A Cinematic Testament to Nazi Brutality That Originated Via Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation

John Rokosny’s “The Kid Officer” is a modest film about major events, an unprepossessing take on one man’s truck with history. Mr. Rokosny, working alongside producer Andriette Friedman, interviewed nonagenarian Friedrich Biermann while working on a project for the Shoah Foundation at the University of Southern California.Director Steven Spielberg established The Shoah Foundation in 1994 with a mandate to record the testimonies of those who survived “mass atrocities and genocidal crimes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.” The Holocaust is the focus and starting point but there are also videos of those who speak to genocides in Armenia, Guatemala, Cambodia, Rwanda, and Sudan. Tens of thousands of interviews have been recorded, many of which are available for viewing on the organization’s YouTube page.Among the categories listed in its collection is “Contemporary Antisemitism.” Keeping their fingers to the wind and being alarmed by the currents, Mr. Rokosny and Ms. Friedman started a non-profit organization, Their Stories Foundation. “Unlocking the past for new generations” is its motto. Given the course of recent events, the filmmakers have their work cut out for them.The 2021 documentary, “They Survived Together,” was a marked change in Mr. Rokosny’s career path, having previously produced and directed films dedicated to a proto-rap group, The Last Poets, and a New Jersey power-pop band, The Smithereens. “They Survived Together” won an Emmy for Best Historical Documentary.Mr. Biermann, the title subject of “The Kid Officer,” is an avuncular gent, looking a bit like the late actor Bill Macy. He’s seen throughout the film in medium close-up comfortably ensconced on a gold sofa. He has stories to tell, and the interviews, conducted by Ms. Friedman, are juxtaposed with historical footage, family photos, and animated segments economically rendered in black and white.Among the latter is the film’s preamble, in which we hear Mr. Biermann recounting a recurring nightmare keyed to an array of disembodied eyes and cartoonish silhouettes. Not soon thereafter, we hear of an actual encounter an 8-year old Freidrich experienced on the veranda of his family’s home. When Adolf Hitler and his troops came parading down a main thoroughfare, Mr. Biermann noted how his fellow Austrians were feverish in their enthusiasm. “It was,” he avers, “like the Messiah came.”Freidrich’s father, Marcus, had been a captain in the Austria-Hungarian army during World War I; mother Leah was a housewife and an excellent cook. The pleasures of life before the war were considerable: outdoor cafes, amusement parks, and an exotic bird sanctuary his father created in the Biermann household. But then came the Nazi dominion. Young Friedrich was subsequently shunned by friends, locked in a closet by his teacher, and watched as swastikas were superimposed over the family logo on his father’s fleet of delivery trucks.Though the Biermanns were put under the protection of a family friend —ironically, an adjutant in the Nazi Party — their safety was tenuous. Fleeing Austria, they made their way to a cut-rate hotel in Paris frequented by circus performers and then stowed away in a ship where they huddled amongst horses kept by the French Foreign Legion. After the family’s arrival in Mandatory Palestine, Mr. Biermann found himself frustrated with British rule and ended up on the working end of a gun as part of a burgeoning military force. He would go on to quibble about cultural patrimony with David Ben Gurion, fight alongside Ariel “Arik” Sharon, and maintain a friendship with a childhood friend who became, of all things, the King of Jordan.As a cinematic venture, Mr. Rokosny errs on the side of the conventional, perhaps in honor of his plainspoken subject. Would that Mr. Biermann’s life had been filled out more thoroughly and with fewer glitches in continuity: The timeline is sometimes confusing. Still, “The Kid Officer” merits social and cultural consideration, particularly in a climate in which history is repeating itself in distressing ways.

A Cinematic Testament to Nazi Brutality That Originated Via Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation

More from the New York Sun

Taliban Frees American Academic Held More Than Year

Belgium Deploys Troops To Protect Jewish Sites as Iran-Linked Group Claims Attacks Across Europe

California Governor Debate Abruptly Cancelled After Participation Rules Exclude All Non-White Candidates

More from the New York Sun

Taliban Frees American Academic Held More Than Year

Belgium Deploys Troops To Protect Jewish Sites as Iran-Linked Group Claims Attacks Across Europe

California Governor Debate Abruptly Cancelled After Participation Rules Exclude All Non-White Candidates

Vance Leads 2028 GOP Presidential Contenders in Polling, but Rubio’s Star Is Rising in First-in-the-Nation Primary State

Oil Market Trades Executed Minutes Before Trump Iran Announcement Net Mystery Buyers $580 Million in Profits

Delta Air Lines Suspends Special Services for Members of Congress Amid DHS Shutdown

A ‘Yentl’ Adaptation That Finally Captures the Spirit of Isaac Bashevis Singer

Epic Fury: What New Arms Are in Play