Category Archives: Germany

Movie: Downfall — Der Untergang (2004)

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This movie is based on the memoirs of Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s personal secretaries that lived with Hitler in the bunker of the Führer Headquarters in Berlin, Germany, who served Hitler until his suicide, typed Hitler’s suicide note, and witnessed Hitler’s death.

Since 1930, Hitler always used two secretaries, but due to an increase in workload, he hired a third secretary, Gerda Christian, in 1937. It is said that this woman was extremely beautiful. Since Christian took an extended vacation in order to marry Eckhard Christian, a member of the Armed Forces Command Staff and the lieutenant colonel of the Air Force, in 1942, Traudl Junge was hired to take Christian’s place. In this movie, a beautiful actress performs as Junge and it is depicted that Hitler likes her among the many applicants and hires her. One reason may be that she was from Munich, where the Nazis were formed and the headquarters for Nazi activity was located. Berlin was an area with strong sympathy for communism, as well as an area in which Nazis historically had difficulties in winning elections. After Christian returned from her honeymoon, Junge remained as Hitler’s secretary and became a loyal and close associate of Hitler’s.

Adolf Hitler had an underground bunker built into the Führer Headquarters in 1935. Later in 1943, since the war situation had deteriorated considerably, he had a new Führerbunker with increased defensive function built, and connected the two underground bunkers with stairs. The underground bunker was built with concrete walls four meters thick to tolerate attack, and was partitioned into about 30 rooms. Hitler lived here starting from January 1945, in the final stage of World War II. Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun, Nazi #2 Goebbels and his family, the SS leaders, and their secretaries and chefs lived here. Amid the final days of warfare in the streets of Berlin, Hitler committed suicide here on April 30, 1945.

After Hitler’s death, Junge was arrested by the Allies during her escape, but it is said she was soon released without being interrogated deeply. Since then, she continuously claimed that she knew nothing, so one might expect there not to be any astonishing historical truth from her memoirs. Also, as the youngest secretary, one might think she does not know much political intelligence. Thus, one might expect a movie made from her point of view to be about Hitler being a kind boss while the commissioned officers that pampered Hitler’s favorite woman were wonderful uncles, and about her not wanting to give up the life in the safe underground bunker, where they drank wine, had delicious meals, and slept in late.

When Hitler gave the order for his four secretaries to leave due to the deterioration of the war situation, the two older secretaries escaped, but Junge and Christian said, “I share life and death with the Führer until the end,” and refused the order. Junge later stated, “I don’t know why I made such a decision,” but after all, for a young person without a real feel for death, I think it is 50% pure youthful indiscretion to think, “When the time comes, I’m not afraid to die,” and 50% youthful foolishness that the man, who until now had almighty power and had given her a comfortable environment to live in, could not be defeated. Instead of being thrown into the war in Berlin without any protector or friends, I think she felt safer being surrounded by people who (she thought) will protect her.

This movie is made from the point of view of a woman who didn’t know the truth about the Nazis or the lives of people who suffered outside, yet was nevertheless a young woman in possession of good instinct. Even though she behaves amicably to everyone as a secretary, she carefully observes who will betray and who will stay loyal to her boss Hitler. This movie is 40% from her point of view, and it depicts how people behave when faced with the danger of losing their lives after the fall of absolute authority. Since that is insufficient, another 30% depicts historically significant Nazi figures at the time, and since that is not quite enough, the lives of citizens suffering from war are also depicted. Therefore, this movie doesn’t have a single protagonist, and the viewpoint of the story shifts throughout the movie. Although Junge appears many times, she doesn’t play an important role in the story. Two-thirds of this movie is Hitler repeatedly shouting about his disappointment in his close associates, and it wouldn’t be this way if Hitler were the protagonist. The profoundness of this movie starts after the death of Hitler. It vividly depicts how people behaved immediately following Hitler losing his power. Some followed Hitler to death with suicide. Some ran away, and were arrested by the Allies and executed at a trial. Some who tried to escape were executed by their comrades as a traitor to the nation, while others executed citizens for being communists as a warning to the general public before the Soviet Army entered. Commissioned officers started openly smoking—something Hitler strictly prohibited—and some drank wine and got drunk. Those who attempted to escape ran toward the south part that was occupied by the American army; their greatest fear was to be arrested by the Soviet Army.

For someone like me who doesn’t know many details about Nazis, this movie is a treasure chest of information, but the most significant piece of information was that Hitler committed suicide in the end. This after all is not surprising, although some believe in urban legends about Hitler, analogous to the theory of Yoshitsune (a famous samurai) escaping death and becoming Genghis Khan. Some believe that someone sacrificed his own body for Hitler to be burned with gasoline in order to make the burned body impossible to identify while Hitler snuck away in a secret passage. People can’t believe such a self-preserving man would choose death.

However, this movie depicts that the reason Hitler wanted his body burned was not to fake his death, but because he did not want his body displayed publicly after his death (Hitler knew Mussolini was mercilessly executed by the partisan and was hung in public) and for his clothes to be displayed in a museum exhibit. Pride was most important to him. His biggest fear was to be shamefully on display. In the movie, some of his close associates recommend, “You should do an unconditional surrender for the sake of the nation before it is too late,” but he could never permit this because of the shame it would bring. Those who recommended this are nearly shot. Because his rejection of this idea was so strong, I wonder if some people who recommended this were actually executed. He had lost the idea of “citizens” or “for the nation.” In the movie, when an officer suggests, “We must protect the citizens, especially the women and children,” Hitler declares, “With this critical battle now in our territory, the concept of citizens does not exist.” He doesn’t have the sentiments of, “I accept whatever will happen to me; I only want to save the citizens,” or, “I accept the punishment for my mistakes, but don’t punish the people who obeyed my orders.” His mind was preoccupied with figuring out how he could die with honor.

There certainly seem to be tunnels that he could have used to run away. SS Major Otto Günsche completes Hitler’s final command to have his dead body burned, and attempts to escape with SS Colonel Wilhelm Mohnke, Junge, and Christian through the underground tunnels, but they aren’t able to escape in the end. Christian gives up trying to escape and stays with Major Günsche and Colonel Mohnke. This movie does not depict when the Soviet Army arrested them, and the movie ends with a scene of Junge biking away and escaping to Munich.

Christian is given only a small part in this movie, and there is almost zero information about her. After some hardships, Christian escaped to an area occupied by America, but Major Günsche and Colonel Mohnke were taken by the Soviet army, and they each served 10 years in labor camps in USSR and East Germany, respectively. It is said that Christian called Major Günsche a “lifetime friend.” She divorced her husband soon after the war, and was able to be reunited with Major Günsche 10 years later.

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Movie: War Horse (2011)

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War Horse is director Steven Spielberg’s 2011 movie adaptation of a play that got favorable reception in London theatres, War Horse Joey, which was based on Michael Morpurgo’s children’s novel published in 1982 and adapted for stage by Nick Stafford in 2007. At the London premier of this movie, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, and Princess Catherine were in attendance. Steven Spielberg’s exquisite storytelling and flawless direction of key points for viewers to cry, as well as careful calculation of the beautiful images from start to finish reminds me of Akira Kurosawa’s ability.

