My good fortune in life has come from direct experiences with many different social groups in different social strata. I’m glad I wasn’t unduly influenced by early advice because such things can act as a filter on experience, reducing its impact or making one unnecessarily cautious. Curiosity and willingness to take chances yields knowledge and insight. The best advice I could have received would have been, don’t let convention limit your choices in life.
As a part of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bruce Neuburger.
Bruce Neuburger is the son of Holocaust survivors and has spent decades advocating for social justice. His extensive background includes roles as a farm worker, cab driver, and educator. Neuburger is also the author of Lettuce Wars: Ten Years of Work and Struggle in the Fields of California and Guerras de Lechuga. His work focuses on immigrant rights and the consequences of discrimination, drawing on personal and historical experiences to highlight urgent social issues. His latest book, Postcards to Hitler Is praised as a significant contribution to the library of Holocaust literature, telling the true story of his family’s Fight Against Fascism, Drawing on his family’s extraordinary history of resistance to the Nazi regime, Bruce reminds us of the importance of confronting hatred and injustice in our own time. Through deeply personal family narratives and meticulous research, Bruce paints a vivid portrait of courage in the face of tyranny, offering crucial lessons for today’s world. Postcards to Hitler by Bruce Neuburger is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and wherever books are sold. You can find it in print, digital, and Audio Book formats. For more information, visit Monthly Review Press, PostcardstoHitler.com, or follow @BruceNeuburgerBooks on Facebook.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
I was born in Astoria, New York in 1947 to German Jewish refugees who’d arrived in the U.S. in the late 1930s. My father was drafted into the U.S. navy and sent to California before being shipped to the Pacific theater. He liked what he saw in California and after the war he brought the family to California, to Long Beach where I grew up. Eventually other family members, aunts, uncles and cousins also migrated West. While it was a prosperous time and life was mainly good for us, I did encounter antisemitism in middle school. I remember kids throwing pennies on the ground and yelling “Jew” to anyone who dared pick one up. I never picked up a penny! This experience of racial prejudice along with the conversations I picked up from family and friends who were all mainly refugees, helped shape my attitude towards life. This was a relatively unconscious process. Later in life I found myself reacting against what I saw as prejudice, especially racial prejudice. The Civil Rights movement that began to emerge in the 50s and 60s affected me a lot. I was shaken by Martin Luther King’s assassination and wrote a poem about it. That poem came to the notice of the rabbi of my family’s synagogue, Temple Israel in Long Beach. The rabbi had it framed and placed in the temple. That recognition encouraged my budding interest in writing. Over the years writing became the form of expression I felt most comfortable with.
When you were younger, was there a book that you read that inspired you to take action or changed your life? Can you share a story about that?
My father began a business in Long Beach after moving the family there in 1949. He did reasonably well and our family became part of the prosperous Southern California middle class. But by the late 1950s things began stirring among my “baby boom” generation. Somehow I came across a book called The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton, a book about the Beatniks. I remember being attracted to the whole concept of an alternative to what, as a young teen, I was already beginning to feel was a sterile and alienating environment in a middle class suburb. Then, later, as the Civil Rights and Black liberation movements began to unfold, I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This was a very important book for me because it opened my eyes to a reality I knew almost nothing about. I began to think that the world I grew up in, or at least found myself living in, was really disconnected from what much of the world experienced. I was also drawn to Malcolm’s discovery of U.S. society and his transformations, how he, throughout his life, expanded his understanding of the world, going from a narrow nationalist point of view, to being drawn to a more internationalist perspective. That change was attractive to me and many others in my generation.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
If you mean something related to writing, I can tell you about an experience one night with a girl. One of my first “dates.” I thought I was fond of this girl. But I was so awkward and so caught up in the hormone driven teenage angst. Anyway, the night ended in a disappointing fashion. Not because of anything particularly bad that happened but because of my own awkwardness and lack of self awareness. Anyway, I became obsessed that same night and the next day with romantic self pity which compelled me to write a short story to describe my state of mind. I even submitted this to a writing contest which no doubt reeked with self pity. Fortunately I no longer have that story. It must have been awful. But it was somewhat cathartic.
Can you describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your book?
First, let me say that I had no interest in writing a Holocaust story. What I mean by that is, a tale of horror and death and sometimes, even heroism and salvation that leaves the reader aghast at the depths of inhumanity humans are capable of, but which contain little historical context and so doesn’t leave the reader with much understanding of how and why the Holocaust actually occurred. This is not to deny that such stories are important, or that the world needs to be reminded of the horror and injustice of the Holocaust. But I wanted to delve into the “why” and “how” that, for instance, German Jews passed through an era of great integration and accomplishment in Germany in the late 1800s and early 1900s only to be plunged to the depth beginning in the second decade of the 20th century. There is a political and social context to this, and a historical context of European inter-imperialist rivalry. Frankly, there are powerful political forces which would just as soon leave this context out of the narrative! To understand, for example, the cause of World War I, is also to, at least potentially, reveal the cause of the rise of German fascism. And understanding Europe’s colonial project holds a key to understanding the racial thinking that turned anti-Jewish prejudice into racial antisemitism, the very core of Nazi thinking. These, to me, are key elements to consider if this historical phenomenon of the Holocaust is to be understood correctly. It was not the outcome of some eternal and unchanging hatred of Jews, but a component of an historical era and the product of an economic and political system.
