Mark Klempner is a folklorist and oral historian. Ten years ago he sought out some of the last surviving Dutch rescuers of Jewish children to better understand how and why they made their courageous choices. The result of this research is his new book The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers and Their Stories of Courage. It was recently published by the Pilgrim Press and is distributed in Canada by Northstone Publishing.
Klempner grew up in New York. He attended Cornell University and won a J. William Fulbright Fellowship. He received a Masters degree in folklore from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For over 20 years, Klempner worked as a professional musician. As a studio guitarist in Los Angeles he worked with many recording artists, including Luther Vandross, Holly Near, and pianist David Benoit.
Klempner's work has appeared in numerous publications, including the National Catholic Reporter and Tikkun. He has also been a featured commentator on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. I reached him in Costa Rica to speak about his new book.
Gerry McCarthy: In The Heart Has Reasons you write that the Holocaust rescuers acted without much deliberation. Later you explain that: "Empathy was also a key ingredient." Having this moral imagination was critical wasn't it?
Mark Klempner: It's a cornerstone. All of the studies that have been done on the Holocaust rescuers have found a very high level of empathy in these people. One thing I've been reflecting on lately is whether our contemporary culture might foreclose that development of empathy, because we have so much coming at us from technological sources rather than face-to-face contact.
Back in 1942 people looked out their window and saw what was happening. They heard from a neighbour, or read about it in the newspaper. Now we have some 200 TV channels that often broadcast the most horrific images repeatedly, plus news coming at us "24/7" from radios, computers, and cell phones. Although I don't address this in The Heart Has Reasons, I wonder what does this do to people's ability to be empathic? I write about the rescuers as moral agents, but if everything's happening at a distance --removed from you-- it's much more difficult to care, to be involved, and to really feel the impact of what is taking place. In the book, I do contrast the image of a technician sitting at a control panel ready to fire a missile with the amazing outcome of the encounter one of the rescuers had with a couple of Nazis. She was able to soften their hearts, at least momentarily, because of that person-to-person contact.
GM: Throughout the book we're reminded of the horrors inflicted by the Nazis. Was this difficult for you to revisit as the son of a Holocaust survivor?
MK: My first interview was with Clara Dijkstra. She had a wonderful story, because she took in a Jewish baby on short notice and cared for it as her own for three years. Both she and the child survived, so the story had a happy ending. But as she began telling me about the conditions in Holland during the Nazi occupation, my eyes started to glaze over. Noticing what was happening, she reached across the kitchen table and took my hand and said "Together we'll get through this."
That's an example of the empathy we were talking about before. She suffered under the Nazis for five years. But here I am, this young person who comes in, and she is worried about what she's putting me through by telling me what it was like. I was struck and moved by that. I thought: I need to buck up and just be able to hear it. Because when you're doing oral history, it's important to be willing to enter your interviewee's world and hear them out. If I had started to cry, the rescuers would have tried to protect me. Then they wouldn't have told me what they told me.
It's hard to find anything positive to say about the Holocaust. But having listened to all those stories, when I hear activists today --in the United States, for instance-- lamenting how Bush is moving the country in a totalitarian direction, I know things are not that bad yet. Not to minimize what's going on. But when you compare it with Germany in the late 1930s, the United States is in pretty good shape --with the disturbing caveat that we now have the ability to destroy the whole planet thanks to nuclear weapons. Which is why we must not let up on our disarmament work.
There are some activists who compare the Bush administration with fascist regimes. In the book I tell the story about the stand-up comedian in Germany a few years after Hitler came to power. As part of his act he would say: "Let's talk about the political situation." Then he would just stand there and not say a word for about a minute --and people would start to laugh. The fact that he was arrested and taken to a concentration camp shows the degree to which free speech was virtually non-existent in Nazi Germany.
In the United States, despite the increasing erosion of civil liberties, George W. Bush can be completely skewered by Stephen Colbert at the annual White House Correspondent's Dinner and it's all shown on national television. To me, that's a hopeful sign.
