Fly With Me Takes Flight on PBS American Experience

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Judith Trojan
No, this isn't a Radio City Rockettes kick line. It's a Delta Air Lines Stewardess graduation photo, circa 1944, as seen in FLY WITH ME on PBS AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Photo courtesy Delta Air Lines.

No, this isn’t a Radio City Rockettes kick line. It’s a Delta Air Lines Stewardess graduation photo, circa 1944, as seen in FLY WITH ME on PBS AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Photo courtesy Delta Air Lines.

“Getting married meant I had to give up my job as a stewardess for Pan Am, a job I loved.”–Mary Higgins Clark.

The year was 1949.  She was 21 and ready and eager to quit her comfortable secretarial job and take a pay cut to travel the world as a stewardess.  That 21 year old would eventually blossom into best-selling author and “Queen of Suspense” Mary Higgins Clark.

I got to know Mary Higgins Clark fairly well over the years during my stints in Corporate Communications at her publisher, Simon & Schuster, and at The Christophers, as Director of the Christopher Awards.  You can read one of my interviews with her here in FrontRowCenter  http://www.judithtrojan.com/2020/02/21/   

I admit that I was flabbergasted when, during one of our earliest conversations, Mary admitted to me that, as a young woman, she was determined to become a stewardess.  During the late 1940s and ’50s, young working class women of her generation were on track to marry and have a family.  But before they settled down in postwar suburbia with a husband and kids, many were lured by the glamour of traveling the world as a stewardess.  Most never made the cut.

Once you got your foot in the door as a stewardess on a mid-century American airline, you not only had to maintain the good looks and weight that won you the job in the first place, but you also had to pay strict attention to your head to toe grooming and deportment.  Photo courtesy United Airlines.

Once you got your foot in the door as a stewardess on a mid-century American airline, you not only had to maintain the good looks and weight that won you the job in the first place, but you also had to pay strict attention to your head to toe grooming and deportment.  Photo courtesy United Airlines.

Young, wannabe stewardesses had to meet archaic physical, psychological, race and age requirements and maintain strict lifestyle standards just to be accepted into an airline’s three week training program, land a job offer, perform the job and keep it without breaking the rules that got them hired in the first place.

“The requirements in those days would bring on a class-action bias suit now,” recalled Mary Higgins Clark in her autobiography, Kitchen Privileges (S&S, 2002).  “You had to be between 21 and 26 years of age, between five-two and five-seven in height, and your weight had to be commensurate with height.  You couldn’t wear glasses.  You had to be pretty. You had to have an outgoing personality. You had to have a college education or the kind of job experience that would have made you at ease in dealing with the public.  And you had to speak a foreign language.”

You also had to be single, white, and retire by age 32.  And you had to consent to insufferable mandatory weight, deportment and grooming reviews.

If this sounds a lot like the mindset that gave birth to Barbie in 1959, you need look no further than Sarah Colt and Helen Dobrowski’s fascinating new documentary, Fly With Me, for affirmation.  Fly With Me debuts on the PBS American Experience series tonight, Tuesday, February 20, 2024, 9:00 – 11:00 p.m. ET/8:00 C.  (Check local listings in your region.)  It will also stream simultaneously with broadcast (see below for details).

“Stewardesses were a revolution waiting to happen,” said Ms. founder Gloria Steinem.

As the commercial airline industry upgraded their spartan aircraft into safer, more comfortable family-friendly transports, male cabin crews were replaced by attractive female cabin attendants or stewardesses.  The young women were not only expected to prepare and serve meals but to treat passengers like would-be houseguests, calm their unease, administer first aid, birth their babies if need be, and expedite grueling emergency procedures in case the plane crash-landed on land or at sea.

Pretty in Barbie pink. Stewardesses, circa 1970, in sexy designer duds. Photo courtesy San Diego Air & Space Museum.

Pretty in Barbie pink. Stewardesses, circa 1970, in sexy designer duds. Photo courtesy San Diego Air & Space Museum.

During the post WWII, Cold War and Vietnam War eras, stewardesses also often found themselves on or near the front lines, shuttling scared and scarred troops and other military personnel to and from dangerous regions.

Meanwhile, back at corporate headquarters, ambitious airline marketing mavens began commissioning such noted fashion designers as Jean Louis, Valentino, Emilio Pucci and Pierre Cardin to transform traditional, buttoned up stewardess uniforms into trendy, sexy gear.  Gone were the sensible heels, white gloves, seamed stockings and girdles, replaced by mini skirts and hot pants, low-cut necklines, vinyl knee high boots and cocky headgear. This marketing ploy certainly gave new meaning to the words “corporate downsizing” and “Fly Me.”

“You’re being marketed basically as a Barbie doll, and yet doing more and more complex work,” said professor and historian Phil Tiemeyer in Fly With Me. “There’s a fundamental incompatibility between these two things.”

Soon, the archaic job and lifestyle requirements that restricted prospective applicants and long term careerists galvanized stewardesses to take action.  Interviews with some of the remarkable flight attendants who fought the bumpy good fight for gender, race and class equality in their workplace against the airline industry’s demeaning, discriminatory employment practices are featured throughout Fly With Me.  That they played pivotal roles within nascent national feminist, labor and workplace equity organizations and commissions, standing side by side with such feminist icons as Gloria Steinem, is a real eye-opener.

“The women of Fly With Me broke barriers by becoming flight attendants in the first place, but what is so remarkable is that they were also in the vanguard of fighting for workplace equity,” said writer/director Sarah Colt.  “By exploring this history, we show the power of individuals to make change and how gender, race and class are critically intertwined.”

"Stewardesses were a revolution waiting to happen."--Gloria Steinem. Photo circa 1965, courtesy United Airlines.

“Stewardesses were a revolution waiting to happen.”–Gloria Steinem. Photo circa 1965, courtesy United Airlines.

Fly With Me will be an important, evergreen addition to high school, college and university classes and library programs focusing on women’s and gender studies, U.S. labor history, and programs dealing with the history of airline travel.

Fly With Me debuts on the PBS American Experience series tonight, Tuesday, February 20, 2024, 9:00 – 11:00 p.m. ET/8:00 C.  (Check local listings in your region.)  Fly With Me will stream for free simultaneously with broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, including https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/ and the PBS App, available on iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO.  The film will be available for streaming with closed captioning in English and Spanish. Contact ShopPBS.org for DVD purchase. –Judith Trojan

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Nazi Town USA Makes Timely Debut on PBS

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Judith Trojan

“It looked like any summer camp in America.  It looked normal.  But it wasn’t normal.  It was Nazi camp.”

If you’ve ever gone to summer camp as a kid, you probably joined your Girl or Boy Scout pals… or devout parishioners from your place of worship… or fellow musical theater wannabes itching to put on a show under a blanket of stars.  During the 1930s, a growing number of American parents chose another path for their kids.  Nazi camp.

Democracy lost its luster during the Great Depression, stoking support on our shores for European fascism and Nazism.  Rabid isolationists, Nazi sympathizers, anti-Semites and racists filled our hallowed halls of government (Asst. Secretary of State Breckinridge Long) and churches (Rev. Charles E. Coughlin).  They made history in the air (Charles Lindbergh) and on land (Henry Ford).  They encouraged Americans to fear and denigrate immigrants (especially Jews) as dirty, dumb and diseased…hardly assets to be welcomed into America’s white, Anglo Saxon neighborhoods.  Membership in extremist organizations, like the Ku Klux Klan and the German American Bund, surged across the country.

The German American Bund, under the guise of patriotism, grew their roster with rallies, meetings and camps for kids centered on Nazi ideology.  Unbelievably, the Bund’s followers carried swastika-emblazoned flags and snapped up their arms in Nazi salute.  Its backstory is deftly told in Nazi Town, USA debuting on the PBS American Experience series tonight, Tuesday, January 23, 2024, 9:00 – 10:00 p.m. ET/8:00 C.  (Check local listings in your region.)  It will also stream simultaneously with broadcast (see below for details).

Peter Yost wrote, directed and produced NAZI TOWN, USA for the PBS series, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images.

Peter Yost wrote, directed and produced NAZI TOWN, USA for the PBS series, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Photo: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images.

In my Q&A with Nazi Town, USA writer, director, producer Peter Yost that follows (conducted via email), we revisit this long forgotten period in American history and examine its startling relevancy to our current political climate.

Judith Trojan:  One hundred years ago, the future of American democracy was threatened by a growing fascination with fascism and membership in homegrown Nazi organizations.  The parallels between then and now couldn’t be more striking. What drew you to this film project?

