Holocaust

[Scene at SS party]

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
[referring to Heydrich] He hardly looks the blond beast.

Erik Dorf:
The blond beast?

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
Eh, just a street expression.

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
A jolly man, that Heydrich. Not at all what I expected. What did somebody call him? The young god of death.

Marta Dorf:
Oh that's dreadful! Who'd dare say a thing like that?

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
Political enemies, I suppose.

Marta Dorf:
Uncle Kurt, he's a refined and sensitive man! He could have been a concert violinist if he hadn't chosen to serve Germany.

Hans Frank:
[referring to Heydrich and Dorf] What a pair. One of them a part Jew, the other a Berlin sheister.

Heinrich Himmler:
[to SS leaders] Gentlemen, I have never been so proud of German soldiers. Your consciences can be clear. I will be responsible before God and Hitler for all your acts.

Rudi Weiss:
Do you remember the first time we made love in Prague?

Helena Slomova:
Don't embarrass me.

Rudi Weiss:
It was beautiful. The best thing I ever knew in my life.

Helena Slomova:
For me too.

Rudi Weiss:
Now each time we're together. The wonder of it. Two people knowing each other so closely. Not just the bodies, the arms, the lips. It's as if God or nature or someone decided it had to be.

Helena Slomova:
Rudi, there's a poet in you.

Inga Helms Weiss:
Denounce me. Accuse me of some crime. That isn't difficult. Then have me sent to Karl.

Heinz Muller:
Are you *mad*? To that Czech prison?

[Scene in lab where chemist explains Zyklon B gas to Erik Dorf]

Chemist:
I can only tell you it's a first class agent for delousing, fumigation. It won't clog machinery, and there's no apparatus to break down as in carbon monoxide.

Erik Dorf:
Why do you mention carbon monoxide?

Chemist:
Rumors.

Anna Weiss:
There is no hope! Karl is in prison and Rudi ran away! Never a word from him! And Papa, in Poland, where it's like they came after him! Mama, you're acting as if this is a play. Writing letters. Talking about Papa's patients.

Berta Palitz Weiss:
It does no harm.

Anna Weiss:
You always had that notion that you were someone special, so fine, so educated! The Nazis would never hurt you or your children! And look! Look what's happened to us! [sobs hysterically]

Inga Helms Weiss:
Anna, your mother can't be blamed.

Anna Weiss:
New Year's Eve! And who knows if any one of us will be alive for the next New Year!

Helena Slomova:
[translates for Soviet captain] Rudi, he's asking if you are a good Communist.

Rudi Weiss:
Oh yes! Sure! If it'll save my neck

[At quarry in Buchenwald]

Karl Weiss:
Muller, can't you get me out? You're a friend of Inga's family. You *know* how much she's suffering. If you hate me because I'm a Jew, at least have pity on her.

Heinz Muller:
Who hates you? And how can you be so certain she's suffering?

Karl Weiss:
What do you mean?

Heinz Muller:
Women manage.

Karl Weiss:
Has she said something to you?

Heinz Muller:
This is a business, Weiss. Jews understand business. You don't think I'd risk my neck playing mailman without getting paid.

Felscher:
Cheer up, Weiss. They say Theresienstadt's not so bad. I always wanted to see Czechoslovakia.

Berta Palitz Weiss:
Hitler has Czechoslovakia. He has Austria. What more does he want? It's enough for him to digest all that Austrian pastry and that Czech beer.

Moses Weiss:
I have the right name but I'm afraid I can't lead you to the promised land.

Moses Weiss:
[shooting at Nazis and watching them run] Zalman, for the first time I feel the blood of King David in me!

Zalman:
Don't get carried away, Weiss.

Moses Weiss:
Well, maybe just a drop or two.

Berald:
How much did you hear?

Rudi Weiss:
Sounds like you're going to break out.

Berald:
What's your name?

Rudi Weiss:
Rudi Weiss.

Berald:
German?

Rudi Weiss:
Jew.

Berald:
We are Red Army, 51st Division. Weiss, if you are spy, we have to kill you.