GM: In The Heart Has Reasons you write that: "All of the people I interviewed are what I would call spiritual, but this adjective often tends to resist specific definition." You add that most of the rescuers were religious --but each of them could be "quite critical of their church, a further indication that they are capable of standing apart from the group and thinking for themselves." The rescuers seemed to resist following the party line didn't they?
MK: It's true. Even Heiltje Kooistra, who was a strict Calvinist was an independent thinker. The Calvinist theology told her she should have a personal relationship with God, and she took that seriously. She felt very strongly about not letting people think for her, or allowing a minister or anyone else interpret God's will for her.
GM: Another one of the rescuers you interviewed was Hetty Voûte. She explained that: "I think only by being an example yourself. That's the only way to teach anybody anything…" This is seemingly simple. But it's profound isn't it?
MK: Yes it is. Because how many of our public leaders think like that? How many of our ministers and priests and rabbis think like that? It's not an easy path to decide to really live the life, and let your actions speak for themselves.
GM: Hetty Voûte talks about the first time she was jailed by the Nazis. She recalls singing songs in prison with her friend who was there too. It was a form of resistance wasn't it?
MK: Yes. When you think of the civil rights movement or the peace movement, it's the same thing. I just read an account by author James Carroll of when he was in a Washington DC lock-up overnight following an antiwar demonstration during the 1960s. He didn't know it, but in the cell next to him was William Sloane Coffin. He says he'll never forget how in the night, Rev. Coffin began to sing a verse from Isaiah that was part of Handel's Messiah: "Comfort ye, my people." Carroll said it had such an impact on him to hear that resolute voice filling the lonely silence with song. It gave him courage and strength. Music is one of the keys for resistance movements all through history.
GM: At one point you explain that: "The rescuers are highly sensitized to the need to see each person, not as a stereotype, but as an individual." This is important isn't it?
MK: Yes --very important, and their advice has had quite an impact on me personally. For instance, I just wrote a letter to the editor of our national paper that was critical of Israel's pre-emptive approach. Someone responded the next week who was upset with me. You're Jewish --so what are you doing criticizing Israel? I wrote another letter saying: That's just the point. We can't fall into these categories where --because I'm Jewish-- I'm going to support everything Israel does. Or because you're of Arab descent you're going to support everything the Arab counties do. We can't generalize about each other like this, and reduce each other to stereotypes.
It goes back to the party line issue. We can't just follow a party line of any sort. We have to think as individuals, and not let other people do our thinking for us. Repeatedly the rescuers told me how important it is not to stereotype people. I also interviewed Miep Gies, the woman who tried to save Anne Frank. She said: "Don't lump people together. That's what Hitler did to the Jews, and that's how he got people to hate them. Each person is an individual. Even children don't think the same as their parents." That's why it drives me crazy when a U.S. news report about Iraq says something like: "We've scored a victory because we killed so-and-so's brother, and so-and-so was in Al Qaeda." How can we generalize about a whole family? I mean, some of Osama bin Laden's brothers run the biggest construction company in Saudi Arabia. For a while his father was the minister of Public Works there.
So the rescuers tell us: Don't generalize about the Germans, Arabs, Jews or anybody. It's more work mentally, because we like to have this heuristics where we just size people up immediately. But we have to fight that tendency.
GM: The rescuers stressed human values over material values. At one point Clara Dijkstra says: "You can have your cars and your luxurious homes, or you can have a close, loving relationship with your children. But you can't have it both ways."
MK: What she said is extremely radical, because in our consumer culture we're conditioned to strive for greater material gain without considering the spiritual price we may pay for such gain, or how such striving might affect the fabric of our family life. No doubt some people will feel uncomfortable with her putting the issue in such stark "either/or terms," but it's interesting to note that her statement echoes the way she had to think during the Nazi years. When Clara decided to save the life of a Jewish child, she couldn't have it both ways. She had to make a choice, and there were no two ways about it. Clara is applying that same way of thinking to the issue of parents being there for their children. She's saying that if you're going to concentrate on material gain, your relationship with your children will suffer.