Peter Yost:  Before we started this film, I was familiar with the footage of the infamous German American Bund rally in 1939 at Madison Square Garden, where more than 20,000 supporters gathered in the heart of New York City.  I wondered, if 20,000 fascist-friendly people could gather in a single place, what was going on in the rest of the country at the time?  This question drove us to take a deep dive into a period in American history—the 1920s and ’30s—when fascist ideas captured many people’s imaginations.  Personally, I’m drawn to stories that are more complicated than they might appear on the surface; and what we discovered as we delved into the state of American fascism in this period was surprising.

Trojan:  Ostensibly, the German American Bund created summer camps to encourage fellowship and family values. But, in reality, they were indoctrinating white, German-American youth of their superiority.  The lyrics to one of their camp songs end with:  “Those who can’t be faithful shall die, and life belongs to us.”

As a New Jersey native, with German immigrant grandparents who settled in a town adjacent to Newark in the early 1900s, I had no indication from them that pro-Nazi German-American organizations existed or that their camps and network of so-called storm troopers were prominent in the vicinity.  Before you began your research for this film, were you aware of the sheer numbers of young people and adults who were active participants in these camps?  How long did the camps flourish?

Postcard from Camp Siegfried, Yaphank, New York. Photo courtesy of the Longwood Public Library.

Yost:  Before we started the project, I was aware of a couple of the largest camps, including Camp Siegfried on Long Island and Camp Nordland in New Jersey.  I was surprised to discover that the camps weren’t just clustered in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, but were scattered across the Midwest and the West.  For the most part, the camps were created in the mid 1930s and lasted until late in the decade. When America entered World War II, the German American Bund folded and the camps were mostly forgotten by history.

Trojan:  Did any non-Germans, Jews or Catholics ever slip through the cracks and infiltrate one of those camps and live to tell about it?

Yost:  While the FBI, some local law enforcement agents, and other individuals poked into the camps, the most sustained infiltration that I am aware of was achieved by the reporters we mentioned in the film, the Metcalfe brothers.  They went undercover as Bund members and deeply infiltrated local chapters across the country, photographing and filing reports from camps, meetings and other settings. Ultimately, they drew a great deal of attention to the activities of the Bund and even testified against the group in Congress.

Trojan:  What became of the planned community for German-American families, German Gardens, in Yaphank, Long Island, with streets named for Adolf Hitler and other infamous Nazis?  Were there other planned, exclusive communities like German Gardens in other parts of the country?

Yost:  German Gardens in Long Island was the most extensive built community and really a showcase for the German American Bund. The community was run by a group known as the “German American Settlement League.” Remarkably, even though the Bund itself dissolved during World War II, bylaws requiring homeowners to be primarily “of German extraction” kept the community of dozens of families almost entirely white until around 2015 when a court finally outlawed this practice.

German American Bund founder Fritz Kuhn, aka the “American Fuhrer,” speaking at a Bund meeting in NYC in 1938. He also gave the keynote speech at the infamous 1939 rally in Madison Garden. Photo: National Archives.

Trojan:  The footage documenting the 1939 rally in Madison Square Garden is powerful and shocking due to the rally’s sizable attendance and shameless parade of anti-Semitic Nazi rhetoric and paraphernalia in a city with the largest Jewish population in the nation.  How and why did Jewish New Yorkers tolerate this abomination in their city?

Yost:  The mayor at the time of the Madison Square Garden rally was Fiorello LaGuardia.  LaGuardia was highly critical of the German American Bund but believed that they should be allowed to gather on First Amendment grounds. He also believed, probably correctly, that the rally would backfire and ultimately hurt the Bund from a publicity standpoint.  In fact, while 20,000 Bund members gathered inside the Garden, many times that number participated in massive counter protests outside the venue.

Trojan:  Journalists Dorothy Thompson and John C. Metcalfe would seem to be surefire subjects for future documentaries or dramatic films. German-born Chicago Daily Times reporter John Metcalfe infiltrated the German American Bund and became right-hand man to its founder, the so-called “American Fuhrer” Fritz Kuhn.  Dorothy Thompson warned of the dangerous rise in fascist sentiment and Nazism in Europe and the U.S., and the threats that Hitler posed should he become German Chancellor.  She seems to have been fearless.  What impact did her early warnings have in the States?

“My offense was to think that Hitler is just an ordinary man. That is a crime against the reigning cult in Germany, which says Mr. Hitler is a Messiah sent by God to save the German people. To question this mystic mission is so heinous that, if you are a German, you can be sent to jail. I, fortunately, am an American, so I merely was sent to Paris.”–Dorothy Thompson.

Yost:  Dorothy Thompson was well respected and found an audience early on while working in Europe.  She wrote for a number of different publications, including The New York Evening Post, Harpers, and The Atlantic.  When she was expelled from Germany in 1933 by Hitler, the story made the front page of The New York Times.

Upon her return to America, she wrote tirelessly about the threat fascism posed not just internationally, but to America.  By 1939, Time magazine said that Thompson had as much influence as Eleanor Roosevelt.  Incidentally, one of Dorothy Thompson’s three husbands was Sinclair Lewis, who wrote the enduring classic, It Can Happen Here, imagining the threat that fascism posed to America.

Trojan:  I find it fascinating that even without the availability and reach of sophisticated social media and the partisan media outlets of today, the right-wing “influencers” of the 1930s, like Henry Ford, and Rev. Charles E. Coughlin, used their mass appeal as auto magnate and religious leader, respectively, and the media of their day  (radio, print and newsreels) to great advantage to preach venomous anti-Semitic screeds, as did aviator Charles Lindbergh, who helmed the “America First” movement and acknowledged Adolf Hitler.  How would you compare their media and messaging tactics to those being used by right-wing political pundits and influencers today?

Yost:  While the technologies of distribution have obviously changed since the 1920s and 1930s, the core messages put out by many appealing to populist sentiment remain similar. The film demonstrates that “Othering” people—whether Jews, blacks, recent immigrants, or some other group—is not new in America.  This is a long-standing technique that is, of course, still widely used today.

Trojan:  You deftly manage to bring this period in American history alive almost entirely through a fascinating stream of vintage sound film and newsreel footage, newspaper clips, period photos and other ephemera.  Where did you acquire the remarkable period footage and photos you chose to tell this story?  Any roadblocks?

Young girl working at a Nazi propaganda stand at German American Bund Camp Siegfried, Yapank, New York, September 1936. Photo: National Archives.

Yost:  Archival materials lie at the heart of Nazi Town, USA. Originally, we knew about the existence of the 1939 Madison Square Garden rally footage, and we knew that there was some footage of the summer camps. But as we dug deeper, we found a number of surprises.

The German American Bund was very media savvy. They filmed the summer camps extensively, both for use as a recruiting tool for prospective parents with children and also to document their work building what some hoped would be an American outpost of Hitler’s 1,000-year-Reich. When the group collapsed with the start of World War II, much of this footage was confiscated by the U.S. government and eventually made its way into the National Archives where we were able to find it.  We also located footage of Bund meetings and found seemingly endless photographs of local groups scattered in libraries and collections across America.

Trojan:  What is the timely takeaway from Nazi Town, USA?

Yost:  It’s easy to believe that fascism is something foreign and remote, but it turns out that America provided fertile ground for many of the most noxious ideas that hundreds of fascist or fascist-friendly groups like the German American Bund held dear.  I think there is value in studying this history carefully today in order to understand that some ugly and extreme ideas have long been a part of our country’s history—and some of what we are seeing today has deep roots. Ω

Nazi Town, USA debuts on the PBS American Experience series tonight, Tuesday, January 23, 2024, 9:00 – 10:00 p.m. ET/8:00 C.  (Check local listings in your region.)  The film will stream for free simultaneously with broadcast through February 22, 2024, on all station-branded PBS platforms, including: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/ and the PBS App, available on iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO.  The film will be available for streaming with closed captioning in English and Spanish. Contact ShopPBS.org for DVD purchase.

German American Bund parade on East 86th Street, New York City, October 30, 1937. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

German American Bund parade on East 86th Street, New York City, October 30, 1937. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

During a time when acts of violence against Jews, Muslims, African Americans, Asians and immigrants are escalating in record numbers, and the GOP Presidential front runner attacks his so-called enemies and immigrants with rhetoric that echoes that of dictators like Hitler and Mussolini, Nazi Town, USA is a must-see.  It would be well-paired with Ken Burns’, Lynn Novick’s and Sarah Botstein’s three-part PBS documentary series, The U.S. and the Holocaust (2022), at home, high school and college classroom screenings, as well as in library and religious venues.

You can read my coverage of The U.S. and the Holocaust here in FrontRowCenter @ http://www.judithtrojan.com/2022/09/18/ –Judith Trojan

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Remembering Norman Lear (1922-2023)

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Judith Trojan

Writer/producer Norman Lear’s youthful spirit, inquisitive mind and groundbreaking sitcoms are the stuff of a true AMERICAN MASTER. Photo courtesy Norman Lear.

