Montgomery native reports on life in Switzerland | DON NOBLE
Betty Amstutz Gerson was born in April of 1942 in Montgomery and raised in a close-knit Jewish family. There was, of course, still segregation and enough anti-Semitism that her family could not join the Montgomery Country Club and instead were members of the Standard Club.
It was a comfortable life. Gerson has come to realize, as many have, that she really did not know much about of the lives of the family’s two African-American servants, Helen and Willie Mae. As a child though, she was well aware of the social changes. Her across-the-street neighbor was federal Judge Frank Johnson. One night he had a cross burned on his lawn. This was the era of the White Citizens Council and the bus boycott.
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After college and graduate school in California, she moved to Switzerland in 1968, working as an English as a secon language teacher. In 2017, after nearly 50 years away, Gerson visited Montgomery and was pleased with the great strides in race relations and with the various markers and museums, especially the projects of the Equal Justice Initiative headed by Bryan Stevenson.
In this combination of memoir and letter to her fellow Alabamians, Gerson has some direct things to say about contemporary America. For example, she describes Donald Trump as a “rude, pushy, self-centered White northerner” and “a callous bully.” She feels “the credibility, trustworthiness and standing of the USA in the world community,” has been damaged.
Mostly, however, she writes about her adopted homeland, both a thumbnail history and a portrait of Switzerland in her time. It’s not perfect, she assures us, but there is certainly much there to emulate, if Alabamians could reconsider some deeply held, erroneous ideas.
First, we should enlarge our notions about the role of government. In Switzerland, a capitalistic, free market nation, there is excellent free public education (both academic and apprentice-based), national health service, trusted public radio, sensible gun laws, effective sex education. The country has nearly eliminated poverty. The social safety net is strong, the public services excellent, the infrastructure solid and efficient and the trains run on time.
A government can be large AND efficient.
She writes of a public announcement at a train station: an apology because the train was four minutes late. In the Atlanta airport this announcement would be met with hysterical laughter.
Taxes are high, yes, but the public is satisfied with the results. And there are plenty of millionaires. The richest 1% have 41% of the wealth.
Admittedly, there are some regrettable moments in Swiss history. In the name of neutrality, but perhaps, Gerson thinks, through simple greed, in World War II the banks enabled the exchange of Nazi gold into currency and then refused, for a long time, to hand over the accounts of Holocaust victims. The Swiss are also balky on immigration and it was not until 2021 that gay marriage was legalized. Albert Einstein joked, if the end of the world is coming, move to Switzerland: “Everything there takes five years longer.” Change comes slowly in a very orderly society.
Of course, extreme orderliness gives rise to satire. Here’s the oldest joke: in European hell, the French are the mechanics, the British are the chefs, the Germans are the police, the Swiss are lovers and it is all organized by the Italians.
Don Noble’s newest book is Alabama Noir, a collection of original stories by Winston Groom, Ace Atkins, Carolyn Haines, Brad Watson, and eleven other Alabama authors.
“From Montgomery to the Matterhorn: Reflections on Life in My Two Homelands”
Author: Betty Amstutz Gerson
Blurb, 2022
Pages: 283
Price: $25 (Paper)
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Montgomery native reports on life in Switzerland | DON NOBLE
