I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible -- Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way. Sir Charlie Chaplin in "The Great Dictator"
Tonight is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorates the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust. For this day, I try to find a way to educate my children, honor the memory of the victims, and avoid the more exploitative commemorative events. This year I came across Charlie Chaplin's classic, "The Great Dictator". Released in 1940, this film was Chaplin's first talking picture. It was, also, the first film of its era to condemn Adolf Hitler, Nazism, Anti-Semitism, and Fascism.
Chaplin was motivated by the escalating violence and repression of Jews by the Nazis throughout the late 1930s, the magnitude of which was conveyed to him personally by his European Jewish friends and fellow artists. It was his thought that Hitler was a dangerous person who had to be laughed at. However, Chaplin later stated that he would not have made the film if he had known of the true extent of the Nazis' crimes.
The public response was very positive to this risky film. Jewish audiences, especially, were moved by the rare portrayal of Jewish characters and their plight. Initially, critical response was mixed, but now the film is considered a masterpiece. In 1997, the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
In the film, Chaplin stars as a Jewish barber and Adenoid Hynkel, the Dictator of Tomania. At the end of World War I, the Jewish barber, an Army private, saves the life of a German officer, Schultz, as the two flee the conquering army. After their plane crashes during their escape, the barber suffers amnesia and is confined to a hospital during the rise of Dictator Adenoid Hynkel.
Years later, the barber returns to his shop in the ghetto of a city, unaware that the state is now under the sign of the double cross, that Jews are cruelly persecuted, and that the all powerful ruler of the land is the megalomaniac Hynkel, to whom the barber bears a striking resemblance. The barber tries to resist the treachery that he sees going on all around him, but is beaten and arrested with his friend Schultz, who has also spoken out against the persecution of the Jews. Schultz and the barber are sent to a prison camp, and Hynkel, his opposition quelled, plans the invasion of the neighboring country of Osterlich.
As Benzini Napaloni, the Dictator of Bacteria, and Hynkel argue over control of Osterlich, Schultz and the barber escape from their prison. On the eve of the invasion of Osterlich, Hynkel is mistaken for the escaped barber and arrested. The barber then takes the place of the dictator on the parade platform and delivers an impassioned plea for human kindness and brotherly love. This final speech is a condemnation of anti-semitism, fascism, and the military. Chaplin speaks powerfully and eloquently to support the ideas of democracy, humility, tolerance, and peace. In the end, he calls out to his true love, Hannah, to see that the world is moving out of the darkness and mankind is rising above hate, greed, and brutality.
Soldiers: Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers: Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, "the kingdom of God is within man" -- not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite!! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise!! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.
Soldiers: In the name of democracy, let us all unite!!!
Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up, Hannah. The clouds are lifting. The sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world, a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed and brutality.
Look up, Hannah. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow -- into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me, and to all of us. Look up, Hannah. Look up.
Watching the film, I was moved by Chaplain's bravery in speaking out at a time when the United States had a neutral relationship with Germany. I was also inspired by his call for peace for all peoples and the removal of all national boundaries. As someone who writes here about the Israel/Palestine conflict, I am constantly filled with cynicism and despair. Tonight, at least, I found inspiration from a most unlikely source.
I urge you all to rent this movie. If you want a preview, this link will take you to the audio and video of the climactic speech. I apologize to anyone who feels that I have trivialized the importance of Yom HaShoah. My intention is to showcase an alternative way to commemorate the day and move people's thoughts towards a more just world, especially for the peoples of Israel and Palestine.