People affected by the war from Britain, Germany, and France are all depicted in this movie in connection to a single horse: The horse owned by a British boy who lives on a farm is sold for use in war to a British army commander who dies in battle; German boy soldiers are executed for deserting; the farm where a young French girl and her grandfather live after her parents were killed is ransacked. To put it in another way, the movie uses the beautiful animal called a horse to its maximum potential to attract the audience, while the human characters around it just conveniently appear and die for the story.

What I thought was most interesting in this movie was the background message about the revolution in war technology; that is to say, after World War I ended, cavalry disappeared and horses became useless in war. This is interesting even though Spielberg did not make this movie to convey this message.

Historically, cavalry has been regarded as an important branch in military tactics. The high speed on horseback that allows troops to move together as well as the strong aggression of horses made them useful for a wide range of things including surprise attacks, charging in, pursuit, rear attacks, flank attacks, or surrounding the enemy. In addition, they were effectively used to scout out enemy camps. The cavalry approached the height of their prosperity during the Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century and the charge by the cavalry running through the battlefield greatly contributed to Napoleon’s victory. However, in 1870 with the start of the Franco-Prussian War, the French cavalry was completely crushed by the Prussian army’s overwhelming firepower and the French army was defeated.

This is the background to the introduction of new weapons. The use of machine guns and rifles started with the U.S. Civil War (1861 to 1865) and trenches were dug in order to protect the body; with this, war had changed from being a battle between individual warriors to a battle between masses. Charging in on horseback made you an easy target for your opponent; furthermore, facing a war of attrition with a no man’s land between made it so that it was no longer the time to stride in on a horse. Considering the cost to maintain a horse, the cavalry had become a high cost, low success tactic. Even though knowledge of modern warfare and machine guns is hammered in, the commanding officers of the British army, being noble in origin, deep down in their hearts were still old-fashioned and still had an admiration for knights riding on horseback and bravely fighting with honor in their minds. Therefore, this movie realistically depicts the surprise attack on and annihilation of the British cavalry by the German army that had completely modernized with machine guns.

The horse, elephant, and camel have been friends of mankind from ancient times due to their ability to supply valuable manual labor. These creatures are very intelligent and, once a trust is built with their owner, they are very loyal. While normally calm, if these animals get angry, they show great strength. Horses and dogs will remain as lifelong friends for man. Although many cried over the horse in this movie, I was not drawn into the story throughout the movie. I will state the reason.

First of all, in order for the horse to be the main character, the depictions of the supporting characters are shallow or sometimes incomprehensible. The young boy’s father purchased the horse at an auction because he stubbornly did not want to be outbid by his own landlord and thus had to buy the horse at a very steep price. But this drives the family to a point where they cannot pay off their debt, and the father decides in a fit of anger to shoot and kill the horse he bought himself. Because the horse is introduced with this very unrealistic scene, it is impossible for me to feel sympathy for the horse even if the horse gives a beautiful performance. The military did not force the horse to serve in the army, but rather the father just sold the horse in order to pay off his debt. This is just one example, but throughout the movie, the characters are depicted as shallow. The scene where opposing German and British soldiers on either side of no man’s land momentarily make peace in order to rescue a horse closely resembles Joyeux Noël because of the theme. But in Joyeux Noël, this peace is the main theme of the movie and the consequences are depicted in detail, while in War Horse, this story is one of many episodes and it feels very abrupt. Even though many injured soldiers were taken to the field hospital and it was overflowing with human soldiers, the military physician says, “I will do everything I can to rescue horses,” but instead of bringing tears, I just thought, “Why?”

Secondly, this movie becomes confusing when, even though characters are from Britain, Germany, and France, everyone talks in English. The German commanding officer speaks German when yelling commands to soldiers, but the marching soldiers talk in English, which makes me think, “Oh, are these German soldiers British prisoners of war?” Since the army that pillaged the French farm also spoke English, I was surprised that they would mistreat these French people who were allies to the British army, but then according to context, I realized it must actually be a German army. The reason Spielberg let everyone speak English must have been because he aimed for this movie to be a success in America. Americans do not like foreign films with subtitles. This may be difficult for Japanese people to understand who prefer subtitles over dubbing and think that hearing the actual voice of the actors talking in foreign films helps capture the subtle meaning, but I believe this to be true after reading American movie discussion sites and seeing many Americans post the complaint, “Why don’t they dub this movie? I don’t feel like watching this movie because subtitles are annoying.” I think there is a feeling by Americans that they are number one in the world (currently) so naturally people around the world will speak English.

Hollywood movies use music effectively. In this movie, however, the music is certainly beautiful, but I feel as though Spielberg overuses it. Until now, he has successfully collaborated with John Williams and I recognize the strength of the music, but I may have to call this level excessive. Particularly after watching non-Hollywood movies where music isn’t used much, watching this Spielberg movie was almost like being told, “Yes, please cry here,” and I just felt, “Enough, overdoing it!” However, the scene where the soldiers are sent forward with bagpipe music did actually give me goosebumps. This was one moment that I think Spielberg executed very successfully.

Furthermore, I am a little annoyed by symbolic tricks. For example, the father of the young boy protagonist is an alcoholic, but, in fact, it becomes clear that he was honorably injured in the Boer War. The young boy ties the pennant for this honor to the horse and the pennant is a symbol for friendship; one after another, it is kept by the horse’s owners until the horse is reunited with the young boy. Whenever I saw the pennant, it was almost as if Spielberg was triumphantly saying, “What great symbolism I came up with.”

The audience’s response is split between something like, “Deeply emotional, moved to tears,” or, “The use of cheap tricks to get you to cry were off-putting.”

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Movie: Nowhere in Africa — Nirgendwo in Afrika (2001)

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In 1938, Regina—a Jewish girl living in Germany—goes with her mother Jettel to Kenya, a territory of Great Britain at that time, to escape Nazi persecution and join her father Walter who had already moved there. Walter was a lawyer in Germany, but he now lives in a poor house and works within the unfamiliar realm of agriculture as a farm manager of some land owned by a British colonist. Regina befriends Owuor, the family cook, and adapts to life in Kenya in no time, but Jettel can’t accept the reality and complains to her husband, so Jettel and Walter argue often. In 1939, Britain and Germany finally start fighting; Walter’s family is sent to an internment camp and Walter is fired from his job as a farm manager because he and his family are people of an enemy nation. However, the Jews in Kenya persuade the British government that the Jews being persecuted by the Nazis are not the enemy of Britain, and in the end the Jews are released from internment camps.

Regina and Jettel are sent to a high-class hotel in Nairobi being used as an internment camp; German women sent there receive top-class hospitality. I think such a thing happened because in Kenya during those days, white people and native people lived in different areas, and a white woman even of an enemy nation couldn’t be sent to a place where native people stayed; this situation suggests that Kenya had a hidden apartheid in those days.

With the help of a British officer who favors the beautiful Jettel, Walter is able to find a new British employer and his family moves to the farm. Owuor also moves with them and begins a new life under better conditions. Walter is allowed to volunteer as a British soldier, and participates in the war despite Jettel’s objection. Regina starts studying at a boarding school for Britons. While Walter is at war, Jettel starts enthusiastically working at the new farm, and Walter becomes suspicious that Jettel may have a relationship with one of his close friends, Süsskind. In fact, Süsskind was courting Jettel.

