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September 29, 2009 | 3:39 pm

Does jail remind Roman Polanski of the Holocaust?

Posted by Danielle Berrin

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How did Roman Polanski, one of the world’s acclaimed directors—and a Holocaust survivor—become an international fugitive?

At least he was one, until last Sunday, when Swiss authorities caught up with Polanski in Zurich and arrested him for a sex crime that occurred 32 years ago. Now, Polanski sits in a Zurich prison, awaiting possible extradition to the United States where he faces sentencing for a 1977 conviction of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. Polanski pleaded guilty to the charge more than three decades ago before fleeing the U.S. for France, where he has resided since.

Polanski’s arrest has inflamed the Hollywood community and upset international filmmakers from New York to China. Apparently, a crime isn’t a crime once enough time has passed. After it was announced that the director of “Chinatown,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and the Oscar-winning “The Pianist” would be detained in Switzerland indefinitely, while he fights extradition, film directors rallied with an international petition demanding his release. According to ABC News, directors Woody Allen, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, Wim Wenders, Pedro Almodovar and Darren Aronofsky are among the signatories. In addition, Entertainment Weekly has recently reported that “Rush Hour” director Brett Ratner is producing a follow-up to the 2008 documentary “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” which chronicles the details of the sex case and alleges judicial and prosecutorial misconduct.

And of course, there’s Polanski’s victim, Samantha Geimer, now 45, but a tender 13-years-old when Polanski drugged and raped her, who has also petitioned that the case be dropped. In 2003, Geimer told the Honolulu Star that she forgave Polanski and wanted the media attention to go away: “Straight up, what he did to me was wrong,” Geimer said. “But I wish he would return to America so the whole ordeal can be put to rest for both of us. I’m sure if he could go back, he wouldn’t do it again. He made a terrible mistake but he’s paid for it.” According to The First Post, a British weekly, Geimer re-entered the public eye when the documentary, “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” about the infamous sex case, premiered earlier this year. In an interview, she again absolved Polanski of any wrongdoing: “I think he’s sorry, I think he knows it was wrong. I don’t think he’s a danger to society. I don’t think he needs to be locked up forever and no one has ever come out ever - besides me - and accused him of anything. It was 30 years ago now. It’s an unpleasant memory ... (but) I can live with it.”

Understandably, Geimer wants to put the case to rest almost as badly as Polanski does—but the Los Angeles district attorney’s office just won’t have it. According to some reports, Polanski’s boastful lawyer triggered a determined response from the county. According to the New York Daily News:

In paperwork filed as part of his bid to get 31-year-old rape charges dropped, Polanski’s lawyers said the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office wasn’t really trying to hunt him down.

Bad move.

The Los Angeles Times reported that this claim “caught the eye” of prosecutors and prompted them to plot an end to Polanski’s three decades as a fugitive. But the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office contends it has been trying to nab the filmmaker since he fled 30 years ago - including once in Israel as recently as 2007.

Prosecutors released a list Monday detailing their efforts to nab the director since 1978. They sought arrest warrants for Polanski in England, Thailand and France, they said.


Law enforcers will not be dissuaded from having their day in court, but popular opinion is increasingly in support of a Polanski reprieve. In Paris, Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said that he “strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them.” Mitterrand is referring to Polanski’s turbulent personal history. Polanski was born in WWII-era Paris to a Polish Jewish father and a Roman Catholic mother. His family moved to Poland in 1936 and was living in Krakow when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. The family was then forced into the Krakow Ghetto and Polanski’s parents were soon deported to separate concentration camps. According to Wikipedia, his father survived the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria, but his mother perished in Auschwitz (Polanski’s maternal grandfather was Jewish and his maternal grandmother, Roman Catholic; in some circles, his mother’s Judaism would be disputed, but the religious disparity was not enough to save her life). In 1943, Polanski escaped the Kraków Ghetto with the help of Polish Roman Catholic families and eventually reunited with his father. Another personal torment occurred in 1969, when Polanski’s pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by the Manson Family.

Considering his troubled past, it’s hard to blame Polanski for seeking freedom. He has already lived inside the confines of a prison and perhaps fear of reliving that particular nightmare prompted him to flee. 
 

 


 

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Same old story ,I lived a hard life so what ever I do is not my falt. This man seeing the horror of the camps should know that what he did was wrong and still be in jail. Why do people support this man? Would they leave thier teenage child with him ? We need a list of all the people who support this creep so we don’t ever watch another one of thier movies!

