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{{Short description|American veteran, holocaust activist, playwright, author, and communications professor}}
'''Robert "Bob" Hilliard''' was an American WWII era veteran who succeeded in informing American citizens and politicians of the deplorable plight of post WWII concentration camp survivors who continued to die by the thousands, and of those survivors taken to an unequipped hospital which was formerly ] in the ], ] Germany. The monastery, built in the 16th century as a castle, was remodeled in the 17th century.<ref name=Sanibel/>
{{other|Robert Hilliard (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Robert L. Hilliard
| image =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1925|6|25}}
| birth_place = ], ], U.S.
| spouse = Joanne Reese
| death_date =
| death_place =
| occupation = {{Cslist |playwright|journalist|author |professor}}
| parents =
| alma_mater =
| subject = {{hlist | |]|Communications|Television|Radio|Extremist websites}}
| notableworks =
| years_active = 1948–present
| website =
| awards = * Cambridge Community television, Lifetime Achievement award, Emerson College<br>
* Columbia Distinguished Alumni award<br>
* ] fellowship
| education = {{Plainlist|
*] (1948, ])
*] (1949, ], 1950, ])
*] (1959, ])
}}
}}


'''Robert L. Hilliard''' (born June 25, 1925, ]) is an American ] veteran, activist, and academic of communication studies. During and directly after World War II, he informed American citizens and politicians of the plight of concentration camp survivors, and of those survivors taken to an unequipped hospital which was formerly ] in the ], ] Germany.<ref name=Sanibel/> After the war, he became an accomplished academic, playwright, author, and professor of communications and journalism.<ref name=Prabook/>
===How Hilliard helped the survivors===
Acting against the stated policy of the American military to refrain from political activities, Hilliard, treated for frostbite and twice wounded in WWII, wrote hundreds of letters to American citizens, and Congressmen informing them of the absence of food, medicine, and clothing available to the surviving concentration camp survivors at the end of WWII, then known as displaced person's camps, and at the hospital at St. Ottilien. After getting a letter to President ] who championed their cause with the Truman Directive of December, 1945,<ref name=Wyman>Wyman, David S., Preface to ''The Abandonment of the Jews: American and the Holocaust 1941-1945'', (1984), New York, Pantheon Publishing</ref> Hilliard and his partner Edward Herman, both Privates in the U.S. Army, succeeded in beginning to supply food, clothing and medicine to the patients at St. Ottilien, and to the remaining concentration camps, and in helping to change the policies restricting displaced persons from voluntarily leaving the camps. At the time, the camps were heavily surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed American servicemen instructed to shoot escapees, as had the German guards that previously guarded the camps. Due to their efforts, displaced persons were fed, clothed, and treated, and eventually were allowed to leave the camps and immigrate to other countries in greater numbers, particularly Palestine, and the United States.<ref name=Sanibel>{{cite web|url=https://gotosanibelcaptiva.com/sanibel-resident-wwii-veteran-robert-hilliard-honored-with-documentary/|title=Robert Hilliard Honored With Documentary|website=gotosanibelcaptiva.com|access-date=21 December 2024}}</ref>


== Early life and education ==
===Background of Robert Hilliard===
Robert Hilliard was born in New York City on June 25, 1925.<ref name=Sanibel/>
Robert Hilliard was born in New York City in 1925. He was drafted in February, 1944, and was assigned to the Ninth Regiment of the Second Infantry division. Having received instruction in morse code and radio operation, he was responsible for serving in an advanced unit that would inform American command of the location of the enemy. He was soon wounded by mortar fire, and later served during the bloody combat that took place at the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes Forest in the frigid winter of December, 1944. He was wounded again in the Spring of 1945 by flak from an 88mm German gun, and like many American troops, also suffered from frostbite. After recovering, he was assigned to the Second Air Disarmament Wing. After helping to start a newspaper that would provide news for allied troops, and hoping for a good story, he drove a jeep for miles to attend a concert put on by concentration camp survivors at the hospital at St. Ottillien. He found himself driven to tears by the emaciated and sick survivors of Buchenwald and Dachau, still on stretchers, without food, and wearing the cold, threadbare and inadequate striped uniforms they had formerly been issued as camp inmates. Hilliard and Herman tried to buy food from the black market to supply refugees, but the supply was inadequate, and they lacked funds to make a significant improvement in the lives of the survivors.<ref name=Sanibel/><ref name=Surviving>Hilliard, Robert, ''Surviving the Americans'', (1979), New York, Seven Stories Press, pg. 9</ref><ref name=Miracle>Hilliard, Robert, Speech Transcript of ''Displaced: Miracle at St. Otillien'', (Katz Jewish Community Center, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, 10 November 2002)</ref>