The war ends with a victory for Britain. Since Walter served in the British army, he can return to his home country as a veteran, and he receives an offer from Germany to work as a judge. While Walter wishes to return to his home country, Jettel insists on staying in Africa. The movie ends with the two making their decisions.

This movie offers an interesting point of view on how one chooses their homeland during war and when faced with racial persecution; it is a pretty good movie, but some viewers may be puzzled by and feel uncomfortable with how Jettel is depicted. When she first arrives in Kenya, she shouts at Walter, “I’d rather die than live in such a place!” Walter criticizes her attitude of looking down on Owuor, saying, “Your attitude toward Owuor is like that of a Nazi toward a Jew.” She complains that, “It is unbelievable that we can’t eat meat,” but when Walter reluctantly shoots a deer in response to this, Jettel reproaches him with, “You killed an animal!” Although she seems to hate Kenya so much, when Walter is allowed to return home and he suggests to her that they help rebuild their home country, she refuses to go saying, “The country that killed our family cannot be trusted.” However, when she learns that she is pregnant, she agrees to return home, saying that, “The people in this country are scary.” Also, wherever she goes, she is aware that she attracts the attention of men, and her daughter Regina actually sees her mother’s affair.

The inconsistency in Jettel’s personality in this movie is caused by there being three points of view: one from the eye of the original author Stefanie Zweig as a child (depicted by Regina in the movie); another from the eye of the adult Stefanie Zweig through her autobiographical writing about becoming an adult; and the last from the director Caroline Link when making the book into a movie.

It is not that Stefanie Zweig disliked her mother, but in the original autobiography, she always recollects her as something like a spoiled Jewish princess. Growing up, Zweig’s character formation was influenced by her father (Walter) who always faced life’s challenges with a positive attitude, her cook (Owuor) who had unlimited love, and the British boarding school she went to.

In the movie, the father Walter is performed by the handsome young actor Merab Ninidze, who was born in Georgia—a former Soviet Union territory—and immigrated to Austria. Stefanie Zweig extensively stated in an interview, “I was surprised because Merab looked just like my father. His physical features and the strong and ardent way of living looking forward despite having sorrow and nostalgia in his heart are exactly like my father. He has an Eastern German accent and speaks the same German as my father.” On the other hand, she simply said that the actress who played her mother “was nothing like” her mother, and she did not talk about what kind of person her mother was.

In regards to Owuor, Zweig stated that the reason she wrote her autobiography was to record the wonderful and generous person who was the model for Owuor. Although in the movie Jettel dramatically says, “I will protect the farm,” when Walter tells her, “Live in Nairobi during my military service,” it seems that Zweig’s mother actually moved to Nairobi while her father went to the battlefield. Unlike the movie, it seems that the cook left his hometown and moved to Nairobi with the mother to take care of her.

For the little girl Regina, her father and mother are such a constant part of her life, like the sun or the earth, that she would never even consider there being any story to tell about the relationship between her parents. However, director Caroline Link made this movie as a love story. Merab Ninidze who performed Walter stated the following: “One day, the director reprimanded me, saying, ‘Wrong, this movie is a love story!’ From then, I understood the interpretation of this movie and decided how to perform this role.”

In other words, Merab Ninidze at first interpreted this movie to be more political. However, Caroline Link’s intention was to reconstruct the movie to be, “a drama that depicts a princess like Jettel, who is raised by an affluent Jewish family, becoming an independent woman on African land, while mixing in some elements of a love story.” This angle is a big shift from the point of view of a little girl who open-mindedly accepts African land for what it is and enjoys her life there. The shift of the main focus to Jettel, with the intention of projecting the director’s philosophy on female independence and love relationships onto Jettel, results in the inconsistency in her character in the movie.

When I read Stefanie Zweig’s writings, it was interesting to see what various circumstances were not depicted in the movie. When asked why Jews didn’t escape Germany, Zweig suggested that it is possible that many Jews were not able to gather the large amount of money needed in those days to leave the country. There is no strong reason that her father escaped to Kenya, but rather it was likely because entry to the country cost only 50 pounds per person, Nairobi has a strong Jewish community, and Kenya is a relatively safe place.

In Kenya, the father started his new job as a middle manager within the colonial governing system already established, and didn’t have to start from scratch. In other words, he held a middle management position in the white, British organization of the colony. It is understandable for Jettel to want to remain in Kenya—as long as there is work on the farm—since income and social status are guaranteed, she can have servants, and her work is supervising the native laborers as part of the ruling class. But as for Walter, it is understandable that, rather than living out his days as an untalented farm manger in Kenya, he would want to make use of his talents in his home country. Or maybe Walter, who had the insight to predict the fate of Jews living in Germany, was able to perceive the nationalistic independence movement that was about to sweep over the peaceful and gentle Kenya.

Stefanie Zweig’s father did not have the option to immigrate to America, the Land of the Free. It is said that, since he couldn’t speak English and was over 40 years old, it was impossible for him to come to America and make a living as a lawyer, so he decided to rebuild his life in his home country Germany, no matter how difficult. He never forgot to thank Kenya, which gave him the gift of life.

The criteria one uses to choose what country to live in as their home country are, first, a country where one’s life is secure; then, an environment where one can make use of their own talents, has control of their surroundings, is surrounded by their beloved family, and can understand the language, and where the food one likes is readily available. How lucky Japanese people are to be able to choose Japan—which satisfies all of these criteria—as their home country! There are many people in the world who do not get to choose where to call home.

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Movie: Good Bye Lenin! (2003)

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The protagonist Alex lives with his family in East Berlin, the capital of East Germany. His mother Christiane, in reaction to her husband Robert taking refuge in West Germany by himself, has become an ardent supporter of socialism. On October 7, 1989—the 40th anniversary of the founding of East Germany—Christiane suffers from a heart attack and falls into a coma. It seems like she will never wake up again, but she miraculously wakes up in the hospital eight months later. However, by this time, the Berlin Wall had already collapsed, the socialist system had disappeared from East Germany, and it was a matter of time until the East and West were unified. Alex looks after his mother when she returns home; since the doctor says that, “she might not live if she suffers from another great shock,” Alex works desperately to continue acting as if East Germany’s socialist system is unchanged by involving everyone around. During this time, the mother confesses that Alex’s biological father did not cast them away to seek refuge, but that Christiane broke her promise to follow Robert, who escaped to the West side while she stayed in East Berlin; she also confesses that she did not show Alex and his older sister the letters their father had sent them. Christiane lives for three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although Alex thinks he was able to hide the truth from his mother well, the movie ends with Christiane possibly knowing the truth.

Good Bye Lenin! is a comedy with underlying satire and wit. The people who lived in East Berlin before the collapse of the Berlin Wall longed for freedom to the degree of, “I’d give my life for it.” After the collapse of the wall, they witnessed economic chaos, unemployment, social chaos, and the loss of the things that they took pride in before, and they realized the bitter truth that free society was not as rosy as they imagined. However, the undercurrent theme flowing through this movie is about how someone reacts when they realize that what they believed to be true is wrong. This movie does not show regret or blame anyone. The general citizen will believe in and live with the propaganda given by a socialist system, but when society suddenly changes, they try hard to adapt. This movie depicts with light humor how Alex and the people around him deal with the change, but also depicts a desire for his mother to die peacefully believing in old values. One reason this movie was a big hit in Germany may be the social background that, despite the sudden change in values and the chaos that came with it, Germany succeeded in unification and accomplished stability. It was painful then, but 20 years later, it has been long enough for Germans today to look back on the chaos with humor.

