שיחות עם קאפו
(רישיון להרוג
)
שם חלופי: האודיסיאה של ז'אק בלום
Updated 17 December 2010 Cahpters 1-5
License to Kill – Dialogues with a Capo
Psychological Drama (Screenplay Draft)
September 2010
Written by: Yitzhak Sivosh M.Sc., MBA
Tel-Aviv
sivosh@hotmail.com
972-50-8539502
All Rights Reserved
English Translation: Y. Sivosh
English Editing: M. Fishburn, Leslie Henan, Advocate, both of whom I wish to thank
The Screenplay Plot
Part One
Opening Credits inspired by "Anatomy of a Murder" graphics (Film by Otto Preminger),
based on Holocaust Paintings by S. Schwartz, shown at the link
http://www.bukowina.org.il/152512/%D7%98%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%A1%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A1%D7%98%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%91%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99-%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%94-%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%A5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQP4Z-DEOkk&feature=related
Cut To Caption:
The concept (to become later known by the term "The Concept" coined by the official national inquiry Agranat Commission) spread among top Israeli Security decision makers, of the 'very low probability of war' and the lack of capacity on behalf of Egyptian Army to cross the Canal. This yields a 'no Reserves mobilization' decision to address the amphibious "maneuver" to cross the Suez, well known to involve the whole Egyptian Army. Israel did not reinforce its two armored brigades deployed in Sinai, and the surprise attack had ideal conditions. While the Reserves are gradually mobilized and urgently deployed fragment by fragment, and still short of essential equipment, the overwhelmed regular forces’ attempts to stop the invasion prove futile and undergo a fast attrition. Most IDF posts along the Canal, undermanned by older soldiers, are either falling or besieged. While the attempts on the first night to break-through into these surrounded posts to evacuate the wounded and refresh supplies and ammunition were possible, on the following nights lethal ambushes are deployed by the enemy, overwhelming IDF tanks with barrages of Soviet anti-tank missiles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi4IIe30IyA&feature=related
Scene 1: Ext.
Dawn at the Suez Canal. After a deadly battle (Captain )Jacques's company is annihilated.
The camera is showing smoking remains of tanks and dead bodies spreading along the area.
Music: Paint it Black – Rolling Stones (3:45), at link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BhHTA6Gzn0
(louder as the camera is getting closer to Jacques's M-113 armored vehicle)
Int.
From time to time, a light mortar shell lights up the sky, illuminating the blown-up interior of a Command M-113(equipped with extra communications antenna) and showing corpses scattered around.
Company commander Jacques lies wounded, half conscious, his hand is going to the military radio and switching its frequencies knob forcefully to its limit.
The music stops at once, and commands are heard on the communications network.
Occasionally, through the blurred view, Jacques manages to identify a handsome face looking from above at him, to be identified as Platoon Commander and personal friend, Marcel, his face abnormally calm and peaceful.
Company Commander Jacques (mumbling):
'Marcel. Marcel.'
After some attempts to call Marcel, whose face is frozen, he realizes in a moment of consciousness that the head is decapitated, while Marcel's body is lying among others near him, only to lose consciousness again.
Scene 2: Int.
First encounter between Jacques, the wounded officer, and the Capo (wearing Concentration Camp uniform). French is spoken by both: a simple language with good accent by Company Commander. Jacques, while Capo Fruchtenbaum is using a more sophisticated vocabulary, but with a heavy accent.
Jacques sees a tall man in his late thirties, with a bold and long-faced head, wearing Concentration Camp uniform. Vaguely recognizing him and afraid for the moment that he might have already "arrived at heaven":
' Who are you? What are you doing here?'
The Capo:
'Cannot you recognize me? I'm Fruchtenbaum, Capo Fruchtenbaum - that's how you named me in your play that you wrote entirely about me; how could you forget?'
Company comm. Jacques:
'No, I didn't forget, you are not easy to forget. What does it mean that I see you? Have I "arrived heaven" (i.e. dead)? '
The Capo:
' Heaven (scornfully), that's not a subject for discussion with an atheist and communist.'
Company comm. Jacques:
'So, why are you here? Who asked for you? (Are there) not enough problems?'