His parents were Eda Hilliard, a Jewish French immigrant, and Irving Hilliard, a Russian immigrant. He was raised in a majority-Italian and Irish neighborhood, where he learned to defend himself against other boys and defend more vulnerable peers.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Williams |first=Roger |date=2024-11-07 |title=Resilience and redemption |url=https://naples.floridaweekly.com/articles/resilience-and-redemption/ |access-date=2024-12-21 |website=Naples Florida Weekly}}</ref>
After Truman received the letter from Hilliard and Herman, he may have criticized General Eisenhower, who sent a full Colonel to inform Hilliard and Edward Herman that the military would improve the situation, but that he and Herman should refrain from writing any more letters, as they might end up with an undesirable assignment like the frigid Aleutian Islands. Hilliard took the advice as a threat, rather than a promise to help holocaust survivors. He and Herman continued to push their cause of informing the American public. On September 30, 1945, a prominent ''New York Times'' headline loudly announced “President Orders Eisenhower to End New Abuse of Jews . . . Likens Our Treatment to that of the Nazis.”<ref name=Sanibel/>


After WWII, Hilliard received his Bachelors from the ] in 1948. He earned two Master's degree at ]: a Masters of Arts (1949) and a Masters of Fine Arts (1950). His PHd. was from ] in 1959, an institution noted for their programs in journalism and the literary arts. In 1960, he followed with postgraduate work at ].<ref name="Prabook" />
Coming months after the surrender of Germany, the Truman Directive of December 22, 1945, among other objectives, intended to set the United States as an example to the World by vastly increasing and expediting the admission of displaced person to the United States, and to open U.S. immigration to full use. It also requested that Great Britain allow 100,000 Jews to immigrate to Palestine. On October 21, 1945, 1,500 packages containing food, clothes and medicine arrived at St. Ottillien.<ref name=Morris>Morris, Rob, "A Place Called St. Ottilien", ''Untold Valor'', (co. 2006) Washington, D.C., Potomac Books, pg. 18-19</ref> The arrival of supplies prior to October had been partly the result of U.S. Military and State Department policy to with hold the delivery of the supplies.<ref name=Morris/>


==Military service and activism==
==Examining U.S. policy toward immigration during WWII==
Hilliard was drafted into the U.S. army in February 1944, aged 18 and a recent high school graduate. He was assigned to the Ninth Regiment of the ]. Having received instruction in ] and radio operation, he was responsible for serving in an advanced unit that would inform American command of the location of the enemy. He was soon wounded by ] fire, and later served during the bloody combat that took place at the ] in the ] in December 1944. He was wounded again in spring 1945 by flak from an 88mm German gun, and like many American troops, also suffered from ].<ref name="Sanibel" /> He received the Purple Heart for his service in the battle.<ref name=":1" />
Though controversial, author David Wyman wrote in ''The Abandonment of the Jews'', that the policy of both the U.S. Army under Eisenhower and the U.S. State Department were at best lax, and at worst instrumental in obstructing the flow of food, medicine, and clothing to the survivors of the Holocaust and in summary, made the following points:


