Thursday, February 10,1994 — THE BULLETrN —
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ACTOR mass LIAM NEESON 88 Schindler.
By TOM TUGEND
. LOS ANGELES ~ There is a brief quotation from Exodus Rabbah on my bulletin board, in which G-d warns 'Moses and Aaron that "My children are obstinate, ill-tempered and troublesome."
Steven Spielberg is no Moses. But something like those words must go through his mind when, among the reams of nationwide acclaim for Schindler's List, he comes across a number of harsh reviews — some bordering on the vitriolic -- precisely by critics who identify themselves as ardent Jews.
None of the critics lived through the Holocaust or were among the rescued Schindler Jews, who have confirmed the fidelity of the film to their own experiences and to the basic fact that Oskar Schindler risked his neck and drained his fortune to shield "his" Jews.
Some of the reservations, such as those of Frank Rich of the New York Times, are appropriately within the province of a critic.
Rich, and others, object that none of the Jewish characters in the film are fully developed and "blur into abstraction, becoming another depersonalized statistic of death."
What is troublesome are attacks on the movie because it does not bear out the reviewer's own vision of a proper Holocaust film and because the hero is not only a German, but a Nazi party member to boot.
(The tone of such criticism is reminiscent of the reception 45 years ago of Gentleman's Agreement, when some purists denounced the first Hollywood film to deal seriously with American anti-Semitism because the hero was a gentile posing as a Jew.)
See Editorial — "Towering achievement", page 4_
Jonathan Kirsch, in his review of Schindler's List in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, asks why Spielberg chose to make a Holocaust film in which the hero is a Nazi, however good-hearted. "I wished Spielberg had found his way to, for example, tell the story of the Bielski partisans, rather than Schindler's List," he wrote.
Similarly, Rabbi Eli Hecht, writing in the Los Angeles Times, dwells at length on Schindler's well-known womanizing, his ostentation and his use of forced Jewish labor in his factory. Hecht concludes that the German's designation as a righteous person comes close to blasphemy.
The charge will come as a surprise to the Yad Vashem Martyrs Memorial in Jerusalem, not known for pro-Nazi proclivities, which has honored Schindler as a Righteous Gentile.
Kirsch and Hecht miss two points that more sophisticated analysts of the Holocaust and the deeds of Christian rescuers have amply noted. Such scholars as Eva Fogelman and Nechama Tec, who have interviewed thousands of Christians who saved Jews in Poland and France, have concluded that it was impossible to categorize rescuers by their background, politics and motivations. Unlikely as it may seem, the researchers found numerous instances in which outspoken anti-Semites, many affil-SPIELBERG iated with Jew-baiting movements, in fact saved hundreds of Jews.
A second point goes to the objection that the horror of the Holocaust is diminished by praising the goodness of a few rather than condemning the cruehy and indifference of the many.
Rabbi Harold Schulweis of Los Angeles, who started the Jewish Foundation for Christian Rescuers, has noted that perhaps only through a knowledge of individual acts of Christian heroism can most Christians face the vastness of Christian guilt during the Holocaust.
Indeed, said Schulweis, "whoever hears or reads the accounts of the rescued must realize that there are no heroes without villains, that the small light in the cave reveals more vividly the dark designs of the predators. If anything, to experience immense evil through the eyes of the good enables those fearful of entering the cave to take the first brave steps."
In fairness, both Kirsch's and Hecht's criticisms go well beyond the figure of Schindler, but they come at it from opposite directions. Kirsch seems to think that the film does not show the true extent of the Holocaust's horror and Jewish suffering. Hecht objects vehemently to any films or museums that show "Jews as victims over and over again."
Both views are defensible, but they simplify the immense complexity of the Holocaust. The Shoah retains its hold on the human and artistic imagination because it contained immense evil and remarkable goodness, incredible carnage and chance survival.
Schindler's List deals with one small part of the tragedy and does so with dignity and truthfulness.
Lester Publsstiing. $24.95
found post-war asylum in Sweden in 1945— an asylum which came too late, for by November of that year they had died of their afflictions.
There are maps, showing the location of family guerrilla groups in the forests of Poland and Belarussia, and maps showing the routing of the doomed ship Struma as it sailed in its frustrated voyage only to be turned back at Istanbul by the
regime to apply the "Final Solution" to the Jews of a conquered Britain.
We are not accustomed to thinking of the Jews of the Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) as being under the Nazi heel, but for five months in 1943 the 50,000 Jews of Tunisia suffered confiscation of property, forced labor, general ill-treatment and killing.
More than 5,000 were sent to labor camps near the
Ben Kayfeiz is a regutar contributor to The Bulletin.
Bottmann Archive
FROM FRONT JACKET cover of Martin Gilbert's book.
By BEN KAYFETZ How does one review a
book titled Atlas of the Holocaust? By assessing its historical and geographic accuracy? By judging the literary style of its written segments? By evaluating its sources?
