A subject which should never be forgotten--but not this movie

I agree, it wasn't a great movie. And I dislike the idea that just cause a movie is about the holocaust it automatically makes it brilliant and thought provoking. This movie did nothing for me.

I bought this movie without seeing it and I am disappointed. I can't sit through the whole thing! Kristen Dunst's acting wasn't very good and Brittany Murphys accent was HORRIBLE!

But Hitler WAS human. Very human. So were the millions who followed him and the thousands/tens of thousands who participated in the attrocities shown in The Devil's Arithmetic.

Never forget that he was just a human. Thankfully there's few like him, but the filthy, vile, evil bastard was as human as any other. And that is what makes him more odious than any fire-breathing, pus-spewing monster.

I'm only part way through this film and so far it is doing an ok job. I'm not bothered about Kirsten Dunst, accents or anything like that, i just think it has a point to make. I'm sure there are a few Jews like the character Dunst portrays. I know the current British teenage generation has almost no knowledge of the Holocaust or appreciation of its scale. People need to remember that the Nazis who did this were not only soldiers (many, MANY weren't fit for soldiery), but doctors, bankers, lawyers, bakers, miners, postmen, barmen.....just about any "normal" worker/profession.

The further we get from those dark days, the more likely it wll happen again. Soon, there'll be no survivors of the camps to tell their stories and we'll have t rely on documentaries and films. And we have to suspend our incredulity that one human can think of doing these things to another human.

I have German blood in me and it makes me shudder to think i may be related to someone who took part in the evils of the Holocaust.

I watched half of this movie last night, and thought it was pretty good so far. Going to finish it later. I don't care much for Kristen Dunst, but she's OK in this. I just wondered about a couple of things. She and her friends are getting tattooed at the beginning and they look and sound like totally modern 21st. century girls.

Yet when Kristen got dressed to go to celebrate Passover, she wore a dress from the 1940's, and her hair looked like 1940's. I know this played into the part later when she goes back in time, but- where did a modern girl like her get a dress like that, why would she wear it, and why did she wear an old fashioned hairstyle? No one told her to. She got herself dressed to go to the supper.

Also, she acted like she didn't know what was going on a Passover supper, giggling, etc, yet she must have been with her parents and relatives over the years.

Some things just didn't work in this movie. Or at least the part I've seen.

I watched this movie for the first time today. I am a little surprised by the negative reactions I have read. I was born in the 60s. At home, in school, and in cheder (Jewish religious education) I was taught of the Holocaust. I was exposed to it because there were so many survivors. It was an important historical fact and we learned of it in public school. In cheder, we had teachers who had survived, guests who came to relate their experiences and a Rabbi who spoke of the Holocaust in sermons, in speeches and in lessons for us.
There were movies and books, ongoing public discourse. There were even armies of Holocaust deniers who, in their denial, kept the memory and the public discourse alive. We had memorials at Hammarskjold Square in NYC and marches by Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, and the new state of Israel and the arrest of war criminals to remind us of this hideous Nazi experiment in social engineering: genocide!
It was a source of pain that resurfaced regularly. It was a source of unity, an experience that bound us closer (even those like me who were born in its wake), and a source of hope; hope for survival as a people, hope for the success of Israel, hope for the world, that it would never again allow such a horror to be visited on itself.
My kids are children of the 70's and 80's. We still spoke of the Holocaust in our home, in shul (when we went... much less frequently than I had as a youngster), and they learned some of the history in cheder. But in public school, the Holocaust was mentioned as a footnote to WWII. I read their history books and looked at the curriculum: I confirmed this. There were no more public memorials and skinheads replaced the Nazis with their more general hate (Jews lumped in with the rest of the non-Aryans) and the swastika lost its specific anti Semitic symbolism. It became a sign of membership in a motorcycle or prison gang or a rock and roll fan club. My kids don’t have
Ms. Dunst is the same age as my youngest child and lived in the same county as a young kid. Not being a Jewish kid and educated in public school, I suspect her first real introduction to the Holocaust was studying for this role. Many kids in the US don’t get that opportunity.
Removing a safe and comfortable secular kid from her Seder and transporting her back to the camps, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, does not seem frivolous to me. It seems the perfect way to contrast the difference. To mark the difference between the Seder in the 20th century suburbs and the camps in a visual and graphic way is, at its core, the best parable a movie could tell. To show Chanah (and all the Chanahs in the post Holocaust world) the truth of survival, of making her aware of how Rivka became Aunt Eva, of personalizing the Holocaust experience, of making it clear how fortunate we are to have survived as a people to celebrate the Seder in comfort, safety and love and to teach this with all the pathos of life in the camps, the ease of life in the modern world, and the passion that drives Jews and the world around them to demand “Never Again” was the purpose of this film. I think it succeeded.