Amerikai Magyar Értesítő, 1982 (18. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1982-06-01 / 6. szám

1982. junius AMERIKAI MAGYAR ÉRTESÍTŐ 17 CBS Gives the U.S. a First Look at the Soviet Gulag By Daniul Hknningkr This past Sunday evening, CBS broad­cast a movie called “Coming Out of the Ice,” about a U.S. citizen who spent 10 years in one of the Soviet Union's Siberian slave-labor camps. It was a stunning and extraordinary film, but throughout the eve­ning one had to repeatedly convince one­self that a movie about this awful subject was actually being shown on American television. The reason this struck me as astonish­ing to the point of disbelief is that the ap pearance of a full-length feature film about what we now call the Soviet “gulag" is very nearly an unprecedented event in the Western world. American and European On Television filmmakers have produced movies on the Nazi concentration camps but almost noth ing on the Stalinist era which caused the death of millions upon millions of Soviet citizens. The details of how this system of mass death worked have been available in books in the West for some time. Solzhenitsyn is the most famous and extensive chronicler of the gulag. (The British made a 1971 film based on his book: "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch."! The Soviet scientist Roy Medvedev has written about It. Eu­genia Ginzburg's two-volume memoir is perhaps the most poignant account of life in the camps. We have the recently pub­lished “Stalin's Secret War" by Nikolai Tolstoy and "The Time of Stalin: Portrait of a Tyranny" by Anton Antonov-Ovsey- enko, the son of one of the Russian revolu­tion's most famous heroes, whom Stalin had killed. These histories are relevant to contem­porary political life. The incontrovertible fact that the Soviet gulag operated over an extended period lies at the heart of the pa litieal conservative’s attitude toward the Soviet Union. This attitude was expressed by President Reagan at a press conference last year when he startled reporters by saying that the Soviets cheat and lie and that their system is immoral. When you read or hear a reporter say­ing that someone's policy toward the Rus­sians is “hardline" or “right-wing” or “conservative," an attitude like the Presi­dent's is what he is talking about. The con­trolling idea behind this "hardline" belief is that the Soviet system of Marxist-Lenin- ism contains within it a deadly virus that causes It to consume its own citizens. Ideas like this are usually fought over among in­tellectuals and makers of foreign policy. With "Coming Out of the Ice," CBS gave millions of Americans a chance to see for themselves one of the subjects that under­pins political debate over U.S.-Soviet rela­tions. "Coming Out of the Ice” told the story of Victor Herman, who was 16 when he left the U.S. with his Russian-born parents in 1931 to work in an auto plant set up in Gorky under contract with Henry Ford. To­ward the end of the decade, with the Ford contract lapsed, Mr. Herman wanted to re­turn to the U.S. The Russians let him out in 1976. He spent 10 years as a prisoner in a Si­berian slave-labor camp, cutting wood. When he got out, he was exiled to a town in Siberia. There he married a Russian woman, and after she became pregnant he was sent farther north into solitary exile, where be was to live in the woods and chop wood for a nearby village. His wife, with their infant, joined him in the distant vil­lage by walking to it. He was "exonerated" in 1955, and spent the next 20 years fight­ing the Soviet bureaucracy to let him out. He has an advanced degree in languages, and he now lives in Michigan. "Coming Out of the Ice" compressed this experience into a taut film. Shortly after arriving in the Soviet Union, Herman shows exceptional athletic talent and with support from a renowned Soviet military leader (Marshal Tukhach- evsky, later executed by Stalin I, he re­ceives special training. After setting a world parachute-jumping record. Herman is asked by the authorities to sign a docu­ment attesting that the record was set by a Soviet citizen. Herman says that he is an American. Later he is arrested, and “Coming Out of the Ice” descends into the Soviet inferno. The first clear sign that CBS had pro­duced something quite out of the ordinary was a series of quick scenes between Vic­tor Herman and a prison interrogator in a large, bare room. The guards would lei Herman into the room, close the door as they left, and the Russian would come swiftly round his desk and beat Herman savagely with his bare fists. Despite all the violence one sees on television, the silent ferociousness of these scenes was unset­tling. The skill and control with which this was handled made it clear that the film­makers' intentions for their movie and its effect on the audience were more serious than what one