the war’s progress. And as news of the end of the war circulated, the rumors and nail-biting was ramped up.

Waiting

Crowds gathered outside the Times news zipper to catch a glimpse of the latest war news

By the spring of 1945, the conclusion of the war on both fronts was getting closer. Though victory seemed imminent, the waiting was excruciating.

The city was tense with expectation. As often happens in times of heightened expectations and nerves a rumor had spread that Germany had surrendered.

On Saturday evening of April 28 as the highly anticipated news traveled across the city, more than 10,000 people gathered in Times Square. As always people gathered around the Times Towers zipper awaiting more news, but a citywide “brownout” ordered on Feb. 1 to preserve the country’s dwindling coal supply had kept the moving electric sign dark. By 9:00 the first edition of Sunday papers hit the streets and they all carried the news of Germany’s surrender.

It wasn’t until President Truman went on the air denying the surrender that crowds began to disperse.

The Plot Thickens

Headline “NY World-Telegram” May 1, 1945, “Hitler is Dead.”Most believed this meant the end of the war was close at hand.

News continued to be a flurry of rumors in the following days.

My grandfather who worked in the Empire State building, often walked the 10 blocks up to Times Square to check the breaking news at the end of each workday before heading home to the Upper West Side. A few days after that premature announcement, he walked past the Times Tower’s bulletin board at 43rd Street and saw a startling headline that read simply Hitler Is Dead. That 5:00 headline of May 1 would stick in his mind.

“The man most hated by the free world didn’t even rate an exclamation point,” he noted.  Elated at the news, he felt as did most folks that the end of the European war was now imminent. Anticipation was in the air.

The next day expecting the end of the fighting with Germany the police began erecting barricades in front of glass-windowed storefronts in Times Sq. Meanwhile in Rockefeller Center war bond efforts were still going on.

Now with Hitler’s death confirmed and the war with Germany all but over, the city just waited.

Plans were put into place to have the official ceremonies held at Central Parks Mall. If word came by day the ceremonies would run from 5-10 that night. It was President Truman’s wish that the day be spent not in celebration but in reflection and prayer. The nation was of course still at war with Japan. Not unlike Donald Trump, Imperial Japan had yet to wave a white flag.

Declared Early

VE Celebration May 1945 NYC Times Sq

At 9:35 on Monday morning May 7 when most New Yorkers were just getting to their jobs a handful of people were standing around Times Tower. They were watching the bulletins posted on the side of the building when the one the city had been waiting so long for was put up. “Germany Surrenders!”

At the same time, people listening to their radio heard the news. Word of mouth spread quickly and by 11:30 an estimated crowd of 25,000 had jammed the Times Square subway station trying to make their way to the sidewalk.

In Manhattan, the impending surrender led to widespread celebrations.

Despite a paper shortage, people working in high-rises threw homemade confetti made from phone books from windows.  The N.Y. Telephone Company recorded the busiest day in its history as New Yorkers spread the news. Down on Wall Street workers streamed out of their offices and gathered on the narrow sidewalks. At 10:30 the bells of Trinity Church pealed over the financial district. Church’s and synagogues were packed.  Crowds gathered in Rockefeller Center, in the garment district, and in various pockets of the city. By noon, Times Square was closed off to traffic.

As the day wore on my mother and her friends joined the half a million people who would gather in the square waiting for more news.

It was a day filled with mixed feelings my mother would recall.

The nation was still in mourning over FDR when VE Day was announced

Amidst the collective relief, the city was still in mourning, its flags flying at half staff for the beloved president who had guided them through the war.

The news of President Roosevelt’s unexpected death only weeks earlier on April 12 had shocked and stunned Americans. Unbelieving crowds with tears streaming down their faces had mingled in Times Square for the latest news on that sad day. Some got the sad news in the buses and trolley cars that were taking them home and they too got off at Times Sq hoping to be told it was a mere rumor.

Then when they looked up they saw the flags on the Times Tower and the Astor Hotel flying half staff. Nearby firehouses sounded their alarms and they knew that the president who had seen them through this war was dead.

Now a few weeks later, on May 7, Times Square was awash in celebration still fully aware that battles in the Pacific were still being bitterly fought, the war forecast to continue well into 1946 or 1947.  More importantly, our still unfamiliar President, Harry Truman had not yet told the American people that the war was over with Germany.

