Sue Lani Madsen: ‘This I believe …’

Braver Angels Central/Eastern Washington Alliance recently asked members to write essays in the format of Edward R. Murrow’s “This I Believe” program, describing experiences that have shaped the unique ways we each view the world. This was my contribution, written to be read aloud as I contemplated an upcoming opportunity to visit the memorial to the 1956 Hungarian revolution on a long-planned trip to Europe. More lessons from that trip in future columns, but today … this I believe.

I believe in the search for meaning and purpose.

One of my favorite childhood TV programs was Hogan’s Heroes. Col. Robert E. Hogan and his gang of dashing American, British and French prisoners of war really ran the camp, under the noses of the nervous Col. Wilhem Klink and his sidekick, Sgt. Hans Schulz. “I know nothing!” was Sgt. Schulz’s cry as the prisoners carried out some plot.

My father had been an electronics tech in the Coast Guard, and I admired Staff Sgt. James Kinchloe keeping the radio equipment running, plus rising to any other technological challenges. He was the token Schwarzer Mann.

African Americans on TV in my youth were cast as the smart ones, the reliable ones. The characters of Kinch, Nyota Uhura on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise and Alexander Scott on “I Spy” were admirable role models.

Germans were portrayed as dolts or devils. My maiden name is recognizably German, and my paternal grandparents were first- and second-generation German immigrants. My father had been teased as a seventh-grader in northern New Jersey during the Second World War because his name sounded very much like the name of an infamous U-boat captain picking off ships as they left New York harbor.

I did not want to be German. I turned to reading World War II history in junior high. Stories of courageous men landing on the beach in Normandy. Brave women serving as combat nurses or spies. Members of the French resistance. Ordinary British stepping up during the blitz. It was all very exciting. But as I got older and dug deeper, I began to absorb a more robust picture of war. A memoir of the fire bombing of Dresden as told by an American woman married to a German diplomat who had been trapped there with her children. John Hershey’s tale of Hiroshima. Recognizing parents and grandparents of my Japanese-American classmates had been interned by the U.S. government. I admired the courage of all those who fought the fight in front of them.

And then I read and re-read and re-read “The Bridge at Andau,” by James Michener. He was a working reporter at the bridge, a crossing point for Hungarians fleeing the Russians after the 1956 uprising in Budapest. He recorded their stories of life behind the Iron Curtain. Of parents deprogramming their children from the lies taught at school, asking each other “is it time for the talk?” Afraid of being turned in by children, neighbors and co-workers for thinking or saying the wrong thing. Of KGB torture chambers and mindless inhumanity. All in the name of governmental power. It was hard to understand sitting in a free America how people could become so cruel. How government could exercise such power over their lives.

During the uprising, it was teenagers who ran out into the streets under fire from Russian soldiers to jam a piece of lead pipe into a tank tread. Once stopped, others would toss a Molotov cocktail in the hatch.

It was tragic. It was exciting. It was courageous. Could I have done it? Would I have done it? Is there anything I believe in so strongly that I would run out in front of a tank with a piece of pipe to jam in the treads? It was a hard question.

It’s still a question that inspires me when meeting metaphorical tanks. I try not to lob too many Molotov cocktails. Sometimes words will do to stop a tank in its tracks.

Postscript: The lesson was reinforced after visiting the 1956 memorial and the museum located in the old headquarters of the secret police. While government is an essential social tool, it is a terrible master.

Contact Sue Lani Madsen at rulingpen@gmail.com