The world needs to know The Eichmann Show
The most difficult blog post!
The most important one!
Because if we forget our past, we will not be able to create our future.
For me, it was always clear that I would do an article on the Eichmann Show.
And be warned, that I will promote this article over and over again, because this is the blog post closest to my heart!
I would never say, this is a must-watch for Freeman fans.
I will say, this is a must-watch!
Also we will have an additional post with lots of Gifs and pictures.
Pictures from the film and the original trial.
Gifs are specifically made for this blog by the wonderful Thinwhitedoc
I am German and I gave a lecture on the Holocaust in my final exams.
When you prepare for an exam, it is for once a real advantage to be the daughter of a teacher with good connections.
You get to see video footage and reading material, only prepared for teachers.
And until today I am grateful and equally appalled by the things I've learned back then, much more detailed than the usual school books, details I didn't even know a living and breathing human being could do this to another person.
Details and evidence of the most horrible and haunting things in the darkest time of our recent history.
Please allow me two quotes, one from Mr. Freeman on Adolf Eichmann and one from Anthony Lapaglia as Leo Hurwitz:
Eichmann was a fairly unprepossessing looking person. People who can be responsible for these terrible things are not monsters.
They look, sound and often even think quite similarly to us which is the scariest thing of all."
Martin Freeman
Eichmann is no monster.
He is responsible for monstrous things.
Leo Hurwitz
This is thing with people who do the unimaginable.
We often think of them as monsters, when they are actually people like you and me.
They laugh, go to dinner with friends and kiss their loved ones goodbye in the morning.
As much as we want them to be monsters, they are not.
But they did the unthinkable, and we have to ask ourselves if under the right circumstances, could we do monstrous things?
Is Leo Hurwitz correct?
Are we all capable of doing the unthinkable?
Adolf Eichmann surely could and he did.
He was the " architect of the Holocaust " he organised the logistics of millions of deaths.
He planned the deportations and developed gassing methods.
It has been reported, that he even visited the camps himself and monitored the gassing.
After WWII he at first hid in the Northern of Germany, before he settled in Argentina in 1950, and lived there at first unchecked under the name of Ricardo Element.
He thought himself as safe and even got a job at Mercedes Benz.
The German intelligence office knew almost right from the start where Adolf Eichmann could be found, but they were afraid Eichmann would incriminate Hans Globke with a possible statement.
Hans Globke was part of the team who mainly invented the Nuremberg racial laws, and who was at the time Eichmann lived undetected in Argentina, head of Federal Chancellery.
Favoritism in its most disgusting way!
Finally in 1957 the hessian attorney General informed the Israeli Government about Eichmann, and where to find him.
In 1960 Mossad agents made their way to Argentina, and kidnapped Eichmann, to transfer him to Israel.
One year later the spectacular trial took place in Jerusalem, and ended with the only ever executed death sentence in Israel.
Until the end , Eichmann and his lawers claimed innocence, and Adolf Eichmann kept saying he had been just a cog in the wheel, but to no avail.
But first there was the " Eichmann Show "
Milton Fruchtman wanted the world to see!
He wanted the world to know what happened, and what was about to happen.
" Because of our work, what was unknown, either willfully or by ignorance is becoming known " Milton Fruchtman ( The Eichmann Show)
Milton Fruchtman was a producer, and as you can see in the film, he was idealistic but most of all incredibly determined.
If there is an obstacle, Milton will find a solution.
He brings an optimism and determination with him, that you will immediately recognise him as the boss.
He believes in what he does, and in the success.
He is aware of the issues, but he keeps trying because you get the impression that failure is not an option for Milton Fruchtman.
And this is actually the thing, that makes him a role model.
Not only in this film, but in general.
If you believe in something, you must go for it.
Against all obstacles, issues and nay-sayer you must keep moving forward.
And this is what people do with a dream, or a vision, or a new project.
They need persistence, optimism and a plan, and another one if the first one fails.
It is hard and difficult, and not only when you want to film the most important trial offer the century.
Whenever you have a dream, there is time to imagine everything in your head, but afterwards you must turned it into reality.
Please allow me to share one of my favourite quotes:
" Everything in life is easy, unless you want to be good at it "
Martin Freeman
Indeed true!
Being good at something is never easy.
It means constant learning, improving and willpower, but most of all you must believe in your dream, your project and your skills.
No matter how many issues are in the way, if you feel this could be a success, than you need to fight for it.
Milton Fruchtman did exactly this.
He wanted the world to know.
To crack the ignorance, to prevent people from forgetting, or denying.
Milton Fruchtman faced a lot of obstacles, some of them were negotiable, but some of them clearly not.
He faced together with his wife and two children several death threats and survived an assassination foiled at the very last minute.
Milton Fruchtman refused to give in, he believed in his mission and kept working on it.
Mr. Freeman plays Milton Fruchtman absolutely plausible, and with gentle determination.
