In the Hilltowns of Massachusetts, one community is spending the summer spotlighting how it ended up in the national spotlight, showcasing the refugees it took in during World War II.
While “The Cummington Story” is more complicated than a wartime film made it out to be, the truer story is just as much a point of pride.
Just over 80 years ago, the nation and parts of the world got to know Cummington, Mass. – a corner of Hampshire County that’s rarely had over 1,000 people living in it.
But, for a short time, a couple dozen men and women seeking refuge called it home.
It’s all described in the dramatized U.S. Office of War Information film, “The Cummington Story,” a short film focused on the real efforts to take in around 40 refugees during World War II - men and women seeking safety after being driven from their homes in Europe.
The town has commemorated the effort and the film over the years, and is doing so again this summer. This time, though, there’s a special focus on the people who managed to escape Nazism and live, work and -- in many cases -- create in town, if only for a few years.
“… we wanted to focus on them as people and then also, given what's going on currently politically, we thought it was a timely thing to show,” says Carla Ness, chair of the Cummington Historical Commission.
As far as propaganda films go, it’s pretty well put-together, says Grayson Hawthorn, the commission’s assistant archivist.
Aaron Copland composed the score and the black-and-white film features both real townsfolk and refugees playing their parts. The film was technically intended for an overseas audience, showing New England Americana to different parts of the globe.
The narrator, Reverend Carl Sangree, a pacifist who abhorred war, found himself supporting and agreeing to an effort to take in individuals and couples seeking refuge in the early 1940s.
A hostel would come together – the same Main Street house still stands today – and soon, new arrivals who worked as lawyers, artisans and in other professions across the Atlantic found themselves in the Pioneer Valley.
“A lot of these refugees had been lawyers or professors in Germany or Austria… and when they came to America, they essentially struggled to find work,” Hawthorn explained. “Many of them worked at the hostel … Gustav Wolf, who is probably the most famous hostel resident… worked as a woodcut artist as he had in Germany and Austria: he worked for the Cummington Press...”
Those who are curious can view the film at The Old Parsonage building - or YouTube, as it’s long been a public domain work. But, if you do end up at the Parsonage building, the real Cummington story is on full-display, thanks to Hawthorn and company.
As various displays explain, the refugees didn’t simply arrive and depart on a bus as the film shows – they trickled in after fleeing their homes and traversing Europe and other parts of the world - for years in some cases.
“Many of these refugees had fled Germany and Austria during the late 1930s, specifically 1938-39, after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany and Kristallnacht,” Hawthorn told WAMC, standing before works of art and articles of clothing that remain in town 80 years later. “Many of them had fled because they saw the writing on the wall and essentially realized there was no guaranteed safety for them anymore.”
Theirs are the stories that are on full-display, like Paul Wieghardt and Nelli Barr, two married German artists who abandoned their home in Norway in 1940 as the Third Reich began bombing the region. Barr herself was Jewish, as were a number of other refugees who would stay in Cummington for parts of the war.
They dodged devastation and were in western Mass. a year later, with Paul later teaching at the then-Cummington School for the Arts while Nelli worked in apple orchards. She also took on sculpting while Paul managed to paint. Images of their work are on display at the town’s new exhibit.
The exhibit also features rare copies, woodcut prints, and more created by Gustav Wolf, who worked at the famous Cummington Press during his stay. A rare copy of the "Book of Job" illustrations he created is also on display.
The film was a town event in and of itself, but as Hawthorn recounts, it skips over a lot and takes some liberties. For example, it leaves out the time the FBI was called in because some locals thought a refugee was holding his own "bund” meeting.
As it turns out, it was actually a man named Hans Kalman, talking to a PTA recounting his experience escaping and the rise of fascism in Germany.
In fact, there was at least some local backlash to the hostel, with a fear of spies being among the concerns. Anti-refugee sentiment was not uncommon at all at the time, and procuring visas was also extremely difficult, Hawthorn recounts.
Ultimately, it’s not that far off from the nation’s current policies on refugees. Late-last year, for example, the Trump administration moved to limit refugee admissions to 7,500.
It’s all the more reason to highlight the efforts of Sangree and others, says Ness
“… there [are] people like Carl Sangree out there: there are people out there who are making a change, and it is up to us to make that change real,” Ness said. “That is one of the things that we have seen in all these this series of exhibits - individuals standing up for other people's rights as well as their own.”
The new exhibit is open to visitors from 2 to 5 p.m. every Saturday until Aug. 29.
