“You know, you have a little Hitler in you. Deep in your being, you are a Hitler.”
“What can I do to keep you here? I wish you would stay a year longer.”
These oddly juxtaposed thoughts were spoken, in virtually the same breath, by Arthur Lederman, a 101-year-old Polish refugee who lost his entire family in the Holocaust. The man he was speaking to, 21-year-old Christoph Erbsloeh, is a German student and the grandson of a soldier in Hitler’s army.
Their funny, poignant and at times difficult-to-watch relationship is the subject of “Facing Arthur,” a compelling documentary that the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival will screen 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
The film — which filmmakers Stefan Knerrich, Michael Ray and Amy Rubin began
as a class project
at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism — is so lively and fascinating largely because of Arthur, the man in the middle of it all.
It’s been a tough century for Arthur — he couldn’t convince his parents and many siblings to follow him to America in 1938, his wife ran away with a rich man, and he was unable to get work as a professional musician in America after achieving great fame as a concert violinist in prewar Poland.
But he hasn’t lost everything.
“I’ve got a sense of humor!” he shouts at the camera in his high-pitched, heavily accented voice. “You don’t buy your sense of humor at Macy’s, even if they say it’s 25 percent cheaper!”
While physically quite frail, Arthur, who is largely confined to his Manhattan apartment, still has a quick wit: His musings and fumings are, to say the very least, more than you’d expect from a man who was born four years before Orville and Wilbur Wright flew at Kill Devil Hill. His fussing, joking and poignant memories certainly make for a more-worthwhile movie experience than anything starring Keanu Reeves.
The paths of Christoph and Arthur crossed because the young German opted to perform 18 months of community service rather than the nation’s compulsory military hitch. He was sent to New York City to serve as an errand boy, social worker and, most importantly, a companion for a half dozen elderly Jewish survivors and refugees.
Unlike so many German students, Christoph never “burned out” on Holocaust studies. But, like most German students, he had never met a Holocaust survivor and his contact with Jews was probably limited to watching a video of “Fiddler on the Roof.”
While Christoph wants to befriend and learn from Arthur, the refugee did not make it easy for him (or the audience).
Moviegoers may squirm when the old man bluntly tells the handsome, friendly and well-meaning young German: “If you were born 50 years ago, you would kill me.” Or, “I wouldn’t want to be in your skin. Your children and your children’s children are all stained by Hitler.” Also, “Children in Germany aren’t killing Jews anymore, but they don’t know anything about Jews. How did you imagine a Jew? With a crooked nose?”
Christoph, for his part, is the model of restraint. While he sometimes blows off the old man’s criticisms (“Yeah, OK, I’ll see you next week”), more often he engages him. Sometimes he stands up to him.
And over the course of 18 months, the old man eases up on the kid, ever so slightly. They talk about art (Arthur is a talented painter and sculptor, even as a very old man). They also discuss music (Arthur can no longer grip his violin, but Christoph is a fine cellist who impresses Arthur with his rendition of Kol Nidre). And Arthur opens up to Christoph about his life in Poland in a way he never did with his own grown sons.
The two become better men for having known one another, and it is a rewarding experience to see this caught so clearly on film. Yet nothing could erase Arthur’s well-earned malevolence toward Germans, and one can be sure Christoph hasn’t learned Talmud from cover to cover.
But the sight of a grinning Arthur, compelled to leave his apartment for the first time in years and content in the life lessons he has taught his young friend, is a good reminder of the real meaning behind an oft-repeated talmudic phrase, “He who saves one life has saved the world.”
“Facing Arthur” screens 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 19 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St., S.F. Tickets: $6 general, $5 students, seniors and center members. Information: (415) 978-2787.