Pollin Chapel, Schnitzer Family Center
Presenters: Ron Silver and Michael Simon
Were you a premature anti-fascist? That was the label given to many of the intelligentsia, writers and actors who favored the Republicans against the Franco Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War from 1936-1939.
At the end of the Second World War these same people were now believed to be Communists (some were) or Fellow Travelers (some were) and a threat to the American Way of Life (almost none were). This was the dark time of the Blacklist, when people were made to name names, sign Loyalty Oaths, and the most dreaded phrase became, "Are you now, or have you ever been..."
Well-known writers and actors disappeared from the public eye, many of them Jews. At least the writers could go underground and use "fronts." Actors, teachers, and others had no refuge.