Thoughts on arts, life, and current events

On January 9th I was on the Next Generation Committee fundraiser at the USHMM with Ralph Fiennes and Bob Woodward.   We were thrilled that the event was a sell out just a few weeks after the holiday season and our snow storms.  The USHMM does such important work not only on the Holocaust but also on educational efforts for young and old on the roots of this evil - ignorance, racism, propaganda, and collecting data and information that I wish I could do more to help them.

Ralph Fiennes was compelling as interviewed by Bob Woodward.  Woodward’s questions were mostly very interesting(more later).  Fiennes who played Amon Goeth the Plaszow concentration/labor camp commandant  in Schindler’s List and then a number of characters from the Sonnenshein family in Sunshine is an amazing actor.  His recent movies are also remarkable.  Last year the Museum showed the documentary of Helen Hirsch who was a slave as a young girl in the psychotic Commandant’s home.  She lived through the war and came to the museum to discuss the terror and experience of returning to Plaszow with Goeth’s now grown daughter.  The young woman had no idea of what her father was doing at the labor camps and now she speaks in Germany to college students about the Holocaust and the horrors perpetrated at the time.

What is remarkable about film is it’s ability to tell a story - horrific, painful and real.  The clips that were shown from Schindler’s List and Sunshine reminded me how great actors in the hands of brilliant directors can bring forward evil in a performance that is true and as brutal as it is to watch we don’t avert our eyes as we know it is only a performance.  Helen Hirsch and the others experienced this terror first hand and some have lived to tell us about it.

Both Ralph Fiennes and Bob Woodward were gracious to everyone at the end of the evening.  Answering questions, taking photos.  I don’t know how an actor can play the roles that Mr. Fiennes does with such success.  He is not just a great actor but also a humanitarian.  Bravo Mr. Fiennes in your greatest role - illuminating the horror’s of these times and places with performances which tell the story of a history we pray will never be repeated.

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