He transmit calmness, and gives you the feeling that he is in control, but always with respect for people and the project itself.
He also knows how to play the game, a thing unfortunately extremely necessary when you need certain people to be on board of your idea.
Fruchtman shows a natural authority, and is the man at the top without ever showing arrogance or superiority.
He is convinced that he is the right man for the job, and that he has the ability to find people who have a similar attitude to work.
From a career point of view, Milton knew this was going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity and he wanted to be at the helm of it.
The trial was seen by people all over the world. It was the first time people en masse had heard first-hand testimony from survivors.
People obviously knew that something truly terrible had happened under the Nazis but maybe it was the first time the scale and breadth had had a human face put on it – the face of the survivors. Martin Freeman
His counterpart for this project is Leo Hurwitz, a man no one wanted to hire except for Fruchtman, simply because he believes his own intelligence more than the gossip of others.
Leo Hurwitz had been blacklisted for ten years, and was no one's first choice anymore, until Milton Fruchtman changed that.
Hurwitz was a pioneer and invented the multi camera studio system, a thing that made filming the trial possible.
Leo Hurwitz was extremely talented, and hard working.
He was thoughtful, honest and stood up for his believes, and that was exactly the problem for several years.
Leo Hurwitz was blacklisted by Senator McCarthy because he believed in left much more than right, which means he had left wing views, which had been enough to ban him.
Leo wanted people to understand that many people under certain circumstances could end up making the same decisions.
But Eichmann never cracked; not once. He got through the whole trial and I think was completely unrepentant.
He was virulently anti-Semitic and clearly felt that what he did was the right thing. That really bothered Leo. He thought it was too easy to write someone off as a one-dimensional monster, but sometimes that’s what they are."
Anthony Lapaglia
This is probably the most scariest thing in every crime, the thought that unassuming people could act in such a horrendous way, but when we talk about 6 million people who lost their lives in the most dreadful way of all, then it is almost impossible to think of a man responsible as human.
We see them as monsters, maybe to protect ourselves from the thought that The guy next door could do such terrible things under the right circumstances.
Or could we....
In the trial Adolf Eichmann was unaffected and he even appeared smiling once or twice, which is cruel and pure derision in the face of more than six million dead people.
You often see Leo Hurwitz close up and like Milton Fruchtman, you can see emotions like anger, sadness and astonishment.
Mr. Lapaglia does a brilliant job as Hurwitz.
He transports the bitterness of his inability to work and create so well, a bitterness which is understandable, because being cancelled out of a different opinion is almost never to justify.
Not today and not back then.
He is more introvert than Fruchtman, and is not willing to play the game, which is easy to understand in his situation.
But he is fair and kind with his colleagues.
Watching this, you want Leo Hurwitz as a colleague and Milton Fruchtman as your boss.
I wholeheartedly love both Mr. Freeman and Mr. Lapaglia in this film.
Normally, I would write much more praise for both men, because they deserve it!
But this time, only this once I think the movie itself is the praise and the most important thing, and everyone in it!
I have a few movies in this context, that I think are extremely important to watch.
Like Schindler's List, The Judgment of Nuremberg, Life is beautiful, all these fantastic films came to life because of the performances from all people involved, they gave people a voice who were silenced by the Nazis.
A voice that is once again to hear loud and clear in the Eichmann Show, and therefore I added it to my list several years ago.
The film never lost its importance, which is actually very sad.
The world is captured in wars and crises, and sometimes we hear people say, that they don't want to hear about all those tragedies back then anymore.
But back then is about to be right now.
We must prevent the world from forgetting,
This is our responsibility, to remember!
The Eichmann trial and taking it outside into the world to see, was unique and the work of pioneers with a mission.
Not to allow people to forget or ignore victims and survivors.
To bring the truth into millions of houses, was a huge risk, people don't want to be remembered of dark times or own responsibilities, they want to move on.
And we have to move on, but we need to take our history with us to do so.
I am grateful for all the books, films and survivors, all this gives us a chance to understand the unthinkable.
The Eichmann Show did exactly this, they make us understand, they take us with them on their journey to bring the unvarnished truth into the world, and show us that ignorance can be a crime as well, but also bringing up the moral question of " what would we have done" in the same situation ?
The Eichmann Show is once again, a strong reminder that we all need to prevent a situation where we have to ask ourselves exactly this unanswerable question!
Please forgive me, that this post is not as Martin Freeman filled as usual.
This is a Martin Freeman blog, so you can await Freeman stuff.
But this time I think I should praise the big picture.
Mr. Freeman, Mr. Lapaglia and the whole cast brought people to live we should honour and be grateful for, people who fought for an idea, that is still up to date and important.
The world needs to know!
I will end this post with books I have read over the years, and they had an impact on me.
There are all incredibly heavy stuff, but the truth about the Nazis and the Holocaust is so much more horrible than we might imagine, that I sometimes thought I owed the victims and survivors, that I am at least as good informed as possible.
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