{"id":4104,"date":"2012-05-04T14:54:09","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T21:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/?p=4104"},"modified":"2012-05-07T07:52:55","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T14:52:55","slug":"throwing-stones-desperate-times-desperate-measures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/04\/throwing-stones-desperate-times-desperate-measures\/","title":{"rendered":"Throwing Stones: Desperate Times, Desperate Measures!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Up until now, the only time that Gertrude Stein was ever a presence at the White House, as far as I know, was on December 30, 1934 when she and Alice were invited to tea by Eleanor Roosevelt.\u00a0 From what I\u2019ve read, a good time was had by all.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Teatime with Eleanor, 1933<\/p><\/div>\n

Not sure if Barack or Michelle are aware of Gertrude in recent days, but someone on the presidential staff \u00a0may have taken a major step backwards into the era of the Salem witch trials or more recently Joseph McCarthy\u2019s un-American\u00a0 activities committee, when they felt the necessity to re-issue the May 1st<\/sup> proclamation announcing\u00a0 the 7th<\/sup> annual Jewish Heritage Month.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Once upon a time in Salem...<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Joe Mc and friend, 1954<\/p><\/div>\n

The original proclamation urged people to visit the Jewish Heritage Month governmental web site\u00a0 “to learn more about the heritage and contributions of Jewish Americans and to observe this month with appropriate programs, activities, and ceremonies.” It went on to state: “From Aaron Copland to Albert Einstein, Gertrude Stein to Justice Louis Brandeis, generations of Jewish Americans have brought to bear some of our country’s greatest achievements and forever enriched our national life.”<\/p>\n

By the following day, someone on the White House staff may have gotten wind of the controversy that has been raging in New York City regarding Gertrude\u2019s “Nazi” past and the STEINS COLLECT exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This tempest was prompted by an op ed piece in the New York Daily News on April 29th<\/sup> with the headline: \u201cA Nazi collaborator at the Met.\u201d\u00a0 (More on this later after we finish with the scramble in the West Wing.)<\/p>\n

On May 2nd<\/sup>, the White House issued a revised proclamation this time leaving out not only Stein\u2019s name, but also Copeland\u2019s, Einstein\u2019s and Brandeis\u2019! \u00a0Were the composer, scientist and \u00a0justice not afforded this recognition because they just happened to end up on an arbitrary list of important Jewish-Americans including a self-proclaimed genius whose name has been in the news a lot? Or did some people think that there are too many prominent Jewish-Americans to single out these four? \u00a0I’m not sure what happened here, but my first response to the situation was that Gertie’s loose lips sank some ships!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I usually try to keep this blog on the humorous side partly because that\u2019s just me and partly because humor played a big part in the personalities of GertrudeandAlice.<\/p>\n

But with this post, I need to exchange the comedy mask for the other one (maybe not so much tragedy as tragi-comedy,) because of some of the events of the last few days and the past year.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Whether the White House action relates to the incident surrounding the Metropolitan exhibition, I don’t know, but one thing is certain, \u00a0Gertrude Stein has not only become more famous in the last twelve months, if not infamous.<\/p>\n

Yes, there are the facts, many of which have been around a long time, but have, in the last five years become more broadly known largely because of the success of Janet Malcolm\u2019s book TWO LIVES<\/strong>\u00a0 and Barbara Will\u2019s book UNLIKELY COLLABORATION: Gertrude Stein, Bernard \u00a0Fa\u00ff\u00a0and the<\/strong> Vichy Dilemma<\/strong>, published last fall :<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gertrude Stein in a New York Times interview in 1934 did say\u00a0 some very complimentary things about Hitler and what he was doing in Germany and did, many insist jokingly, nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize;<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 GertrudeandAlice, two American, lesbian Jews survived WWII in German- occupied France;<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

GertrudeandAlice arriving in Salzburg in 1945<\/p><\/div>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Their collection of art was also not confiscated while many other Jews in Europe lost major works of art;<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They were friends with Bernard Fa\u00ff\u00a0who was friends with persons in high places in the Vichy government. At the end of WW II, Fay was sent to prison because of his collaboration with the Germans;<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gertrude admired General Philippe P\u00e9tain a hero of WWI and Vichy government leader and did begin translating the speeches of General P\u00e9tain into English since she felt some of his politics were relevant to the U.S.<\/p>\n

Do these actions make Gertrude Stein a\u00a0 Nazi or Nazi sympathizer and less of a significant literary icon of the 20th<\/sup> century or likable, motherly Woody Allen star?\u00a0 I and many other Stein fans would say \u2018no,\u2019 though there are some who would strongly disagree with us.<\/p>\n

That this becomes a very emotional issue is understandable considering the horrors of WWII and the Holocaust. People often either vehemently defend Gertrude\u2019s actions or find them despicable and inexcusable.\u00a0 For someone who has had GertrudeandAlice as part of his life for almost thirty years,\u00a0 I must confess that whenever people have asked me about GertrudeandAlice\u2019s survival during WW\u00a0 II , I cringe for a moment. This question was posed to me once by a Holocaust survivor and my answer to him and others is grounded in my knowledge of some of the facts relating to their years in Vichy France. The facts as laid out and interpreted in Barbara Will\u2019s book do present a more politically involved Stein than I was previously aware of and it will still take me some time to think about that Stein and possibly reconcile her actions with the Stein I\u2019ve known all these years.<\/p>\n

My friend Renate Stendhal has done an incredible job following the Stein controversy in the last year. Go to the following link to review the chronology of events which help to put many things into perspective:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.triviavoices.com\/gertrude-stein-hitler-and-vichy-france.html<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Metropolitan Museum has agreed to add additional wall text to clarify Stein\u2019s \u00a0life in Vichy France and her relationship with\u00a0 Fa\u00ff. This was \u00a0prompted not only by the op ed piece, but also requests by Manhattan\u2019s borough president and a local assemblyman.\u00a0 The museum further said that other visitors to the exhibition had already wondered why more information had not been \u00a0included about Stein\u2019s WW II years.\u00a0 A museum spokesperson\u00a0 tried to put the whole thing into perspective: \u201cWe have been talking about it here for days.\u00a0 It\u2019s not an unreasonable request.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gertrude Stein was no saint, though Alice probably would be the first to call for her canonization so that the two could spend glory together! (The comedy mask is back.) But not many of us are saints and do and say things that we wish we hadn’t. \u00a0Gertrude was a strong-willed, independent, at times arrogant, industrious, creative artist. \u00a0And though I do not want or need to make excuses for her, anyone who comes to know her must try to understand her on many levels and then decide for themselves whether they would have wanted to join her in the salon for a cup of tea and some of Alice cake.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Gertrude at the height of her "sainthood" following the success of "4 Saints in 3 Acts."<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Up until now, the only time that Gertrude Stein was ever a presence at the White House, as far as I know, was on December 30, 1934 when she and Alice were invited to tea by Eleanor Roosevelt.\u00a0 From what I\u2019ve read, a good time was had by all. Not sure if Barack or Michelle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[252,275,64,89,276,273,182,192,274,277,278],"class_list":["post-4104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-barbara-will","tag-bernard-fay","tag-eleanor-roosevelt","tag-gertrude-stein","tag-janet-malcolm","tag-jewish-heritage-month","tag-renate-stendhal","tag-seeing-gertrude-steinfive-stories","tag-steins-collect","tag-two-lives","tag-unlikely-collaboration"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4104"}],"version-history":[{"count":87,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4204,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4104\/revisions\/4204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}