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The Current Transcript for May 2, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

MARSHA LEDERMAN: The officer came home. My father made his pitch. Showed him the valuables. And the officer said no. His wife, who was the reason I'm alive, said no, you have to. You have to give this man his papers.

MATT GALLOWAY: All her life. Marsha Lederman has been haunted by the Holocaust. Her parents escaped it. Her grandparents died in it. And now, as a second generation survivor, she hears echoes of it throughout her life. The Globe and Mail journalist has written about all of that in a moving new memoir. And in an hour, she's here to talk about her family's story, the questions she wished she asked her parents and how trauma moves through generations. Also this morning...

FEMALE SPEAKER: Reading and the freedom to read is a constitutional right. Libraries exist to protect an individual's right, to make their own decisions about what they read and what they believe.

MG: What's in those libraries and on school reading lists, though, is particularly contentious in the United States, where everything from graphic novels and The Handmaid's Tale, to math textbooks have become political footballs. In 30 minutes, how parents and librarians are responding to the return of book bans in the U.S. and how Canada has handled the teaching of controversial material. We begin, though, with the enquiry into the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history and how the man responsible got his guns. Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

How the Nova Scotia mass shooter acquired guns in Maine

Guests: Elizabeth McMillan and Margaret Groban

MG: The enquiry into the worst mass shooting in Canadian history continues this week. Two years ago, a gunman dressed as an RCMP officer killed 22 people in Nova Scotia. For families who lost loved ones, the details have been painful to hear. Richard Ellison's son, Cory, was one of the people shot. The gunman lived in their neighbourhood in Portapique. And Richard says since the enquiry started, he's struggled to sleep.

RICHARD ELLISON: It brings it all back up, type of thing, you know, because I have been trying to forget, I almost have to forget that I even had a son to keep my sanity. And while see, I got these out. Pictures. Well, see, there's a picture of Cory and his brother, there, that's maybe a better picture, but see, I keep them in the background, so I am not looking at them all the time. And then I say, we were here that night and Clinton and Cory and myself, and you can look up [inaudible] up that way and you can see the fire up there. It was a massive fire because it was a big building. And like he said something about going up there, I said, no, Cory, don't go up there, because there could be firearms up there. And Cory was sitting here and he just... he grabbed my flashlight that was up there. And I have never seen him since.

MG: Richard Ellison told the CBC's Mary-Catherine McIntosh he knew his neighbour had guns because he'd showed them off to him.

RICHARD ELLISON: One of the firearms he had was a combat pistol and that's what, he had one of them. And then he had a rifle. He showed me that. And it was the same as the rifle that killed... the rifle used up in Montreal at the Polytechnique.

MARY-CATHRINE: When he showed you the guns, what did you think?

RICHARD ELLISON: I... it caught me by surprise. I didn't really. Think much of it, actually. But then to find out, you know, here we are... six years later or whatever and. Terrible consequences. I think of Cory and.... because I drive right past where he was shot up there. Eh. It's hard... It's one thing to have a firearm, but then to turn around and use it to kill that many people. It just went, like I say, almost like a Terminator. Canada is supposed to be a safe country. We have gun laws, you know, more than we need, actually. But then they only apply to law abiding citizens.

MG: This week, the Mass Casualty Commission is examining how the gunman got his weapons. CBC reporter Elizabeth McMillan has been tracing the story, starting in a town called Houlton, Maine, and she joins us from our Halifax studio. Elizabeth, good morning.

ELIZABETH MCMILLAN: Good morning, Matt.

MG: We just heard about the weapons the gunman had, and you've been digging into how he got them in the first place. Take us to Maine. Why is that town, in that state important?

ELIZABETH MCMILLAN: Well, Houlton is just a small town, a few kilometres from the border... at Woodstock, New Brunswick. And it's where a close friend of the gunman lives. Sean Conlogue and Gabriel Wortman met a few decades ago in Fredericton and the gunman visited him in Houlton several times a year. Sometimes he'd drive down to Maine with his partner, sometimes without her. He would often stay at Conlogue's home. You know, they'd go boating together in the summer, and over the years they spent a lot of time at a camp where they'd shoot targets together. The gunman would also order things online and have them shipped to Conlogue's address. Things like motorcycle parts for the bikes he was restoring, and packages that contained parts for the replica cruiser he was building, like the light bar on it. And investigators determined that three of the weapons the gunman used in the massacre came from Houlton. Two of them were handguns, one owned by his friend Sean Conlogue. And it's possible one of the guns was a pistol that Richard Ellison referred to.

MG: What do we know about how the gunman acquired those weapons?

ELIZABETH MCMILLAN: Well Matt, one thing that's important to remember, is that it is illegal for Americans to sell or give firearms to people they know are Canadian residents. Sean Conlogue, the friend, he didn't want to talk to us when we were in Maine, but he did talk to several police agencies about the guns. He did two interviews with the FBI. He told RCMP that one day a few years ago, when they were fixing a screen door together, he gave the shooter a nine millimetre handgun as a gift. He described it as a sign of gratitude because Wortman did a lot of work on his property. It was only after talking to police that he realized that was one of the guns used in the mass killing. Conlogue said he never imagined that his friend would do such a thing and that he'd been really struggling, wondering if he missed warning signs. Now at some point, the shooter also got a hold of a Glock pistol that Conlogue owned, and it was a gun they had use for target practice together. Conlogue gave Wortman permission to use it while in Maine, and of course his friend had a key to his house and could come and go. But there are two slightly different stories about that handgun. Conlogue's account to the RCMP is that the gunman took it a few years before the shootings and that he later called Conlogue up and told him, well, he brought it into Canada because he felt he needed protection. But Conlogue's friends also told investigators that during the manhunt, as they were all together, watching in horror as the news about what was unfolding in Nova Scotia was on television, that Conlogue went upstairs in his house and came down with an empty gun case. So slightly conflicting stories about when that Glock went missing and when it was discovered, but it was also one of the guns used.

MG: We also know that one of the weapons came from a gun show in Houlton, Maine. Tell us more about that part of the story.

ELIZABETH MCMILLAN: Yeah, so when I was in Maine, I talked to one of the organizers of that show. It was held in 2019, so a year before the shootings, and it was an annual popular event that attracted hundreds of people. There were dozens of vendors, and you could buy everything from high powered rifles and ammunition, to snow shoes and cookbooks. The organizer sat down with us for about an hour and he walked us through what the rules were. And he was very clear with us that a Canadian could not legally buy a firearm in that arena because all the vendors that were there selling guns had to conduct FBI background checks and screen buyers. And he said in his community, it's very well known that it is illegal to put a gun in the hands of a criminal or a Canadian. But he said that so-called "straw man purchases" where someone buys a gun and then passes it on to someone else who is not authorized to have it do happen, even though they’re illegal. And the way it's described in court documents. Wortman did not get a gun directly from a licensed dealer by the sounds of things, but it seems he did not have any issues arranging a purchase and he managed to get his hands on a high powered rifle. Similar type of rifle to the carbines that Mounties carry. And people described it to police as a quick and dirty cash sale. Several people told investigators that Wortman went to the gun show with a man from Maine. Someone other than Conlogue.

