When I was teaching journalism I used to do an exercise with my students where they would have to come up with 10 story ideas on the spot. This wasn’t a homework assignment, and the class never knew when I was going to spring it on them. Sometimes they would have to come up with 10 story ideas relating to things they saw while walking to class. Other times they had to come up with 10 story ideas that related to the salad bar in the cafeteria. The idea was to get them to see stories everywhere.
It may sound easy; trust me it’s not – at least not in the beginning. I know, because as a student at Columbia Journalism School I too had to perform the same exercise. In time though, you can train yourself to see stories everywhere.
  The exercise goes to the heart of reporting and writing. As Yogi Berra, who turned 87 yesterday, once said: “You can observe a lot by watching.”
Aside from Yogi Berra, I would point to Albert Einstein as another source of inspiration for writers. Einstein is quoted as having said: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.”
I highly doubt Einstein was thinking of journalists and authors when he said this. However, the truest books, the most touching articles come from writers who are curious. Not simply curious about what happened, but about the back-story of what happened.
They’re right. To write is to see. To write is to ask. To write is also to listen.
Listen to what is said in restaurants, at social gatherings, in school, at the workplace and anywhere else your day takes you. Listening helps you gain information that leads to story ideas. Listening to what is not said can be just as important as what is said. Keep your ears open for what is said off the cuff. Learn to see people below the surface. Observe closely. Listen attentively.
Watch. Ask. Listen.
These three things are key ingredients to becoming a good writer and reporter. They are like the butter, sugar and flour in the cake: essential.
On May 5, 1937, just one day before the German passenger airship, the LZ 129 Hindenburg crashed and burned at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station the Wilhelm Gusltoff was launched. At 25,484-ton ship and 684-feet long the Gustloff was the pride and joy of Germany’s KdF, or Strength Through Joy, fleet.
The Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed after it failed to dock with its mooring mast. There were 97 people aboard the airship, 36 died. When the S-13, a Soviet submarine, torpedoed the Gustloff more than 9,000 died.
Both ships were launched with great fanfare. However, both strike a different chord in memory. The airship doesn’t carry the weight of Nazi Germany the same way the Gustloff does. Just take a look at this news clip that shows the day the Gustloff went to sea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSIw2zk8ymk It’s chilling to see the masses of crowds. The boat was built to symbolize the strength and power of The Third Reich. It was named for Wilhelm Gustloff, the assassinated leader of Switzerland’s Nazi Party.
Working on my book about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the largest maritime disaster in history, is difficult for a number of reasons. There is the technical side of putting a book together – researching it, shaping it, getting up at 4:30am. But there are also moments when, after watching a video like the one showing the Gustloff’s launch party. Seeing all those robotic, stiff armed Heil Hitler salutes causes a visceral reaction within. Chills run up my spine. It’s then that I remind myself of the people I’m writing about. Women like Eva Dorn Rotschild, who at 86, still shows the same spirit that got her kicked out of Hitler Youth when she was barely 13. Eva, who survived the Gustloff sinking, resisted in ways large and small. If the characters of Liesel and Rudy of Markus Zusak’s “The Book Thief” combined into a real person, they would be Eva.
Watching the launch video reminds me of people like Kurt and Marta Reuter. They once owned a furniture store in Königsberg until the Nazis requisitioned it and turned it into a uniform factory. Kurt and his wife did what they could to make sure the workers were well fed and clothed. Kurt was hauled before the Gestapo almost weekly remembered his daughter, Helga Reuter Knickerbocker, another Gustloff survivor. When I see the boat leave the shipyard I think of two women, Irene Tschinkur East and her sister, Ellen Tschinkur Maybee. They were just little girls then, dependent on their parents for safety and comfort. They boarded the Gustloff with their mother Serafima and their cousin Evi to escape the Russian Army’s advance. They survived, their cousin did not.