Not so fast

That afternoon the president went on the radio and declared that he would not officially proclaim VE Day until he could do so with England and Russia.

President Truman dedicated these spontaneous celebrations to FDR. “The flags of freedom fly all over Europe,” he said in his address to the nation. But he cautioned against wishing for the world we longed for rather than the world as it was — battles still raging in the Pacific, Japan as much a threat as ever.

That didn’t stop people from celebrating or drinking. By evening bars and restaurants in Times Square ran out of beer. Some bars were so jammed they had to close their doors to new customers until a few patrons had left.

VE Day

After a long night of celebrating, it would be the following morning on May 8 when the official word came in.  Americans gathered around radios at home, in offices and war plants, to hear President Truman announce the unconditional surrender of Germany.  Suddenly my mother’s N.Y. apartment was filled with sounds. In N.Y. harbor, boats blasted their horns and in the city streets cars honked, pots and pans were banged and trolleys rang their bells.  A roar of cheers came out of every window

But the real celebration would come that night when the War Production Board officially ended the nationwide brownout.

For the first time since April 1942, N.Y.C. would turn on its lights.

VE Celebration May 1945 NYC Times Sq

With the start of the war, it was Toodle Loo to the Great White Way.

A night out on the town was a unique event during the war-a dim out of NY’s nightlights. All the neon light and signage had been black.  Bright lights reflected on the night sky made the city an easy target for German submarines or aircraft. So lights in offices were turned off, display illumination was shut down, and even Times Squares big signs depended on painting and lettering rather than lighting.

As evening fell and the skies darkened my mother and her gang joined the crowds that poured into Times Square hungry for its neon.

The night before, the electric zipper on the Times Tower had resumed its swift crawl around the building. By dusk theatre marquees and the neon signs on all the movie houses were lit up in their original state of dazzle.

But it was the lighting of Times Square’s spectacular advertising that would give New Yorkers their city back. My mother remembered being overwhelmed by the immediate brilliance. First, the “Four Roses” sign flashed on. Then came the “Pepsi Cola” sign its red white and blue colors, suddenly seeming very patriotic.   The crowd couldn’t contain themselves. The tide of revelers cheered.

VE Celebration May 1945 NYC Times Sq

As confetti streamed down onto the square a group of servicemen from other countries formed a ring in front of the Astor Hotel and sang “God Bless America.” Presiding over it all was a 15-ton replica of the Statue of Liberty right there in Times Square.

The next morning as sanitation trucks swept through the city picking up ribbons of ticker tape and scraps from torn phone books that had streamed down onto the streets the night before, an exhausted city began to focus on the sweetest day of all the day when victory was declared against Japan. VJ would have to wait a few more months.

These stories serve as a reminder of a time, not so long ago when New Yorkers well knew that the war wasn’t over, but the end was in sight — and that was enough for jubilation.

January 20th Inauguration will be our VJ Day. When Trump is vanquished for good.

In the puritanical Post-War years before there was Playboy Magazine, red-blooded ex-GI’s could still get an eyeful of racy pin-up girls just by glancing through their favorite magazine.

No, I’m not talking about Wink, Flirt, Eyeful, or any of the dozens of girlie pulp magazines hidden in the high, rear shelves of the local drug store, but right there in the mid-century family’s  Norman Rockwell covered Saturday Evening Post.  All-business, no-nonsense Fortune Magazine offered an eyeful too!

Vintage Springmaid Fabrics Ads 1948

These and several other mass-market magazines all ran a legendary series of advertisements put out by Springmaid Fabrics filled with enough risqué wording and sexy pin-up girls to rival those of illustrators Earl Moran and Pete Driben’s girlie covers on Twitter.

These ads generated both public adoration and puritanical outrage. It wasn’t so much the illustrations that caused a ruckus but the often salacious double entendre copy written by the owner of Spring Mills himself, Elliot White Springs.

