Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Schindler's List. One of the greatest movies ever made.



When I first moved to Romania, I had been here a couple of months and had made a couple of friends here. There was one young businessman I used to get along with quite well. He spoke very good English, was funny, bright, etc. Refreshing compared the old communists and peasants in their funny hats.
I was speaking to him and his friend one day and they were talking about how their businesses were going slow and that the weather was depressing and that the best solution was to go home and watch "Schindler's List" again. "Why in the world would you want to watch such a depressing movie if you are already depressed?" I asked. "I love that movie" my friend said "it really cheers me up. The way it shows the killing of the Jews is depicted is so real, it's perfect." His friend chimed in "Yes! I love it. In the morning when I wake up, I have my coffee and wish I could be that German officer at the concentration camp! You know, the one with the sniper rifle who kills a random Jew every day! That's great! I wish I could start my day like that!" Yes, "Schindler's List" is a great movie because of the accurate depiction of the brutality of the Holocaust. I thought it had something to do with one man, doing whatever he could to save his fellow human beings.

So that brings me to another story. The one about the "Skeleton under the bed."

This is when I have to tell you for legal reasons, having to do with a document I was politely asked to sign by the local police, denying any of this to be true, that indeed, this story is for entertainment purposes only.

I was at a party once with some newly graduated doctors and some med students. They were having a good time and one of them mentioned her "skeleton under the bed" and what would she do with it now that she had graduated. They all chuckled at this inside joke and one woman said she simply had thrown hers in the trash after she had graduated. Another young doctor laughed and said he still has his in a box in his hallway.

Naturally perplexed I asked if they were joking. They told me no, that the old professors at the medical university required students to purchase a skeleton as a study aid and that every good doctor should have one, "just like in the old movies."

Vaguely having an idea of the price of skeleton models and knowing that Romanian college kids aren't exactly loaded, I asked how did they come up with the money to buy them? I was told that they weren't very expensive at all, only about $40 US. "Really? Are they subsidized by the state or something?" "No" I was told. "Human skeletons can be purchased easily in Iasi. They are from the Jews."

At that time, a medical student could simply go to a small village outside of Iasi, where the bodies of those from the "Iasi Death Train" ended its trip and ask the local caretaker of the Jewish cemetery for a a skeleton and he would dig it up, "clean it up" and sell it for a small fee.

Now, if any of this story had been true, I would have immediately alerted every agency even remotely interested in a story like this...but since after being interrogated by the police and signing a document saying that this never happened, I didn't do that.

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=147330

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/romania-students-suspected-of-buying-bones-from-holocaust-era-mass-grave-1.279126

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