Why History Matters, the Billy Joel Edition
Please take the 10 minutes to watch the video before reading the blog post. The entire blog post will make much more sense in the context of the speech.
Last week at Toastmasters I gave my 10th advanced speech, which completed the Advanced Communicator Bronze award for Toastmasters. Toastmasters is an international public speaking organization which was founded in 1924. The speech was “Why History Matters, the Billy Joel edition.”
I had the speech fairly well organized and planned out when I told my friend Lia about the speech. Lia has been my friend since my Senior year of college in 1995 at the University of Toledo. Lia was studying history as I was. We met on line and began to have very heated but friendly discussions of history. Lia is Jewish and her mom survived the hell of Auschwitz. I was a student finishing up my BA 20th C European History with an overwhelming concentration on Germany. She saw history as family, I saw history as history. This is where the debate came in. When I told Lia about the speech and what I wanted to say, her response was “AH! You finally get it! You finally understand what I have been trying to tell you for 20 years!”
I was watching again a video that a few years ago which Lia had sent to me about the familial history of Billy Joel, my favorite musician. It is an hour long documentary.
For the 5th speech in the Storytelling manual which I was working on for Toastmasters, the speech subject was “bringing history to life.” I have a degree in German history, and I speak German. I knew that I wanted to do a speech about German history, but was not sure at first about what part of German history I wanted to speak about. I thought about the speech my friend Mark S. had given late last year about the history of the Rickenbacker guitar and it dawned on me that I really needed to tell the history of my favorite musician. Everyone know’s his music, but very few know his history.
As I watched the video a second time in order to take down the pertinent points of the history of Karl A. Joel, the various actions of the Third Reich began to take a personal meaning to me. The harassment of Jewish businesses under by the Nazi’s even before they declared the Third Reich in Germany was no longer just a historical fact. No, now it became something very real that happened to the grandfather of someone who I have personally idolized my entire life. Karl A. Joel owned the second largest textile manufacturing business in Germany. A business that he started with his LIFE’S SAVINGS!!! He was harassed by Julius Streicher the Nazi District Leader of Nuremberg even before the Nazi’s had gained power in Germany. The Proclamation for the Aryanization of Jewish Businesses which was made in April 1938 was no longer just a pseudo-law that was passed by Hitler. No! Now it meant that Billy Joel’s grandfather was forced to practically give away his business which was the second largest of it’s type in Germany and was not allowed to negotiate for himself on the sale of his business. His business was worth 12 Million Reichsmarks at the time, it was sold for 2.3 M RM, which was reduced to 1.1 M RM, which in turn was put in a trust. He was never able to get any of the money for his business. His hard earned business was in all effects stolen from him. It was upon contemplating these issues that everything which I had studied in college and through out life (granted my interest in Germany lies in more than just the Third Reich) took on very real meaning. By the 1950’s Karl A. Joel’s business which had been given to Neckermann was worth billions, and yet Joel only got 2 Million Deutschmarks out of the lawsuit over the theft of his business. The people who were harassed and killed were no longer nameless grey faces in history. No, they had become people’s mothers/fathers/sisters/brothers/grandparents, and friends! I began to realize what I did not realize while earning my BA… History is not just something that happened before I was born. History is about our families. It had become personal to me.
Had Karl A. Joel and his wife and son Helmut NOT been able to escape the Third Reich in 1938, America would not have it’s great Rock Star Billy Joel!!! No blaring “My Life” for me when I was a child and wanted mom and dad to leave me alone. No playing “And So It Goes” when I felt myself falling in love with a wonderful young lady. No laughing at the opening lines to “You May be Right” with my best friend Rob the first time we listened to Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits Vol I & II. “Friday night I crashed your party, Saturday I said I was sorry, Sunday came and you trashed me out again. I was only having fun, wasn’t hurting anyone, and we all enjoyed the weekend for a change…” Yes, it took me 40 years to do so, but history had become VERY personal for me.
And so it goes, and so it goes…and now you know.
