The Greatest Escape in Appleton, Wisconsin

Every year we meet our friends, who live in Northern Wisconsin, somewhere halfway in Central Wisconsin for a good, face to face visit. We’ve been friends for so long that even meeting for 24 to 48 hours gives us plenty of time to catch up. This year, we chose Appleton, Wisconsin, a town with a population of 75,000. It’s amazing the things we don’t know about all the places big and small in our country.

As we walked around Houdini Plaza, we found a statue and a plaque dedicated to none other than Harry Houdini, the great escape artist. We were surprised to hear that he was from Appleton and even more surprised to learn that their history museum’s major permanent exhibit was all about him. Since very few museums anywhere have this type of exhibit I was intrigued to see it.

The museum is housed in a castle that was originally a Masonic Temple and is worth seeing in itself.

The second floor of the building is devoted to the Harry Houdini exhibit. Harry Houdini was born Erik Weisz in Budapest, Hungary in 1874. He and his family emigrated to America in 1878 ending up in Appleton. His father was employed as the rabbi at the synagogue in Appleton and worked there for four years. He was then let go because the congregation felt that he wasn’t modern enough. This was the first home that Erik/Harry remembers and the city of Appleton seems to have adopted him as a native son.

After Mr. Weisz lost the rabbinate position, the family moved to Milwaukee and then New York where in both places, they lived in extreme poverty. As the oldest of seven children, Erik AKA Harry felt responsible for helping to support his family. He quit school and went to work doing various jobs and then trying for years to make it in Vaudeville as a magician. He got his first break in 1899 when he was recognized in St. Paul, Minnesota and the rest is should we say, history.

Among Harry Houdini’s quotes the one I found most telling was “My chief task has been to conquer fear.” His wife also said that the main challenge for Harry that enabled him to perform all his life-threatening stunts was to conquer all his fears. He later used his celebrity status to advocate for women’s suffrage and to try to expose fraudulent spiritualists who were prevalent at that time.

The exhibit in Appleton is mostly devoted to memorabilia about Houdini including some of the equipment he used for his stunts. They do this in a hands-on way giving visitors to the museum the opportunity to try it out. In the back of each stunt display is an explanation of how Houdini managed to accomplished these feats often with sleight of hand and other magician tricks. Altogether it was a very entertaining exhibit and good to go to with children because of the hands-on nature of much of the exhibit. Should you find yourself in Central Wisconsin, this exhibit is certainly worth a visit.

Re-visiting the United States One Year Later

A year ago, I turned on my television to watch “Jeopardy!” In the Chicago area, it’s broadcast at 3:30 in the afternoon. This was the first time in weeks that I’d been home at that time to watch it. You can imagine my disappointment when Alex Trebek was preempted because the current occupant of the White House was giving a press conference.

The weekend before, neo-Nazis and white racists had joined forces in Charlottesville, Virginia to march with torches chanting “Jews will not replace us.” Our president had called the press conference to insist vociferously that many people marching with Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan were “fine people.” Worse than that was my realization that more that 62million Americans had voted for him and another 90million had allowed him to win by not voting at all. Although I was born in the United States as were my parents and two of my grandparents, I felt like my country had been taken away from me. I had just become stateless.

Nazis/white supremacists marching in Charlottesville in 2017

Now a year later, I am relieved that only 25 Nazi/racists marched in Washington overpowered by thousands of counter-protesters. The New York Times reports that these bigots are now shying away from marches and organizing more hate in the shadows. America is still on the brink. As of February 26, 2018, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith reports that there were 1,986 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States since the election of 2016. The Southern Poverty Law Center is tracking 954 hate groups in the United States. The groups target African-Americans, Jews, Muslims, Mexican-Americans, and people in the LBGTQ community. Both the ADL and the SPLC report that there has been a large spike in hate activity since the 2016 election.

In the upcoming elections, five self-avowed Nazis are running for Congress on the Republican ticket. In Illinois, the Governor and regular party people have directed their constituents not to vote for this candidate. Nevertheless, their statements came much too late - after the primary elections. They did not prevail on any party regular to run against this Nazi in the Republican primary and 20,000 people voted for him. While five is a small number – there are 435 Representatives in Congress – it is still pretty frightening. To my knowledge, having five Nazi candidates running as Republicans is unprecedented.

Can we breathe sighs of relief now that the Nazi rally was so poorly attended? I don’t think so. During the 2016 election campaign, T ran a campaign of bigotry. As you all remember, he began his political career with innuendos about Pres. Obama’s citizenship. This was followed by his racist statements about Mexicans. From there, he went on to talk of establishing a registry of Muslims in the United States. His rhetoric and election victory have emboldened a Pandora’s box of hatred to come out and flourish. It’s going to take a lot more than a couple of tweets saying that all Americans must come together to put those ills back in the box. It’s incumbent on every American to resist the forces of hatred and racism as much as we possibly can.

