World War II books

[jedusor]

We're up to the 1940s in my history class, and thinking about the subject of the Holocaust inspired me to get to the library yesterday and take out Anne Frank's diary, which I've somehow never read. I'm about two-thirds through it now, and it's creepy how much Anne's personality reminds me of my own. I wish I'd read this a long time ago. The parts about the holidays are especially poignant- they celebrated Christmas, while they were in hiding for being Jewish.

While I was at the library, I also located a copy of "Dr. Seuss Goes to War," a collection of political cartoons drawn by Theodor Geisel during WWII. Some of them are good, but the ones depicting Japanese people are scary. People keep saying that it's okay because everyone hated Japanese people back then, but it's not. I don't put up with people who hate Muslims because of 9/11; this is the same thing. And he was so adamant about equality between blacks and whites, too. It's like Japanese people weren't even people to him.

Mom is talking about a trip to St. Louis in May, after finals are over. I'd definitely like to go see the Holocaust Museum & Learning Center there.

Comments

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

Jews celebrating Christmas isn't all that odd - there used to be advertisemts in Yiddish newspapers in New York City in the 1800s for Christmas trees. It's moved beyond a religious holiday into a cultural one.

I've seen some of those cartoons. Maybe the Japanese weren't people to him; maybe they weren't. I haven't read his views on the subject so I can't say. I do know that the cartoons he did were propaganda pieces, which are supposed to affect the masses by using such radical images.

[mh75.livejournal.com]

Both good books.

Have you thought of making a trip to DC? The Holocaust museum there is supposed to be wonderful, and i think you'd enjoy all the national museums. I can't promise, but, if you wanted to make the trip, i may be able to dig up a place for you to crash.

[bookishfellow.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in finding out whether his WWII depictions of Japanese people (which are pretty disturbing, I agree) came from the heart, that is, was he drawing them the way he really felt, or was he suppressing his real image of them to serve another purpose (drumming up support for the war)?

It seems totally out of character for Geisel to have that big a blind spot, but then, people do have such out-of-character blind spots. People also have road-to-Damascus changes in outlook, and maybe that's what happened to him.

And no, it wasn't okay for him to have portrayed the Japanese so degradingly, even if that view was culturally widespread at the time. But it is understandable. It takes an extraordinary person to transcend the cultural norm...which he did, but not in that particular fashion. (Jefferson didn't refuse to keep slaves, for another example, but he did some other stuff that was pretty neat.) Don't let the bad detract from the good, nor vice versa. Take the man for all in all.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

It's not necessarily odd for Jews to celebrate Christmas, but it strikes me as unusual that Jews who were trapped in a small space for years because of their religion would do so. I would expect them to embrace their own religion. I guess they were being persecuted more because of the culture than the religion itself, though.

Yes, the cartoons were propaganda, and that's even scarier. Dr. Seuss creating propaganda against a community in order to rally together his own community sounds a lot like what Hitler himself was doing.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

I'd love to go to DC, but I already have no idea how I'm going to afford tuition if I get into any of the schools to which I applied, so pleasure trips are going to have to wait. (St. Louis is only four hours' drive away, so it's not as big a deal.)

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

It does seem out of character for him to have that big a blind spot, but it also seems out of character for him to attack a certain community in order to make people agree with him. Isn't that what Hitler was doing? Is it really any better than actually holding those beliefs?