Schwawrtz, Maya — One Holocaust Survivor’s Wonderful Thrill of Life

There are two kinds of Holocaust survivors:  Those who didn’t die yet could no longer experience pleasure and those who yearned to feel alive and were able to create anew.

In this edition of Radio Curious we visit with Maya Finkel Schwartz, born in France in 1932 to Jewish parents from Poland.  After being separated from her father at the beginning of World War Two, her mother had the foresight to introduce then seven year old Maya to as many social workers and nuns as her mother could locate.  It was these people who Maya credits with saving her life as they sheltered her in barns and convents.  She never saw her parents after the war.  As an older teen-ager she arrived in Los Angeles, California where she still lives after a decades long career teaching high-school, and later as a singer, as we shall hear.

The story of Maya Finkel Schwartz is one of 52 childhood accounts of the horrors perpetrated by Nazi Germany documented in the book “How We Survived:  52 Personal Stories by Child Survivors of the Holocaust.”  More information about this book is available at childsurvivorsla.org.

Maya Schwartz visited the studios of Radio Curious on April 20, 2012.  Maya shared her story and a song, accompanied by her son Michael Charnas.

Her theme is the “joy of life,” which is where we began our conversation.

The story of Maya Finkel Schwartz is found in the book she recommends.  She wrote one of 52 childhood accounts of the horrors perpetrated by Nazi Germany documented in the book “How We Survived:  52 Personal Stories by Child Survivors of the Holocaust.”

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Trimpin — Music and Thought: Pushing the Limits

Pushing limits in music and thought is the topic of this edition of Radio Curious as we visit with Trimpin, a man who makes music from unusual instruments.  He is the star of documentary film about his life’s work Trimpin, who uses a single word for his name received a Mac Arthur Genius Grant 1997.

He asserts that he is trying to “go beyond human physical limitations to play instruments in such a way that no matter how complex the composition or the timing, it can be pushed over the limits.”  The music, he said, starts with a sound in his head.  He then transforms that notion for us to hear.  The film Trimpin will be show at the Mendocino Film Festival the first weekend of June 2012, in Mendocino California.

I spoke with Trimpin from his studio in Seattle, Washington, on May 19, 2012, and asked him to comment on the characterization where he is described as a mad-scientist, a magician, or possibly a tour guide.

Rather than recommending a book, Trimpin said that he gave up reading sometime ago and replaced it with thinking.  He’d “rather think than read,” he said.

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Arlyck, Ralph — The Film Maker’s film: Following Sean… Technique and Life’s Stories

Sean, a four year old child living with his parents in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco in 1969 was the star of a short film about his life. He spoke openly his free-spirited parents, his crash pad home, watching cops bust head, and smoking pot.  Ralph Arlyck made the film while a student at San Francisco State University.

Thirty years later he located Sean and his family, and created the film Following Sean. Ralph Arlyck, our guest on this edition of Radio Curious has produced and directed more than a dozen prizewinning films.  Following Sean, is a film as much about Ralph Arlyck’s life as it is about Sean’s.  It will be shown at the Mendocino Film Festival, held in Mendocino, California, the first weekend of June, 2012, where Arlyck will receive the Albert Maysles Award for Excellence in Documentary Film Filmmaking.

Ralph Arlyck and I visited by phone from his home in Poughkeepsie, New York, on May 14, 2012, and began when I asked him how Following Sean also became a story of Arlyck’s own life.

The film Ralph Arlyck recommends is “Patience (After Sebald,)” a British Film by Grant Gee.

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Reuther, Sasha — The United Auto Workers Union: Its Effect on American Life

As we all know every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  The reaction, however is not necessarily equal in time or unity.  It’s often spread over time with serial impacts.

In this edition of Radio Curious we focus on the treatment of workers in the automobile industry in the United States beginning in the early years of the 20th century.  The story is portrayed in “Brothers on the Line,” a film about Walter, Ray and Victor Reuther, three brothers from West Virginia who organized the United Auto Workers Union beginning in the 1920s.  With access to the National Archives, the Wayne State University Labor History Library and family records, Sasha Reuther, Victor’s grandson, directed the film.  It chronicles the working conditions and the successful strikes at the big three auto plants in Michigan; the political power of the United Auto Workers Union, and its involvement in the civil rights movement.  It also explains why Detroit, Michigan became the richest city in the United States in the 1950s.

“Brothers On The Line” will be shown June 3, 2012 at the Mendocino Film Festival, in Mendocino, California.

Sasha Reuther and I visited by phone from his office in New York City on May 7, 2012.  We began when I asked him what happened once the automobile became a useful, if not necessary tool of life.

The book that Sasha Reuther recommends is “U.A.W. and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945 -1968,” by Kevin Boyle.

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