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Holocaust

Operation Finale – Capturing a War Criminal

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“We’re all animals fighting for scraps on the Serengeti.”

One of the most celebrated trials of the twentieth century was when Israel put Adolph Eichmann on trial. Eichmann headed the SS Office for Jewish Affairs and was one of the key architects of the Holocaust. But before they could put him on trial, they had to find him and get him to Israel. Operation Finale is the Mission Impossible style account his capture.

In 1960, Eichmann (Sir Ben Kingsley) is living with his family under an assumed name in Argentina. There is a community of Nazi supporters there, including many in the Catholic Church. When a young Jewish girl connects that this person is Eichmann, word gets to Israel. In the past Israel has looked for Eichmann to assassinate him, but now the government wants him captured to be put on trial for his crimes. A select group of Mossad (intelligence) and Shin Bet (security) agents develop a daring and dangerous plan to capture him and smuggle him out of the country on a special El Al plane.

Among the Israelis on this team is Peter Malkin (Oscar Issac). Malkin had taken part in an earlier assassination attempt that targeted the wrong man. As the plan develops, Malkin is the man who actually grabs Eichamnn just a few yards from his house. But after the capture things get complicated. The team is now told that they must get Eichmann to sign a document saying he agrees to be tried in Israel. At the same time, the right-wing Argentine security forces begin the hunt to rescue Eichmann.

As the time for the getaway draws near, Eichmann is understandably reluctant to cooperate. He says he should be tried in Germany. He says he could never get a fair trial in Israel. Only one person on the team was to negotiate with Eichmann, but when no progress was made, Malkin offered a different approach. Over a period of days Malkin and Eichmann discuss the realities of war, of nationalism, of human nature. Finally, Eichmann agrees, but they must still get him out of the country before being found.

Much of the film is a thriller—both the plan to capture Eichmann and the cat-and-mouse game between the Israelis and Argentinians. But what elevates this over other such films is the near philosophical discussion between Malkin and Eichmann. Both men have agendas that they bring to this dialogue, but in their back-and-forth they move each other to deeper levels of understanding. Eichmann strives to manipulate Malkin by pushing him on a personal level.

That seems to be a major difference between the two men. For Malkin (and the other Israelis) this is something that touches their lives. All had lost people in the Holocaust. For Eichmann it is about massive numbers. There is a sense in which 6 million Jews may overwhelm us, but there is more power in the knowledge of a single person we know. Eichmann did not know those whose death he oversaw. They were annoyances to be exterminated.

The actual trial of Eichmann is something of an anti-climax in the film. It is shown briefly, but the real testimony of the film is in these scenes of speaking about victims, justification, and our common human nature.

While the film doesn’t accept Eichmann’s rationalizations for his crimes, it does show him to be a man who cared for his family and his country, just as Malkin and the other Israelis cared for their families and nation. It is this humanizing factor that serves to point out the basis for all of Eichmann’s sins in the Holocaust—the failure to see that humanity in others.

Photos courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures

Bringing Evil to Justice – 1on1 with Lior Raz (Operation Finale)

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I recently had the opportunity to talk by phone with Lior Raz, who plays Isser Harel in Operation Finale, the story of the 1960 Israeli covert mission to capture Adolph Eichmann in Argentina. Since Lior is an Israeli, I focused on the importance of this story in Israel today.

How much does the story of the Eichmann capture and trial still resonates in Israel?

In Israel, it is a story that every kid knows. Because we are learning about the Holocaust since we are very young. We are learning about what happened there, and what Israel did, and about the Eichmann trial, and all the evidence. So I was very familiar with this story of Adolph Eichmann and the capture of him.

So does that bring a special meaning for you to be in a film like this?

Of course. I think it’s a very important movie now. And I think it’s important because in those days we had genocide, we had racism,  we had antisemitism all over the world. I think this movie comes out and shows the world: don’t forget what happened and we don’t want history to repeat itself. We need to stop it. We can’t stand outside and just watch horrible things happening. So being an Israeli, and a Jew, and a man with a family, it’s very important that these values go to everyone in the world.

Lior Raz stars as Isser Harel in OPERATION FINALE, written by Matthew Orton and directed by Chris Weitz, a Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film.
Credit: Valeria Florini / Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures © 2018 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

The film plays out as a thriller. I’m not sure how much was added to enhance that aspect, but it is true that they were trying to get Eichmann out of the country while Argentine forces were trying to find them, right?