MG: What do we know about how the guns were brought into Canada?

ELIZABETH MCMILLAN: Well, Matt, he had a Nexus pass and that's the program where people can apply. And you know, it makes going across the border faster.

MG: You're deemed to be a low risk traveller if you have a Nexus card.

ELIZABETH MCMILLAN: That's right. And at land crossings, it means you can go through a dedicated lane, you can show your pass, and then it's up to a border agent to decide whether a further search is needed. And, you know, to qualify, you have to do an interview. And then you're screened both through U.S. and Canadian background checks. And the gunman didn't have a criminal record. That would have been a strike against him. And so, you know, he had that pass. He was able to go through, he passed the border frequently, more... About 15 times in the two years before the shootings. And because he had that pass, it doesn't mean that he wouldn't get searched. But it sounds like he didn't get searched often. And he drove these guns over the border and he never got caught. And several of his friends and his partner told investigators after the fact that they thought that when he drove the guns over in his truck, that he had them... at least one of them, at least that high powered rifle. He had it rolled up in the aluminium cover of his truck bed. So he had the truck bed open and he had that cover rolled up.

MG: Is the gunman's friend from Houlton part of the enquiry that's taking place right now?

ELIZABETH MCMILLAN: Not really. Sean Conlogue... And remember, he hasn't been charged with anything. It doesn't seem likely that he will be, even though the scenario he described to police is illegal. And the RCMP investigator who interviewed him a few weeks after the shootings was actually upfront with him in that interview that they were not there to hold him accountable. But they just wanted to understand more about how the shooter got the guns and how he brought them into Canada. But in terms of the enquiry, its investigative team also talked to Conlogue last fall. It was only about an hour. They didn't ask him anything about the guns. They didn't go into a lot of detail even about his last conversations with the gunmen. And they had facetime just a few hours before the violence started. It was described as kind of a normal conversation, a normal check in. And Matt, you know, as a journalist, it's... I've been reading a lot of these... hundreds of pages of transcripts of interviews. And it can be frustrating to be reading an interview but not be able to ask follow up questions. And that's certainly something that lawyers for families of victims have brought up in this enquiry, that they have more questions and Conlogue is someone they have asked that be called as a witness because they'd like to know more and more details from him. It seems that may be challenging because the enquiry cannot subpoena Americans. So at this point, we don't know if he will be testifying.

MG: Just before I let you go and just briefly, what are the questions that you hope to get answered this week as the enquiry continues?

ELIZABETH MCMILLAN: I'm interested in a bit more clarity on that purchase of the carbine at the gun show. Who exactly helped the shooter? Because the deal also appears to have broken the law and there's also no evidence that anyone has been charged.

MG: Elizabeth, good to speak with you. Thank you very much. And we'll talk again.

ELIZABETH MCMILLAN: Great.

MG: Elizabeth McMillan, a CBC reporter based in Halifax. Margaret Groban is a recently retired federal prosecutor in Maine. She teaches a class on firearms law at the University of Maine, and she is in Portland, Maine, this morning. Margaret Groban, good morning to you.

MARGARET GROBAN: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MG: Having me. Thanks for being here. Maine is known as a "source state" for firearms. What does that mean?

MARGARET GROBAN: Unfortunately, what it means is that we do not have very strict gun laws and that it is easy to obtain firearms here, either legally or illegally. And that makes us a "source state". Generally, it's called the ion pipeline for guns that can travel down Route 95 from Maine. And our guns have been traced to crimes in other states, in the United States. And as we now know, through this tragedy also into Canada.

MG: We heard from Elizabeth that the gunman acquired these weapons illegally. How likely is it that the friend that appears to have helped him would face charges in the United States for that?

MARGARET GROBAN: Well, I can't speak to whether or not he's going to be charged or not, because I don't know all the details. But it appears that what he has done may have been illegal. But that doesn't mean that everyone who commits what would be a kind of statutory violation will be charged. There are a number of considerations that go into whether or not someone would be charged. And in the United States, where we are awash in guns and awash in people who commit this same kind of crime, the priority is more for people who commit violent crimes rather than these kind of statutory violations.

MG: We heard about a gun show in Houlton where the shooter got one of his guns, apparently through what's known as a straw man. Tell me more about that. How common are those sorts of deals, you know, the cheap and easy dirty cash deal as it was described?

MARGARET GROBAN: Unfortunately, I think they are fairly common where you get someone who can pass a background check to go into a gun show or other licensed dealer and purchase a firearm. And they lie on the form that they fill out because they, the form specifically asks whether the gun is for you. And if you say it is and you have a clean record, then you can pass a background check. Unfortunately, this happens way too often and it's a way that guns are transmitted to violent criminals and gangs in the United States. So that certainly is a priority to look at someone if they're doing it multiple times, if they're providing them to the same violent criminals, that certainly would be a priority.

MG: And once those guns are transferred, there's no way to track them in terms of where they go.

MARGARET GROBAN: No.

MG: Is there any way to crack down on those sorts of sales?

MARGARET GROBAN: Well, you can kind of do it through either public service where you try and get people to not lie for the other guy is one PSA that is running in the United States. But you just... in some ways it would be to hold those people accountable if they do it multiple times with multiple guns and then those guns are traced to crimes.

MG: What does that tell you about the marketplace for those guns?

MARGARET GROBAN: It says it's too easy to get them. And that Maine does not require background checks on all, especially private sales. It looks like this gun did come through a background check, which is a good thing. But it doesn't mean that that's going to stop every person from getting a gun who shouldn't have a gun, as is demonstrated in this case.

MG: Why does the state still have that reputation if, as you said, it's known as the Iron Turnpike, if it's known as a source state, why aren't the laws tighter in Maine?

MARGARET GROBAN: There was a referendum a few years ago to try and require every gun sale to go through a background check, and that was defeated. There are many guns in Maine, probably more guns than people. And the vast, vast majority of people who own guns in Maine are law abiding citizens. And hunting is part of the culture of Maine. But that doesn't mean that guns still can't be obtained for nefarious purposes.

MG: I just wonder, I mean, in your role as a federal prosecutor, not to get into the specifics of what happens, you know, at the border, but are a lot of those guns shipped north to Canada?

MARGARET GROBAN: I don't know about that. I really can't speak to that.

MG: But if there's a marketplace, they could really go anywhere.

MARGARET GROBAN: They could go anywhere. Exactly. And they certainly have been found in our neighbouring states. And we aren't the only source state in the country, unfortunately there are other source states as well, but we are one of them.