“My family is the greatest joy in my life,” says 93-year-old Norman Lear at the close of Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, the 2016 documentary profile of the trailblazing TV writer/producer filmed for American Masters by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady.

Norman Lear continued to live his best life throughout his 90s, and passed away on December 5, 2023 at the age of 101. To acknowledge Lear’s passing and to celebrate his remarkable life and legacy, the 90-minute documentary, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, will be rebroadcast on the PBS American Masters series tonight, Friday, December 8, 2023, 9:00 – 10:30 p.m. ET. (Check local listings for air times in your region.)  It will also stream in the weeks ahead via http://pbs.org. (See below for additional availability.)

Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You  made its broadcast debut seven years ago on PBS on October 25, 2016, following its well-received run on the festival circuit and in select theaters during the summer of 2016. There is no better way to become reacquainted with the beloved visionary and his game-changing sitcoms than to revisit this wonderful film.  I applaud PBS for this rebroadcast and encourage you to read my updated FrontRowCenter Norman Lear tribute below.

In Norman Lear’s universe, the term “family” covered a lot of ground.  The families he was fortunate to shape and share his life with, especially on the job, are the stuff of legend.

Norman Lear, circa the 1920s. Photo courtesy Act III Productions.

Norman Lear, circa the 1920s. Photo courtesy Act III Productions.

The writer/producer/show runner of such groundbreaking hit TV sitcoms as All in the Family; Maude; The Jeffersons; Good Times and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman had a rough start. While Norman Lear’s father may have espoused Archie Bunker’s narrow-minded world view, he did not, however, share Archie’s hard-working, law-abiding, family centered lifestyle. Norman’s dad relocated to a jail cell when his son was nine, and the boy was subsequently sent off to live with various uncles and finally landed with his grandparents. He later asked his mom, “How come I have no memory of you?”

Admittedly “a striver,” he persevered and managed to make a giant leap forward from working three jobs on the Coney Island Boardwalk to Emerson College, which he departed in patriotic fervor to enlist after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The filmmakers fashioned a clever collage illustrating Lear’s back story by blending passages from his memoir, vintage family photos and archival clips from his early work as a scribe on seminal TV variety shows. A slapstick bit from”The Colgate Comedy Hour,” starring Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin (1950), actually features Lear on-camera with Lewis.

While the specifics of his rise to the top as the writer, producer and show runner responsible for six of the top 10 shows on TV during the 1970s are best recapped in Lear’s memoir, Even This I Get to Experience (Penguin, 2014), there are extensive clips from those hit shows and insightful anecdotes to relish in the film.

From left: Jean Stapleton, Carroll O'Connor, Norman Lear, Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers on the set of ALL IN THE FAMILY. Photo: CBS Photo Archive.

From left: Jean Stapleton, Carroll O’Connor, Norman Lear, Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers on the set of ALL IN THE FAMILY. Photo: CBS Photo Archive.

It was an era when footage of Vietnam casualties and anti-war protests blanketed the evening news at dinner time. Welcome antidotes to the bloody carnage and campus sit-ins were Lear’s fearless TV families who served up hot button social issues with humor and a twist of reality that upended romanticized post-war portraits of American family life. In the process, Lear raised the hackles of TV censors and the religious right and landed on President Richard M. Nixon’s enemies list.

Clips from controversial episodes of All in the Family, Maude and The Jeffersons are highlights, as well as some hilarious shtick with Lear’s pals and contemporaries, comedy legends Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. Reflections on Lear’s important contributions to the national discourse come from Rob (“Meathead”) Reiner, now a noted film director; George Clooney; Bill Moyers; Russell Simmons; and Jon Stewart, as well as Lear’s former partners and colleagues, including, via archival footage, actresses Bea (Maude) Arthur and Esther (Good Times) Rolle.

Especially enlightening are Lear’s candid anecdotes about his actors.  Lear had much to say about Carroll O’Connor (his casting as Archie Bunker and O’Connor’s ongoing challenges, as a liberal Irish Catholic, with the role and scripts).  Lear and actor John Amos also reframed the problematic success of Good Times and the fine line they walked to stem the stereotyping of the sitcom’s break-out young star.

Ever the patriot and social activist, Lear went on to buy a copy of the Declaration of Independence, tour with it on the lecture circuit, and launch a liberal advocacy organization, People for the American Way (PFAW).

Norman Lear loves his family, his signature hat and his morning cup of coffee. Photo: Andrew Renneisen/The New York Times.

Norman Lear loved his family, his signature hat and his morning cup of coffee. Photo: Andrew Renneisen/The New York Times.

With his strong physical constitution and inquisitive mind still on full throttle during the production of this film, Lear credited his tight-knit family and “childlike view of the world,” with his healthy, productive longevity.

In light of his passing at the extraordinary age of 101, I urge you to share some laughs and a tear or two with this marvelous, age-defying national treasure at 93. His transformative contributions to our television landscape are as relevant today as they were in the 1970s and 1980s, especially in light of the racism, bigotry, bullying, sexism and threats to the U.S. Constitution that continue to darken our recent and upcoming U.S. Presidential elections.

A production of LokiFilms and THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC’S American Masters for WNET, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You will be rebroadcast on the PBS American Masters series tonight, Friday, December 8, 2023, 9:00 – 10:30 p.m. ET. (Check local listings for air times in your region.)  It will also stream in the weeks ahead via all station-branded PBS platforms, including http://PBS.org and the PBS Video App and, for members, on PBS Passport.  Contact ShopPBS.org for DVDs and  https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/masters/norman-lear/ for clips, background info and updated streaming guidelines.–Judith Trojan

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Attenborough Salutes Seven Songs Sung in Nature on PBS

Posted on May 3, 2023 by Judith Trojan

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”– Maya Angelou.  

I’ve always loved the bird songs that herald the first signs of Spring in my garden.  I even return the calls to some of my favorite songbirds during the daylight hours, especially the Mockingbirds, those versatile song stylists that actually pause, listen and attempt to replicate my lame attempts at mimicry.  And as the mating and nesting season progresses, the seasonal symphony takes on a special urgency as ardent Lotharios sing their hearts out night after night hoping to make a “love” match.

I was excited to discover that Sir David Attenborough shares my fascination with animal songs and has produced, via the BBC, a film on the subject.  Attenborough’s Wonder of Song highlights seven distinctive animal songs that Attenborough singles out for their relevance to his lifelong explorations as a naturalist and to the mating, territorial dominance and survival of their singers.

This fascinating, new hour-long documentary closes the extraordinary 41st season of Nature on PBS tonight, Wednesday, May 3, 2023, 8:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m.C.  Check local listings for air times and repeat broadcasts in your region. It will also stream simultaneously with broadcast (see below for details).

Naturalist Sir David Attenborough has been fascinated by distinctive animal songs since childhood. The nonagenarian's work in the field is documented in ATTENBOROUGH'S WONDER OF SONG on PBS NATURE. Photo courtesy of George Woodcock/©Mike Birkhead Associates.

Naturalist Sir David Attenborough has been fascinated by distinctive animal songs since childhood. The nonagenarian’s work in the field is documented in ATTENBOROUGH’S WONDER OF SONG on PBS NATURE. Photo courtesy of George Woodcock/©Mike Birkhead Associates.

Attenborough’s Wonder of Song, produced, directed and written by Beth Jones and Mike Birkhead and presented by David Attenborough, convincingly captures Attenborough’s characteristic zest for discovery as he revisits his first significant encounters with the seven songs that memorably impacted his life.  “Without them,” stresses Attenborough, “Our lives would truly be impoverished.”

He also introduces the pioneering research of scientists who continue to tweak long held theories and debunk misconceptions about animal songs… for example, the myth that female songbirds don’t sing.  After professor Naomi Langmore first recorded a female Fairy Wren singing to defend her territory, further study confirmed that females do sing in 64% of all songbird species.  Since songbirds make up half of the 10,000 species of birds and have the most advanced vocal organs in the natural world, it’s refreshing to find out that the ladies have a voice too… a loud one …and they are using it!

“These are songs of seduction and weapons of war,” confirms Attenborough.

Attenborough’s favorite songbird encounters spotlight the Great Tit, Nightingale, Superb Lyrebird, Superb Fairy Wren, and the now extinct Hawaiian ‘Ō ‘ō. Attenborough touchingly recalls recording a lone male ‘Ō ‘ō in the 1980’s plaintively singing for a mate that would never come.  Sadly, the species had, by then, gone extinct. “There are few songs more haunting than this,” remembers Attenborough.

A curious young Humpback Whale approaches cinematographer/diver Howard Hall. Photo ©Michele Hall.

A curious young Humpback Whale approaches cinematographer/diver Howard Hall. Photo ©Michele Hall.

