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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/838745.html
The genocide before the Holocaust
By Ronen Dorfan
COLOGNE, Germany - A partial list of the things not included in the
new television series "The Jews - Story of a Nation": pictures of
Hitler (there are about two to three minutes in all about the Third
Reich); the myth of Jewish genius as represented by Einstein and
Freud; the myth of Jewish money as represented by the Rothschilds;
Jewish humor and Jewish creative artists such as Bashevis-Singer,
Woody Allen and Seinfeld; discussion of the State of Israel and the
Palestinians; Jewish gangsters, or any bad Jews.
But what there is in this series, the first of its kind created in
German, is exceptional frankness and a certain understanding of
national psychology. After the first two installments, which deal with
the periods of the Bible, the Mishna and the Talmud, the series
becomes a detailed and precise exposition of what can be described as
unjustified hatred and inhuman cruelty on the part of the Christian
world toward the Jews of Europe.
The series is full of "docu-drama" reconstructions of historical
events by actors. Viewers are spared the actual sight of blood in
these scenes, but not the sight of Jews being led to torture or
brought to the stake. In addition to the reconstructions, much effort
has been made to find documents about the Inquisition, anti-Jewish
legislation in Czarist Russia, and reports by cities in Germany of a
decline in tax income due to the massacre of the Jews. The cumulative
result is almost a pornography of evil, void of ideology.
Arte, which first broadcast the series, screened the installments in
sequence so that the viewing experience causes an almost physical
upset, with a constant fear about the coming scene. After about four
hours of viewing, pictures of the Statue of Liberty and the port of
New York provide a respite. German national television, ARD, will show
one installment a week.
During the past seven years, Nina Koshofer initiated, wrote and
directed the five installments of the series, 50 minutes each, whose
production cost 1.5 million euros. Koshofer, 38, is not Jewish, but at
the age of 11 she found out her grandfather had been removed in
disgrace from the German army during World War II after the chance
discovery that his father was a Jew (who was killed in Auschwitz).
In discussions after the public screenings of the series, the question
of its failure to deal with the Holocaust came up. But in effect, the
series seems to deal with the Holocaust, with its technical essence:
the murder of the Jews in the Christian countries of Europe. One gets
a sense the Nazi Holocaust was not a turning point in the plot, but
its continuation.
Philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz used to explain the Jewish-Christian
confrontation and his hatred of Christianity as stemming not from the
story of Jesus' death and the betrayal by Judas Iscariot, but from
something more profound. He talked about two religions that presumed
to be the same religion, and therefore could not live together under
one roof.
Koshofer does not presume to explain the psychological aspect that led
the Christians to hate the Jews. "There is a matter of xenophobia. We
find that the Jewish-European conflict began even before Christianity,
with Jewish rejection of Greek culture. But we found in many churches,
mainly in the East, a real ritual of the story of Judas Iscariot. So
we cannot underestimate the hatred sown by the Holy Scriptures."
However, she emphasizes that the Christian world was not all of one
mind. "We found many instances of bishops and popes who protected
Jews. Sometimes for moral reasons, and sometimes because of vested
interests. Even those who perpetrated the horrors did not operate only
out of a religious background, but often because of vested interests."
But Koshofer does not spare the Christian theologians. According to
the series, Martin Luther, who brought about the Reformation, actually
demonstrated a certain sympathy for the Jews at the start of his
career, saying they were not involved in the moral corruption of the
Christians. But he later changed his view and called for the
destruction of the Jews, the demolition of their homes and the theft
of their property. In the 20th century, the Nazi propaganda minister
Josef Goebbels made direct use of these words of Luther.
The leftist French newspaper L'Humanite pointed out in its
uncomplimentary criticism of the series that "the wagons traveling
from one side of the screen to the other lend a feeling of a
persecuted nation." The newspaper's critic felt the main thing missing
was the place of Jews in social revolutions.
Koshofer admits that in the series she often tried to reconstruct
feelings, something reflected in staging historical events. For
example, in one of the installments the figure of Meshulam son of
Kalonymus, who lived in the Middle Ages, is in fact a combination of
two historical figures - Kalonymus son of Meshulam and Moshe son of
Kalonymus. "Sometimes you have to simplify the story a little,"
explains Koshofer, "especially when it comes to a confusing story like
that of the Kalonymus family, which produced many famous people - the
historical sources confuse them."
In 1096 the Jews of France warned the Jews of Mainz in Germany - where
the Kalonymuses were the most distinguished family - about Crusader
knights who were massacring Jews. Moshe son of Kalonymus tried to
organize a Jewish self-defense force. The Jews of Mainz, many of whom
were known for their swordsmanship, surrendered to the numerical
superiority of the Crusaders. The scene ends with the image of a
Jewish fighter who is about to kill his wife and children for kiddush
hashem - to sanctify God's name. The director insists on using a photo
of a manuscript that describes the massacre in Mainz. The issue of
kiddush hashem, which may seem controversial to modern eyes, is
repeated a number of times in the series.
The installment that deals with the period of the Black Plague
describes the tortures suffered by Jews so that they would confess
they had poisoned the waters of Venice. Of dozens of Jews who were
tortured, one gave in after his stomach was pierced with a white-hot
iron, confessed to the baseless accusation, and thus dozens of Jews
were convicted. In light of the death of one-third of the inhabitants
of Europe during the plague, this confession led to slaughter all over
the continent.
Koshofer says she has heard about the affair of Prof. Ariel Toaff, who
claimed in his book that there was a kernel of truth in one of the
blood libels, relying on testimony extracted by torture. She claims
that during the years she spent working on the series, she did not
come across a single factual detail likely to support Toaff's claims.
When asked whether the book is provocation or foolishness, she shrugs
her shoulders and refuses to answer.
Do any of the stories you came across make you particularly furious?
"The horrific acts of the Cossacks during the Chmielnitzki pogroms,
maybe because this story was less familiar to me. The extent of this
slaughter goes beyond anything that preceded it. The cruelty also
surpasses what occurred before that." The Chmielnitzki pogroms were
one of the places where the director chose not to tell the viewers the
harshest facts like the stabbing of pregnant women and the removal of
their fetuses, or the placing of kittens into the wombs of Jewish
women so they would eat their way out.
People are liable to claim you are presumptuous, that you have no
doctorate or exceptional academic background, so how do you deal with
such a fraught subject?
"I don't think that a series like this can be created only by an
outstanding intellectual. We are living in a generation that knows so
little about Jews. Most of those who will be exposed to the series
will be laymen for whom this will be their first encounter with
Judaism."
The funding of the series came from the religious department of the
government channel. Didn't they have any comments?
"Once they corrected a mistake, I showed a picture of Rome in
connection with a certain pope and they pointed out that during that
period he lived in France. But aside from that, no. They totally
accepted the spirit of the series.
"I really did not plan to create a series about hatred and cruelty,"
says Koshofer, "I tried to balance between these things and many
instances where one can find good neighborly relations between Jews
and Christians. I sometimes walk down the street in Cologne and see
the stolpersteine ("stumbling stones" - a project by a German artist
who places plaques with the names of Jewish families who lived there
at the entrances to homes -- RD). That is a monumental work. You
understand from it what the fabric of life once was. What German
culture has lost."