On March 16, 1965, Alice Hertz decided to burn herself alive on a Detroit street corner to protest the Vietnam War. She was roughly 82 years old and is widely considered the first American activist to self-immolate in protest of the war. Others would follow her lead, which itself was inspired by the Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc, who fatally burned himself in 1963 on a Saigon street corner to protest Buddhist persecution by the South Vietnamese government.
Before making that symbolic gesture in Detroit, Hertz led a life marked by persecution and the constant struggle to overcome it. She was a German Jew who had escaped the country in 1933 when Hitler came to power — only to be placed, along with her daughter Helga, in an internment camp near the border of Spain during World War II.
In 1942, she and Helga fled to America, settling in Detroit, where she became active in organizations such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).Â
Helga would also take up the social justice mantle, becoming a librarian at the Detroit Public Library and helping to establish the Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards, “given annually to the children’s books published the preceding year that effectively promote the cause of peace, social justice, world community, and the equality of the sexes and all races as well as meeting conventional standards for excellence,” according to the awards website.
Judith Chrisman, a retired Oak Park District 97 elementary school teacher and librarian, is Alice Hertz’s grandniece. Her mother, Erika Rosenthal, was Helga’s cousin.Â
“My mother was born and raised in Chicago,” Chrisman recalled. “She met Helga for the first time when she was 5 years old. Helga’s father was the brother of my mother’s father. Helga and her mother Alice fought for peace their whole lives after they came to the United States. They were an amazing duo. They used to come to Chicago for various peace marches.”
Social activism, and an intense concern for social justice, may have been a genetic trait. Chrisman’s mother Ericka Rosenthal, a longtime Chicago public schoolteacher, was also involved in local activism. Her father, Sam Rosenthal, 100, is a retired school principal who lives, independently, at Oak Park Arms.
“My mother taught people how to get along with each other,” said Chrisman.Â
It’s a maternal legacy that she has tried to carry on since her retirement as a D97 librarian in 2010. Each year, she donates to the district books that have won the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award. This year, she gave 12 — or roughly $170 worth.Â
The donations are a small gesture of appreciation, honoring the legacy Chrisman’s mother, who died at 95, and Helga, who died at 97, fought to leave behind — and for which Alice Hertz, the matriarch of them all, gave her life. Ten days after she took to that Detroit corner to protest the Vietnam War, Hertz died from her burn wounds.
“It always frustrates me that we teach people in school they should solve things with their voices and then they grow up and find out that the United States solves all their problems with wars,” Chrisman said. “I hope these kids maybe will grow up to be better than us.”
CONTACT: michael@oakpark.comÂ