These are not extraneous to the story I mainly wanted to tell, of my grandparents and other relatives and their circle of friends and what happened to them during the years 1907 to 1942. All the elements mentioned above would have been part of their thinking, their conversations, their efforts to understand the horror rising around them. To leave that out would also be an injustice to them.
So I wanted to dig deeply and bring out the actual social/historical context and roots of Nazi antisemitism, the wars in their era, and so on. It’s in that way that I hope the book can have an impact, by grounding people in the reality, the terrible injustice, yes, but also the forces that gave birth to so much horror then, and which continues to foment horror to this day.
Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?
The best stories came out of the actual experience of relatives, my father, my aunt and their cousin. One fascinating story I discovered from a letter a former neighbor of my father sent to my father after the war, in 1948. The story was about how my father and this friend, Ludwig Eiber, sat up until 3 am in an apartment in Munich on June 22, 1938 listening to a boxing match held at New York’s Yankee stadium. The fight between the German Max Schmelling and the African American boxer Joe Louis was really a major world event. This was in 1938 as the world was heading towards war. This worldwide broadcast of a sporting event was itself special and unusual. The match takes place in the context of increasing hostility between the U.S. and Germany. And it is filled with “racial” significance as it pits Max Schmelling, who through no fault of his own, was held up as the representive of the so-called superior German Aryan, and Joe Louis, who represented to the Nazi mind the inferior race, the untermensch. For Black people in the U.S. and others who stood against racial prejudice and oppression, Louis was the great hope. So, in this Munich apartment, two Germans, one Jewish the other non-Jewish but but both anti-Nazi, undoubtedly rooted against their country’s representative, Max Schmelling. One can imagine the suspense and the angst that felt by those anticipating and then listening to this match. I tried to write that into the story. And the trepidation and the joy.
What was the “aha moment” or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?
The story of how and why I decided to write this book is related more to events in my life than, say, world events. One factor was my retirement from teaching which gave me the time to do the study and travel I needed. Another key factor was my desire to pass this family story to the next generation, my grandchildren, great nieces and nephews, and so on — so as to give them a connection to that history which they otherwise would not have.
There were a number of “aha” moments in the lead up to writing this book. One moment occurred while I was on my first visit to Munich in the early 2000s. While on a Third Reich walking tour our guide brought us to a stone monument honoring the White Rose, a youthful German anti-Nazi resistance group. I knew of that group but I didn’t know they were from Munich. I’d been puzzling over the evidence that my grandfather Benno was an anti-Nazi resister who put anti-fascist messages anonymously in the mail. The fact that the White Rose did something similar and in the same city around the same time, was quite a revelation and spur to proceed further. This was a revelation because I had, by that time, come to understand that my grandfather Benno had become an anti-Nazi resister who’d been executed for is efforts to arouse opposition to the regime by putting anonymous messages in the mail. I instantly thought that there might be some connection between my grandfather, the resister, and the student resisters. I was never able to prove a direct connection but this coincidence was a great motivator for me to pursue the story.
Without sharing specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
A number of people have shared their appreciation for the book, which is very gratifying. People have told me they have gotten a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the Nazi era and the way the persecution of Jews unfolded through reading Postcards to Hitler. At the same time, I’ve had the good fortune to get to know some German historians who have taken up the study and writing of the Holocaust era to keep that history in front of the German public. Their writing was an important source of information and inspiration for me. And, I’ve been told, that Postcards to Hitler has been valuable for them as well in pursuing their historical writing.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
At this moment, there is an urgent need for people to learn the lesson of fascism in the 1930s-40s and that lesson is, more than anything, to oppose the demonization or isolation of any particular group in society. Two, is to remind people that fascism thrives through intimidation aimed at silencing opposition. Therefore continuing resistance is key to preventing the consolidation of authoritarian or fascist rule. Don’t be misled that fascism or authoritarian rule is the result of some dictatorial personality. The rise of such a personality, such as Hitler, for example, was the symptom of a deeper social problem, a dysfunction that can only be addressed by a conscious public aroused to action. Don’t be divided, don’t be silenced, don’t be misled. Seek out sources that can point to or elucidate the root of problems, not just their symptoms.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
A leader must have the kind of experience with different kinds of people that reveals to her/him the truth that there are no superior or inferior races, religions, sexual orientations, cultures, etc. That humanity is a mosaic, whose beauty comes from its diversity. A leader needs to have a deep desire for knowledge and understanding of reality first and foremost, someone with a poetic spirit able to see the beauty in the world beyond what is personally advantageous.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why?
My good fortune in life has come from direct experiences with many different social groups in different social strata. I’m glad I wasn’t unduly influenced by early advice because such things can act as a filter on experience, reducing its impact or making one unnecessarily cautious. Curiosity and willingness to take chances yields knowledge and insight. The best advice I could have received would have been, don’t let convention limit your choices in life.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Everything has a dual nature. Change is constant and there is contradiction, opposing aspects to everything, including human beings. This understanding that all people have a dual aspect to them — one might call it positive and negative traits — has been important in my life so as to neither write people off completely nor view them uncritically.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Because he shares some similar background to myself, and has exhibited, in my opinion, great courage in telling what he sees as the truth despite threats and negative consequences, and has a deep knowledge of things I also find important, that person would be Norman Finklestein.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Postcards to Hitler is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and wherever books are sold. You can find it in print, digital, and Audio Book formats. For more information, visit Monthly Review Press, PostcardstoHitler.com, or follow @BruceNeuburgerBooks on Facebook.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Authors: How & Why Bruce Neuburger Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.