Rudi Weiss:
I'm not a spy. If there's going to be a breakout, I want a gun. I was a partisan for *two* years.

Berald:
Whose unit?

Rudi Weiss:
Uncle Sasha, the doctor from Koretz.

Berald:
What actions were you involved in?

Rudi Weiss:
Ambushed the Ukranian SS on the Zhytomyr Road. We attacked the SS headquarters in Krimitch. We were caught trying to shoot up a convoy. My wife... was killed. What is this place?

Berald:
Sobibor, Eastern Poland. They gas 2,000 Jews a day, burn the bodies. There is a field of ashes outside. The SS sleep on pillows stuffed with Jewish hair.

Moses Weiss:
You know, somehow, I don't make a convincing cowboy. Jews and guns, it's a bad combination.

Moses Weiss:
Aha! Instructions on how to assemble a land mine. Now I wonder if the Talmud has any advice for us on the subject.

Reinhard Heydrich:
Autonomous Jewish territories. Marvelous.

Erik Dorf:
Will these be permanent communities?

Reinhard Heydrich:
Well, let's just say steps towards regulating the Jewish problem. Oh my God, Dorf, I'm getting like you. Using language to say what I don't mean.

Hans Frank:
What the hell do you know? I was head of the party legal office when you were in short pants.

Erik Dorf:
Yes. Heydrich has a file on your legal career.

Hans Frank:
Does he?

Erik Dorf:
Interesting details. Your passion for justice. Objecting to the murder of Ernst Roehm. Not at all what the Fuhrer had in mind for the Government of Poland.

Hans Frank:
I heard you were just another boot licker. Apparently you're not.

Erik Dorf:
What we do we do out of necessity.

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
Stop it! Save those lies for the Jews you've been murdering. Lying to them up until the last moment. Why do you have to strip them naked? Can't you at least in the name of God let them die with some dignity? I've seen your SS louts grinning at the naked women.

Erik Dorf:
They are criminals and enemies and they are sent to the processing plant naked for sanitary reasons.

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
Jews in the Warsaw ghetto are fighting back. Think of that. Those despised unarmed people in Warsaw, defying the master race. It almost restores one's faith in Divine Providence.

Erik Dorf:
I'm told you're using several hundred Jews as laborers when there are Russians and Poles available.

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
What of it?

Erik Dorf:
You're not supposed to. Jews are marked for special handling. We'll send you a Red Army detail - strong backs, dull brains.

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
No!

Erik Dorf:
Do you curry favor with enemies of the Reich? The children of those Jewish laborers will rise to destroy Germany.

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
I should strangle you as a favor to your father! How many dead will satisfy you? A million? Two million?

Erik Dorf:
We must keep on killing them, don't you see? If we stop, it's an admission of guilt. But if we go on, we prove to the world that we had total dedication to our mission. That what we did were moral and historical necessities. Try to understand that.

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
I understand too well. Now get out of here!

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
Couldn't they die with dignity. At least let them die with their clothes on.

Erik Dorf:
Im sorry but it's for sanitary reasons.

Adolf Eichmann:
[to Erik] Now there rose up a new king in Egypt who knew not Joseph. Kaltenbrunner's our new king, eh Major?

Adolf Eichmann:
Weiss, what is the function of art?

Karl Weiss:
The function of art? I believe someone said it is to enhance life.

Adolf Eichmann:
[referring to Karl's sketches] And you call this garbage life enhancing? Transport East? Ghetto children? How could you produce such lies, such distortions?

Karl Weiss:
Because it's the truth.

[Scene with Erik Dorf in custody by Americans]

Cassidy:
We've got sworn testimony from 24 witnesses that you helped supervise gassing operations at Auschwitz and other camps and were present when selections and mass killings took place.

Erik Dorf:
I may have been present a few times as Berlin's representative, but I made no decisions. These came from Berlin. The Jews had to be dealt with. Permitted to rise to power again their money and influence would destroy Germany, and that is why we, unwillingly to be sure, why we had to liquidate children. The children, we had to kill the children.

