October
31, 2003
Pontigny
Symposium Draws Out Alumnae Memories
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Photo:
Mount Holyoke College Archives
and Special Collections
Rachel
Bespaloff (left), Henry Rox, and others
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In the three years since Weissman Center codirector
Chris Benfey came across a faded photograph from the early 1940s
of the poet Wallace Stevens sitting in front of Porter Hall, he
and codirector Karen Remmler have been piecing together the names
and events that are the subject of the upcoming symposium, Artists,
Intellectuals, and World War II: The Pontigny Encounters at Mount
Holyoke College, 1942–1944. Their exploration of the
summer gatherings at Mount Holyoke of American and European artists
and intellectuals led them to an abundance of materials, including
a 1942 surveillance report by the OSS. But their most valuable
sources are the firsthand accounts they have elicited from alumnae
who attended Mount Holyoke during the war years.
Benfey, professor of English, and Remmler, associate
professor of German studies, undertook two main projects to track
down alumnae recollections. Last year, the Weissman Center for
Leadership and the Liberal Arts, the conference's sponsor,
sent out letters to nearly 1,000 alumnae who attended the College
during World War II. This letter drew a host of responses, including
poems, memoirs, and even a play about the war. The Weissman Center
also hosted two seminars during reunion week last spring about
the Pontigny gatherings. These attracted many alumnae from the
classes of 1942 and 1948, some of whom had been unaware of the
meetings that took place during the summers of 1942–1944.
"The significance of Pontigny was that it
provided space for these intellectuals who were refugees,"
Remmler said. "For refugee students, they identified very
strongly with the refugee intellectuals because that was their
experience, too. Mount Holyoke in some sense saved their lives."
The memories of Renee Cary '48 are particularly poignant.
Shuttled around Europe and South America with her family before
finally arriving in New York City, Cary said she found a "haven
and refuge" at Mount Holyoke. Like other alumnae from the
1940s, Cary had vivid memories of the refugee professors, "these
great minds for whom the College also became a haven and who shared
with their students their minds, talents, and experiences."
Those professors included French professor Rachel Bespaloff, who
subsequently committed suicide, philosophy professor Jean Wahl,
and art professor Henry Rox.
Even alumnae who were unaware at the time that
European refugees were convening at Mount Holyoke "identify
strongly with the Pontigny group," Remmler said. "Their
own memories of the war are so strong." They recall sleeping
in double-decker beds left by the Navy WAVES; Hazing Day, when
first-year students were required to dress as airplanes with propellers
on their noses; and visits to campus by Eleanor Roosevelt, Jean-Paul
Sartre, and W. H. Auden.
In response to an outpouring of alumnae enthusiasm,
the weekend symposium will include a round-table tribute of alumnae
and scholars to Rachel Bespaloff led by Remmler. "I'm
hoping that people will talk about their memories and what happens
to these memories, whether they are passed on or not," Remmler
said. "In many cases, no one has ever asked them about their
experiences."
The Pontigny symposium has also attracted alumnae
who have not been actively involved with the College in the intervening
years. Remmler said that approximately 100 alumnae, primarily
from the 1940s, are expected to attend a special alumnae dinner
Saturday night. "Reunions allow alumnae to learn about what
the College is up to today," Benfey said. "This will
be a reunion with a difference: these alumnae are teaching us
about the College then."
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