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| http://www.itv.com/presscentre/ep2week13/perspectives |
So the first programme I viewed this week was Perspectives: Warwick Davies – The Seven
Dwarfs of Auschwitz. Through hour long programmes, ITV’s ‘Perspectives’ series,
sees well known celebrities set off around the world to explore more about a
person that has inspired them. In this particular episode Warwick Davies
examines the lives of the Ovitz family, born in Romania and of the Jewish faith,
who made a living as entertainers. However rather uniquely, the family was
composed of 10 siblings, 7 of whom like their father suffered from Dwarfism,
while the other three were like their mothers, ‘tall’. In giving his reasons for
why he finds this particular family inspiration, Davies explains how he’d always
wanted to investigate them, through the eyes of a fellow little person and
entertainer and how they ‘didn’t let size get them down’. They were an educated
and musically talented family, who, performing under the stage name the
Lilliput Troupe, played to large audiences of 800-1000 people a night and were
hugely popular at the time.
However when Northern Romania was invaded by the Nazi regime,
the Ovitz family’s fate, like many others, took an unimaginable turn and consequently
today, the family are better remembered as the Seven Dwarfs of Auschwitz. Throughout
the programme Davies retraces the experience of the Ovitz family, visiting the
village where they had lived, the ghetto they were moved too and finally Auschwitz,
where they were transported in 1944 and lived until liberation.  |
| The Ovitz family http://themicrogiant.com/warwick-davis-the-seven-dwarfs-of-auschwitz-2013 |
I first heard of the Ovitz family back in 2007 when I was doing
research ahead of our trip to Poland and so when I saw this programme was being
re-run this week, having originally aired in March 2013, I was interested to revisit
the topic and see how it was approached. I wasn’t disappointed. In fact I was
really impressed. Something that has come across though writing many of the
blogs I’ve written is that straying from the mainstream narrative and big
events in history, is a hugely positive step and this programme firmly places little
people into the historical narrative of this period.
The producers drew on experts from Imperial College, the
Holocaust Research Centre RHUL, and Auschwitz Museum. You also had the authors
of Giants: The Dwarfs of Auschwitz,
Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren who offered valuable historical context, as well
as survivors and amazingly, footage of an interview conducted with the youngest
sibling, Perla Ovitz from 1999, which was interwoven throughout the whole
programme. I don’t want to say too much more in case you watch, it I’d like to
mention the few things really stuck out for me.  |
| Certainly worth a read I think! |
The first was the contextualisation provided by Koren and
Negev. As a viewer we are told that the 1930s “were really they heyday of the
interest in dwarfism….” (Negev) and how around the world there were some 75 agents
recruiting little people for the entertainment business and who would “mak[e] a
living out of exhibiting their deformity” (Koren). What I hadn’t considered as
well, was that in 1937, Disney released Snow White which infamously has 7
dwarfs as main characters and it transpires this movie really propelled the
craze to its height. I had never even considered the connection between the two,
or relatedly, that the Nazi’s would have used the story of Snow White as a
piece of propaganda to spread the message of the master race. I think Disney
movies are in a sense timeless, and I for one certainly over look how they fit
into the time period in which they are made and the impact they might have had.
However to return to point, Koren strongly emphasises that the
Ovitz’s tried to avoid this craze; they wanted to be recognised for their abilities
and not an act based on gimmicks. The Ovitz’s were performers and entertainers,
that’s how they wanted to be known and I think it was really important that
this was re-established that at the centre of this programme. The central
message being to remind us that they were an ordinary family with aspirations just
the same as everyone else and that they shouldn’t be defined by what happened
to them during the war. They were individuals and much more than ‘the seven
dwarfs of Auschwitz’.
As the narrative progresses, we reach the part where the train
arrived in Auschwitz and are told how the Ovitz family were ‘saved’ because of
Dr Mengele’s fascination with physical deformity and desire to conduct
experiments on those not seen as belonging to the ‘master race’. He had particular
interest in identical twins, people with different coloured eyes and little people
– the Ovitz family providing a unique case study - here were 9 siblings and
their families (one had escaped round up and was executed once captured), a
number of whom who all suffered with the same condition. Dr Mengele arranged
for them to be moved into special living quarters, where they were then exposed
to horrific human experimentation.
Armand Leroi, Professor of Evolutionary Developmental Biology
at Imperial College, is interviewed for the programme and describes
how Mengele was of the generation of scientists who were influenced by
comparative biology. Yet Leroi concludes that nothing valuable could be learnt
from the experiments Mengele carried out, saying how they were:
“Bizarre, irrelevant, appalling experiments…. it’s a sort of moral vacuum
in which scientists had opportunity to do whatever they wanted, no matter what
the cost or the consequences. It’s a rite over life and death…”
The experiments the Ovitz’s were inflicted with are beyond
comprehension – it was invasive, rigorous and relentless and only liberation brought
it to an end. The Ovitz’s all survived the war and lived to grand old ages,
having emigrated to Israel in May 1949 and within months, were back on the
stage performing as the Lilliput Troupe – an ending at the beginning of the
programme you may not have anticipated.
I thought the programme was really well put together, a
great balance of archive footage and interviews and poignant remarks by all (then
again, how could they not be when talking about the Holocaust). The programme was
very much a personal voyage of discovery for Davies and one which focused on
the experiences of this one particular family; but what an amazing story, told
by amazing people.
As Davies draws the programme to a close he concludes:
“we look at pictures and we read stories and accounts of things…
somehow you feel remote from it. It’s when you go to the places that you really
start too… and realise, hang on a minute these aren’t tales, this is something
that happened and this is where is happened…”
He carried out his investigation and offered a candid and
honest description of his experiences. |
| Perla Ovitz http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-December-2007 |
she were to give consent for the interview in 1999. She would not allow the interview to take place within her house where people would be distracted by the interior modifications. It was important for her, that her experiences were what came across and that her words were what are remembered. A wise and insightful lady - for her closing lines are ones I will not forget in a hurry. Firstly she explained how she didn’t feel able to hate Dr Mengele, because if it had not been for his experiments and his fascination with the family, they would unlikely have survived - 'I was saved by the grace of the devil" she said in an interview with Koren and Negev (1).
But then she goes on to say:
‘I put on make-up because I don’t want people to pity me… as the saying
goes ’the lips smile, but the heart weeps’…
Pity was not a feeling I felt when I watched this
programme and heard her recall her memories – I was purely struck by the
unfathomable strength this family displayed throughout their wartime experience
and its aftermath.
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