We and They

The New York Times published an article last week noting that, in the past, immigrants to the U.S. sometimes changed their name to make it more American-sounding. Nowadays, the vast majority of immigrants keep their names.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, expositions and fairs were a way of educating people not only about their nation and its place in the world but also about their own place in American society. In 1893, over 27 million people attended the World’s Columbian Exposition—an exposition that used architecture, artifacts, and “living exhibits” to celebrate “American progress.” Held in Chicago to mark the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s voyages to the Americas, it attracted over 13 million Americans—about one of every five people in the nation.

In an interview with journalist Gitta Sereny after his arrest in Brazil in 1971 and subsequent trial, Franz Stangl, the commandant of the death camp at Sobibor and later at Treblinka, responded to questions.

“You’ve been telling me about your routines,” I said to him. “But how did you feel? Was there anything you enjoyed, you felt good about?”