I admit that the use of satire and laughter to depict the sudden change in the system is a worthy approach, but unfortunately only the first half of this movie can be enjoyed without distraction; in the second half of this long movie, the story becomes boring by repeatedly trying the same thing over and over. The great efforts of Alex’s goodwill become misdirected, and his girlfriend urges, “How long will you keep this up? Honestly tell your mother the truth,” while his older sister angrily fusses that, “Continuing this lifestyle is full of stress.” As I watch Alex struggle all day long despite everything for this lie, the movie gradually loses its humor. Moreover, it becomes unclear what the director is targeting with the satire. Does he wish to express a bitter sentiment about the Cold War ending? Or in the worst case, some may think the message is, “Aw, socialism was better. East Germany was a great country, even winning as many gold medals in the Olympics as America and USSR.”

However, we should not forget that, behind the Olympic glory of East Germany, there was systematic use of drugs by the nation. Furthermore, drugs were given to athletes without their consent. A prime example is East Germany’s shot putter Heidi Krieger. The steroid hormones that she was repeatedly given without her knowledge damaged her health and forced her to retire from competition; Krieger now lives as a man by the name of Andreas Krieger after a sex-change surgery. In a 2004 interview for the New York Times, he expressed the sentiment, “I’m happy that I can live as a man in today’s society, but I am very angry that I got into this situation because I was given drugs by the government without my consent.”

I admit that sophisticated technique is required to keep the intention of the satire clear when making a comedy, but I still would have liked to see the older sister and girlfriend actually have an effect on Alex’s behavior rather than be ignored. I would guess that there are many in the audience who become fed up with Alex’s behavior by the end. This feeling stops the laughter.

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Movie: Gloomy Sunday — Ein Lied von Liebe und Tod (1999)

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The setting is Budapest, Hungary in the late 1930s when the shadow of the Nazis is creeping in. László is a Jew who manages an up-scale restaurant. He is involved with the beautiful waitress Ilona. They hire András as the restaurant’s pianist, but sparks fly between András and Ilona the moment they meet. However, Ilona is not able to separate from László. Also, since a friendship develops between László and András, the three fall into a weird love triangle. In addition, Ilona rejects the affections of a young German man named Hans, so he tries to commit suicide. László is the one to save him.

András composes a song called “Gloomy Sunday” for Ilona, and gives Ilona the song as her birthday present. With the help of László, this song is released as a record and becomes a big hit, but people one after another commit suicide while listening to this song. Before long, Hans comes back to Budapest as an executive officer of the Nazis, and the fates of Ilona, László, and András turn dark.

This movie is not just sentimental fiction, and is actually partly based on facts. The song “Gloomy Sunday” that is played in the movie was composed by the Hungarian composer Rezső Seress in 1930s while he was working as a pianist in the restaurant owned by László Jávor, who added the song lyrics. In addition, there is the urban legend that people one after another committed suicide while listening to this song. At one point, the song was banned from British and American broadcasting stations. Rezső Seress, like András in this movie, also committed suicide.

I think it is only an urban legend that people commit suicide when they listen to this song, but this song may reflect the darkness that Hungarians felt for 30 years through the Great Depression, losing in World War I, and being under Nazi control.

Hungary formed the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy with Austria in the late 19th century, and jumped to the top in the world economically as well as culturally; but the empire collapsed in World War I and Hungary was cut off from Austria, so Hungary lost half of its territory and had to receive humiliating economic sanctions. Due to the Trianon Treaty in 1920, Hungary lost 72% of the area of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy and 64% of its population; around half of all Hungarians were left behind outside of the country of Hungary. I wonder if there is a nation that has faced more humiliation. On the other hand, the Czech Republic and Poland in the north—Hungary’s rivals over territory since ancient times—won their independence as republics, and were enjoying prosperity. Due to this bitterness, Hungary allied with Germany and became a member of the Axis. Backed by Germany, Hungary was able to recover land in the Slovak-Hungarian War in 1939 and avoid a fate like Poland and the Czech Republic—being conquered by Germany and disappearing from the map. However, most Hungarian people gradually came to want to withdraw from the Axis, but by that time, it was already too late and Hungary was unable to do so.

In the end, the Axis lost in World War II, but at one time Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, Poland of Eastern Europe, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, and the northern part of France were occupied, and all except Spain and Great Britain was under of the control of the Axis. Although Spain didn’t participate in the war, they were a “close friend” of Germany’s; almost all of Europe, except for Great Britain and neutral Soviet Union, fell into Hitler’s hand at that time.

I thought this movie was going to just be a soap opera. (The term “soap opera” refers to cheap-looking daytime melodramas, ever since a detergent company sponsored a sappy romantic melodrama series that broadcasted in the middle of the day in order to target the housewife market.) However, this movie is surprisingly popular among movie critics who pride themselves in (supposedly) intelligent critiques. I wondered why this was, and I realized after I watched this movie that it was because it is like a Takaratzuka (a Japanese all-female musical troupe) show. When one buys a ticket for a Takaratzuka show, one does not buy with the expectation that it will be an intellectual criticism, or reproduction of historical facts, or strange art for art’s sake. One is happy to enjoy two hours being enchanted by the beauty. This movie does just that.

However, this movie is not just sweet, but also bitter and cleverly complicated. Hans is the character in this movie that is supposed to be most hated because he sends László, who saved Hans’s life, to a Nazi concentration camp without hesitation, despite Ilona’s desperate plea. He is in a position to be able to easily save Jews. In fact, he let countless Jews escape from the country for a large amount of money or jewels. Whenever he helped Jews, he always told them, “If something happens to me, please testify that I helped you.” In other words, this man is like Schindler in Schindler’s List. Even though Schindler is depicted as the hero in Spielberg’s movie, the same character can be quite ugly when presented from a different angle. Although Hans was part of the Nazi’s SS, he lives on after the war as a hero who helped Jews, and comes back as a very successful businessman to tour Budapest with his wife.

Ilona is loved by three men, and skillfully manipulates the three of them. Well, she never thought she was manipulating the men because she thought it was just love. After András commits suicide, his large amount of royalties is inherited by Ilona. Also, in order to protect his restaurant, László hands over the rights to his restaurant to Ilona right before being sent to a concentration camp, and Ilona makes his legendary restaurant her own. In addition to being handsome and a talented pianist, András also has a good understanding of finance and has practical skills needed to negotiate financial matters. The movie clearly depicts these financial negotiations. Therefore, this movie is not just a bittersweet melodrama.

The most interesting part of the movie is Ilona’s way of raising her son. After András and László die, it is depicted that she is pregnant. Viewers hope that it is András’s child, but it seems like he died a little too early. Since we later see Ilona’s son helping his mother manage the restaurant, we are given the impression that it is László’s child. However, it is most likely Hans’s child. If this is the case, the way Ilona raised the child is wonderful. At the very end, the audience witnesses Ilona at last carrying out the revenge of the deceased László on Hans, who had betrayed László, but this is quite terrible revenge if the father of Ilona’s child is Hans.