Attenborough’s list of seven special songsters includes the Humpback Whale.  Unlike the doomed ‘Ō ‘ō, the Humpback Whale dodged extinction at the 11th hour simply by singing.  More than half a century ago, deep sea divers discovered that Humpback Whales had a voice.  A recording of whale songs in 1970 inspired conservationists to call a halt to rampant whale carnage, and so began the “Save the Whales” movement.

One of Attenborough’s earliest and most noteworthy subjects was Madagascar’s largest lemur, the Indri.  In 1960, he helped capture the first ever audio of Indri Lemurs, remarkably loud and verbose individuals that remained invisible within their habitat until he played their songs back to them.  They responded vocally and were subsequently drawn out into the open by the playback.

Superb Lyrebirds are superb mimics. Their prowess is on display in ATTENBOROUGH'S WONDER OF SONG on PBS NATURE. Photo © Alex Maisey.

Superb Lyrebirds are superb mimics. Their prowess is on display in ATTENBOROUGH’S WONDER OF SONG on PBS NATURE. Photo © Alex Maisey.

Attenborough’s Wonder of Song is a marvelous introduction to the diversity of song in nature.  The documentary premieres on the PBS Nature series tonight, Wednesday, May 3, 2023, 8:00 p.m. ET/7:00 C.  Check local listings for air times and repeat broadcasts in your region.  It will also stream simultaneously with broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, including http://PBS.org and the PBS Video App , available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO.  Check streaming availability also on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube and for members: PBS Passport.  Contact ShopPBS.org for DVDs.

As climate change, pollution and over-development turn lush, thriving natural habitats into uninhabitable wastelands  (Sad fact: 38 million songbirds have disappeared in the UK in the last 60 years), the continuing study and documentation of animal songs is a must…and a timely, evergreen theme for a film, especially one with Sir David Attenborough at the helm.  Be sure to stop and listen the next time you hear a songbird sing, and don’t forget to watch this documentary!! –Judith Trojan

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How Saba Kept Singing and Survived the Holocaust Debuts on PBS

Posted on April 18, 2023 by Judith Trojan
David "Saba" Wisnia survived more than two years imprisoned in the Nazi concentration and extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, because he never stopped singing. Photo courtesy Retro Report.

David “Saba” Wisnia survived more than two years imprisoned in the Nazi concentration and extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, because he never stopped singing. Photo courtesy Retro Report.

“I always sang.  When I got into the camp, that’s what saved my life.”—David Wisnia.

In the touching new, hour-long documentary, How Saba Kept Singing, David “Saba” Wisnia recalls the day he found his parents and younger brother murdered by the Nazis in their Warsaw, Poland, home. As he cradled his mother’s lifeless body in his arms, he was convinced that he had nothing left to live for. He was 16 years old.

That horrific day would be the first of many that would take him to the barracks of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he remained and miraculously survived for two and a half years.  In 2020, as David approached the end of his life, he and his grandson, Avi, traveled to Poland and Auschwitz to commemorate and perform at the 75th anniversary of its liberation. How Saba Kept Singing documents that journey and their determination to answer some long unanswered questions.

Directed, written and produced by Sara Taksler, the film premieres on PBS tonight, Tuesday, April 18, 2023, 10:00 pm/ET. Check broadcast listings in your region.  It will also stream simultaneously with broadcast (see below for details).

With his grandson, Avi, at the piano, David Wisnia performs a song during a concert at the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. Photo courtesy Retro Report. 

With his grandson, Avi, at the piano, David Wisnia performs a song during a concert at the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. Photo courtesy Retro Report.

David’s grandson Avi drives the film’s narrative as he gently encourages his grandfather to reexamine painful aspects of his past during their trip to Poland where they perform and connect with other Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors.  In the company of Avi and a handful of other family members, David reluctantly revisits the site of his Warsaw home and neighborhood and details aspects of camp life as he and his family explore the desolate grounds of Auschwitz.  He and Avi also perform at various anniversary events.

David’s survival in the camp, his escape from a final death march, and his embrace by the 101st U.S. Airborne Division hinged on a multitude of variables.  Yes, he was young and resilient, but it was his singing voice that captivated his captors.  He also fell in love with an equally talented inmate– artist and fellow musician Helen “Zippi” Spitzer. Unbeknownst to David, she was instrumental in saving his life…five times.

David recalls his initial meeting with Zippi and their growing infatuation, despite their age difference and the dangers they faced as lovers.  Zippi’s voice over is threaded throughout the film as she details how her talents as a graphic artist proved invaluable to the Nazis and enabled her to walk the camp grounds more freely to expedite her tasks.  She was not, however, exempt from brutal gynecological experimentation in the camp and admits to being physically and psychologically damaged beyond repair. We hope, as the film progresses, that Zippi and David will finally be reunited after several failed attempts to do so in the past.

On his visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in 2020, David Wisnia sits before a display of photographs of people imprisoned there during the Holocaust. The display covers a wall of what was once the "sauna" facility of the death camp, where prisoners were given clothing. This was David's workplace during his imprisonment for two and a half years. Photo courtesy Retro Report.

On his visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in 2020, David Wisnia sits before a display of photographs of people imprisoned there during the Holocaust. The display covers a wall of what was once the “sauna” facility of the death camp, where prisoners were given clothing. This was David’s workplace during his imprisonment for two and a half years. Photo courtesy Retro Report.

The film highlights traditional and original music written and sung by David and grandson Avi, who also is a fine pianist.  And you’ll probably have to grab some tissues during David’s plaintive rendition of “Mamele.”

Animated graphics and illustrations are used extensively throughout to illustrate David and Zippi’s individual and shared experiences in Auschwitz, but be warned that the film also includes graphic Holocaust archival footage that may make for difficult viewing for some audiences.

For me, the most fascinating aspects of piecing together someone’s backstory and untangling their roots (the mainstay of the wonderful PBS series, Finding Your Roots) are the challenging twists and turns and just plain good luck that enabled our forebears to survive, flourish and build communities and families as they morphed from one generation to another and one continent to the next.

There is no doubt that How Saba Kept Singing will serve as invaluable first person testimony to the Holocaust as it ravaged Poland and dehumanized the inmates at Auschwitz-Birkenau.  But the film also stands as a testament to one man’s ability to survive that horror and build a long, successful life.  David kept his most painful wartime experiences under wraps and moved on.  When he left Europe in 1946, he swore never to return.  He forged a fruitful life in the States as a respected cantor, family man and “lover of life.” “You are the proof that Hitler did not win,” says David Wisnia to his doting grandson, Avi, as the film draws to a close.  Yes indeed he is.

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton are Executive Producers of How Saba Kept Singing, a production of Retro Report and HiddenLight Productions in association with Burnt Umber Productions.  The film will make a fine addition to school, university, library, synagogue and church programs featuring Holocaust survivor testimony.  It would also be a perfect sidebar to screenings of Ken Burns’ outstanding 2022 series, The U.S. and the Holocaust.

How Saba Kept Singing will be presented on PBS by The WNET Group tonight, Tuesday, April 18, 2023, 10:00 pm/ET.  Check local listings for air times and repeat broadcasts in your region.  The film will stream simultaneously with broadcast and be available on all station-branded PBS platforms, including http://www.pbs.org , the PBS Video App and, for members, on PBS Passport.–Judith Trojan

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Monopoly Has a Secret History and It’s Ruthless on PBS

Posted on February 20, 2023 by Judith Trojan

“It was supposed to be a critique of capitalism.  It turned out to be a celebration of it.”

Ever play Monopoly as a kid?   Ever actually win the game?  Or did every sit-down with America’s “favorite board game” begin with good intentions and high hopes and end in a quagmire of acrimony?  If so, you are not alone.

If, like me, you remember those endless rabble-rousing, character assassinating Monopoly games of your youth with glee, you are a prime audience for the new hour-long documentary, Ruthless: Monopoly’s Secret History, premiering on the long-running PBS American Experience series tonight, Monday, February 20, 2023, 9:00 pm/ET; 8:00 pm/C.  Check broadcast listings in your region.  It will also stream simultaneously with broadcast (see below for details).

While playing Monopoly has been known to expose aspects of our personalities that are better left under wraps, Ruthless has a bigger, more insidious fish to fry. Emmy® Award-winning filmmaker Stephen Ives (I reviewed one of his many notable PBS documentaries, The Big Burn, here in FrontRowCenter in 2015) tracks Monopoly’s incendiary backstory through the history of board games in America; the class, race and gender engines fueling capitalism, most especially during the late 19th century Gilded Age, the Great Depression, and the OPEC and gas shortages of the 1970s; and the rogues gallery of offbeat characters who played pivotal roles in the design and marketing of Monopoly.

Stephen Ives wrote, directed and co-produced RUTHLESS: MONOPOLY’S SECRET HISTORY for the PBS series, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.