MG: If it's so easy to buy and sell guns illegally because people don't think that they'll be caught. How do you start to fix that problem?

MARGARET GROBAN: I think the best way is kind of awareness. You try and make sure... We did have an announcement in Maine that if you are a legal gun seller, that you make sure if there are warning signs about the person you're selling to, that you try and look for those warning signs so that you don't sell... The last thing a legitimate gun seller wants is for their gun to turn up at a crime scene. And that's what... the message we try and get across.

MG: What would those warning signs be?

MARGARET GROBAN: Well, the warning signs would be if they're buying multiple guns. If they're buying guns, that wouldn't be typically used for self-defence. If they seem to be going through some kind of personal trauma, if there's domestic violence in that person's history, all those would be warning signs if they buy a gun that they don't seem to know how to shoot. You know, those can all be warning signs.

MG: But again, those are largely voluntary steps that you're asking people... The state is asking people essentially to keep an eye out to be aware of this.

MARGARET GROBAN: Exactly. And even in this case, where, you know, it may be that no one is ever charged legally, it doesn't mean that we all can't learn from this enquiry. And, you know, if someone is amassing guns and they say they need them for protection, is that a reasonable... Is there a concern about their safety or should people be aware that someone is amassing guns who shouldn't be?

MG: I think in this country, we often... We will see stories of mass shootings in the United States. We'll see stories of, as you said, a state that... I'll use your language, may be awash in guns, but we'll often think of the American gun issue as an American issue. What should this case tell Canadians about that, do you think?

MARGARET GROBAN: Well, I think you are fortunate that you do not have the mass shootings, and this one certainly is a tragedy. And I hope that whatever Canada is doing with their laws and their people, that they continue to do that, but also be vigilant to the fact that guns are available to Canadians through this illegal smuggling like this person has demonstrated. And to just be vigilant and if they see something that doesn't look right to say something.

MG: This is the worst mass shooting in Canadian history and this enquiry has been going on and will continue tomorrow. It's been incredibly difficult for the friends and families of those who lost their lives in the shooting. What do you make of the fact that this enquiry is happening, given the fact that again, in the United States, there are a number of mass shootings every year? Are there ever enquiries like this in your country?

MARGARET GROBAN: There aren't. And that's why when I spoke to the reporters earlier, I'm so impressed that this is happening, that people are cooperating with it and that lessons will definitely be learnt from the exposure of what went right and wrong during this case. And I hope that lessons will be learnt from that, not only in Canada but also in the United States and in Maine, that we will benefit from whatever knowledge is gleaned during the enquiry.

MG: Are people in Maine paying attention to this, given again the proximity but also the specific issues that we've been talking about this morning? Is this on the radar in Maine?

MARGARET GROBAN: I know that some people are aware of it. I don't. I hope that it gets more attention once a report is released.

MG: Margaret Groban, it's good to speak with you about this. Thank you very much.

MARGARET GROBAN: Thank you.

MG: Margaret Groban is a retired U.S. federal prosecutor. She was in Portland, Maine. The enquiry into the mass shooting in Nova Scotia continues tomorrow. Your CBC News is next. And then...

LIBRARIAN: It's amazing to just see request after request asking for a library card. But behind that are some really sobering and difficult stories.

MG: In 6 minutes, we'll hear some of those stories about young Americans turning to libraries as their schools ban books. We'll also speak with Marsha Lederman. She is a journalist for The Globe and Mail and she has a new book out. And it's about trauma and how it moves through generations, her family's story and the questions she wished she asked her parents. That's coming up on The Current. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

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A new wave of book bans sweeps the United States

Guests: Angela Wynn, Jonathan Zimmerman and Michelle Arbuckle

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come. When Marsha Lederman was five years old, she asked her mother why she didn't have any grandparents. The answer shaped the rest of her life. In just under 30 minutes, what it's meant to her to be the child of Holocaust survivors. But first, the right to read.

[Music: Theme]

TENNESSEE SPEAKER ONE: Let's say you take these books out of the library. What are you going to do with them? You gonna put them on the street, light 'em on fire. Where are they going?

TENNESSEE SPEAKER TWO: I don't have a clue, but I would burn them.

MG: From Tennessee, to Texas, to Florida. There is a new wave of book bannings in the United States. Parent groups and local politicians have succeeded in having a number of books removed from school curriculums and libraries. Titles now banned in some schools include Howard Zinn's, "A People's History of the United States". Margaret Atwood's, "A Handmaid's Tale" and "The Maus" by Art Spiegelman. The reasons behind the bans are diverse and hotly debated. And in Brooklyn, one community institution has stepped up to offer an alternative.

AMY MIKEL: Once the application is submitted. They're immediately issued a Brooklyn public library barcode and pin. And then with that barcode and pin they can access the entirety of our digital book collections. And the vast majority of what we're hearing are stories from trans, queer, gay and questioning kids who are asking for a library card so that they can read more about others like them.

MG: That's Brooklyn librarian Amy Mikel. The Brooklyn Library has launched what they're calling a books unbanned program aimed at youth age 13 to 21. Parents are also reaching out to the library on behalf of their kids to get their hands on banned books. Angela Wynn is one of the parents fighting against the book bans. She is the co-founder of Support Our Schools, and she joins us from Sarasota, Florida. Angela, good morning.

ANGELA WYNN: Good morning.

MG: Why was it important for you to get involved and take action against book bans in your community?

ANGELA WYNN: One of the reasons it's important for myself and S.O.S. is because children need to learn how to speak their truth. When we remove books that they identify with or that speak to them, we're telling them that they should not exist. A lot of the books that are being banned are also books that teach history. They are books that teach the truth in history. If we... if we don't teach the truth in history, we're allowing the mistakes of our past to become the mistakes of our future. We need to challenge kids. We need to challenge them to think outside the box.

MG: What sort of books are being banned?

ANGELA WYNN: We have books that are being banned, LGBTQ books. We actually have math books being banned in the state of Florida, math books that are being banned for references to SEL, which is social emotional learning.

MG: Can you explain what that is? This is fascinating, social, emotional learning. And why would that be controversial?

ANGELA WYNN: Social emotional learning teaches kids how to develop empathy. It teaches them how to work in groups, how to solve problems. Some of the people that are banning this and who do not want social emotional learning being taught in schools believe that it's teaching kids to hate themselves for being white. Teaching them how to dislike what they're doing, what their past ancestors did. And people are thinking that it's creating guilt in children that are white.

MG: How would that play out in a maths textbook?

ANGELA WYNN: Well, one of the passages that was a hot topic was there were two kids, one of them was feeling anxious about crossing a bridge, and the other child helps them by instilling confidence in them. And Florida decided that that was too close to social emotional learning. So they removed it. They scrubbed it from the math books.