Facing the Next Natural Disaster in the Netherlands

We had five days to spend in Amsterdam and wanted to see more of the Netherlands. Delft is only an hour’s train ride from Amsterdam making it a good day trip destination for us. 

Besides being the home of Delft Pottery and the artist Vermeer of recent Girl with the Pearl Earring fame, Delft is the home of the Institute for Water Education. The Institute is the first noticeable building after leaving the Delft train station. It looked intriguing so we went in hoping to be able to talk to people there. Classes were in session but the woman at the front desk was very happy to tell us about the mission and work of the Institute. It opened in 1953 following a devastating flood in the Netherlands in which the dikes broke and 1836 people died, 70,000 were evacuated, and 500 buildings were totally destroyed.

The Netherlands government resolved to use their resources to study water management in an effort to prevent another flood from happening. They had had a natural disaster but decided not to have another one. Right after the flood, they opened the Institute for Water Education www.un-ihe.org to educate the world about their water management technology. Students come from all over the world especially Third World countries to learn about water management and purification and distribution. Students can earn Masters degrees or Phd’s or take short specifically targeted courses.

Since 1953, the Dutch have built new dikes, dams, and storm surge barriers. In some places especially Rotterdam, they have adapted to the rising waters of climate change by creating lakes, garages, parks, and plazas that double as reservoirs in times of heavy rain. In Rotterdam, the Maeslant Kering, a huge sea gate, was built that allows water to flow or prevents it from coming in as the situation demands. As a result, since 1953, the Dutch have never suffered a devastating flood again. Just in case, however, their children have to do flood disaster drills where they are taught to swim with their clothes and shoes on. Fortunately, they’ve never had to use this skill.

The Dutch have exported their water management technology to places throughout the world including Wuhan, China, Ho Chi Minh City, Cambodia, Jakarta, Indonesia, Venice, Italy, Sao Paolo, Brazil and to Miami, New Orleans, and New York City in the United States.

On a trip to Canada, we met a Dutch couple from Rotterdam. As we ate breakfast together, the woman said, “I don’t understand the people in Houston. We offered to send them our technology after their hurricane and they didn’t want it. Do they want to have floods every year?”

All that I could do was shake my head. I don’t understand it either.

Looking Up to People in Amsterdam

I knew that I was going to have to look up to people when we arrived at our hotel room. In our bathroom, I had to stand on tiptoes to see the mirror. The towel rack was at least a foot over my head. I couldn’t even reach the hook to hang up my towel. Most Dutch people are really tall. At five feet, I had to look up often during our visit there. As our taxi driver told us on our way to the airport, “Yes, we are the tallest people in Europe. That’s been known for years.”

At the Anne Frank House, I found other ways to look up to people. Before going there, we went to beautiful neighborhoods and saw the houseboats on the canals and visited the Van Gogh Museum. For both the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House, it’s important to buy timed entry tickets on-line about three months before you go to Amsterdam. In fact, at the Anne Frank House it’s the only way that tickets are sold.

Over a million people visit the House each year and everyone we asked knew where it was. On a walking tour through downtown Amsterdam the previous day, a young Dutch woman told me that all the public schools in the Netherlands are required to teach about the Holocaust and she was anxious to visit the Anne Frank House, also.

On arrival at the Anne Frank House, we were given audio guides in our preferred language to listen to in each room. The house - really Otto Frank’s office - is narrow with steep stairs. A bookcase hiding a door led to the secret sector of the house where the Franks and their friends the Vandamms hid for two years. During the day, they couldn’t look out the window, flush the toilet, or make any noise for fear of being heard and thus, caught and deported.

A photograph of the bookcase in front of the door leading to the Franks' hiding place

While Anne Frank and her family led an excruciating life for those two years and met a tragic end being deported only a few months before the end of World War II, their helpers also led a dangerous life for those two years. During that time, Miep and Jan Gies, Johannes Voskuijl, Johannes Kleiman, and Victor Kleiman helped them to hide. They brought them food and supplies and did everything they could to keep the families hidden. They did this at the risk of deportation or even death to themselves. Years later when Miep was asked about her heroism, she said, “They asked for my help. How could I do anything else?”  

Those Dutch Jews who’ve survived or are descendants of survivors feel uncertain. They look at their non-Jewish neighbors and wonder, “Would you hide me now?”

What these people did to hide the Frank family was truly heroic. I have to look up to them and ask myself what I would do in a similar situation. I hope that I would have the courage to do the right thing but until one is up against a situation, it’s all conjecture. As immigrants get deported here in the United States and even naturalized citizens are threatened, I wonder what I would do. In the meantime, I protest against our regime’s immigration policies in the hopes that I’ll never have to find out.