Are Jewish Themes "Verboten"?

Abstract

There have been many pictures on America at war. There have been films of England under the Blitz, France, Holland, Belgium and Czechoslovakia under the Nazi heel. There have been Hollywood presentations of our allies, from gigantic China with its four hundred millions to little Greece with its seven. But there has not been a film about Jews. There has neither been a film about the amazing contributions to the War of gallant Palestine, democracy's arsenal for the Middle East of manpower, technical knowledge, food, arms and ammunition, alone amidst countries that were all hostile or neutral at the best, when things were going bad in that part of the world. Nor has there been a portrayal on the screen of the greatest, the most horrifying tragedy history has witnessed in many centuries, the slaughter of the Jews of Europe. Even the battle of Warsaw, the very thought of which hurts in its poignant drama, didn't get a shot in a newsreel. Sure, individual Jews or even families have been worked into refugee movies. But they were always individuals, refugees like all others, except that their crime in a Nazi-Europe was to have been Jews. Never, in all the many motion pictures that have been turned out, has there been one that was honest about Jews. That showed that their suffering, their crushing, their fight and their death was not that of one human being, multiplied, but that of a people. Why are there films in which Dutchmen, Belgians, Poles, Chinese, Britishers or any of the people who fight with us underground and above are the heroes, but not a single one that tells the story of Jews as