MG: We spoke with Elana Fishbein, who's the founder of No Left Turn in Education. Her group is calling for 75 books to be banned in schools. Take a listen to what she says her group is advocating for.

ELANA FISHBEIN: We are not banning books. Kids can order them online, can go in with them in bookstores. We are saying that this is not the kind of book that should be in school libraries or in school classrooms or in school curriculum. But I'm not talking about anything beyond K-through-12 school.

MG: She says that kids can still have access to these books that are just not in the schools and that parents want to have a hand in what's actually happening inside the school walls and I guess a hand in what her kids are reading. What do you make of that?

ANGELA WYNN: I think it's fine. If a parent wants to control what their child is reading, is learning, that's totally fine. But it's not their right to control what other students are reading or learning in school.

MG: What is this really about, do you think?

ANGELA WYNN: Well, it's about creating compliancy. It's about creating complacency in schools. We don't... We're not giving our children the tools to go out into the world. We are not giving them a reason. We're not challenging them. In the end, it's definitely... they think it's fighting the woke agenda. It's... The Stop Woke Act that's here in Florida right now is controlling diversity training. It's saying that anything that causes discomfort is not allowed to be taught in schools.

MG: And so at the heart of that, again, when you go back to that issue of social emotional learning, when you're talking about empathy in a textbook, when you're talking about allowing kids, as you said, to see themselves in a book, that they may get from the library. At its heart what do you think this is really about?

ANGELA WYNN: Well, here in Florida, we believe it's just a smoke and mirrors in the end. The government, not the government. I'm sorry. The politicians here in Florida are creating a problem that doesn't exist. They're a hammer without a nail. They are creating a distraction from their agenda. It's causing... It's causing communities to fight against one another. It's turning parents against teachers. It's just creating chaos. That's the result.

MG: You have a ten year old?

ANGELA WYNN: I do. I do have a ten year old girl.

MG: What do you say to her about this and how does she react to it? She's aware of what's going on, I'm sure, in and around her schools. How does she react to this?

ANGELA WYNN: Well, we've had many conversations. We've talked about some of the books that have been banned and the reasons. And she... We talked about creating discomfort. We've read books intentionally to get her opinion, to just ask her, how does it make you feel? How does it make you feel that your teachers or the politicians that are making these laws don't want you to learn about this? Do you feel bad? Do you feel... Do you feel like you shouldn't feel discomfort? And she says... She says no. She wants to know about how her classmates feel. She wants to know about what they went through. Even if it causes her discomfort. She wants to know so that she can protect her friends. She's very... We've been having this conversation since she was really, really little. So to her, she just can't wrap your mind around why anyone would want to say, you can't read this, you can't experience this.

MG: What are you hoping... You have a forum, a public forum that's happening next week. What are you hoping to achieve there? In the face of this and in the face of, as you said, the anti... So-called anti-woke legislation, the so-called don't say gay bill in Florida. What are you hoping to achieve?

ANGELA WYNN: Well, it's fighting censorship in our community. And don't say gay, stop woke acts, the book banning they all go together. One is the mechanism, the other is the reason. And what we're trying to accomplish at this forum, we're going to have speakers, we're going to have a panel. We want the community to get together. We want the community to bat around ideas on how we can fight censorship in our community. What can we do as parents? What can we do as community members to go out and say, No, we refuse to allow you to control what our kids are learning. School and education isn't to.... It isn't to teach kids what parents want them to learn. It's to teach them what society needs them to learn. And we need to come together as a community. We need to band together so we can fight this.

MG: Angela Wynn, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

ANGELA WYNN: That's my pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

MG: Angela Wynn is a co-founder of Support Our Schools. She was in Sarasota, Florida. Jonathan Zimmerman has tracked the long history of book bans in the United States. He's a professor of the history of education at the University of Pennsylvania. Jonathan, good morning to you.

JONATHAN ZIMMERMAN: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MG: Thanks for being here. This isn't the first time, obviously, that we've seen books banned in the United States, but there is new energy to this. I'll ask you the same question that I asked Angela. What is this really about? Why is this happening now, do you think?

JONATHAN ZIMMERMAN: I think what it's about is the radical polarisation of the United States. That's the first thing. The fact that lots of people have lost faith in their public institutions. And in this case, in their schools and their teachers. You know, some of the books that are being banned do address really sensitive topics, I don't think anybody that's serious denies that. But if you want to remove them from the curriculum, really what you're saying is you don't think the teacher is equipped to deal with that sensitivity. And I think that represents kind of a radical distrust and a radical cynicism about our schools and our teachers.

MG: How does this compare to similar movements in the past?

JONATHAN ZIMMERMAN: Well, look, the United States has always had locally controlled schools, and it's always had popular movements to try to influence or control or censor what schools are taught. In the history curriculum, in the science curriculum. But one thing I'd like your listeners to know is that some of those movements came from the left, and I would argue they had hugely salutary consequences. So think about the history curriculum in the United States. So up until the 1960s, I was born in the very early 1960s. Most history textbooks in the United States portrayed slavery as mostly a benefits an institution developed by white people to civilize savage Africans. Now, they don't depict slavery that way anymore. Why not? It's not because historians had a come to Jesus moment, because historians were producing all the falsehoods that I just described. The reason is the NAACP and the Urban League created textbook committees that actually went into schools and into school boards to fight those awful interpretations and ultimately to change them. So, you know, I think in a moment like this, when there does seem to be so much, I will say bad faith pressure on the schools from some very bad actors. I think it's also important for us to realize that pressure on the schools can take many different forms. And frankly, I want to applaud the prior speaker for trying to add her voice to that, which I think is exactly the right call. The right response. The wrong response is the one we saw in Virginia from Terry McAuliffe, which is parents should just butt out of schools. That's going to be a loser in the United States for many reasons. But the big reason, I would argue, is it denies that kind of history I was just describing where parents actually intervened. I'll just say, you know, on the side of racial justice.

MG: When it comes to issues of race, I mean, there are a lot of parents who are fighting to have certain books banned that deal with race in America. You think of the 1619 project and the work that was done by The New York Times, first as an article, then as a larger book. Take a listen to this parent at a recent school meeting in Virginia.

VIRGINIA PARENT: I will do everything I possibly can to fight to the bitter end. Until you prove to me that you are not teaching my children that they are racist just because they're white.

MG: So many of the books banned have to do with gender or identity or being Black in America. What do you... What goes through your mind when you hear that parent say that he's afraid that some books are just teaching his kids that they're racist because they're white?