=== Activism ===
* President Roosevelt failed to act for fourteen months after he and the American press were informed in November, 1942 that the Nazis were systematically exterminating European Jews.
In the immediate aftermath of the ], Hilliard was assigned to the 2nd Air Disarmament Wing, whose aim was to disarm the ].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kiniry |first=Mike |date=2022-09-16 |title=Sanibel man tells untold story in 1945 |url=https://news.wgcu.org/2022-09-16/sanibel-man-tells-untold-story-in-1945 |access-date=2024-12-21 |website=WGCU PBS & NPR for Southwest Florida |language=en}}</ref> Hoping only to research a good story for a serviceman's newspaper he founded to provide news for allied troops, he drove a jeep for miles to attend a concert put on by the newly liberated concentration camp survivors at the hospital at ]. He found himself driven to tears by the emaciated and sick survivors of ] and ], still on stretchers, without food, and wearing the cold, threadbare and inadequate striped uniforms they had formerly been issued as camp inmates. Hilliard and his partner Edward Herman, both Privates in the U.S. Army tried to buy food from the black market to supply refugees, but the supply was inadequate, and they lacked funds to make a significant improvement in the lives of the survivors. German citizens and American officers judged Hilliard and the survivors for buying food on the black market, despite their having few other sources.<ref name="Sanibel" /><ref name="Surviving">Hilliard, Robert, ''Surviving the Americans'', (1979), New York, Seven Stories Press, pg. 9</ref><ref name="Miracle">Hilliard, Robert, Speech Transcript of ''Displaced: Miracle at St. Otillien'', (Katz Jewish Community Center, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, 10 November 2002)</ref>
* Roosevelt's War Refugee Board, was in essence powerless to improve the situation facing European Jews, received no cooperation from Roosevelt or his administration, and received only 10% of its funding from U.S. Goverment sources. 90% was funded by the American Jewish community, despite facing shortages and economic pressures during WWII.
* Only 21,000 refugees were permitted to enter the United States during the 42 months America was a war with Nazi Germany. In noted contrast, American immigration quotas would have allowed around 210,000 refugees to immigrate to the United States during that period.
* Factors that restricted immigration included; Anti-Semitism in American society, much of the U.S. military leadership, and entrenched among many leading members of the American Congress, failure of the American media to publish news of the Holocaust despite having the information available through wire services and other news sources, the silence of the vast majority of the leadership of Christian Churches, and President Roosevelt refraining to speak out on the issue.<ref name=Wyman/>


Acting against the stated policy of the American military to refrain from political activities while in the service, Hilliard wrote hundreds of letters to American citizens, and Congressmen informing them of the absence of food, medicine, and clothing available to the surviving concentration camp survivors. After President Truman received a letter from Hilliard and Herman, General Eisenhower sent a full Colonel to inform Hilliard and Edward Herman that the military would improve the situation, but that he and Herman should refrain from writing any more letters, as they might end up assigned to a highly undesirable location like the frigid ]. Hilliard took the advice primarily as a threat, rather than a promise to help Holocaust survivors. He and Herman continued to push their cause of informing the American public. On September 30, 1945, a ''New York Times'' headline announced "President Orders Eisenhower to End New Abuse of Jews . . . Likens Our Treatment to that of the Nazis".<ref name="Sanibel" />
===Role of anti-Semitism===

