FILM STUDY
Juxtaposition of Horror and HumourThe opening voice over from Jakob Heym is:
Hitler goes to a fortune teller and asks, "When will I die?" And the fortune teller replies, "On a Jewish holiday. " Hitler then asks, "How do you know that?" And she replies, "Any day you die will be a Jewish holiday. " So you ask me, as a Jew, "How could you tell a joke like that at a time like that?" That's how we survived. Those were some of the things that kept us going. Everything else, the Germans had taken. This establishes from the beginning that there will be a juxtaposition throughout this film of the horror inflicted by the Nazis on the Jews in World War Two, particularly in Poland, and the humour which the Jews used to cope with this and try to survive their persecution and the war until they were either killed, or died, or were liberated. Jakob's News from the RadioThis map, from Wikipedia, gives a simple view of the places mentioned. Russia was fighting the Germans on the border, 400km away from the ghetto somewhere in Poland where Jakob heard this news on the Kommandant's radio.
Scenes for Close ViewingThese will follow.
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The TaglineWhen all hope was lost, he invented it. |