The Jerusalem Film Festival is in full swing, with tons of people attending every screening!
The first Israeli film that I had the opportunity to see -- June
Zero, directed by Jake Paltrow (an American-Israeli co-production) --
is an historical drama about memory. It takes place in Israel during the period
leading up to the execution of Adolph Eichmann in 1962. There are moral questions arising in Israeli
society since this would be the first time that the State of Israel executes
someone as a result of a lengthy trial. Moreover,
since no one wants Eichmann’s body to lie in a grave which could become a site
for Nazi pilgrimage, there is much discussion and consternation concerning what
to do with the body.
During the Eichmann trial, Holocaust survivors in Israel
began to tell their stories for the first time. As a result, this film deals
with a serious dilemma which is still relevant today: are there negative
aspects if stories of Holocaust survivors are told too much? Might this overwhelm
us and foster a counter-productive narrative of victimhood? On the other hand,
are we morally obliged to tell the stories so that people today recognize what
actually happened in “that place” during “that time”, so that the history of
this period is well known for this generation and for future ones? These
questions – which are serious and sensitive ones—are raised in this film.
June Zero tells the story of a few key
characters. David is an adolescent boy
whose father, a relatively new immigrant from Libya, takes his son to work at a
factory, where he becomes invaluable because of his size (he can fit into small
spaces) and because of his wit and creativity. David becomes involved in the building of the
oven that will cremate the body of Eichmann, so that his ashes may be scattered
at sea.
It turns out that the building of the oven was not so
easy. It’s not as if expertise in the
building of an oven for cremating a human body could be found in Israel. Among other things, there was a serious
question about how to get the temperature high enough so that the bones would
burn to ashes.
This is also the story of the captain of the prison guards,
who is tasked with the job of protecting Eichmann. He takes his job very
seriously and must be sure that no harm will come to Eichmann, not by the hands
of a survivor who might seek to take justice or revenge into his own hands, and
not by the hands of Eichmann himself, who might want to deprive the State of
Israel the opportunity to execute him. The prison captain must keep him safe so
that no one is cheated out of the upcoming execution.
This is also the story of a young police interrogator who
works for the prosecution, interviewing Eichmann. He is himself a survivor of the ghetto and
Auschwitz. He visits Poland with one of
the first delegations of visitors to Auschwitz, and finds meaning in the telling
of his own heart-wrenching story of survival.
These characters and their stories are interwoven into a
finely produced period piece which tries to portray the complexity of the times
and the issues involved. These issues
continue to concern us in Israel today, as the history of the Holocaust, and
the way the stories are told, are all too often used for narrow political purposes.
What is the meaning of the title of the film? In order to
prevent the date of Eichmann’s execution from becoming memorialized, it was
written in the Israeli press that the execution took place on June 0, 1962.
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