Many of us can attest to the truth of that. My father was an ambitious, upwardly mobile person. He went from being a poor immigrant who didn't speak English to working his way up into a good position that allowed for a nice house and everything. But he wasn't around much when I was growing up. So when Clara said what she said, it resonated with me, and also because it's such a departure from the messages we're receiving every single day like "You can have it all." We see celebrity profiles that show these gorgeous homes and beautiful kids. But how much time do those kids spend with their parents? So I think Clara is touching on something powerful, even if it makes us squirm.
GM: No one seems to be immune from this consumer gotta-keep-up culture do they?
MK: That's one reason why I wrote the book. We need to hear from people like the rescuers, because you're rarely going to hear their voices. I mean, when Oprah Winfrey --God bless her-- brings someone on to speak about the Holocaust, she chooses Elie Wiesel. A great man --an Auschwitz survivor-- but very famous and someone who moves in elite circles. People like Clara Dijkstra are grassroots, salt-of-the-earth, fantastically spiritual people. They don't give a damn about fame and fortune. If I hadn't sought them out and interviewed them, their stories might have gone with them to the grave. And half of the ten people I profile in The Heart Has Reasons have already passed away.
GM: In your closing reflections you write: "Though most of them live modestly, the rescuers are rich in chesed, a Hebrew word meaning lovingkindness. That quality of chesed, so tangible in their presence, convinced me that this is what life is all about." That chesed comes right off the page when you read their stories doesn't it?
MK: Yes. As you were reading that sentence it gave me goose bumps, because it made me remember how I felt being with them. Sitting with them day-after-day caused me to deeply question my own values. The rescuers were emanating this spiritual energy that exuded such contentment. I asked myself: Why are people running around, knocking themselves out for money and power, when these rescuers are sitting there in Holland like spiritual kings in their simple houses or apartments? Their example had a deep impact on me. It partly explains why I'm now living a humble but happy life in Costa Rica with my wife and our new baby.
GM: You write about a crisis of meaning and purpose in your life when you were living in Los Angeles 10 years ago. That's partly why you started this book wasn't it?
MK: There were two streams. One was my background as the son of a Holocaust survivor. The other was my time in Los Angeles. During the time in Los Angeles I got to live out what I thought was my dream. I always wanted to be a professional musician there and to meet all my musical idols, and I did: George Harrison, Joni Mitchell, and many others. I got to step inside that glitzy world. But after a while I started to see how pathetic it was. People were unfulfilled and often very troubled, and the image that certain stars would project in public was sometimes pure illusion.
In my own life, the whole scene started to feel hopelessly self-aggrandizing. Everybody was focused on being famous and trying to make it big, or bigger. There's a story about Barry Mann who was a famous songwriter at the time. He was walking down Hollywood Boulevard looking depressed when a friend saw him and said: "Barry what's the matter with you? You have two songs in the Top Ten this week." Mann replied "Yes --but one of them is going down."
I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in that superficial world. I was always intellectually inclined and I liked reading. But there wasn't anyone to talk to about books with, because people weren't interested in books. That's when I bailed out of the music business and started to go to college. I majored in English, because people told me my songs were too literary. I thought I'd become a writer.
Receiving the grant to interview the rescuers turned out to be the ticket to finding an alternative to the life I'd known in Los Angeles. Because going to college was a stepping-stone. Suddenly I was reading great books and discussing things that mattered. I took my first political science course, and it opened up a whole world of understanding to me.
But when I actually interviewed the rescuers, I was knocked out by how they were the antithesis of the kind of people I'd known in L.A. There you looked out for "Number One," but the rescuers made you feel they would do anything for you. Their values were entirely different. Yet they were the happiest people I'd ever met. I felt like an explorer discovering a new continent.
GM: How long did you stay in Holland to interview the rescuers?
MK: I was there initially for just six weeks, but it felt like six months because every day I would get up early and take the train to the house of a particular rescuer, and spend the whole day there. After visiting about 40 of them, I went back to the United States and continued the conversation by telephone, e-mail and fax. I kept in touch with many of them and continued to talk during the nine years that I was working on the book. Towards the end, I went back for another trip, and I still remain in touch with them, because we're friends.