The Capo:
'Pardon me, Sir, have you entirely forgotten? I'm not the one who asked to get into your mind, it's completely the other way around; it was your initiative. For a whole year you wrote and erased, wrote and erased, and wrote again, and directed a play about me.'
Scene3: Int.
Flashback to high school. Class room: Pupil Jacques is sitting at the table, while in the background a stern looking teacher is waving his hand and lecturing, while holding a pile of essays in the other hand. Jacques's mind is occupied, day dreaming of the girl in the next row, trying to strip her in his mind, while hearing Gigliola Cinquetti, 64's San-Remo's surprise
Music (softly): 'Non ho l'età (I'm too young for love)' , at link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtbW7zYmYfM&feature=related
Teacher:
' Jacques (there is no answer so he calls again) Jacques..' this time Jacques is responding, while the teacher hands-over his essay, signaling "Number 1" with his thumb.
Pupil Jacques stands up to get the essay, and get a light friendly slap at the shoulder from the stern looking teacher.
Scene 4: Int.
At home. Pupil Jacques is sitting at the kitchen table, while mother is serving him lunch. Jacques's Mother (asks softly):
' Jacques, how was at school today? Did you get back any exams?'
Pupil Jacques:
'Exams not yet, but an essay, yes. I've got the first grade at class.'
Jacques's Mother (with a sad smile):
'That's very good, I'm sure you will carry on like that. That's the only thing you'll have to start your life with, your grades and achievements, we have got nothing else to give you. '
Pupil Jacques:
'But mama, I got the first grade, why do you worry? They approved this essay to be developed into full theatrical play; it's something serious and also exempts me from the final Literature Exam, one of six major exams. Much work for this year, but less pressure at the finals.'
Jacques's Mother:
'I trust you. I always have known that one could talk seriously to you, even as a child; a real play, indeed? With a theatrical performance by the end of the year, I suppose, right? What is it about?'
Pupil Jacques:
'A real play, costumes, lights, everything. I'll write, I'll direct, some friends and myself will act. I'll get a professional play writer as a tutor. The play is about an Auschwitz survivor who gets to Israel, but is still haunted by the past.'
Jacques's Mother (sounds bothered):
'I wonder why of all places on earth you have to choose Auschwitz, is there not enough drama here in Israel to inspire your play?'
Pupil Jacques:
'Everything that happens "Here" somehow relates to "There"... one can't escape the past. My protagonist is a Capo, fighting in Jerusalem in 1948, but never forgiven.
Jacques's Mother (shocked but trying to control her emotions):
'Capo?! You know how much these memories are difficult for me, but all right, I know I can trust your judgment.'
Jacques, the pupil, is sitting at the desk, writing with a pen, deleting, listening to the radio, and writing again. A couple discarded sheets of paper are on the floor. On the transistor radio 'The Shadows' are playing the tune 'Apache'.
Scene 5: Int.
Inside the armored vehicle near the Canal.
The Capo:
'And by the way, you portrayed me with quite a negative attitude, I would say: a traitor, collaborator, what else? Murderer, and by the end of the year you put that on stage in front of the whole high-school. I didn't ask for that. Have you forgotten? '
Company comm. Jacques:
'I didn't forget, it was a school assignment, part of my final exams, 'nothing personal' (quoting Don Corleone first screened that summer); no big deal, why are you harassing me?'
The Capo:
'Am I? Maybe you are harassing yourself? Maybe your conscious is giving you some pain? Maybe some remorse for the way you "killed" me in your play?'
The Capo:
'In your play you expressed a harsh criticism of the Capo phenomenon, of the "Great Illusion" of the Jews who thought it was unbelievable they were deported to death camps, of the Jews being "slaughtered like sheep", and all those clichés of yours, you "Sabra", "New Jew" smart guys.. Maybe it's time to have second thoughts? Maybe your conscience has woken up? How could I harass you while I have never heard of you? (he said angrily) of all people on earth you had to choose me, to write about and judge me? Have I asked for it? I don't know you, I've been dead since the beginning of 1948, the year you were probably born, isn't that so?'
Company commander Jacques (saying a bit defensively):
' Yes, more or less; I was born in 1947, in a Jewish refugee camp in France.'
