in these exchanges—someone who accorded respect and received it in return.
Alan Roses told us what the mystery was with these door-to-door appeals. It had to do with what was happening to Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe. The idea was to buy freedom for Jewish families—Nazi officials were happy to use their racialpolicies as a means of extortion—and also to inform the American public. If the public was aroused the government would have to do something. He was very calm, and spoke in great and telling detail, Alan Roses. He was, by profession, an English teacher in the public school system. He cleared his throat often as if to swallow his emotion. I had no doubt that what he was saying was true, but it was at the same time so shocking as almost to demand not to be believed. Langley said to me afterward: How is it those old men who knocked on our door knew more than the news organizations?
It was difficult under the circumstances for Langley to maintain his philosophical neutrality. He quickly wrote out a check. Alan Roses provided a receipt on the stationery of an East Side synagogue. We went to the door with him, he shook our hands, and he left. I supposed he would find another door to knock on and subject himself to more embarrassment—he had the reticence of someone doing something out of principle for which he was ill-equipped by nature.
With each day’s papers, Langley searched the news columns. The story was coming out on the back pages in dribs and drabs with no appreciation of the enormity of the horror. This went right along, he said, with our government’s do-nothing policy. Even in war, deals are made, and if they can’t be made you bomb the trains, disrupt the operation—anything to give those people a fighting chance. Do you suppose this land of the free and home of the brave is just not that crazy about Jews? Of course the Nazis are monstrous thugs. But what are we if we let them go ahead and do what they do? And what happens then,Homer, to your war story of good versus evil? Christ, what I wouldn’t give to be something other than a human being.
LANGLEY’S CONTRARIANISM was to evolve. How could it not? When we learned that Harold Robileaux had joined up—this was sometime later, I don’t remember what year of the war this was—we displayed one of those little blue-star pennants that people hung in their windows to indicate that we had a family member in the service. Harold had gone and applied to the Army Air Forces and been trained as an airplane mechanic, this musician of all sorts of gifts and capabilities, and by the time we knew any of this he was overseas with an all-Negro pursuit squadron.
So now our spirits were lifted, we were as prideful as any family in the neighborhood. For the first time in this war I felt a part of things. The times had brought people together and in this cold city of impassive strangers where everyone was out for himself a sense of community was like a surprisingly warm spring day in the middle of winter, even though it took a war to do that. I would go out for a stroll—I used a cane now—and people would greet me or shake my hand or ask if they could help me, under the impression that I had been blinded fighting for my country. “Here, soldier, let me give you a hand.” I didn’t think I looked that young but maybe I was perceived as an officer of formerly high rank. Langley exchanged greetings with home guards from the neighborhood on their way to the rooftops of their buildings to scan the sky for enemy planes. Hebought War Bonds on our behalf, although I have to say not purely from patriotism but because he believed they were sound investments. There may have been a European battlefront and a Pacific front, but we were the Home Front, as important to the War Effort, as we canned the vegetables from our victory gardens, as G.I. Joe himself.
Of course we knew there was a powerful propaganda machine behind all of this. It was calling on us to tamp down the
Alan Roses told us what the mystery was with these door-to-door appeals. It had to do with what was happening to Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe. The idea was to buy freedom for Jewish families—Nazi officials were happy to use their racialpolicies as a means of extortion—and also to inform the American public. If the public was aroused the government would have to do something. He was very calm, and spoke in great and telling detail, Alan Roses. He was, by profession, an English teacher in the public school system. He cleared his throat often as if to swallow his emotion. I had no doubt that what he was saying was true, but it was at the same time so shocking as almost to demand not to be believed. Langley said to me afterward: How is it those old men who knocked on our door knew more than the news organizations?
It was difficult under the circumstances for Langley to maintain his philosophical neutrality. He quickly wrote out a check. Alan Roses provided a receipt on the stationery of an East Side synagogue. We went to the door with him, he shook our hands, and he left. I supposed he would find another door to knock on and subject himself to more embarrassment—he had the reticence of someone doing something out of principle for which he was ill-equipped by nature.
With each day’s papers, Langley searched the news columns. The story was coming out on the back pages in dribs and drabs with no appreciation of the enormity of the horror. This went right along, he said, with our government’s do-nothing policy. Even in war, deals are made, and if they can’t be made you bomb the trains, disrupt the operation—anything to give those people a fighting chance. Do you suppose this land of the free and home of the brave is just not that crazy about Jews? Of course the Nazis are monstrous thugs. But what are we if we let them go ahead and do what they do? And what happens then,Homer, to your war story of good versus evil? Christ, what I wouldn’t give to be something other than a human being.
LANGLEY’S CONTRARIANISM was to evolve. How could it not? When we learned that Harold Robileaux had joined up—this was sometime later, I don’t remember what year of the war this was—we displayed one of those little blue-star pennants that people hung in their windows to indicate that we had a family member in the service. Harold had gone and applied to the Army Air Forces and been trained as an airplane mechanic, this musician of all sorts of gifts and capabilities, and by the time we knew any of this he was overseas with an all-Negro pursuit squadron.
So now our spirits were lifted, we were as prideful as any family in the neighborhood. For the first time in this war I felt a part of things. The times had brought people together and in this cold city of impassive strangers where everyone was out for himself a sense of community was like a surprisingly warm spring day in the middle of winter, even though it took a war to do that. I would go out for a stroll—I used a cane now—and people would greet me or shake my hand or ask if they could help me, under the impression that I had been blinded fighting for my country. “Here, soldier, let me give you a hand.” I didn’t think I looked that young but maybe I was perceived as an officer of formerly high rank. Langley exchanged greetings with home guards from the neighborhood on their way to the rooftops of their buildings to scan the sky for enemy planes. Hebought War Bonds on our behalf, although I have to say not purely from patriotism but because he believed they were sound investments. There may have been a European battlefront and a Pacific front, but we were the Home Front, as important to the War Effort, as we canned the vegetables from our victory gardens, as G.I. Joe himself.
Of course we knew there was a powerful propaganda machine behind all of this. It was calling on us to tamp down the
Similar Books
