Category: Learn History Through Fiction

Five years before the liberation of Auschwitz in January 1945, the Nazis conducted a “test killing” of 9,000 disabled people to make sure the carbon monoxide gas method they’d developed was “suitable” for mass extermination. Citing the theories of eugenics, the Third Reich claimed the murdered children and adults were “animals, not humans.” The test was declared a success, and followed by the killing of 70,000 additional disabled people at that site, another 230,000 elsewhere, and 6 million Jews and other victims in concentration camps. The site of the test killing, Aktion T4, in Brandenburg, Germany, contains the remains of an old brick barn with only a small memorial plaque. By design, there were no survivors left to testify about the Nazi “experiment.” Read about a disabled person who escaped the Nazi social hygiene policies in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

A year before the tragic 1911 Triangle Waist Company Fire in New York City, women staged the Chicago Garment Workers Strike against Hart, Schaffner, and Marx, which employed several thousand workers in dozens of clothing factories — sweatshops — around the city. Women unified across racial and ethnic boundaries to protest low wages and poor working conditions. The strike, which lasted from September 1910 to January 1911, ended when labor and management agreed on a deal to raise wages and meet health and safety standards. Read more Chicago and labor history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

The actors who played Munchkins in the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz were paid only $50-100 a week, less than Toto the dog whose salary was $125. Some resorted to boosting their earnings by pimping and prostitution, even begging. They reportedly propositioned crew members, leading to wild, though unsubstantiated, tales of drunken orgies. Read more about the Munchkins and the making of the movie in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

One hundred years ago, American women averaged six children, not counting miscarriages and stillbirths. Without adequate medical care, new mothers often had complications, making subsequent births more painful and dangerous. In addition, working-class women had no time to rest and recover after giving birth, and were expected to resume domestic chores and employment, along with mothering their newborns and other children. Read more about motherhood a century ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

In World War I there was only one attack on U.S. soil, dubbed the Battle of Orleans. On Sunday morning, July 21, 1918, the German submarine U-156 surfaced three miles off Cape Cod and fired at an unarmed tugboat and four barges. The submarine’s aim was so bad that many of the 150 shells landed on Nauset Beach in the town of Orleans. However, the barges sank and the tugboat was badly damaged. An air base in the nearby town of Chatham dispatched two planes. Each dropped a large bomb called the Mark IV but, famous for malfunctioning, they failed to detonate. Unaware the bombs were duds, the German sub retreated and the Coast Guard rescued all 32 persons aboard the tugboat and barges. Read more about WWI and its veterans in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

In the 1936 Battle of Cable Street, people from London’s East End stopped the British Union of Fascists (BUF) from marching through the city’s largely Jewish area. In the previous two years, BUF had recruited working class members. The day of the battle, BUF planned to gather on Royal Mint Street and then destroy shops and beat Jews. But Britain’s labor movement, unlike in the U.S. and other countries, opposed racism and fought the BUF. They borrowed a slogan from the Spanish Civil War’s anti-fascist movement: “No Parasan: They Shall Not Pass!” Read more about old London in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

At 2 AM on Nov. 26, 1947, the San Diego Aqueduct opened, bringing the city its first water from the Colorado River. It began as a trickle, but soon grew to a torrent, just in time to avert the region’s worst water crisis. Construction began as a WWII emergency when naval installations and support industries more than doubled the county’s population. The project was almost cancelled when the war ended, but since the military bases and industries remained, the Navy agreed to complete the $17.5 million pipeline and the city of San Diego pledged to lease it for half a million a year until it was paid off. Discover more San Diego history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

A century ago, Berlin’s fashion industry thrived, thanks to Jewish designers and manufacturers. The 2,700 fashion houses on Hausvogteiplatz rivaled the prestige and glamour of Paris and London. All that died when the Nazis destroyed Jewish businesses in the 1930s. Not only was glass shattered on Kristallnacht, but books — and fabric — were burned. Today, a non-Jewish conglomerate is bringing back Germany’s famous labels, including Manheimer’s mens and ladies wear, seeking the endorsement of the founders’ heirs to reestablish their long tradition. Read more about fashion and the Nazis in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (see NOVELS).

Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle (1905) to expose the brutal and dangerous working conditions in Chicago’s meat-packing industry. Workers, most of them Eastern European immigrants, earned pennies an hour, for 10-hour days, six days a week. They lived in tenements in Packingtown, next to the stinking stockyards and four city dumps. Almost as an afterthought, Sinclair included a chapter on how diseased, rotten, and contaminated meat products were doctored, mislabeled, and sold to the public. He was dismayed when the public reacted with outrage about the filthy meat but ignored the plight of the workers. “I aimed at the public’s heart,” he said, “and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” Read more about the meat-packing industry a hundred years ago in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).