Trailer Script for THIN EDGE OF THE WEDGE
Lights up on Radio Announcer.
RADIO ANNOUNCER
September 30th, 1938. Following Germany’s annexation of Austria six months ago in March 1938, the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia is given away to Germany in what is called the Munich Agreement. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announces “peace in our times.”
Lights down on Radio Announcer.
Lights up on Czech Jew SOL.
SOL
I am Sol and I am age 14 in Prague at the time of the announcement of the Munich Agreement, for which Czechoslovakia has no say. My father says to the family, “Go pack.” My mother says, “Where will we go? Our visas for Canada have not been approved.” My father says, “To Romania. My cousin there will supply a residency permit.” I ask, “Why do we have to leave? We don’t live in the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.” My father replies: “The Nazis will not be happy with eating only a little. Their appetite is ravenous. Czechoslovakia is no longer safe for Jews.”
Lights up on RUTH KLUGER, wearing a stylish late 1930s female European hat and speaking with a Romanian accent.
RUTH KLUGER
I am Ruth Kluger, and I spend my youth in the Kingdom of Romania and graduate from the University of Vienna before immigrating to the land of Israel. In the summer of 1939, before the start of WWII, the leaders of the Jewish community send me back to Europe on a mission to Romania to save as many Jews as possible before the gates of Europe close completely. I become the 10th member and only woman of Aliyah Bet, the underground Zionist immigration organization. I am faced with agonizing, horrible decisions. With hordes of refugees clamoring to get to the British-controlled land of Israel, I have to decide who should be saved with the pitifully few boats available. I solicit funds among wealthy Romanian Jews to help pay for the ships that will rescue other Romanian Jews. I always beg the people from whom I solicit funds to get out themselves. As far as I know I am never able to convince a single one of these wealthy individuals to leave Romania.
Lights down on Ruth Kluger.
Lights up on Radio Announcer.
RADIO ANNOUNCER
September 3rd, 1939: Triggered by Nazi Germany’s invasion of Western Poland on September 1, Britain and France have declared war on Nazi Germany. There are also reports that the Soviet Union is now moving to occupy Eastern Poland.
Different radio announcer takes over.
RADIO ANNOUNCER
December 1941. After the U.S. declaration of war against Japan following Japan’s bombing attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, Nazi Germany declared war on the U.S. Now in response to the Nazi declaration of war on the U.S., the U.S. has declared war on Nazi Germany.
Lights up on Polish Jew JACK PRICE, wearing a cloth cap.
JACK PRICE
I am Jack Price — born Izak Prjas — and in July 1942 I am outside the Warsaw Ghetto on the Aryan side when the ghetto is surrounded and the final “settlement” — liquidation –to the death camp of Treblinka begins. I try to get back to my family but cannot because police surround the ghetto.
He pauses.
JACK PRICE
I have been imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto with my family since it was established in October 1940. Although only 11 years old at the time, I supported my family by smuggling food from the Aryan side. Now I realize I might never see my family again. I am on my own. I join the Polish underground, where some members of the underground know I am Jewish. The majority of members do not know this — especially as I am blond and do not look Jewish. My job is to purchase guns from the German soldiers for the Polish underground. This is possible because some of the German soldiers who have been drafted do not agree with the war. We make contact with German soldiers, feel out the situation. Numerous times mistakes are made.
He looks around at the audience.
JACK PRICE
You only make a mistake once. You don’t live to make a mistake again.
Lights down on Jack Price.
Lights up on JUDITH. She speaks in Yiddish-accented English.
JUDITH
I am Judith and I am eight years old, the youngest of three children, when the Russians occupy my hometown in Lithuania at the start of World War II in 1939. My father had died in 1938. He did not live to see the Nazis invade western Poland, followed by the Russians occupying eastern Poland.
She pauses to get the courage to go on.
JUDITH
Near the end of 1942 my sister, my mother and I are sent to Auschwitz. My brother has already been sent to Dachau. We are packed into trucks and taken to a train station. Men and women are separated and packed into coal cars. We can hardly move our hands and feet. Those who try to escape are shot.
Judith pauses, overcome by this memory. Then she goes on.
JUDITH
Then comes the day my mother is taken to the gas chambers. I cling to her as she is herded along with the others. A guard approaches me.
JUDITH
“You are too young to die,” he says. He raises his gun. “If you can get out of my range before I count to 10, you can live.”
Judith pauses, this is so hard.
JUDITH
It is terrible leaving my mother like that. I run so very fast, hearing my mother’s last cry to me: “Run faster, meine Tochter!”
Lights down on Judith.
Lights up on the Polish Countess, who speaks with a Polish accent.
POLISH COUNTESS
During World War II my husband, Count Stefan Humnicki, and I, Countess Sophie Lubomirska-Humnicka, are allowed to remain on our estate in Poland to provide food for the Germans. When a request is made to grow vegetables and we do not have enough workers, a German officer agrees to assign Jews to do the work.
She pauses to remember.
POLISH COUNTESS
In late November of 1942 the Nazis come for the Jews working on our estate. Shouting and cursing, the armed men break down the door and drag, push and herd the men, women and children onto the waiting carts.
She catches her breath.
POLISH COUNTESS
They are taken away to where the Germans bring all the Jews in that region who have been rounded up. From the nearby railway station they are then sent in freight cars to the district capital, and from there they go on their last journey to the gas chambers of the nearby extermination camp of Treblinka.
Now her expression softens.
POLISH COUNTESS
A trusted employee inspects the former quarters of the Jewish workers and finds a young Jewish boy hiding in the bread oven. We persuade the child of 10 or 12 years to come out from his hiding place. When he sees me with tears in my eyes, he says quite calmly, “Please don’t cry. I know I must die.”
She trembles.
POLISH COUNTESS
I take the boy into my arms and determine that Aron Perelman will not die.
Lights up on Phyllis, who speaks with an American accent.
PHYLLIS
I am Phyllis, and I was born in the U.S. in 1948 to American Jews three years after the end of World War II and two months before the birth of the State of Israel.
Phyllis hesitates, considering her next words.
PHYLLIS
Some people say that I am obsessed with the Holocaust. Am I? Or am I obsessed with the thought that these horrific crimes against humanity can happen again — anywhere — anytime — to any group of people?
Phyllis pauses.
PHYLLIS
All it takes is allowing the thin edge of the wedge to grow so wide until … there is no turning back.
Lights down.