In the scene where pro and anti-dad protestors are waving placards and shouting at each other, did anyone see the placard in the pro-dad camp that read "six million lies"?
So, basically, not only is good old dad innocent, but the other Nazi killings didn't happen either? I must say, if I had been Jessica Lange's dad, I sure wouldn't want any Holocaust-denying nutcases fighting my corner. It might harm my defence, to say the least.
This movie is in part based on the story of John Ivan Demjanjuk of Cleveland, Ohio, known as Ivanthe Terrible. He was a Ukranian accused of being an SS guard at Treblinka death camp in WWII. Others say he was at Sobibor, instead. He says he was at Chelm, a prisoner himself, and had never harmed anyone, nor had he ever been to Sobibor or Treblinka.
Demjanjuk had many anti-semitics and holocaust deniers in his corner and it didn't seem to hurt him. He's still living here in the good old USA! Even though he lost his US citizenship over this years ago and has repeatedly been ordered deported to The Ukraine, since 2004.
I know he has a son who is a lawyer (Jessica Lange's character must be based on him) and he and his family have a lot of community support in the Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio ukrainian and lithuanian communities. He is a former auto factory worker and I know that in the past, groups of auto workers have rallied to support him as well.
The point is, many anti-semitic and holocaust denying people protested on behalf of Demjanjuk; they said he was innocent simply because the Holocaust never happened. Or that he was innocent because there were no camps at all or that the camps were not work camps, but rather, were displaced persons or refugee camps. So what if he was an ss guard there, he was guilty of nothing because nothing happened. So they say.
Some 3 million dollars were given to Demjanjuk for his defense and trial costs in the 1980s, by a noted American Holocaust denier named Brentner.
I think the film makers were trying to put some of that realism into the film by showing that sign. There are still many people who say none if it ever happened. I mean, look at Iran right now, holding that Holcaust seminar where noted Holocaust deniers gave "evidence" that it could never have happened and therefore, the Iranians should not have to bear any responsibility for something that never occured...and therefore, Jews have no right to Isreal, or to land anywhere in the Middle East, since they were not victimized and therefore need no special protections, no homeland, no safe place.
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I don't know the final outcome of Demjanjuk's long fight, but last I heard he was sent to Germany to stand trial for war crimes there. Imagine, Germany is prosecuting the people they previously enlisted to do their dirty work.
share"Germany is prosecuting the people they previously enlisted to do their dirty
work"
The democratic Germany that prosecuted them is not the Nazi Germany that employed them.
Agreed ... but there is irony there. It is impressive how united Germany has accepted responsibility for it's Nazis period.
shareThank you bookratt for the information about John Ivan Demjanjuk.
shareAnn's father was a Holocaust-denier.
Remember her son Mikey told her that Laszlo told him in secret that the Holocaust never happened, and when Ann confronted Laszlo, the son started yelling at Ann, and she never finished her confrontation with Laszlo about Laszlo denying the Holocaust.
It wasn't Laszlo who told Mikey that Holocaust never happened, it was the other grandfather, her ex-husband's father. As soon as Mikey tells her, she assumes it was her dad and goes to confront him about it, which he denied. Mikey then comes out and shouts, "Not him, Grandfather Talbot!"
Later on, during a break in the trial, she nonchalantly asks Talbot why he told Mikey the Holocaust was made up. He didn't outright deny it, just said that he never talks politics with Mikey. The conversation doesn't go further because they are interrupted by Georgine.
.