I grew up in Evanston, just north of Chicago. I met Buddy, my husband, in grad school a landscape architecture program.
Marcy Huffaker | Baraboo, WI
After we graduated, Buddy got an internship at the Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo and I got a job in Chicago. We decided there would always be jobs in Chicago, but an opportunity to live and work in rural Wisconsin was kind of rare. I had no idea we’d be here this long and love living here as much as we do.
The first house we bought was off the grid about five miles outside of Reedsburg. It had solar panels, in-floor heating, and a wood stove. When we found out I was carrying twins, we thought it would be challenging to live out in the country with three little ones, so we moved to Baraboo.
About 10 years ago, we moved into a bit of paradise on Aldo Leopold Foundation land, about 500 acres of prairies, woods, and preserves. The house was built by Aldo Leopold’s daughter, Nina. After she died, no one lived in the house. By this time, Buddy was the director of the Leopold Foundation and suggested to the board that we move in and take care of it.
I had been part of a synagogue growing up and didn’t realize how much it was part of my identity until I was so disconnected from a Jewish community. There are only a few other Jewish families in Baraboo, but I really wanted to be part of a Jewish community after the twins were born. We joined Congregation Shaarei Shamayim in Madison and started going to Hebrew School. The kids all loved it, so we kept going and became part of a strong diverse community.
Every year, it’s a tradition for the Baraboo High School Juniors to gather at the courthouse to take photos before prom. The exact details on how this situation happened are unclear, but several years ago a picture was taken at this pre-prom event of about 50 high school boys, many of whom were giving the Nazi salute. Someone shared the photo that went viral and things kind of exploded.
I first heard about the photo because I got a text from a friend, apologizing for the actions of the students. I had no idea what she was talking about. She shared the picture with me and honestly, it was terrifying to see so many kids from our town posing with the Nazi salute. This was pretty soon after the mass shooting at the Tree of Life, a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh that killed 11 people. Having three kids in a small community, we knew many of the students in the photo and the kids are friends with or played sports or are in the band with many of them. I was scared and didn’t really know what to do.
I think it was hard for many people in the community to fully understand why some of us found this so frightening. Zach played hockey at the time and some of the kids in the photo were on his team. I remember calling the coach, just to ask him if I thought it was OK for Zach to go to practice. It’s hard for me to imagine being that scared now, but at the time I just wanted to make sure he would be safe.
Buddy and I wrote an op-ed for the Baraboo News Republic because we wanted people in our community to understand that while this photo’s national recognition was embarrassing for some, for our family it was disturbing and scary. This photo was taken in 2019. In the years just prior to this there had been a growing number of violent white nationalist rallies with a lot of hate speech directed at Jewish people and people of color. So, it was unsettling and scary to think that Baraboo could be part of this.
I wanted to make sure people understood that this anti-Semitic gesture made by the boys in the photo represents a regime that not so long ago systematically murdered six million jews, including members of my family.
As we started making phone calls, it was clear that there were lots of community members who wanted to do something but just didn’t know what. Before this happened, we had attended a vigil in Madison with our congregation in response to the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting. That vigil brought together community members and leaders of different religious faiths. It felt good, so Buddy and I talked about doing something like that here. We wanted to help organize something that could not only help others realize that such actions are scary and hurtful but help the healing process for the community. The next thing we knew, there were about 20 community members meeting every week to talk about what could be done.
I’ve had a lot of people thanking me for speaking up or sharing their stories of some of the negative things they had experienced in this community, which was eye-opening. I am not particularly comfortable putting myself out there as a community speaker. I prefer to be in the background. Speaking in public was a stretch for me. I remember thinking I had two options — I could say something or I could stay quiet. But while putting myself out there was not easy, I really did think that if I didn’t do anything, I couldn’t continue living here.
We had many conversations as a family after we saw the photo of Baraboo high school boys giving the Nazi salute. My kids, Eva and Zach, were high school freshmen at the time.
Some kids and other residents were angry, some felt uncomfortable and unsafe, and some felt that the students in the picture were being victimized by the national social media attention after this photo went viral. Once the photo went viral, Baraboo was constantly in the news. One newspaper article called it ‘The Nazi salute picture that divided an American town.’