Making connections to these men and women is important. Telling their stories helps me, and by extension my readers, see beneath the maelstrom of violence that engulfed the world during World War Two. Their stories can show us that even during this time humanity survived.
I’m taking part in the Rowayton Historical Society’s Civil War Lecture series. I’ll be speaking about my non-fiction book Burn the Town & Sack the Banks! Confederates Attack Vermont! It’s this Saturday, May 5, 4pm. Check out the details on: http://www.rowaytonhistoricalsociety.org/index.php/programs-events
So in honor of the series here’s a Civil War Quick List.
Some words from the Civil War still used today*
Bellyache: to complain
Greenbacks: U.S. dollars
Hard Case: stubborn
Horse Sense: common sense
Hard Knocks: hard times
Grit: to have toughness, endurance
Conniption Fit: temper tantrum
Fit to be tied: angry
Row: fight
Fit as a fiddle: in good shape
Blowhard: braggart
Some words from the Civil not used today*
Absquatulate: to take leave
Acknowledge the corn: to admit or confess something
Big Bugs: important people
Go Boil Your Shirt: get out of here, take a hike.
Lucifers: matches
Pumpkin Rinds: gold lieutenant’s bars
Shanks mare: on foot
* For more words and phrases visit www.freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~poindexterfamily/CivilWar.html
Some (personal) favorite Civil War novels
 Cover of my book. Soul Catcher by Michael C. White
Cold Mountain by Ian Frazier
Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Widow of the South by Robert Hicks
Each day that passes more World War Two stories become the stuff of history books, movies and obituaries. Such is the case with George Vujnovich who died at the age of 96.
Vujnovich, an O.S.S. agent supervised the rescue of more than 500 Allied airmen from German-occupied Yugoslavia, according to an obituary in the New York Times. His story reminded me to a degree of the work of O.S.S. agent Sam Woods, who helped hundreds Allied airmen escape Switzerland during World War Two. A story I recount in my first book “Shot from the Sky: American POWs in Switzerland.” (US Naval Institute Press, 2003). Vujnovich’s mission, dubbed Operation Halyard, rescued sick and injured airmen, many of them had been shot down or forced down during the multiple bombing runs over Romanian oil refineries. Vujonivch received the Bronze Star for his effort.
 Allied bombing raid over Ploesti, Romania. The young O.S.S. agent had to teach his operatives how to tie their shoes like Serbians and how to eat like Serbians – in other words push their food onto their fork with a knife rather than play “switch the knife” move favored by many an Americans.His story is amazing for the sheer nerve of it and for the fact that long after the war his neighbors knew him for a businessman who supplied parts to aircraft companies, as the New York Times reported. Vujnovich’s story was never the subject of a major motion picture or made for television movie. His story wasn’t well known because for decades details of the operation were kept classified. Even so, I’m sure 500 airmen and their families were ever grateful to Vujonivich and his operatives.
After reading his story I thought about how many other stories are out there – be they from World War Two or Vietnam or the Civil Rights movement. Who among our neighbors was an O.S.S. agent, or fought in the French resistance, or was a Navajo Code Talker? How many times do we sit next to a “story” on the train or plane and never know it? The moral of the story here, other than live life to the fullest, is be alert to the hidden stories around you. Doing that just might help to keep legacies like George Vujnovich’s alive.
 Chillon Castle I love making history come alive – it’s my passion and it’s what led me to transition from reporting to writing non-fiction history with a journalist’s eye. So imagine my delight when my family and I stopped at Chillon Castle on the shores of Lake Geneva last week to find a temporary exhibit “Witch hunting in the Pays du Vaud.”
Chillon Castle is an impressive structure that rises from the water. The last time I visited Chillon was about 16 years ago, when my husband I left Switzerland to move back to the US. It was worth a visit, and worth showing visitors the historic site. However, aside from a small brochure, there wasn’t much in the way of explanation or interpretation. Not anymore. Today it is an incredible living museum, filled with artifacts and explanations in three languages.