Scene 6: Ext./Int.
Some documentary footage showing the refugee camps in post war Europe and the ship Exodus, while Company comm. Jacques and the Capo are heard in a voice-over.
The Capo:
'Well, that explains your French; and your nearly perfect accent, unlike mine... Every collaborator with the Gestapo could recognize me as a stranger and suspect the very moment I had opened my mouth…'
Company comm. Jacques:
'I was born in a refugee camp in France. Then, we boarded the Exodus... all that well known story.'
The Capo:
'Exodus? Then you must have been a great hero (being cynical). Is that what gave you, an Israeli hero, the right to judge me (being angry). Your diaper was on the Exodus, your diaper and some shit of yours inside, and that's it. Do you think that unless we, the "old Jews", have been massively slaughtered beforehand, anyone would have given a damn about you, "Exodus heroes"? '
Company Commander Jacques is raising his eyebrows in the face of this surprise attack.
Capo Fruchtenbaum (continues):
'You probably don't like what you hear now, neither the content nor the style, a reasoning which is based on both rationale and something you name "ideology", but that's the way we thought and talked, and more than that, lived. For us ideology was not a word in quotation marks but a compass, a concept and a way of life. We lived in a generation that has indeed changed the world and not only wrote songs about it. We would have never been named as "the Espresso Generation"... like you. '
Capo Fruchtenbaum (continues):
'You thought you had the right to judge me and punish me, why? Who gave you that right? You executed me as a traitor, exposed by his comrades, on their last moments of fighting, while besieged by Jordanian Legion soldiers and fighters from neighboring Arab villages. Is that what counts, revenge? Seeing that the Capo s killed by his comrades; at the last moments of life inside a doomed armored vehicle?'
Company comm. Jacques:
'No need to get so angry, I was not the one who killed you in real life, remember? Only in a play…'
End of part 1
Part 2
Scene 7: Int.
A flash back of the theatrical scene (taken from the play written and directed by Jacques the pupil at High-School).
Capo Fruchtenbaum, wearing Israeli army uniform of 1948 (trapped in a similar situation), inside an armored vehicle. The theatrical set shows the inner part of the vehicle, two "Sabra" commanders one of whom wears a British Army helmet, while the second is wearing a typical wool khaki hat. They speak Hebrew while trying to get help via the radio communication. The other three soldiers inside are shaven-headed, wearing clumsy uniforms, and look disoriented (since they were taken almost directly from the ship to the battle-field), and speak Yiddish.
The Second of the Yiddish speaking soldiers is trying to speak to the wounded one:
'Wan komst du nach Israel (when did you come to Israel)?'
The wounded answers with eyes closed:
'Nachten (yesterday).'
The Second of the Yiddish speaking soldiers:
’Galila (with Galila ship)?'
The wounded opens his eyes:
'Yo (yes).'
The Second of the Yiddish speaking soldiers:
’Ich auch, di zelbe zach (me too, same story), nachten Galila unt yetz nach krieg (yesterday on board of the Galila ship and now in the war)'
The wounded soldier opens his eyes.
While Capo Fruchtenbaum is attending the wounded, the sleeve of his khaki shirt ) which is usually buttoned) is slightly raised, and a tattooed number 43057 is revealed.
The wounded man opens his eyes wide and mumbles:
'The Capo, Capo Fruchtenbaum...' and tries to push him away.
The Second of the Yiddish speaking soldiers (shocked):
' Capo Fruchtenbaum?'
The Capo (in Yiddish):
'Yoh, ich bin Fruchtenbaum, di Capo fur blok zehn (yes, I'm Fruchtenbaum, the Capo from block 10).'
The Second of the Yiddish speaking soldiers:
'du bist ein "musser" fur di Nazim (you have been a traitor and snatch of the Nazis).' He spits.
One of the "Sabra" commanders (in Hebrew):
'What does he say, the "Sop" ('Sabon' - a humiliating term given to Jewish survivors, who came from the place where human beings turned into sop)? What's the fuss about?'
