Honorable Members of Jewish Community,

Your Excelencies Ambasadors and Ministers,

 Distinguished  Members of Seimas,

Ladies and Gentlemen

Today, sixty six years ago, the Nazi concentration camp of Aushwitz in Poland was liberated by the Soviet army. The army divisions of the same army have also saved the life in Poland of remaining  inmates of CC  Stuthof in Poland near Gdansk (Danzig in those days) were my mother was enslaved. The soothy Russian soldier of the tank crew who has sent in the army medics was her Angel of life.

Her brother around the same time was freed by Americans in the Dachau CC.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

At present,  we have in Lithuania some three days through the year during which we commemorate Holocaust. The other day is in April – the day of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising which is Hayom Hashoa in Israel -the Day of the Catastrophe-and in fall is a day or rather a week, when we usually have a series of events in Lithuania and in this place to commemorate the Holocaust in Lithuania.

We in the Tolerance Center have decided to break the pattern of a somewhat solemn atmosphere of the usual Holocaust commemorations recalling another trait, which is said to be a well-known trait of the Jewish people. This is the ability to challenge adversity and even, sometimes, the murderous Nazis with irony, sarcasm and satire. There is already an emerging cannon in arts of this kind: already during the war the Jews in the ghettos, as the ones in Kaunas ghetto,  sang songs mocking their oppressor. A certain pattern of irony and black  humour emerged into present, from, say, the American comic book Mouse to the Italian movie Vitta Bella. There are, also, satires of Hitler in cinematography of today.

Dear Guests

We have decided to recall a classical movie, although by some never seen here in Lithuania,  starring -and -created by Charlie Chaplin. He has two roles in this movie -- the first sound-track movie of his—here he plays both the Nazi dictator and the Jewish hairdresser. In this satire, the name of the most important man in Reich after the Great Dictator is Herring. The minister‘s of the interior  name is Gibberish. Benito Mussolini prototipe is named, if  I recall rightly, Benzino Napoloni. On the posters of the movie in 1940 the languages of the movie were named as two languages: English and ”mock German”.

The movie was made at the start of the second World War and the circumstances surrounding it were rather not encouraging. I’ve done a little research which showed  that in US at the time Chaplin was continuously disadvised to make this movie. According to sources, the politicians have told him the satire will ruin their European policy. Also it is worth remembering that the movie upon release was forbidden in the UK because of British “Munich policy” of appeasement, and was shown only after the Nazis blitz- bombed the shores of Albion. It immediately became a hit. It was of course also forbidden in Germany proper, although the soldiers of marshal Zhukov who took over the Nazi Chancellery have found it on the list of movies ordered personaly by the Fuhrer. And it was on the screens in the annexed territories. It is recorded that in Belgrade some SS- man in the audience started shooting at the screen on the 45-th minute. Unfortunately, I was not able to establish if it was shown in the occupied Lithuania, but I’m almost certain this was rather not the case.

What has prompted Chaplin, a  maker of laughter -and -tear melodramas to create this highly political movie? As it is told by Chaplin’s contemporaries he was always avidly watching the newsreels in Hollywood after the Nazis came to power. In  a Nazi propaganda book published in Germany and sent to Chaplin by a friend from Berlin the comedian was named a „disgusting Jewish clown“.  

Was it succesfull comedy? Extremely. Upon release,  it become a rather mighty weapon to fight the Goebbels propaganda machine. As Milosz Forman, an American movie director of Czekh origin, who lived in the Nazi-occupied  Prague, had said in an interview,  the movie is unforgetabble for those who lived under the rule of these cruel clowns. It is known that Chaplin has remarked after the war: had he known the true facts about the Holocaust he would made something entirely different. But the movie is memorable as a metaphor. It goes in tandem and was in creation by approximately the same time, and is the result of similar events in Germany as Mark Chagalls „The White Crucifiction“. N Chaplin also did what he could in his daily life, publicizing the actions of the committee Help Russia and meeting the members of the Soviet Anti-fashist Committee in Hollywood, among them an actor of the Moscow‘s Jewish Theatre Solomon Michoels and a lady –sniper from the Red Army who shot several dozen of the Nazi soldiers. A witness said in his memoirs Mr Chaplin was kissing her fingers. Well, perhaps under the influence of some champaigne. Perhaps, also, because the Nazis were already bombing his native London.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

thank you for your kind attention and

Meet

the Great

Dictator.