JONATHAN ZIMMERMAN: Well, you know, I think that what the parent is correctly perceiving is that some of these interpretations do represent a fundamental challenge to the way that many people have thought about America. Let me be clear. The parent is wrong that the 1619 project teaches racial hate or teaches white people to hate themselves. But I think beneath the parents comment is a correct perception that the 1619 project does represent a fundamental challenge to lots of small p, progessive stories about the United States and how it's always improving. And, you know, the arc of justice is long. It bends towards, you know, the arc of history is long, bends toward justice and so on. I think he's correct in that. Now, the difference between he and I, I think that's a good challenge. And I think what we should be doing is pairing that challenge with the traditional interpretation. So if I were king and we don't have enough time this morning to explain why that will never happen, what would happen in the classrooms of that gentleman and everywhere else is that the teacher would present the 1619 project and the state approved textbook. And we'd say, okay, like let's compare and contrast. Let's start with Columbus. What do we say about that phenomenon, about, quote, discovery? Which interpretation do you think is, quote, better? What would that mean? Now, the really hard question that nobody wants to answer right now in the United States is who exactly wants when I just described. I do. But I rather doubt the gentleman that you just quoted does. And I would add further how many advocates for the 1619 project do? I ask that as an empirical question because I don't know the answer, but I think this is a hugely teachable moment if we have the courage to actually present and as such to our kids. And when I say a teachable moment, what I mean is Americans are disagreeing fundamentally about the past and even the meaning of their nation. That's not an opinion. That's a fact. And we can document it. The only question is, are we willing to admit it when the kids are in the room?

MG: You're in the year of midterm elections. And already, as I said, it's not just 1619 project, maths textbooks are now being seen as political footballs as well. How do you see this as an extension of the larger kind of culture wars that are happening right now in your country?

JONATHAN ZIMMERMAN: Well, you know, I think that, you know, the reason it's an extension is that... And the reason the culture wars are different is we're now actually arguing about the narrative of America. So, you know, most of the battles we've fought about these subjects, if you're talking about history now, have been about this thing called inclusion. Right. Who should be part of the story? Right. So, again, if you open up textbooks before the 1960s, they were almost all about white men. Now they're not, right? Anyone who says they are just hasn't looked at them. Right. This is why they're 800 pages long. Right. If you want to know about baisakhi Americans, there's a sidebar about them. And there are great heroines and heroes. But I think up until very recently, the theme of the book has remained the same. You know, Quest for Liberty, Rise of the American Nation. And all of these formerly excluded groups were really folded into that same upbeat story. I think what's new about right now is that the story itself is being contested. And I think, again, that's a much more fundamental challenge, and that's what we're all experiencing.

MG: And that goes back to what I asked earlier at the very beginning, which is what this is about. In some ways, you see that as... or it's being framed as a threat to the narrative....

JONATHAN ZIMMERMAN: Yes and again, in fairness to the gentleman that you quoted there, it is a kind of threat. Again, I think he was misrepresenting in some ways the threat. But depending on how you're defining that term, it is a challenge, it is a threat to the idea that America was, for example, born in liberty and has always symbolized freedom. Look at the title, The 1619 Project. Right. It is suggesting something else. The gentleman is right about that.

MG: Just before I let you go, I mean, as more state lawmakers look to ban more books, what are you going to be watching for?

JONATHAN ZIMMERMAN: I'm going to be watching for activists like the person that you just had on, because I think that is the answer. John Dewey said the solution to the problem of democracy is more democracy. So, you know, if you are outraged like I am about these book bans, do not take the Terry McAuliffe path and say, you know, parents should just butt out and let's leave this to the experts and the teachers. I think that's a loser politically. And I'd even go so far as to say it's a loser morally. You know, I think the answer is precisely what you just heard in the prior speaker, which is, hey, you don't like this. You, too, are a citizen. You, too, are a taxpayer. You too have rights, you're a parent. Get out there. Raise your voice on behalf of freedom. If you don't like censorship, don't tell people not to censor. Raise your voice on behalf of freedom.

MG: Jonathan, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

JONATHAN ZIMMERMAN: Thanks for having me.

MG: Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania. He was in Philadelphia. Michelle Arbuckle is co-chair of the Freedom of Expression Committee and director of member engagement and education at the Ontario Library Association. Michelle, good morning to you.

MICHELLE ARBUCKLE: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MG: You listened to what's happening in the United States. How does that compare to what happens here in this country when it comes to Canada's history of banning books?

MICHELLE ARBUCKLE: Yeah, it's a really good question. And I mean, you know, it's good to think about this because often what happens with American culture is we do get consumed by it as Canadians and we get a little bit blindsided and not quite sure what's happening in our own backyard. So, you know, it is quite different what's happening here in Canada. We have a national organization that tracks challenges to books and I should pause for a second and explain. We actually don't call, we don't use the word banned in Canada, so we don't ban books and we don't have banned books week like they do in the States. We have freedom to read week here. And we celebrate the books that we can read and we discuss, you know, intellectual freedom and why it's important. We have challenges in Canada and so we track when a book has been challenged, when someone goes to a library and says, I don't think this should be here or why is this here? Or maybe it should be in a different place. Why is my child reading this, that kind of thing? So between 2019 and 2020, we recorded 45 challenges across Canada. So, you know, that's quite different from what's happening in the States. I think that there's a little bit less, you know, manufactured controversy at the political level. And the reasons that things are being challenged are quite different.

MG: What are some of the books that people might recognize that have been challenged?

MICHELLE ARBUCKLE: Oh, sure, there's quite a few of them. I mean, as your previous guests noted, you know, Margaret Atwood is on there, Mordecai Richler's, Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. More recently, there are books like Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki's This One Summer, which is a beautiful graphic novel. You know, there are many, many books, but books that are challenged for different reasons. So there was a book in B.C. Bedtime for Frances, which many of you may remember from your childhood, was challenged because it shows the character, the little bear, being spanked, and the parent didn't want their child to see that. You know, books about Scientology were challenged in Nova Scotia because the person thought that it encouraged people to join a cult. And so, you know, these books are challenged for many different reasons. And normally what will happen is the library and the library staff will then tell the person, you know, here's the policy around this, here's why we have it in the library. And here's the process you can go through if you want to challenge this book more formally, and then it takes different paths from there.

MG: Listeners may have heard of the recent controversy around David A. Robertson's book, The Great Bear. This book was under review. The belief was from some that it could be harmful to indigenous students. He is indigenous himself. He was confused by what was unfolding. The book is now back on shelves at the Durham District Libraries. What does that tell you? How convoluted that is. What does that tell you about how fraught this issue is, the issue of challenges and the importance of context in those challenges?

MICHELLE ARBUCKLE: Well, I think what's really interesting and important about that scenario is the process. You know, and I'm heartwarming... It's heartwarming to see, you know, the parents, the students, people who rose up to say, no, this will not be removed. My child will be reading this or, you know, I will be reading this as a parent. But what's important and what I think got people really upset was that the process was kind of kept secret and the books were removed. There was a message sent out, from what I understand. And the books were just removed without any due process. And that's not typically how this happens. So when a challenge occurs in a library, there's a discussion, there's a review. But while that's happening, the book is still available to the community that wants to read it. So that's what happened a little bit differently in that scenario. From my understanding.

