By Harman Grossman / The Berkshire Minyan

Have you ever passed Jug End Road in Egremont, and wondered about that street name? If you think about it, it makes no sense: a jug can have a bottom, but not an end – so what’s the origin of the name? A friend at the Berkshires Minyan provided an answer – she learned this bit of Berkshires history from an elderly neighbor who lived in Egremont all her life.

It turns out that in the 1930s, the German-American Bund (the American wing of the Nazi party) ran camps for Nazi youths – “Jugend” in German – all across America. One camp, serving hundreds of Nazi youths, was in the area of Egremont that is now the state reservation. The access road to the camp was, appropriately enough, called “Jugend Road,” and the local residents expressed no opposition to having this Nazi presence in their midst. In 1941, however, when the United States entered the war, an angry Egremont police chief took it upon himself to raid the camp and unilaterally shut it down. The camp quickly disappeared, but the name of the road remained, anglicized to Jug End Road.

A fascinating story, with only one problem: Not a word of it is true. According to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management and Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Environmental Law Enforcement (which jointly acquired the area in 1994), the name Jug End was actually given to the area by the first white settlers of the Berkshires, Dutch families from New Amsterdam who arrived in this part of the Housatonic Valley in the late 1600s. The name is indeed derived from the Dutch German word “Jugend,” meaning youth or young, but it refers to a small or young mountain – not to Hitler youth. And during the period that the Nazi youth camp was supposed to be functioning there, contemporary property records, photographs, and newspaper accounts show that the property was actually the site of a luxury sports club – known until 1938 as the Guilder Hollow Sports Club and subsequently as the Jug End Barn -- which attracted guests from New York, Boston, and Connecticut. The area remained a popular resort through the 1970s, but it eventually fell into disrepair and shut its doors in 1985.

Through it all, no Nazis, no street named for Hitler youth, and no heroic Egremont police chief.

The story my friend told me appears to be a mangled misappropriation of an event that actually did occur in Southbury, CT. According to connecticuthistory.org, in 1937, one Wolfgang Jung (not “Jugend,” but pretty close) bought 178 acres of land in Southbury and started building a gathering place for Nazi youth, with a capacity of over 1,000. When a local newspaper made the plans public, Southbury residents called for a town meeting to change the town’s zoning laws to block the camp. On December 5, 1937, before the anticipated town meeting, local police stormed the camp and arrested two Bundists from New York who were clearing brush at the site. They were charged with violating Connecticut blue laws by working on the Sabbath. (The ironic echo of the Biblical story [Numbers 15] of the wood gatherer on Shabbat should not be lost on anyone.) Two weeks later, the legislature approved new zoning laws that designated the land as appropriate for farming and residential use only; the Bund sold the property and left.

But back to Egremont’s Jug End Road. Both my friend and I immediately believed her neighbor’s story about Nazis in Egremont. (I even repeated it to several friends; it made great cocktail party chatter.) I wonder now why we were so quick to believe. Of course, it explained the etymology of Jug End Road (plausibly, but, it turns out, incorrectly). But more importantly, it fit the zeitgeist. It reinforced the anxiety we felt about antisemitism bubbling up all around us: A camp for Hitler youth in the Berkshires? Could there have been enough local antisemites to support that kind of project? Are there now, among our seemingly friendly neighbors? And at the same time, the story reinforced our faith in the ultimate goodness of the American people – symbolized by the police chief who would swoop in to shut the Nazis down.

It’s easy to believe stories such as this when times are tense – and these are tense times, indeed. Whether in Kfar Azza or at the Capitol Jewish Museum, we Jews are on edge – understandably. Social media exacerbates the problem, seducing us to think the worst of those who disagree with us – they’re not just mistaken; they don’t just see things differently; they’re evil. But the real story of Jug End Road teaches us that though it’s true that we have enemies, and it’s true that there are those who wish to do us harm, it’s not everyone, everywhere, all the time. There are good people, allies, in our midst as well, like the Southbury residents who united to drive the Nazis out of their town. Truth is, sometimes a Jug End is not a nest of Nazis. Sometimes a Jug End is just a road.

Harman Grossman, a member of The Berkshire Minyan, is a retired lawyer. He currently teaches 12th graders at the Golda Och Academy in NJ, and adults at Central Synagogue in NY and at Metrowest Federation in NJ. He lives in Teaneck, NJ and Great Barrington.

Image: Jug End Barn was an all-season resort that operated from 1935 to 1982. This artist’s rendering is from the 1960s. For an interesting overview of the resort’s history (and some cool images, such as the one above), check out NewEnglandSkiHistory.com (newenglandskihistory.com/Massachusetts/jugend.php).