David Wyman, also made the significant observation that it was inefficiency, not lack of knowledge that led the State Department to fail to act, and more importantly that the leadership of the U.S. State Department feared that a large number of Jews might actually leave Germany and the area occupied by the Axis. This fear dominated the thinking of the U.S. State Department at least during the Roosevelt administration. Also of considerable importance, it was noted by University of Virginia History Professor Joseph W. Bendersky that in addition to the State Department, "Anti-Semitism permeated not only the thinking of the State Department but also the thinking of the military officers and attaches assigned to the European embassies who attempted to influence Roosevelt administration policy in favor of Hitler and the Third Reich...". Anti-Semitism was also widely existent among many of the high ranking officers in the U.S. military which Wyman believed included "Mark Clark, George Van Horn Mosely, George Patton, Truman Smith, Albert Wedemeyer, and Charles Willoughby". Bendersky wrote that many of these officers promulgated some of the same stereotypes about Jews held by European anti-Semites, a form of social Darwinism that held that somehow Jews were largely responsible for their plight in Eastern Europe due to their greed and avarice.<ref>Fischel, Jack, review of ''The Jewish Threat: Anti-Semitic Politics of the U.S. Army'' by Joseph W. Bendersky, ''Forward'', February 16, 2001, pg. 15</ref>
Coming months after the surrender of Germany, the ],<ref name="Wyman">Wyman, David S., Preface to ''The Abandonment of the Jews: American and the Holocaust 1941-1945'', (1984), New York, Pantheon Publishing</ref> among other objectives, intended to set the United States as an example to the World by vastly increasing and expediting the admission of displaced person to the United States, and to open U.S. immigration to full use. It also requested that Great Britain allow 100,000 Jews to immigrate to ]. On October 21, 1945, 1,500 packages containing food, clothes and medicine arrived at St. Ottillien.<ref name="Morris">Morris, Rob, "A Place Called St. Ottilien", ''Untold Valor'', (co. 2006) Washington, D.C., Potomac Books, pg. 18-19</ref> The failure of supplies to be delivered prior to October had been partly the result of a U.S. Military and State Department policy to withhold the delivery of the supplies.<ref name="Morris" /> Hilliard and Herman also helped to change the policies restricting displaced persons from voluntarily leaving the camps, or the countries in which they resided. At the time, the camps were heavily surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed American servicemen instructed to shoot escapees, as had the German guards that previously guarded the camps.<ref name="Sanibel">{{cite web|url=https://gotosanibelcaptiva.com/sanibel-resident-wwii-veteran-robert-hilliard-honored-with-documentary/|title=Robert Hilliard Honored With Documentary|website=gotosanibelcaptiva.com|date=10 August 2021 |access-date=21 December 2024}}</ref>

== Academic career ==
From 1943 - 1964, he worked as a professional in theatre, radio and television, while serving in a variety of full-time academic roles. From 1950-1956, he was an instructor at ], and from 1956 - 1960, served as an assistant professor at ]. From 1960 - 1964, he was an associate professor at the ].
He served for several decades at Emerson College in Boston, first as a Dean of Graduate studies beginning in 1980 and then as a Professor at Emerson beginning in 1984.<ref name="Prabook" />

From 1964 - 1980, he was Chief of Public Broadcasting at the ], in Washington D.C., and "was present for the signing of the ] in 1967".<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Dr. Robert Hilliard on what he says are echoes from the past in today's extreme right wing politics |url=https://news.wgcu.org/podcast/gulf-coast-life/2024-08-05/dr-robert-hilliard-on-what-he-says-are-echoes-from-the-past-in-todays-extreme-right-wing-politics |access-date=2024-12-21 |website=WGCU PBS & NPR for Southwest Florida |language=en}}</ref> Simultaneously, he served from 1965 - 1978 as a Chairman of the Federal Interagency Media Committee.<ref name="Prabook">{{cite web|url=https://prabook.com/web/robert_l.hilliard/616488|title=Robert L. Hilliard, Playwright, Professor, Author|website=prabook.com|access-date=21 December 2024}}</ref>

In 2017, Hilliard served on the board of ], an NPR affiliate in Fort Myers, Florida.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Janssen |first=Mike |date=2017-11-21 |title='Made Possible By...' #3: Robert Hilliard on how public media enhances the public |url=https://current.org/2017/11/made-possible-by-3-robert-hilliard-on-how-public-media-enhances-the-public/ |access-date=2024-12-21 |website=Current |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== Extremism studies ===
While serving as a professor at Emerson College in Boston, he collaborated with ] professor Michael Keith, in writing ''Waves of Rancor: Tuning in the Radical Right''. White at Emerson, he taught a class known as "hate.com", which examined how hate groups target impressionable youth through websites, how they grow, and how they spread rage. Hilliard observed that hate groups build interest slowly with rock music and games, and initially avoid inflammatory rhetoric and epithets. The book was well-received and was read by ] during his presidency. In 1993, there were more than 300 extremist websites, though many scholars, including Holocaust author ], consider their number to be closer to 800. Hilliard both taught at Emerson and served as a Dean.<ref name="Emerson">"Examining Extremists Use of Net", ''Newsday (Suffolk Edition)'', 25 April 2000, pg. 45</ref>

