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Israeli Filmmaker Finds Ties to Eichmann
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By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI
Associated Press Writer
Published April 24 2006, 4:01 PM EDT
JERUSALEM -- When an Israeli filmmaker began researching his roots in Austria, he made a shocking discovery: His brother bought his bar mitzvah suit at a store owned by the family of Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann.
While making a documentary, Micha Shagrir learned his family was closer to the Eichmanns than he ever imagined. They lived four doors away from each other and had business ties and mutual friendships in Linz, Austria.
Shagrir's film, "Sight of Memory," was aired on Israeli television Monday night, the eve of the country's annual Holocaust Remembrance Day. It also will be shown at a film festival in Linz on Wednesday.
The 68-year-old Shagrir, whose parents fled Austria when he was a baby, worked on the project for more than two years. The quest took him to Bischof Strasse, the street where the two families lived.
The homes are still there: No. 7, where he was born, and No. 3, where the Eichmanns lived. But the businesses are long gone. Shagrir's family owned a candy factory, while Eichmann's father, Robert, ran an electronics store and his mother had a tailor shop.
Shagrir was pleasantly surprised to learn that the family factory -- Schwager Candies -- was something of a town symbol. Shagrir's family name was changed after moving to Israel.
"When I came to film on the street, people 80 and 70 years old passed by," Shagrir said. "Tears poured down their faces when they remembered the candies and cookies they ate."
Elderly residents spoke of the relationship between the Eichmanns and the Jewish Schwager family. Such ties were routine until the Holocaust.
Looking over town documents, Shagrir found a 1926 picture of his grandfather being inaugurated president of Linz's Jewish community. Four seats away was Eichmann's father, who as president of the Protestant community was a natural ally of the Jewish leader.
"The closeness between them was understood because they were both presidents of minority groups," Shagrir said.
Shagrir was even more surprised to learn that his older half brother, Haim Grunwald, bought clothes for his bar mitzvah from the Eichmanns' tailor shop. "He told me his bar mitzvah jacket was bought there," he said.
Most of the Schwager family survived the Holocaust by fleeing Austria and Germany in the 1930s, narrowly escaping the systematic Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews.
Eichmann, the SS leader who organized the mass murder of Jews, was tracked to Argentina after World War II, abducted by Israeli agents in 1960 and tried and hanged by Israel.
As part of his research, Shagrir had coffee and strudel with Eichmann's nephew, Hannes, and spoke by telephone with Eichmann's youngest son, Ricardo, a professor of Mideast archaeology in Berlin. Neither agreed to be filmed, but they expressed personal sorrow for their relative's actions, he said.
For Shagrir, going back to Austria was the first time he confronted his roots.
"When I was growing up, I didn't say that I was born in Austria. It wasn't something to be proud of, especially coming from a city where, aside from me, Adolf Eichmann and Adolf Hitler were raised," Shagrir said in an interview at his Jerusalem home.
"On the eve of the establishment of the state of Israel, growing up as someone who came from German culture -- classical music, singing -- it was shameful and embarrassing," Shagrir said.
Shagrir is no stranger to controversy. He spent years studying the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey between 1915-1923, producing a movie in 1976 that set off a diplomatic tiff that almost led Turkey to cut ties with Israel.
The 50-minute film, which focused on Armenian folklore, music, dancing and culture, included 45 seconds of footage from 1917 of hundreds of Armenian bodies hanging from trees and inside ditches, Shagrir said. After the movie's premier in Jerusalem, he received an angry call from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Turkey, which is extremely sensitive to the Armenian killings and insists the deaths were not a planned genocide, was demanding Israel's state-owned TV cancel a planned broadcast of the film, Shagrir said. Israel TV later decided not to air the movie.
Shagrir said he would like all of his films to teach future generations that such killings should not only be documented and researched, but prevented at all costs.
"What does it matter if there are 1,000 people in a ditch, 100,000 or a million?" Shagrir said. "The message is that it is forbidden to kill or expel people because of their beliefs."
