This cover of a Circular Letters installment captured the transition from farming to military service in World War II. Courtesy of the Circular Letters.
Chapter 37
BONDY AND THALHIMER, THE WAR YEARS
When the war broke out, Bondy volunteered for the draft, but he was too old. The only way he could get into the fight to defeat Nazi Germany was to support the hearts and minds of his Gross Breesen students. He knew the brutality of war from his own experience in World War I, and he worried that combat could destroy a person, physically and emotionally. He had faith that his “boys” would emerge stronger than before. He reasoned that the lives of refugees and soldiers in battle were similar: “[That if people] endure great hardship and suffer much misfortune, [they] either become purposeless and perish or actually grow, because of all the difficulties, [people can] become deeper and emerge as greater and stronger personalities from these times.”194
He hoped that his personal letters would motivate his students toward greater awareness, a greater sense of controlling the moment, no matter how chaotic it may have been. Bondy believed that misfortune was like a treatment, a chemotherapy of the spirit. He knew the power of pain. It would either cure or kill, but unlike the fight against a physical disease, one could hopefully exert enough spiritual will to survive.
Even during periods of combat, Hyde Farmlanders wrote letters to Bondy, who, in turn, published them in the continual dissemination of the Circular Letters. They revealed the serious thoughts of the soldiers as they pushed deeper toward Germany. Even when battles were raging, their letters contained questions about what they would do after the war was over. Bondy thought that these concerns about the future were hopeful signs, but he acknowledged that the Hyde Farmlanders faced complications once they returned to the United States: they did not have homes, families or professions to come back to. He answered their predicament positively:
This cover of a Circular Letters installment captured the transition from farming to military service in World War II. Courtesy of the Circular Letters.
When the time comes that we can expect you back, you can be sure that we will organize things in a way that all of you will find a home and people who will be very glad to have you with them, and where you would really like to go. So I think the first problem, namely where you will go after your discharge can be easily and satisfactorily solved. To be sure about this will give you a feeling of security.195
He tried to help the soldiers focus on matters that went beyond day-to-day survival. He recommended that each think about what he wanted to do in the future and asked how each could possibly obtain training for that profession or vocation while still in the army.
Bondy, too, looked to the future. He continued his teaching at the Richmond Professional Institute, where he introduced a new course that trained counselors who would be advising returning servicemen/women in their endeavors to map out a new life. As early as 1942–43, he and social psychologist Bruno Bettelheim wrote about concentration camp life in an article that was published in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. He realized that such insights would someday be crucial in rehabilitating both inmates and jailers. At the time, Bondy never imagined that the brutality he experienced in Buchenwald in 1938 would be dwarfed when compared to the crematoriums of the Holocaust.
THALHIMER
William B. Thalhimer also corresponded with Hyde Farmlanders during the war. Even though he was weakened by his heart condition, he threw himself into the war effort by heading war bond campaigns. He continued to be involved in refugee resettlement matters, though immigration halted after the war began. He realized that for the time being, he had done all he could. His attention shifted to activities that supported the soldiers. One of his most favorite was the staging of block parties in the parking lot of Thalhimer’s Department Store for soldiers stationed near Richmond. Here, soldiers from the area came to relax and socialize with volunteers. These successful weekly parties became famous throughout the region.
After the war, Bondy and Thalhimer agreed that military service achieved four key objectives for the students of Hyde Farmlands: one, everyone learned English very well; two, all were Americanized; three, all became American citizens; and four, many benefited from the GI Bill with its educational opportunities.
In the fall of 1945, Töpper returned to Thalhimer’s store office with a few Hyde Farmlanders, all veterans of the European campaign. There, he embraced Thalhimer and Bondy. His thoughts returned to the first time he met Thalhimer almost six years before. Thalhimer beamed with pride as he introduced Tom to the store employees. Morton Thalhimer, William’s cousin, praised him and pointed to his medals as he proclaimed, “When this boy came to this country, he was just a little refugee, and look at him now!”196
The letters that Eva and Bondy sent to the Hyde Farmland soldiers anchored them to the enduring values of Gross Breesen: those of hope, courage and resiliency. Bondy closed his letters with words that would resonate throughout the lives of the students and even their offspring: “Remain Gross Breeseners.” He knew that the students had inhabited Gross Breesen, the place, but he always hoped that Gross Breesen would inhabit the students, and it did.