"From Hitler to Hollywood": I highly recommend seeing on PBS "From Hitler to Hollywood." Link below. It TRULY is an amazing work yet again that PBS, the station of incredible excellence, does. This is such a masterpiece documentary of an interesting, and, perhaps, little known time in Hollywood.

It is amazing HOW MANY actors, screenwriters, directors, producers musicians, score writers and the list goes on and on and on who were Jews who fled Europe those terrible years and came here. One by one from around 1936 to 39 when they COULD get out some did. This documentary is about those people...those brilliant and talented people who were swept up in the tsunami of the destruction of Europe of that era.

In a way, Hitler did the US a favor because they came here and contributed to our culture in unparalled ways. People like Peter Lorre, Fred Zinneman (Directed Julia) and a ton of others, Billy Wilder, Ditriech, Heddy Lamar, Paul Heinreid, and a thousand more who contributed so much to the arts especially film. Films like Casablanca, Double Indemnity, The Killers, The Sweet Smell of Success, Citizen Kane, Some Like it Hot, and THAT list goes on and on. I did not realize and have just RECENTLY become interested in film noir that it was almost entirely influenced by the German, Austrian, French, Polish and other Jews and some others of conscience who fled when they saw the handwriting on the wall. Noir is their experience in that they saw the dark side of life, man at his worst and film noir comes out of that.

Some who fled never saw their family again, mother, fathers, etc. Some could never quite adapt well to America but some did. The whole thing is fascinating and I guess
it is an example of why the Holocaust utterly CONSUMES me despite being born after it. It is the intellect of these people makes the depth and the breadth of the Holocaust which is dumbfounding and the people ... these people who were NOT
orthodox Jews but SECULAR Jews but it didn't matter. None of it. It mattered not that they were secular, patriotic, unpolitical ... it just mattered if someone somewhere knew you were a Jew. It becomes SO personal and it wasn't like these people were uncultured, did not like learning, dragged a culture down or were so different from the masses. To the contrary they lifted a culture up, loved their countries and were brilliant men and women like Einstein ... imagine EINSTEIN was forced to flee Europe to the US.

The profound character of those years in every domain whether, arts, literature, science, religion, philosophy, had an impact. It shaped MY own personal politics my entire adult life. After first learning about the Holocaust at age 8 in a movie theater newsreel which they had in the 50's, I became so literally nauseated as an 10 year old after seeing those pictures of bodies heaped on a pile I nearly threw up
not figuratively but literally. So I knew when I was older and became political I would NEVER be a part of the right wing. I knew the right no matter in what form I would be the opposite of what I was. I knew then Nuremberg must apply everywhere OR it applies nowhere.

This web site of PBS if you are interested is:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/cinemasexiles/