The ads proudly boasted that the fabric company was now in the “hip harness and bosom bolster business.” Cheekily, they referred to ladies’ underpants as “ham hampers” and their brassieres as “lung lifters.” A post-war public already beset with Atomic jitters was now gravely warned against contracting such dreaded conditions as “rumba aroma,” “skaters steam,” and “ballerina bouquet” which only Springmaid miracle fabrics would prevent.

And yes, if you were wondering, this is the same Springmaid whose 300 count sheets you recently purchased for your guest bedroom at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

WWII Call to Service

Vintage Spring Cotton Mills Ad WWII 1943 illustration James Montgomery Flagg. A call to service

Before they embarked on this racy campaign, Spring Cotton Mills was enlisted in another campaign, recruited by Uncle Sam as a major supplier of cloth to the armed services during WWII.

One part of their important war work was developing a special fabric for camouflage. it was to be used in the Pacific to conceal ammunition dumps and gun emplacements,  but the Japanese learned to detect it because of its lack of jungle smells.

Spring Mills came up with a novel solution.

When the fabric was dyed it was also impregnated with a permanent odor of hibiscus, hydrangea, and old rubber boots. The deception was so successful that when Tokyo fell, the victorious invaders hung a piece of this fabric on a Japanese flagpole.

Underneath it All

Triumphant from their many success during the war, Spring Mills patented that process along with several other innovations and marketed them for use in women’s foundation garments.

Under the watchful eye of Elliot White Springs, the once-staid company took a more risqué direction.

The idea for the pin-ups got their start in 1947 with an in-house beauty contest- Miss Springmaid. The winners were taken to New York where they were drawn by leading illustrators that would eventually be used in advertising.

Skating on Thin Ice

Vintage Springmaid Fabric Ads (L) 1948 (R) 1949

The new post-war ads all began explaining the company’s many war triumphs and touting the peacetime use of its war-time fabrics: “….the fabric is now available to the hip harness and bosom bolster business as Springmaid Perker. The white with gardenia, the pink with Camellia, the blush with jasmine, and the nude, dusty. ”

It concluded, “If you want to achieve the careless look and avoid ‘skaters steam’ kill two birds with one stone by getting a camouflaged callipygian camisole.

Another ad from 1949  featured “luminous fabric named ‘shiner’ for ‘rearguard business’. You don’t have to feed your baby onions,” the ad informed the reader, “to find her in the dark even at a masked ball.”

Hot Stuff

Recalling a cover illustration of Esquire Magazine featuring 3 skaters warming themselves up before a performance, Springmaid acquired the rights to the illustration to use in one of their own ads for a fire-proof fabric that they had developed during the war.

This flame-resistant fabric originally developed for airplane ground crews and carrier fire squads was now known as Springmaid Kerpyr and was “available to the false bottom business as combed broadcloth. If you expected to attend a campfire picnic, a fourth of July barbecue, or warm yourself in front of a crackling fire, be protected by the Springmaid label on the bottom of your trademark.”

A Sticky Situation

Another of their war-time products was a special cotton fabric coated with emulsified rubber, cut into strips, put into rolls, and shipped to hospitals all over the world for use as adhesive tape.

The cloth known to the trade as Sticker became available to the false bottom and filibuster business.

“Don’t depend on buttons and bows, warned the copy in this 1949 ad, “but switch to Sticker and let Springmaid label protect you from the consequences of embarrassing accidents such as pictured in the ad. We stick behind our fabric and feel its tenacity so strong our only competition comes from a tattoo artist.”

Be Protected

During the war, “The Springgs Cotton Mills” was called upon to develop a crease proof cotton fabric. It was used wityh great success as a backing for maps, photographs and other valuable assettes. This fabric has now been further protected and made avaialble to the torso twister  trade.

After a convention, a clambake or a day at the Pentagon Building, you need not eat off the mantel if you have your foundation covered in Spring made Poker woven yarn.

Textile Tempest

As the ads heated up along with the hot-headed public’s reaction to them, Time Magazine reported on the tumult in the summer of 1948:

“Such lusty ballyhoo-for Spring Mills Springmaid fabrics- startled readers of the high-necked New York Times. It also drew a shocked cry of ‘bad taste’ from Advertising Age and protests from the New Yorker, Life and other magazines which refused to run other Springmaid copy until such phrases as ham hamper, lung lifter, and rumba aroma were deleted.”

