William C. Carlotti

A friend of mine recently sent me the following two reviews of the newly released film Defiance and recommended that I be sure to see it.

(SEE: Consider The Source, by Kim Voynar, Movie City News, Oscar Outsider Dec. 24, 2008 and Heroes in the Family, by Eric Herschthal, The Jewish Week, Dec. 12, 2008 ) www.thejewishweek.com | www.moviecitynews.com

The film Defiance is one of a group of films that have appeared this year with a similar theme involving the decade long nazi led German government's assault on humanity. The spate of films include The Boy With The Striped Pajamas, Valkyrie, and The Reader.

The question that must arise because of this sudden renewal of the genre is,

---Is it a result of the increasing criticism of the Jewish Zionist led, Christian Zionist supported Israeli government 60 year murderous assault on the people of Palestine as Israel occupies and absorbs the Palestine beyond Israel's internationally recognized borders demonstrated by its latest barbarous assault on the Gaza sector of Palestine?

This new movie about the brothers Bielskis, heroes during the brief decade long period of the nazi-led German government's assault on humanity, is amongst the myriad of all kinds of material about the period. Yehuda Bauer, academic advisor to Yad Vashem in Israel, put it this way on January 27, 2006 at the first commemoration of nazi led Germany's victims at the United Nations,

"...why is there a flood of fiction, theater, films, TV series, and music, and, of course, historical, sociological, philosophical, psychological, and other academic research, a flood that has rarely if ever been equaled in dealing with any other historical event?"

Bauer asks the question as a rhetorical question in his speech---it is a good question-- and he has his answer and I have mine.

From my perspective, there are two reasons for the flood. The first and foremost reason is that it makes a hero out of the United States in its historical narrative. The scenario as it is played out in the narrative of the United States is that the "forces of freedom and democracy" defeated "the forces of totalitarianism and genocidal despotism". So much of a hero, in fact, that the three centuries of the organized, industrial, capture, transport, enslavement and murder of millions of Africans and indigenous people of this land is shuttled into the background. So much so that the racist characteristics of the nazi led venture with its racial courts--to detect non-aryans using the tools developed by the eugenics movement in the United States-- is also shunted into the background as the United States' racially segregated armed forces engaged them.

Imagine ---a centuries old industry that has special forces and traders engaged in the capture of humans, has a whole industry that builds special transport ships for its human cargo, has specific insurance for the transport, has an industry that produces special iron forged instruments of containment and torture, has an international trade involving the production and sale of rum as the finance for the human cargo, has a whole religious, philosophical academic rationale for the industry, has special training camps and personnel for breaking the will of the captured, has an entire society built on the premise of this industry for centuries. Then, when the flood described by Bauer of the nazi led decade is considered, there is scarcely, in comparison, a trickle of the myriad of descriptions possible, in the vast variety of genre that Bauer lists, of this enormous racist human crime of the United States.

This is not a comparative analysis of the two historical events but, instead, it is a description of how the one historical event in its emphasis and abundance, in its "flood" as Bauer puts it, about the decade of the nazi led German government's atrocities, is used, on the one hand, to embellish the United States historical narrative and, on the other hand, to subsume and to smother the enormous, unspeakable, human genocidal atrocities committed for centuries by the racist, slave holders controlled United States government.

The second and equally relevant reason has been examined in detail by Norman Finkelstein in his consummate study of the "flood" phenomenon in his books The Holocaust Industry, Reflections On The Exploitation of Jewish Suffering and Beyond Chutzpah, On The Misuse of Anti-Semitism and The Abuse of History.

So as much as I am inspired by the recounting of the stories of the heroes that opposed the nazi led atrocities, the story of my family's participation in the resistance in Italy and of my family's and the myriad of other family's organized resistance to the racism of the United States will have to suffice until this latter issue is seriously dealt with and the "flood" of the stories about the nazi-led German government is recognized for the purposes it serves independent of the accounts of its victims.

Yet, in spite of my inclination, Kim Voynar's review of the film makes a relevant point. She writes,

"..Defiance tells a tale of a group of Jews who fought back against the Nazis, who survived against all odds through conditions that would thwart the best of us, were we to suddenly find ourselves uprooted from our cozy lives, and for that it stands out amidst other films about the Holocaust as a film not just about survival, but about an uprising of the spirit, led by these brothers who refused to site back and be victims. If they were going to die, they were going to die fighting, and they imbued their band of ragtag, displaced villagers with the desire to not just survive, but to survive by fighting against their enemy."

Her statement brings to mind the story of the defiance of the people of Vermont to slavery written into the Vermont Constitution.

Her statement brings to mind the story of the defiance of John Brown who was amongst the first to oppose the racist led United States government's support of slavery.

It brings to mind the story of the defiance of Nat Turner whose assault on the population of the racist slave holders is part of the unrequited history of the resistance of the African slaves in the United States

It brings to mind the story of the defiance of Geronimo who fought the long resistance to the racist colonization of what has become the United States.

It brings to mind the story of the defiance of the Lincoln Brigade that was amongst the first to oppose fascism when it appeared in Spain supported by the nazi-led German government.

It brings to mind the story of the defiance of the The White Rose, the group of Germans that opposed the nazi led German government.

It brings to mind the story of the defiance of the Italian Partisans that my family was a part of that captured, tried and hung Mussolini for his crimes against humanity.

It brings to mind the defiance of the Palestinian youth who throw rocks at the behemoth tanks of the racist,colonizing Jewish Zionist led, Christian Zionist supported Israeli government.

It brings to mind the defiance of the Palestinian resistance, including its use of the hand carried bomb, whose purpose is to strike against the nation, the people of the nation that have invaded your country, ravaged its cities towns and hamlets, brought death, starvation and suffering to your people, displaced your country's population, absorbed your homes, farms, private property to their own purposes and to let them know that so long as they carry out the occupation and absorption of your country they will be bombed, they will not live in peace, they will not enjoy the fruits of their genocidal crimes.

It brings to mind the hundreds of Palestinians that are now throwing shoes at the all Jewish Israeli armed forces guarding the construction of Israel's beloved ghetto wall. The Palestinians are imitating the courageous journalist that took off his shoe and threw it at George Bush in disgust at his answers to questions at a news conference.

LET THE WORLD RAIN SHOES ON ISRAEL

Gather up your dirty, stinking, smelly old shoes and sneakers and send them, in solidarity with the people of Palestine, to:

THE ISRAELI CONSUL GENERAL
800 2nd AVENUE
NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10017

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By William C. Carlotti, Bill's Board, Commentary and Music from the Heart WGDR FM 91.1, Plainfield, Vermont WGDR.ORG streaming on the internet Sundays 3 - 5 PM.