In my Q&A with Ruthless writer, director, co-producer Stephen Ives that follows (conducted via email), we explore the prickly provenance of America’s favorite board game and the cutthroat impulses manifested by its creators, marketers and players during its checkered past.

Judith Trojan:  You’ve collaborated with Ken Burns on his landmark series and produced films for American Experience that cover pivotal historic figures and events. Why narrow your gaze and focus on the game of Monopoly and its backstory?  Were you an avid board game player as a kid?

Stephen Ives:  I wanted to try and use Monopoly as a lens through which to look at American society.  It is an altar, and we bow down in front of it and worship the gods of capitalism. We pass it on to our children as a rite of passage without thinking about the values and attitudes that are embedded in it.  It is a powerful piece of nostalgia that helps us define who we are.

Then I discovered the game had a secret history, and I knew it was a story that had to be told.  Oddly enough, my great great grandfather and his brother had a company in Salem, MA, where they published the first board game in America, in 1843, called The Mansion of Happiness.  It was a deeply moralistic game that must have been a total bore to play, but you can say that board games have been in my family for a long time.

Trojan:  Fascinating!  Were you aware of Monopoly’s unsavory past before you began your research for the film?

Professor Ralph Anspach, inventor of the  ANTI-MONOPOLY board game, was sued by General Mills, the owners of Parker Brothers, and ordered to stop producing the game. He challenged their 1935 patent to the original game of MONOPOLY all the way to the Supreme Court. Photo courtesy Associated Press.

Ives:  Yes, I came across Ralph Anspach’s self-published autobiography, The Billion Dollar Monopoly Swindle (1998), and I was totally surprised that his story and the game’s secret history had never been brought to a wide audience.

Trojan:  Your film, Ruthless: Monopoly’s Secret History, is a revelation on several levels.  In 50 minutes, you introduce viewers to the history of board games in America, the rise and downside of capitalism, its impact on the genesis of Monopoly, and the major players, for better or worse, who had a hand in the game’s evolution.  Is there one singular story that we should remember every time we pull Monopoly out of the box?

Ives:  Yes, I think you should look at the mythic story of Charles Darrow that is printed in the rule book and recognize it for what it is:  corporate spin-doctoring. Instead of that false narrative, remember this remarkable woman, Lizzie Magie, who was the true inspiration behind the game, and whose admirable ideals and dreams for a more equitable society are as relevant today as they were then.

Trojan:  Where did you do your research? Any roadblocks?

Trailblazing game designer Lizzie Magie patented THE LANDLORD’S GAME, the precursor to MONOPOLY, in 1904. Photo courtesy Tom Forsyth.

Ives:  We scoured the country looking for old folk game copies of Lizzie Magie’s The Landlord’s Game and early copies of Charles Darrow’s boards. There was a fabulous collection of those boards, owned by Malcolm Forbes. But they had been sold off, and some of the collectors who owned them remained elusive.  We did find one of those quirky collectors living out in rural southwest Colorado. His collection was a gold mine, and he was a dream to work with. He let us re-photograph some of his boards which really helped the visual palette of the film.

Trojan:  You include running commentary by economics professor Ralph Anspach (1926-2022) that seems to have been filmed predominantly in 2004 or thereabouts. His relentless David and Goliath battle with Parker Brothers (then owned by General Mills) challenging their patent on Monopoly in pursuit of justice for his Anti-Monopoly game would have destroyed most people financially and pulled the plug on a happy family life. But Anspach never gave up.  Why do you think he persisted and what lesson can be learned from his challenge to Parker Brothers’ faux Monopoly origin story?

Ives:   I first uncovered this story 18 years ago, and for a number of reasons the film never got off the ground. But I decided to shoot a long interview with Ralph in New York City. Thank God I did because by the time we started production he had passed away. I really admired Ralph because he was a fighter, with a very strong moral compass.  He stuck to his guns when a lesser mortal would have caved under pressure from a huge cereal conglomerate like General Mills.

I think growing up in Germany and fleeing the Nazis had a profound effect on him.  He was determined to stand up against what he felt was injustice, and there was a real stubborn streak in him that helped him persevere.  Ralph wanted the film to be made.  His wife, Sylvia, said they re-watched his interview not long before he died in 2022, and they really enjoyed it.  I just wish he had lived long enough to see the final film.

Trojan:  Why were board games during the early 20th century so easily open to redesign and rule tweaking by players of all ages and persuasions?

Ives:  There is a tradition of games – like checkers or chess – becoming folk games that are passed around and slowly take their final form. As journalist and game expert Tristan Donovan says in our film, Monopoly was, in a way, the last folk game.  The streets on the board lent themselves to revision and customization.

Elizabeth “Lizzie” Magie (1866-1948).

Trojan:  Elizabeth (Lizzie) Magie is now credited with inventing Monopoly in 1904 via her The Landlord’s Game, which she ironically designed and patented to illustrate the evils of landlords and monopolistic practices. She was a remarkable trailblazer–feminist, writer, performance artist, proponent of radical economic theorist Henry George.  She grew up in a politically powerful family and was an out-of-the-box thinker a century before that term was invented.  Her accomplishments as a game designer were literally snuffed out by a monopoly, a market structure that she despised. Her story cries out for more extensive film coverage. Where did your research about Lizzie Magie begin and end?  Any startling revelations?

Ives:  Hats off to Mary Pilon, the marvelous writer and author of the best selling book The Monopolists (Bloomsbury, 2015).  She did a lot of research about Lizzie, and uncovered much of her biography.  But you are right, we just scratched the surface of her fabulous life.  Some of the material we used came from big stories about her in Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper, The World.  It was clear that her groundbreaking stunts and flair for publicity really struck a chord with early 20th century America. We couldn’t find any living relatives, unfortunately.

Trojan:  Can you clarify how Quakers in Atlantic City played an important role in conceptualizing iconic features of Monopoly’s game board? This was really an eye opener! I’m a lifelong denizen of the Jersey shore and am familiar with Cape May and Ocean Grove’s special appeal to Methodists, but Quakers in Atlantic City?  Who exactly were those game-playing Quakers, and why would they have any interest in such a cutthroat game?

Ives:  As a Quaker myself, on my mother’s side, I know what you mean. Why would a group of teetotalers have such a presence in America’s vacation playground from the 1920s?  The answer is that Atlantic City was near Philadelphia, and Quakers were good businessmen.  They were particularly into the hotel trade and ended up owning some of the bigger and nicer hotels in Atlantic City.  And they had to make some concessions to alcohol in order to keep their places competitive. But they were like any other group looking for a fun and diverting board game to play, and they were the ones that happened to customize the streets, add color groupings and add hotels to the game.

It was their game that Charles Darrow ended up claiming as his own. Interestingly enough, the property, Marvin Gardens, was misspelled on the board Darrow copied.  It is actually a combination of the communities of Margate and Ventor, so it should have been spelled Marven Gardens, with an “e.”  But Darrow wasn’t originally from Atlantic City; so he copied the mistake onto his boards as “Marvin,” thereby helping to prove that he stole the concept, and enshrining a typo into America’s favorite board game.

Trojan:  Where does Parker Brothers stand in the business and history of board games?  Is its reputation tarnished by the phony origin story its founders concocted and pitched about Monopoly?

Ives:  I think Parker Brothers did what any corporation would have done under the circumstances.  They had a blockbuster game that was saving their company from bankruptcy, and they were ruthless in the protecting that game, to the point where they set out to monopolize the game of Monopoly.  You can’t make this stuff up!

These kids play the game throughout RUTHLESS: MONOPOLY’S SECRET HISTORY from the PBS AMERICAN EXPERIENCE series.

Trojan:  Throughout your film, aptly titled Ruthless, you highlight footage of a bunch of young, well-heeled kids playing Monopoly.  As the game progresses, they become more animated, competitive and aggressive. They reminded me of my own experiences with the game growing up in the Fifties and early Sixties.

I realized a startling fact:  I never ever played Monopoly with my friends, only with my cousins during the holidays or on summer visits. We were, except for one younger boy, only two or three years apart in age…usually that amounted to two girls and three boys, tops.  Our games were intensely competitive, long, loud and fun… until they weren’t.  In the end, nastiness ensued and someone was always accused of cheating. Why do you think Monopoly triggers and reveals so much about our darker side?  It’s probably why I never opted to play the game with my friends… it proved to be too dangerous!

Ives:   One of the big problems with Monopoly is that it NEVER ENDS, but this is because we are playing it the wrong way. Under Lizzie Magie’s original rules, if you land on a property and don’t buy it, it is supposed to be auctioned off, which speeds the game along.  And you aren’t supposed to put that pile of money in the center and win it if you land on Free Parking.  That adds liquidity to the game and keeps it going.  I think Monopoly can often end in discord because the game liberates us to take on roles, and express ourselves outside of the usual mores and codes in society, and players can take things to an extreme.  That, and the marathon aspect of it, can lead to blow ups.  That said, it is still deeply satisfying to crush your older brother or sister!