“Not in months had advertising titups caused such a tizzy.”

Mad Men

Elliot Springs, at times characterized as emotionally unstable, clearly missed his calling in life as a showman or an adman on Madison Avenue. In a shameless bit of self-promotion, a self-published book he wrote was boldly hawked in each and every Springmaid ad:

“Elliot White Springs, president of The Springs Cotton Mills, has written another book,’ Clothes Make the Man’ which was indignantly rejected by every editor and publisher who read it. So he had it printed privately and sent to his friends for Christmas. After they read it, he ran out of friends, so there are some extra copies. It contains a veritable treasury of useless information, such as how to build cotton mills, how to give first aid on Park Avenue, and how to write advertisements. If not available at your local bookstore, send a dollar and postage to us.”

Who Puts the Broad in Broadcloth

Vintage Springmaid fabrics Ad 1952 We Put the “Broad” in Broadside featuring actress Vivian Blaine star of Broadways “Guys & Dolls” and MGM’s “Skirts Ahoy”

In addition, for those who loved the Springmaid campaign, one could order a set of the ads suitable for framing for just 25 cents. How about a new calendar featuring 15 titillating Springmaid ads sold at newsstands everywhere. For a mere quarter, you also could be the owner of a sheet of decals of 6 sprightly Springmaid girls.

If that weren’t enough, Springs had designed a sports shirt with 16 Springmaid girls printed in 6 colors on Springmaid broadcloth. For $3 they would gladly mail you one.

And underneath it all, what man wouldn’t lust after a pair of boxer shorts sprinkled with Springmaid beauties in dazzling color and provocative poses!

Vintage ad 1951 Men’s shorts printed with Springmaid Beauties

He may not have made much money from “Clothes Make the Man”, but in the great American tradition, the controversial ads paid off handsomely with record sales for Spring Mills.

Elliot White Springs crazy? Crazy like a fox!

“I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true” -Marjorie Greene Taylor

Oh, my little Margie! What a scatterbrain you are! Is your brain so porous that there is no filter allowing anything and everything free access to lodge in your frontal lobe? What kind of antics have you been up to that have you all mixed up?

Apparently, Marjorie Greene ( short for Greenberg, nu?) must have been zapped in the head by one of those pesky Jewish Space Lasers that has caused her critical thinking to be impaired and believe things that weren’t true.

When all else fails: Blame it on the Jews! Why not?

Hollywood ( rued by Jews) made her believe 9/11 didn’t happen.

The Media ( ruled by Jews) made her believe the school shootings were staged with fake actors.

Repackaged by QAnon the awful old antisemitism tropes making the rounds are awfully familiar. Anti semitism has been lurking in the shadow in our country and supported by Q Anon Taylor is just the latest incarnation.

My parent’s generation understood that. They were a generation of Jews who lived a life of assimilation yet kept one eye open for that display of anti-Semitism that has always lived right below the surface.

They were right to believe that anti-Semitism never really left …that it was just a matter of time.

And that time is now.

That Greatest Generation who bore witness to the greatest atrocity of our time, the Holocaust, also bore witness to some of the most virulent anti-Semitic periods here in America.

1930s America

Unlike me, my parents had grown up with the constant assumption of anti-Semitism.

It was a childhood punctuated by parades of marching brown-shirted men with outstretched arms and swastikas, cemeteries desecrated and synagogues vandalized. Incendiary anti-Semitism spewed over the airwaves and grand public halls were filled by hateful Nazi rallies spreading vile propaganda.

Perceived as greedy, dishonest, and all too powerful, Jews were restricted where they could go and where they could enjoy themselves.

This was America in the 1930s.

Despite the fact that many, like my grandfather, had served their country in the Great War and felt themselves to be “real Americans,” no matter how assimilated, the Jew was still the “other.”

Many hotels, clubs, and colleges restricted or prohibited Jews from visiting, attending, or becoming members. That was the norm for my parents. Jews were barred from prestigious law firms, admitted to medical schools on a quota basis and excluded from employment by the phrase “Christian.”

A suspicious public still saw Jewish people as different, unassimilable, and threatening. When my mother visited a college friend in Ohio a group gathered at the train station to sneak a peek at “the Jew” to see whether it was true they actually had horns.

