Art imitates life in a
series of comedic one-liners describing a very serious topic, the deportation
of the Jews to the concentration camps during World War II. But it is a fairy
tale with a twist. An entire shtetl (village) in Eastern Europe is
self-deporting to the Promised Land, Eretz, Israel, via Ukraine - Russia – Palestine, in the year 5701 (1941)
on the advice of the “crazy” village fool, Shlomo Rothschild.
The Nazis (National Socialists)
have arrived beyond the mountains, deporting Jews, “God knows where,” entire
villages are never heard of again and the Rabbi must save his own flock by any
means necessary even though it is “a sin to dress up like a Nazi.”
The unnecessary cruelty of
man against man is evident in the naïve and innocent question, why would anyone
want to kill us, we are nice people and some Germans are nice people. Why don’t
they stop them?
“Let the Germans deport
us! Let them sweat! Why make it easy for them?” But the Wise Men decide to buy
a fake train, supplies, fake documents, tailor German uniforms, and train 30
Jews to be German soldiers and 5 to be officers.
Mordechai Schwarts, the
wood merchant, who speaks German and understands German culture, is chosen to
be the commander of the train. The locomotive with the 8 wagons has seen better
days but, with love, paint, and major repairs, the train is ready to chug along
once they find an engineer. Yenkele, the accountant, objects vociferously to
the purchase price of 10,000 and the leather seats in the commander’s wagon.
Israel Schmecht, the local
writer, teaches the fake Nazi soldiers how to speak German in a precise, dry,
and humorless manner. The Rabbi jokes that maybe that’s the reason the world is
at war with the Germans, “we make fun of their language.”
A wise woman, unhappy with
the idea of leaving their village and homes behind, and with her fellow Jews
dressed as shameful Nazis who carry guns, laments on the wisdom of God who lets
“men run the world, with a fool to lead them.”
The non-Jewish neighbors
are worried that “their Jews” are leaving and they will lose their businesses.
The real Germans are burning down their village, their homes and possessions.
The local beauty, Esther,
is pursued by many, including Sammy, Mordechai’s rich son, which she prefers, Shlomo,
who confesses his love for her, and Yoselle (Yossi), the commune’s young communist
agitator. The Rabbi advises everyone to avoid the wayward Yossi because his
craziness is contagious. All he talks about is the communist slogan, “Men and
women of the world, unite!”
Preaching communism,
Yossi, who has shaven his traditional beard, talks about the New Man,
enchanting his hapless and rapt audience with the secret Messiah who has
arrived and is going to make all men equal and workers, but nobody knows yet
who the illusory Messiah is, “it is a code name so he does not get arrested.”
But we are not workers, says one, we are Jews.
We revolutionaries stay
undercover, said Yossi, we “lurk in the shadows, confronting danger, we’re
incognito, stowaways, clandestine, utopians, adventurers.” The Rabbi had had
enough and challenges his ridiculous description calling him a “proletarian
good for nothing,” rabble rouser.
Finally a train engineer is
found - the shoeless Shtrul Goitzl who
works at the Archives, has never driven a train before, but is able to find a
manual, “How to Drive a Locomotive.” The locomotive is an absolute piece of
junk held together by rust, presented as good as new - once it’s painted red,
it will go around the world. The accountant with an ulcer faints.
And so they embark on the
train of survival in the middle of the night, each taking with them their most
precious possessions. The village fool Shlomo wraps two pebbles carefully in a
white handkerchief, symbolizing love for his ancient village, his deep roots,
and the hardship ahead.
Past midnight, the children
of Abraham and Moses pray one last time and, with fear, joy, anticipation, and
faith in their hearts, climb aboard. With a shrill whistle of the engine, the
train moves into the night, into the scary and shadowy darkness.
The chugging train has
eight cars (wagons), six of which are cattle cars like those that took Jews,
gypsies, and other innocents to the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Dachau.
The next morning, the mail
man arrives with accountant Yenkele’s loan approval but the village is empty,
papers flying in the wind in the deserted streets. The mailman is assured that
they will come back - Jews are family people, they will “return to their roots.”
Yossi the Marxist,
continues his indoctrination on the train. “The poor should be rich and the
rich should be poor because it is not their fault that the poor are born poor.”
But is it not their fault that they stayed poor?
One young man tells Yossi
that he will become a communist when he can keep his side-locks and his faith. That
is of course, not permitted, the New Man has to be different than the Old Man.
As he continues offering empty promises, Yossi names Sammy their Soviet
ideologist. Sammy declines on account
that he has not read Marx but Yossi confesses that neither had he.
The first station they
pass identifies them as a ghost train; the underground resistance plans to blow
up the tracks, mistaking them for a real Nazi train, taking Jews to the gas
chambers. Without a timetable, it is almost certain they will not be able to
pass the next station unless they detour. Eli Grossman, the chess champion,
suggests a route detour to avoid detection.
The engineer, full of
sweat and oil, wipes his brow of a stray underground resistance flyer that hit
his face in the wind – he now has a large black ink Nazi emblem emblazoned
squarely on his forehead.
They barely avoid a
collision with an oncoming train, the resistance is not sure if they should
blow them up or not, while the Germans are loading up troops to search and
destroy the abandoned village.
Yossi the Marxist is
stirring up trouble, demanding better accommodations for his followers. They
want Mordechai’s car and bed. A fascist Nazi should not sleep in better quarters
than communists, he says. When the Rabbi defuses the tension by promising everyone
beds in Palestine, Yossi laments in typical projective psychology, “Beware of
empty promises. The bells of a new era are tolling.”
The resistance fighters
decide to let them go unharmed. The train struggles into the night like a sick
patient taking a labored and rhythmic breath, trying to stay alive.
A Grandmother soothes her
grandchild with stories of “Palestine, an earthly Paradise, with gardens,
brooks, animals, birds, and treasures underneath the sand.” In reality, she is
holding the fairy tale book, “Little Red Riding Hood.” The symbolism is ever
present. The child wonders, “We’ll never make it <alive>, will we?”
When the train stops for
Shabbat, Yossi, the communist, advises his flock not to pray, “We are not doing
Shabbat, we are Marxist-Leninist materialists now! The Messiah has come! God
doesn’t exist!”
A fight ensues as
Mordechai, the fake German officer, attacks Yossi, the commie materialist
traitor. “Come pray and let the others pray too! You’ll corrupt the children!
Dirty communist!”
Shlomo, the “fool,” gets
in the middle and embarks on a philosophical monologue on God, man, and
creation, concluding with the question “whether we exist.” Shabbat shalom! Did
you understand that? One elder responds in total confusion, “God is not sure
whether man exists!” To which the Rabbi answers with aplomb, “What am I, a monkey?”
After a series of comedy of
errors, the movie ends on the Eastern front with bombs flying around the train
in both directions. Shlomo narrates, “Once in the Soviet Union, everyone
espoused the communist cause; some went to Palestine, mostly the gypsies,
others went to India, mostly the Jews. Shtrul went to China where he became
stationmaster. Beautiful Esther went to America and had lots of beautiful
children. That’s the true story of my shtetl. Well, almost true.”
As the camera pans out,
Shlomo is behind the wired fence of a concentration camp. Was it all true? The
story kept him alive, the folly of the train of life.
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