113226: 'The Reader' and Foregiveness

There is some public outcry over the allegedly exculpatory underpinnings of the film The Reader.

For my part, I think The Reader is an important work that sparks much needed reflection and debate.

My father, David Peres, was born in Thessaloniki, Greece on January 10th, 1916 - in the middle of WWI - and died in the Fall of 2004. He was a survivor of Birkenau/Auswitz, and a brave and lucky man who emerged victorious over adversity and ignorance because he maintained a positive and forgiving attitude throughout his entire life .

113226 was the number a cruel son of a bitch punctured into the flesh of my father's left forearm in April 1942 on Passover night. 113226, a number that bears existential witness to the barbaric reality and mind numbing cruelty of the holocaust, tatooed on David by a prison guard, a real life male counterpart to the fictional Reader's Hannah, an actual guard at Birkenau/Auswitz who processed victims with painful and unsanitary efficiency. This guard left my Sephardic Jewish/Greek daddy, the sole survivor of a large extended family that had thrived for centuries in Salonika, a northern Greek port city, tatooed for life with the evidence that that sick and dangerous Holocaust denying Catholic bishop was looking for the other week.

113226 made palpable a child's confusion over how people might behave in this incomprehensible way towards other living, breathing human beings. Of course, I still haven't sorted that out yet, emotionally, that is. Intellectually, I've always accepted my father's explanation:

"Esther, they picked the stupidest and cruelist people to work the Camps. A normal person doesn't make it through whole; you go meshuga and the guards, they thought of us like rats, no, even less than animals. The guards were brainwashed and stupid. The lowest of the low."

For me, Hannah's behavior with her 15 year old lover is consistent with her work history and consistent with my father's assessment of her ilk. She is a cold, cut off and ignorant woman. As much as the film is about Germany's terrible cultural inheritance and the effects of the Holocaust on the German psyche, it represented more to me. The film gave me with the opportunity to let go of my hatred and anger over what happened to my family, and in some sense, to let go of my anger at the Hannahs of the world, for my own sake, for my own mental health. (This will be an ongoing process for me in any case.) So yes, I like this film for that reason alone. I don't feel that it let the Germans off the hook in any way. Yes, at the end of the film, the average person will feel more sympathy for 'poor' Hannah than they might for that rich, haughty New York Jew and perhaps that's unfortunate. Perhaps the novel, or the screenwriters might have chosen an elderly haunted grandmother living in a cramped Queens row house to represent Jewish victimhood but that would have been a manipulation of another sort.

All in all, I was positively moved by this film, and I believe that the debate it has sparked is a positive contribution to Holocaust history.

The filmmakers printed this statement today which fairly well sums up the issue:

NEW YORK, NY - (February 20, 2009) The following is a joint statement from Stephen Daldry, Donna Gigliotti, David Hare and Harvey Weinstein, who condemn the fringe criticism of THE READER:
We are proud of THE READER and everyone who made this film. It is outrageous and insulting that people have called it a "Holocaust denial film." While entitled to their opinion, these allegations are fueled by ignorance and a misunderstanding of the material, and are based on unsubstantiated arguments. The greatest films elicit great debate and conversation. Unfortunately, the recent attacks on THE READER have generated debates, not about the substance of the film, but about what people believe to be the intent of the filmmakers. To take a piece of art that was constructed with the hard work of many talented people and turn it into propaganda is plain ignorant. No one is suggesting that THE READER must be beloved by everyone. On the contrary, there is always room for criticism. If one does not like the film that is one matter; but to project one's personal bias on the filmmaker's objective is wrong and something we could no longer remain silent about.THE READER is a film about how a generation of Germans lived in the shadow of one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century. Some detractors of the film have said that it is a piece of Holocaust revisionism; however Holocaust survivors, children of Holocaust survivors and a Nobel Peace Prize winner feel differently.
Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, has praised, THE READER as "a film that deals powerfully with Germany's reconciliation with its past." He said that "it is not about the Holocaust; it is about what Germany did to itself and its future generations." He called it "a faithful adaptation of an important book, that is still relevant today as genocide continues to be practiced around the world."Abe Foxman, the ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor agrees with Mr. Wiesel. "As we move further away from the Holocaust we must continue to tell the story of the Shoah in ways that will reach and touch new generations. The Reader, which takes place in post-WWII Germany, clearly portrays the horrors of the Holocaust, not visually but intellectually and emotionally. There is no doubt to what Kate Winslet's character, Hannah Schmitz, did during the war. Her guilt is given. At her trial her crimes are portrayed in detail and she is brought to justice for them. The Reader is not meant to be a factual re-telling of the Holocaust; for that we have documentaries. Rather it is about guilt and responsibility that is as important for our times as it was for post-war Germans."
Unfortunately we live in a world where Holocaust denial still exists. Just a few weeks ago, the Vatican made headlines when the Pope lifted the excommunication of a Catholic Bishop who made statements denying the full extent of the Holocaust. In today's world, with the recent genocides in Darfur, Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia, there are enough signs that bigotry still exists to an alarming degree. Denial and revisionist history of some of the greatest atrocities of our time can only lead to further violence and horrors.
THE READER is a film that has sparked controversy and it is not something we are shying away from. In this day and age we need healthy debate but what some have written is mudslinging at its worst and we think it is time to rise above it.