MG: Some of these subjects can be challenging in and of themselves, which is in part why, you know, the book may have been written to try and explore those difficult subjects. What is at stake if limits are placed on libraries, in schools but also public libraries, and if people in authority can dictate what's read and what isn't?

MICHELLE ARBUCKLE: Oh. I mean, the very first steps of fascism are to undermine our education system and to, you know, put some doubt in our teachers and the processes and the books that we read and intellectual freedom. This is part of freedom to read. I mean, the very essence of participating and being part of a democratic society is intellectual freedom. The person you just quoted from West Virginia who was able to go and say, I don't believe this should be taught, was able to say that because of intellectual freedom. So, you know, we want to encourage people to engage in these conversations and to make their opinions heard and to go to their teachers and their libraries when they're questioning a certain book and, you know, its place in the curriculum or how their student, their child might have access to it. But that doesn't mean they get to choose when someone else gets to have access or to read that book.

MG: Just before I let you go, as you mentioned, we watch what's happening in the United States because it's a large country and it absorbs a lot of oxygen. Do you worry that the politicisation of those reading lists that we see there could creep across the border?

MICHELLE ARBUCKLE: Well, I worry that people tend to oversimplify things. So we see a headline, we see the clickbait, we see... I mean, these stories are truly troubling and terrible. And it seems that what's happening is not just the questioning of books, but the very questioning of human lives and, you know, the importance that they play in society or their existence. And so I think it's important for people not to oversimplify things, not to fall for the clickbait, but to read the books. I'm heartworm to see groups of people and students who have created subversive book clubs where they're actually seeking out these books that have been challenged and reading them for themselves and figuring out, you know, what was the reasoning behind this and what do I think about that? Read the books, make up your own minds and see what you think about these challenges.

MG: Michelle, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

MICHELLE ARBUCKLE: Thanks so much. It's been a pleasure.

MG: Michelle Arbuckle is co-chair of the Freedom of Expression Committee and Director of Member Engagement and Education at the Ontario Library Association. She was in Toronto. Well, coming up after your regional update.

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Never again should not just be about no Holocaust against the Jews. Never again should be no war, no racism, no genocide. Of course, again is happening all around us right now. As I'm talking to you.

MG: Marsha Lederman is the child of two Holocaust survivors and she's been thinking about what that has meant for most of her life. In 90 seconds, our conversation about her family history and that idea of never again. I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current. Back in a minute. Stay with us.

A new memoir on the intergenerational trauma that affects children of Holocaust survivors

Guest: Marsha Lederman

MG: Hi. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

ELIE WIESEL: SOUNDCLIP: [When we say never again. What does it mean? Never again. I believe firmly and profoundly that anyone who listens to a witness becomes a witness. So those who hear us. Those who read us. Those learn something from us. They will continue to bear witness for us until now they are doing it with us. At a certain point in time they will do it for all of us.

MG: That's the late Nobel Peace Prize winner and Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel. In many ways, it is the children of Holocaust survivors who are now left to bear witness. Both of Marsha Lederman's parents were survivors of the Holocaust. Marsha is the Western arts correspondent for the Globe and Mail and the author of the book Kiss the Red Stairs: the Holocaust, Once Removed. The book comes out tomorrow. Marsha Lederman joins me today. Marcia, good morning.

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Good morning, Matt. Oh, it's so good to hear Elie Wiesel's voice, although that made me really emotional hearing what he just said.

MG: He talks in that clip about never again and what it means when we say never again. You've thought about this a lot. What does that mean to you?

MARSHA LEDERMAN: When I was a kid and I heard this expression Never again, meaning we will never accept a holocaust again. What it said to me was, if we had to pronounce never again, perhaps there was a possibility that an again could happen. And if again happened, I would be the victim. So it became a very important and terrifying pronouncement, which I continue to make. Never again should not just be about no Holocaust against the Jews. Never again should be no war, no racism, no genocide. And it should apply and does apply to all peoples. Of course, again is happening all around us right now as I'm talking to you. And that is extremely distressing to me.

MG: The Holocaust and this is what this book is about in many ways, the Holocaust is a shadow over your family. From your parents, your grandparents, to yourself and your young son that you write about as well. When you were growing up, when did you realize that your family was different from other families?

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Well, as a kid, you know, you only know what you know. You only know what you experience. So my house was the way it was, and I thought that was the way all houses were. But when I was five years old, I made my first real friend and started spending time at her house. And it was very different from mine. It was alive. It was fun. There were jokes, there was like beautiful chaos. And my house was not like that. My house felt very quiet and I'll say almost dead. She also had something that I didn't have, and that was a grandmother and grandfather. She had grandparents, and this was something I didn't have. And I came home one day from being at her house and asked my mom, Why don't I have any grandparents? Because I really liked these grandparents. They would come in, they'd swoop in, they'd be all warmth and hugs. And they were lovely. And my mother's answer, at least as I remember it, because I know that memory is so faulty. Her answer to me was, You don't have grandparents because the Germans hated Jews and they killed Jews by putting them in gas showers. And that's what happened to your grandparents.

MG: When you were five years old when you learned that.

MARSHA LEDERMAN: I was five years old, sitting at my kitchen table in the Toronto neighbourhood of Bathurst Manor. I'll never forget it.

MG: How did you... I mean, in that moment, how do you absorb that information?

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Well, I was thinking, gas showers, how does that work exactly? You know, I was picturing that the shower in our family bathroom and thinking like, does gas come out of the spout? Is that what kills you? Does it burn you? Like, how does that kill you? And also, who were these Germans and what had we done to them that had made them so mad at us? And were they still mad at us? Was there still this threat of the gas shower? So those were all the thoughts I recall having. I didn't say any of this out loud. And in fact, that answer kind of shut down discussion for me about this terrible event that I had been somewhat aware of, but not really understanding the details of.

MG: How did you learn about the Holocaust as a child?

MARSHA LEDERMAN: So I really learned about it through osmosis. In many ways, my parents. There were always references to being in camp and I didn't know what that meant. But I knew that it wasn't like the day camp that I went to as a kid. There were references to not having any food. There were references to... I knew my mother had had her head shaved at a place called Auschwitz. I knew that my father had been hiding in a haystack. I knew that he had lived on a farm pretending to be someone else. But I didn't know how it all connected. And I also knew that my grandparents had been killed in this terrible event. And then I was in grade two, so seven years old at Hebrew school. I would go to Hebrew school three times a week, like part time after public school. And there was a day when they brought us all down, the whole school, into the basement. There was a big movie projector set up, and we saw this film. I don't recall any preparation or trigger warning, as we would say today at all for this. But again, maybe I just don't remember. But what I do remember is the footage that we saw and it was naked bodies, corpses being pushed into a pit by a bulldozer. And I looked at that and I remember thinking, one of those women could be... could have been my grandmother. And I was really shaken by that. So that was a sort of horrific kind of illustration of what had been going around in my mind, things I sort of knew about.