Second "Sabra" commander (in Hebrew):
' I can understand some Yiddish, it appears that one of them was a Capo (scornfully) just a bit larger sop, that all... You guys have managed to find the perfect timing for payback... If there is no reinforcement convoy coming soon enough, then, we're all finished' (carries on asking for urgent reinforcements on the radio).
The argument goes even louder, while the shootings sound increasingly closer.
Capo Fruchtenbaum (in Yiddish):
' Ich? Ein "muser"? ich bin ein communist (Me? A traitor? I have been a communist).'
The Capo is switching from Yiddish, which he can hardly speak, to French:
' I have assumed the responsibility of block Capo on behalf of and at orders from the Communist cell in the camp. I have always been a "soldier of the party". The party is right, always has been. The party won the victory over the Fascist octopus monster, and the Red Army is the one who liberated Auschwitz as well as most camps, have you already forgotten?'
The Second of the Yiddish speaking soldiers is translating to his wounded comrade (with a derogatory gesture):
'Gurnisht, a-propagande (nothing, just a propaganda ) .'
The Capo (continues in French):
'Friedrich Jeckeln, the Einsazgruppen General, architect of the massacre of Jews at Babi-Yar Riga and other death-pits, while being tried in Latvia after the war, wrote to the General Committee of the Communist Party, asking to be allowed to stay alive in order to remedy his crimes. Do you understand? An SS top rank officer is appealing to The Party to get a chance to do the right thing, now, you tell me, did or didn't the party win?! (Silence for a moment)
The Second of the Yiddish speaking soldiers (speaking fragmented French):
'Words have always come easy to you. But this is not the Communist Party Convention... Tachles (practicalities in Yiddish) did you murder, yes or no?'
The Capo:
'Yes, I did kill, with the instructions of the party, and occasionally the SS. By saying so I do not intend to evade responsibility, as the miserable Nazi criminals were trying to do at Nuremberg: they were attempting to escape from the gallows by saying "we only obeyed our orders"... I was not only obeying orders, but perceived every single party directive as a mission! I have always believed in that, and so I do now. Tachles (practicalities in Yiddish), we were right, we won.'
The Second of the Yiddish speaking soldiers (speaking fragmented French):
'I don't give a damn about your party, I do care about my murdered brother: did you kill my brother at the "soup event", yes or no?
The Capo:
'Yes, I did kill someone at the "soup event", he was a "Musselmann" and I had to shed blood to try and quench the thirst of the insatiable Nazi animals, otherwise they would have performed a collective murder: the SS-Man would have shot some on the spot, and take others, nobody could tell how many, to the gallows. Do you think I enjoyed it?
That's the responsibility of the leader to sacrifice some to save the rest. I didn't ask for that responsibility, to lead people who were already doomed. I was approached by party members, and I never refuse the party directives; that's something I have already stated.'
The Second of the Yiddish speaking soldiers (speaking a fragmented French):
'I don't care about your party, and as for me, you may write your last letter to the party right now, telling them how loyal you are till this very moment.. My brother was killed by you, and now you are the one that's going to die. I don't need "Party Directives" for that... You will die here and now!' aiming a gun to the Capo's head and shooting at point blank.
End of Part 2
Part 3
Scene 8: Int. In the armored vehicle near the Canal.
The Capo:
'You have arranged a traitor's death for me in your play, thanks very much for that...'
Company comm. Jacques:
'That's right, I arranged a "getting even" situation in my play, and now what? You want to get even with me?' Don't bother - it's going to happen anyway...'
The Capo:
'Don't worry, we, the ghosts of the dead can do no harm to the living , just disturb their minds, that's all, especially we, the "sops" vs. you, the mighty "Sabra".'
Company comm. Jacque (losing his temper):
'I'm a mighty "Sabra", and you are a big shot. big mouth! No wonder everyone hated you in Auschwitz. No one would expect an educated and intelligent person to think and speak like an idiot. We experienced the holocaust no less than you did, even worse, maybe.'
The Capo:
'Oh yes? that's interesting, I wish you could explain such a statement.'