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Movie: The Tin Drum — Die Blechtrommel (1979)

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The Tin Drum was based on the full-length novel by the German author Günter Grass that was published in 1959, and director Volker Schlöndorff adapted it into a movie in 1979. It is said that the movie leaves out the second half of the original work, but the reproduction of the first half is fairly loyal to the original. Günter Grass received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999 for his achievements as an author, such as this book, while the movie won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes International Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Since I have not read the original, I wish to write only about the movie.

This movie is an unpleasant movie, like listening to a nail scratch on glass. The movie’s protagonist has for some reason stopped growing and is stuck in the body of a young child, but his mind and feelings are that of a grown adult. The catchphrase of this movie—“This movie is about the pacifism of the protagonist who stopped growing in order to oppose war”—is outrageous. To say it briefly, the protagonist of this story takes advantage of people thinking that he is a child due to his small body to do whatever he pleases, and instead of taking responsibility for his actions, he shamelessly avoids responsibility by pretending he is a child. Because of the peculiar state of the protagonist, he can easily sense when an adult lets their guard down around him or an adult’s cunning when they are trying to take advantage of him. Also, it feels like the protagonist is reflecting a part of the author Günter Grass.

Günter Grass—unlike Oskar, the protagonist of this movie/novel—is not a little person; however, like Oskar, Günter was born in the Free City of Danzig, a territory that has been fought over by Poland and Germany. Also like Oskar, Günter was born of a German, Nazi-supporting father and an oppressed minority, Kashubian mother. Oskar participates with fellow little people in a dwarf circus that entertains and is treated well by high-ranking Nazi officers; Günter Grass also actually enthusiastically took part in Nazi activity in his youth. It may be a part of his past that he does not want to talk about much publicly, but when Günter confessed it, readers around the world who had idealized Günter Grass—a Nobel Prize author and advocate for peace—were shocked.

Of course being a successful author does not equal being a perfect person, and a reader with this expectation would be being selfish. Since there were many youths who thought seriously about how to live and became captivated by communist thought as a way to change the ugly world, it is conceivable that there were also many good-intentioned people who joined the Nazis with the passion of idealism to make the world a better place. It may not be possible to judge past earnest decisions simply from a modern point of view. Because the movie ends abruptly in the middle of the novel, the audience is made to think, “I am unpleasantly dragged around to have it end here?” However, the original continues on after that, and it is said that it ends with the protagonist continuing to escape reality, but achieving some growth and looking back on the past. Compared to the movie, which ends at the height of his escapism, my guess is that the original has some depth that the movie does not when the protagonist looks back with a point of view different than his selfish and immature one.

This movie was made in the 1970s, which was a confusing time across the world. Although the Cold War was becoming more serious, the majority of people had started to become disillusioned with the notion that socialism was the only salvation to change the world. In addition to the antagonism between liberalism and socialism, there was a new antagonism sprouting between Christian and Islamic fundamentalist nations. It was a time when people were at a loss, which was very different than things starting in 1980, when America, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union chose pragmatic leaders—President Reagan, Prime Minister Thatcher, and General Secretary Gorbachev, respectively—to look for pragmatic solutions. Even Hollywood—which always chose to have pleasing happy endings—started to make movies that left the audience in desperation and provided no solutions or salvation, which the audience thought was profound and depicted reality; this movie was made during these times. Now, 40 years later, I wonder what viewers think when they watch this movie. It seems that the current audience desires more emotionally consoling movies, thoroughly entertaining movies, or informative movies that positively influence how viewers live. Due to the change in times, it is no longer easy to understand the enthusiastic response to this movie when it was released.

Danzig is a harbor city that faces the Baltic Sea, and is at the northeast edge of the Polish Corridor that divided Germany. Since ancient times, Germany and Poland fought to control the land in the Corridor, but due to Germany’s defeat in World War I, the area was separated from Germany and transferred to being under the control of the League of Nations. With the Treaty of Versailles, Danzig was incorporated as Polish tariff territory; though not physically neighboring Poland, the city developed strong ties with Poland. The Free City of Danzig’s railroad that connected it to Poland was controlled by Poland; there was a Polish naval port; and of the two post offices, one post office was the city’s while the other was Poland’s. Residents of this area were mostly Polish and German, while a small number were Kashubian and Jewish.

At first, Danzig was established with the objective to protect the interests of Poles and to extend the power of Poland; however, the influence of Germans and Nazis gradually strengthened, and after the Nazis won the election in 1933, anti-Jew and anti-Catholic laws (meant to target Poles and Kashubians) were passed. In 1939, the Nazi government in Danzig started to severely oppress Poles living in Danzig. Then on September 1, 1939, the German battleship SMS Schleswig-Holstein, which was anchored at Gdańsk Bay in Danzig, began a severe bombardment on Poland’s military base in Danzig without proclamation, and thus World War II began.

The Polish army resisted by using the Polish post office as their fort. The Polish post office was considered to be Polish territory, rather than within Danzig city limits, and there was a direct phone line to Poland. It is said that workers had received rifle training before the war started. Also, some say that Poland’s anti-Germany intelligence organization secretly operated there. Despite their hard-fought defense, the Polish civilian army in the post office could not compete with the offense of the German army, and in the end, they surrendered.

In World War II, most non-Jewish Polish citizens in Danzig were killed by German paramilitary organizations such as the Selbstschutz (“self-protection”), while the Jewish citizens were targeted by the Holocaust and were sent to concentration camps. In March of 1945, Danzig was liberated by the Soviet Union Red Army. In this movie, the way Oskar’s Kashubian mother goes back and forth between her German husband and her Polish lover seems to symbolize the race conflict in Danzig. There is a strong possibility that Oskar’s real father is the Polish man, but because he is the child of a German on the family register, Oskar barely escapes alive to Germany after the war. However, his grandmother remains in Danzig, and she is separated from Oskar for the rest of her life; since his grandmother is Kashubian, she cannot enter Germany.

Nowadays, Danzig is a Polish territory called Gdańsk. It was mostly destroyed in World War II, but it is said that due to the great efforts of current citizens, the historic streets have been rebuilt, and it prospers as a beautiful town for sightseeing.

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Movie: The White Ribbon: A German Children’s Story — Das weiße Band: Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009)

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Many of director Michael Haneke’s works—such as Funny Games and The Piano Teacher—have a common pattern where unpleasant characters one after another repeat terrible deeds over and over and it is terrible to keep watching, but the audience expects perhaps there will be some explanation at the end to bring a sense of relief; in the end, though, there is no explanation and the audience is left very emotionally upset. These kinds of movies are “not acceptable” to an audience that prefers American movies, but because all his works win the highest honors at European film festivals such as the Cannes Film Festival, his movies seem to deeply capture the hearts of an audience familiar with European movies.

Among Michael Haneke’s work, The White Ribbon seems to appeal to a relatively wide range of audiences. The monochrome cinematography is extremely beautiful and faithfully reproduces the essence of the small village in northern Germany in 1913; handsome men and beautiful women aren’t used, but the good performances of the actors—including the children actors—give a feeling of reality, and the fascinating mystery-solving story holds the hearts of the viewers until the end. However, this is not a detective drama and the movie ends without revealing the criminal, in typical “Haneke-esque” fashion.

