Skokie - When the Nazis Planned A March in A Jewish Community

[Honeycombe8]

Made for tv movie based on real events. Danny Kaye's initial response to instructions from moderate leaders to not react to a planned Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois, a community of which 40% were Jewish.

Kaye's character, a Holocaust survivor, takes issue with doing nothing, so as not to give the cameras anything to report.

His initial speech starts at about 3:00. Then he sits down and gets up again to finish his speech. Good movie. To me, this brings home the fact that Nazis are not like most other groups. Nazis are not a political group, and to pretend otherwise is dangerous and foolish. There's a history with Nazis that we are all too aware of. The world cannot forget the end game of that group.

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[lunasun]

1. I was very young when this happened . I am not Jewish but this was discussed everywhere

Fuckin Nazis are coming . And in the end they did not come to Skokie or the north side and instead went to a south side neighborhood where their followers were probably from and had met before to listen to the same people who would give Nazi speeches
Marquette Park neighborhood, which had in the past thrown bottles and spit on MLK and his followers when he marched in the area .

Free speech and all that but they picked Skokie to antagonize Jews, not many Nazi followers up there . Black and brown on the south side already knew about Marquette parks racist reputation so it wasn't like they were marching through bronzeville or SouthEastChicago and although the area was changing , everyone knew the area they would march in was full of Nazi types so watch out, and Chicago gave them the OK to march in thier own area
Cicero was another area back then like that yet people were brave to break the color line and try to locate in those south side areas

Still fuckin Nazis marched
Are they still in Marquette Park ? If they are they are miserable Nazis

[Honeycombe8]

2. Interesting. That must have been something to live through. nt

[OnDoutside]

3. Whenever I have gone to the US, as a visitor, I've had to fill out a form asking me, Am I or have I

ever been a member of the Nazi Party of Germany ? What's the point of even having that on the form if they don't tackle the scum they have as citizens ?

[Nitram]

4. This is the exact argument I've been making to Trump supporters today on Facebook.

There are limits to free speech. When nazis and bigots come marching to my town with firearms, body armor, shields, and poles, our duty is to shout them down and defend ourselves from them.

[Honeycombe8]

5. Exactly. I hate confrontations. But the KKK & Nazis & their like can't go unchallenged...

and just walk the streets in armor and armed and think they are like a political protest group.

As Kaye's character states, this is how they started in Germany, when the Jews and decent people there were told to ignore them, they were just a few rabble rousers, thugs.

[Best_man23]

6. They showed us this movie in High School

Last edited Mon Aug 14, 2017, 08:10 PM - Edit history (1)

I remember coming away from it wanting to learn more. It was pre-Internet and we had a very limited public library.

[Honeycombe8]

7. That scene with Danny Kaye still chokes me up.

I feel his pain. I feel his anger as he insists on "No. Not in my town." As he refuses to sit idly by and let it get started all over again, like his family had lived through. It's a powerful scene.

When you understand how unusual that was for the Jews to speak of the Holocaust, it was all the more powerful. They tended not to mention it at all. Too painful and humiliating, I suppose. The memories were tucked away deep inside. Many in Skokie didn't even know that there were so many other Holocaust survivors there. So for him to stand up, bare his arm, and show his number tattoo and speak of the death of his mother...powerful.

[lunasun]

8. There is a holocaust museum in Skokie . Many spoke out about surviving during the civil rights era

in Chicago. Then the museum started later after the Nazi threat . I want to say they tried again years later to march again in Skokie unsuccessfully of course
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Holocaust_Museum_and_Education_Center

[Honeycombe8]

11. +1. nt

[lunasun]

9. This is a trailer for a local doc with narrarative by one of my favorites Aaron Freeman

As I wrote early they were coming to the area to harrass the Jewish community you can hear about how it upset people there
not because they had a lot of nazi followers in the area
*Aaron Freeman is a Chicago treasure

[Honeycombe8]

12. Excellent. Thanks. nt

[lunasun]

13. No thank you. I had forgotten all about those Nazis and what they were doing back then. People

fought back and knew what happened in Germany when Jews just tried to ignore the rise of Nazis.
Skokie and those stopping the march are an example for what's going on today .
Don't ignore them and think they will go away on thier own!
Also I never knew there was a movie.
Plenty of documentsry films in Chicago about the events because it's part of our city's history and that trailer I posted -the full doc is online @PBS, but I am going to check out the movie Skokie . That scene you posted with Danny Kaye was powerful stuff
I see the full movie is available on line also . Thanks again.

[tblue37]

10. K&R and thanks! nt