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By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI
Associated Press Writer
Published April 24 2006, 4:01 PM EDT
JERUSALEM -- When an Israeli filmmaker began researching his roots in Austria, he made a shocking discovery: His brother bought his bar mitzvah suit at a store owned by the family of Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann.
While making a documentary, Micha Shagrir learned his family was closer to the Eichmanns than he ever imagined. They lived four doors away from each other and had business ties and mutual friendships in Linz, Austria.
Shagrir's film, "Sight of Memory," was aired on Israeli television Monday night, the eve of the country's annual Holocaust Remembrance Day. It also will be shown at a film festival in Linz on Wednesday.
The 68-year-old Shagrir, whose parents fled Austria when he was a baby, worked on the project for more than two years. The quest took him to Bischof Strasse, the street where the two families lived.
The homes are still there: No. 7, where he was born, and No. 3, where the Eichmanns lived. But the businesses are long gone. Shagrir's family owned a candy factory, while Eichmann's father, Robert, ran an electronics store and his mother had a tailor shop.
Shagrir was pleasantly surprised to learn that the family factory -- Schwager Candies -- was something of a town symbol. Shagrir's family name was changed after moving to Israel.
"When I came to film on the street, people 80 and 70 years old passed by," Shagrir said. "Tears poured down their faces when they remembered the candies and cookies they ate."
Elderly residents spoke of the relationship between the Eichmanns and the Jewish Schwager family. Such ties were routine until the Holocaust.
Looking over town documents, Shagrir found a 1926 picture of his grandfather being inaugurated president of Linz's Jewish community. Four seats away was Eichmann's father, who as president of the Protestant community was a natural ally of the Jewish leader.
"The closeness between them was understood because they were both presidents of minority groups," Shagrir said.
Shagrir was even more surprised to learn that his older half brother, Haim Grunwald, bought clothes for his bar mitzvah from the Eichmanns' tailor shop. "He told me his bar mitzvah jacket was bought there," he said.
Most of the Schwager family survived the Holocaust by fleeing Austria and Germany in the 1930s, narrowly escaping the systematic Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews.
Eichmann, the SS leader who organized the mass murder of Jews, was tracked to Argentina after World War II, abducted by Israeli agents in 1960 and tried and hanged by Israel.
As part of his research, Shagrir had coffee and strudel with Eichmann's nephew, Hannes, and spoke by telephone with Eichmann's youngest son, Ricardo, a professor of Mideast archaeology in Berlin. Neither agreed to be filmed, but they expressed personal sorrow for their relative's actions, he said.
For Shagrir, going back to Austria was the first time he confronted his roots.
"When I was growing up, I didn't say that I was born in Austria. It wasn't something to be proud of, especially coming from a city where, aside from me, Adolf Eichmann and Adolf Hitler were raised," Shagrir said in an interview at his Jerusalem home.
"On the eve of the establishment of the state of Israel, growing up as someone who came from German culture -- classical music, singing -- it was shameful and embarrassing," Shagrir said.
Shagrir is no stranger to controversy. He spent years studying the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey between 1915-1923, producing a movie in 1976 that set off a diplomatic tiff that almost led Turkey to cut ties with Israel.
The 50-minute film, which focused on Armenian folklore, music, dancing and culture, included 45 seconds of footage from 1917 of hundreds of Armenian bodies hanging from trees and inside ditches, Shagrir said. After the movie's premier in Jerusalem, he received an angry call from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Turkey, which is extremely sensitive to the Armenian killings and insists the deaths were not a planned genocide, was demanding Israel's state-owned TV cancel a planned broadcast of the film, Shagrir said. Israel TV later decided not to air the movie.
Shagrir said he would like all of his films to teach future generations that such killings should not only be documented and researched, but prevented at all costs.
"What does it matter if there are 1,000 people in a ditch, 100,000 or a million?" Shagrir said. "The message is that it is forbidden to kill or expel people because of their beliefs."
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