This movie begins in 1913 with the strange fall from a horse by the doctor of the village, and ends with the suspicious disappearance of the doctor’s family and the midwife and her child living next door that occurs at the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The families that appear are the baron’s family, under which half of the village’s population is employed; the pastor’s family; the doctor’s family; the midwife, who the doctor has sexual relations with, and her young son; the family of the butler serving the baron; the family of the baron’s tenant farmer; a teacher at the village’s school; and the teacher’s lover Eva.

The events that happen to the doctor’s and midwife’s families are: the unexplained falling off the horse; contempt from the doctor towards the midwife and talk about ending their affair; the doctor’s forced sexual relations with his 14-year-old daughter; the assault of the midwife’s mentally retarded child; and the sudden disappearance of the doctor’s and midwife’s families.

To the baron’s family: the accidental death of the wife of the tenant family within their territory; the destruction of their cabbage field by the tenant farmer’s son; the kidnapping and assault and the almost drowning of their young son; and the arson of the barn.

To the tenant farmer’s family: the accidental death of the wife; the destruction of the cabbage fields as revenge taken by the son; and the father’s suicide after being fired.

To the butler’s family: the near death of the newborn baby when the window of his bedroom is left open and butler’s son’s attempt to drown the baron’s young son.

In the pastor’s house, children face severe corporal punishment for any slight mistake made, and the father who is the pastor ties a white ribbon around the eldest daughter and eldest son approaching adolescence in order to preserve their “purity”. The pastor says this is an expression of a parent’s love, but when the eldest daughter is reprimanded very severely in front of a friend, she faints and later kills the bird that her father loves. Also, the eldest son acts strangely, as if trying to commit suicide.

The teacher is from a neighboring town; he gets to know and proposes to marry the young Eva from the same town who commutes to this village to work as a nanny at the baron’s house. Strange events happen one after another and the teacher begins to suspect that the pastor’s eldest son and eldest daughter may be involved behind-the-scenes; but when he goes to talk to the pastor about it, the pastor threatens him for this slander.

At first glance, as the teacher suspects, it seems as though the eldest son and daughter who are oppressed by their hypocritical pastor father have been causing the events that develop one after another in this movie, but I think that interpretation is in the wrong direction. The only events where the culprit is clear are when the tenant farmer’s son devastates the cabbage field to get revenge for his mother, the butler’s son pushes the baron’s son into the river, and the pastor’s eldest daughter kills the pastor’s bird. With the exception of these, everything could have simply been an accident, or the villagers other than the families that appear in the movie may have done things in their hatred of the baron. When thinking about it, it is difficult to believe that children around ten years old committed arson in the night, got into another person’s house, elaborately tied wire around the trees to prevent the way of the horse, and kidnapped and assaulted the baron’s and the midwife’s sons who would recognize their faces, and it is rather unrealistic that children were the masterminds behind all these events. However, it is true that when unresolved incidents occur at the same time, distrust grows worse among villagers and curiosity for crimes grows stronger among children.

This movie depicts the process of the two powers ruling the village gradually losing power. One is the political ruler, represented by the baron. The baron owns the land, but gradually the monetary system penetrates the village and, because of this development of modern society, the baron seems to have difficulty raising money; also, feelings of resistance sprout in the tenant farmers against the ruling nobility. Socialist ideology emphasizing laborer rights steadily reached rural villages. Further, the German Empire that supported aristocracy collapsed in their defeat in World War I.

The other is Protestant asceticism, which has become disfigured; the pastor can’t save the soul of the people and he even ruins the souls of his own children. I don’t think the pastor’s eldest daughter and eldest son assisted in all the crimes, but they begin to question the corporeal punishment and the hypocritical words of “I punish because I love” that their father gives. They can do little as children, but in five years, they would be strong enough to overpower and overthrow their parents. The movie depicts such a fear.

In other words, this movie depicts the antagonism between the ruling class and the opposing social class, the hypocritical pastor’s authority and the children rebelling against it, and the autocratic man and subordinate woman.

Hitler was born in 1889, so he was 25 years old when World War I began, slightly older than the children in this movie. This means that the children in this movie would be the generation that praised Hitler and supported the Nazis during World War II. This movie does not explain the sudden rise to power by the Nazis. However, this movie gives the feeling that, if we were to peek through a telescope, we could see Nazis at the far end of the horizon. Haneke speaks nothing about this, though.

If the audience is left frustrated and irritated after watching The White Ribbon, this means they fell into Haneke’s trap. He said about his own movie, “I make my movies to counteract and criticize American-style movies, which deprive the audience of the ability to question by giving an easy answer. Instead of giving the audience an immediate (and sometimes wrong) answer, my movies stubbornly keep asking the same question. Instead of releasing the audience at the end of the movie, I want to make sure the audience feels there is still distance between them and the truth. I want the audience to keep searching after the movie ends, rather than everyone in the audience agreeing and being satisfied.”

If I paraphrase Haneke’s difficult words, it might be something like, “You search for criminals to solve 15 mysteries in this movie—thank you for your efforts. But unfortunately your answer is wrong. Or perhaps I should say that there is no real criminal that everyone will agree upon. I made this movie because I want you to think with your own head; I didn’t prepare any answer.”

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Movie: Divided We Fall — Musíme si pomáhat (2000)

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“United we stand, divided we fall” means that we can rise if we work together, but we will fail if we are divided. Usually people say “united we stand” as a call for solidarity, but this movie emphasizes the “divided we fall” side, saying we are defeated if we don’t work together. The Japanese translation of the title is totally different from the original. The person who came up with the Japanese title (“What a Wonderful World”) may have had the song “What a Wonderful World”—which opposed the Vietnam War and prayed for a peaceful world—in mind. This song sung by Louis Armstrong was used in the 1987 movie Good Morning, Vietnam as background music for the impressive scene of idyllic rural landscapes in Vietnam during the war.

This movie is a Czech movie, and depicts the suffering of the people living under Nazi control, while indirectly depicting criticism of the occupation by the Soviet Union that followed. The historic background and the theme in this movie are similar to those in Želary, which premiered in 2003 (not released in Japan). Both were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the protagonist is forced to do unusual things—having to marry some unknown person in order to protect one’s life under Nazi oppression (Želary) or having another man impregnate one’s wife (Divided We Fall). The undercurrent in both movies is the sentiment of, “Although Germany was terrible, the Soviet Union that came after was worse.”

The Czech Republic faced a similar fate as Poland of being a victim of the conflict between Nazis and the Soviet Union in World War II, but neither initially regarded the Soviet Union as an enemy. Since imperial Russia adopted the strategy to expand their southern front in order to gain access to a sea route, Great Britain, an advanced imperialist nation, was wary of Russia. Also, Russia was in conflict with the Austro-Hungarian Empire for hegemony over the Balkan Peninsula. However, the Czech Republic and Poland may have had the feeling of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” regarding the Soviet Union who was the enemy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that ruled over them. Russians, Czechs, and Poles are all part of the same ethnic group called Slavs.

