Read the Story
When my grandfather was a little boy, he saved the nickels that his parents gave him for ice cream until he had a bag full – two dollars, which was a fortune. Then he got on his bicycle and rode 13 miles to an airfield near his home in St. Louis, Missouri, and traded his treasure for a 10-minute flight in an airplane.
My grandfather’s parents came to the United States from Eastern Europe. They fled their village to escape ethnic and religious persecution. Because his parents lost many members of their family to a pogrom my grandfather, Norman, grew up in environment of worry and grief. But, at age 11, all my grandfather wanted was to fly. Flight expressed his fascination with geography, his hope of visiting far-away places, and his aspiration to help create a new form of transportation for the modern age. His dream elevated him above the family memories of violent death, above the difficult times, above his parents' fear.
Seventy years later, my grandpa told this story to my father. I recently rediscovered the tapes from these interviews. As I listened to my grandfather talk about his childhood hopes, I decided to tell the story of the child of refugees who grew up able to have new dreams. My grandfather volunteered for the Army Air Corps at the start of World War II. Afterward he became an aeronautical engineer and helped design aircraft that were vital to America's defense.
The short film telling this story will be a dialogue between Yiddish and English, between the culture of Jewish Eastern Europe and the America that became the family’s refuge. It will preserve a moment in the immigrant experience that will have powerful resonance today.
This is a story about parents and children: how trauma never leaves a family, and how hope and resilience is also passed down. It asks the question: Can a new generation look at the world with wonder rather than fear?