Hilliard has said that there is "open fascism" in the modern ], citing ] as an example.<ref name=":0" />

== Personal life ==
Hilliard wrote the musical ''Piccadilly'' in the late 1940s. The work will be put on for the first time in December 2024. The musical follows two G.I.s in London following World War II.<ref name=":1" />

Hilliard has lived on Florida's ] since 1998.<ref name="Sanibel" /> He and his wife, JoAnn, have two children.<ref name="Sanibel" /><ref name=":1" /> Hilliard is a member of non-profit Floridians for Democracy.<ref name=":0" /> He has been a strong critic of ], comparing him to ].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hilliard |first=Robert |date=2017-07-20 |title=Commentary: The candidate and the president |url=https://www.news-press.com/story/opinion/contributors/2017/07/20/commentary-candidate-and-president/495715001/ |access-date=2024-12-21 |website=The News-Press |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Honors ==
While with the U.S. military, Hilliard's decorations included but were not limited to the ], ], and ].<ref name="Prabook" />

=== Awards ===
Source<ref name="Prabook" />

* Ohio Medical Education Network award
* Broadcast Preceptor award
* ], World Communications Year award
* Phi Delta Kappa Annual award
* Cambridge Community television, Lifetime Achievement award, Emerson College
* Columbia Distinguished Alumni award
* ] fellowship

==Selected works==

=== Books ===
* {{Cite book |last=Hilliard |first=Robert L. |title=Surviving the Americans: The Continued Struggle of the Jews After Liberation |year=1996 |location=New York |publisher=Seven Stories Press}}, memoir<ref name=":1" />
* Hilliard Robert, L., ''Phillipa'', fiction, (2010) Parlance Publishing
* {{Cite book|last=Hilliard|first=Robert L.|title=Selected Plays by Robert Hilliard, Volume 1}} (2021) Parlance, {{ISBN|9780984248964}}
* Poems of Love and War (2018), poetry collection<ref name=":1" />

==== Media studies ====
* {{Cite book |last1=Hilliard |first1=Robert L. |title=The Broadcast Century: A Biography of American Broadcasting |last2=Keith |first2=Michael C. |date=1997 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-240-80262-6 |edition=2nd |location=Boston}}
* {{Cite book|last1=Hilliard |first1=Robert L. |last2=Keith |first2=Michael C.|title=Waves of Rancor: Tuning into the Radical Right|year=1999|publisher=]|location=New York City, Milton Park, Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire}}
* {{Cite book|last=Hilliard|first=Robert|year=2000|title=Writing for Television, Radio, and New Media|publisher=]}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Hilliard |first1=Robert L. |title=Dirty Discourse: Sex and Indecency in American Radio |last2=Keith |first2=Michael C. |date=2003 |publisher=] |isbn=978-0-8138-2409-3 |location=Ames, Iowa}}
* {{Cite book|last1=Hilliard |first1=Robert L. |last2=Keith |first2=Michael C.|title=The Quieted Voice: The Rise and Demise of Localism in American Radio|year=2005|publisher=]|isbn=0813824095}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=Reed |date=2006-01-01 |title=The Quieted Voice: The Rise and Demise of Localism in American Radio by Robert L. Hilliard and Michael C. Keith Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005. 243 pp |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08821127.2006.10678000 |journal=American Journalism |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=130–131 |doi=10.1080/08821127.2006.10678000 |issn=0882-1127}}</ref>