Trojan:  Is there a timely take-away from your film?

Ives:  We are at a moment of extreme income inequality in this country, and the amount of money in the hands of people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos is, in my opinion, obscene.  I think the Monopoly saga is a cautionary tale about what can happen to inventors and idealistic people like Lizzie Magie, who invent something marvelous, and get cast aside.  That happens more than we like to admit in the American economic system.  If we are going celebrate our brand of winner-take-all capitalism, we need to acknowledge that it isn’t a fair game, that all sorts of advantages, like class, race, gender or inheritance, can tilt the board in favor of the winner – most often a white man. Being clear-eyed about that is important, I think.

Trojan:  What’s next for you?  Is there a dream subject you have yet to film?

Ives:  I hope to make a film about our history of inaction on global warming, and the catastrophic consequences of ignoring our past and the future for our children and grandchildren! Ω

American Experience Ruthless: Monopoly’s Secret History is a production of GBH Boston and executive produced by Cameo George.  The film debuts on the PBS American Experience series tonight, Monday, February 20, 2023, 9:00 – 10:00 pm/ET; 8:00 pm/C.  Check local listings for air times and repeat broadcasts in your region.  The film will stream simultaneously with broadcast and be available on all station-branded PBS platforms, including http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/ , the PBS Video App and, for members, on PBS Passport.

Ruthless: Monopoly’s Secret History will be a surefire hit with fans of Monopoly and other classic board games, and will have a long shelf life in high school and college classrooms and library and museum programs focusing on pop culture and the history of gaming in America.–Judith Trojan

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The Hole Truth about Woodpeckers on PBS Nature

Posted on November 2, 2022 by Judith Trojan

A baby Acorn Woodpecker has a birds-eye view from his hole in Carmel, CA. He’s one of several species of Woodies profiled in a new documentary on PBS NATURE.  Photo courtesy Russell Kaye and The WNET Group.

“They are architects, engineers, and consummate woodworkers.”

Woodpeckers don’t sing, but they have an unmistakable voice. They live on every continent except Antarctica and Australia and are surprisingly adaptive to extreme temperatures and climate change. Their lineage is ancient, their coloring and markings are distinctive, and some are among the largest birds on the planet.

Woodpeckers breed and feed in compact, finely chiseled holes that their hammerlike heads and sharp beaks drill in the trunks of dead or dying trees, cacti and clay hills. Their big feet, sharp claws and short legs assure their remarkable leverage on vertical terrain.  And after their baby chicks spread their wings and fly away, and mom and dad move on, they leave behind hospitable holes for their nesting and feeding wildlife cronies.  In short, woodpeckers are a boon to the ecosystem wherever they choose to settle and socialize.

A Downy Woodpecker has no trouble with the cold winter temps in Brooklin, Maine. Photo courtesy © Russell Kaye.

If you find these tidbits tantalizing, you won’t want to miss Woodpeckers: The Hole Story, a fascinating new episode of the award-winning PBS Nature series, debuting tonight, Wednesday, November 2, 2022, 8:00 – 9:00 pm/ET.  Check local listings for air dates in your region.  It will also stream simultaneously with broadcast (see below for details).

Wildlife filmmaker Ann Johnson Prum  (Super Hummingbirds) and her extraordinary team of nature and wildlife photographers pull out all the stops as they travel to many corners of the globe in search of some of the most enterprising and elusive woodpecker species.  There are 239 species of woodpeckers worldwide.

Among those featured by Prum and her crew are the dramatically coifed and suited Pileated Woodpecker; the large elusive Polish Black Woodpecker; the enterprising foodie Acorn Woodpecker; Lewis’s Woodpecker, named for its home in the region explored by Lewis and Clark; the Sonoran Desert Cacti-dwelling Gila Woodpecker; the super winterized Downy Woodpecker and, yes, even the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker!  The latter shares its larder with Hummingbirds and bees. Who knew?

“Everybody thinks I’m crazy.  Yesiree, that’s me.  That’s what I’m cracked up to be.  I chop a hole in every tree. Knock on wood.”–Woody Woodpecker.

So if you thought that wacky Woody Woodpecker was the species’ last best hope, think again!  I encourage you to watch Woodpeckers: The Hole Story for a birds-eye view of the real thing, narrated with flair by one of my favorite actors, Paul (“John Adams”; “Billions”) Giamatti.  I, for one, intend to keep my eyes and ears open for these remarkable feathered “architects, engineers and woodworkers” should they pay a visit to my bird friendly garden and spa…aka birdbath!

Woodpeckers: The Hole Story, written by Janet Hess and executive produced by Fred Kaufman, is a production of The WNET Group, Blue Ant Media and Coneflower Productions for Love Nature. The film premieres on the PBS Nature series tonight, Wednesday, November 2, 2022, 8:00 – 9:00 pm/ET.

Check local listings for air dates in your region.  It will also stream simultaneously with broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, including http://PBS.org , the PBS Video App and for PBS members via PBS Passport. Contact ShopPBS.org for DVDs.  Check streaming availability on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube and via iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO.  Be sure not to miss it!!— Judith Trojan

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A Tree of Life Revisits the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting on HBO

Posted on October 26, 2022 by Judith Trojan

“Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must–at that moment–become the center of the universe.”—Eli Wiesel.

The Memorial of Stars, a remembrance of the 11 congregants lost during the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, PA, on October 27, 2018. Photo courtesy HBO.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel (1928-2016) would no doubt applaud filmmaker Trish Adlesic’s mission to return to the site of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack on American soil.  Her latest film, A Tree of Life: The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting, revisits the massacre that shocked the world and devastated Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill spiritual community on October 27, 2018.  Eleven elderly congregants were killed during Saturday morning services at the Tree of Life synagogue that day by a 46-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15 style assault rifle, multiple hand guns and a virulent anti-Semitic social media footprint.  Six other victims, including four police officers, were badly wounded as well.

Ms. Adlesic’s  80-minute documentary, A Tree of Life: The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting, debuts on HBO tonight, Wednesday, October 26, 2022, 9:00-10:20 p.m. ET/PT. (Check listings for repeat screenings in the days and weeks ahead, and HBO Max for streaming.)

The alleged shooter, Robert D. Bowers, is not the focus here. The film’s Emmy® Award-winning director turns her camera instead on the shooter’s victims… the ones who lived and those who died and are sorely missed by family and friends.

“My brother walked into the building that day. That’s the last time I saw him alive,” recalls one Tree of Life congregant.

Sisters Michele and Diane Rosenthal, whose brothers David and Cecil Rosenthal were killed in the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Photo courtesy HBO.

Survivors continue to grapple with horrific memories of that day. They ask compelling questions that don’t seem to have definitive answers. Why did they survive, when their moms, brothers and best friends were fatally wounded in the seats next to them?  How do you make sense of someone who walks into a house of worship on the Sabbath–fueled by the slur “all the Jews must die”– and freely annihilates senior citizens in prayer with a weapon that belongs on a battlefield?

Two brothers, David and Cecil Rosenthal, whose learning disabilities and childlike innocence did not deter them from active participation in worship services were lost that day. Their elderly parents and sisters poignantly recall the brothers’ joy and pride at being able to assist with services each week.

Coping with grief, PTSD, thoughts of retribution and revenge, justice and forgiveness not only impacted the Tree of Life survivors and their families.  Wasi Mohamed, the Pittsburgh Foundation’s Senior Policy Officer, reflects on the community’s interfaith responsibilities and efforts to help.  And those who suffered at the hands of homegrown terrorists throughout the U.S. also stepped up to the plate.

This Stronger than Hate sign in Pittsburgh reflects a community’s embrace after the Tree of Life synagogue shooting. Photo courtesy HBO.

The local Muslim community raised $250,000 to help defray the victims’ burial and medical costs.  Survivors of the Parkland and Charleston shootings counseled Tree of Life survivors and their families; and artwork from children representing the Parkland, Columbine and Newtown massacres helped to soften the pain.

The most pressing and frightening question raised by the film remains unanswered. As we mark the fourth anniversary of the Tree of Life shooting, why are the numbers of anti-Semitic incidents at an all-time high in this country?  What or who is driving this surge?

The film closes with these startling statistics:  “Since 2010, there have been 15,000 religious-based hate crimes in the U.S.  Over 50% have been against Jews.  In 2021, there were over 2,717 reported anti-Semitic incidents in the U. S.  Jews make up 3% of the U.S. population.”

