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Richard Tropp knew that the end was near.
The Westbury native noted his last thoughts, struggling with each page to explain to the outside world why this day would be the last – and the last for his sister and the hundreds of other members of the Temple of Peoples worship.
He was writing from Jonestown, an isolated agricultural agglomeration of Guyana, named in honor of Jim Jones, founder and leader of the cult.
The letter was dated November 18, 1978.
"We all chose to die for this cause," wrote Tropp, whom Jones had exploited to reach his entourage. "We know that it is impossible to avoid this misinterpretation."
A few hours later, more than 900 people, including 300 children, would die of cyanide poisoning – some of their own hand, others of murder. The Jonestown Massacre would be the biggest loss of American lives, from a single act up to the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Today, 40 years later, there are still questions about why the Tropps and hundreds of others come together in a promise of racial integration, social justice and social justice. equality, would ingest a powdered grape drink mixed with potassium cyanide.
"It was a devastating experience," said Sandra Tropp, retired professor at Boston University and sister-in-law of the Tropps. "They left such a terrible hole in their father's heart forever."
Roots of Long Island
The Tropps grew up as much in Long Island after the Second World War.
Their parents, Herman and Eleanor Tropp, Russian-American Jews, moved their three children – Richard, Harriet and Martin – from Brooklyn to Valley Stream in 1946. They then moved to a Martin Lane home in Westbury. Eleanor Tropp was diagnosed with cancer in 1965 and died a year later.
Despite the sudden death of their mother, the Tropp children seemed to be on the road to success.
Every graduate of Clarke High School in Westbury. Martin, who died in 2006, became an English teacher at Babson College, Massachusetts. Harriet earned a law degree from Hastings Law School at the University of California. Richard is a graduate of the University of Rochester and the University of California at Berkeley.
But Richard, active in the anti-war movement of the 1960s, was agitated, family members said.
"He always seemed to be looking for a cause," said Martin about his brother in an interview with Newsday in 1978.
Richard returned to California, where he met Kathryn Barbour, a self-declared "hippie", born in Ohio in 1967. The couple rented a small cottage in the Redwood Valley, in northern California, half a mile from the Peoples Temple. movement combining elements of Christianity with communist and socialist policies.
While working as an enumerator in May 1970, Richard knocked on Jim Jones' door. He was immediately fascinated by the revolutionary rhetoric of the charismatic Reverend, said Barbour, 72, of San Francisco.
"He was so friendly and happy," she said of Jones. "But I had concerns, he hinted that he was Jesus."
& # 39; We will all die together & # 39;
Jim Jones had a difficult start in life.
Born in 1931, just a few years after the Great Depression, Jones grew up in a rural area of Indiana – Marshall Kilduff and Ron Javers write in a pipe-free booth, in their book "The Suicide Cult".
According to psychologist Richard Wiseman, some of his neighbors perceived young Jones as what they would later call "a really weird kid" who showed great interest in religion and death.
"He also showed an early interest in preaching, a childhood friend remembering how Jones had once placed an old sheet on his shoulders, had formed a group of other children in an improvised congregation and had immediately pronounced a sermon pretending to be the devil, "Wiseman. written in "Paranormality."
In 1955, at the age of 24, Jones founded a church that became known as Peoples Temple, writes Wiseman.
"Oddly enough, he financed this ambitious venture by going door-to-door selling company monkeys," according to the book. "When he was not engaged in the monkey trade, he spent time honing his skills in public speaking and quickly built a considerable reputation as a very charismatic preacher."
Fifteen years later, in California, Jones brought Richard Tropp and Kathryn Barbour into his flock and the couple settled in a denominational community. The couple donated their belongings to the church and received an allowance of $ 8 a day, Barbour said.
They cut ties with their families and ended their romantic relationship. According to Barbour, the mutual attraction was considered selfish and a sign of weakness.
Richard, described by his colleagues as brilliant, but often private and threatening, became the head of the Temple's letter writing unit, writing articles for the "Peoples Forum," a free newspaper published by the United States. ;church.
Harriet joined the temple shortly after visiting her older brother in 1972. She rose in the church hierarchy for her skills as a lawyer and negotiator.
While Jones envisioned problems of social justice – feeding the needy and creating a drug addiction – Barbour recalled that his sermons would end on a dark note, often promising "we will all die together".
In 1977, the press began to examine Jones' operations, asking questions about allegations of corporal punishment, drugstores, and members detained against their will. Jones responded by selecting hundreds of followers, including the Tropps, for a move to the isolated Jonestown precinct.
Barbour was not selected and stayed in California, she said. According to the records, Harriet became one of Jones' senior lieutenants, managing temple interests with Guyana's highest elected representatives. Richard was director of Jonestown High School.
In November 1978, California representative Leo Ryan traveled to Guyana with several journalists to inspect temple activities. As the congressman was preparing to return home with several members of the temple, Jones' supporters launched an attack on the Guyanese landing strip. Ryan, a temple member and three journalists were shot dead.
Jones then launched his plan for "revolutionary suicide". The drink, containing cyanide, tranquilizers, and sedatives, was thrown into the mouths of babies and children and ingested by adults. The people who resisted were threatened by armed guards, according to public records. Jones died as a result of a self-inflicted bullet wound.
"I was in shock," said Barbour, who saw the dead on television. "Forty years later, I still feel shocked."
Did they resist?
Whether or not the Tropps have resisted Jones' suicide pact remains unclear even today.
But they showed little sign of remorse, according to the writings and transcripts published by the Jonestown Institute, a research group founded by San Diego State University.
"We promised our life for this great cause," wrote Richard in his last letter. "We are proud to have something to die for."
In undated transcripts, Harriet described herself as a communist willing to "destroy, kill, maim or destroy anything that, in my opinion, would be a valid way to protest the system".
For independent journalist Julia Scheeres, who wrote a book about Jonestown, The Tropps and most supporters should be considered victims of Jones, who used her charisma and nihilism to convince them that death was the only option.
"They went to Jonestown to build a utopian society," said Scheeres, author of "A Thousand Lives." The unpublished story of hope, deception and survival in Jonestown. "I do not think they've moved there to die."
And Barbour, Richard's former girlfriend, believes that one must remember those who died in Jonestown for more than their final act.
"They should be defined by the lives they have lived and not just by their death," said Barbour, who has published a scrapbook with portraits of the victims.
In his interview with Newsday in 1978, Martin Tropp tried to make sense of the massacre and the role played by his family in the tragedy.
"They were so isolated in the jungle that they all took part in Jones' illusion," he said. "I told my dad that we might as well pretend that they died in a plane crash. That would make just as much sense."
Robert Brodsky is a last-minute reporter who works at Newsday since 2011. He is an alum of Queens College and American University.
