CUMMINGTON — The tiny town of Cummington was once the backdrop for American propaganda some 80 years ago, presenting foreign audiences with an image of rural America through the eyes of World War II refugees who briefly called the town home.
A mix of Jewish refugees and political dissidents, including lawyers, artists and craftsmen, spent their time in town learning English and developing skills to find work. They lived at a small hostel at 50 Main St., a two-story red house with yellow trim, where some stayed for just two months and others for as long as two years.
While Europe was engulfed in war, the federal government chose Cummington’s white-steepled churches, rolling hills and country fair as the basis for the 1944 film “The Cummington Story,” which was shown overseas as an idyllic portrait of rural New England. The refugees’ presence in town during that time offered evidence of American generosity during the war.
Translated into 20 languages, the film was designed to counter fascist propaganda and present a positive, humane picture of American democratic community life and small-town inclusiveness, with several of the refugees appearing on screen.
Now, nearly eight decades later, a newly organized archive is shedding light on that chapter of Cummington’s history, preserving letters, photographs and artwork that document the nearly 40 refugees who passed through the hostel during the war.
The collection, on display at The Old Parsonage, 38 Main St., was reorganized with assistance from a grant through the Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board. The exhibit, “Courage in Cummington: The WWII Refugees,” is on display on Saturdays between 2 and 5 p.m. through Aug. 29.
“They [the federal government] picked Cummington specifically because it was an idyllic New England town,” archivist Grayson Hawthorn said of the film, produced by the U.S. Office of War Information for audiences overseas. “It has a white church, it has the Cummington Fair — it’s very Americana-esque. They were also trying to show New England through outsiders’ eyes to foreign audiences. This film was not meant for Americans to see.”
Hawthorn said she is often asked whether the film was intended as a pro-immigration message. After studying the archives, she doesn’t think so. Instead, she believes the government used the refugees’ experiences to present an image of American democracy and small-town life to audiences abroad.
“The film was not meant as an explicitly pro-immigration piece,” she said. “I think that it can be read that way, but we also need to be aware that this was produced at a time where there were still intense immigration quotas in America, and the reason why a lot of refugees couldn’t even leave Germany and Austria was because of very restricted immigration quotas that were in place by the U.S. government.”
Hawthorn said more than 100,000 people were on waiting lists to immigrate to the United States at the time; fewer than 20,000 ultimately entered the country.
The Rev. Carl Sangree, Cummington’s Congregational minister and a committed pacifist, organized the hostel.
A conscientious objector during World War I, Sangree asked leaders of the General Council of Congregational Christian Churches what a minister could do as another WWII broke out. He was told that while he could not address the causes of the war, he could help refugees.
Appalled by the response, Sangree likened it to “giving me a mop and asking me to stop a flood,” Hawthorn quoted him as saying. But Sangree’s “mop” became a source of salvation for those who called the hostel home, among them woodblock artist Gustav Wolf, who was featured in the film.
In 1944, Wolf produced an illustrated edition of the biblical “Book of Job.” Only about 300 copies of the work are believed to exist, and a copy is on display in the exhibit alongside other examples of his work.
The German-born artist, graphic designer and illustrator had taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe before fleeing Nazi Germany. After settling in Massachusetts, he taught art at schools and colleges while continuing his work as a woodblock artist. He died in Greenfield in 1947.
Hans Gaines was the first refugee to arrive at the hostel. An economist, he was studying at the University of Berlin when he was taken to a concentration camp in 1933 because of his outspoken liberal political views. Gaines learned wood turning while in Cummington, producing tools and other objects.
The hostel’s gardener was Jacob Picard, a lawyer who fled Germany. He traveled through Russia and Japan before arriving in America and did not return to Germany until 1958, and died there in 1967.
While in Cummington, Picard wrote a poem about the beauty of his natural surroundings, from birds and brooks with moss-covered stones to the surrounding mountains.
Nelli Barr, a Jewish artist who fled Nazi-occupied Norway with her husband, painter Paul Wieghardt, also spent time in Cummington. The couple arrived in 1941, where Barr worked in local apple orchards while continuing her sculpture work. Wieghardt painted and later taught at the Cummington School of the Arts.
Other hostel refugees included two young boys who stayed there without their parents, who were working in Boston factories. Their stories, along with those of many others, are on display alongside artifacts from their time in Cummington.
Hawthorn said the exhibit serves as a reflection of Cummington’s historically progressive attitude, which she describes as a rural, “live-and-let-live” kind of place.
“I think it speaks to the fact that Cummington has always been a very accepting place throughout its history. Cummington also has a long history of being an abolitionist community during the 1840s to the 1860s,” she said. “There were abolitionist conventions that happened here. I really think that more people could be like the Sangrees of the world, and try to just think of, ‘What can I do to make the world a better place,’ even if it’s just helping a couple dozen people restart their lives.”
In addition to in-person visits on Saturdays through August, the exhibit can also be viewed digitally on the historical commission’s website.
In addition to the exhibit, the town’s former tavern, the Kingman Tavern, across the street, will be open during these hours. Inside, visitors can view glass-encased miniatures depicting scenes of town life, from Saturday bath nights before donning Sunday best to a doll of New York Evening Post editor and acclaimed poet William Cullen Bryant seated at his desk in his study.
There are also a series of life-sized mannequins scattered throughout the tavern-turned-museum — some perched at a bar, others browsing a replica of the town’s general store or post office — that Hawthorn says often give children a fright.