“Beware of World Jewry”

As Hitler was rising to power in Germany the U.S. was producing its own anti-Semitic demagogues.

Though the news of the Nazi persecution moved from the front page to the inside of the newspapers, Jews were not only frightened with what was happening in Germany,  there was the unspoken fear – “Could it happen here?”

One of the most popular and dangerous voices was Father Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest and propaganda king who peddled hate, spouting vile anti-Semitism on his radio program. No flash in the pan, this popular program attracted 40 million listeners for over a decade.

To Coughlin, the New Deal became the “Jew Deal,” liberals were communists and the faithful must “Think Christian,” “Buy Christian” and “Beware of World Jewry.” By the late 1930’s Father Coughlin was speaking out in favor of the Nazis and blaming Jews for political and economic troubles.

Jewish World Conspiracy

Henry Fords articles in The Dearborn Independent attracted the attention of Adolph Hitler 1920

That familiar “Globalism” trope had dovetailed nicely with Henry Ford who a few years earlier had outlined the “Jewish World Conspiracy” in his newspaper the “Dearborn Independent.”

His anti-Semitic views echoed the fears and assumptions of many Americans. The articles referred to Jews as the root of Americas and the world’s ills and were reproduced in the book “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem.”

Henry Ford funded the printing of 500,000 copies of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a fabricated antisemitic text first published in Russia in 1903 and translated into multiple languages and disseminated internationally.  The book purports to describe a Jewish plan for world domination.

Suffice to say my grandparents only purchased Chryslers for their motoring pleasure.

Even Lucky Lindy, my father’s childhood idol, became a Nazi Sympathizer.

All-American hero Charles Lindberg began espousing “America First” a slogan embraced by Nazi-friendly Americans in the 1930s. No friend of the Jews he famously commented: “We are all disturbed about the effect of the Jewish influence in our press, radio, and motion pictures.”

“Jews Will Not Replace Us”

Even as American’s read about the Jews being attacked on the streets of Nazi Germany there was great resistance for increasing immigration quotas fearing the potential flood of undesirable immigrants.

As the waiting lists for U.S. immigration visas swelled so did anti-Semitism.

German Jewish refugees return to Antwerp aboard the St Louis 1039 after denied access to US

By 1939 bills in Congress were proposed to end all immigration for 5 years. Speeches by Senators insisted that the time had come to “Save America for Americans.”

While those exclusionary words echoed in our halls of Congress, the fated “St. Louis” the  German ocean liner filled with Jewish refugees was refused entry into the U.S. and turned back.

That same year the German American Bund held an “Americanization” rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden denouncing Jews and their conspiracies. The rally was attended by 20,000 uniformed men wearing swastika armbands and carrying Nazi banners.

Never Again

With the end of WWII, the sober realities of what hate could bring were made manifest.

After the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed perhaps the hope was the world would be cleansed of that virulent strain of hate. Perhaps the greatest generation hoped to eradicate anti-Semitism as they had with polio.

So yes, gone would be the overt anti-Semitism of my parent’s youth, but it was never far from their minds.

For my own childhood, anti-Semitism seemed to be a relic of the past. Because I would grow up living in an unprecedented time of acceptance for Jews it would be easy for me to be lulled into a sense of security.

Because what happened in Nazi Germany was such a terrible atrocity it felt impossible to imagine ourselves capable of causing anything that resembled it. Certainly, societies would stop, reverse, and repair long before plunging into such appalling depths.

I wanted to think “never again” was a statement of fact. In my America, that kind of hate can’t exist.

Except it can. That you can believe.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2021.

If a segment of nobody-tells-me-what-to-do-keep-the-government-off-my-back American’s still whinge at the thought of a mask mandate while shedding crocodile tears about the discomfort, inconvenience, and infringement on their freedom, how in hell would these self-serving “patriots” feel if suddenly Uncle Sam said they couldn’t imbibe in their daily extra-large sugar-loaded Dunkaccino?

Or were told how often they could drive their gas-guzzling SUV? How about being ordered to give up grilling a juicy T-Bone steak on their backyard grill? Or being instructed those cigarettes were for sale only at certain times? Could they possibly survive with only being able to buy 2 pairs of new shoes a year, or abide by government regulations concerning the permissible length of a skirt or the required width of your suit lapels? All these were once Uncle Sam’s directives.

