Writing about history and life
Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi was one of two shorts released in 1943. The other was, Der Fueher’s Face. The latter was more satirical and made more of a mockery out of Adolf Hitler than the former, which hit audiences the hardest it featured the indoctrination of Germany’s youth.
In Willa Cather’s One of Ours, a complex picture of an idealistic young man troubled by his upbringing and quest to find his place in the world emerges through the back drop of World War I. Written in 1923, the book is just five years removed from the end of the war.
They were at the height of their careers. But they dropped it all to go to war. Their weapon of choice: their cameras. Five Came Back is the title of a new documentary series premiering on Netflix that tells the story of John Ford, Frank Capra, John Huston, George Stevens and William Wyler as they went into the service during World War II.
History in today’s world requires an understanding of the past. Or as I like to say, context is everything when doing comparisons. My point is: avoid history books that condense down a subject or a historical documentary on a TV channel. Go to the source: read newspaper articles from the time period.
For my generation, the September 11th Attacks is our John F. Kennedy Assassination. It is a time where you remember what you were doing and where you were when you heard about the attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C. and the crash of United 93 in Pennsylvania. The world for thousands of families changed on that day. The world entire changed. Our nation changed and New York changed.
One of my areas of study is the cooperation between Hollywood and the government during World War 2. It is a fascinating area of study because hundreds of films were made between 1939 and 1945 that have in some way shaped the popular perception of the war.
For my American History class, we had to review books about a particular time period. I drew The Hornet’s Nest by former president Jimmy Carter. The book itself is a semi-biographical tale of Carter’s family.
A few months ago I loaded up the car and headed east to Bristol, IN where I stood in the cold and rain for a few hours to watch a re-enactment of a World War 2 battle.
Black Protest and the Great Migration: A Brief History with Documents. follows the migration of up to nearly half-a-million Black Americans during World War I to the urban north. Using documents to back up the historical account, the book highlights the social, economic and political conditions of the South.
Editors note: I’m posting a few poems I wrote a while back for a creative writing class. The following was published in I.U. South Bend’s literary magazine The Analecta. The first poem is from a German...
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