MG: As you mentioned, you knew some of that sort of in terms of what had happened to your parents. In the book you tell the extraordinary story of your father's escape. What happened? How did he get out?

MARSHA LEDERMAN: It is an extraordinary story, the kind of story that you would think was made up if, you know, it didn't happen to my father. He was working as a forced labourer in the ghetto in [inaudible] . And one day an announcement was made that, you know, they had to... there were too many people, too many workers. So every 10th person was going to die, was going to be killed. And they counted to ten and ten and ten. And one of those ten people was my father. And he quickly took a guard aside and said, I have something for you. I have a gold watch. I have other jewels hidden away. I will give them to you if you let me live. And the guard, like, quickly, you know, put him away somewhere. And my father was in hiding in this room. I've always pictured. I don't know where he was exactly. And he could hear the shots. He heard these executions. One of those bullets had been meant for his head. And at the end of a very long day, because I think this guard probably didn't want the other people to know what he was, you know, this deal he had concocted. He went and got my father. My father did give him the gold watch that he somehow had with him. And the guard instructed him to go get the other jewels and bring them back the next day. My father did go get those jewels. I believe they were hidden at their home in the ghetto. I use the term home lightly. And he, instead of going back to the guard, he went to the home of a Polish official that he had heard was giving out false papers for a price, I guess. And my father went to that home, knocked on the door, which is incredible to me. You know, the gonads to do this. And the officer's wife answered, the officer wasn't home, but she told him to come in, which is amazing. And they waited. The officer came home. My father made his pitch. Showed him the valuables. And the officer said, no, he wasn't going to do it. But then his wife, this woman who was the reason I'm alive, said, no, you have to. You have to give this man. His papers. And he did. He gave my father the papers. He gave him a new name, a new identity. And my father took those papers. Got on a train to Germany from Poland in Germany, got off and got himself a job as a labourer on a farm, and he lived there for two and a half years in disguise as a Polish Catholic man named Tudyk Rudnicki.

MG: It's an unbelievable story. It is... It is absolutely incredible.

MARSHA LEDERMAN: It is so incredible. And here's another catch to this. I sent the manuscript of my book to my sisters. My two sisters are much older than I am, and they remember a lot more than I do. And one of their husbands read that story, and he said, That's not what your father told me. And he told me a different story that my father had told him. But this story, my sisters and I all heard with the gold watch and the bribe, and I'm going to stick with that. But here's the thing. When you don't ask the questions, you will never have the answers for sure. And that is something that I am haunted by.

MG: You really. Are hard on yourself in this book as a journalist for not asking the questions of your parents about what they went through. Tell me a bit more about that and the regrets that you have.

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Oh, the regrets could fill a book. Well, I guess they did. My father died very unexpectedly. I was 18 years old. I'd just turned 18 and he was on a trip to Sweden and he had a heart attack and died. So I sort of, you know, can forgive myself a bit for not having asked him. I was a teenager. I was caught up in teenage things and didn't really think about asking him those questions. My mother, however, you know, she lived until I was 39 and I had plenty of opportunity to ask her more. And I did ask her. I did ask her. A lot. But I never sat down and sort of got the story from start to finish hers and my father's. And in fact, I was working at the CBC at the time, and my mother was in Florida for a holiday. And I talked to her and she sounded really sad. And I decided, you know what, I'm going to go down to Florida, I'm going to book some time off. I'm going to go sit down with her. I'm going to bring my tape recorder and I'm going to get the whole story. Her's, her sisters, her husband's, my father's. And I booked the trip and... She died that night. I never got to go and I never got that story. So I have been spending years since then researching the lives of my parents. How crazy is that?

MG: How did the Holocaust play out in the years that they lived their lives here in Canada? How did it shape their lives? How did it shadow their lives?

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Oh, it was everywhere. It was. It was all around us, even if it wasn't really spoken about in detail. Little, like I say, little bits and pieces would come out in stories. And their whole lives were really shaped around this. They didn't have much family, but all of their friends were also Holocaust survivors. So our house was filled with all of these people who had survived this horrible thing. And, you know, you wouldn't know it. No one talked about how traumatised they were. In fact, these people were so full of life, it was extraordinary. But it was very much central to our life what had happened back home, meaning Poland and Germany.

MG: You mentioned how much you wish you were able to ask your father questions about what he went through. You were able, as you said, to have some of those conversations with your mother. And some of those conversations happened on a trip to Poland that you took with her. Tell me about making that trip. Why did you do that?

MARSHA LEDERMAN: So there's something called the March of the Living, where high school and university students, Jewish students, I think mostly... From all over the world, go to Poland. And on Yom Hashoah, which is Holocaust Remembrance Day, they march from Auschwitz to Birkenau. And they started having these parallel tours where adults could go. And we decided that we would go. My mother, my sisters and first cousin and I all went in 1998. And let me tell you, it was devastating being at all of these places. We went to Majdanek, a concentration camp that looks like you could flip a switch and it could be up and running tomorrow. We went to Treblinka, which is the place where all of my grandparents were murdered, as well as my mother's baby brother and my father's little brother and big sister and so many other people. And we went to Auschwitz, where my mother had been imprisoned for three months in 1944. And being in that place with her was shattering for me. It was so hard to be there with her and think of her being a 19 year old girl living in that circumstance. It was... It was too much for me. I couldn't even handle it. We were looking, we were touring, trying to find her barrack where she had been sleeping when she was there. And we couldn't find it. We just went into another one and I think they're all pretty similar. And I absolutely couldn't stand to be there. I had to leave. And I feel now like I failed her. I wasn't there for her. And I... And I should have been.

MG: How did their trauma become your trauma in your life? You are, as you refer to yourself, a 2G. What is a 2G?

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Second generation. So that's kind of the lingo that we use in the Holocaust world. And, you know, there's even talk now with 3Gs and 4Gs and how this sort of trauma is being inherited down through the generations. For me, I was brought up in a household that was, as I say, sad. I think. I was brought up without very much family, no grandparents. I did have an aunt who survived Auschwitz with my mother, actually, quite miraculously. But really, I felt like it permeated in a number of ways. It made my... I'm sure it made my parents anxious. I'm anxious. My mother was always very suspicious. I'm suspicious. I'm always sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm waiting for a good day to become a bad day because things don't turn out well for us. And that, you know, that has coloured my life in many ways. And I'm working on it. I don't want to be defined by a victim mentality, but I feel like in many ways I have been.

MG: You say in the book that the state of victimhood is where I live.

