A Professor's Lessons on Democracy
Hearing broken glass on marble floors on Jan. 6, 2021, when the mob stormed the Capitol, still haunts me. I witnessed one of the darkest days in American history.
Tragically, Mr. Ostwald's parents were murdered. The sons survived. Miraculously, he met Lore, his future wife, by writing letters for two years before they met in person.
He became a beloved faculty member at the elm tree-shaded campus in Philadelphia. At graduation, he compared the place to a greenhouse; time to bloom.
We took clear-cut memories with us: "His gentlemanly demeanor and wry smile," said one classmate. "Full of heart," another added.
"I was your typical young, impatient lefty ... he was kind enough to indulge me," a journalist recalled.
"I wish I had been ... actively curious about exactly how wonderful (he was)," wrote a former diplomat in Athens who resigned in protest at the Iraq War.
His son David confirmed the sense his students had: Mr. Ostwald was not bitter, with every reason to be. He told me of the moment when his father said he was proud of him.
The small stone ("Stolperstein") for the site of the family home in Dortmund says they were taken in "protective custody." These "stumbling" stones are all over Germany, in memory. In his last hours, age 88, Mr. Ostwald hummed the melody of a Beethoven sonata: Pathetique.
When we left, David showed me his father's driver's license. There was the birth date: 1922.
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