Company comm. Jacques:
'Simply, none of you has ever been exposed to the full magnitude of the Holocaust, yes, you certainly struggled on a daily basis for survival, but have never felt the horror of seeing the full magnitude and scale, like we did, while watching the Nuremberg Trials newsreels, for instance. When I was a child, seeing myself in a dream as one of Janusz Korczak children in Warsaw, I knew throughout the whole dream something only he himself knew: that the "trip" was a one way ticket - to the gas chambers of Treblinka.'
Scene 9: Int.\Ext.
Jacques the child lies in his bed asleep, while in his dream with a travel bag on his shoulder, is gathered with other Korczak's orphanage house children in Warsaw Ghetto, during the 'Aktzia' (the deportation to the death camp). They are surrounded by Jewish policemen and armed German SS guards holding barking dogs.
Jacques the child (yelling and screaming while dreaming):
'Children, run away, run for your lives! We must not go on that train! The trip is to the gas chambers in Treblinka. Let's run away in every direction! '
No children respond since a guard is pursuing Jacques, while his dog is barking so loudly that nobody can hear Jacques. Jacques the child is trying to run, but his feet betray him, and move in a kind of slow-motion. The dog is jumping on him both legs on his shoulders, while he is trying to reach a wall. He wakes up from the nightmare, while his father is holding both shoulders in his hands:
'Jacques, Jacques..'
Jacques sits up in his bed, sweating, while his father is handling him a glass of milk.
Father (in French):
' Mother heard you and woke me up. Here, have some milk, it's relaxing.'
Jacques:
'Thanks papa, sorry for waking you up.'
Father:
'That's all right. Now, sleep well. Good night.'
Scene 10: Int.
In the armored vehicle near the Canal.
Company comm. Jacques: 'As a child I knew the "end of story" all the way, something that most of you didn't have to cope with. Knowledge is important as long as there's an option to use it and a chance to survive. Not knowing might be easier when there's no option.
The Capo: 'Maybe I'm not as much an idiot as you think; I can see your point.
End of Part 3
Part 4
The Capo: 'Maybe I'm not as much an idiot as you think; I can see your point... I thought, as you did in your dream, that trying to escape is imperative, even when the chances are slim, and anyway it's better than turn into a piece of sop. But the condemned people in the "Selection" were not convinced. Nice nickname you gave us, "sop", maybe we have earned it'
Company comm. Jacques: 'what, I invented that nickname? Did I like the term "sop"? What would you expect me to do, to re-write and use polite and inoffensive words only? Like it or not, the truth must be told. What am I, in your eyes, a Pravda (communist newspaper) writer? Izvestia (another magazine), that is re-writing history everyday? Forget it. I didn't fabricate anything, and didn't use your actions, to tear-out pages and re-write them with new "facts", for the sake of the party.. I gave it my best efforts to write my interpretation according to my own knowledge. I don't need anybody's approval. That's the elementary right of everyone who holds a sheet of paper and a pencil. I'm neither your advocate nor your defender, that’s not my duty.
The Capo: 'Lenin wrote that to speak the truth is a petit-bourgeois habit, a luxury of worry-free and aimless people. To lie, on the contrary, is often justified by the lie's aim.'
Company comm. Jacques: 'Great, just great, Lenin's quotes, that's what I really need now... Please go ahead, and you may continue with the whole 'Communist Manifesto', which I'm sure you could quote flawlessly.'
The Capo: 'Maybe I'm not the only idiot here... If you bothered to read some of the Soviet texts, you could have avoided being caught like that, pants down... Anti-tank defense is the basis of the Soviet doctrine, that's how the Red Army crushed the invincible armies of Gudarian and von Mansteinn who invented and mastered the Blitzkrieg and Tank Offensive, and have already learned their lesson. It's all there, written in the Soviet books, you only had to read and learn. Your Generals are exempted from reading? are they dyslectic perhaps? Sport & Soccer News is their sole reading?'
Company comm. Jacques: I don't know, but I have done my reading. I did my research about you as thoroughly as I could with no short-cuts. I read quite a bit, about your family too: Your father was well known, they called him "King of the Jews", the leader of the Zionist movement in Poland, a Member of Parliament and the head of the Minorities Block, respected by all...'