normally encounters on TV. The next hour depicted life and death In a Soviet labor camp as it has been de­scribed by Solzhenitsyn, Ginzburg and oth­ers. The ground w;ts covered with snow and ice (the film was made In Finland). The prisoners cut wood with short-handled axes. If you did not fill your work quota, you did not eat. Food was thin soup. Pris­oners were intentionally worked to death. Herman glimpses a dead man in a latrine, covered with rats. A train stops at the camp and the guards push some female prisoners out of a boxcar onto the snow and the male prisoners rape them (the di­rector diverts the camera's eye from this scene and shows Herman, looking oni. For helping another prisoner, Herman is put In a cage in a hole in the tundra for days. When he gets out, he thinks he is blind. An­other prisoner, who Is being sent farther north, gives the failing Herman a rat trap, and he eats rats to survive It sounds odd to say that a film about such things could be made with tact, but director Waris Hussein, a Briton of Indian descent whose credits include "Edward and Mrs. Simpson" and "The Glittering Prizes." understood that an experience of such horror would have to be shown with restraint. Directors often lose control of such material, allowing it to become melo­drama. Mr. Hussein did not. and he de­serves an award for this film. So does John Savage, who as Victor Herman was asked to play a man whose experiences no actor could fully imagine. The film s dialog displayed a sophistication and intelligence one more often associates with British productions: the script was by an American. Alan Sharp A word should also be said about how a movie on Russia s slave-labor ramps ended up on a commercial network. We've been led In believe that this sort of “rel­evant" programming was the special prov­ince of the sainted folk at public television or at the networks news departments. The fad is that "Coining Out of the Ice" (along with ABC's documentary on yellow rain Iasi yean is the most hard-hit­ting thing U.S. television has ever done about the Soviet system. In addition to Sol zhenitsyn. who now lives in Vermont, the U.S. is now full of Russian emigres who could provide ample material on the Soviet gulag to producers from the networks' news arms or to public television. They have shown little interest in the subject. CBS in Hollywood got there first. CBS got there first because the agent for Victor Herman's book, published by Harrourt in 1979 and describing his life in the gulag, sent the property to a Hollywood producer named Frank Königsberg, who presented the idea to a CBS executive named Bernie Sofronski. who committed the network to the project. Then CBS scheduled a film of unknown appeal on Sunday night, preempting proven ratings winners like "Alice" and "One Day at a Time." Harper & Row. publisher of Solzhenit­syn's three-volume The Gulag Archipel­ago," says it has sold 3.3 million copies in the U.S. The Nielsen ratings for “Coming Out of the Ice" estimate that 17 million U.S. homes watched it. There is now a bet­ter knowledge in the U.S. of what the So­viet government has been willing to do to its citizens than there was a week ago. I HE WAI I STREET JOURNAL, THURSDAY, MAY 27, 1982 Foreign Exchange Thursday, May 27, 1982 The New York foreign exchange selling rates below aopiy to trading among banks in amounts of SI million and more, as Quoted at 3 p.m. Eastern time by Bankers Trust Co, Retail transactions provide fewer units of for eign currency per dollar Country Currency U.S. Seoul«. per U.S S Thurs. wed Thur» Wed Australia (Dollar) Austria (Schilling) Belgium (Franc) Commercial rate Britain (Pound j 30-Day Forward Canadn (Dollar) 3QOay Forward 1 0513 1 0546 9512 9482 0009 0615 1642 1628 072563 02276 44 32 43.92 1 7970 1 7990 5565 5562 ) 7990 1 MOO 5559 5556 .1063 8069 1 2403 1 2362 8049 80/8 1 2424 1 2379 Portugal lEscudo) 0140 0142 71 20 70 60 Saudi Arabia (Riyal) 29)6 7915 3 4295 3 4305 Singapore (Dotier) 4789 4793 2 068C 2 0665 South Africa (Rand) 9278 9309 1 3778 1 0742 South Korea (Won) 00137 00137 728 80 728 8C Spain (Peseta) 00957 0096* 104 50 103 31 China (Yuan) 5543 5543 1 8040 1 1040 Colombia (Peso) 0)60 0160 67 37 62 37 Denmark (Krone) 1260 1272 7 9350 7 1645 Ecuador (Sucre) 0400 0400 25 00 25 00 Finland (Markka) . 2203 7216 4 5315 4 5125 France (Franc) 1639 1651 6 1000 6.0300 30-Oay Forwaro 1*11 >639 6 1100 6 1000 Ireland (Pound) 1 4790 1.4870 6761 6725 Israal (Shekel) 0480 0410 20 8? 20 82 Italy (L>ra) 00077j 00077V 1294 00 1284 00 Japan (Yen) 004123 004)57 242 55 240 SS 30-Day Forward 004)48 004)85 24) 05 238 95 Sweden (Krona) 1709 .1772 S 8513 SM65 Switzerland (Franc) 5035 5074 1 9860 1 9710 30-Oay Forward 5061 SI X 1. 9rjf0 1 9572 ‘ Watt German (Mark) 427* 4715 2 3375 2 3335 30-Oay Forward 4799 4308 2 3261 2 3211

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