Page Fifty-Two

THE JEWISH NEWS

Friday, March 30, 1945

Is The Jew a
esirable Subject
For The Movies?

By HELEN ZIGMOND

(-Copyright, 1945, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)

W

Refugees Aboard the "Nyassa" Reach Palestine

This is the contrast. Through consistent efforts
of those who are determined to rescue as
many Jews as possible, thousands have been
settled in Palestine. But the restrictions of the
White Paper stand in the way of saving many,

many more. The sense of injustice expressed
in Dr. Aronstam's "The Struma Saga" is a
call to action to all fair-winded people to
strive for the abrogation of all restrictions
on Jewish immigration to Palestine.

The Strumot Saga

By DR. NOAH E. ARONSTAM

(Written in the style of Oscar Wilde's "The Ballade of Reading Gaol" and in-
spired by the overwhelming feeling of injustice over the tragedy of the sinking
of the Struma and the British Colonial Office's failure to adhere to pledges
made to the Jews in Palestine).

Millay wept over The Tragedy of Lidice,
Many bewailed the massacres of Lublin.
But few remember the Struma's fatal end,
Whereon seven hundred and fifty perished
A sacrifice to political expediency.—(Author's note).

IX

They never sailed in stately ships
-1-• Nor ships of regal fame;
They never sailed in pleasure craft--
Fugitives without a name.
They drifted here, they drifted there—
The Promised Land their aim

The Jewish • Agency declared:

"That visas were to spare,
That England opens wide the door
Of Haifa's harbor fair."
The promise was revoked again
Amidst a sudden flare.

x

1 1

They paced the squalid, slimy deck
In garments grim and grey.
Constanza lay behind their back
And none of them was gay,
They hoped and yearned in their hearts
To see the blessed day.

1H

F or months and months they tramped

the deck
In tatters and in rag;
Their eyes were turned to the East
To spy the welcome flag.
"Why does the vessel languish here,
Why does the journey lag?"

IV

T hey walked and walked like souls in

pain
Upon the mouldy deck,
And wondered where Haifa was—
Istanbul at their back.
They looked to West, they looked to East
With eyes of lustre-lacla.

V

w

ho does not feel the aching thirst
Of creatures cast adrift?
Who fathoms not the anguished souls
With neither soil nor shift?
Who cannot see the blinding tears
Upon a ruthless rift?

VI

ou never saw such men before
Y With
terror in their eye;

You saw them tremble, wince and start
When looking at the sky;
You shuddered at their hopeless glance
As night came passing by.

VII

And
men, and child and waif,
A nd women, bodies
wan and gaunt

Who hoped and prayed and prayed and
hoped,
Immured in that infested haunt
Of misery and dire despair,
Living ghosts of dreaded want.

•

VIII

T She was not fit to sail;

he captain of the ship had urged:

He begged for succor and surcease,
But nothing would avail;
For Britain ruled they couldn't land,
And back they had to saiL

he Struma was the vessel called,
The craft whereon they sailed;
The Struma was the Ship of Fate
Wherein they were impaled;
The Struma was the Ship of Hate
Whereon their journey failed.

T

XI
Like rats they drowned, like rats they
sank
With neither how nor why;
And Haifa beckoned from the East—
They never glimpsed her sky.
The Mandate proved an empty word
And so they had to die!

XII
Creat God! The Jew was crucified
" Upon this Ship of Fate
While fleeing the Amalekite,
From Edorn's land of hate.
He almost scanned the distant shore—
Alas! It was too late!

XIII

T The dark day of disgrace

he day whereon the Struma sank,

That branded all humanity
With shame upon its face:
Shall never cease from History
Nor vanish into space.

XIV

for Christian Charity
A las
Whose dictates are at stake,

Which sacrificed to policy,
Human grief and ache.
And when the seven hundred died,
It was not yet awake!

XV

The y perished all—the Struma sank

1 - With seven hundred souls:
Political expediency
Of monsters and of ghouls,
In vestments of hypocricy
And mercy's sacred cowls.

XVI

The Saga ends, the rune is run,

A tale . that has no peer
In chronicles of history,
A saga bleak and drear;
And when you reach the Saga's end
0, friend—then shed a tear!

E received a letter the other day from a
former European journalist. He had written
a story with a Jewish background which he wished to have
made into a movie.
"How astonished I was," he laments, "when I was told
by a lot of people that for the time being a Jewish film would
hardly find a release in the big theaters—that none of the
film firms, even those headed by good Jews, would think
of releasing a Jewish picture in their theaters—that such a
film could only be placed in a few Independent houses and
would return only a fraction of its costs."

