My former roommate Jenn shared with me the PAWcast in which Memorials editor Nicholas DeVito and Elyse Graham ’07 discuss the life and contributions of Princeton professor Victor Brombert. I love that she knew the podcast would move me greatly. In fact, I have not been able to stop thinking about it. Sadly, I didn’t know the late, revered Professor Brombert. I had never taken his class while at Princeton; how I wish I had. I wish we all had a chance to study with Brombert. Maybe then we would grasp the core freedoms he fought for and the essential values we now risk losing.
I’ve been wondering what Brombert would make of the current upheaval in our world. How would he respond to the round up and deportation of undocumented immigrants and the shutting down of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program? What would he think of the censoring of books and the scrubbing of websites deemed to have inappropriate content, not aligned with the ideology of the new government – content on difference and diversity, gender equity, minorities, or LGBTQ? And what would he think of Donald Trump’s newest geopolitical move – undermining the negotiating power of Ukraine by meeting privately with Vladimir Putin, calling Volodymyr Zelensky the dictator, and accusing Ukraine of starting the war with Russia?
Brombert, who arrived as a Jewish refugee from Europe, who loved literary criticism and the history of ideas, who fought to free Europe from the grips of fascism and dictatorship – what would he tell us? Might he counsel that the world he risked his life fighting for, the humanity he strove for in the war and in the classroom, is slipping from our fingers, that we are heading in the wrong direction, toward a new era of cruelty, ideological fascism, and authoritarianism? This cannot be the legacy Brombert envisioned when he signed up to fight in World War II as a Ritchie Boy, and later, when he dedicated himself to teaching and scholarship.
Unlike Brombert, my dad is living through this transformation. Victor Brombert died at the age of 101 on Nov. 26, 2024. My dad turned 92 on the same day. Just as Brombert pronounced his name Brombert (brom-BEAR), my dad pronounced our name Golbert (gol-BEAR). Just as Brombert came from Bromberg, Golbert was transformed a generation ago from Goldberg. Brombert concealed his name in case he fell into enemy hands during the war; my grandfather changed our family name to guard against antisemitism in America. Though nine years younger and born in the United States, my dad too feels like a man from a different era. Educated and multilingual, a lawyer and an opera singer, he spent time in postwar Europe, first as a JAG in the Air Force and then as a civilian, helping to bolster NATO and the U.S. role in solidifying a postwar peace in Europe. Today, he reads the newspaper every day and laments the world he will leave to my family and to all of us.
My former roommate Jenn shared with me the PAWcast in which Memorials editor Nicholas DeVito and Elyse Graham ’07 discuss the life and contributions of Princeton professor Victor Brombert. I love that she knew the podcast would move me greatly. In fact, I have not been able to stop thinking about it. Sadly, I didn’t know the late, revered Professor Brombert. I had never taken his class while at Princeton; how I wish I had. I wish we all had a chance to study with Brombert. Maybe then we would grasp the core freedoms he fought for and the essential values we now risk losing.
I’ve been wondering what Brombert would make of the current upheaval in our world. How would he respond to the round up and deportation of undocumented immigrants and the shutting down of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program? What would he think of the censoring of books and the scrubbing of websites deemed to have inappropriate content, not aligned with the ideology of the new government – content on difference and diversity, gender equity, minorities, or LGBTQ? And what would he think of Donald Trump’s newest geopolitical move – undermining the negotiating power of Ukraine by meeting privately with Vladimir Putin, calling Volodymyr Zelensky the dictator, and accusing Ukraine of starting the war with Russia?
Brombert, who arrived as a Jewish refugee from Europe, who loved literary criticism and the history of ideas, who fought to free Europe from the grips of fascism and dictatorship – what would he tell us? Might he counsel that the world he risked his life fighting for, the humanity he strove for in the war and in the classroom, is slipping from our fingers, that we are heading in the wrong direction, toward a new era of cruelty, ideological fascism, and authoritarianism? This cannot be the legacy Brombert envisioned when he signed up to fight in World War II as a Ritchie Boy, and later, when he dedicated himself to teaching and scholarship.
Unlike Brombert, my dad is living through this transformation. Victor Brombert died at the age of 101 on Nov. 26, 2024. My dad turned 92 on the same day. Just as Brombert pronounced his name Brombert (brom-BEAR), my dad pronounced our name Golbert (gol-BEAR). Just as Brombert came from Bromberg, Golbert was transformed a generation ago from Goldberg. Brombert concealed his name in case he fell into enemy hands during the war; my grandfather changed our family name to guard against antisemitism in America. Though nine years younger and born in the United States, my dad too feels like a man from a different era. Educated and multilingual, a lawyer and an opera singer, he spent time in postwar Europe, first as a JAG in the Air Force and then as a civilian, helping to bolster NATO and the U.S. role in solidifying a postwar peace in Europe. Today, he reads the newspaper every day and laments the world he will leave to my family and to all of us.