If you haven’t already seen Ken Burns’, Lynn Novick’s and Sarah Botstein’s timely three-part PBS documentary series, The U.S. and the Holocaust, I suggest you make sure not to miss it.  It brilliantly details the origins and shocking swell of anti-Semitism during the 20th century, with clear implications for today.  You can read my coverage of The U.S. and the Holocaust here in FrontRowCenter @ http://www.judithtrojan.com/2022/09/18/

I recommend piggybacking A Tree of Life: The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting with The U.S. and the Holocaust in high school and college classroom screenings, as well as in library and religious venues, to raise awareness of the explosion of anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. and to warn against their normalization.

A Tree of Life: The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting was executive produced by notable Pittsburgh natives, including Michael Keaton, Billy Porter and Mark Cuban, and features an original theme song, “The Tree of Life,” written and sung by Idina Menzel.

A Tree of Life: The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting, debuts on HBO tonight, Wednesday, October 26, 2022, 9:00-10:20 p.m. ET/PT. (Check listings for repeat screenings in the days and weeks ahead, and HBO Max for streaming.)  See my September 18, 2022 coverage of The U.S. and the Holocaust in FrontRowCenter for info on its availability.–Judith Trojan

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The U.S. and the Holocaust Reexamined on PBS

Posted on September 18, 2022 by Judith Trojan

“I feel a sense of urgency. We’re not trying to equate anything with The Holocaust. That would be a horrible, horrible thing to do.  We’re just saying: ‘Let’s not get there again as human beings, please, let’s not get there again.'”—Ken Burns.

I was a child when I first met a Holocaust survivor.  It was innocent enough…a pleasant Sunday visit with my my dad’s brother, my aunt and cousins in Irvington, NJ, in the late Fifties.  As was often the case with those particular family gatherings, the living room buzzed with the arrival of other family members, as well as next door neighbors and friends of my aunt and uncle who would pop in, grab a plate of food and shoot the breeze.  It was often hard for a young kid like me to keep their connections to my dad and his family straight, but I kept my eyes and ears open.

At one such gathering, I remember meeting a friend of my aunt’s.  She was sitting quietly by herself and didn’t seem to fit in, but I was drawn to her.  Although I don’t remember her name and vaguely recall that she was dressed in black and had an accent, there was one thing about her that I’ll never forget.  She had a number tattooed on her forearm.  She tried to explain it away, but her heavy accent and my youth made it impossible for me to focus on anything but the number that would never wash away. The woman had been branded like an animal in a slaughterhouse.

A Nazi party political rally. The sign in back reads: “Kauft nicht bei Juden”–“Don’t buy from Jews.”  Photo courtesy National Archives and Records Administration.

I had to wait several decades until college and my Comparative Civilization class to find out that the woman’s “number” had nothing to do with “civilization.”  How do you make sense of the mindset of those who elevated an anti-Semitic, racist petty criminal to a position of leadership, and saluted as he ordered the systematic annihilation of Jews and others he deemed inferior?

A few years later, as a young journalist, I had the opportunity to attend a conference in Washington, DC, that I believe was held at the Watergate Hotel of all places during Holocaust Remembrance week.  I attended a meeting aimed at re-educating journalists about how best to cover The Holocaust.  Unbelievably, I found myself, a Protestant of German and Czech descent, in a small room at a conference table surrounded by Jewish survivors and adult children of survivors.  All had painful memories to share, not the least of whom were the young adults who had been raised comfortably in postwar America by immigrant parents and grandparents who never spoke to them about the Nazi hell they endured.

My presence in that room and at that table, as the gentile granddaughter of Germans whose immigration status and U.S. citizenship was secure by the turn of the 20th century, was empowering.  I felt, then as I do now in retrospect, honored to have been welcomed at that table, and committed, as a journalist, film professional and magazine editor, to make sure that no one would forget The Holocaust and the stories survivors had to tell.

An immigrant family gazing at the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor from Ellis Island, circa 1930.  Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

In 1933, when Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party took control of Germany, there were nine million Jews in Europe.  Twelve years later in 1945, two of every three had been murdered. Why didn’t we, as Americans, provide a safe haven and easy passage for larger numbers of Western and Eastern European Jews attempting to flee Hitler’s depravity? True, some 200,000 Jews found refuge in the U.S., but couldn’t we have done better… and why didn’t we?

These questions fuel the brilliant new, three-part, six hour documentary series, The U.S. and the Holocaust, premiering on PBS tonight, Sunday, September 18, 2022, 8:00 – 10:00 p.m. ET.  The series is divided into three, two-hour episodes:  The Golden Door (Beginnings -1938); Yearning to Breathe Free (1938 -1942); and The Homeless, The Tempest-Tossed (1942-  ).  (See below for complete broadcast details and check local listings for air dates in your region.)

It took seven years for producer/directors Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Susan Botstein  and screenwriter Geoffrey C. Ward to untangle the twisted threads of racism, nativism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and isolationism that upended American immigration policy, making it more and more restrictive as the 20th century ushered in larger and larger numbers of Catholics, Jews and Asians escaping from poverty and persecution in their homelands.  The U.S. and the Holocaust was inspired in part by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibition.

The U.S. and the Holocaust opens and closes with surprising revelations about the plight of the Otto Frank family as they transitioned from their beloved ancestral home in Germany to Amsterdam and attempted to acquire visas and safe passage to America.  Journalist Dorothy Thompson, who called out the Nazi threat early on, reported that “for thousands and thousands of people a piece of paper with a stamp on it is the difference between life and death.” Despite having influential personal connections and their paperwork in order, immigrants like the Franks were blindsided at every turn.

A German policeman checks the identification papers of Jewish people in the Krakow ghetto, Poland, circa 1941.  Photo courtesy Krakow National Archives.

The Franks’ story serves as a springboard for first person testimony from several elderly witnesses who, as children in the 1930s, personally experienced horrific persecution.  Courage, resilience and luck played a large part in their survival and transport to America.  Their dramatic stories are masterfully integrated here.

“The witnesses share wrenching memories of the persecution, violence and flight that they and their families experienced as they escaped Nazi Europe and somehow made it to America,” said director Sarah Botstein, who lost family in the Holocaust.

Throughout this period, heroes on the homefront (Rabbi Stephen Wise, Dorothy Thompson, John W. Pehle, Benjamin B. Ferencz and Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt) seemed to be outnumbered by villains.  Rabid isolationists, Nazi sympathizers, Anti-semites and racists filled our hallowed halls of government (Asst. Secretary of State Breckinridge Long) and churches (Father Charles Coughlin).  They made history in the air (Charles Lindbergh) and on land (Henry Ford).  They encouraged Americans to fear and denigrate immigrants (especially Jews) as dirty, dumb and diseased…hardly assets to be welcomed into America’s white, Anglo Saxon neighborhoods or worth fighting and dying for in Europe.

Rabbi Stephen Wise addresses a crowd at a rally outside Madison Square Garden.  Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

As in all of Ken Burns’ films, The U.S. and the Holocaust is chockablock with extraordinary, carefully curated vintage film footage, period radio broadcasts, photos and ephemera, musings from letters and diaries and newspaper clips attesting to the Nazis’ growing depravity.  A few well chosen scholars and historians, including the exceptional Deborah Lipstadt and Daniel Mendelsohn, fill in the blanks, as does narrator Peter Coyote.

“History cannot be looked at in isolation,” concluded Ken Burns.  “While we rightly celebrate American ideals of democracy and our history as a nation of immigrants, we must also grapple with the fact that American institutions and policies, like segregation and the brutal treatment of indigenous populations, were influential in Hitler’s Germany.  And it cannot be denied that, although we accepted more refugees than any other sovereign nation, America could have done so much more to help the millions of desperate people fleeing Nazi persecution.”

This is not an easy story to tell… or watch for that matter.  Be aware that the visuals chronicling Nazi atrocities may be tough for some viewers.  The U.S. and the Holocaust is clearly one of the most important film projects that Ken Burns and his team have undertaken.  Given the crimes against humanity that we are witnessing in the Ukraine and the current mishandling of Venezuelan migrants as political pawns, the film series couldn’t be more timely.

The U.S. Capitol, January 6, 2021.

The U.S. and the Holocaust should be required viewing in high school and college classrooms dealing with U.S. and World History, The Holocaust, anti-Semitism and genocide; in churches and synagogues; and frankly by all Americans who think we have come a long way since the Thirties and Forties.–Judith Trojan

 Viewing The U.S. and the Holocaust 

Episode 1: The Golden Door (Beginnings-1938) premieres on PBS tonight, Sunday, September 18, 2022, 8:00 – 10:00 p.m. ET.  An additional broadcast of Episode 1 is scheduled on Monday, September 19, 2022 @9:30 p.m. ET.

Episode 2: Yearning to Breathe Free (1938 -1942) debuts on PBS on Tuesday, September 20, 2022, 8:00 – 10:00 p.m. ET.