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Oh. It is. I'm constantly looking for ways that people have wronged me. I am constantly feeling like, you know, the the victim of some unjust act, whether it's a parking ticket or, you know, the fact that I live in this very expensive city and can barely get by because I'm in Vancouver, you know, I can turn anything, I can twist and turn anything into a story of victimhood, but I really am not comfortable with that anymore. I'm really working on not feeling that way anymore.

MG: What does that term intergenerational trauma mean to you? It's a term that we hear increasingly now.

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Yeah.

MG: From your perspective, what does that mean? And you've hinted at this, but how has that played out in your life?

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Well, I mean, the thinking is and there have been clinical and scientific studies about this, that a trauma that is experienced by a person can be passed down in some way to their offspring. And I think when these studies were starting to happen and in fact, Canada was... There was researchers in Canada who were sort of the pioneers in this area. It was thought to be nurture, like our parents were so affected by the trauma that they experienced that we couldn't help but be affected in some way, too. But in the last few years, more and more studies are looking into this possibility that maybe this is actually transmitted in some way biologically, that it's not just that my upbringing was infected by this trauma, but that there's something going on at the cellular level, too. And that was very interesting to me because in many ways that let my parents off the hook, like maybe their parenting wasn't perfect, but they couldn't help it, their genes were doing something to me.

MG: Is that universally accepted, that idea that there's something genetic that's happening?

MARSHA LEDERMAN: It's not. It's still... It's a very young field. It's developing. But around 2015, when I started really doing this work. One study in particular came out by a researcher in the U.S. whose name is Rachel Yehuda, and it really caused a splash. And there were headlines everywhere. You know, descendants of Holocaust survivors have altered stress hormones. Their... The traumatic experience of parents may hurt their offspring's ability to bounce back from trauma. And I was reading these studies or this study in particular, but there have been many others. And it started to make sense to me that something happened to my parents, that there was a trauma that left some sort of chemical mark on their genes, and that this mark or marker was passed on to me and to my sisters.

MG: Part of the framing of this book and part of the way that that trauma unfolds is you talking about your family and your parents and your grandparents, but also talking about what's happening in your own immediate family and the end of a marriage. Tell me a little bit. I mean, as much as you're willing to say about what was going on in your own life as you were doing this work.

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Yes. So my marriage was ending and I was in a very bad state. And I started, you know, as one does, I thought I'll read about the Holocaust, you know, as things are already awful in my life. But I was seeking a number of things. I was... I missed my parents. Like I really missed having someone there, someone who could wrap their arms around me and say everything's going to be okay. I didn't have that. So in the absence of that, I thought maybe I'll just try and learn as much as I can about what their lives were like and keep them alive in my day to day by reading about this and doing this research. So there was that. There was also this weird perspective like, okay, things are bad. Your marriage is ending. But hey, it's not the Holocaust, it's not Auschwitz, which is... I know that sounds crazy to you, but I've heard other people who are like me, other 2Gs have that sort of way of thinking. And then the third thing was these studies were coming out at that time, and I wondered, was I having a harder time getting over this because of what happened to my parents? Or worse, did I cause this because I was so messed up by what had happened to my parents?

MG: What do you mean? Did you cause it? I mean you jokingly, but not jokingly, but jokingly sort of say in the book, had Hitler ruined my marriage? What do you mean, had you caused this?

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Well, like I say, you know, my mother was suspicious. I'm suspicious. I'm anxious. I'm always you know... I'm a huge pessimist. I'm very skeptical. I'm cynical. I'm like, that doesn't sound like a really fun person to live with, does it? So I wondered if I was, you know, from the get go ruined by what had happened to my parents. And that made me an impossible person to live with.

MG: Do you worry about... When you talk about that idea of intergenerational trauma and inherited trauma? Do you worry about the effect that this might have on your son?

MARSHA LEDERMAN: All the time. I am so worried about that. And you know, how could I stop it? I don't know. But one of the things that has come very... become very clear to me through this whole process of really thinking deeply about it, is that if I inherited the trauma that my parents experienced or, you know, of some of it... A very small... to a very small extent, then I also inherited other things. I inherited their resilience because they, you know, through luck and circumstance and their actions and, you know, a whole bunch of things that the universe threw together. They survived this horror when most people did not. So. There is some strength of character in them from having accomplished that. I'm not saying that the people who didn't survive weren't strong. I mean, it was just, as I say, it was luck and circumstance. But they... Beyond that, they built lives again. They got married. They had kids. They moved to a country where they didn't speak the language. They bought a house, they got jobs. They started again. And that is such evidence of great resilience. And I hope that along with anything else I've inherited from them. And that my son has inherited from me, that we have inherited some of that resilience.

MG: There's a lot of the book that's really funny as well.

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Yes. Thank you.

MG: Not to make it sound like it's all... There's a lot of heaviness, too, but there are moments where you just laugh out loud as you read it.

MARSHA LEDERMAN: It's not a comedy. You're not going to find it in the humour section of your local bookstore. But I, you know, I think the book is very much a reflection of who I am. So I'm neurotic and sad and angry and, you know, curious, but I'm also funny. So I think the book is those things, too. It's like a pure reflection of who I am. It's not that I'm making light of the Holocaust in any way. Of course not. But it is using humour as a lens at times. Like it's a respite for me. It always has been and it has been for my people. Like there's been a lot of persecution in the, in the history of the Jews. And we're also pretty funny, some of us.

MG: Marsha, it's great to talk to you. Thanks again.

MARSHA LEDERMAN: Thank you so much, Matt.

MG: Masha Lederman's book, Kiss the Red Stairs, the Holocaust, Once Removed, comes out tomorrow. That is The Current for this Monday. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, it's Q. Before we go, we wanted to acknowledge the death of someone who had a role in shaping some of the things you hear today on your CBC Radio. Andrew Simon was a longtime producer at the CBC. Andrew Simon is also the father of longtime producer on The Current Cathy Simon, and he died last week. He lived an extraordinary life. This is just one paragraph from his obituary. I wanted to read this to you. "Andrew survived the Holocaust thanks to a series of miraculous events, including finding shelter in Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz's Glass House with his parents. They emigrated to Canada after a daring escape from Hungary in 1950. He embraced life in Canada, the best country in the world, and took great pride in his career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Starting as a tour guide, he went on to report, produce and manage. On assignment, he impersonated singer Tom Jones and was nearly ripped apart by crazed fans. He nearly enticed Leonard Cohen to host a news program rather than pursue his artistic aspirations. He produced interviews with an incredible range of people, from Hugh Hefner to Indira Gandhi. He created Canada's first open line radio program, Cross Country Checkup. Under his leadership, CBC-TV Calgary catapulted to number one in the market. He was head of Radio Canada International. His family knew to be quiet during newscasts, and the National Research Times signal". Our condolences to friends and colleagues, including our friend and colleague Cathy Simon and Andrew Simon's friends and family. Andrew Simon died last week. What a legacy. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

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Monday May 2, 2022 Full Text Transcript

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