Small Press & Self-Published Books about WWII

ALAN Review, Fall 2004 by Broz, Bill

Jerry also learned a few things about his book and about the insights of eighth graders:

I realized that my book was viewed differently by a younger audience after listening to those students who had read it question me. The girls were much more interested in the romance between Robert and Takako, the wedding and the family. The boys clearly had more interest in the "warrior" aspect, the flying and the shooting, the life on Iwo Jima. 1 learned more from the young people I spoke to than they could ever learn from me. They, in their innocence and absolute fascination with my wartime experiences as well as my reconciliation with my enemy through my son's marriage, asked deep and thoughtful questions. The answers came from my heart because the questions came from theirs. I found them interesting, thoughtful and more profound than I expected. They had the ability to respond to an adult talking to them as an equal, in a very mature way. I have a great deal of respect for these youngsters and the teachers who have raised their level of understanding.

Not only was Jerry moved by what the students said to him in class, but also by the hundreds of letters they have sent him. Here are excerpts from two of those letters, first a tough observation from a young man and then the expansive manifesto of a young woman:

(Student 1): ... Something I am also thinking about is that when you came back and you went to give your friend's belongings to his parents. His mother was mad at you because she thought that you should have gone down instead of him. 1 thought that was weird and rude, because you usually see in the old educational films the soldiers come back from the war and they are being hugged and welcomed back, but you do not see the soldiers getting yelled at for not dying in someone else's son's place. . . .

(Student 2): Right now I am reading your book Of War and Weddings. . . I'll begin by telling you that 1 became obsessed with finding out what happened in Europe during the war because nobody told me.

Here is a quick history about my elders: my grandma from my mom's side. . . grew up in occupied Netherlands and still lives there today . . . My grandpa from my mom's side is part Indonesian and Chinese. He spent most of his childhood in a Japanese POW camp. That is when he started hating the Japanese. . . . The things 1 really want to know about are what your feelings were for the Japanese during the war. Did your feelings affect your fighting? Did you ever wonder about the wives and children of the men whose planes you may have shot down? As you can see, I want to find out about emotions. I know enough dates and places!

Readers of this column might not find a veteran as cool as ours, but then again you might. (We hope many of you have made such a connection already.) While Jerry Yellin is not local to the students in Fairfield in the sense that he did not grow up in the area or even live there until he was well into his sixties, he is local in the sense that he lives there now, students see him on the street and in the grocery store, and have heard him speak in the town square on Memorial Day. But sometimes local history and local geography figure heavily in the content and potential impact of these books.