The first few days after the photo, when it was in the news so much, were scary and unsettling for me. I did not let my kids walk anywhere by themselves after school. I looked around at parents sitting next to me at hockey games, and community members in the grocery store, wondering what they really thought about my family as Jews.
My husband Buddy and I were part of a group of community members who met to figure out how to respond and how to come together as a community. Two teachers organized a community event that took place in the basement of the Civic Center. We divided up into small groups and talked about our feelings about what happened and what could happen next.
We had a large public event where the Rabbi from Shaarei Shamayim, our congregation in Madison, spoke. The Baraboo Mayor and other faith leaders spoke, and I shared the impact it had on me personally. We talked in small groups about our personal experiences in Baraboo. What we learned is that there were many others that did not feel welcome here.
In that first year after this happened, there were people who wanted to address the problem and saw the connection to the rise in hate crimes nationally and there were people who wanted the incident to be forgotten about. I wanted to help Baraboo move forward, but I also believed there needed to be some acknowledgment that those making the gesture were wrong. Whether it was intended or not, the boys caused harm.
I didn’t want these students to be punished, but how does sweeping it under the rug allow for learning? How can you take responsibility for your actions and move forward if you can’t apologize for them? When our rabbi spoke at the initial community event, she shared the Jewish concept of restorative justice. It requires that the teenagers acknowledge the harm they did and make amends. Our preferred path for the kids was one of healing and learning, not punitive.
These community conversations brought to light that there are several marginalized groups in the Baraboo area who have experienced discomfort in the community and whose voices are not heard. As we learned from each other and kept talking, we decided that there are things this community can do to address these issues.
We have a group that meets once a month organized as The Baraboo Acts Coalition to plan different activities and actions. Maday Delgado, one of our group members, believed we needed to celebrate our differences, not just educate people about them. It was her idea to plan this Celebrate Sauk event. We had our first one last fall, about four years after the photo incident.
Maday knew Ana Cecilia Torres Pozada who owns a local Latin American grocery store, Las Milpas, and Ana joined our planning committee. So did Ramona Hallmon, an African American local minister who worked with young women in the community, Kehaulani Jones, who runs a lavender farm and is a native Hawaiian, and Kristen White Eagle, a Ho-Chunk legislator. We all worked together to plan Celebrate Sauk. Just meeting, hearing each other’s stories, and getting to know each other was as fun as the actual event.
Celebrate Sauk was held at Las Milpas. Participants learned salsa, Tahitian and Lithuanian dances. The Guzman family performed Nicaraguan dances in traditional dress, and a highlight was having over 20 Ho Chunk dancers, singers and drummers perform. Participants could try Thai, Mexican and Peruvian food, as well as play Tombola, a Peruvian game of chance, and taste fried plantains.
It feels like the more connections that are built through the Baraboo Acts Coalition and the more relationships that grow, the more good things spiral outward. We invited folks who helped plan Celebrate Sauk to watch the cranes roost on the Wisconsin River and come back to the house for dinner. A couple of families came, including Ana’s, and she brought her mother who has been living in the United States for five years. I made them chili, and Ana told me that it was her mother’s first American meal since she’s been in this country. I saw her go back for seconds, and it made me feel really good to be a part of a positive experience for someone new to this community.
I love living in Baraboo, we have a great community here. It isn’t that I felt like I didn’t belong here before the photo incident or that I wasn’t a part of the community. But afterwards, as my involvement in the community grew in response to the photo, I have met so many more people and have created relationships with more people who are different than me. I feel like I have just a rounder, larger sense of community here than I did before. And I’m so appreciative of that.
Marcy’s story was produced by Jen Rubin and is part of the Baraboo Acts Coalition series, which formed in 2018 when Baraboo became an international controversy after a photo circulated depicting several young people giving the Nazi salute. You can learn more about the Baraboo Acts Coalition here.
Photo 1: Members of the Celebrate Sauk planning team; Photos 2-4: Participants at the Celebrate Sauk event; Photo 5: Students speaking at a Baraboo Acts Coalition event.