One of the things I'm happiest about since The Heart Has Reasons has been published is that the rescuers have given it two thumbs up. That means a lot to me. They entrusted me with their personal stories and shared many difficult memories and deep insights with me, so I didn't want to mess it up. They are my most important readers, so for Piet Meerburg to call it a masterpiece, or for Kees Veenstra to say it's first-rate, really makes my day --and week-- and year!
GM: At the end of the book you write: "Against the seemingly limitless void of the Holocaust, the rescuers have revealed to us nothing less than the ultimate power of the individual when surrounded by hate and fear, to act with love and compassion." So the individual can make a difference can't they?
MK: Yes. For the rescuers it wasn't even about winning. For the first couple of years of the war it looked like the Germans were going to win. It made no rational sense for them to risk their necks to help these Jewish children. But for them it was about doing the right thing regardless.
That's partly what gives the rescuers so much happiness and contentment, despite the trauma they experienced. I have a Canadian friend whose grandmother lived in Holland during those years. She won't talk about the war. It's a very disturbing thing for her. My friend wanted to give her a copy of the book. I said: "You might want to think about it. Ninety-nine percent of the Dutch population didn't do anything to actively help the Jews. They were probably too caught up in their own struggles and problems. But they've felt bad about it since 1945 when they found out that over 100,000 Jews had been gassed."
I went on: "You might not want to dredge up that kind of guilt. I mean, she's almost 100 years old: Give her a break." The point is that there are many Dutch people who've spent their entire lives feeling bad, consciously or unconsciously, about what they didn't do. The rescuers I profile in the book have spent their whole lives with a sense of satisfaction that they rose to that moral challenge. They've been able to live the rest of their lives knowing that when they were in that crucible of fear and terror, they did the right thing --regardless of the outcome.
GM: The rescuers you interviewed were unwilling to be judgemental of those who didn't help the Jews. Is that right?
MK: Yes. These are not people who spend much time being bitter, angry, and hateful. These are people whose hearts are so big they just don't go there if they don't have to. They just don't have much room in their lives for bitterness, hate, or being judgmental. That's just the way they are, and it's moving and beautiful. It's a great teaching for all of us.
I have a friend who's a long-time political activist. A while ago I was at a small library that subscribes to many leftist publications like The Nation, The New Republic, In These Times, and Z Magazine. It had about 50 of them, and my friend came into the library that day and said: "The problem with most of these periodicals is that they just want to tell us what's wrong with everything. They're not offering people solutions or positive messages." That ties in with what we were just talking about. The rescuers don't come from that judgmental place so much. They don't enjoy attacking their enemies or pointing out people's moral failings. It's a much more hopeful and loving approach.
GM: The rescuers you talked with continue to help people today. Did that surprise you?
MK: No. That's another reason why I wrote the book. When I read other books about World War II rescuers I was surprised to find that almost none include all this great stuff that the rescuers keep doing.
One rescuer couple took me out to their back yard and opened their garage door: It was filled to the top with garbage bags. They told me they had just finished a clothing drive in their province, and they were going to be sending these clothes to poor people in Romania. These are people in their 70s who had co-ordinated this whole thing. That was one reason that I wanted to get the book out there: To report on the continuing and life-long activism of the rescuers.
I see these esteemed elders as incredible models for people struggling against the injustices of today. They've lived their lives by the highest principles, and have so much to teach us. My hope for The Heart Has Reasons is that it will get into the hands of young activists and provide them not only with inspiration, but also with practical advice about how to keep on keeping on over the long haul.
GM: The parents of the rescuers --and the homes they grew up in-- had a significant impact on them didn't it?
MK: Yes, the rescuers said it was in their homes growing up that they learned empathy. It was in their homes that they learned to care for others. This is a testament to the importance of the job that parents do in shaping the next generation. The conclusion you can draw is that not only do children learn altruism at home, but that the role of parents --or whoever the caregiver happens to be-- is vitally important. Not only for the well-being of the little person, but for the whole of society. It's about whether this society is going to be caring or callous.
Gerry McCarthy is Editor of The Social Edge.
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