THE ARAB OF WARSAW
Evan Schmidt, seventeen, wants out. Wants out of his mother’s life, out of high school, out of the Northwest and out of the pit of guilt he has dug for himself. Maybe that’s his attraction to film – where you can write, rewrite, edit and cut out all the bullshit, and leave moments best forgotten frozen in time on the cutting room floor or crumpled in the virtual trash can on his computer.
Evan, gifted and bright but on a downward spiral after the death of his younger sister, signs up for the All My Yesterdays film project at Six Cedars Active Aging Community. There he meets a strange and vile, yet intriguing, old man, Leo Pollen. On the outside, Leo is nothing but a creaking, drunk, drugged-out old con man – hardly good fodder for a stellar docu-memory the other high schoolers have found at Six Cedars to document. Still, there is something very disturbing, very seductive and dark about this old man – lifetime loser – for Leo also writes stories about hate, death, war, vengeance and love and regret. Evan is immediately drawn into Leo’s past – far back to 1939 and the streets of Warsaw, Poland as the Germans invade, as world war looms, as the Holocaust begins.
Evan learns they called him the Arab of Warsaw, a young punk who turned his back on his family, his fortune, his future, his religion and his people. As a kid on the streets, he steals, lies, cheats, cons and methodically kills. But he also survives the coming of the German army, as it goosesteps into Warsaw. The way Leo tells it, this Arab of Warsaw could be a whole R-rated XBox Game, only without the XBox. Can hero be anti-hero?
As a seller of cigarettes and anything else he can trade or steal on the streets, Arab meets a young Nazi lieutenant, Fritz Von Segen. They find they have many things in common, a fondness for cigarettes, liquor and, of all things, language. Arab finds he can survive if he caters to the vices, whims and the arrogance of the Germans. Who is he to get in their way? What is there to lose except himself … and perhaps his innocent, crippled baby sister, Ruth?
But as Leo recounts these times, as he fades in and out of the present, in and out of reality, Evan begins to doubt him. Just another old fart living in a past that probably never was. Old folks exaggerate, forget, embellish and old folks just plain out and out lie. What do they have to lose? Yet Evan is drawn back by Leo’s seductive skill with a story. Perhaps a film based on Leo’s incredible past can become Evan’s ticket to film school.
As Arab’s and Evan’s stories entwine, an awkward friendship is forged, trust is begrudgingly granted. A memory from decades ago revives a memory of yesterday; a comment today crawls back into the bleak darkness of the Warsaw sewers in 1940. A scene from a frigid winter long ago evokes things best forgotten today. A random act of violence sixty-eight years ago begets forgiveness today.
The Arab of Warsaw is a story of heroism and cowardice, insignificant acts and of monumental acts, standing out and standing up and turning to look the other way. It is a story of sparing lives, taking lives and forgiving others and ourselves for making these choices. It’s also the story of not forgiving. It is neither black nor white for who isn’t both at times? We are all gray at the end of the day, only in the shades of different circumstances. Would you kill to save a life? Would you betray someone to save yourself? Would you forgive yourself for saving strangers when you could not save the ones you loved?
Above all, The Arab of Warsaw is a story of forgiveness, of changing of lives, of knowing when to move on, knowing when to go back and knowing when to leave well-enough alone.
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