bitter cold temperatures and even
snow. These harsh elements add to the
gray and murky quality of the concen-
tration camp scenes.
Dunst said she joined the film pro-
ject feeling like a child and then had
an awakening.
"I feel like I've become a lot older
and more mature," she said. "I
learned things about myself and my
own inner strength. I didn't want to
complain or act like a sissy. I felt a
responsibility to
trudge ahead."
The other
actors and the
director had simi-
lar life-changing
experiences.
"While we were
out there [making
the film], I could-
n't help question-
ing how even one
person could have
lived through this,"
Deitch said. "Then
you
think of the
Opposite page: Kirsten Dunst per forms hard
strength of the
labor in a concentration camp in a scene
human will to sur-
from "The Devil's Arithmetic. '.
vive and how pow-
Above: Co-executive producer Dustin Hoffman:
erful it is that even
"Frankly, I grew up in a family that was Jewish
one person made it
and non-religious. My father was an atheist.
through.
I think my parents were members of that generation
"Everybody was
that tried to assimilate and 'pass,' without admitting
shattered
by the
it maybe [The story of the Holocaust has to be told
experience,"
she
to our children] and its not that I'm Jewish.
said,
noting
that
Christian, Jew, whatever --- there's a resonance,
her own Jewish
a horrible resonance going on 50 years &ter,
roots sparked her
which we will probably never recover from."
desire to expand
Above right: Co-executive producer Mimi Rogers:
her knowledge and
`Most of my Jewish relatives left Germany before the war.
become
So, I know,just from the family history, that there were
entrenched in the
extended relatives who did erience the Holocaust.
subject matter.
I know its something my father feels very strongly about."
She visited Dachau
and Auschwitz and
interviewed several
dozen Holocaust survivors.
hauled off to a concentration camp,
Deitch said "The Devil's Arithmetic"
where the infants, the sick and the
is the most educational and personal
elderly are immediately murdered. The
filmmaking experience of her life.
rest are left to perform hard labor in
"Through this concentration camp expe-
the most severe conditions imaginable.
rience I am telling stories that have never
While the others around her are
been told in this way," she said. "I am
praying that everyone in the dank, cold
standing up for the real people involved
camps will survive, Hannah knows the
and keeping their memory alive." 11
grim reality of her people's fate.
The three-week shoot in Lithuania
took place just a few miles away from
"The Devil's Arithmetic" premieres
one of the very first sites of Jewish
on Showtime 8 p.m. Sunday,
genocide, a series of large pits in the
March 28. Subsequent showings
Paneriai Forest, where 70,000 Jews
are
scheduled for 9 p.m. Tuesday,
were shot to death by German and
March 30; 8 p.m. Wednesday,
Lithuanian soldiers.
April 7; 1:45 p.m. Saturday, April
The camp for the set was built
10; and 6:15 p.m. Friday, April 23.
from scratch. Cast and crew were
beset by heavy rains, muddy fields,

In the film, Dunst (as Hannah), a
spoiled teenager from New Rochelle,
N.Y., wakes up, surrounded by Rivkah
and her mother, Mina, relatives she does
not recognize. She is stunned to learn
she is in Poland in 1942 and is on her
way to a nearby village for the festive
wedding of two family friends.
From the outset, Hannah knows
what the future holds. The wedding is
invaded by Nazi soldiers. They-torch
the synagogue, and the celebrants are

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EXTENDED THROUGH JUNE 27TH

Detroit Jewish News

3/26
1999

87