Mark Klempner '97 interviewed 25 Dutch residents who saved Jews from the Nazis. Here he is shown with rescuers Evert, left, and Fenna Siemer in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
English major Mark Klempner '97, a nontraditional student who spent more than a decade as a songwriter and studio musician before coming to Cornell in 1993, has known many American musical and literary heroes in his life, like legendary folk singer Pete Seeger and Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Cornell Professor Alison Lurie.
But he recently met a group of courageous individuals from a distant place and time whose heroism has been largely unsung. They are the Dutch rescuers of Jews during World War II.
Klempner, originally from the Bronx and later Schenectady, N.Y., spent six weeks in Amsterdam last fall interviewing 25 Dutch rescuers -- some of whom had never before spoken publicly about their rescue efforts. The project was funded by a fellowship from Cornell's Institute of European Studies and resulted in nearly 100 hours of interviews.
Speaking with these men and women had a profound personal meaning for Klempner. His own father barely escaped the Holocaust, fleeing Poland just one week before the Nazis invaded. Like many survivors, Irving Klempner never discussed this part of his life with his family. So for Mark, the interviews were a means not only to better understand this horrific period in history but to better understand his father.
Klempner located the rescuers through the Israeli organization Y'ad Vashem and met with them with help from the Israeli embassy in The Hague.
"The experience of interviewing the rescuers was surprisingly upbeat," he said. "They were incredibly warm and gracious, and being welcomed into their homes and having the chance to talk with them was an experience that changed my life."
He quoted Kees Veenstra, who told him, "Often I think the war was the best part of my life. That's of course ridiculous: horrible things happened, but you could be useful then, you could save people....at that time it was quite clear what was good and what was bad. You had to do the good things."
Klempner hopes to give these rescuers a voice that can outlive their own, by compiling their accounts into a book. Tentatively titled Redeeming the World: Dutch People Who Rescued Jews During WWII and Their Message for Us Today, it will highlight one rescuer per chapter, with the first one featuring Miep Gies, who hid Anne Frank and her family.
Klempner's research with the Dutch rescuers has enabled him to combine his growing interests in oral cultural traditions and in nonfiction writing, which he will study further in the master's program in folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Goldwin Smith Professor of English Emeritus James McConkey, with whom Klempner completed an independent study project, said his student initially "had a lot to learn about writing, [but] he worked very hard and showed a great deal of innate talent." Lurie observed, "Mark Klempner is one of the most interesting and gifted students I have ever had in my folklore class."
Klempner's way with words is reflected in an essay he wrote about meeting legendary folk singer Pete Seeger, whom he later accompanied on a PBS special. Then 15, Klempner was a deckhand on the sloop Clearwater, which sailed the Hudson to raise awareness about the river's pollution.
"Pete had taken out his banjo and was singing Hudson River songs, and then I got out my guitar, and just like that we were playing together," Klempner writes. "After a while he took a break and I asked him if I could play his banjo."
Seeger handed over the instrument. "I don't know if he noticed me scaling the rope ladder with his banjo strapped securely around my back!" Klempner continues. "So there I was, high in the basket of the crow's-nest, with the late afternoon sun shining golden on the water. I heard the creak of the wooden mast and felt the gentle rock of the ship as I watched the Catskill Mountains off in the distance....Crisp notes rang out over the water as I plucked the responsive strings. ..."