That’s true. It happened. Those people in the Mossad, what happened to them was very dangerous for them and the people who helped them. All the agents risked their lives in order to bring someone to justice in Israel, and not just kill them over there to revenge. And still those Mossad people do crazy stuff every day that we don’t know, but it was amazing what they did then.

It was interesting that Israel made the decision that they wanted Eichmann brought back to Israel for trial, not just to assassinate him.

Because it is very easy to assassinate. The decision was a very hard decision. It was Israel’s decision to bring him to justice and not to kill him over there. This decision is about morality. It’s about real justice. I think in those days in Israel all the Holocaust survivors wanted another way of revenge. It was to hear everything that happened and to be heard. So the trial was well published and it was on television every day. And it was a big thing in those days in Israel, people just wanted to be there and to understand what happened. To see this mastermind, master of evil, come to justice in a Jewish state.

I think that was an important decision, and as it plays out in the movie it was hard for those taking part in the capture because it was personal for them.

Yes, it is. But one thing, as you know, you have to be better than him. It was the easy way to assassinate him. But although all of them had been hurt by the Holocaust in a way, they were very professional, and just wanted to bring him back to Israel.

The Zookeeper’s Wife – Providing Sanctuary

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“I don’t belong here. They don’t belong here. You don’t belong here.”

The Zookeeper’s Wife opens in an almost Edenic world. Jan (Johan Heldenbergh) and Antonina (Jessica Chastain) Zabinski live on the grounds of the Warsaw Zoo, where Jan is the head zookeeper. Their son sleeps with lion cubs. When Antonina bicycles around the zoo, a young camel runs along with her. It is a happy and carefree existence. Not quite carefree, because war is looming. The serpent of this Eden is Lutz Heck (Daniel Brühl), the visiting head of the Berlin Zoo. He is obviously taken with Antonina, but claims he isn’t involved in politics.

When Germany invades on September 1, 1938, beginning the Second World War, the zoo is bombed with the rest of Warsaw. Animals are loose and in fear. Many are killed. Soon Heck is back, in an SS uniform, to take control of the animals, to ship the best to Berlin (for “protection”) and to try to use the zoo’s bison to breed long extinct aurochs (a reminder of the Nazi’s concern with eugenics and scientific exploitation). But soon, the Germans are forcing Jews into the Ghetto, and perhaps worse fates await.

The Zabinskis at first secretly harbor Antonina’s best friend, but as the world inside the Ghetto gets worse, they ask the Germans for permission to use the zoo as a pig farm to feed troops, and to feed the pigs with garbage from the Ghetto. Each day Jan goes to pick up the garbage, and smuggle out some of the Jews who are given refuge in the zoo. Through the years, over 300 persons made their way to the safety of the zoo. The Zambiskis, of course, are risking their lives by doing this. They not only provided safety; they provided friendship and even a bit of culture. Each night after the German guards left the zoo, Antonina would play the piano to let those in hiding know they could come out. That time became almost like an evening salon of conversation and companionship.

The film is based on a book by Diane Ackerman, which is a more extensive telling of the Zabinskis’ true story. As is often the case, time constraints require that things are often left out in adaptations of books. Here, we get very brief glimpses of parts of the story, such as Antonina’s pregnancy and Jan’s going off to fight with the Resistance, leaving Antonina alone to deal with their guests.

The Zabinskis’ decision to harbor as many Jews as they could was a courageous act—and a very illegal one. They were well aware of the threat that the Germans represented—both to the Jews and to those who harbored them. Yet, for them, the humanity of their neighbors took precedence over the laws that history has shown to be abhorrent. The idea of offering sanctuary to those in danger has a long history—and continues to be a valid question for people today. We live in a world filled with refugees of various kinds. Many have a difficult time finding a safe and welcoming place. More and more nations are closing their borders to those in need—or seeking to deport those already here. Some—including many churches—are seeking ways to provide a haven for those in need and fear. Stories from the Holocaust, like this one, are a reminder of how important those havens are.

Available July 4 on Blu-ray, DVD, and On Demand; available now on Digital HD. Special features include deleted scenes, the making of the film, and a look at the Zabinski family. 

 

 

Five Came Back – Hollywood Goes to War

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For those who enjoy film, the names John Ford, Frank Capra, George Stevens, William Wyler, and John Huston will be familiar. All are Oscar-winning directors (with a total of 14 Oscars between them). They were also part of the World War II war effort as military filmmakers. Five Came Back is a three-part documentary about these five directors and how they used their filmmaking expertise during the war. The series is streaming on Netflix.

