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IOL News
16-07-2025
- General
- IOL News
Eight decades later, a Holocaust survivor reunites with his liberator
Andrew Roth, left, with Jack Moran during their reunion on June 5. Roth is a Holocaust survivor, and Jack Moran was one of the American soldiers who liberated him from Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945. Image: Courtesy of USCSF Sydney Page Jack Moran entered Buchenwald concentration camp on April 11, 1945. Immediately, he said, he was overcome by what he saw. An American soldier, Moran was there to help liberate more than 21,000 people, most of them Jews, who had been imprisoned there for months or even years. Moran, then 19, saw emaciated prisoners barely clinging to life. 'They treated them like cattle,' he said. 'They were malnourished; they needed medical attention.' Among the prisoners was Andrew Roth, a Jewish Hungarian teenager who had survived several concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Roth, 97, remembers the day he was liberated from Buchenwald with complete clarity. 'It was unbelievable,' he said. An undated photo of Jack Moran when he was in the United States Armed Forces. Image: Family photo Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading Recently, 80 years after the men first crossed paths, their lives intersected once again – though this time in Los Angeles, where they both live. Their reunion was arranged by the USC Shoah Foundation, with the goal of bringing together a survivor and a liberator whose lives converged amid the horrors of the war. Organizations like the USC Shoah Foundation are racing against time to acquire as many firsthand accounts as possible. 'We are at this tipping point where the history could be lost, or it could remain relevant for future generations,' said Robert Williams, chief executive officer of the USC Shoah Foundation. 'I knew we were at a moment where both the liberators and the survivors were passing very quickly.' For Williams, the reunion between Roth and Moran felt urgent. Williams' own great-uncle, Cliff, was also a Buchenwald liberator. 'No one who was touched by the Holocaust walks away unchanged,' he said. 'This is a subject that shaped the present world, and we need to remember it.' Williams arranged for Roth and Moran to meet on June 5. He knew their conversation – which was recorded – would be meaningful to both of them, as well as those who listened to it. The two men, Roth, left, and Moran, right, recounted their stories in a recorded interview. Image: Courtesy of USCSF 'We've seen how powerful it has been in the past when survivors and liberators had the chance to meet one another and share their common bond,' he said. Indeed, although Moran and Roth had entirely different experiences during the Second World War, they felt an immediate kinship and connection. 'We felt like brothers,' said Moran, who is 99. 'I don't cry easily,' Roth said, 'but my eyes welled up when I saw him.' A group photo at an orphanage in Ambloy, France, where Roth ended up after the war with other Buchenwald prisoners, along with the female social workers who helped take care of them. Roth is top row, second from the right. Image: Family photo Both men recounted their stories. Roth was born in Penészlek – a small village in Hungary – in September 1927, to an orthodox Jewish family. He had five siblings, only one of whom survived the Holocaust. The Nazis deported Roth and his family to a ghetto in Romania in 1944, and not long after, they were sent in a cattle car to the Auschwitz death camp. 'After what seemed like an eternity, the train stopped,' Roth recalled. 'It was full of people, many of them were dead already.' When Roth arrived at the camp, he lied about his age, claiming he was 18 (he was 16), making him eligible to work. Guards were separating people into two lines, and while his mother and siblings went in one line, Roth followed his uncle and cousin to the other. 'It was my instinct,' said Roth, who received a numbered tattoo on his left arm by the Nazis, as part of their system to track and manage prisoners at Auschwitz. The two men hugging during their meeting. Image: Courtesy of USCSF His family was murdered in a gas chamber that same day. Roth was transported to a forced labor camp, Buna, a sub-camp of Auschwitz. He remained there for about nine months, until he was moved to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Roth remained there for about three months until he was liberated. 'It was hell on earth. We had no blankets, no mattresses, no heat,' Roth said. 'You had to be very resourceful to survive.' He remembers starving. 'I stole food from the German Shepherds and the garbage can,' Roth said. 'I didn't mind climbing over a fence, even if I was electrified. I did what I had to do.' Writer Elie Wiesel was in Roth's block at Buchenwald, and after the war, he went on to write 'Night,' a memoir based on his survival story. 'We had similar experiences, so when I read his book, I read my story,' Roth said. 'All the survivors, we felt like we were brothers.' Before they were liberated, Roth said, they were not given food for 40 days. 'The only thing I ate in those 40 days was dog food,' he said. When U.S. soldiers, including Moran, arrived to free him, 'it was a sign from heaven,' Roth said. 'I couldn't believe it could happen.' Since that day, Roth has celebrated his birthday on April 11. 'I was born again' said Roth, who worked for the Hungarian Embassy in Paris after the war, and later moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for another Holocaust survivor who owned a carpet business. He went on to start his own carpet business, and he continues to be a real estate investor. He has two children and two grandchildren. For Moran, who was born in Superior, Wisconsin in 1925, April 11, 1945 was also a momentous day. 'It was a miracle,' he said. 'It felt good comforting these people, giving them some of our rations.' Moran was 17 when he enlisted in the army, and he was deployed to the battlefields of Western Europe in 1944. During his first battle in the Saar Valley, he lost his four best friends. 'It was very sad … people were dropping like flies' he said. 'I had seen so many kids fallen. We took it as a product of war and kept going. We had no choice.' During the Battle of the Bulge – the final major German offensive on the Western Front – Moran was stuck in a frozen foxhole for six days. 'We had no food after the third day, and the snow was our water because we had no water,' Moran said. 'I was scared to death, freezing. There were dead bodies around us but we couldn't move, we had to live with them.' While in Nazi-occupied Europe, Moran said he saw many signs of the Holocaust. 'I remember opening up the doors of several boxcars, and there would be hundreds of suitcases,' he said. 'The owners never got to see their suitcases again.' 'It's tragic that someone had the power to do that to the human race,' Moran added. Of the 33 men in his platoon, Moran said, only two returned to the United States alive. Moran moved to Milwaukee after the war, then settled in Los Angeles, where he worked for a brewing company. He has three children, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. 'It was just an absolute miracle that I survived,' said Moran, who, for the last 20 years, has spent his time connecting with the families of lost soldiers. 'That gives me great joy … to give them comfort.' It also gave him joy to meet Roth, who he now considers 'a good new friend.' 'He and I hugged and shared our good thoughts,' Moran said. 'He thanked me for liberating the camp, and I was congratulating him on being able to survive.' Their reunion was a powerful reminder of all that was lost – and saved. 'I'm grateful to people like Jack, who took the trouble to fight for us,' Roth said. 'It was very brave of them."
