Excellent movie.
But I need an explanation.
Would Zev, a SS nazi, have really lived his life as a Jew? Raised his family Jewish?
I understand the premise of needing to hide his past, but I still find the idea a little hard to move on from.
I think its conceivable in that, at the time of taking on that identity, the alternative was being outed as a Nazi.
Then ... as dementia sets in he forgets that he is living a lie (which, rather ironically, is the accusation he hurls toward the Nazi posing as a Jew whom he confronts).
Hamlet Noggs @ https://landsofforever.wordpress.com/
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Yes. I am incredulous that an SS officer would marry a Jewish woman; even as a means of escaping detection.
shareMaybe they're trying to suggest that Zev, like the final suspect he found, regretted and rejected his past and wanted to remove himself from it. We don't know if that was his intention, since Zev himself no longer remembers; but it would explain his post-war life, including marrying a Jewish woman. He also had an instinctive, negative reaction to the display of Nazi memorabilia, which could be either because he had absorbed his own cover story, or because it evoked hidden memories and subconscious guilt. I'm not sure if that was the scriptwriter's intention, but it's a possible interpretation.
shareHe met his wife in Coney Island,I presumed her to be American.is there any part in the film showing his family as Jewish?
shareNow I'm no expert, but I believe they were going through the end phase of the week long Jewish mourning process at the center following his wife's death called a Shiva, so yes it is to be assumed she was Jewish.
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Would Zev, a SS nazi, have really lived his life as a Jew? Raised his family Jewish?
I understand the premise of needing to hide his past, but I still find the idea a little hard to move on from.
Yes, but this guy was more than just SS. He was Block Fuhrer at Auschwitz (and not a nice person). And we are talking about not just helping a Jew, but marrying one and raising a Jewish family. I find that very hard to believe. It didn't ruin the movie for me, but it's a difficult plot point to overlook.
shareI completely agree. As much as I LOVED the film, this was a big plot hole IMO. Not to mention the fact that Jews were circumcised, other Europeans were not. Of course, I suppose he could have gotten himself circumcised to play the part. But to marry a Jew and raise a Jewish family seems too far fetched to me.
shareNot really a plot hole, they had to keep up the lie once they were in America since they took on the identities of Jews killed in the camp, and they could just claim that they weren't raised as religious Jews and without any of the usual traditions, so they weren't circumcised either. Zev's friend didn't appear to be living as a religious Jew, and Zev may have carried the lie further out of guilt and/or survival by marrying a Jewish woman, and they may not have lived as religious Jews either. The uncertainty just adds to the story, making us wonder just what was going on in Zev's mind all this time..
Revenge is a dish that best goes stale.
I would like to correct some false ideas:
-Not all jews were circumcised
-A 'Blockführer' was nothing special: They were SS members and guarded small parts of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.
-Many former SS members created new identities for themselves after WWII, for example
Josef Mengele in South America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele
-Not all SS were really antisemitic, but most were.
It's unlikely that a former SS would marry a Jewish woman, but the world has seen stranger things happen.
So when zev went for the guy who was in the hospital and bedridden, was he also a SS guard who assumed an identity as a Jewish prisoner and tattooed himself? I'm asking because he was about to shoot him before he noticed his tattoo and stopped. It looked like the one he has on his own arm.
Believing himself a Holocaust survivor he could have mistaken that guy as a survivor as well, but in reality an SS... After all, he was on the list.
The guy in the hospital was one of the four people who had the same name Zev and Max were trying to track down, but Zev saw his tattoo and somehow realized it was real, and then the man told Zev he was an inmate in the camp for being homosexual and Zev got very emotional over that, crying and constantly apologizing. Again, hmmm, what else was going on in Zev's mind?
Revenge is a dish that best goes stale.
I might be wrong but I think the only indication we are given that Zev was living as a jew was his clothing at the funeral - is it possible that Max, who had manipulated the whole scenario, simply convinced this dementia-ridden man he was in fact jewish? He may have lived his whole life prior to dementia NOT being Jewish, until Max put his manipulative plan into action?
shareI might be wrong but I think the only indication we are given that Zev was living as a jew was his clothing at the funeral - is it possible that Max, who had manipulated the whole scenario, simply convinced this dementia-ridden man he was in fact jewish?
Young "Zev" may not have been an ideological Nazi but just a moral sleaze who didn't might killing people. Recall the commandant of the concentration camp in "Schindler's List," who played jazz and Billie Holliday records despite the fact that Nazi ideology held that kind of music to be decadent and verboten.
shareI have a hard time believing Landau wouldn't have exposed Zev (or killed him himself) instead of resorting to a geriatric scavenger hunt that he might not survive due to his frail physical and mental state.
shareExactly! But then that would have made a much shorter movie:)
shareAlso, Max got a 2 for 1 - he couldn't kill Jurgen Prochnow, so he sent Zev to do it and got rid of both of them.
shareI don't find the premise that a former nazi would later marry a jewish woman that outlandish. He may have realised after the war the horror he had committed and was full of guilt and disgust for himself. He may have found a measure of peace in getting to really know the very people he had wronged. He could have passed himself as a non practicing jew. Also, he may have felt genuine kinship for his wife if she was from pre war Germany.
shareI thought it was pretty clear that Zev had raised a Jewish family with Ruth (which in itself is one traditional Jewish name).
His son Charlie was wearing a yarmulke at the end of the 7 days Shiva for his mom. As was Zev I believe.
Also Otto as SS might have had the special SS tattoo on the inside of his arm.
But guess a sympathetic doctor in NY or even in Europe before he sailed to hide in the US could have removed it.
But back then (I remember this in school becaue I was in school when the war was only a little more than 10-15 in the past and ex Nazis were being caught constantly and it was still in the news) The tattoo was often mentioned if they were SS.
More than one former SS guy fleeing Germany got caught because he either still had that damning tattoo or a scar right there after having it removed--which might have been as incriminating to authorities as the tattoo itself.
If Otto and his pal were quickly fleeing Poland and had to arm tattoo each other in haste to blend into the displaced persons group, I doubt they'd have had the medical resources to remove that tattoo of SS pride!
But oh well. Maybe they were one of many who didn't get the tattoo for whatever reason.
It does seem a little far fetched...however we have no idea about the details of his life. Perhaps he became a block warden towards the end of the war when there were few soldiers left. Perhaps he got promoted into the SS in a hurry without much vetting due to the chaos at the end of the war. Maybe he just said he hated Jews to get into the SS. Either way, after living in the USA he soon divorced himself from his past and made a new one.
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