The GI Bill Restoration Act and Why Acts of Reparations Matter
Weeks after Nazis ransacked my great-grandparents’ grocery store in Vienna in the November Pogrom, in 1938, my grandmother left her home with her younger brother, journeyed to France, and boarded a ship to New York. Her parents, who were Polish citizens, were denied a visa by the United States and deported to Poland, where they were ultimately murdered in a Nazi concentration camp. Upon arrival in the U.S., fifteen-year-old Herta and thirteen-year-old Bernie became foster children in The Bronx. It was there that Herta met my grandfather, Morty, a hard-working teenager with radical ideas and whose favorite date night was a 10-cent hot dog and a front-row seat at night court. “Dinner and theater for two for less than a quarter!” They were married when Herta was eighteen; Morty’s mother, my namesake, adopted Bernie.
Soon after, Morty enlisted in the Army, where he trained troops headed to Europe to fight Fascism. When his duty ended, he took advantage of the GI bill, bought a house in Long Island, and moved there with Herta and his growing family, which included my mother.
The GI Bill provided veterans of the Second World War financial aid to go to college and buy their first home. Formally known as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the bill was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and is widely acknowledged as having fueled the economic prosperity of the postwar era. Less widely acknowledged is that 1.2 million Black veterans were systematically denied full access to these benefits. While this postwar program lifted a generation of white veterans out of poverty and made home ownership and economic advancement possible, it also aided white flight and urban decay in places like The Bronx, which put the American dream even further out of reach for Black families.
Morty was opposed to this (and all other forms of) racial discrimination and, with the NAACP, protested when attempting to buy a house in Levittown, New York. After waiting on a line at the sales office, Morty refused to sign the paperwork unless he could cross out the "Caucasian clause," which stated that the houses could not “be used or occupied by any person other than members of the Caucasian race,” in perpetuity. Levitt & Sons refused, and you can watch Morty tell the story of how he confronted William Levitt here. However, with a growing family, he and Herta eventually took advantage of the GI Bill and bought a house at another project, in Elmont. By the time they sold it, many years later, it had appreciated demonstrably in value. Like millions of white Americans, the GI Bill not only helped Herta and Morty become middle class, it helped them build wealth.
Figure 1. Morty Weiss sits on the front steps of the home he purchased with support from the GI Bill in Elmont, Long Island NY.
In 2020, less than 44% of Black Americans owned their home as compared to more than 72% of white Americans. This gap is larger today than before the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, when it was legal to refuse to sell someone a home because of the color of their skin. The legacy of the systematic denial of Black World War II veterans the full benefits of the GI Bill continues to fuel this gap.
With rising awareness of this intergenerational problem, remedies have been proposed. Most recently, on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor in December 2020, Congressmen Seth Moulton (Democratic Party, Massachusetts) and James E. Clyburn (Democratic Party, South Carolina) introduced legislation that would repair the economic harm experienced by Black World War II veterans and their families. The Sgt. Isaac Woodard, Jr. and Sgt. Joseph H. Maddox GI Bill Restoration Act of 2021 calls for extending housing loans and educational assistance to Black veterans, surviving spouses, and certain direct descendants. It’s an obvious first step.
Morty died in 2009 but both Herta and Bernie are still alive at ages ninety-eight and ninety-six, respectively. And while Black Americans wait for a bill such as this one to begin to right wartime wrongs, Herta has been receiving reparations in the form of monthly payments from the Austrian government for more than twenty years. Now, as their decedents, my children and I are poised to begin benefitting, too.
“…when a government does more than just acknowledge a past injustice, and instead takes actionable, affirmative steps to address the wrong, it helps future generations to heal from old traumas.”
In April 2022, my daughters, ages fifteen and twelve, and I began the process of becoming Austrian citizens. Given the unstable state of the world, I am motivated to provide options for my children. So, it is with a strange and complicated twist of fate, that once our paperwork goes through, we will become dual citizens of Austria and the United States. It is hard to explain how this feels; I am still figuring that part out. One thing that is clear is that we will become eligible for all the benefits afforded to Austrian citizens, including socialized health care, free university education, and access to one of the world's most liberal social housing policies.
Although I have always lived with the knowledge of our family history, until recently I imagined it from the perspective of a child and would ask my grandmother what it was like: the boat trip to a new country, living with a family of strangers who didn’t speak her language, becoming essentially a mother to her younger brother at age fifteen. Now, however, I imagine their experience as the mother, which reveals a new level of horror. I see our pending Austrian citizenship—and all that comes with it—as a gift, not so much from the Austrian government but from my great grandparents, Gitel and Solomon Roth.
Reparations and other benefits from the Austrian government do not make up for the death of my great grandparents or the plight of my grandmother and her brother. But they demonstrate how when a government does more than just acknowledge a past injustice, and instead takes actionable, affirmative steps to address the wrong, it helps future generations to heal from old traumas.
As we mark another Veterans Day, Americans should reflect on how the Sgt. Isaac Woodard, Jr. and Sgt. Joseph H. Maddox GI Bill Restoration Act offers an opportunity for the United States and all its citizens to take collective responsibility for a historic wrong. And the time to act is now, while there are still living Black World War II veterans.
