The Last Laugh Page #3

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of the older people here

uhm

Its hard for me to understand

how they could see the

humor in the Holocaust?

Or do you mean after

the Holocaust?

There were funny incidents

that happened after,

I can tell you a whole

bunch of those.

But uh, during

the time you were

deprived of a normal

human life?

Boy!

I cant even imagine that.

SINGING:

Volare,

oh oh wha dooba dooba doobab

Cantare, oh oh

Volare,

oh oh

Cantare,

oh oh oh

Did you enjoy that?

Uh I like to hear the song,

but I could not enjoy it.

Why not? With an Italian

singing a beautiful song?

Because I remember for so many

youngsters

who were perished and they

cannot enjoy this

beautiful place.

But, you know you survived!

Youre alive!

How can you not have

pleasure out of the fact

that you survived?

Always I remember

the children screaming

the selection

You know, that

is like in our

shadow.

You cannot forget! You cannot

No, no, no no!

You cannot live in the

shadow of those cries.

You have to remember it.

But you cannot live

in those shadows!

I dont live in the shadow,

but the shadow is following

me all of my life.

You know I speak about the

Holocaust all the time,

but I enjoy life.

Im so

happy that I have three

great grandchildren.

Could Hitler

imagine

that I will survive and have

three great-grandchildren?

I mean, thats my

revenge.

Weve struck gold!

Kiss it, kiss it. KISSING SOUND

You found a flop.

A flop? Thats

putting it mildly.

We found a disaster,

a catastrophe,

an outrage, a guaranteed to

close in one night beauty.

Lets see it!

- Theres no subtleties

when it comes to the Holocaust.

The deeper you go

with the humor,

the more

revengeful it is.

Hes wearing a German helmet.

Shhh! Dont say

anything to offend him!

Mel Brooks talked about it.

Revenge through

ridicule.

Im not responsible, I

only followed orders!

- So by making these jokes,

its the Jewish way of

EXHALES SHARPTLY

getting through it.

You know, Mel Brooks always

said about The Producers, that

he was ridiculing

by ridiculing the Nazis he

was taking away their power.

The Producers was

scandalous.

It was called Springtime

for Hitler,

and Joe

Levine said,

I cant put that

on the marquee,

I cant sell it.

PIANO:

- Thank You.

Springtime for Hitler?

So early after the war?

Hitler Auditions

Nazis dancing?

Hitler Auditions

I got a lot of mail,

from Jews

mostly.

How could you do this?

How could we

see Hitler,

how could you show the

swastika, how could you?

SINGING Springtime for

Hitler and Germany

Springtime for Hitler!

My God!

The audience

was like

Thats pretty much what I

think a lot of people thought

at the time.

It was a lot of people

going

SINGING:

...faster pace.

...look out here comes

the Master race...

But then after a while

you get the joke,

you understand whats

funny about it.

When 'The Producers' was

a movie,

it was daring.

Goosesteps the new step today

The whole essence of the

joke of The Producers was,

how could you possibly think

that a musical about Hitler

was acceptable?

That was the whole

McGuffin of the picture.

By the time it gets to Broadway,

a movie about a spectacular

Broadway failure

because it was in such bad

taste becomes a Broadway hit

because its not in

bad taste anymore!

- Well,

talk about bad taste!

SINGING:

The passage of time alone

has made it so kind

of, almost

sweet!

People sing along with

Springtime for Hitler,

theres no revulsion.

If it had been

Springtime for Saddam Hussein

when it appeared on Broadway,

it would have had

the original kick.

SINGING:

LIGHTS OFF:

Good afternoon.

My name is Renee,

and I am a Holocaust survivor.

I was supposed to go

through those chimneys

like my family, my friends.

Every morning I

wake up I ask, Why me?

Why did I escape

those chimneys?

I have no idea.

There were no seats

in the cattle cars.

And it was packed with people.

Do you know that while

we are sitting here

a genocide is going on?

Thats why I am here.

This almost looks comfortable.

In 1933,

when I was

nine years old,

I went to my father

and I asked,

Is it possible

that this man is

claiming that he is gonna

kill all of

us?

And my father said,

Dont listen to that

comedian.

Dont you see he looks

like Charlie Chaplin?

Hes going to be out

of office in no time.

Well my father was wrong.

They packed us into cattle cars.

Thousands and

thousands of people

pouring out of this train.

My parents disappeared

in the crowd,

my sister was crying.

Its hard to imagine

how it really looked.

The Nazi officer,

holding on to vicious dogs,

taps me on the

shoulder and he says,

You go.

So I am moving with my sister,

holding on, he stops my sister.

He keeps looking at

me, looking at her

Well, I happen to have long

blonde hair and blue eyes.

My little sister looks

completely different.

Dark brown hair,

piercing black eyes.

And I grabbed my sister

and I yelled, Run!

Here is the picture

of my Aunt Klara,

who Im

named after.

And here is the paper that my

mother found at Auschwitz,

in the archives,

that shows that she

was experimented on.

When I found those papers I also

found the doctor who actually

experimented on her.

And the following day

we flew to Munich and

I met the doctor

and confronted him

with that paper.

And he said, Oh, we did

only harmless experiments.

And I said, Well Doctor, if

they were harmless experiments,

why did she

die?

And he had the audacity

to turn to me

and to say,

Well, we couldnt send her back

to the camp

to tell everybody what we were

doing,

so we had to get rid of her.

Thats how

I found,

53 years after

liberation, how I found

out

that my sister was shot after

they experimented on her.

CLOSING DOOR:

OLD CAMERA ROLLING

- Is that who I think it is?

- Uh, yes, thats Adolf

Hitler in a home movie.

- Looks like Mel Brooks.

LAUGHTER:

- Anything I could do to deflate

Germans

anythingI did.

WHISTLING:

Peeping Times, home

movies of Hitler.

I was there with Eva Braun.

What did you do?

It was a bug.

A bug? You killed a bug?

You killed the bug?

A living thing?

You just take its life away?

She said Its just a bug!

It doesnt matter

I said Well, why dont

you ask the bugs family,

how they feel?

You just dont kill things!

Whats the matter with you?

You can do jokes about Nazis,

but if you say

Holocaust

then it becomes, uh, bad taste.

Thats the thing, theres

tons of Nazi jokes,

its like, theres nothing

taboo about making a Nazi joke

DRUM ROLL:

- Schultz!

- You Dummkopp.

Bugs Bunny was

making fun of Nazis,

the Three Stooges were

making fun of Nazis,

yhe Marx Brothers were

making fun of Nazis.

And this was during

World War II!

- Heil Hitler!

- Heil Hitler!

- Heil Hitler!

- Heil Hitler!

- Heil myself!

Anyone who is in a position

of extreme authority

is great to make fun of,

because theyre pompous. heres an arrogance to

being in that position.

MUSIC:

- Humor is the

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