Cassidy:
If I made the decisions, Dorf, I'd put a bullet in your head right now.

Marta Dorf:
[reading the notification of Erik's death] Be assured, dear Frau Dorf, that your husband, Major Erik Dorf, died a hero in the service of the Reich. We who are his comrades will honor his memory and keep alive the great tradition he personified. It's unsigned.

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
It is also untrue.

Marta Dorf:
Untrue?

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
Marta, Erik took his own life. The Americans had him in custody as a war criminal. In all likelihood he would have been executed or given a long term in prison.

Marta Dorf:
You're lying! You always hated Erik.

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
No, not always. And I can no longer hate him. I was too involved in his dreadful business myself to pass judgment.

Peter Dorf - teen:
You get out of here! My father was a hero!

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
Peter, you must face the truth. You and your mother and Laura...

Peter Dorf - teen:
Shut up!

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
Your father was a murderer. He and his colleagues, those strutting men in black uniforms were mechanical killers. Oh, a heroic career - the shooting and gassing and torture of innocents.

Peter Dorf - teen:
Mom, make him stop!

Marta Dorf:
Kurt! Leave us! We never want to see you again. How dare you defame Erik's name! You should be praying for his soul.

Uncle Kurt Dorf:
Somebody else will have to furnish those prayers. I watched and did nothing, and believed the lies. We've got to face up to what we are and what we've done. I won't be silent. Goodbye, Marta. Goodbye, children. [Kurt leaves]

Marta Dorf:
Children, we must light a candle to your father.

Marta Dorf:
When you get a chance to have power, influence, why not use it?

Erik Dorf:
Why haven't you left Germany? You're not a poor man.

Dr. Josef Weiss:
Good question.

Erik Dorf:
Get out! Get out while you can.

Dr. Josef Weiss:
Jews get ill. They need medical care. If all the doctors left, who would take care of them? It's only the old and the poor who have stayed.

Erik Dorf:
Doctor, things won't get easier for you.

Dr. Josef Weiss:
How much worse can they get?

Laura Dorf:
[to Erik] Daddy, why does everybody hate the Jews?

Peter Dorf:
Caus' they killed Christ. Didn't you learn that in Sunday school?

Erik Dorf:
You must be aware that almost to a man church leaders are actively supporting our policies.

Father Lichtenberg:
Well, in that case, I must draw a distinction between what Christianity teaches and how some people distort and betray that teaching.

[Erik leaves]

Father Lichtenberg:
[to priest] Such an intelligent young man. Our gift to the new era.

Reinhard Heydrich:
No party affiliation.

Erik Dorf:
Well, not until this moment.

Reinhard Heydrich:
Why the sudden interest?

Erik Dorf:
I need a job.

Reinhard Heydrich:
Now that is refreshing. You don't know how many braggarts I have to listen to. Sycophants and connivers full of love for the party, the Fuhrer, the Reich. Such a relief to talk to a man who just wants a job.

Erik Dorf:
Doctor, things won't get easier for you.

Dr. Josef Weiss:
How much worse can they get? We're no longer citizens. We have no legal rights. Our property can be confiscated. I can't belong to a hospital. I can't get any drugs. In the name of *humanity*, what else can you do to us?

Erik Dorf:
You mustn't come to me for help.

Dr. Josef Weiss:
No appeal on the basis of past associations?

Erik Dorf:
No appeal. I bear you no personal malice.

[pauses]

Erik Dorf:
Leave.

[Scene of Karl's arrest]

German Police Officer:
A few hours questioning and he'll be home.

Karl Weiss:
I'm ready now.

Inga Helms Weiss:
No. No, I know about this routine questioning. I know about visits to the police station. People go and they don't come back.

Lowy:
You know? All this picking on the Jews. What did we ever do to them? All that business about killing Christ. That was a long time ago.

Dr. Josef Weiss:
I suspect the Nazis could care less about Christ or His teachings, but then I'm no theologian. I'm just a general practitioner.