There were many ethnic groups and nations in Europe, but in the end it was four counties—Britain, France, Italy, and Germany—that determined the fate of Europe until the end of World War II. These four countries were very wary of the Soviet Union that was created by the communist revolution. Because the Germans have fought with Russia for a long time over the Balkan Peninsula, and there were a great number of Slavs within German territories who often rebelled, Germany and the Soviet Union were naturally archenemies; because of this, England and France expected that Hitler would lead Germany against the Soviet Union, which would not be a bad situation for England and France to be in. However, Hitler was not a fool. On August 23, 1939 he entered a non-aggression treaty with the Soviet Union behind closed doors, and on the morning of September 1, the German army invaded Poland; on September 3, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and World War II began.

This movie is set in a small town under Nazi control and depicts those who cooperate with the Nazis, those who secretly become part of the partisan, and those who shelter Jews. It is a story of ordinary people in a small town where each neighbor is living with their own extraordinary and frightening conditions. It maintains a humorous tone throughout the whole movie, and it helps that there are no violent scenes, but it is still quite a strenuous situation.

Josef and Marie, who are not able to have children, unexpectedly come to shelter a Jew named David. David’s father was Josef’s boss. Josef discovers David escaping from a concentration camp and returning to town; Josef violates the law requiring him to report a Jew, and instead gives David a meal and helps plan his escape, though it fails. Since simply not reporting David’s existence is punishable by death, Josef and Marie decide to shelter David, with the resolution of, “If you eat poison, eat the whole plate.” Their friend Horst, having a German wife, is a Nazi collaborator. Reluctantly, Josef works for Horst and pretends to be a Nazi collaborator in order to avoid suspicion. Horst becomes troublesome by developing illicit feelings for Marie and suspecting Josef and Marie of hiding something, but when Nazis are to search Josef and Marie’s house, Horst uses his status to protect them.

The Nazis lose and the Soviet Army arrives. Josef is to be executed as a traitor by the partisans, but he tries to explain that he did what he did because he was sheltering a Jew. One partisan wants to meet David as proof, but it was actually that partisan who first saw David when he had come back to the town. That partisan had panicked and shouted to the Nazi army, “There’s a Jew!!!” but since the Nazi army did not hear him, David had been able to escape. When this partisan and David meet again, they do not mention this incident and just silently nod at each other. Horst is to be executed as a traitor, but Josef tries to save him by putting his own life in danger.

In this movie, there is a scene of a soldier of the Soviet Army complaining, “I don’t know who the heck to believe.” This was the first time the Soviet Army invaded a neighboring country in Europe. They didn’t know how to handle the situation. There were probably many soldiers that committed barbaric acts. Also, even though they were welcomed on the surface, there were still Nazi collaborators in the town. How could the Soviet Army find these people? Želary also depicts the village at first welcoming the Soviet Army that enters, a young soldier who starts raping women in the village, and the Soviet Army fighting with the villagers due to increasing uncertainty about who to trust. While the British-American army liberated Italy and France without problems on the Western Front, the Soviet Union’s liberation of Nazi territory was quite complicated on the Eastern Front.

Having asked David the Jew to impregnate Marie in order to protect themselves from the Nazis, the movie ends with Josef holding the baby that was safely born. This scene has the feeling of the Annunciation from the Bible. If you think about it, all of the countries that Germany fought in World War II were Christian countries, and Jesus who created Christianity was Jewish. Is the message, “please read the Bible again before starting a war”?

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Movie: The Last Days (1998)

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The Last Days is one of the documentaries of the testimonies of Holocaust survivors that was made with the financial support of a Shoah foundation; it features the testimonies of five Hungarian Jews who returned from the Holocaust alive. Tom Lantos, one of the five witnesses, later was elected as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

This Shoah foundation was founded by Steven Spielberg—who won an Academy Award for Schindler’s List—with the objective to record the testimonies of what happened to Holocaust survivors and pass on these records to the next generation. “Shoah” is the Hebrew word for “Holocaust.” Steven Spielberg’s ancestors seem to have lived in Austria around the 17th century, but he considers his family to be Ukrainian Jews. His whole family had immigrated to America early on, untouched by the Holocaust. Also, since his family lived in rural areas in Ohio and Arizona, and not in New York City where there is a large Jewish population, it seems like he didn’t have much of a connection to the Jewish community in America. However, because Schindler’s List was a success, the Holocaust has become one of his life’s works. In addition to being interested in recording the persecution of Jews, he also seems to be deeply interested in depicting the hardships of gay people as well as Africans brought to America as slaves.

Because Holocaust survivors have already become very old, their testimonies should be retained in some form or another. Spielberg’s mission is to show the truth about the Holocaust to the many people who might say, “I didn’t hear about the Holocaust during the war,” or, “The Holocaust isn’t a historical fact.” When the movie shows the photographs of Jews who had wasted away to skin and bones in the concentration camps, and photos of the remains of the very large concentration camps, you feel a realness, different than you would in a dramatized movie. For a facility that large, there must’ve been someone who designed it, people who built it, someone who managed it, and moreover there must have been a budget for it, since no project can happen without a budget.

This documentary depicts the reality of the Holocaust from the point of view of five people, but there is no explanation of why such a large-scale manhunt occurred in Europe during World War II. This is a mystery that they don’t understand either. These five people—who were surrounded by non-Jewish neighbors and friends, and brought up with the love of socially successful parents—believed that the increasingly harsh anti-Semitism legal regulations were temporary and due to the urgency of wartime, and that they could return to their regular happy life when the war ended. The Czech movie Protektor and the Polish movie In Darkness depict Jewish women who, even though others were risking their lives to shelter them, voluntarily enter Nazi concentration camps, angrily declaring something like, “I’m through with this foul and inconvenient life!!” It seems that not all, but many Jews in Europe were rich, and a woman raised in such a family is used to getting everything she wants. Perhaps these women couldn’t predict what a concentration camp would be like, and thought that it would be a safe place where they would be surrounded by fellow Jews, be able to breathe fresh air, and be more comfortable. Most Hungarian Jews thought that concentration camps were where people were forced to work, and accepted being sent to a labor camp because all their fellow Hungarians were struggling in this wartime. However, nobody would have imagined that they would be put on a train used for transporting cattle for days without bathrooms and sent to Auschwitz, and that the government of their own home country that they loved would decree it.

Compared to Hungary, Nazi-occupied Poland, Czech Republic, and France had Jews sent to concentration camps such as Auschwitz relatively early on in World War II; the Jew hunting started late in Hungary, not until 1944 when Germany’s defeat became certain. Hungary was Germany’s ally, so it was a relatively safe place for Jews. As in Divided We Fall, there were people whose business was helping Jews from the Czech Republic and Poland who had money to escape to Hungary. Even if a Jew who barely escaped alive explains what happened at a Nazi concentration camp in Poland, a Hungarian Jew may have been dubious that the German government could ever do that. They were different from Jews from Poland, the Czech Republic, or the Soviet Union, and believed they were protected by the Hungarian government.

