By Joel A. Moskowitz, M.D

Can Jews learn anything about survival by attending a screening of The Aryan Couple?  This film about a family fortunate enough to escape the Holocaust stars Martin Landau.  It  was  shown at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival on Sunday, Feb. 12.

The film, said by some to be "third rate"  but also winning  awards, raised the issue: how does one survive anti-Semitic killers? Buying them off is the method this movie portrays.  Is this the best or only remedy?  Some may argue that relinquishing the settlements to the Palestinians is a recent
example of the same strategy.  The Aryan Couple says Jews can escape, if  rich enough.
 
The never ending cycle of persecution of the Jews through the millennia is rarely a topic heard from the bima or discussed in Temple groups. Perhaps in not merely reveling in the miracle of the Maccabees and the long-lasting cruse of oil, or the symbolic pleasure of drowning out the name of Hamen with noise and enjoying the taste of a confection named after this tyrant, Jews might become serious.  Destruction of Jewish communities is a recurring horror.  What can we learn?  It is sufficient to suffer the blows and to survive until the next tyrant?  We all know that there are
many currently who want to play that part.

How did the fictional Krauzenberg  family escape?  Was it because Himmler was an "honorable" man?  In return for the factories and art- filled palace of a Hungarian Jewish industrialist, he and his family are permitted to flee. When it is revealed that the Aryan Couple, who work for him, are actually Jews, they too are bartered for and achieve freedom.  The plot thus stated would seem a happy one.  Yet Director John Daly's opening remarks at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival  repetitively reassured the audience that they would "like" the outcome.  Why was this necessary?  As the drama unfolds we see that jeopardy exists at every moment.   Throughout the movie, sinister nazis torture their Jewish victims with a sword of Damacles ever hanging over them.  Their
persecutors have quixotic temperaments. Facing uncertain death may be the most barbaric victimization.

The nazis do not shrink from violating the person and the institution of marriage.  In the name of a totalitarian 'right and obligation' to multiply Aryans, a lecherous SS fiend demands the right to rape the pregnant wife of the married Aryan Couple..

Nazis make a wicked caricature of  civility.  Himmler insists on a command performance dinner where the wealthy Krauzenberg  is compelled to give away his entire estate in return for the promise of freedom and life.  The industrialist must trust this avowed  murderer of his fellow Jews.  Is the  movie viewer  to believe that Himmler is less evil than Eichmann?.  Is it out of Himmler's sensitivities that Eichmann is not to be a guest at the dinner table but is asked to appear when papers must be signed?  Eichmann the enforcer is the not so veiled threat.  Sign or die!

Now that is a standard to shoot for.

The subplot concerns a guard who enjoys greetings from the "Aryan" wife.  The guard too has a wife who is also two months pregnant. When he is asked to be a participant at the murder of The Aryan Couple, he becomes tearful, reflects on what waits for him on the Russian Front, and
shoots himself in the head.  Are we to infer that this symbolizes that some Germans were so repelled by the murder of nice people that he took his own life. Or confronted with the evil and his own uncertain future on the Russian front does he escape by suicide ?.  If this occurred at all, it is doubtful that it was statistically significant.

Director Daly,  in the Q-and-A following the showing, said that American soldiers during war behaved like some German soldiers did.  (Daly also directed Platoon which was not flattering to American military). Several offended audience members left.  To compare Abu Graib with the
mass killing of six million Jews and millions of others is an irrational distortion.

This film is thinly based on the negotiations to give the Weiss Manfred Works to Himmler in exchange for releasing the owners. Research reveals the following: The Nizkor Project (transcript of testimony in the Eichmann Trial) reveals that Kurt Becher, who had some knowledge of this
transaction,  was assigned to Hungary, not by Himmler, but by the Command Office of the Waffen SS. His assignment was to procure horses and equipment for  horse-drawn Army vehicles.  Becher discovered that a Ferenc Choren, in custody, could help him obtain the
supplies he was seeking.  He had him released and the "amicable" conversations led to a deal where Choren and the Manfred Weiss family were allowed to leave Hungary.

About that time, Joel Brand was offering "trucks" for Jews or between $1-2 million to save the Jews.  SS Obersturmbannfurher Becher was 'unable' to identify Eichmann as intrinsically involved with the bribes to save the Jews.  The Europa Plan, money for Jews, actually began in Slovakia in
1942.  Funds could not be raised.  The Chronology of the Holocaust at Vad Hashem reports concludes that a true history has not been confirmed.  There was a "blood for goods" exchange proposed with respect to the Hungarian Jews but this, too, didn't help many.  Director Daly repeatedly admitted he was not "an expert" in these matters and made the film because he had a
cache of investors money and the skeleton of a play on this subject, shared an office with Martin Landau, found that photographic arrangements could be made more cheaply in Poland, and simply wanted to create a drama. Daly's message remains his secret.

Irrespective of  Daly's motives, the  theme of The Aryan Couple offers an opportunity for Jews to consider their security.

When last did a topic at your Synagogue focus on how to deal with anti-Semitism?  Our few triumphs: the story of the Maccabees or Esther's conquering Haman are celebrated annually.  Post Biblical experience of pogroms, expulsions, forced conversions, rape, looting and murder of Jewsare seldom mentioned.  A sardonic joke says, "They tried to  kill us. We won. Let's eat."

While it may be true that the United States is the "goldena medina" for Jews, it is important to remember other countries and regimes were hospitable to Jews, for a time.  Think Spain.  Most will agree thatanti-Semitism is on the rise throughout the world.  Muslim hostilities are
invariably directed against Israel and Jews in general, irrespective of whom or what they perceive offended them.   Jews are the universal punching bag.

Jews thirst for understanding. When a Pope visits Jewish sites, issues an apology, instructs the Church to no longer preach Deicide, Jews are elated.  Admittedly, the Vatican's new spirit is welcome.  But the historical truth is that various Popes accepted the Jews, protected them,
and used them as counselors, physicians and financial advisors.  With subsequent Popes, all the gains were reversed and the Jews often found themselves even further beleaguered than before.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it!  Are there Jewish organizations that have as a primary agenda the teaching of the cyclical swing of Jewish existence through the ages?  Should Rabbis remind their congregants of how brittle is our survival? Would that frighten Jews to abandon their religion?  Too late, it didn't help in the nazi era.

There are organizations such as the Anti Defamation League which monitor anti-Jewish sentiment. When offenses are perceived, complaints are made, with variable success.  Needed is an active program to study the dynamics of anti-Jewish behavior.  Cheek turning, sympathetic understanding, ambivalent inclinations to use all legal restraints encourage the enemy.
The repetitive pattern is familiar.   Attack the Jew, the Jew whimpers and offers a deal to buy peace.  These temporary remedies only broadcasts our weakness.

Israel's affirmative response, while criticized as being too aggressive, is admired and most of all, respected.  Sadly, increasingly many American Jews see Israel as not their problem.  Were there no Israel, it would be a major problem for all of us in the Diaspora.  Jews are not protected by
geography, masquerading as non-Jews or by seeking safe havens.  There is nowhere to flee.  Jews need a new strategy. Marveling in the miracle of the enduring oil of Chanukah or enjoying the satisfying hamantashen won't do it. Educating our people about our uncertain past is the place to start.