The Capo: 'You mean respected by all but me - quite so, but not in order to hurt him. He was a Zionist leader, but I thought it wasn't enough to merely resolve the Jews' problems so I joined the Communist Party. I thought it would solve the problems both of many millions of starving people and the Jews too. There was also a youth rebellion, certainly, but with no intentions to hurt. After being released from the Polish prison, for my communist activity, I tried avoid embarrassing him, and went to Paris.'
Company comm. Jacques: 'Yes, I know, and then you joined the International Volunteers Brigade, for Spain.'
The Capo: 'That's right, there were over thirty thousand volunteers, over ten percent of whom were Jews, and some five hundred came from the Land of Israel. You see, either we, the Jews, have a real obsession with justice; or (with a slight smile) just a few loose screws...
Company comm. Jacques: 'I've read about that too, but not as much as about WWII. Apart from books, I have had plenty of "sources"; everyone who came to our home was a witness, loaded with first hand information. Without these people I would not have started digging in books trying to get the answers they refused to give me.'
The Capo: 'So, you had some "sop" hanging around your home too?'
Company comm. Jacques: 'Not only hanging around, but living there too. I have already mentioned my mom and father. I've already said that I was born in a Jewish refugee camp in France, and my father had a number tattooed on his arm, just like yours. He refused to elaborate about that, especially if I asked, but sometimes silence may sound very loud... I can remember a scene from my childhood:'
Scene 11: Ext.
Jacques the child is walking along, holding his father's hand in Rothschild Boulevard in Tel-Aviv. A man is approaching his father, uncovering his arm, and starts yelling at him. Father is backing-off, taking Jacques in his arms and turning to leave, while the stranger is following and yelling. The father is looking around, spotting a taxi, waving, opening the door, pushing Jacques inside and trying to get in. The stranger is grabbing his coat in both hands, but the father is reacting, and forcefully pushing away the stranger, who falls on his knees. The camera which is imitating the child's view can see the stranger fading away, still on his knees, tears running down his face.
Jacques the child: 'Father, who is that man?'
Jacque's Father: 'None of your business. Homework, have you already done your homework?'
Company comm. Jacques (voice-over, commenting): And by this laconic answer he marked my limits and space: to do all homework and excel at school. Having said this he was also stating: "That" era is a closed business, no questions & answers allowed.'
End of Part 4
Part 5
Scene 12 Int./Ext.
A coffee shop in Allenby Street opposite the Post office, where the currency black market was flourishing. Men wearing dark suits and hats, which look a bit shabby though making the outmost effort to look well neat and business-like, are hanging around and inside and around the coffee tables. They are attending random clients, and from time to time banknotes change hands, followed by a hand shake.
Company comm. Jacques (voice-over, explaining at the background): 'Father was a trader at the "Polish Market" in Tel-Aviv, which was basically a black market for currency, which was illegal at the time, although nobody tried to enforce the law or arrest the traders who were flocking into a couple of well known coffee shops.'
Company comm. Jacques (continues)" 'From time to time I was sent for "assignments" to the black market (view of Jacques the child bringing banknote supplies hidden inside his shirt, to his father in return for a coin for ice-cream) to supply father from home when he got a larger deal. He was also providing clients with loans. And while I was younger I assumed that the debatable issue at Rothschild Boulevard was a financial one, but later as I learned the codes of these people better, I knew I was wrong. Paying back owed money was sacred, no questions, disputes, money collectors or lawyers. These people would rather deny themselves food in order to pay back debts or save for a "rainy day", perhaps for the day when they are re-transported to the camps?..'
Scene 13 Ext./Int.
People, carrying luggage and suitcases, are deported, walking in the snow.
End of Part 5
Part 6
Scene # 13: Ext./Int.
People, carrying luggage and suitcases, are deported, walking in the snow.
Then, the scene is back inside the armored vehicle at the Canal.
Company comm. Jacques (commenting): 'Gradually, I came to the conclusion that it had to do with something terrible from "There", an account which has never "come to balance", but not in the financial sense, maybe an action of snatching, or betrayal in which my father had been involved? (A flashback of the stranger trying to grab Jacques father’s coat, being pushed down to his knees.) Perhaps after being caught as a black market dealer? Blackmailed? Who knows? '
The Capo: 'That would not surprise me. People were willing to do anything, even unimaginable things, in order to survive. Every single cell and bacteria in our body is striving for life, our ideals and moral issues only come later. Snatching, collaboration and betrayal was everywhere, even inside the Resistance movement in France, and I don't mean the Gestapo agents who were planted among us, but real members who suddenly had to face two alternatives: being executed, or becoming an informer.
