Sanford Oscar Hess Birth Announcement, 1925

Posted by Convivial in Blog, Hess Family

 

Today Private Sandy Hess, my father, would be 87 years old, if he were still living on earth. He’s been gone for almost 23 years now. So much has happened in space exploration since 1946 when he was assigned to ‘Project Paperclip’ and worked on the V2 Project at Fort Bliss & White Sands Missile Range. This week’s successful Space X launch and the development of the Spaceport in New Mexico is a huge leap from the V2 rockets he watched being tested when he was a 21 year old kid.

 

Discovering the letters he wrote home to his parents in NYC has been an incredible gift, and making this film is an amazing adventure for both Patricia and myself. I’m so happy that I get to tell this story about my father; both honoring him and celebrating what he always encouraged me to do- ask questions and pursue the truth. I hope that in making this film we’ll be able to make transparent alliances and realities that have been somewhat obscured through time and memory. The intersections of history and science, the Holocaust and Space Exploration, personal, familial and cultural truths come together in our documentary.

 

Sanford Oscar Hess may not be with us on earth, but he is alive and well in our hearts and minds. Though my father’s young grandsons Oscar and Jonathan never met him, they now have the opportunity to know young 21 year old Sandy through our film. Private Sandy’s spirit is with us today, guiding us in making this documentary. On the big screen he’ll live well past his 64 years here.

 

Peace and Love, Daughter/Filmmaker, Melinda Hess

My Grandmother’s Cookie Jar

Posted by Convivial in Blog

 

I have a cookie jar story to share that connects the present with the past. On a bitter cold day in December, 2010 I revisited my grandparent’s old neighborhood in Washington Heights- a formerly German Jewish neighborhood in NYC. I hadn’t been there in over 30 years- not since my grandmother Lillian, in her early 90’s, died in the late 1970’s. Armed with a brand new Nikon DSLR camera, my partner and I ventured uptown, looking for 709 W 176^th St.

 

We were searching for the apartment building where my father Sanford grew up, the address where he sent 40 letters in 1946 that is the subject of our documentary film, Letter From Cloudcroft. In 1946, my father, then a 21 year old Jewish engineer in the Army was one of the first engineers assigned to work with the captured German rocket scientists that had been secretly installed at Fort Bliss, in El Paso Texas. These men, including the renowned Wernher von Braun reassembled the German V2 missiles, initiating America’s dominance in the cold war and race to space. My father, writing frequently to his parents about his experiences addressed every letter to his home in Washington Heights. I was on a mission to see if the old building was still intact.

 

 

Much to my delight, we easily found the apartment building and it appeared much as I remembered it from my childhood. We managed to sneak inside and it was if my entire childhood appeared before me. The large entry way looked exactly as I remembered it, with the long row of mailboxes, black and white tiled floor, gold paint on the ceiling. I turned left from the foyer and began my ascent up the many stairs to the third floor where my grandparent’s apartment had been. Thirty years later, there was still no elevator service to the third floor. I labored up the flights of stairs taking in all the aromas of each landing, remembering how it smelled when I was a kid. After finding what had been their apartment I walked back downstairs to the lobby where I encountered a woman inquiring about why we were photographing the lobby.

 

We began a lively conversation as I explained that my father and grandparents had lived in the building and told her about the film we are making. As I showed her a film sequence on my iTouch, this 55 year old woman from the Dominican Republic shocked me as she shared her story of living in the building for over 30 years. She had known my grandmother briefly, remembered her as a solitary and somewhat stubborn 90 year old woman who walked with a cane and refused to move from her third floor walk up apartment. Theresa remembered that she had a son, a son who would visit her regularly and who, upon her death, allowed some neighbors to select items they might want from my grandmother’s apartment.

 

Theresa apparently selected one item- a large cookie jar from the 1940’s with a clown/pixie head. I couldn’t believe that Theresa knew Mama Lily, as I called her, let alone that she had an item that once belonged to her. Then, just as I was getting over my astonishment, Theresa asked if we’d like to see the cookie jar. This was not to be missed, so Patricia and I climbed the stairs again, this time to the second floor to Theresa’s apartment to look at her cookie jar. There it was, on top of a cabinet, smiling down on all of us. It was an extraordinary moment of synergy, connecting with a stranger and bridging the past and present. As we left the building, quite amazed at what we had discovered I asked my partner if by any chance she had been able to capture with the DSLR any of the interaction with Theresa. While we conversed I had noticed that Patricia was standing opposite us, holding the camera at her hip, angled slightly up towards the two of us. Without being intrusive and holding the camera to her eye as normally done, Patricia had miraculously captured this serendipitous encounter. We intend to return to 709 W. 176^th Street later this year, to film the apartment building and interview Theresa and other neighbors for our documentary. There might be other gems of connections to be discovered among old cookie jars.

Trek to Trinity

Posted by Convivial in Behind the Scenes, Blog, Documentary

Last weekend, a triad of historic, scientific and spiritually significant events occurred within three days. The religious holidays of Passover and Easter flanked the solemn occasion of the one day public opening in April of Trinity site, the “ground zero” for the testing of the Atomic Bomb. The test occurred on July 16, 1945 and turned the world upside down. The Trinity site is open for only two days a year, the first Saturday in April and the first Saturday in October. Some years, as in the case last weekend, the Saturday opening becomes part of a holy triangle.

 

Passover, the Jewish holiday that commemorates the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt has always been one of my favorite holidays. It celebrates the human spirit’s quest for liberation and justice. For me it is usually a restorative celebration, full of joy and the promise of renewal that springtime brings. And besides, the food is always delicious. This year, the holiday felt much more somber.  The morning after the first night of Passover, we ventured with some friends to Trinity. I’ve resisted going there for the almost 13 years we’ve lived in New Mexico. Why risk potential radiation exposure, why visit this site of death?  Answer to myself – for several reasons, mainly connected to the making of our documentary, we decided to make the pilgrimage this year, and quite the journey it was.

 

We rose very early Saturday morning in Alamogordo and drove to the Tularosa High School parking lot, where we waited for the police and military escort to take the large caravan of vehicles through the southern entry gate into White Sands Missile Range. The ride through the southern route was beautiful, wildflowers and cactus dotted the landscape, and the San Andres mountain range was the backdrop for the long, almost two hour drive. The landscape was vast and seemed to extend forever. Passing smaller side roads and other testing grounds, the police escort kept us moving forward to our destination-Trinity Site. Finally, we arrived to a sea of cars, school buses and motorcycles in a makeshift parking lot. On one side there was a line of portable bathrooms. On the other side, some food vendors and an official WSMR information booth and bookstore.

 

As I got out of the car I took in the sights and sounds, trying to get my bearing.  I immediately felt quiet, solemn, out of place. Passing by the vendors, we found our way to the wide dusty entry way between the chain link fences posted with yellow: Caution- Radioactive Materials signs – sober reminders of where we were. As we walked in a silence that seemed appropriate, I noticed the wide variety of people making the pilgrimage. Young, old, families, veterans, groups of school kids, Anglo, Hispanic, Native American. Some were dressed up in fancy clothes; most were dressed in weekend casual wear- shorts, sleeveless shirts, work-out clothes. So many had phones or cameras using them to record their adventure with, many were preoccupied with looking for remaining fragments of Trinitite – the radioactive green glassy substance the melted desert sand turned into, after the blast. Despite signs to not pick up any Trinitite, many folks, especially children were looking all the same.

 

As we approached the memorial Ground Zero obelisk build on the exact spot the Atomic Bomb was dropped from a 100 foot steel tower, I noticed that it stood alone, solitary in a vast field. On all sides of the memorial people were gathered taking pictures. Or rather, waiting turns to be photographed in front, or on a side of the obelisk. I stood and watched as one after another struck a pose for the camera. The eeriness of the place, the solemnity of the occasion, seemed to escape so many present that day. Patricia suggested we take a photo of me for the record. I felt awkward, it seemed so irreverent. So I took a deep breath, held my hands in prayer pose and made some prayers.

 

I kept wondering why all those people were there. I wanted to stop each person and ask them why they wanted to see Trinity. What were they hoping to see, to do, and to have happen? Were they smiling for a camera and making silent prayers in their hearts? Were they proud, or ashamed, angry or sad? Instead I watched.  As I walked past the monument to view the remnant of the footing from the 100 foot steel tower which vaporized from the heat of the blast, I couldn’t release a repetitive thought in my mind, “and they decided after seeing a steel tower vaporize from the power of the bomb that it was still fit as a weapon of war against human beings and property”.

 

Feeling sad and quite strange, I walked around the fenced in perimeter with hanging historic photos and radiation warning signs, meandering slowly out of the site.  As I walked out, a young family behind me was having a discussion. The father was explaining what I’ve heard so many defenders of the bomb say, “We weren’t trying to kill everyone, we just wanted to shock them into surrendering, and it worked”. Then the young daughter said, “It doesn’t make sense, it just seems like there should have been another way. Its just not right what happened”. Amen.

The Same Block House View – 65 Years Later

Posted by Convivial in Blog

Standing in the middle of the dark bunker lit only by the sunlight streaming through the wide open door and three odd shaped windows, I felt not alone, but surrounded by ghosts. Ghosts of the men- German rocket scientists, U.S. Army soldiers and engineers that stood in that room, over 65 years ago and watched V2 rockets rise up from a launch pad into the desert skies. Included in this group on several of these launches was my young 21 year old Jewish father, from the German Jewish neighborhood of Washington Heights.

 

As I peered out through the long narrow shaped window facing the area where a V2 would have stood waiting to be launched, I imagined my handsome, tanned father standing next to me. For the first time since reading his letter written on July 31, 1946, in which he described watching a V2 test launch, I could understand his excitement. I could sense what must have been both tension and exhilaration in that concrete bunker, built to withstand the impact of a rocket if a mishap occurred during a launch. Before today I attributed his enthusiasm to boyish joy and wonderment.  Today I stood in a dark room, experiencing history. I smelled it in that dusty concrete bunker still filled with instruments, analog equipment and communication and recording devices used during the rocket tests. It was rather extraordinary, experiencing on a deep, authentic level the many layers and complexities of history, politics, science, ethics and morality that our film’s story covers. Today, Private Sandy Hess’s story merged with mine in the desert of White Sands Missile Range.

First Orders Reveals Work With German Rocket Scientists

Posted by Convivial in Blog

 

 

 

Reaction to – Jewish Voice From Germany

Posted by Convivial in Blog

On the Jewish Voice From Germany Facebook Page wrote: “Thank you so much! Warm greetings from Berlin!”

I am utterly dismayed and surprised by my reaction to receiving an email that reads, “Warm greetings from Berlin.” I never thought I’d be excited or thrilled to see or hear those words from anyone German. But I am thrilled and excited to pursue this German-Jewish connection to our film, my family, and my identity. Things certainly didn’t start out this way.

 

When I first encountered the letters my father wrote in 1946 several years ago, I was still filled with all the anti- German sentiments that I had carried with me all my life. Instilled in me by my mother and the Russian Jewish cultural milieu I was raised in, I carried these anti- German feelings despite knowing intellectually that my attitude wasn’t quite “right or just.”

 

Quivering a bit when I heard German spoken, refusing to travel to Germany despite invitations from Jewish friends, and never having any real interest in my own German Jewish heritage I remained steadfastly anti-German. I would even say, you can’t blame younger generations for the crimes and misdeeds committed by the older generations, but in my heart, my feelings and behavior didn’t budge.

 

All this has changed as a result of working on our personal documentary, Letter From Cloudcroft. The journey I’ve been on, even before going to Germany, has made me examine my own beliefs and prejudices. It’s made me look into my own family’s dynamics to see where I turned against my paternal German Jewish heritage. Even though my family’s immigration to the United States predated Hitler’s regime, and were spared the atrocities of the Holocaust as best I know, it was the German part of the German Jewish I rejected.