Comment by andy lemble on 9/29/09 at 4:15 pm

So having a tough childhood gives him a get-out-of-jail-free card?  Drugging and raping a child OUGHT to be punished by time in the slammer, not 42 days of observation.  Despite Berrin’s assumption, the judge was under no obligation to accept the plea bargin, and Polanski himself had to acknowledge that before the court accepted his plea. 

Justice has indeed been delayed, but with luck it will not be denied too much longer.  Until then it is good to know that he’s locked up in a Swiss prison.

Comment by Ziggle on 9/29/09 at 9:09 pm

Can’t go along with you on this, Danielle – for several reasons. Public opinion isn’t increasingly supportive of Polanski; it’s overwhelmingly against the man. You don’t really bring out why this is so: his victim was orally, vaginally, and anally raped, and his flight to avoid punishment was illegal. As a result of the first offense he spent 42 days in jail for psychological testing. Polanski has escaped the horrors that were experienced by his parents and wife, and has instead inflicted new horrors on a 13 year old girl who kept saying No to him. It strikes me as extremely offensive to compare his experience with the experience of a Holocaust victim. Please use your imagination and ask whether 42 days in a southern California jail or anal rape in your childhood is more likely to evoke a nightmare. The man has been breaking the law concerning flight to avoid punishment for over 30 years; the consequence that he’s now an old man hardly excuses him, any more than it excused Bernie Madoff. I agree that Polanski’s not to blame for seeking freedom now. He’s to blame for breaking the law and raping a child. Don’t these things have consequences?

Comment by Stephen Voss on 9/29/09 at 9:58 pm

“...popular opinion is increasingly in support of a Polanski reprieve.”
Untrue, as far as France is concerned.
Only the élite believe artistic merit deserves impunity, the popular feeling in France is much the same as elsewhere, ie he should face the music.

Comment by oblomov on 9/30/09 at 4:35 am

Borrowing from Kate Harding’s incredible post on Salon—http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/09/28/polanski_arrest/: 
[The justice system] works on behalf of the people, in fact—the people whose laws in every state make it clear that both child rape and fleeing prosecution are serious crimes. The point is not to keep 76-year-old Polanski off the streets or help his victim feel safe. The point is that drugging and raping a child, then leaving the country before you can be sentenced for it, is behavior our society should not—and at least in theory, does not—tolerate, no matter how famous, wealthy or well-connected you are, no matter how old you were when you finally got caught, no matter what your victim says about it now, no matter how mature she looked at 13, no matter how pushy her mother was, and no matter how many really swell movies you’ve made.

Roman Polanski raped a child. No one, not even him, disputes that. Regardless of whatever legal misconduct might have gone on during his trial, the man admitted to unlawful sex with a minor. But the Polanski apologism we’re seeing now has been heating up since “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” the 2008 documentary about Polanski’s fight to get the conviction dismissed. Writing in Salon, Bill Wyman criticized the documentary’s whitewashing of Polanksi’s crimes last February, after Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza ruled that if the director wanted to challenge the conviction, he’d need to turn himself in to U.S. authorities and let the justice system sort it out. “Fugitives don’t get to dictate the terms of their case ... Polanski deserves to have any potential legal folderol investigated, of course. But the fact that Espinoza had to state the obvious is testimony to the ways in which the documentary, and much of the media coverage the director has received in recent months, are bizarrely skewed.”

Comment by Nishma on 9/30/09 at 7:50 am

what if polanski ‘the hunted jew’ had raped a jewish little girl. and he also happenned to be christian or catholic or muslim or whatever. would your supportive argument for ‘polanski’ change. EVERYONE SUFFERRED IN WW2. for gods sake.

Comment by polinjail on 9/30/09 at 1:01 pm

he will have paid ‘‘the price’’ once he has spent a few years in a prison cell, locked in all night with a bigger, more powerful, and more aggressive ‘cellmate’ who will likely have a few demands of Polanski..

turn about is fair play..

This would not be provided even a moments worth of media discussion if Polanski was not a darling of the Gliteratti, who feel that one of their ‘own’ is not to be subjected to nuisances like laws..

Polanski would be out of jail by now if he had done his time for a vicious predatory attack.. this is about ONE EVEN PLAYING FIELD for all, and one single standard for punishment, that applies to…GASP… even the rich and famous. 

Polanski for too long has escaped his turn to feel what it is like to be powerless, and under the control of incarceration and his fellow inmates.. it time to pay the price like a man,.. if you can, Roman

Comment by clint eastwood on 9/30/09 at 4:08 pm

Polanski was born in WWII-era Paris to a Polish Jewish father and a Roman Catholic mother.