New York Times
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Watch Adrien Brody Defend His Art in ‘The Brutalist'
In 'Anatomy of a Scene,' we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel. An architect defends his work to concerned financiers in this scene from 'The Brutalist.' In the period drama, Adrien Brody stars as the Jewish Hungarian architect László Tóth, who has been commissioned to design a community center in Pennsylvania. During this sequence, László is walking a group of community advocates and financiers through the construction site. One of those people is Jim Simpson (Michael Epp), a local architect concerned more about the ballooning costs of the project than the vision of it. Narrating the sequence, Corbet said that they shot the scene in a granite quarry outside of Budapest 'because we couldn't afford to build a set.' The conversation in the scene becomes heated, and builds up to a moment where László essentially tells Jim that everything ugly in the world is Jim's fault. The one-take sequence has a single establishing cutaway shot. Corbet said that he prefers to shoot his scenes in one take because, 'that sunlight-in-a-box feeling that you have, that you've captured this ephemeral thing, it only occurs in sequence takes.' Read the 'Brutalist' review. Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics' Picks and more.
CBC
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
The Brutalist used AI in post-production. Will it cost them at the Oscars?
The Brutalist, a film that follows a fictional Jewish Hungarian architect as he attempts to rebuild his life in Pennsylvania, used AI to improve the Hungarian dialogue spoken by its lead actors, Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones. Brody, Jones and the film itself are all nominated in the biggest categories of the night at this year's Oscars. But as word of its use of AI in post-production has spread to audiences, in a time where tension around artificial intelligence is at an all-time high, many have begun to question whether The Brutalist should be rewarded. Today on Commotion, film critics Rad Simonpillai and Kristy Puchko join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss what the public's reaction might say about our collective anxieties around the intersection of art and AI technology. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: Rad, walk me through the arguments for and against the use of AI here specifically to get a more authentic-sounding accent. What do you make of its use here? Rad: We could appreciate the effort to get the Hungarian just right because, especially for Hungarian audiences, because as you would see with, say, Emilia Pérez, like, all of Mexico is upset about that movie when it comes to how it's representing their culture and their language…. I appreciate that they're going this extra mile to perfect the pronunciations. But at the same time, people are going to draw a hard line against AI because, of course, this fear that AI is going to replace artists and artistry. And, you know, we're just coming out of the Hollywood strikes and such, right? Especially with a movie like The Brutalist, they're going to draw that hard line because this is a movie that sold itself on how analog it is, you know? It's a movie where they really boasted— Elamin: That's been the entirety of the Oscar campaign, like, how analog everything has been. It's shot in VistaVision, you know? Like these specifically-made choices that sort of harken back to the days of yore when it comes to film. So this runs a little bit counter to that. Rad: When I interviewed Brady Corbet, he was talking about how you've got to see it in 70 millimeter because, if you don't see it in 70 millimeter, it's the difference between a painting and a lithograph. So he's basically drawing this hard line between hand-drawn artistry and a mechanical reproduction. So when you're inviting the most dogmatic cinephiles to uphold your artistry, they're going to feel betrayed when AI gets into the mix. Elamin: I mean to that extent, Kristy, here's the reasonable point that I get caught up on: the idea that if it was so important for the character to have scenes where they speak Hungarian, and if analog is so important to you, why wouldn't you go the extra length of casting a Hungarian actor? Like, to what extent is that a part of your consideration as you watch this movie? Certainly you're not going to get the same funding from producers, but also there were enough scenes that included the narrating the letters going back and forth, that this clearly was important enough for the director to include. Kristy: I mean, name a Hungarian actor? Elamin: Hmm. Well, I mean, I'm sure certainly people in Hungary can. Kristy: Not to be glib, but it's just truly like, this movie cost $10 million. Which, honestly, considering — like, look at that movie. It's crazy it only cost $10 million. But they got that money in part because they have Felicity Jones. They have Adrian Brody. They have names that are so well respected and that put them in the Oscar conversation immediately, the producers are like, "OK, we'll take a risk on a movie that is going to be three-and-a-half hours and it's going to have an intermission. It's going to have scenes that are incredibly hard to watch." There are already so many risks being taken in this project that to be like, "And we're going to have it star someone who is Hungarian, like, flat-out," I just don't see that movie coming together. And I know that's the common excuse. But I'm just saying, that has to be considered in part of the arithmetic of these decisions. And I think what is more likely is that you get a version of this where no one speaks the foreign language at all. I think it's more likely to go that way than the other.