Company comm. Jacques: 'You mentioned earlier hard decisions of the kind that eventually kill people, I've experienced that in the last few days, for the first time in my life. We refused help to the soldiers trapped in the IDF posts who asked to be evacuated. This happened when we broke through the Egyptian forces surrounding them. They begged us to take them too "as long it's not too late", and not only the wounded, as ordered. '
Scene # 14: Ext.
Tanks and armored vehicles under the command of Captain Jacques break through into a besieged Israeli post along the Canal under heavy fire. The people manning the post are older reserves soldiers, some are fat, some bald, unshaven, but all of them look terrified and shocked. In contrast to them Jacques regular army soldiers look young, slim, perfectly shaved and smartly dressed.
IDF post commander (an old officer, balding slightly): 'We have started to doubt if you would ever make it...'
Company comm. Jacques: 'It wasn't easy, but we would never abandon our wounded, come on, let's start unloading your ammunitions and supplies and loading the injured soldiers.'
IDF post commander: 'And what about us? I've only got a dozen people left?'
Company comm. Jacques: 'The orders are clear: the post is not to be abandoned, we re-supply you and take only the wounded with us.'
IDF post commander: 'And do you think we have any chance? The whole Egyptian Army is crossing the Canal.'
Company comm. Jacques: 'You should talk with Southern Command, and they will tell you the same, but do it fast, I’ve still got to "visit" other posts. I’ll be back tomorrow.'
The IDF post commander is seen handling the communications set, talking excitedly into the mike, when an order is coming through clearly from the loud-speaker (Hebrew language): ' This is final: the post is not to be abandoned. Only wounded soldiers are being evacuated.'
The post soldiers are terrified, and one of them is pleading with Jacques to show pity for his children, etc., arguments which are not comprehended by the patrol of youngsters who execute their mission as ordered. A situation evolves during which the patrol soldiers are pushing back the older soldiers desperately holding on to the vehicles, sometimes brutally using their rifle's butt.
Company commander: Jacques (angrily): 'The lazy buggers do not want to fight. We take the wounded only; don't let them hold on to our vehicles!'
There's a camera's view of a soldier pushed by Captain Jacques, falling on his knees, (exactly the same way the stranger on Rothschild Boulevard did years earlier).
End of Part 6
Part 7
Scene # 15: Int.
Back in the armored vehicle: Later processing of the events at the IDF post, while Captain Jacque is lying wounded and semi-conscious, hearing on the radio the Commander of that very same post, crumbling under the attack, and all of a sudden realizing that these people were condemned to death by him .A flashback to the soldier, on his knees, looking at his armored vehicle driving away.
Company comm. Jacques (semi-conscious, mumbling): We killed them, we literally killed them. We condemned them to death, like Capos. We refused their pleas to take them with us. We should have listened to them, we should have evacuated them, as they had no chance.'
The Capo: 'Could be. Let me have a look at your wound, what a wound you have arranged yourself. All your stomach is wide open, you must be lucky that someone treated your wound. What is written on the bandages? Looks like Arabic letters, perhaps Russian; that I can tell for sure. Seems like a real solidarity among nations has erupted here, (cynically) exactly as we are singing in our International Socialist hymn; what an ideal brotherhood.'
Company comm. Jacques: 'That was the Egyptian Colonel. I heard the boogie of an armored vehicle approaching, and hoped that these were our rescue forces coming, but it wasn't so. It was the Egyptian Colonel coming to inspect the result of their hits on our armor. He checked the hits of the Sagger missiles on our tanks, and stopped by here too.
Scene # 16:Ext./Int.
Egyptian colonel is heading a technical team reviewing the effect of the Soviet anti-tank Sagger missile hits. Captain Jacques hears Arabic-speaking soldiers approaching accompanied occasionally by sounds of shooting.
End of Part 7
To be continued
All Rights (excluding YouTube footage) Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment