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May 24, 2012
Jeff Jacoby: The peace process battered Israel's reputation
Michael Muskal: 'Pro-choice' position hits record low, according to poll
Chris Farrell: Are We in a Tech Bubble?
The Kosher Gourmet by Penelope Wall: PHILLY CHEESE STEAKS --- hold the steak!
May 23, 2012
Tony Pugh: More private colleges offering tuition discounts
Mary Beth Franklin: How to Choose the Right Annuity for You
Tina Susman: The wig wasn't enough: Man gets 13 years for posing as his dead mom
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen:A simple way to do fish right
May 22, 2012
Warren Richey: Can US group challenge overseas surveillance act? Supreme Court to decide
Thomas M. Anderson: Walking Away From a Mortgage
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: Enjoy a celebration of the most rich and layered flavors: Black bean, sweet potato and quinoa chili
May 21, 2012
Mark Clayton: Cybersecurity: How US utilities passed up chance to protect their networks
Howard LaFranchi: NATO summit: Who will foot the bill for long-term Afghanistan security?
Chris Farrell : Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
Stephen Whiteside, Ph.D. : Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Social anxiety disorder --- or just shy?
Guy Jackson : Victim's father regrets death of Lockerbie bomber
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: Famed chef's veal shoulder farsumagru: A festive meat course for late spring
May 18, 2012
Rabbi Berel Wein: Striving: The People of the Book's Book for (All of) the People
Steven Goldberg: 5 Great Stock Picks and the Exchange-Traded Fund that Owns Them
Mary Pickett, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Don't be forced into gluten-free lifestyle based merely on a doctor's false-positive test
The Kosher Gourmet by Carolyn Malcoun: DIY healthy lunchbox treats: HOMEMADE FRUIT BARS for kids and brown-bagging adults alike
May 17, 2012
Warren Richey: Teacher fired for being unwed and pregnant can sue religious school, court rules
Josh Mitnick: Netanyahu's 'centrist' coalition is already proving it's anything but
Steven Goldberg: Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
Amina Khan: Research links coffee to lower death rates
The Kosher Gourmet by Faith Duran : Cheesy Potato Breakfast Casserole with Cheddar and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
May 16, 2012
Carmen Terzic, M.D., Ph.D. : Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: A variety of exercises can help improve balance
Melissa Healy: National strategy on Alzheimer's disease aims to halt it by 2025
The Kosher Gourmet by Joyce White : GOODNESS GRACIOUS: GREENS! 4 winning recipes that are no longer just for down-home folks (Includes expert tips & techniques)
May 15, 2012
Kristen Chick: Obama administration resumes arms sales to Bahrain despite serious unresolved human rights issues. Activists feel abandoned
Pat Mertz Esswein: Homes are now affordable again and mortgage rates are low. What you need to know before you buy
Kathy Kristof: Our Practical Investor Fights Inflation with These 6 Investments
Sue Hubbard, M.D.: The Kid's Doctor: Lactose intolerant young child? Check again
The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Hunt: Spread a Little Excitement with EXOTIC CONDIMENTS (4 RECIPES)
May 14, 2012
Lisa Gerstner: How to Protect Your Identity, Finances If You Lose Your Phone
Harvard Health Letters: Heart disease and dementia
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: MANGO COCONUT OAT MORNING MUFFINS are a bright but hearty delight
May 11, 2012
Jessica L. Anderson: Get the Best Deal on a Used Car
Jett Stone: Forget face-lifts and fake knees. Scientists have seen the fountain of youth --- and it's broccoli
The Kosher Gourmet by Chef Mario Batali: The famed chef's vegetable dish that tastes true to the season: FAVAS AND SUGAR SNAP PEAS WITH POTATOES AND TARRAGON
May 10, 2012
Sergei L. Loiko: Putin sends warning to U.S., NATO in Victory Day speech at Red Square
Mary Rourke: How being a 'mentch' got Vidal Sasoon his start and fighting in Israel's War of Independence provided him with confidence and a strong sense of his own identity
Jeff Bertolucci: Get Home Phone Service for Less Than $10 a Month
The Kosher Gourmet by Betty Rosbottom: Gleaming with its golden, crimson, and snowy white hues, this silken smooth and creamy STRAWBERRY ORANGE TRIFLE looks impressive, but is easy to prepare
May 9, 2012
Sharon Palmer, R.D. How you can reduce your risk -- or delay -- chronic diseases associated with aging
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Jewish World Review
March 30, 2006
/1 Nissan, 5766
Seig humor
By
Suzanne Fields
JewishWorldReview.com |
 ERLIN —
It's not easy to find a swastika in Berlin. The only place for the morbidly curious to look is a museum, a book about the Third Reich, or in a room at the back of a squalid little shop on a side street where a dealer in contraband Nazi memorabilia peddles forbidden wares. So there was shock and awe when enormous swastikas were unfurled on Lustgarten Square in central Berlin, with helmeted soldiers of the Wehrmacht standing guard over der Fuehrer while crowds of blonde, blue-eyed men and women extended their arms in salute, chanting "sieg heil."
Passersby wondered whether they had died and gone to hell. "Swastika Shock in Berlin," screamed the headline in the tabloid Bild Zeitung. Cried der Spiegel: "Hitler Farce Breaks German Taboos."
But there were no protests. Only curiosity, at the making of a comic movie about the time of unique evil in Germany. If time doesn't heal all wounds, it can allow humor to assuage old pain, to make farce of fascist fanaticism. Or so says Swiss director Dani Levy, a Jew, who is making "Mein Fuehrer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler."
Mr. Levy's parody not only satirizes Hitler, but also pokes fun at recent attempts to, of all things, humanize him. The movie will no doubt offend survivors of the horror of the concentration camps of the Third Reich, but 80 percent of the population was born after 1941. For the younger generation, Hitler's evil is merely medieval. To their credit, Germans address their moral responsibility for the Holocaust with memorials and museums, and schoolchildren get the message of their history with painful clarity. Perhaps humor with insight can channel memory.
The making of Dani Levy's movie coincides with the arrival in Berlin of "The Producers," the wildly popular American comic movie by Mel Brooks, about a Broadway scam with a musical built around the song "Springtime for Hitler." High-kicking chorus girls in leather and boots mock der Fuehrer in a Busby Berkeley-like number that horrified Jews in America nearly three decades ago. Says Mel Brooks: "I've received resentful letters of protest, saying things like: 'How can you make jokes about Hitler? The man murdered 6 million Jews.'" But the director argues that his comedy took away "the holy seriousness" that surrounded Hitler and robbed him of "posthumous power." Think Charlie Chaplin in "The Great Dictator," bouncing a balloon as though he were clown king of the universe.
More problematic is the work of a Spanish performance artist who pumped carbon monoxide exhaust fumes into a former synagogue in a town near Cologne, inviting spectators to partake of the gas chamber experience. This, it seems to me and many Germans, trivializes tragedy and dishonors memory.
But popular culture can shock a new generation to remembrance of the Holocaust. Oprah Winfrey has done a public service with choosing "Night," the searing Holocaust memoir of Elie Wiesel, for her book club. She has made it a bestseller almost a half century after it was originally published, and the book deserves a renewed readership. (Some of her critics accuse her of choosing it to redeem her credibility for endorsing James Frey's fabricated memoir, but that seems churlish.) She brings attention to a personal story that grapples with the enormity of human degradation and at the same time forces hundreds of thousands of readers to contemplate without sentimentality the power of evil to destroy innocence when outsiders avert their eyes with studied indifference. Unlike "The Diary of Anne Frank," the Wiesel memoir adds no hopeful gloss to anecdotal experience. Like the night, its blackness is impenetrable by starry eyes. We are forced to look deep into the darkness lurking inside ourselves to try to understand how such things happen.
Asks Francois Mauriac, the French writer, in his foreword to the French edition: "Have we ever thought about the consequence of a horror that, though less apparent, less striking than the other outrages, is yet the worst of all to those of us who have faith: the death of G-d in the soul of a child who suddenly discovers absolute evil?"
At the end of "Night," after Buchenwald is liberated by American soldiers, the little boy who has lost everyone and everything dear to him looks into a mirror with a stranger's eyes that seem to belong to a corpse. "The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me," Elie Wiesel writes. Nor will they leave us. No movie can erase that.
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© 2006, Suzanne Fields, Creators Syndicate
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