Each day ordinary folks were helping the final victory by giving and sacrificing

This was America during WWII when ordinary Americans sacrificed and did without. You couldn’t just saunter into a grocery store and buy as much sugar, butter or meat as you wanted nor could you fill your car up with gas whenever you liked. These were all rationed by the government. When the war broke out, Americans had been told that each of us was a vital part of the war effort. Uncle Sam had a big army to clothe, feed, and supply, and their needs came first. The public was bombarded with messages asking them to be frugal, conserve, and to produce more of what they consumed.

Americans did their duty by doing what was not comfortable or easy.  Foregoing certain items and forfeiting some pleasures during wartime became the norm for most.

Being asked to sacrifice your personal comfort for the safety of others and the greater good is not a violation of freedom.

In fact, it is a very American way to be. I learned that lesson early on from my parents, members of the greatest generation.

Did some people at the time balk at the restrictions? Of course. Was there some griping?  Sure. But that generation understood the greater good was more important than personal comfort or freedom.

Did my motoring loving grandfather Arthur enjoy being restricted to 3 gallons of gasoline a week to put into his 1940 Chrysler? Or having to forego his weekly Sunday pleasure drives to nowhere on scenic parkways because it was deemed non-essential driving? Probably as much as my other grandfather Morris missed his standing rib roast and his nightly tumbler or two of whiskey which was near impossible to come by since distillers were in 100% production of alcohol for explosives.

They both tolerated living with only the occasional cup of scarce coffee reluctantly accepting that a refill at a restaurant or hotel was forbidden. But as my grandpa Morris would say what good was a cup of Joe without a soothing cigarette to accompany it?   He groused plenty at the time about the cigarette shortage in ‘44 when he had to stand on interminably long lines outside smoke shops on the days cigarettes became available.  Nonetheless, both men understood how to sacrifice, make do, and play square.

And by the way, don’t think restricting automobile-loving American’s on their driving was easy. FDR in fact initially dawdled lacking the political courage to deprive Americans of their cherished freedom of the road. But the only way to really enforce the ramifications of the extreme rubber shortage we were experiencing and save tires was to establish driving restrictions and to limit mileage for the entire nation.

So gas rationing was ordered nationwide, a ban on pleasure driving went into effect, and a 35-mile speed limit on all highways.

I am certain that with her prodigious sweet tooth, sugar rationing did not make my grandmother Sadie smile when as an early casualty of the war it went into effect in 1942. But she made do relying on perhaps less satisfying but more patriotic alternatives.

Always fashion conscious, Sadie I’m convinced was not all that pleased when Uncle Sam took to the runways and became a clothes warden dictating fashions such as forbidding any pleats, ruffles, pockets or big sleeves on women’s clothing. Nonetheless, she dutifully kept both her hems and fabric belts no wider than 2”  and raised her hemline at least 17” off the floor as the government required. Uncle Sam persuaded everyone that clothing conservation was one way each citizen could contribute to victory.

For my other grandmother, Rose who like most Americans abided by the notion that “meat makes the meal” thriftiness and ingenuity had to be learned when it came to mealtime.  Her family had to adjust to different less, tender cuts of beef since the best cuts went to servicemen.

Food we were told during WWII, will win the war and no food was more vital to victory than meat, which became material of war as soon as the hostilities began. Morale boosting meat was needed most to fight on and to win on which meant meat-loving Americans had to deprive themselves of this most vital and beloved pleasure.

As the war groaned on, nearly every item Americans ate, wore, used, or lived in was rationed or regulated by the government. Shortages were followed by the disappearance of one another amenity after another. It caused discomfort, inconvenience, even annoyance but they complied.

There was an enemy to fight and we were all in it together.

Together. That’s a word missing today.

Today for some personal freedom has been distorted. In recent years selfishness and self-interest are repackaged as personal freedom.

Refusing to wear masks is the lethal result of decades of selling folks on freedom without responsibility. Clinging to the warped idea of freedom and democracy that apparently means not caring whether others in your community get sick. Or die

Relinquish comfort, my fellow Americans.  Give it up and wear a mask. It’s what your grandparents would have done.!