We have heard this complaint before. Is it true? Is it justified?
Isn't a Jewish subject just as good as any other? Perhaps it is poor
box-office. Yet there is no apparent reticence toward Catholic
themes. "Boys Town," "Song of Bernadette," "Going My Way"
were tremendous hits. The Catholic sect is also a minority. The
answer therefore is that these pictures had universal appeal. Well,
then, isn't a Jewish background adaptable to a story of general
human interest? Before we pounce on the producers, let's thumb
through the pages of film history.

OLD JEWISH FILMS

Way back in 1920 we discover
"Humoresque," the Fannie Hurst
story which brought Vera Gor-
don from the London stage to
her first Hollywood movie. The
author wanted Miss Gordon to
play Mama Cantor. How did the
public accept this Jewish story?
Figures show it was one of the
smash hits of its time.
A little later we followed the
"Cohens and the Kellys" from
Universal to "A f r i c a," from
"Paris" to "Scotland," from mis-
chief to mishap. This was a series
which popped up perennially
from 1926 to 1933. George Sidney
and Vera Gordon carried the
banner for the Cohens. Did
movie-goers like them? The an-
swer is that years after the series
discontinued, the studio received
many requests to revive and re-
issue it.
HAYM SALOMON
In 1925 Rudolph Schildkraut –
Hero of "Sons of Liberty"
made his debut on the American
Film.
screen in a Jewish picture—"His
People." It brought moderate monetary returns.
Then "Abie's Irish Rose," after a blaze of Broadway glory, was
translated to Hollywood celluloid. It was modestly received, though
not piling up the unprecedented records of its stage version. Others •.,
of this era were "Kosher Kitty Kelly," "The Ten Command-
ments," etc.

HITLER AND TODAY'S JEWISH FILMS

The venom of anti-Semitism that one Adolf Shickelgruber
Spread through the world offered a challenge to every producer
who writhed at the brutal lies and heinous crimes. Chaplin's
"Dictator" was the first to strike back at this diabolic sadism. A
number of anti-Nazi pictures followed, but the first to mention
the Jew directly and candidly was "None Shall Escape," produced
by Columbia Studio. It was a depiction of the effect of Nazi
ideology after the war. Though no big names emblazoned it on
the marquee, it proved a strong box-office attraction.
To immunize against some of this hate virus, Warners brought
forth as one of their patriotic shorts, "Sons of Liberty," the story
of Hayin Salomon. It was widely distributed . . . was eagerly
sought after by schools and other cultural groups ... earned much
prestige for its makers.
Producer Lester Cowan has produced the anti-Nazi play, "To-
morrow the World." He did not gloss over the Jewish aspects
of the story.
Forthcoming productions now in preparation include Goldwyn's
"Earth and High Heaven" which concerns itself with the problem
of intermarriage between Jew and Gentile. It will no doubt be
controversial, but a frank airing of the subject.

WARNERS- 10 FILM SAGA OF HEROIC CHAPLAINS

And •Warners soon will put into work the story of the four
chaplains, that heroic sacrifice of the Rabbi, the Catholic priest;
and the two Protestant ministers who,- in giving up their life-belts,
gave their lives to save four soldiers from their sinking ship.
C:.- an it be said then that producers are afraid of Jewish themes?
Or do they merely feel that they should not be overemphasized?
Box-office receipts, we note, are no drawback. Perhaps oft-times
producers are fearful lest they be accused of using the screen for
Jewish "propaganda."
We tried to ask these questions of some producers—our own
co-religionists. But here we came up against adamant silence—the
subject is positively taboo. They will make Jewish films now and
then, but they will not discuss it. They do not present them to
the public with a fanfare: "Here, folks! Here is a Jewish story!
We're not afraid to depict Jews on the screen!" In this unobtrusive
manner "Mr. Skeffington" treated with the problems of the Jews
in his Gentile environment.
The charges against the producers are not, therefore, wholly
true. Such pronouncements by their very nature are only compara-
tive. To the average Christian mind, which worries little, if at all.,
about the persecution of the Jew, it would appear that the subject
receives sufficient prominence. To the Jew—who is unceasingly
shattered by hate and prejudice—it would seem that the movies
are negligent—even indifferent—to his torments. To the producer,
the Jew is probably as desirable a subject as any other—but he
can give him only that minor place to which his numbers in the
total population accord him.