At the end of Passover, I noticed that it was Charlie Chaplin's birthday. Turner Classic Movies was having a day long tribute, but since I didn't get a chance to see it, I went and rented "The Great Dictator". This was the first time I actually watched this incredible movie.
As I have gotten older, my feelings on Holocaust observance have changed. When I was younger and not religious, the Holocaust defined my Judaism
more than anything else. As I have become more religious, the
Holocaust has become less influential in my beliefs in God and
Judaism. As a parent and uncle of synagogue and day school children,
I have seen how the memory of the Holocaust has been used by the Jewish
establishment as, not only a true remembrance, but as an
exploitive tool to bind young people to Judaism and Israel.
With the questionable actions of the Government and Military of the
State of Israel, I feel that these remembrance and teaching moments
seem to have increased. From my readings, it seems that my feelings are shared by Avraham Burg (author of "The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From its Ashes") and Jerry Haber at The Magnes Zionist.
As a result, I try to avoid many of the things I consider to be
the more exploitive Holocaust remembrance events. Since I felt that
"The Great Dictator" was a genuine expression of empathy for a
persecuted people and insightful look at a horrible time in the world,
I decided that would be my way for me and my family to observe Yom HaShoah.
I certainly don't need to go into the specifics of the movie with
you. I did, however, want to bring the final monologue to your
attention. In this scene, Chaplin, as the Jewish barber, is mistaken for the Dictator
of Tomania, Adenoid Hynkel. He is asked to give a speech to the world
concerning his nation's newest conquest. What follows is an incredilby
powerful speech in praise of people and against the forces of greed,
governments, and military control. I thought it was very appropriate
for those of us (especially Jewish people) who seek true justice for
the peoples caught up in the Israel/Palestine conflict. An excerpt:
Soldiers: Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.
Related posts:
- Israel supporters infuse Holocaust remembrance with Iran fears
- Something Great About A.M. Rosenthal: Covering the Holocaust
- Yoav Shamir’s great film, ‘Defamation’, offers a devastating and transcendent portrait of Foxman
- End of Holocaust Means End of Israel Lobby
- Winslet joked that she had to do a Holocaust movie to win an Oscar
{ 18 comments }
I love the Great Dictator. Chaplin studied Hitler carefully. If you watch Hitler after, especially watch him doing his very special Hitlergruß/Hitler salute, you can't help but thinking of Chaplin.
jews also need to get over israel and say "israel has no right to exist and we jews by saying israel has a right to exist are also guilty". how else can an invading force exist but by force, taking, stealing, occupying. smiley faces or weeping wiesel eyes after 'mission accomplished' doesnt cut it.
all else is baloney.
5ds
Phil,
While if you read the Chaplin speech, its wonderful, your headline on this wasn't.
The holocaust should be remembered. If you read Burg, or talk to him, he does not imply in any way that the holocaust should be forgotten, or worse, ridiculed.
Respect that it is sensitive, a still-hurting sore.
Gideon Levy wrote an article on Holocaust Remberance Day today.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1079368.html
Gideon Levy / The Holocaust and Israeli occupation cannot be compared
By Gideon Levy
Tags: israel news
The Israeli soldiers played backgammon in their tent as a Palestinian ambulance stood waiting, its red lights flashing.
The sight of the ambulance, holding an agonized woman, was not enough to cause any of the soldiers to take a break from their game.
Sorry, Richard, but Levy's words ring hollow. While the Ambulance issues sounds horrible, why did it take him 30 minutes to do anything? He intimates that there is a woman in agony yet he waits thorty minutes. There is nothing to indicate that the soldiers knew anything except there was an abulance.
Levy's comparisson to the racist attitude in pre-war Germany with Israel are also misleading. Germany was not at war. Jews were not killing Germans. Jews were not bombing Germans. Jews were not wearing suicide belts. The Jews in Germany did nothing to the German people.
Witty, I just ran a search on Worldcat and got 65,246 entries for "Holocaust," including 42,826 books.
As long as people remember the 20th century at all, I don't think you need to worry about people forgetting the Holocaust.
The more I have studied 20th century European history, though, the more cynical I have become towards the non-historical uses of Holocaust rememberance. The Communists eagerly used it to hide their own evils and punish often fictious right-wing "collaborators." Some of them enjoyed high positions in post-USSR governments.
The Gaza PR disaster sparked a new rash of Holocaust-related news, often played up to a degree that invited cynicism.
1. The Times ran a front page article on a Nazi who had died in Egypt in the 1990's.
2. The Pope's lifting of excommunication on the Society of Pope Pius X (which included an eccentric anti-semitic bishop) became a worldwide Catholic bash-fest among Jewish commentators, with the predictable ugly slurs against the Pope and Pius XII.