According to the Ultra-Orthodox & Orthodox Jews Polanski is not a Jew.

According Rambam & the Sages Jews should not be mossers.


HALACHIC QUESTIONS
            Rabbi J. Simcha Cohen
            Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
                A Jewish Informer
    (In commemoration of the yahrzeit of HaGaon HaRav Yitzhak Hutner, z"l, 20th Kislev —December 19.)
    Question:  Jewish law considers the crime of informing upon a fellow Jew a most vile and odious sin.  Why?  What is the nature of the sin of the informer (the mosser) that galvanizes such a negative reaction?
    Response:  The Rambam rules that an informer is not to be deemed part of Klal Yisrael (Hilchot Mamrim 2:2).  In another section, the Rambam notes that an informer is not to receive a share in the World to Come (Hilchot Teshuva 3:12).  The rationale of the Rambam, says Hagaon Rav Hutner, z"l, is based upon the following theory:  One who separates himself from the ways of the community (ha’poresh mi’darchei tzibbur) “even though he does not sin… has no share in the World to Come” (ibid. 3:11).  Thus, separation from communal standards is tantamount to exclusion from the Jewish people.  This, moreover, does not have to relate to any specific sin.  Informing on Jews, contends Hagaon Rav Hutner, is an action that goes against the essence of Jewish communal standards.  It is a behavioral pattern that is simply not Jewish.  This is not what Jews do.  As such, the informer (mosser) is excluded from Klal Yisrael because of his refusal to conform to the moral character of the Jewish people (Pachad Yitzhak, Pesach, Ma’amar 63:5).
    Rabbi Cohen is the Rav of the Mizrachi Kehilla in Merbourne and the author of several halachic works, the latest being “How Does Jewish Law Work?”  (Jason Aronson)
*************************************************************
Rabbi J. Simcha Cohen’s article, “A Jewish Informer,” appeared on page 49 of the 19 December 1997 issue of The Jewish Press, 338 Third Avenue, Brooklyn, New York   11215-1897
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Comment by Gerald Goldberg on 10/01/09 at 11:04 am

This isn’t the Holocaust, of course, but if a criminal can demonstrate that he has learned his lesson then he should be given an opportunity to remain free.  Polanski has had no arrests in over 30 years.

Comment by Nick on 10/04/09 at 9:36 am

Yo,

Talmudic law states that if Jews are living in a corrupt country, they should not inform on other Jews. It is clear that America is a corrupt country. If it was a Law abiding country, Bush & CO would be in prison with Maddoff for the rest of their life. Polanski is only a scapegoat to take your mind of the REAL criminals.

Bush & CO LIED to the American people & invaded Iraq, murdering tems of thousands of INNOCENT VICTIMS. Polanski’s VICTIM has asked that he be not charged & imprisoned, something the Iraqi people have not done.

Yes! What Polanski did was wrong, but compared to the millions of women who allowed docters to murder their unborn child in their womb (abortion), he looks angelic.
You have hundreds of Dr. Mengeles living in your midst, murdering millions of children & yet you do not ask Mossad & other agencies to track them down & bring them to justice.

When one looks at the bigger picture, Polanski is only a gnat, while you allow a herd of CAMELS to run wild. Its time you got a grip & stop being lead by the nose by the PROPAGANDA Media. You should be crying to Heaven to have BUSH & CO brought to justice for their CRIMES.

Comment by Gerald Goldberg on 10/04/09 at 10:19 am

Let me get this straight.  It happened a long time ago so we should forget about it.  And two, Roman went thru the holocaust or his parent/parents did.  Give me a break, the Holocaust is being used as a crutch far, far too often.  The Holocaust happened a long time ago, so should we forgive all who were involved (the guards, the doctors, the administrators, the Klinks, the Adolfs)?  I cannot believe that the Hollywood Jews would go so far as to protect one of their own.  Bring the scum back and sentence him appropriately.

Comment by legal harry on 10/14/09 at 4:32 pm

Yo LEGAL HARRY,


“Laws of Rape   (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)
 

If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father.  Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.

According TORAH it should only cost Polanski 50 pieces of silver & his home & free. His “victim” is married now, so he hasn’t to marry her.


The “victim” was a SEXUALLY ACTIVE, DRUG TAKING, ALCOHOL DRINKING 13 YEAR OLD, GOING ON 20. This was no INNOCENT 13 YEAR OLD CHILD. Reading her testimony will bear this out. Polonski liked them young & he had no trouble getting SEXUALLY ACTIVE YOUNG WOMEN to have sex with him.

Comment by Gerald Goldberg on 10/15/09 at 12:38 am

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