When the U.S. entered World War II after Pearl Harbor, there were many people who left their worlds of safety and comfort to fight in this war. These five filmmakers knew they had talents that could be of import to the war effort. Each volunteered and spent the war in uniform making films for the military. Each had different approaches to the task. For some it took them directly into battle—on Midway and at D-Day, or flying on bombers on combat missions. Others made films that helped American understand why this war had to be fought. But each found a way to serve their nation with the skills they had developed entertaining people with film. Some of their work was essentially newsreel material, often with a good dose of propaganda included. It served to bring the war back to Americans in such a way to keep morale high.

There are some big name directors of today who relate the stories of these earlier filmmakers: Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo del Toro, Paul Greenglass, and Laurence Kasdan. They understand how difficult it is to make films under the best of circumstances. They relate the hardships and trials (which included pushing to make the films their way) faced by the early group.

The series introduces us to their work before the war, but the bulk of the film focuses on their wartime work. It also shows us how this experience changed them. For example, George Stevens (who filmed D-Day and, eventually, the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp) was known mostly as a director of comedies before the war; after the war he never made another comedy (but some marvelous serious films).

This is an excellent piece of film history, plus a nice bit of the history of the Second World War as seen by these filmmakers. Netflix is also streaming some of the wartime films so that viewers can not only learn the story of these men, but also the stories they brought back with them. Among the ones I’ve added to my list on Netflix are: The Memphis Belle (Wyler), The Battle of Midway (Ford), The Negro Soldier (Capra), Know Your Enemy—Japan (Capra), and Let There Be Light (Huston).

29 Aug 1943, London, England, UK — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

2017 Oscar Nominated Short Documentaries

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Filmmakers often bring us the things we may read about in the news in a very personal manner. That is the case for all the films nominated for Best Short Documentary. Three of the films cover very similar territory but each has a different perspective. The films, in alphabetical order are:

4.1 Miles (26 minutes, directed by Daphne Matzlaraki). In the last few years, hundreds of thousands of immigrants have attempted the deadly voyage between Turkey and the Greek island of Lesbos, seeking safety and life. This film focuses on a coast guard boat that goes out each day seeking to rescue many of those. It reflects the chaos of the rescues and the pathos of the dangers and loss.

Extremis (24 minutes, directed by Dan Krauss). Within a hospital ICU this film shows us the angst involved in making decisions about end of life issues. As a doctor tells us, “Here’s the reality: We’re all going to die…. It’s good to have a little bit of say in how.” These can be ethically challenging issues. It can also be a time when faith may play an important role in the decision making for families. This film can currently be streamed on Netflix.

Joe’s Violin (24 minutes, directed by Kahane Cooperman). 91 year old Holocaust survivor Joe Feingold donated his violin to a school music program. It found its way to a seventh grade student, Brianne Perez. Their stories and the history of the violin are a reminder of the hope and joy that can be found in music—and in giving.

Watani: My Homeland (39 minutes, directed by Marcel Mettelsiefen). This film shows us glimpses over a three year period of a family from Aleppo, Syria. The father is a commander in the Free Syrian Army. As the war progresses, the mother takes the four children to Turkey, and eventually Germany looking for a new, safe life. As they are leaving their home, one of the daughters says, “We love you Syria. Forgive us.” Even in the comfort of their new home in Germany, they continue to think of Syria as their homeland.

The White Helmets (41 minutes, directed by Orlando von Einsidel). Also set in Aleppo, this film focuses on a few of the civilian volunteers who rescue people from the rubble after the frequent bombings the city as suffered during the Syrian Civil War. The ones we meet are a former builder, blacksmith, and tailor. Now they spend their days in the humanitarian struggle. As one says, “Any human being, no matter who they are, or which side they are on, if they need our help, it’s our duty to save them. But even as they work to rescue others, they fear for their own families as well. This film is currently streaming of Netflix.

There is power to all these films. Those dealing with the Syrian Civil War and the refugees associated with it are especially timely and provide a way for us to personalize the tragedy that may overwhelm us by the numbers involved. But my favorite among them was Extremis, because it is a very emotional film that shows the difficulty doctors and families face in very trying times. It is a setting that many have found themselves in, and many more will surely confront.

Photos courtesy of Shorts HD

Denial – Does Truth Matter?

