"Judgment at Nuremberg"
This film, despite its length, produced some of the most compelling and animated of audience reactions. It may have actually been the favorite film that we featured at the Fordham Law Film Festival. Most people in the audience had never seen the film before, and those who had, had never watched it in a crowded theater. Such are the consequences of living in an age of home entertainment centers and wide-screen plasma TVs.
Professor Maria Marcus from Fordham Law School relayed the fact that her father had been a Supreme Court judge in Austria during the German occupation and the decisions and sacrifices that he had to make in order to maintain his moral survival and ethical integrity.
Eli Rosenbaum, the director of the Office of Special Investigations, a division of the United States Department of Justice, explained the way in which his office still prosecutes and deports Nazi war criminals who are located within the United States and are then subjected to deportation proceedings. Many people in the audience were surprised to learn that such cases are even still handled by the United State government. Rosenbaum lamented that major newspapers, for the most part and for various unaccountable reasons, do not feel that these stories of justice finally served merit being brought to the public’s attention.
As for the film, both Rosenbaum and Marcus commented on what seemed to be the realistic presentation of documentary evidence and the legal issues that the Nuremberg courts faced. But the central theme of the film was the range and scope of legal responsibility owing to the crimes of the Nazis. After all, in this film, the judgment was against the judges who enabled the Nazis to engage in such barbaric, dehumanizing acts. These were men who wore robes and wrote legal decisions that justified and supported what they Nazis did. They did not carry guns or actually do any of the killings. But in following the law, and in failing to strike down immoral laws, they were ultimately found complicit in the crimes of the Nazis as if they were accomplices to the crimes.
Yet, should enablers we held responsible in the same way as front-line perpetrators?
Leave a Reply