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Redgrave irony enrages
former Auschwitz inmate
by Judith Rosen
NEW YORK (JTA)—Alex
Dekel is enraged by the choice of
Vanessa Redgrave to portray a
concentration camp survivor in the
CBS-TV movie based on Fania
Fenelon’s “Playing for Time.”
Dekel, a former inmate of
Birkenau-Auschwitz where he first
met Fenelon, was one of 400
children selected for experimenta
tion by Josef Mengele.
Now a caseworker for HIAS
and a freelance journalist, Dekel
said, “We are faced with a situation
of shocking irony. Vanessa
Redgrave is selected to play the
role of Fania in a CBS special
movie! This is the same Vanessa
Redgrave who has praised the
people who are killing Jews today
just as the Nazis did three decades
ago."
Dekel made this statement in an
open letter to playwright Arthur
Miller, who defended Redgrave's
selection, and to Bernard
Sofronski, CBS vice president of
special programs for CBS
Entertainment. In his letter, where
he noted that “My (concentration
camp) number, B14844, remains
tatooed on my forearm,” Dekel
wrote:
“Even as a child, I remember
how my friends and I were touched
by the tragic spectacle of the
orchestra—women with their
heads saved, faces drawn and
sorrowful, dressed in the striped
garb of an inmate. They were truly
as Fania Fenelon herself has put it,
playing for time, making music in
the midst of mankind’s greatest
tragedy. They knew the destiny
Redgrave, left, at a pro-PLO
protest in London.
that awaited us all: the ever
burning ovens. Yet, even in the
horror of the death camp, they
maintained their dignity and their
integrity as artists.”
Dekel continued: “How can she
(Redgrave) bring compassion to
the role when she herself has
advocated the destruction of the
State of Israel? Is this the memorial
you wish to have to the women
who died in the orchestra in
Auschwitz? We, the few survivors,
cry out against your cruel
insensitivity.”
Arthur Miller, who wrote the
screenplay for the film, said in a
statement that “Miss Redgrave
was offered the role of Fania
Fenelon as an actress suited to it.
To fire her now for her political
views would be blacklisting.
Having been blacklisted myself in
time past, I have fought against the
practice abroad as well as here, and
1 cannot participate in it now.”
Miller added, “No actress can
possibly play Fania in this play
without generating the profound-
est sympathy for the Jewish
people, as well as a deeper
understanding of the experiences
that cried out for the creation of
the State of Israel.”
Meanwhile, responding to
casting Miss Redgrave in the film,
David Wolper, producer of
television documentaries and
dramas, including “Roots,” and
Lionel Chetwynd, a writer with
many screen and television credits,
disclosed they have cancelled
projects with CBS.
Bernie Sofronski, vice president
of special programs for CBS
Entertainment, said Miss
Redgrave was chosen because “the
feeling was” that she was “the best
actress for the part, that we should
never position ourselves where we
penalize people for their personal
or political views, that our business
was show business and that it was
our responsibility to come up with
the best actress we could find.” He
said actresses Jane Fonda and
Barbra Streisand were also
considered for the part but both
were not available.
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Page 3 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE August 17, 1979