88-year old professor leaves mark on IU

Every day he teaches, 88-year-old Henry Remak leaves his house on Maxwell Lane and walks nearly a mile to campus, cranking his weight from side to side with a large shoulder bag and a look of contentment on his face. He takes it slow, using this time to appreciate his surroundings and to chat with the people he meets.\n"I haven't driven a car since 1962," Remak said while laughing out loud. \nRemak, IU's oldest professor, usually climbs the stairs to his office on the sixth floor of Ballantine Hall. He's been teaching at IU for 66 years, and a student once told him that because of this, he has a protected status as a historical monument. \n"It's just amazing how much he knows about books, and how much insight he gives about the time period and the history," said senior Abhishek Khemka, a former student of Remak's. "The class would be about a book, but then he'd go off on a big tangent."\nFor Khemka and others, Remak's class is unique because he has so much life experience to draw from, always a personal story to tell that would add a little something to a discussion. After all, he's been around for nearly a century and has seen history unfold with his own eyes.\n"I think for the students, it's interesting to learn from a person who has lived history. I feel I can make things more alive because I can connect them to my own experiences in dramatic times," Remak said.\nThinking, he closes his eyes tightly and begins to speak of his past. Remak runs his thin hand over his head. He's nearly bald, but still has a few wisps of white hair. \nRemak was born in 1916 in Berlin amid the tumult of World War I. And although his family was German, they were of the Jewish faith, which he said became problematic. When he was a toddler, he remembers playing with his brother in a room in his house that overlooked the street below and hearing gunshots, a sound he came to regard as normal.\n"I was very used to conflict," Remak said.\nHe went to the only French high school in Berlin, which prepared him well to emigrate once Hitler came to power in 1933. Remak went to France to study for more than two years, earning the equivalent of a bachelor's degree. \nRemak sent letters all over the world in an attempt to get a job, but he said no one wanted to hire someone whom they couldn't meet face-to-face. Then, while at the University of Montpelier, in France, his luck changed. Walking down a hallway, he saw a poster on the wall from the International YMCA that said all persecuted people should have a chance to emigrate to a country where they could get a job. It said anyone who felt eligible should send an autobiography. So he did.\nThe YMCA wanted to help Remak and told him they would try and place him at a university in a free country. \n"The YMCA learned that America had fraternity and sorority houses," Remak said. "So they had a practical idea, and decided the thing to do was to get me to be invited by a fraternity."\nIU's chapter of Sigma Alpha Mu responded. The alumni invited Remak to stay with them for free. \nHe spent his first day in Bloomington finding a way to pay for his tuition. With the help of his 35 fraternity brothers, he went to William Lowe Bryan, IU's president at the time, and asked him for free tuition. Bryan, who had himself spent time in Berlin studying abroad, took a liking to Remak and granted his request.\nWith most of his major worries aside, Remak was free to explore the campus. He felt anxious when his friend took him on a tour of the campus because there were so many trees and flowers around. This sight was different from his idea of a college campus, which in Europe consists mostly of tall stone buildings. \n"I remember distinctly saying to myself that I am never going to leave this paradise," Remak said.\nBloomington has remained Remak's anchor, so that no matter where he has traveled, he has always returned to this town he calls home. \nRemak enlisted in the Merchant Marine during World War II, and he has been a visiting professor in Wisconsin, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Germany, France and India. He got his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and in 1946, he was offered a full-time professorship at the IU-Bloomington campus, where he has taught Germanic comparative culture and comparative literature, and was among the founders of the West European Studies Program. He became the Vice Chancellor of the University in 1969, retiring from that post after five years.\nBut he didn't retire from IU entirely. The Honors College wanted him to be a member of its faculty; he is now an emeritus professor within the HC and teaches historical seminar classes.\nSenior Andrew Remak said he's very proud to be Henry Remak's grandson because of how loyal he's been to the University. He admires his grandfather's love for his students, and doesn't think his grandfather will ever want to stop teaching.\n"I don't think he's ever going to retire. I think he'll stop teaching when they kick him out, or when he can't walk or talk anymore," Andrew said.\nHenry Remak holds up a gold trophy in his hands that tend to shake. The American Comparative Literature Association sent it to him recently as an award for lifetime achievements in comparative literature, the first and only award of its kind. \n"So you see a negative thing may have positive consequences. If Hitler hadn't come to power, I may have studied in Germany and never come here to become a professor of languages and comparative cultures." Remak said. "I love teaching, I love students and I feel I've had a very lucky life."\n-- Contact staff writer Lindsay Lyon at lrlyon@indiana.edu.