None of these alternatives can be tested in practical terms. The maps — all in black and white — are only too clearly legible. The charts and maps are self-explanatory. There is a minimum of interpretive text.
The scope is comprehen-
sive, taking in all of Europe, omitting no corner of the Balkans, and embracing such "minor" players as Finland, and areas we do not frequencly associate with Nazi deportations and killings, such as Rhodes and Crete.
Martin Gilbert, the distinguished Oxford scholar, has assembled a collection of maps that examine the entire width and breadth of the German aggression and expansion in World War II.
One map shows the birthplaces in Eastern and Western Europe of women who
Turks (under pressure from the British, Gilbert points out, who wanted to divert it from its goal of Palestine).
Another map shows the birthplaces in Europe of 15,000 gypsies murdered in the Mauthausen death camp.
Guernsey and Jersey are not shown but Alderney, one of the Channel islands, appears with eight Jews having been sent to the death camps.
Their given names reflect the Anglo-Saxon cultural influence: Wilfred and Robert — alongside a Chaim and a Szmi^l. In all, 100 Alderney Jews died in the labor and death camps.
The infamous Wannsee Conference of January 1942 had before it the figures of the Jewish population of the British Isles. It was fully the intention of the Hitler
front lines. In May of that year, they were liberated when the Germans were driven out.
Some of us have been under the illusion that birth in a neutral country served to save the lives of Jews with neutral citizenship who may have been switched from a death camp to a civilian internment camp. No so. One map shows the number of Swiss-born and Jews of U.S. citizenship shipped to the killing camps from . France.
To bring the story home: Ilja in Lithuania is the home of the father of the late Flor-ence Hutner, long-time director of Toronto's Jewish Welfare Fund; Beled in West Hungary, whose 300 Jews were deported in 1944, is where the Reichmann family stems from.
ATLAS — Page 8
The news from Egypt tells a tale of violence and chaos, of extremists unleashing a wave of bloodshed and a government in danger of being overthrown. What is happening in ============== Egypt today is an omen of what will
By DR. IRVING happen in Judea, Samaria and Gaza MOSKOWITZ when the PLO takes over.
- The violence in Egypt is the work of
Islamic fundmentalists. They have three goals, which they pursue simultaneously: the overthrow of the Egyptian government, the expulsion of all foreigners from Egypt, and the persecution of non-Moslem minorities.
Every morning's newspaper brings fresh news of the latest turmoil in the land of the Pharaohs. Consider this police blotter for one 48-hour period in late December: Policemen raid a fundamentalist hideout on El-Badari island; the suspects respond with gunfire, killing one officer and wounding another (more than 275 people were killed in that region during the past two years as a result of attacks by Islamic groups). A tourist bus is bombed in downtown Cairo; 16 people are wounded. In the city's Boulaq El-Dakrour neighborhood, a policeman stops a car for a routine i.d. check; the Moslem fundamentalist passengers open fire, killing him.
The bloodshed in Egypt is typical of the struggle underway in the Arab world between the old order and the new generation. Entrenched Arab dictators, loyal to Islam but not sufficiently fanatic for their opponents, are being challenged by violent Khomeini types. The Mubarak government in Egypt is under attack from the Moslem Brotherhood. PLO chairman Yasser Arafat is at odds with the Hamas movement.
Neither Mubarak nor Arafat will last very long. Their days are numbered. The followers of Hamas and the Moslem Brotherhood are ideologically committed, religiously inspired and growing in number. Like the followers of the AyatoUah Khomeini in Iran, their triumph is inevitable. It's onlv a matter of time.
The implications for Israel are profound, because successive Israeli governments have been basing their relationships with their Arab neighbors on the concept of exchanging land for promises.
Israel gave Egypt the Sinai; if Moslem fanatics take over Egypt they can tear up the promises Sadat made to Israel -and they already have the Sinai.
Dr. Irving Mositowitz is e member of the board of governors of Americans For a Safe israei.
Israel is giving Judea, Samaria and Gaza to the PLO; if Hamas militants overthrow Arafat, they can tear up whatever promises Arafat made to Israel — and they will already have Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
Friends of Israel should look closely at what is transpiring in Egypt. The violence by Moslem fundamentalists there today is a small taste of what will happen in Judea, Samaria and Gaza between the PLO and Hamas in the months to come. And when Hamas emerges victorious, Israel will be the loser.
The weeks go by slowly for Jonathan Pollard, sentenced to life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole, for passing American defence information to Israel.
PoUard has been
incarcerated for:
Organizations worldwide recognise that Pollard's punishment In no way Sts his crime. A collective voice of outrage at his excessive sentence - letters, telegrams, faxes and phone calls - can make a difference.
Voice your pfst^l by wiitlng President Blfif OlMoa The White House Washington, ac 30500
The President's Comment Une
The President's Fax: i-202«456-246i
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