Copyright (©) 2021 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

From the Archives:

December 7, 1941

Just as 9/11  is a marker for this current generation, and November 22 was for mine, Sunday, December 7, 1941, was a where-were-you-when-kind of day that was seared permanently in the memory of the greatest generation, including my parents.

The war was still over there, though the news was full of muffled but ominous portents. From the Far East came reports of Japanese troop movement in Indochina and that Saturday night FDR would make a last-minute appeal to the Japanese Emperor Hirohito for direct talks but to no avail.

Like most Americans, my mother and her family did not expect to be at war the next day or the next week, or even the next month, but they knew in their hearts it was inevitable.

When was the big question.

Business as Usual

So like everyone else, my mother’s family went about their business.

The day before Pearl Harbor there were only 15 shopping days to Xmas and the department stores were having one of the biggest shopping sprees in years.

Goods were plentiful but pricier than last year. Nylons were replacing silk stockings which had been scarce because of the darn embargo on Japanese silk thread. But Stern’s Department Store in N.Y. offered them at “one special buy all you want price” of $1.75 a pair. A fifth of scotch was 3 bucks, but in two Christmases these items, as well as many others, would be next to impossible to find.

A Night on The Town

Saturday night in NYC where my mother’s family lived, was a mass of Christmas shoppers and visitors streaming into restaurants, night clubs theaters and movies, ready to paint the town red.

That evening my grandparents were Broadway-bound with tickets to see the critically acclaimed Lillian Hellman production of Watch on the Rhine at the Martin Beck Theater.  Its portrayal of a family who struggles to combat the menace of fascism in Europe during WWII responded directly to the political climate of the day, and the continuing debate on American neutrality in the War.

Warnings

While the audience absorbed the words of Lillian Hellman’s warning that “all who chose to ignore the international crisis were helping to perpetuate it and that no one could count himself or herself free of danger,” 6 carriers of the Pearl Harbor striking force under Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo sliced through the blue waves of the Pacific a few hundred miles north of Hawaii.

Pearl Harbor in the News

(L) 1939 Vintage advertisement- Matson Cruise Line to Hawaii “A Voyage as Colorful as Hawaii’s flowered isles”

 Picking up a copy of the Sunday “Herald Tribune” on their way back to Brooklyn after the show, my grandfather  read in the rotogravure section an article about the naval base at Pearl Harbor, “the point of Defense of our West Coast.”

The pictures of silvery sands mingled with warplanes flying over Diamond Head. As the newspaper article pointed out, the lucky lei-draped tourist vacationing there would be too busy eyeing the hula girls to notice the Army pillboxes since they were cleverly concealed from prying eyes. The accompanying pictures showed an idyllic tropical setting, causing my grandmother to make a mental note to visit there sometime soon.

It was difficult for many Americans to understand what was happening in the Pacific. We were preoccupied with Hitler.

Enchanted Isles

Another factor was plain and simple geography.

Until the air age, islands like Midway and Iwo Jima were practically worthless. Like most Americans, most of what my parents did know about the Pacific had been invented by Hollywood. The South Seas were pictured as exotic isles where lazy winds whispered in the palm fronds and native girls wore sarongs like Dorothy Lamour.

1938 Vintage ads Dole Pineapple Juice

The closest most Americans would get to those enchanted Isles of Hawaii would be courtesy of Dole. Whether as canned juice or slices, exotic pineapple from Honolulu Hawaii had become immensely popular over the past decade due to its unusual health values.

Pearl Harbor a once unfamiliar name for most Americans who weren’t quite sure where it was, would grow increasingly familiar all too soon.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy

The next day, Sunday, the eastern seaboard was quiet but jittery with the news of the surprise attack.

Along with millions of Americans, my mother first learned of the attack when her father turned on the big mahogany RCA Radio to hear his favorite CBS broadcast of the NY Philharmonic concert at 3pm. That Sunday most people gathered around their radios listening for whatever news they could get about Pearl Harbor.

On anything but a mundane Monday, 60,000,000 jittery Americans would remember exactly where they were when they turned on their radios at noon to listen to President Roosevelt speak of that day that would live in infamy!

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.