Make-up assignment for 9/25/17

[Stella Castro]

For my make-up assignment I attended the viewing of the movie “Above the Drowning Sea”. This movie was spectacular because of the trials and tribulations the Jewish people had to endure in order to escape Nazi controlled Europe and find refuge and sanctuary in Shanghai. I commend the director, (Rene Balcer), and the producer, (Keith Eisner, who is the son of a Jewish refugee to China) for making this movie, as the tale has to be told.
I really liked and felt so much emotion as the movie began it stated a saying from Primo Levi, and at the moment I was immobilized by the meaning if his words that I was unable to write his saying, but it contained the words, “the real ones are dead’. I wish I could have written his entire quote at the time, I was just penetrated by how real his words were a and the truth and reality of those words. I tried looking that quote up, but was unsuccessful due in part to my lack of having a Net flick account, the History Channel, or access to documentary channels, or going to a red box to rent the video if available. However, Primo Levis words were deeply profound.
This movie was quite emotional for me as I felt the anger and hatred for Hitler, as the movie stated that in the schools they would make the Chinese children sing ”For Hitler we live, for Hitler we die”, and put in their heads what a great man Hitler was. Then there was also a depiction of Jewish people kneeling on the floor, and kissing the ground as the Nazi’s passed by and kicked them for no apparent reason. Just to think of what Hitler did in the Holocaust is nauseating, and I can’t imagine being one of his followers. What were they thinking?
The good part of this movie is how some of the Jewish people were helped out by the Chinese people who saw them for what they were, just people, and tried to help them offering their homes as sanctuaries and refuge, all the while still hiding them out, for I they were it be caught they would face serious harm or injury by the Germans.
The movie goes on to follow several different people and their stories. The stories were all heartwarming and astonishing as well. One man said that all he remembered as a child was FEAR, and fear is not a healthy way for a child to be growing up in.
I recall a statement in the movie of how women would throw flowers at Hitler. The thought of this act makes me wonder what was going through these women’s heads at the time. Certainly they must not have known what an awful, evil and horrendous man Hitler was and is.
Another sad and disgusting thing this movie mentioned was that the kids would be put out in the streets on collection mats to be picked up as garbage. Who in their right minds would do this to children?
Finally a Mr. Ho Feng Shen , a Chinese consul decided to help the Jewish people and opened his doors to Shanghai, and once there if the Jewish people could make it there, the Chinese people allowed the Jewish people to live among them, even though they did not have anything, that they were poor. However if the Jewish people were caught trying to escape Vienna, they would be executed or tortured. It is a good thought that the Chinese people accepted the Jewish people to live among them.
This movie fits as an educational movie and should be shown throughout the different cities, in schools, and colleges, to teach students the reality of the horror the Jewish people had to brave in order to remain alive.
The photography in this movie was good, and the narration by Julienne Margulies, (an American actress) was excellent in her tone of voice. I give a standing ovation to the producer of this movie as; this story is a reality of what the Jewish people had to go through, in trying to escape Austria

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