Roberta R. (Offbeat YA)
asked
Ilsa J. Bick:
Hi Ilsa! Sorry to bother you again, but I'm working on my review for Draw the Dark, and I was wondering - did you draw (ha!) inspiration for the historical part of the plot from some specific incident? I tried the internet, but it isn't helping. Thank you!
Ilsa J. Bick
You’re not bothering me. It’s an interesting question. I had read STALAG WISCONSIN maybe a year or so before I even conceived of this book and that was where I discovered, for the first time in my life, that the US had POWs and camps during WWII. Not something we were taught in school. There were a lot of stories about the camps in various towns. I tracked down where the camp nearest my town had been and went to see the site. That sparked my interest in POWs in the US in general and I got a bunch of books. Being Jewish and truly living across the street from the town’s Hebrew cemetery, which is very old and about which I’ve written in another story, I also got very interested in figuring out what had happened to the town’s Jewish population. At one point, Sheboygan, the town next over from where I lived, was called “Little Jerusalem;” there were over a thousand Jews there and, as I recall, about three or four synagogues, maybe more. It’s said that the Lubavitcher rebbe thought of locating Chabad there because you could reach Sheboygan on the St. Lawrence Seaway but eventually settled on Crown Heights.
One, very famous (locally) shul was of a Sephardic design (very common in the mid-1800s and at the turn of the century; London’s lousy with them) and was called “The White Shul.” The Sephardim were in the original wave of Jewish immigration that happened in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; they went all over (there used to be a huge presence, for example, down South, in places like Savannah). These also with German Jewish immigrants were better off than the immigrants who came later in mid-century (around the 1860s, during the Land Grant years) and from places in Eastern Europe and Russia. These were, by and large Ashkenazi Jews (German Jews are, kinda technically, also Ashkenazi, but many shuls, especially in other countries and cities—again, like London—very explicitly say that they’re of the German persuasion). These are the people you think of for things like gefilte fish, borscht, and matzah balls. There were a lot of them, too, and they were encouraged to keep moving west to settle land in the same era as, for example, Laura Ingalls Wilder writes about. (Her family was part of the same migration west.) The Ashkenazi eventually outnumbered the Sephardim and that’s why when you think of “Jewish,” you’re thinking of a particular brand of Jewish. The ultra-Orthodox black hats and Chasids, for example, are followers of the Baal Shem Tov, a Jewish mystic who originated from Poland. Not to denigrate anyone, but his followers were not as well-educated or wealthy, but there were many, many more of them and Sephardic influence declined.
Anyway, going back to the White Shul...the site still exists, but the original building’s long gone. Eventually, the Jewish population in the area dwindled for a variety of reasons and what remains of the site and building has been converted into a Christian ministry. The towers and minarets are gone; the only thing that survives from the original building is a stained glass window at the back of the building that you have to know to look for.
Finally, there really was a pretty intense strike at Kohler company, which is the next town over from Sheboygan, back in 1934, not their first strike and not the last. Things got ugly; shots were fired by Kohler security folks (I mean, they had a machine gun); two strikers ended up dead and the National Guard was called in the next day. There was no big fire; no Jews got barbecued, but given how badly Jews have treated throughout history and how they are still seen as instigators of socialism...it could’ve happened.
Anyway, that’s where I got a lot of the ideas; I just conflated the strike (sort of) and the history of German POWs and Jewish history in the area. It’s stunning how many people—like everyone other than the very old, who are just about all gone now—who don’t know that, despite this cemetery, the history of the Jewish presence in this town. In fact, the cemetery is quite unique and visited by tons of people because the graves are old, sure, but there are also many graves with the dead shown on enamel plaques, a discarded style at this point.
I hope that answered the question. Here’s a brief article about the Jewish presence and history in Sheboygan and shuls there (https://smallsynagogues.com/sheboygan... I personally knew all the people quoted) and another on Kohler’s strikes (https://www.sheboyganpress.com/story/...). Here’s a link to STALAG WISCONSIN (https://smile.amazon.com/Stalag-Wisco... there are many books on POW camps in the US, in fact.
Wow. Just writing all this makes me homesick for Wisconsin.
One, very famous (locally) shul was of a Sephardic design (very common in the mid-1800s and at the turn of the century; London’s lousy with them) and was called “The White Shul.” The Sephardim were in the original wave of Jewish immigration that happened in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; they went all over (there used to be a huge presence, for example, down South, in places like Savannah). These also with German Jewish immigrants were better off than the immigrants who came later in mid-century (around the 1860s, during the Land Grant years) and from places in Eastern Europe and Russia. These were, by and large Ashkenazi Jews (German Jews are, kinda technically, also Ashkenazi, but many shuls, especially in other countries and cities—again, like London—very explicitly say that they’re of the German persuasion). These are the people you think of for things like gefilte fish, borscht, and matzah balls. There were a lot of them, too, and they were encouraged to keep moving west to settle land in the same era as, for example, Laura Ingalls Wilder writes about. (Her family was part of the same migration west.) The Ashkenazi eventually outnumbered the Sephardim and that’s why when you think of “Jewish,” you’re thinking of a particular brand of Jewish. The ultra-Orthodox black hats and Chasids, for example, are followers of the Baal Shem Tov, a Jewish mystic who originated from Poland. Not to denigrate anyone, but his followers were not as well-educated or wealthy, but there were many, many more of them and Sephardic influence declined.
Anyway, going back to the White Shul...the site still exists, but the original building’s long gone. Eventually, the Jewish population in the area dwindled for a variety of reasons and what remains of the site and building has been converted into a Christian ministry. The towers and minarets are gone; the only thing that survives from the original building is a stained glass window at the back of the building that you have to know to look for.
Finally, there really was a pretty intense strike at Kohler company, which is the next town over from Sheboygan, back in 1934, not their first strike and not the last. Things got ugly; shots were fired by Kohler security folks (I mean, they had a machine gun); two strikers ended up dead and the National Guard was called in the next day. There was no big fire; no Jews got barbecued, but given how badly Jews have treated throughout history and how they are still seen as instigators of socialism...it could’ve happened.
Anyway, that’s where I got a lot of the ideas; I just conflated the strike (sort of) and the history of German POWs and Jewish history in the area. It’s stunning how many people—like everyone other than the very old, who are just about all gone now—who don’t know that, despite this cemetery, the history of the Jewish presence in this town. In fact, the cemetery is quite unique and visited by tons of people because the graves are old, sure, but there are also many graves with the dead shown on enamel plaques, a discarded style at this point.
I hope that answered the question. Here’s a brief article about the Jewish presence and history in Sheboygan and shuls there (https://smallsynagogues.com/sheboygan... I personally knew all the people quoted) and another on Kohler’s strikes (https://www.sheboyganpress.com/story/...). Here’s a link to STALAG WISCONSIN (https://smile.amazon.com/Stalag-Wisco... there are many books on POW camps in the US, in fact.
Wow. Just writing all this makes me homesick for Wisconsin.
More Answered Questions
Logan Greszler
asked
Ilsa J. Bick:
Hello! I just finished Drowning Instinct, and I just want to say it was one of the BEST books I've ever read! I think the fact that you're a psychiatrist made Jenna's point of view amazingly realistic. Are you currently working on a sequel, or will it be a standalone? Keep up the fantastic work!!!
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