posted 11-09-2012 12:07 PM               

Opening The Letter From Cloudcroft Event and Symposium

In 1946, a letter written at the Lodge Resort, in Cloudcroft, NM by a 21 year old Jewish U.S. Army engineer assigned to work on the V2 rockets after WWII, was received by his parents, but never opened. On November 10, 2012 Veteran’s Day weekend, sixty six years after it was written, the letter will be opened by the author's daughters in the location it was penned- The Lodge Resort.

The unopened 1946 letter is the inspiration for a free humanities symposium that uses the historic letter as a portal into the past and present to examine an important moment in New Mexico history that contributed to the exploration of space. After WWII, as engineering of the V2s evolved at White Sands Proving Ground in Southern NM, the missiles became the foundation for a multi-stranded legacy that included the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile and the Saturn rocket delivering Americans to the moon. The legacy of the V2 rockets in America has a trajectory from the rocket slave camps in Nazi Germany, to the desert of White Sands Proving Ground, to the craters of the moon, the development of NASA and space travel today.

This unprecedented gathering of scholars will address the complex issues surrounding the legacy of the V2 rocket in America from historic, cultural, political, ethical and scientific perspectives including the unique overlay of the German and Jewish engineering collaboration. Rick Hendricks, Ph.D, New Mexico’s State Historian will be the symposium moderator.

The symposium is free and open to the public. The event can be watched via a live USTREAM webcast.

The symposium schedule:

• 8:30 am -12:30 pm: Nine scholars will make short presentations
  
• 2:00 pm -2:30 pm: The opening of the 1946 letter
  
• 2:30 pm -5:00 pm: Panel Discussion, closing remarks

The following scholars will participate in the symposium:

• Dr. Michael Neufeld, Museum curator, Space History, Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum
  
• Dr. Frank Mecklenburg, Director of Research; Chief Archivist Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History, New York City
  
• Christopher Orwoll, Executive Director New Mexico Museum of Space History
  
• Dr. David Shneer, Director Program in Jewish Studies, Louis P. Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History, University of Colorado, Boulder
  
• Martha Shipman Andrews, University Archivist/Assistant Professor, Hobson-Huntsinger University Archives Branson Library NMSU
  
• Loretta Hall, author of Out of this World: New Mexico's Contributions to Space Travel
  
• Fran Sterling, Senior Research and Development Associate, Facing History and Ourselves
  
• Gregg Drinkwater, writer and Jewish community leader who grew up at White Sands Missile Range, Redstone Arsenal in Alabama and Fort Bliss, in Texas

The event is free and open to the public. Please register to either attend the event at The Lodge or live online.

• Facebook Updates
  
• Website info
  
• Follow and join in the conversation via Twitter where the letters are tweeted daily: @LFCloudcroft
  
• Our symposium Hashtag (#) is: #openingLFC
  
• Our twitter list for the symposium is: OpeningLFC