But what’s even more impressive is the use historians from nearby University of Lausanne have made of the space. There is now a temporary exhibit about Switzerland’s role in witch-hunts during the 15th and 17th centuries. The canton of Vaud, in which Chillon is located, was the site of more than 2,000 death sentences for witches and warlocks. More incredible, Switzerland, using the borders of the time, holds the record for the longest-lasting repression of witchcraft and people persecuted for sorcery in relation to its population. Knowing that Chillon once held people accused of witchcraft and executed more then 40 of them on site, makes one regard the gray-stone castle in a different light.
The exhibit, which is housed in the various rooms of the Castle, was matter of fact and simple, but never boring. It’s something you can bring the children to, for there is nothing hokey or goulash. It relies on text, occasional drawings, and artifacts to highlight this little known period of Swiss history.
The educational content of the exhibit is highly nutritious. It led us to discuss other witch-hunts – those that took place during the McCarthy era, the Holocaust of World War Two, the killing fields of Cambodia for example. It led us to discuss how a population frightened by the other can become base, narrow minded and violent. What struck me was how forthright and frank the exhibit was. It shows how madness can overtake a population and subtly asks visitors to think how one can resist amidst such madness.
A while back I wrote about my love of independent bookstores. For those of you who follow book store news in the press you already know that R.J. Julia in Madison, Connecticut is for sale. The 22-year-old bookstore, with lovely nooks and crannies in which one can browse, is looking for a new owner. It follows the sale of other high profile independents like Politics & Prose in Washington, DC.
But readers take heart – R.J. Julia isn’t closing its doors. Its workshops, book clubs and matchmaking efforts – getting the right book to the right person – will continue. And that’s something to be thankful for.
I had the honor and pleasure of speaking at R.J. Julia after the release of “A Professor, a President and a Meteor: The Birth of American Science.” It was a wonderful evening, warm and engaging. The kind of book signing every author dreams about – an audience of interested, curious and engaged people.
I have been fortunate to have been hosted by many independent bookstores during my writing career – and I look forward to more.
This weekend, April 14 – 15 marks the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking. A slew of books have been released in the months and weeks leading up to the historic date. There is of course the Bonham’s auction in New York City and James Cameron’s 3-D release of the movie “Titanic.” Amid all the commemorative excitment I can’t help but think of the few remaining survivors of another, far more devastating sea disaster. For those of you who are new to my blog, that is of course the January 30, 1945 sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Upwards 9,000 people died after a Soviet submarine torpedoed the ship as it raced across the Baltic SEa.
 The Wilhelm Gustloff This week I am going to Switzerland to interview another survivor of the Gustloff. Her name is Eva Rothschild and she lives in Ascona. She was a volunteer nurse aboard the Gustloff and like the men and women I’ve already interviewed she has graciously agreed to share her story with me. She is one of a handful of survivors still living.
For nearly 70 years survivors of this wartime catastrophe have lived in a world where most people are ignorant of the tragedy that befell them. There are many reasons for this, and my book will address those reasons in depth. So without getting into too much detail before my book’s Winter 2013 release, it will be enough to say those reasons include survivor guilt, the scope of WW2, the inability to regard German civilians as victims, and the fact that, unlike the Titanic, no Americans were on the ship.
We are in the post-Cold War era we can be more reflective about our understanding of the war and its long-term impact. We can re-frame our understanding of WWII and as we do, human stories – like Inge’s and like Eva’s will move to center stage. By listen to their stories and reading the letters and diaries of those who survived and those who died we can make sure that the lives of those who perished in the icy waters of the Baltic Sea in January 1945, and the lives of those who survived, are not forgotten – even in this “Titanic” year.
World War Two, perhaps more than any other war in recent history is still portrayed in stark lines of black and white, good and evil, demons and heroes with clear winners an losers. The narrative we are all too familiar with is the one where Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo were bent on world domination. In trying to achieve their aims, they subjugated, dehumanized and murdered millions of people. Looking at the war through the vast number of its victims risks losing sight of the individual in the abyss of war’s brutality.
