President Obama participates in an event at the Great Synagogue in Stockholm honoring Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat and honorary U.S. citizen who worked courageously to save Jewish lives while serving as Sweden's special envoy in Budapest during World War II. Obama says Wallenberg serves as an example to us all not simply to bear witness, but to act.
Barbara Jean Brown recalls her service in the United States Naval Women's Reserve (WAVES) program during World War Two. Brown describes enlisting in Lansing, Michigan in September 1943, attending boot camp in Bronx, New York City, receiving training in dictation and shorthand in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and being stationed in Washington, D.C. where she stayed in a barracks across from Arlington Cemetery. She also talks about drilling on the National Mall next to the Washington Monument, seeing President Roosevelt's limo, the Capital under blackout restrictions, the return of street lights after V-J Day, and President Roosevelt's funeral procession. Brown is interviewed by Sarah McLennan.
David Murley reminisces about his former professor C. Patrick "Lash" Larrowe, Michigan State University professor of economics. Murley talks about working as Larrowe's teaching assistant, their political differences, Larrowe's eccentricities, and Larrowe's involvement in controversies surrounding the Vietnam war, government surveillance, race relations, and MSU's ROTC program. Murley also talks about Larrowe's war experiences on Okinawa during WWII, his personal life, his association with Students for a Democratic Society, and Larrowe's lawsuit against MSU for forcing him into retirement. Murley is interviewed by John Revitte, MSU professor emeritus of Labor and Industrial Relations.
In this installment of "Cross examination," Dr. Willis Dunbar hosts a discussion of displaced persons with a panel featuring John Reid of the Family Service Center, Rev. Yannis Laupmanitz, attorney Lloyd Faling, and attorney Frank Schmiege. The panel talks about the reasons for the large number of displaced persons in the post war era, the demographic make up of the displaced persons camps, the Displaced Person Act of 1948, proposed amendments to the Act and the effect it has has had on Michigan and the Kalamazoo area.
Jack Stieber, former director of Michigan State University's School of Labor and Industrial Relations, reminisces about his childhood and youth, early employment, how he became interested in labor issues, and the history of the MSU labor school. He discusses his military service in World War Two, his graduate studies at the University of Minnesota and Harvard, coming to MSU, and later becoming director of the new School of Labor and Industrial Relations. Stieber also comments on the operations and structure of the labor school, its funding, the pros and cons of hiring faculty without doctorates, faculty personalities, and his own areas of research. Ends abruptly. Stieber is interviewed by MSU professor of labor and industrial relations, John Revitte.
The same day France and England declare war on Germany, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addresses the nation with a fireside chat emphasizing the neutrality of the United States. He asks the press to discern between fact and rumor before reporting it as news and asks citizens to critically examine everything that is reported.