=== Articles ===

* {{Cite journal |last=Hilliard |first=Robert L. |date=1956 |title=The Integration of the Negro Actor on the New York Stage |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3203866 |journal=] |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=97–108 |doi=10.2307/3203866 |jstor=3203866 |issn=0013-1989}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Hilliard |first=Robert L. |date=1957 |title=Desegregation in Educational Theatre |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2293512 |journal=] |volume=26 |issue=4 |pages=509–513 |doi=10.2307/2293512 |jstor=2293512 |issn=0022-2984}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Hilliard |first=Robert L. |date=1958-11-01 |title=Television and Education |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221546.1958.11779578 |journal=] |volume=29 |issue=8 |pages=431–470 |doi=10.1080/00221546.1958.11779578 |issn=0022-1546}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Hilliard |first=Robert L. |date=1962-11-01 |title=The Organization and Control of Educational Television |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01619566209537110 |journal=] |language=EN |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages= 170–181|doi=10.1080/01619566209537110}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Hilliard |first=Robert L. |date=1963-06-01 |title=Dramatic Arts Production on Television: Practices and attitudes in the Southeast |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10417946309371698 |journal=Southern Journal of Communication|language=en |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=285–287 |doi=10.1080/10417946309371698}}


==References== ==References==
{{Reflist}} {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Robert Hilliard (activist for Holocaust survivors)}}
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Latest revision as of 08:31, 28 December 2024

American veteran, holocaust activist, playwright, author, and communications professor For other uses, see Robert Hilliard (disambiguation).
Robert L. Hilliard
Born (1925-06-25) June 25, 1925 (age 99)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation
  • playwright
  • journalist
  • author
  • professor
Education
Subject
  • Holocaust
  • Communications
  • Television
  • Radio
  • Extremist websites
Years active1948–present
Notable awards
  • Cambridge Community television, Lifetime Achievement award, Emerson College
  • Columbia Distinguished Alumni award
  • Goethe Institute fellowship
SpouseJoanne Reese

Robert L. Hilliard (born June 25, 1925, New York City) is an American World War II veteran, activist, and academic of communication studies. During and directly after World War II, he informed American citizens and politicians of the plight of concentration camp survivors, and of those survivors taken to an unequipped hospital which was formerly St. Ottillien Monastery in the district of Landsberg, Oberbayern Germany. After the war, he became an accomplished academic, playwright, author, and professor of communications and journalism.

Early life and education

Robert Hilliard was born in New York City on June 25, 1925.

His parents were Eda Hilliard, a Jewish French immigrant, and Irving Hilliard, a Russian immigrant. He was raised in a majority-Italian and Irish neighborhood, where he learned to defend himself against other boys and defend more vulnerable peers.

After WWII, Hilliard received his Bachelors from the University of Delaware in 1948. He earned two Master's degree at Case Western Reserve University: a Masters of Arts (1949) and a Masters of Fine Arts (1950). His PHd. was from Columbia University in 1959, an institution noted for their programs in journalism and the literary arts. In 1960, he followed with postgraduate work at Columbia Teachers College.

Military service and activism

Hilliard was drafted into the U.S. army in February 1944, aged 18 and a recent high school graduate. He was assigned to the Ninth Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division. Having received instruction in morse code and radio operation, he was responsible for serving in an advanced unit that would inform American command of the location of the enemy. He was soon wounded by mortar fire, and later served during the bloody combat that took place at the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes Forest in December 1944. He was wounded again in spring 1945 by flak from an 88mm German gun, and like many American troops, also suffered from frostbite. He received the Purple Heart for his service in the battle.

