دانلود کتاب قتل عام حمام – اولین بمباران مدرسه آمریکا

In 2007, when I interviewed Harold Burnett, a survivor of the Bath School bombing, he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Remembering what he’d eaten for lunch was impossible. But when asked about May 18, 1927, Harold recalled everything with clarity. He remembered the chaos, the bloodshed, the horror that played out on that day. The memories, forged when Harold was eight years old, were indelible. With a little coaxing from his daughter Michelle Allen and me, the stories flowed. Mostly Harold remembered his big brother Floyd, an eleven-year- old gifted with an innate talent for baseball. Had he not been killed in the bombing, Harold told us, Floyd could have made it to the major leagues. He was that good Bath Massacre: America’s First School Bombing is not just a book about the first mass school killing in our nation’s history. It is also about memory and the importance of bearing witness. I was fortunate enough to interview four survivors during my research: Harold Burnett, Willis Cressman, Lee Mast, and Josephine Cushman Vail. After the book published in 2009, I was contacted by two other survivors: Myrna (Gates) Coulter and Ralph Witchell, whose stories have been added to this updated edition. Our conversations were filled with vivid reminiscences spanning eight decades. Bath is a quintessential small Midwestern town, about seven miles from Michigan’s state capital of Lansing. May 18, 1927 is part of the town’s essential character. The site of the former Bath Consolidated School, torn down in the late 1970s, is now James Couzens Memorial Park. Anchoring the park center is the cupola that stood atop the old building. Cement posts of the school’s original foundation poke out on the lawn. A boulder, bearing a plaque with the names of those killed in the bombing, sits on the edge of the park. Across the street in a dedicated wing of the middle school is the Bath School Museum. Cases lining the museum hold books, papers, and other artifacts of the crime. The American flag that flew in front of the school on May 18, 1927, hangs framed on the wall. The school clock, permanently fixed at the exact time the dynamite hidden beneath the school ignited, looks over the hallways. Old photographs, yellowing with age, show firsthand images of the bombing and its aftermath. The memorial statue “Girl with Cat” is on display. The museum is overseen by a committee of Bath residents, most of whom have familial connections to the crime. Children and grandchildren of survivors. Nieces and nephews of the thirty-eight children who were killed. Descendants of rescuers and first responders. The museum committee is a caretaker of memory. On December 14, 2012, I flipped open my laptop to check the morning news. What came up was monstrous. In Newtown, Connecticut, a gunman, armed with a Bushmaster AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, was unleashing his firepower throughout the Sandy Hook Elementary School. When it was all over, twenty schoolchildren, ages six and seven, were slain. Six school staff members, including the Sandy Hook principal, were murdered. The killer’s mother was found shot dead in her home. The gunman committed suicide.