Sports & Soldiers: Leslie K. Barry & Neal Bascomb

Sports and Soldiers - Athletes Impact WWII

Sponsored By Virtua Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation

In Conversation with Helen Kirschbaum, Director of Esther Raab Holocaust Museum and the Goodwin Education Center

Leslie K. Barry

Newark Minutemen: A True 1930’s Legend About a Boxer Who Tries to Save a Nation’s Soul Without Losing His Own

Newark Minutemen, a 1930s fictionalized true story about Jewish American boxers backed by the FBI and Mafia who fight American Nazis when no one else will, follows the forbidden love affair between Jewish boxer Yael Newman and American Nazi Krista Brecht. The Nazi party is on the rise, led by the charismatic and dangerous Führer Fritz Kuhn, the self-styled American Hit­ler. Tens of thousands of Americans have joined a campaign of rabid nationalism and antisemitism that puts American democracy on trial. While the Party is planning their biggest expansion ever, one that will position them at the forefront of US politics, a young Jewish boxer fights for a militia formed by the FBI and run by prominent Jewish gangsters.

Since witnessing his father's murder as a boy, Yael swears vengeance tempered by justice against the American Führer’s crusade for a Fas­cist America nourished by the Third Reich. He infiltrates the Party disguised as a Storm Trooper in an attempt to bring them down. Along the way, he falls in love with the daughter of the enemy. Forbidden love, spies, and assassination compli­cate the journey. Most arresting, we hear 1930 echoes of American Führer’s Nuremberg-like cry on President’s Day, 1939 at Madison Square Gar­den that calls for all German Americans to rise up and “Make America Great." Based on a true story, this is one man’s mission to save a nation’s soul without losing his own.

Neal Bascomb

Faster: How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler’s Best

They were the unlikeliest of heroes.

Rene Dreyfus, a former top driver on the international racecar circuit, had been banned from the best European teams—and fastest cars—by the mid-1930s because of his Jewish heritage. Charles Weiffenbach, head of the down-on-its-luck automaker Delahaye, was desperately trying to save his company as the world teetered toward the brink. Lucy Schell, the adventurous daughter of an American multi-millionaire, yearned to reclaim the glory of her rally-driving days.

As Nazi Germany launched its campaign of racial terror and pushed the world toward war, these three misfits banded together to challenge Hitler’s dominance at the apex of motorsport: the Grand Prix. Their quest for redemption culminated in a remarkable race that is still talked about in racing circles to this day—but which, soon after it ended, Hitler attempted to completely erase from history. Bringing to life this glamorous era and the sport that defined it, Faster chronicles one of the most inspiring, death-defying upsets of all time: a symbolic blow against the Nazis during history’s darkest hour.

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