Activism

In the immediate aftermath of the German surrender, Hilliard was assigned to the 2nd Air Disarmament Wing, whose aim was to disarm the German Air Force. Hoping only to research a good story for a serviceman's newspaper he founded to provide news for allied troops, he drove a jeep for miles to attend a concert put on by the newly liberated concentration camp survivors at the hospital at St. Ottillien. He found himself driven to tears by the emaciated and sick survivors of Buchenwald and Dachau, still on stretchers, without food, and wearing the cold, threadbare and inadequate striped uniforms they had formerly been issued as camp inmates. Hilliard and his partner Edward Herman, both Privates in the U.S. Army tried to buy food from the black market to supply refugees, but the supply was inadequate, and they lacked funds to make a significant improvement in the lives of the survivors. German citizens and American officers judged Hilliard and the survivors for buying food on the black market, despite their having few other sources.

Acting against the stated policy of the American military to refrain from political activities while in the service, Hilliard wrote hundreds of letters to American citizens, and Congressmen informing them of the absence of food, medicine, and clothing available to the surviving concentration camp survivors. After President Truman received a letter from Hilliard and Herman, General Eisenhower sent a full Colonel to inform Hilliard and Edward Herman that the military would improve the situation, but that he and Herman should refrain from writing any more letters, as they might end up assigned to a highly undesirable location like the frigid Aleutian Islands. Hilliard took the advice primarily as a threat, rather than a promise to help Holocaust survivors. He and Herman continued to push their cause of informing the American public. On September 30, 1945, a New York Times headline announced "President Orders Eisenhower to End New Abuse of Jews . . . Likens Our Treatment to that of the Nazis".

Coming months after the surrender of Germany, the Truman Directive of December 22, 1945, among other objectives, intended to set the United States as an example to the World by vastly increasing and expediting the admission of displaced person to the United States, and to open U.S. immigration to full use. It also requested that Great Britain allow 100,000 Jews to immigrate to Mandatory Palestine. On October 21, 1945, 1,500 packages containing food, clothes and medicine arrived at St. Ottillien. The failure of supplies to be delivered prior to October had been partly the result of a U.S. Military and State Department policy to withhold the delivery of the supplies. Hilliard and Herman also helped to change the policies restricting displaced persons from voluntarily leaving the camps, or the countries in which they resided. At the time, the camps were heavily surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed American servicemen instructed to shoot escapees, as had the German guards that previously guarded the camps.

Academic career

From 1943 - 1964, he worked as a professional in theatre, radio and television, while serving in a variety of full-time academic roles. From 1950-1956, he was an instructor at Brooklyn College, and from 1956 - 1960, served as an assistant professor at Adelphi University. From 1960 - 1964, he was an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served for several decades at Emerson College in Boston, first as a Dean of Graduate studies beginning in 1980 and then as a Professor at Emerson beginning in 1984.

From 1964 - 1980, he was Chief of Public Broadcasting at the Federal Communication Commission, in Washington D.C., and "was present for the signing of the Public Broadcasting Act in 1967". Simultaneously, he served from 1965 - 1978 as a Chairman of the Federal Interagency Media Committee.

In 2017, Hilliard served on the board of WGCU, an NPR affiliate in Fort Myers, Florida.

Extremism studies

While serving as a professor at Emerson College in Boston, he collaborated with Boston College professor Michael Keith, in writing Waves of Rancor: Tuning in the Radical Right. White at Emerson, he taught a class known as "hate.com", which examined how hate groups target impressionable youth through websites, how they grow, and how they spread rage. Hilliard observed that hate groups build interest slowly with rock music and games, and initially avoid inflammatory rhetoric and epithets. The book was well-received and was read by Bill Clinton during his presidency. In 1993, there were more than 300 extremist websites, though many scholars, including Holocaust author Eli Wiesel, consider their number to be closer to 800. Hilliard both taught at Emerson and served as a Dean.

Hilliard has said that there is "open fascism" in the modern American political right, citing Project 2025 as an example.

Personal life

Hilliard wrote the musical Piccadilly in the late 1940s. The work will be put on for the first time in December 2024. The musical follows two G.I.s in London following World War II.

