The great filmmaker George Stevens was famous for his musicals ("Swing Time," the best Astaire-Rogers film) and screwball comedies ("The More the Merrier," with Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur, a masterpiece.) He headed up a Signal Corps unit in WW2, and was part of the first group of soldiers who stumbled into Dachau. He used his newsreel camera to document the camp. His footage was used at the Nuremberg Trials. When he returned, he had lots of offers to shoot comedies, but he was wandering in a darkness that threatened to destroy him. He later told biographers that he now had a terrible knowledge that there's something in us - in him - that went along with this most horrific of crimes. Instead of comedies, he made "Shane," "Giant" "A Place In the Sun" and "The Diary of Anne Frank."
What haunted Stevens is what causes me to study the Shoah. As Hannah Arendt pointed out, the most horrifying thing about the Holocaust is how it was reduced to a bureaucratic government program, involving railroad timetables, deployment of thousands of soldiers, the building of poison gas ovens, etc. Stevens spent the second half of his life making films that pitted the greatest good against the worst, most depraved evil. He was clearly trying to solve an unsolvable riddle, and produced memorable works of art.
Because of the Shoah, we humans know something about ourselves we didn't know (or at least didn't acknowledge) before. That's why we study this story, and create museums that document what happened. We must never look away. Every choice we make, every day, is a chance to be a loving, kind, compassionate, empathetic human. The other path leads to something that is, unfortunately, imaginable.
NOTE - There's a good retelling of the George Stevens story, with his footage, in the documentary series "Five Came Back" on Netflix
“How many under-explored Jewish worlds ended in gas and bullets?”
One excellent book about one pre-annihilation Jewish world is Elias Canetti’s three volume memoir. I got it in a big, thick, omnibus and read the whole thing straight through. It’s one of my favorite books. I am sitting in the McDonald’s parking lot, drinking my coffee, so I can’t post a picture of the book at the moment, but Wikipedia tells me it’s this: The Memoirs of Elias Canetti 1999, consisting of The Tongue Set Free, The Torch in My Ear, and The Play of the Eyes. Highly recommended, and given your particular interests, especially recommended. His family were Sephardic Jews, living in what is now Romania.
I read Primo Levi as a young British woman trying to grasp what the Holocaust actually was. I kept the books but found that I could never re-read them. But his writing changed me. Now I feel we are in a period of "active" forgetting of the crimes done to the Jews, so that more crimes can be done. I hope a younger generation reads Primo Levi, and are changed.
Yay for Cincy! I spent many summers there growing up. Haven’t really been back as an adult, want to plan a roadtrip soon—I need to get my Skyline/Graeter’s fix. Did you go to Walnut Hills?
Hello from your Selonick side aunt. I enjoyed your insightful, creatively organized, well written post. Though I have long been aware of the Jewish population in Salonica/Thessaloniki through my Turkish and Greek friends , you enlarged my understanding and gave me some new things to read.
I would have written this comment sooner but got sidetracked revisiting Midnight at Pera Palace, about modern Istanbul. It contains a detailed narration of efforts by an array of people (including an executive of Bloomingdale’s!) to assist Jews fleeing Greece, and other countries. A bit sideways of your topic, but I recommend it.
Lillian - Brilliant and insightful, as always.
The great filmmaker George Stevens was famous for his musicals ("Swing Time," the best Astaire-Rogers film) and screwball comedies ("The More the Merrier," with Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur, a masterpiece.) He headed up a Signal Corps unit in WW2, and was part of the first group of soldiers who stumbled into Dachau. He used his newsreel camera to document the camp. His footage was used at the Nuremberg Trials. When he returned, he had lots of offers to shoot comedies, but he was wandering in a darkness that threatened to destroy him. He later told biographers that he now had a terrible knowledge that there's something in us - in him - that went along with this most horrific of crimes. Instead of comedies, he made "Shane," "Giant" "A Place In the Sun" and "The Diary of Anne Frank."
What haunted Stevens is what causes me to study the Shoah. As Hannah Arendt pointed out, the most horrifying thing about the Holocaust is how it was reduced to a bureaucratic government program, involving railroad timetables, deployment of thousands of soldiers, the building of poison gas ovens, etc. Stevens spent the second half of his life making films that pitted the greatest good against the worst, most depraved evil. He was clearly trying to solve an unsolvable riddle, and produced memorable works of art.
Because of the Shoah, we humans know something about ourselves we didn't know (or at least didn't acknowledge) before. That's why we study this story, and create museums that document what happened. We must never look away. Every choice we make, every day, is a chance to be a loving, kind, compassionate, empathetic human. The other path leads to something that is, unfortunately, imaginable.
NOTE - There's a good retelling of the George Stevens story, with his footage, in the documentary series "Five Came Back" on Netflix
“How many under-explored Jewish worlds ended in gas and bullets?”
One excellent book about one pre-annihilation Jewish world is Elias Canetti’s three volume memoir. I got it in a big, thick, omnibus and read the whole thing straight through. It’s one of my favorite books. I am sitting in the McDonald’s parking lot, drinking my coffee, so I can’t post a picture of the book at the moment, but Wikipedia tells me it’s this: The Memoirs of Elias Canetti 1999, consisting of The Tongue Set Free, The Torch in My Ear, and The Play of the Eyes. Highly recommended, and given your particular interests, especially recommended. His family were Sephardic Jews, living in what is now Romania.
Thank you for this recommendation! I will look for it. Sounds right up my alley.
I read Primo Levi as a young British woman trying to grasp what the Holocaust actually was. I kept the books but found that I could never re-read them. But his writing changed me. Now I feel we are in a period of "active" forgetting of the crimes done to the Jews, so that more crimes can be done. I hope a younger generation reads Primo Levi, and are changed.
Well said. As Leonard Cohen said, there is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say that there isn’t.
Incredible post. The various pan-Mediterranean worlds destroyed by various 20th century nationalisms are a minor fascination of mine.
This sounds very intense. It's been a few years since I read Frankl, maybe i will try this one.
Also love that you have cincinnati ties! I grew up there and am very fond of it
Intense but so worth it.
Yay for Cincy! I spent many summers there growing up. Haven’t really been back as an adult, want to plan a roadtrip soon—I need to get my Skyline/Graeter’s fix. Did you go to Walnut Hills?
I miss skyline!! We have the Greeks to thank for that. I did not go to Walnut, but my mom did. Seemed like a really cool school
Hello from your Selonick side aunt. I enjoyed your insightful, creatively organized, well written post. Though I have long been aware of the Jewish population in Salonica/Thessaloniki through my Turkish and Greek friends , you enlarged my understanding and gave me some new things to read.
I would have written this comment sooner but got sidetracked revisiting Midnight at Pera Palace, about modern Istanbul. It contains a detailed narration of efforts by an array of people (including an executive of Bloomingdale’s!) to assist Jews fleeing Greece, and other countries. A bit sideways of your topic, but I recommend it.
I kept expecting you to reference Mark Mazower’s bestselling book Salonica: City of Ghosts: https://mazower.com/books/salonica.html
Can it really be that you don’t know it yet?
I’ve included it in the “books I want to read” section at the end of this post. But no, I haven’t read it yet. Have you?
On my long list. For 20 years.
I somehow missed the books wanted to read on my phone. Whoops.