However, anti-Semitic feelings among Hungarians seemed to gradually strengthen from 1920 through the 30s. Although Hungarian Jews made up only 5% of the entire population, most of them were in the wealthiest class. In 1921, 88% of the members of the Budapest Stock Exchange and 91% of foreign exchange brokers were Jews. It is said that Jews owned between 50 and 90% of Hungarian industry. Young Jews made up 25% of the Hungarian university students, while 43% of the students at the elite Budapest University of Technology were young Jews. It is said that in Hungary, 60% of the doctors, 51% of the lawyers, 39% of the private industry engineers and chemists, and 29% of the magazine editors were Jewish. I wonder if the Hungarian government worked with the Nazis as an outlet for the dissatisfied and struggling lower class by targeting their feelings of hatred toward the elite, affluent minority Jews.

Tom Lantos, who later became a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, escaped immediately from the concentration camp and took refuge in the hideout of Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg; from there, he performed underground anti-Nazi activities. Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat, and he used his privileges as a diplomat to shelter escaped Jews in his office. According to some, 100,000 Jews were rescued by his efforts. However, after the retreat of Germany, Wallenberg went missing after visiting an office of the occupying Soviet Army to talk about the postwar security of Jews. It is said that he rescued Jews no matter the danger during the war, and he received the award “Righteous Among the Nations” from the Israeli government’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. Some say that Wallenberg was regarded as a U.S. spy and was immediately arrested when he went to talk to the Soviet Army, and he died soon after at a Bolshevik concentration camp. Since Gorbachev took over power, such records are gradually becoming public.

For a man helping Jews in German-occupied Poland, not only he, but his whole family and at times neighbors all faced the death penalty, yet many Poles chose to help Jews regardless of the danger. 6,454 Polish people have won the “Righteous Among the Nations” award. Chiune Sugihara, a diplomat from Japan, is the sole winner of this prize from Japan.

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Movie: Joyeux Noël – Merry Christmas (2005)

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On the night before Christmas in 1914, the France-Scotland allied forces face a narrow no man’s land from a trench in northern France as the occupying German army advances further onto French territory. International opera singer Nikolaus Sprink, who was enlisted by the German army, is visited by his lover, soprano Anna (Diane Kruger). The night before Christmas, Father Palmer, who is serving Scotland as a combat medic, plays a Christmas song with a bagpipe in the Scotland camp, and Nikolaus of the German camp starts to sing along to the Christmas hymn. The France-Scotland army find themselves applauding, and Nikolaus stands in the neutral no man’s land and continues to sing. Prompted by this, the commanding officers of the three countries meet in the neutral zone, and decide to suspend the combat for Christmas Eve. Father Palmer gives Christmas mass, and Anna sings a hymn. They suspend combat the next day, too, burying their dead comrades abandoned in the neutral zone, enjoying soccer, sharing chocolate and champagne, and showing each other photographs of their families. However, the time comes that these soldiers who shared a brief moment of camaraderie must resume fighting. The military authorities of each army and the upper echelon of the church are angry when they learn about this exchange of friendship, and the soldiers who exchanged friendship face severe consequences for their conduct.

It may be unbelievable that soldiers of enemy nations really shared friendship during the war, but this movie was made by connecting various real facts. The Christmas truce and the exchange of friendship between enemy nations during World War I did not make it into official records. However, the soldiers who survived the Western Front told the truth to family and friends by word of mouth and with photographs after they returned.

In 1914, it actually happened that a German tenor singer, Walter Kirchhoff, visited the German army to offer moral support and sang in the trench; on the other side of no man’s land, a French officer, recognizing Walter’s voice from a performance of his in the Paris Opera house, applauded. Walter then crossed the neutral no man’s land to greet the officer who had applauded. It also happened that a cat loved by both the German and French armies was arrested by the French army. It is said that this cat was later executed as a spy. In addition, it seems to be true that soccer and games were enjoyed between enemy armies.

This Christmas truce happened on the first Christmas after World War I started. World War I was the first ever all-out, world war, and nobody knew what direction the war would develop; at the beginning, there was an optimistic feeling that the war would be over quickly. However, as the war continued, dangerous weapons and poisonous gas were used. Also, the airplanes that were initially used for reconnaissance were transformed into terrible fighters. As the war became violent and cruel, events like the Christmas truce depicted in the movie became rare.

What brought these enemies together momentarily were the forces of music, sports, and religion. All the battling nations—Germany, France, and England—were Christian, and people’s faith was strong in those days; Christmas was really important, and it was the motivation behind the Christmas truce. It was easy to understand enemy nations that were similarly Christian. Something like the Christmas truce wouldn’t have happened if it had been a battle between Muslims and Christians, or Muslims and Jews.

It was Germany that underwent the greatest political change during World War I. Germany was still an empire in those days, and the people fought in the name of Wilhelm II, the German emperor and Prussian King. However, as the Great War continued, the war-weariness of the nation increased. On November 3, 1918, the sailors of the Kiel naval port mutinied, and, with the resulting populist uprising, the German Revolution ensued. Wilhelm II fled to the Netherlands, thus ending World War I. The Weimar Republic with the principle of parliamentary was established in Germany.

After that, the German government was unstable. After their defeat, they received economic retribution from the victorious nations, and the German people lived miserable lives. Within this dissatisfaction, the Nazis were formed in 1920, and this led to World War II. In this movie, the First Lieutenant Horstmayer, who led the German faction and agreed to the Christmas truce, was Jewish. Crown Prince Wilhelm, who was the highest commanding officer on the Western Front, was enraged when he found out about the Christmas truce, and sends First Lieutenant Horstmayer’s unit to the dangerous Eastern Front; at this time, the Crown Prince Wilhelm points with his sword at the iron cross of the German army at the chest of the First Lieutenant, and shouts, “You don’t deserve the iron cross.” This scene suggests the fates Jews met 20 years later—having their German citizenship revoked, not being able to apply for the German army, and being sent to concentration camps.

If I were to say the message of this movie in a few words, I might say, “The willingness for citizens to fight is created by the leader of the nation.” The movie starts with a scene with elementary school students in Britain, Germany, and France having patriotism hammered into their heads and being taught hostility towards their neighbors. Because citizens are made to think that soldiers of enemy nations are faceless beasts, they can fight in a war. However, through the exchange on the night of Christmas Eve, the soldiers recognized each other as human for the first time, and it became difficult to kill each other. When the First Lieutenant Audebert leading the French army received criticism for the Christmas truce, he responded, “The German soldiers are more human compared to these people shouting to kill Germans!” Also, the audience will forever remember the sentiment of the soldiers who had to return to war: “We (today only) can forget war. But the war won’t forget us.”

This movie is an impressive work that depicts beautiful details, but if I were to illuminate a fault, it is that Diane Kruger who performed as an opera singer was too obviously lip-syncing. The hymn which she sings in front of the soldiers should be a huge turning point, but her body doesn’t quiver as she sings, and her mouth was just monotonously opening and closing; there are too many moments when the lyrics and her mouth movement are out of synch. Since she looks like a beautiful picture with only her mouth opening and closing, quite a few viewers may lose empathy at this point of the movie. Diane Kruger is certainly beautiful, but for this scene, I would have preferred watching a real opera singer, such as Natalie Dessay who supplied the real singing voice in this movie. The audience may be deeply moved by the musical performance of Father Palmer of the Scottish army on the bagpipes, rather than Diane Kruger’s lip-syncing. Tea with Mussolini also features a bagpipe when the movie ends with the Scottish army entering an Italian town occupied by the Nazis. The sound of the bagpipe is joyful, optimistic, sorrowful, and poignant.

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