The Long Way Home

The best thing I've watched in a long while. As Americans it seems we think in 1945 when the war (WWII) ended and the German concentration camps were liberated it was game over. That said, it was literally shocking to see and hear the unforgivable behavior of the British during the period 1945-1948. What the hell was their OBSESSION with camps? This incessant need to herd people from one camp to another, constantly detaining. Creepy weird, oddly caveman, to see it was nauseating. As an American the thought of being "herded" is beyond my imagination. As I watch I wonder; What did GB have to gain from their aggressive imperialism as regards the region known as Palestine? Admittedly, I loved watching the British get their ass KICKED. As history notes, it's been 1 long decline for British civilization since that time. A wrecked economy, poverty and ignorance. We can see it in their teeth. Amazon doesn't have this but Netflix does, run don't walk. It's that good.

It's also the story of every Jewish child born in a DP camp after WII, like the one I was born in in Bavaria. Not one of us had any grandparents. Not even graves to visit later in life. Our grandparents were shot into ditches later burned to get rid of the evidence so not one of us children knew what it meant to have a grandparent. We thought only Gentiles had grandparents. We were waiting to to Palestine, but the British had blockaded the coast. In the case of my father, because he had military experience, having been inducted into the Red Army after fleeing Poland, and having fought from Leningrad to Berlin,and then having defected at the first opportunity, the Irgun - the terrorist underground - offered to secretly fly my father and us to Palestine. But I was born with health problems that needed attention, and both my parents had lost their first families and children to the Nazis in the war, so when Truman offered to finally take us in 1948, my parents decided on Brooklyn rather than Tel Aviv. At the time the Irgun was fighting the British and the Arabs. But this story of what happened to the Jews of Europe AFTER the Holocaust, and what we went through is very well covered in this accurate and insightful documentary.

Just when I thought I knew everything there was to know about WW II, comes this. And now its starting all over again. Oh my God! Can it get any worse? How cruel can people be?

Now, I will start by saying that I'm biased. I am Jewish AND an Israeli. But in the face of such a well-told story I could not remain unmoved. Obviously I know the story, the story of the Jewish people from the almost complete annihilation in Europe of the early 40's to the creation of a Jewish state in Israel, and from knowing it all your life you think you understand. Well, you DO, but it takes such a well-made documentary, in its very simple way of telling a telling story, to actually FEEL it. I cried at the end. Morgan Freeman's excellent narration, with voices of fine actors and especially with the participation of excellent witness who can tell their story in such an engaging way make this a gripping history lesson. Though made by "our team" Two Jews, one of them being a Rabbi...) it maintains a fair standing in the delicate issues of the Jewish-Arab conflict in Palestine. It tells a human story and when put as it outs the story in perspective it gives the simple unfolding of the historical events an epic depth. One cannot stop and wonder how the same story may look so trivial in a day-to-day life (as it looks to me normally). A movie like this simply makes it clearer. I actually got several insightful observations that were really new to me. Note Clark Clifford, a White House counsel at the time in the Truman administration. He hardly has a voice by now, but he is as vivid in his details as he would be telling the details of one of the most important story of his life. And perhaps it was for him.

It was very moving and emotional to see that the agony of the Holocaust didn't stop with the end of WWII. I learned a lot of history and think even more of President Truman than I did before. Conversely, I think less of Patton, Marshall and England for their behavior. It is a tremendous statement of the human spirit and the triumph of Will over Circumstance!