Inge Roedecker, who was a baby on the on the ship, spoke with her mother Milda Bendrich every day about the sinking. Naturally, Inge doesn’t recall the torpedo attack, the sinking or her and her mother’s rescue. However, when her mother was alive, the two spoke often about that day and the time that followed. One of Milda’s greatest hurts was that people laughed at the notion that she had survived the world’s worst maritime disaster. They dismissed the idea that a young mother and her baby girl were aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff – the greatest maritime disaster in history.
Ruta Sepetys novel “Between Shades of Gray” will be released today, April 3, in paperback. Get it – if not for yourself, then for the young adult reader in your home.
The Young Adult market has recently exploded. However, the offerings for rich, complex stories that don’t pander to young people are few and far between. Septetys’ historical novel doesn’t gloss over the harsh realities of war but she also restrains from indulging in purple prose to make her point. The novel tells the story of Lina who is 15-years-old in 1941. One night the Soviet secret police, or NKVD, burst into her home. They arrest Lina, her mother and her younger brother. The trio is summarily deported to Siberia. Lina’s father’s presence is felt throughout the book, but not seen. That’s because he has already been sent to a prison camp and sentenced to death.
During her time in the Gulag, Lina decides that she must survive to tell not only her story, but that of all other Lithuanians who were sent to Siberian prison camps during World War Two.
The NKVD, Narodnyi Kommissariat Vnutrennikh Del was the Communist Party’s primary enforcer. From 1934 through 1941 the NKVD handled state security and administered the slave-labor camps known as Gulags. Available Soviet records show that about one million people died in Soviet Gulags between 1933 and 1945.In 1937 Josef Stalin authorized the Great Terror, which directly targeted civilians. Hundreds upon thousands of civilians, from the Baltic states and Russia, were rounded up and sent to camps. These men, women and children were deemed as harboring individualistic tendencies, or had spoken out against the Communist Party.
Sepetys uses the fictional character of Lina to tell their story. Young readers will be drawn to the moral ambiguities and the struggle Lina faces inside the Gulag to cleave to her identity.
It’s an important novel because it addresses a period of history that few here in the United States understand. More importantly, the novel introduces young people to world history in a compelling and riveting manner.
I recently wrote a short piece for The Christian Science Monitor about Betty Oderwald, a septuagenarian in Fairfield, Conn. who is steadfastly working to preserve the memory of the 5,000 militia men who fought to defend The Nutmeg State from possible British invasion during the War of 1812. http://bit.ly/H7FjH8
The state of Connecticut so opposed the war with Britain that Gov. Roger Griswold prohibited the state’s militia from serving beyond the state’s borders. Some 5,000 Connecticut men served in the war, but only to defend the state’s own borders and coast. Oderwald’s interest in the Connecticut militia has led her to initiated yet another project. She wants to compile a list of 1812 veterans buried in cemeteries in the state’s 169 towns and cities. It’s challenging to find the names and burial spots for these veterans, and so Oderwald she relies on other members of the Connecticut Society of 1812 as well as members of the Daughters of the American Revolution. They scour books as well as the state militia rolls. Oderwald wants each and every veteran of the War of 1812 to be recognized during this bicentennial year. “If the War of 1812 is the Forgotten War,” Oderwald says, “then it follows that the veterans of the War of 1812 are the forgotten veterans.”
Another amazing group of preservationists belong to the African Burial Ground, founded in 2006. This National Park Service site in New York City strives to keep alive lost history. Between 1690 to 1794 free and enslaved Africans were buried in a 6.6-acre burial ground in Lower Manhattan. Landfill and development literally buried this history. Then, in 1991 planned construction of a Federal office building unearthed the site. Today people can visit the site, and perhaps more importantly, people can take advantage of the African Burial Ground’s numerous educational events. @AFBurialGrndNPS
Oderwald and the African Burial Ground do in deed what others do in words: preserve history.