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Does truth even matter anymore? I receive frequent emails from FactCheck.org that looks at the statements made by political candidates and rates their accuracy. It may not come as a surprise that some statements are blatantly false. Is the truth just an annoyance that gets in the way of what we’d like to say and believe? Standing for the truth is the core of Denial, a true story courtroom drama about a professor who is sued by a Holocaust denier for libel.

Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz), a professor of history at Emory University, has made a name as one who has studied Holocaust denial. In a book she mentions David Irving (Timothy Spall), a British self-taught historian of World War II, as a Holocaust denier and Hitler apologist. He sues her for libel leading to a sensationalized trial in London. Her defense team, led by solicitor Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott) and barrister Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson), sets a strategy that troubles Lipstadt—to not put her or any Holocaust survivors on the stand. Rather, they planned to focus on Irving and his racist, anti-Semitic views that had led him to distort history.

DENIAL

While much of the film is the courtroom drama (and all of the courtroom dialogue is taken verbatim from the trial transcripts), it is also the personal story of Dr. Lipstadt through this persecution. (The film is based on her book, Denial: Holocaust History on Trial.) Often we sense her solitude in the midst of all the media frenzy. Even when with her legal team, she is often alone. They have their legal experience and strategy. For them, her defense is all important, but for Lipstadt the truth is what really matters and that is why she is not willing to settle. She wants to make it clear that fact of the Holocaust is not subject the whim of whoever may not want to acknowledge it. She wants the pain of the Holocaust victims to have voice. For the others involved, the truth does matter, but it seems to be secondary to winning.

DENIAL

Irving, on the other hand, is portrayed as a self-aggrandizing egotist. For him, the truth is what he wants it to be. He relishes the acceptance this trial seems to give to him and his ideas. It is exactly that approach which is the target of the legal defense. Rampton, in his cross examination treats him as totally unimportant. He refuses to even look at him. It is not so much that he is worthy of contempt. They want to portray that he is not even worthy of notice because he cares nothing about truth.

The film does, of course, speak to the veracity of the historical truth of the Holocaust. That, however, is only a minor part of why the film is important. It is not so much about whether the Holocaust actually happened. (We are expected to already know the fact about that.) Rather this is about what credence we should give the various lies that people speak in order to gain acceptance. Which brings us back to the current electoral process. Sites such as Factcheck.org and Politifact.com (which will rate some things as “Pants on Fire) try to help us get a handle on the truth, half-truths, and sometimes outright lies that candidates and their proxies tell us. But often, even in debates and interviews, those half-truths, errors, and lies go unchallenged. Denial reminds us that the truth matters and that sometimes we have to stand up and demand that lies and those who tell them must be called what they are.

Photos courtesy of Bleeker Street

Germans & Jews: Can They Live Together?

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“What did his grandfather do?”

Does it seem odd that the fastest growing Jewish community in Europe is found in Berlin? When filmmaker Tal Recanati (a Jewish American) traveled to Germany and found a vibrant Jewish community that has grown in the seventy years since the Holocaust, she thought there was a story here that needed to be discovered. Germans & Jews is the personal stories of both Jewish and non-Jewish people living in Germany reflecting on the commonalities and differences they face.

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The film includes a brief history of the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust, but for the most part, it is made up of individual interviews of mostly young adults who are two generations separated from those events. A few of the Jews are from families that returned to Germany right after World War II, others have come from Israel or Russia in more recent years. The gentile Germans have had an education that includes much information about the Holocaust as a way of dealing with their national past. With seventy years having passed, can these two groups coexist in their nation? Is seventy years long enough for such deep wounds to heal and trust to be established? Must new generations carry the guilt of their grandparents (regardless of their ancestors’ actual participation or non-participation)? Can there be reconciliation between peoples who have such a violent and oppressive history?

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As an American watching the film, I felt a bit like an outsider. To be sure, the Holocaust is a part of our cultural awareness—but often just as a point in history that continues to have influences in world affairs. But for those we meet in the film, the Holocaust is an ongoing part of their culture whether or not they are Jewish. As more Jews move into Germany (although they still make up only 0.2% of the population) the relationship between Jew and non-Jew will continue to be a growing phenomenon. The key question is to what extent can these peoples find reconciliation and begin to live not just side by side, but actually be in community together? That is the question that seems to be central not just to the film, but may also be a question that the whole world needs to consider in the many ways national, religious, and cultural divides occur.