3. The wretched Demjanjuk (who was extradited to Israel in the '80s and spent years on death row before having the charges thrown out by the Israeli supreme court) is in the process of being extradited to Germany.
4. New blueprints for the gas-chambers suddenly discovered in Germany, put on display in Berlin, reported in the Times…except that they were actually plans for delousing chambers, not new at all, and well known to archivists.
At my synagogue, we light ten candles (6+4) for the innocents who died in the Shoah. The service is very moving and appropriate. I also have Hilberg and Browning's work on my bookshelf. There's a big difference between history and respectful rememberance, and propaganda or outright idolatry.
AT THE END OF THE FILM CHAPLIN "BREAKS THE FOURTH WALL" AND ADDRESSES THE AUDIENCE:
"I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor – that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible — Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone…."
ENTIRE ADDRESS TEXT & VIDEO – http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechthegreatdictator.html
FROM THE 1992 ATTENBOROUGH FILM "CHAPLIN":
This scene takes place behind the Hollywoodland (later Hollywood) sign to which they had ridden bicycles. Chaplin is played by Robert Downey Jr. and Fairbanks is played by Kevin Kline.
Douglas Fairbanks: "Charles, you're a foreigner; you're still an outsider. You've never understood this country."
Charlie Chaplin: "It's a good country underneath, Doug."
Douglas Fairbanks: "No, it's a good country on *top*. Underneath, that's what starts showing when we're scared."
MY COMMENT: Apply those lines to the period following 9/11 – the torture, the wiretaps etc.
I suppose that I should have credited IMDB with the lines above from the 1992 movie "Chaplin".
SOURCE – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103939/quotes
Thanks for the quote, Dickerson. Watching "The Great Dictator" sounds like a wonderful way to observe the day.
Yes, the hell with observing the events of the holocaust. Watch a movie. You'll do less damage that way.
the events of the holocaust are in gaza, the west bank, iraq, and on a regular basis, lebanon.
march your ass, lawn chair, and fish head to the hilltop and observe/participate.
5ds
Another great post, David F.
Berel, certain groups of Jews were not innocents in Germany before WWII started. The Zionists declared war on Germany in 1933, went after the rich assimilated Jews destroying their businesses and power, and were starving the German nation with the worldwide boycott of German goods. After the wheelbarrow years of the 1920s, Germans were terrified of repeat starvation. WWII did not happen in a vacuum, and this is well-documented by Jewish scholars. Zionist Jewish lore has never owned up to its responsibility in its own demise, nor what they did to regular German Jewish folk who just wanted to live their lives.
MRW pulls out the old canard of the Jewish war against Germany in 1933. Except no bullets were used, no tanks deployed, no ships torpedoed, no women or children murdered, no suicide bombers.
In fact the only casualties were the Jews murdered by Nazis.
Shove the canard back up your ass.
truth = canard
truth = anti semitism
anti semitism = canard
5ds
Phil – that was not the most sensible title!
The Holocaust is certainly being overdone by a 'shitty little Levantine country'.
I've been to Yad Vashem (and the other museum on Mt Zion) in 1973, and I believed it all.
But revisions are coming out.
The mythical '6 million Jews' number is being eroded.
See:
http://www.mosaisk.com/auschwitz/Auschwitz-Number-of-Victims.php
run your mouse over the line beneath the chart.
Back in 1990, the 'official numbers' of Auschwitz murders were reduced by 2.5 million (and they included Gypsies, gays, and Eastern Europeans.
The mythical figure of '6 million Jews' was never reduced by 2.5 million, to perhaps, 3.5 million (including Gypsies, gays, and Eastern Europeans
3.5 million dead is just about twice the number of Iraqis killed by US/UK wars and sanctions since 1991.
So what is the difference between a long war and a Holocaust?
Not Witty: interesting question. One of the singular aspects of the Holocaust IMO was that newly advanced tools of technology were available to achieve objectives familiar to States. Thus the state used the media to focus on a particular group, facilitating use of the Middle European habit of open bigotry to propel state policy. Current policy is different in that it has created a previously unknown focus, "the terrorists," although use of the media is the same and bigotry within the US is not as open.
The actual number is impossible to identify according to any definitive criteria.
The number of Jews killed during the period for being Jews is reliable as an estimate.
Live with it.
Please do not extend your "inquiry" in holocaust revision.
You have a most peculiar mindset about numbers, Richard. The precise number of dead pales in light of the actuality of mechanized death. I guess the Holocaust is one of those subjects about which those who have the 'proper' training think only the 'right' thoughts, rather than being able to engage in the actual process of thought.
Consider again, please: what does fascist mean?
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