On my latest Q&A podcast, I talk with an eminent couple: Robert and Guna Mundheim. He is a man of the law; she is an artist (whose website is here). They have much of interest to say.
She started out in Riga, in 1936. A great deal happened between then and her arrival in America, in 1949. The family had sponsors in Chadds Ford, Pa. “I went to seventh grade right on the other hill from Andrew Wyeth,” says Guna. She later went to Overbrook High School in Philadelphia. Among her classmates was Wilt Chamberlain — “a perfectly nice person,” she says.
Bob Mundheim started out in Hamburg, in 1933. He was born a few weeks after Hitler rose to power. He had a brother four years older than he. When his brother was seven or eight, he was badly beaten by young hoods. “He never fully recovered his mental capacities,” says Bob.
From those early years, Bob has a specific memory. One day, he saw his mother talking with a strange man in the living room. He turned out to be a Gestapo official. “My dad had already left for the United States, so maybe they were checking to see where he was and whether they could pick him up.”
Bob’s mother and the two boys left for America at the end of 1938.
As we talk, I ask whether family members were murdered in the Holocaust. “Yes,” says Bob. “My aunt and my two cousins, who were roughly the same age that I was.”
The four Mundheims settled in Jackson Heights, Queens, N.Y. Bob went to P.S. 69. Then he went to William Cullen Bryant High, for two years. His father didn’t especially like the way he talked or what he was learning. So he did what all good fathers do: consulted his dentist. The dentist’s son had gone to Exeter. So, that’s where Bob would go, the next year.
What made him want to become a lawyer? Reading Perry Mason novels.
Robert Mundheim went to Harvard College. He concentrated on American history. His thesis adviser was Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. He then went to Harvard Law School, where he studied with Paul Freund and other luminaries.
In the years since, Mundheim has worked at law firms, in corporations, at law schools, in government . . . He was the general counsel for the U.S. Treasury Department from 1977 to 1980. During that time, he dealt with the Iran hostage crisis, participating in some intense negotiations. For almost 30 years, he worked at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, serving some of those years as dean. Today, he teaches at the University of Arizona.
Maybe I could say one more thing, before concluding this post. In the early 1960s, Professor Mundheim tells me, “my Air Force unit got called up and stationed, strangely enough, in Germany, to protect the Germans against the Russians.” “That was strange,” I say. He says, “My mother thought that was really extraordinary.” I say, “She was right.”
It is interesting, and pleasant, and illuminating to spend an hour with Robert and Guna Mundheim. Again, our Q&A is here.