One Flight For Us,  directed by Haim Hecht, 2005, 60 min., Beta SP., Hebrew and English, with subtitles

By Donald H. Harrison

Through editing, two films—one justifiably angry, the other sentimental—have been stitched together.  One, featuring interviews with scholars and a painfully aged, former U.S. Senator George McGovern, is an indictment of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s  and the American government’s indifference to the mass murder of European Jewry.   The other is footage and interviews documenting a “flyover” ceremony by elements of the Israeli Air Force in homage to the victims of Auschwitz.

There is nothing very subtle about director Haim Hecht’s message to us Jews of the United States.  The American government—even that of our so-called friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who enjoyed the votes of 95 percent of the Jewish population—knew about the slaughter, could easily have stopped it, yet did nothing—nothing!—to prevent Jews from being gassed to death. Bomber pilots like George McGovern made numerous sortees over Auschwitz, but never were given orders to blow up the gas chambers or to blast the railroad tracks leading there to smithereens.  The American government had less compassion for Jews than for Lippizaner horses, a group of which Americans helped  to save from the ravages of war.

On the other hand, Hecht is telling us, Israel—the home of the Jewish people—can always be counted on to protect and defend Jews. The “flyover ceremony” at Auschwitz, like the famous oath taken by modern Israeli soldiers atop Masada, symbolizes the guarantee of “Never Again”—never again shall such tragedies befall us Jews without a fight, without intervention.

You almost expect Hecht to shout at us at the end of the film, “so what the hell are you waiting for?  Come to Israel!  This is your home. America abandoned you before, and it may again!”

The anger nearly overpowers the bittersweetness of the flyover ceremony itself—and its obvious impact on the Air Force personnel, including Brig. Gen. Amir Eshel, whose mother lost much of her family in the Holocaust. 

We must not overlook this tribute to the victims in which Israeli soldiers stood on the notorious platform of Auschwitz, and announced “Here above this horrible place where the night government ruled, the grandchildren will fly through and salute their grandparents’ ashes.  This is a funeral, dignified, sad and thrilling. To those who dreamt of coming to the Land of Israel!”

Then, in perfect precision, three Israeli jets descended angel-like from the clouded sky and circled Auschwitz twice, their message carried by radio to the crowd below:  “We, pilots of the Israeli Air Force in the skies of the horror camp have risen from the ashes of millions of victims.  We hear their mute cry, salute their bravery, and promise to shield the Jewish people and its country—Israel.”

More meaningfully than the astronauts who take keepsakes with them into space, the Israeli air force crews took with them photographs loaned to them by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.  They were photographs of 21 French Jews who arrived at Auschwitz and were murdered exactly 60 years ago to the day of the flyover  Below, on the platform, the names of those victims, representative of all the victims, were solemnly read.

Eshel, an Air Force pilot, a general, in retelling the story of the flight obviously was moved—and you could see his military bearing struggling with the tears of our collective memory.

 “In the two turns I felt in the movement of the planes as if someone signed some promise to the Jews—nevermore,” he recalled. “I felt as if I’m thrown against some invisible wall going into the vortex, trying to understand what I see.  You look and you see (on a companion jet) the big blue star of David.  They wore the yellow badge there—not Stars of David, like this!”

* * *

What can we American Jews reply to Hecht’s unspoken, but real, challenge to us to make aliyah?  We have heard the question before. Although subdued, it is still an important part of the Israeli ideology.

I remember having to answer the question directly one year while visiting Ibim, the student village in the Sha’ar Hanegev region of Israel, where young immigrants study Hebrew while taking college preparatory classes. 

Often, these students—whose education in part is underwritten by the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County—arrive in Israel ahead of their parents, and now are making their way in a new land.  When I visited, the students were mainly from three areas of the world: Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union, and Argentina.

After I interviewed them, one student asked me why I—and other Americans—did not also immigrate to Israel. Why do we remain where we are?

I responded that in my opinion Israel benefits greatly from having Jews, loyal American Jews, living in the United States—more so than that nation ever could benefit from having us come to their country, where, who knows, we could all end up on welfare as we struggle to learn Hebrew and to adjust to different economic realities.  And why turn Israel into a ghetto?

In the United States, I added, we are productive citizens.  We know the non-Jewish world, and they know us.  We have built mutual respect. Some of us even have risen to the highest levels of our government; while others are in a position to tell Israel’s story to the American people.  We advocate for the American-Israeli relationship because we know that while these two nations are so different in scale, they share the same democratic values. Whenever either of these two nations veer from democratic values—be it America, or be it Israel—we feel pain in our heart. 

The story of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s and America’s World War II cynicism stabs us, but our pain is mitigated by our knowledge of what came later.  Israel’s creation would have been impossible without the help of the United States; its continued survival doubtful without American financial and military support.  We American Jews can be proud that the United States is a country that can look unflinchingly at its history, recognize its moral errors, and reform itself.  We also are proud that Israel is a country that can do the same.

One Flight For Us will be presented at the 16th Annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival  at 5 p.m., Wednesday, February 15, at the AMC La Jolla Theatres.