Episode 3: The Homeless, The Tempest-Tossed (1942-  ) premieres on PBS on Wednesday, September 21, 2022, 8:00 – 10:00 p.m. ET.

Check local listings for air times and repeat broadcasts in your region.  The three-part series will also be available to stream for free on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS Video App .  PBS station members can also view The U.S. and the Holocaust via PBS Passport, as part of a full collection of Ken Burns’ films. Educational materials highlighting recent research and perspectives will be available at the Ken Burns in the Classroom site.–Judith Trojan

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Uvalde Massacre Tragically Mirrors Newtown School Shooting

Posted on June 5, 2022 by Judith Trojan

“When an assault weapon is used in a mass shooting, it can lead to six times as many people shot than with other guns.”—Everytownresearch.org

Nineteen children and two teachers were murdered in their classrooms in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022, by a troubled 18-year-old with a legally purchased AR-15 style rifle.  It was the deadliest shooting in an American school since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, in 2012.  Photo: Marco Bello/Reuters.

Nineteen children and two teachers were murdered in their classrooms in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022, by a troubled 18-year-old with a legally purchased AR-15 style rifle.  It was the deadliest shooting in an American school since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, in 2012.  Photo: Marco Bello/Reuters.

“Of the 26 dead, most are children,” reported NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt to a nation stunned by the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012.  Six educators and 20 six- and seven-year-old students were murdered that day in their classrooms by an emotionally disturbed young man armed with sophisticated handguns and a semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle snatched from his mother’s exotic gun collection.  His mother, a psychiatrist and avid gun collector who should have had her own head examined, was also a casualty of her son’s rampage.

And so the carnage continues.  The slaughter of 10 predominantly Black patrons of a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, NY, by a racist 18-year-old suited up with body armour and an AR-15, was followed in 10 days by the deadliest shooting in an American school since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.  Nineteen 9- and 10-year-olds in Uvalde, Texas, and two of their teachers were murdered in their Robb Elementary School classrooms by yet another disenfranchised 18-year-old who seemed to have no problem firing his legally purchased AR-15 style rifle into innocent children fresh from their Honor Roll assembly, eagerly awaiting dismissal for summer break.

Politicians and pundits continue to bicker over cause and effect as unstable young men armed with legally purchased military style semiautomatic weapons continue to massacre American civilians assembled peacefully in schools, shopping centers, churches and synagogues, movie theaters and concert venues.

Twenty-six funerals consumed the Newtown, CT, community with shock and grief after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. Photo courtesy Jennifer Cox.

Twenty-six funerals consumed the Newtown, CT, community with shock and grief after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.  Photo courtesy Jennifer Cox.

The firearm chatter is confounding.  An 18-year-old can legally purchase and carry an AR-15 on the streets of Texas, but he’s still not old enough to buy a beer?  Our streets will be safe if we flag, cure or corral mentally unstable individuals? (Reality check:  The Newtown murderer’s mom was a mental health professional who enabled her troubled son by collecting and gifting him guns.)

Arm teachers and turn schools into impenetrable fortresses?  Really?  How often do school personnel innocently prop open exit doors “for a few minutes” to expedite deliveries or grab a breath of fresh air or a quick smoke.  And is it reasonable to believe that untrained marksmen and women, aka school teachers caught by surprise in the middle of a math lesson, can whip out their handguns from a purse, briefcase or desk drawer and outshoot a marauding maniac with an AR-15?

“You cannot trust us to pick out the books for your children to read or teach them American history, but you will trust us with a gun to protect them?” said veteran NYC middle school teacher Gordon Baldwin in the Op Ed section of The New York Times (6/2/22).

Nine times out of 10, authorities report that mass murderers have been able to obtain their weapons of choice–assault style rifles–legally.  How do we convince politicians beholden to the N.R.A. gun lobby to legislate for the well being of their constituency and stop facilitating easy access to firearms meant strictly for use on the battlefield?  A bipartisan assault weapons ban was passed in 1994 but was left to expire by the party in charge in 2004.  It is imperative that a nationwide ban on weapons of war (assault rifles and high-capacity magazines) be seriously debated and passed anew.

This Film Still Resonates…

Connecticut State Police led a line of children from the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, after the shooting at the school.  Photo Newtown Bee/AP.

Connecticut State Police led a line of children from the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, after the shooting at the school.  Photo Newtown Bee/AP.

The aftermath of the Newtown massacre and its continuing legacy are the engines that drove producer/director Kim A. Snyder and producer Maria Cuomo Cole’s feature-length documentary, Newtown.  I reviewed this powerful film here in FrontRowCenter on April 3, 2017, when it premiered nationally on the PBS series, Independent Lens.  The film has since been awarded a prestigious Peabody Award and remains, sad to say, more timely than ever.  I am revisiting it here to add my voice to the charge demanding immediate proactive gun control legislation.

Five years ago, Newtown joined the small and growing list of outstanding films,  Tower and Marathon (see my reviews on February 14, 2017 and November 21, 2016, respectively), that focus on mass murders perpetrated on American soil by disenfranchised young men. Unlike the former two films, however, Newtown features no interviews with physically wounded survivors because once shot, the shooter’s tiny victims had no chance of survival.

The film replays the traumatic timeline of that chilling day, from the frantic 911 calls and EMT and police reports to the gathering at the local firehouse, where anxious parents awaited news of their children’s well-being.

This is not an easy film to watch, especially in light of the recent school massacre in Uvalde, Texas.  Your tears will fall as parents, adolescent siblings, neighbors, a teacher and a local priest, and medical and law enforcement professionals recall their own and their community’s losses in deeply personal terms. You might even suffer a sudden wave of nausea, as I did, during a medical director’s painful recount of the number of bullets that shattered each child’s body.

Nicole Hockley, mother of Sandy Hook victim Dylan Hockley, with first responder Sgt. William Cario.  Photo courtesy of Derek Weisehahn.

Nicole Hockley, mother of Sandy Hook victim Dylan Hockley, with first responder Sgt. William Cario.  Photo courtesy of Derek Weisehahn.

Three parents–Mark Barden, David Wheeler and Nicole Hockley–are especially articulate witnesses to the many stages of grief that they and their families have endured. They openly acknowledge their inability to forgive and forget. They cherish baby teeth and locks of hair, and are incapable of disposing of boxes of toys and clothing. They have become vocal social activists in the fight for stricter gun control laws and background checks.

Nicole Hockley remembers the grief that she and her husband overcame when their son, Dylan, was diagnosed with autism only to face his incomprehensible death in what was supposed to be a safe and nurturing environment.  Her only measure of comfort: Dylan died with his teacher’s arm around him, so he wasn’t alone. She is determined that his memory not be forgotten: “He has a legacy that I will fulfill for him,” she says.

Grieving dad David Wheeler explains the difficult decision to have another child, for the sake of his surviving son.  Musician dad Mark Barden, who continues to compensate for the storms of grief that envelop him, was compelled to revisit the school one last time before it was razed, so he could experience the site where his son, Daniel, lived his last moments.

The senselessness of this crime, in a picture perfect community where schools were thought to be safe havens, is a timely reminder that guns in the hands of unstable individuals remain the major killer of Americans on U.S. soil. According to statistics compiled by Sandy Hook Promise, the national non-profit founded and led by several family members who lost loved ones on December 14, 2012, “Most criminal gun violence is committed by individuals who lack mental wellness (coping skills, anger management and other social-emotional skills).”

Despite the fact that the toll of gun violence in urban and suburban communities across the country continues to rise, the debate surrounding gun control legislation remains more divisive than ever.  Hopefully, revisiting this film will encourage viewers to hold their state Senators and Congressmen and women accountable.  Either they do what they were elected to do…pass gun control legislation that will keep their constituents safe…or else they will be voted out of office.

Daniel Barden used to love racing his school bus. When he was 7, he was killed at his Sandy Hook Elementary School. His dad, Mark Barden, is featured in NEWTOWN, a Peabody Award-winning film directed by Kim A. Snyder for INDEPENDENT LENS. Photo courtesy Mark Barden.

Newtown  premiered on the PBS series, Independent Lens, in April 2017.  In light of the recent senseless massacres in Buffalo, Texas, Oklahoma and New York City, it continues to be one of the most important and timely documentaries that you can watch this year.  The film would best be screened in the company of family or friends, followed by hugs and quiet discussion.

Newtown is currently available for streaming via Amazon Prime Video; for screening at newtownfilm.com and on DVD from shopPBS.org   For further info, go to http://www.pbs.org/independentlens and restart the conversation at http://www.facebook.com/independentlens and on Twitter @IndependentLens.

For more information on how you can join the Sandy Hook community to lobby for stricter gun control laws and background checks, visit the Sandy Hook Promise Website at http://www.sandyhookpromise.org  –Judith Trojan

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