Karen Van Etten @KarenVanetten is working on a book about the work to preserve a historic bridge in her town of Newfield, New York. The bridge, circa 1873, was slated for demolition but now is going to be preserved for that was set for future generations. Her book reminds one of David McCullough’s book “The Great Bridge: the Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge.” Then there are histories about concepts and ideas. For example, David Crystal’s “The Story of English in 100 words.” Of course using letters and words is the basis for Orland Figes’ forthcoming book “Just Send Me Word: A Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag.” This book will give readers insight into life in the Soviet Gulag through using a series of love letters. Elizabeth Dowling Taylor’s “A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons” details what it was like for a black man living in the 19th century American during the nation’s formative years.
The Daily Mail recently ran an article headlined: “Heil Hollywood: The Los Angeles bunker from which Hitler planned to run Nazi empire after the war.” http://bit.ly/zFGg6E According to the article, there were American sympathizers so sure that Adolf Hitler would win the war, they shelled out millions of dollars in the 1930s to construct a compound from which he could rule the world. Their building in the high rolling hills of Los Angeles put all other bunkers and lairs to shame. It’s an interesting bit of World War Two trivia, and one of the more zany “what-if” scenarios World War Two seems to breed.
What is it about World War Two that continues to captivate? It’s a question I often think about. My first book was about World War Two and I’m working on a book about World War Two now. For some it’s the ultimate good v. evil, but in truth no war can be explained so simplistically. I wonder if WW2 so captivates because of its mad men Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Hideki Tojo. Or perhaps it’s the battles: Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, the Battle of the Bulge, D-Day, Stalingrad to name but a few. For some the answer lies in the battle for air supremacy and others the great Naval battles in the Pacific. It might be the Navajo code talkers or the Bletchley Park code breakers that speak to others.
War is base, violent and there is nothing glorious about it – read the “Red Badge of Courage” by Stephen Crane, “The Naked and the Dead” by Norman Mailer, “The Thin Red Line” by James Jones, “Helmet for my Pillow” by Robert Leckie, “Matterhorn”, by Karl Marlantes, or “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and you’ll get the idea. But you won’t get a simple answer. Indeed, World War Two has no answer.
Like the article in the Daily Mail, WW2 still casts a spell because of the “what ifs.” There are many books whose plot lines center on the question: what if Hitler had survived, what if Stalin lives? “Fatherland” and “Archangel” by Robert Harris, “Operation Napoleon” by Arnaldur Indridason are to name but a few. I have yet to find a book that asks what if Archduke Ferdinand had not been assassinated or what if the Ifni War had never happened. To be sure, there are other wars that captivate. The Civil War for instance. That war has resulted in a multitude of magazines, movies, television series, books, plays and more. The Vietnam War has also left a legacy of literature, movies, and more. Yes, there are periodically great works that treat World War One, “War Horse” most recently. However, few wars seem to inspire the wide-spread fascination that World War Two, the Civil War and the Vietnam War engender.
World War Two is just one of the wars that grip us and won’t let us go. The Civil Wa r and the Vietnam War fall into that category. The War of 1812, the Falkland Islands War and the Crimean War do not. So, why does World War Two still fascinate? Certainly, people have tried to answer that question. Thousands of books in multiple languages have been written that seek to explain how and why Adolf Hitler and his minions rose to power and murdered six million Jews and six million Polish people, gypsies, homosexuals and others. Scores of books have been written that explore the violent, genocidal imperialism of the Japanese in the Pacific. But there is no one answer to the question – how did it happen?
I think that is a reason for the war’s continued fascination. I suppose part of my fascination with World War Two comes from the fact that it is not simple. There is always something else, some new nugget of information to be mined.
|
|
The exercise goes to the heart of reporting and writing. As Yogi Berra, who turned 87 yesterday, once said: “You can observe a lot by watching.”
