Anita Brenner
It was 6:15 a.m.
I was drinking coffee at a small, mosaic table at the newly-upscale liquor store across from the Apple Cart.
The Anonymous Source, an attractive lady in her early 40s, had just left me with a yellow Post-It note.
I stared at the note. There was a Web address for the FBI.
Interesting. Cryptic. Typical.
But the rest of the note, the phrases, “Hollywood Now” and “La Crescenta” could only mean one thing: Mrs. Elizabeth Barber.
Often described as an “American housewife,” Elizabeth Barber was a local heroine who single-handedly accomplished what judges, lawyers and the local chapter of the V.F.W. failed to do.
She disrupted a pro-Nazi rally in Crescenta Valley Park.
The date was April 30, 1939.
Four months earlier, the Nazis showed their true colors on the “Night of the Broken Glass,” when men in grey uniforms cut a swath of destruction through middle class German-Jewish communities. They set fire to thousands of homes and synagogues, killed and wounded dozens and took 30,000 men into concentration camps.
But in April of 1939, few Americans were concerned about Kristallnacht.
Meanwhile, a charismatic Nazi named Franz Kuhn toured the United States to rally German American support for the Third Reich. Kuhn would give speeches and play short-wave broadcasts of Adolph Hitler to large crowds.
Naturally, he came to the Crescenta-Cañada Valley.
The park now known as Crescenta Valley Park was once privately owned and the site of many German American cultural events. Back then, it was called Hindenberg Park.
On April 30, Kuhn arrived with an honor guard of a dozen men. The men wore identical gray uniforms. News reports later would refer to these men as “storm troopers.”
Mrs. Elizabeth Barber, a local housewife, went to Hindenberg Park to “learn what was going on at their meetings.”
Kuhn was in the midst of his remarks to over 1,500 members of the German American Bund, when Mrs. Barber interrupted him.
“Why don’t you tell us the truth?” she called out.
It was reported that the Bund leader, apparently taken by surprise, did not answer.
Angry Bund members began gather around Mrs. Barber, who “calmly quoted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.”
As the thugs gathered around her, Mrs. Barber accused the Bund of “not advocating true Americanism.” She then tried to leave the park. Eventually, 14 law enforcement officers would arrive to escort her safely away from the angry Bund.
Newspapers around the country reported on the story of Elizabeth Barber, an American housewife.
Four months later, on Sept. 1, the German invasion of Poland would ignite World War II.
But the Bund met its match four months earlier. Right here.
In our valley.
ANITA SUSAN BRENNER is a trial lawyer practicing in Pasadena. She invites everyone, especially those who knew Mrs. Barber, to e-mail her at anitasusan.brenner@ yahoo.com