Hilliard has lived on Florida's Sanibel Island since 1998. He and his wife, JoAnn, have two children. Hilliard is a member of non-profit Floridians for Democracy. He has been a strong critic of Donald Trump, comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

Honors

While with the U.S. military, Hilliard's decorations included but were not limited to the Purple Heart, Combat Infantry Badge, and Commendation Ribbon.

Awards

Source

  • Ohio Medical Education Network award
  • Broadcast Preceptor award
  • Kappa Delta Pi, World Communications Year award
  • Phi Delta Kappa Annual award
  • Cambridge Community television, Lifetime Achievement award, Emerson College
  • Columbia Distinguished Alumni award
  • Goethe Institute fellowship

Selected works

Books

  • Hilliard, Robert L. (1996). Surviving the Americans: The Continued Struggle of the Jews After Liberation. New York: Seven Stories Press., memoir
  • Hilliard Robert, L., Phillipa, fiction, (2010) Parlance Publishing
  • Hilliard, Robert L. Selected Plays by Robert Hilliard, Volume 1. (2021) Parlance, ISBN 9780984248964
  • Poems of Love and War (2018), poetry collection

Media studies

  • Hilliard, Robert L.; Keith, Michael C. (1997). The Broadcast Century: A Biography of American Broadcasting (2nd ed.). Boston: Focal Press. ISBN 978-0-240-80262-6.
  • Hilliard, Robert L.; Keith, Michael C. (1999). Waves of Rancor: Tuning into the Radical Right. New York City, Milton Park, Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire: Routledge Publishing.
  • Hilliard, Robert (2000). Writing for Television, Radio, and New Media. Wadsworth.
  • Hilliard, Robert L.; Keith, Michael C. (2003). Dirty Discourse: Sex and Indecency in American Radio. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State Press. ISBN 978-0-8138-2409-3.
  • Hilliard, Robert L.; Keith, Michael C. (2005). The Quieted Voice: The Rise and Demise of Localism in American Radio. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0813824095.

Articles

References

  1. ^ "Robert Hilliard Honored With Documentary". gotosanibelcaptiva.com. 10 August 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2024.
  2. ^ "Robert L. Hilliard, Playwright, Professor, Author". prabook.com. Retrieved 21 December 2024.
  3. ^ Williams, Roger (2024-11-07). "Resilience and redemption". Naples Florida Weekly. Retrieved 2024-12-21.
  4. Kiniry, Mike (2022-09-16). "Sanibel man tells untold story in 1945". WGCU PBS & NPR for Southwest Florida. Retrieved 2024-12-21.
  5. Hilliard, Robert, Surviving the Americans, (1979), New York, Seven Stories Press, pg. 9
  6. Hilliard, Robert, Speech Transcript of Displaced: Miracle at St. Otillien, (Katz Jewish Community Center, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, 10 November 2002)
  7. Wyman, David S., Preface to The Abandonment of the Jews: American and the Holocaust 1941-1945, (1984), New York, Pantheon Publishing
  8. ^ Morris, Rob, "A Place Called St. Ottilien", Untold Valor, (co. 2006) Washington, D.C., Potomac Books, pg. 18-19
  9. ^ "Dr. Robert Hilliard on what he says are echoes from the past in today's extreme right wing politics". WGCU PBS & NPR for Southwest Florida. Retrieved 2024-12-21.
  10. Janssen, Mike (2017-11-21). "'Made Possible By...' #3: Robert Hilliard on how public media enhances the public". Current. Retrieved 2024-12-21.
  11. "Examining Extremists Use of Net", Newsday (Suffolk Edition), 25 April 2000, pg. 45
  12. Hilliard, Robert (2017-07-20). "Commentary: The candidate and the president". The News-Press. Retrieved 2024-12-21.
  13. Smith, Reed (2006-01-01). "The Quieted Voice: The Rise and Demise of Localism in American Radio by Robert L. Hilliard and Michael C. Keith Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005. 243 pp". American Journalism. 23 (1): 130–131. doi:10.1080/08821127.2006.10678000. ISSN 0882-1127.
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