The Narratives That Last
Tomorrow I will contact some former students to let them know that Bud Brodecki has died. It will not be surprising to these young adults, because when Bud came to visit them when they were teenagers, he was well into his nineties. As my great-grandfather used to say, “That’s what old people do. They die.” When my kids read my social media post, they will think about his impact, and most especially his story, as each and every one of them will remember his visit. In fact, I hope with all of my being that they have told his story many times to their families and friends. My art students met Bud and Sonja Brodecki, several years ago. Sonja did most of the talking while Bud sat back and told a lot of jokes. Sonja can command an audience with her gentle and strong voice. Bud’s eyes smiled widely as he admired her voice, her stories that he had heard her tell hundreds of times. The 30 individuals that were able to create an impressive level of noise on a daily basis, sat transfixed and silent. This classroom visit was a little out of the ordinary even for the Brodeckis, because instead of just listening to the speakers’ stories, my students sat around Bud and Sonja’s chairs to draw them.
The Brodecki’s spent most of their time visiting my classroom telling their stories, and recalling the worst time in their lives. Their stories were seared into my students’ memories because they are the stories of extraordinary people, witnesses, and victims. Bud and Sonja are Holocaust survivors. They met in a displaced persons camp after the concentration camps were liberated. Sonja was a teenager and Bud was a young police officer. The way Sonja tells the story, Bud rescued her from a man who was trying to be “fresh” with her, and they instantly fell in love. My students were so caught up in the love story as Sonja spoke, that they kept forgetting to keep drawing. As I reminded my kids of their task, Sonja told the story of their courtship, their marriage, and their family. Sonja and Bud held hands during the entire visit, except for when Bud showed my students the numbers on his arms that proved his captivity in Auschwitz. My students were eager to hear all about Bud’s experience in the camps, but over and over, the Brodecki’s concentrated on teaching rather than telling. They focused on the story of their lives after the camps, because their lives were never meant to continue. The plan was that their lives were suppose to end with the Holocaust. The fact that their love story could be told in high school classrooms, in numerous speaking engagements, in front of President Obama, was all they needed to prove that love can always prevail over hate. This was the Brodecki’s central narrative. They visited classrooms to show that hate did not win.
My students focused on drawing the contours of the Brodecki’s interesting faces and their spindly fingers, or Bud’s rather hairy ears while they listened. They had never drawn the proportions of people who were so old, and I observed as they struggled to show the strength and power of the Brodecki’s words while at the same time drawing their weathered and vulnerable bodies. The artists had difficulty keeping control of their charcoal pencils while absorbing the stories that they heard. I noticed how one of my students was struggling to even put a single mark on the page. When I went over and whispered to him to see if he needed help, he whispered back “I can’t draw them without color”. I explained to my student that he would be using these sketches to make a finished work of art, that included color and he smiled and he said “Drawing them in black and white makes me think about how their stories will fade away.” I thought of his comment for many years and I recall it now because with Bud’s death, a piece of our country’s narrative has turned from color into black and white. I’m scared, just as my student was, that Bud’s story will not continue to be told into the future.
Stories are essential to the understanding of our collective history. Bud and Sonja’s stories have been told to countless people who will recount these stories to others. History is really just a collection of these stories, and the power to build a complete understanding of history lies with the everyday people that carry these experiences into the future. These narratives are now more essential than ever. We as a nation have lost our trust in stories. We don’t believe them any more. There have always been many sources of truth, but we have always been fed just one narrative. Textbook writers and newspapers have always created a hegemony of facts. Now that fact collecting is more democratic, nobody believes that stories are valid as sources of knowledge. It seems as if teachers have to spend time proving history to our classes rather than teaching it. Ironically, students need to learn history in the context of how it effected people because if we only learn about events from one perspective, we will never truly understand them. Learning history has to be about people, not just about dates and numbers. Talking to Bud and Sonja was more powerful than any film or lecture on the Holocaust that my students could have experienced. They learned the cold facts and statistics of history in school, but its not until students see history though the stories of people, that students learn empathy.
All of us need to practice empathy as a part of every learning experience. We need to arm ourselves with understanding so that we become more unified citizens of our complicated nation and work for a better future. The art that my students made after watching and observing, and most importantly, listening, was incredible for so many reasons. My teenagers were able to create images that will last far longer than the lives of these two extraordinary human beings. With these drawings, my students recorded the narratives that will become part of our collective consciousness, fulfilling the essential role that artists have always played in our culture. Bud and Sonja brought empathy to my students along with hundreds of others and that essential gift will immortalize the very human life of a very kind, hilarious, and brilliant man.
I know Sonja will be lost without Bud. Love lasted seventy-five years for the two of them and once I had met them, I never once saw them without one another. It must be heart-breaking to mourn both a soulmate and someone who belongs to all of us. I am certain that Bud and Sonja have lived lives of honor and everyday joy. It is up to us to continue telling their story so that our work to fight hate never feels like a lost cause. My future students will hear me tell the Brodecki’s story so that they too can believe that love will always win.