 

But now I eagerly look forward to going to Germany, to the place I once vowed I’d never step foot in. I am excited to meet Germans from all ages and walks of life. Older Germans who might have participated in the Nazi regime, young Germans involved in reconciliation work, German Jews who returned to Germany after the war, Jews who have immigrated to Germany. I am ready to visit the sites where unimaginable horrors unfolded, to see with these American, Russian & German Jewish eyes what I have never wanted to witness. I am ready to be transformed, to integrate the parts of myself I have discarded, to be a witness to the old and new Germany and to the old and new German Jewish identity that is apparently blooming in my ancestral homeland.

 

I have no idea how this will affect me, whether I’ll be more German Jewish when its over or not. The desire to examine all these aspects that are both inside me and reflected outside in the culture, history and politics of Germany is an adventure of a lifetime, a journey that will be captured in our film, and recorded forever in my heart.

 

Here’s a translation in English about the Jewish Voice From Germany newspaper.

 

I invite you to continue on this journey with me as I discover my German:

 

Rockets & Ephemerals @ Prelinger Library

Posted by Convivial in Blog

Amazing research day with Rick and Megan Prelinger at The Prelinger Library. Just began our first dive into this incredible resource for our LETTER FROM CLOUDCROFT film. Used iPhone and iPhone application Scanner Pro for the images here. The stacks of books, periodicals, printed ephemera and government documents are an incredible resource tothe public and especially to filmmakers. The library is located in San Francisco. Find out more about he founders Rick and Megan Prelinger and their Goldies Lifetime Achievement. Check our Flickr photos from the visit.

Popped In On Tikva Records Pop-Up Store & Concert Series

Posted by Convivial in Blog, Documentary, NPR Stories

Amazing opportunity to stop in and to attend the opening of Tikva Records opening in San Francisco. Put on by the Idelsohn Society for Musical Preservation and really cool Jewish guys – David Katznelson and Jos Kun and their friends. This music collection is important to our documentary given its focus on American-Jewish voices in the aftermath of WWII.

The exhibit “Tikva In Technicolor” feature displays and information on the creative people behind the record label as well as the recording artists. We especially liked the interactive iPad remix traditional Jewish music with beats for a modern experience with timeless tracks. The Idelsohn Society Wiki is a treasure trove of Jewish music. Featured tracks are also available on the Idelsohn Society site. The LPs, black and white photos and little film theatre are all on display in this little Mission Street storefront.

With standing room only, the Live Score to Film ‘His Excellency’ (1928) by Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin and band was something to be experienced. The whole idea of the Pop-Up store, concert series holiday events is innovative, historic and way fun! Check out the December 2011 calendar of events. This pop-up experience only lasts a month!

Listen to the entertaining podcast of December 2011 Terry Gross interviewing Jos Kun on NPR’s Fresh Air special Reviving ‘Songs For The Jewish-American Jet Set.’

East Bay House Party Fundraiser

Posted by Convivial in Blog, Documentary, Fundraiser

On November 25th 2011 we will have our first public fundraiser for the LETTER FROM CLOUDCROFT documentary. Andrea Hess, the youngest daughter of Sanford O. Hess, and her husband Eric Rubin will host The East Bay House Party in Oakland, California. We are so appreciative for this opportunity to present the incredible story of Private Hess and to hear the comments and recommendations of our participants as they follow the narrative unfolding.

The Story

Posted by Convivial in Blog

In LETTER FROM CLOUDCROFT, a daughter uncovers the alliance between American and German rocket scientists in 1940′s New Mexico through her Jewish Father’s letters, discovered after his death. One still unopened 1946 letter from the Lodge at Cloudcroft begins a daughter’s personal journey tracking incidents and leads from the letters, interweaving multiple perspectives and time periods piecing together the complexities and controversies of personal history and collective memory.