I skim a lot when I read. Most of the time, I glean what information I need to know, then click away from the page, somewhat wiser about what's going on with the world. There are other times when I do the equivalent of a double-take, clicking away and then clicking back. I did that with this article.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - At one point in Yaron Zilberman's new documentary about a Jewish girls' swim team in Nazi-era Vienna, one of the team members tries to explain the trauma of starting a new life after fleeing Austria in the late 1930s.
"You have no idea. You have no idea," says Ann Marie Pisker, who is now in her 80s and lives in London. "You sink or you swim. And when you're young, you swim."
And, boy, did those girls swim. In the 1920s and '30s the girls of the Hakoah Vienna sports club dominated competitive swimming in Austria.
Hakoah is Hebrew for "the strength" and, as the flames of anti-Semitism were fanned in the 1930s, that's what the Hakoah girls needed to deal with the hatred directed at them by their pro-Nazi rivals, the First Viennese Sports Club.
"We're accustomed to courageous stories about men but these girls competed and faced all this hatred, and I found that really inspiring," says Zilberman during an interview in his apartment overlooking the Lincoln Center performing arts complex in Manhattan.
The Israeli-born filmmaker's new documentary, "Watermarks," recently began a theatrical run in New York and in the coming weeks will be expanding to other cities. {...}
If you're interested, you can find the trailer here.
So, I'm skimming along, nothing is really screaming "man bites dog" for me, and I'm ready to click away...and I do so. But then I click back, because something's just not right. Here's the offending passage:
{...}"This is the victory scene," Zilberman explains "This is the scene where they are victorious. I mean, Hitler died and the whole Nazi regime luckily disappeared and look at them.{...}
{my emphasis}
The reason why these women are now back to swimming at their old club is because Hitler died and the whole Nazi regime luckily disappeared?
Ummm. Hello? I believe a war was fought in the meantime. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers died fighting the lunatic ambitions of a small mustachioed Austrian and his cronies and all it was luck that these women can now swim at their old club? The director's statement implies that, to his thinking, Hitler just offed himself for the hell of it. As if Hitler's death would have been all that was needed to end the madness that was the Third Reich. Contrary to what the current conventional wisdom surrounding Wolfsschanze and the July 20 plot imparts, Hitler's death by no means guaranteed that the war would end.
While I'm as happy as the next person that these women are around to tell their story---and a fascinating story it looks to be, too---has the director completely forgotten who liberated Europe? Has he forgotten the sacrifices involved in completing that bloody and difficult job? Has he honestly chalked it all up to luck?
Posted by Kathy at February 25, 2005 09:52 AM