| Richard Trank Makes Sure We Will Never Forget Simon Wiesenthal |
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 Director Richard Trank's "I Have Never Forgotten You" is an intimate portrayal of the legendary Simon Wiesenthal   Wiesenthal made a career out of hunting down Nazis and sending them to the justice system as war criminals Having worked with the man himself for many years, Trank had the familiarity and sense of proportion to put together a film that really recreates the life drama of this concentration camp survivor—and keeps alive Wiesenthal's efforts to make sure the world "never forgets." Q: The film had its premiere here in New York City—what was the audience like? Richard Trank: It was an interesting mix. To give you an idea of my own anxiety, my fear is we will do these films and only six people will show up. There was a long, long line of people waiting outside of Pace University and my first feeling was, "oh, that must be for that other screening that was going on," but it was for our screening and we were completely sold out. They had to open up the balcony. It was really kind of overwhelming. We had exactly the kind of audience that we wanted to attract with this kind of movie. It was Orthodox Jews, non-Jews, Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, young people, old people and survivors. We did a Q&A afterwards and they had to throw us out of the theater because it just kept going on and on and it spilled out into the street. What was really touching were the three women who came up to speak to me all wearing shades; they were in their late 50s and were all children of survivors. These are people who don't ordinarily go to see movies but they knew who Simon Wiesenthal was and they came to see the film. For one of the women she said "It was great for me because my father would never talk about his experiences. He didn't want to upset us. Occasionally he would allude to it during Passover. Seeing what this man did and how he tried to bring justice to our relatives who didn't survive..." It just made her feel good and it was a nice reaction. Q: How old was Simon when he died? RT: A couple of months before his 97th birthday. Q: Was it hard to render the comments he made in German... he has lots of conversations in English. RT: There were lots of conversations in English but they were mostly sound bites. There was an interview that we had done back in the early '90s—we had stopped at the liberation of Madhousen and the next day he was tired and didn't want to do it anymore. And once he said no, he said no, and there wasn't any discussion about it and you had to respect that. So we had this one English language interview which we used in parts of the film. What was frustrating about it at the time we were making it was we didn't have any other lengthy interview of which he talked about his work and specific cases, we just had little bits and pieces. And we had an interview that the Shaw Foundation did in 1997 around the time of his 90th birthday. It was an amazing interview. It was an Austrian historian who knew him and he really did a lot of research beforehand. They spent about three days together and covered every aspect of his life and I think Simon was willing to do that, you can tell that by the end of the interview that he was really tiring out. But I think that he knew he was never going to ever have this opportunity again, and I think he really wanted to have it down. That is the interview in German that is really the backbone of our movie. Q: Simon established his place in history, but didn't do much to document his story. RT: He was busy. He'd have to take the time to do that when there were other things going on. and he was an impatient person. It was like, if you didn't get a question out quickly enough, he was like... come on, come on, come on. He had so much going on, so we were lucky that we were able to get access to that interview. Q: What were some of the things that surprised you in putting together this film? RT: I knew that he had a sense of humor and loved to tell these corny Jewish jokes—but his love of life and ability to tell everything that he'd gone through, to be able to wake up in the morning and get through the day, and not be bitter or angry... That was very inspirational. Q: Did Simon feel that everyone on his hit list was found and captured? RT: He felt satisfied that he had done the job that he started out to. There were others that he didn't get to. It was an interesting comment that he said: "We were all coming to biological conclusions. I will die, the criminals will die." He said as long as these criminals are still alive we have to do what we have to do to bring them to trial, because it's necessary for the next generation. Q: What lessons do you hope people will take away from this film? RT: Simon took the universalistic approach at the whole subject of the Holocaust. Jews were targeted because they were Jews, but Simon always talked about the five million others who suffered as well. At a time where no one was talking about Gypsies or Jehovah's Witnesses or gays, Simon Wiesenthal was one of the people that had talked about what they had gone through. He felt that if you were only talking about Jewish suffering, then you were only trivializing suffering. You needed to talk about Jewish suffering and non-Jewish suffering if you were going to avoid future genocide. We are hoping that one of the things that young people will come out with the message is to be empowered to do something about what's going on today. |
