Who would have thought?
Germans and Jews
Grade: B+
Director: Janina Quint
Screenplay: Documentary
Runtime: 1 hr 16 min
by John DeSando
“That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life - that is what is abnormal.” Elie Wiesel
Who would have thought in 1945 that in 2016 Germany would be the fastest-growing Jewish community in the world? The documentary Germans and Jews not only verifies this fact but also goes on to record the testimony to its accuracy from both Germans and Jews in Berlin.
The framing device of a dinner with Jews and Germans is inspired for allowing us to experience the spectrum of feeling without the work being compromised by manipulative structure of appropriately placed talking heads.
What makes this doc so entertaining is that no talking head seems interested in hyperbole about the counter-intuitive idea that Germany is safer than Israel for Jews. It’s no secret that Berlin is a modern bastion of tolerance and social progression, yet to think that it embraces a multi-culturalism that eclipses Tel Aviv’s, relative to its Jewish homeland status, is still unnerving. However, having Palestine at your doorstep changes thing dramatically.
Obviously having Janina Quint, a non-Jewish German, as director and Tal Recananti, an American Jew, as executive producer, helps give the doc a balanced feel, even if it leans in favor of Jewish goodness in a secular world that largely has passed beyond the Holocaust in time and sentiment.
Indeed, in sympathy for the younger generation, history professor Fritz Stern, who escaped the holocaust, believes the time has come to put the past behind them.
The harmony seems almost unbelievable, but there it is amid my preconceived notions of an eternal clash between history and cultures. Who would have thought Berlin a home to democracy and liberal inclusiveness? See it for yourself in the fascinating Germans and Jews.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