Photos courtesy of First Run Features

 

Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt

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We often think of philosophers as those who sit in ivory towers unaffected by the actual world. They think their thoughts about the nature of things without really understanding what matters. But often philosophy comes out of profound experiences. Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt is a documentary about a German-Jewish philosopher who created a controversy when she covered the Adolph Eichmann trial for The New Yorker magazine and spoke of “the banality of evil.” The 2012 narrative film Hannah Arendt garnered significant critical praise.

The film follows the outline of her life—growing up in the First World War, the rise of Nazism, her education (including an affair with her teacher Martin Heidegger, who provided philosophical prestige for the Nazi regime), her eventual escape first to France then to America. This is a film made up mostly of Arendt’s own words—sometimes in archival footage of interviews, but often through readings of parts of her works or her correspondence with her mentor and friend Karl Jaspers. There are no “bumper sticker” quotes in all of this. Arendt’s experiences gave her a grounding with which to approach meaningful aspects of human life—especially the nature of evil and how totalitarianism comes to be.

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For Arendt evil is not a demonic force, but the result of people—even people who are trying to be good within their framework of understanding—who fail to engage in critical thinking. It is not that people do not recognize that something is wrong, but that they find ways to justify doing that wrong as though it were right. At the Eichmann trial Arendt did not see a monster in the dock, but rather a mild-mannered bureaucrat. He was doing his job (which just happened to be overseeing the Holocaust). He claimed to not even be an anti-Semite. But he was also, in his mind, a good German.

It is difficult to judge what passion Arendt may have had for the topic based on an actress reading her works and letters. At times the film comes across as a very dispassionate discussion about something that deeply affected millions of people. I suspect, though, that in her works she does stand back a bit to strive for a detached voice. That may be part of what led to the backlash to her ideas of the banality of evil.

Evil is a difficult subject to come to terms with. Theologians and philosophers struggle to understand its very nature. This film provides some insight that can help us look at some of the questions around evil. It is not an easy film. I enjoyed classes in philosophy, but this required my attention throughout to keep up. It is one of the most cerebral films that I’ve encountered in a long time. (And I don’t think cerebral is a put down.)

Photos from Hannah Arendt Personal Archive and Zeitgeist Films

Son of Saul: A Kind Of Hope

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We are sometimes amazed at the depth of horror that marks the Shoah. Son of Saul shows us again the inhumanity of the Holocaust in a very personal way. The film from Hungarian director László Nemes is already garnering Best Foreign Language Film honors from critics groups, including L.A. Film Critics Association, D.C. Film Critics, and National Board of Review. The film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

Set at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in 1944, the film centers on Saul Ausländer, a Hungarian Jew who is assigned to a Sonderkommando unit, the ones who did all the work of the extermination—moving newcomers from the trains to the gas chambers to the ovens, cleaning up after the bodies, picking through the possessions for valuables. The very idea of having to perform such work is beyond what most of us can imagine. Yet for those forced to do this work it was their way of surviving, although some may have preferred to pay such a cost.

After gassing one group, Saul and the other Sonderkommandos are moving out the bodies and cleaning the room so it is ready for the next group when Saul comes across a boy who is not quite dead. He must take the boy to the SS doctors who finish the job of killing him and plan to dissect him. Saul believes this boy is his son and sets out to rescue the body from the doctors and from the ovens to provide him with a grave and a rabbi to recite the mourner’s Kaddish over the grave. He uses various ruses to be sent to various places within the camp as he seeks to make secret arrangements. As he moves from place to place he takes us through all the various hideous tasks that made up the machinery of Nazi genocide. It also brings him into contact with other Sonderkommanos plotting a rebellion and escape.

This story is told completely from Saul’s perspective. Saul is nearly always right in the center of the frame and he is the camera’s focal point, all that is going on in the background is literally a blur. We find ourselves in an amazingly organized chaos of people doing so many heinous things, but in very matter of fact ways. It is Saul and what is happening to him that is the real story of the film—more so than the horrors of the Holocaust. The struggle that Saul is involved in is not one of survival as we often see in films about the Shoah, but an effort to hold on to a small thread of humanity still alive within him. The desire to do this act of compassion and love within a system of impersonal evil becomes more important to him than life itself.

Perhaps that struggle to hold on to some semblance of decency in a world that seems to be totally evil can seem overwhelming. We often just keep our heads down and hope things will pass by. But for Saul there was something that pushed him to a kind of hope that may only be found when there is no other way to react.