A new documentary by Clara and Julia Kuperberg, “Hollywood and Hitler,” explores the influence the Nazis exerted on American movie studios in the 1930s. It focuses on how some American film studios cooperated with the Nazis during the 1930s and highlights certain Nazi groups and individuals who tried to expose them. It is very relevant today because of all the propaganda being spread by pro-Hamas groups after October 7th that has created major anti-Semitism abroad and here in America. It can be viewed on streaming.
Elise Cooper: Do you think this documentary relates to October 7th?
Clara and Julia Kuperberg: We are French. We live in LA, but we’re French. So, we go back and forth with friends and one of the reasons we wanted to come here in the US is because in France, it was getting very, very hard and very dangerous for Jews, especially right after the October 7th attacks. It’s very sad what’s happening right now in Europe, and it’s getting worse. We’re very concerned, and we are not very optimistic about the future, to be honest.
EC: What are the similarities between the 1930s in Germany and October 7th?
CJK: Our family, were deported, and part of our family went to Auschwitz. I was saying it’s like being in 1933 in France again, with this feeling that Jews must hide the fact that they’re Jewish, and are scared to celebrate the holidays. There is an attack and assault every day on a Jew in France, in Paris. I’m talking also about Belgium or Spain or even in the UK. Everywhere, it’s like they were all waiting for October 7th to happen to be anti-Semitic again.
EC: Do you think your film will arouse the awareness of what happened in the 1930s is happening again today?
CJK: The victims of October 7th were ignored. I mean, there were babies that were killed. They were mothers who were pregnant, their infants pulled from their stomach. This is unbelievable. Yeah. It’s like being in World War II again. It’s people hiding their Mezuzah, what Jews put on their door side. We were targeted as Jews. We didn’t want to stay in a country where we are not safe. Our father keeps telling us all the time, ‘it’s going to happen again. You must be ready to move, to quit, to leave friends, to leave Europe, you must be ready for that. And you need to get prepared and to be ready.’
EC: Do you think your documentary shows how American Jews during the 1930’s ignored what is happening?
CJK: The Jews, some of them woke up, but some of them didn’t wake up, and it’s the same today, that there are a lot of Jews. that are sleeping. The far left, it’s openly anti- Semitic now. And it’s like they were all waiting for an October 7th to happen so they could blame Israel. They use Israel to be anti- Semitic. The same goes for the Democrat socialists in this country who have no policy except Israel commits genocide. That’s their policy. That’s the only thing. The UN just said that it was not a starvation in Gaza, so that was propaganda, which we talk about in the documentary. How the Nazis tried to use propaganda for their own purposes here in the US.
EC: Your documentary notes how the Nazis and the American film studios worked together before the US entered WWII. Please comment.
CJK: As we did the research, we were struck by all the footage that we saw of the Nazis here in the middle of Hollywood. We knew of the Madison Square Garden rally that happened in 1939. But we surely didn’t know that all those things happened here in Hollywood, just in the heart of Hollywood, of Los Angeles. There is nothing, not one movie about it. So, so we wanted to make a documentary.
EC: Do you think both the Nazis and the pro Hamas celebrities try to influence Americans through Hollywood?
CJK: Hollywood is the biggest propaganda machine out there. Hollywood is like a tool. It’s the perfect tool for these people. What is scaring me the most is that we need to remember it, how quick it can happen again. And that’s the thing that scares me the most, that overnight, coming out with their anti-Semitism. It’s been three years since October 7th but no one can talk to these people. They just don’t listen. They just want to be anti-Semitic. They all like the common ground of being anti-Semitic. That the only thing. That is crazy. That is totally crazy.
EC: Did the Hollywood executives put money over values, getting into a pact with the Devil?
CJK: The Export Law by Germany in 1932 and in 1934, there was the Production Code. The Nazis did not want Jewish actors; they didn’t want Jewish characters. They didn’t want anti-German and Hollywood kind of went along with it. They allowed Germany to censor the films. Yet, it was not so simple, there is a lot of grey. The American movie industry was a big industry giving jobs to a lot of people. People need to remember that it was just after the big depression. Mostly all the studios were bankrupt. So, it was a very tough time for the studios. They had to make a choice, a very difficult choice. It was more complicated at that time. It’s always easy in hindsight.
EC: What about George Guest Gyssling?
CJK: He was a very important character in Hollywood, because he was sent by Goebbels and Hitler to censor all the movies, and he did his job very well. So, yes, he was the most hated guy in Hollywood at that time. He really helped Hitler. He effectively suppressed anti-Nazi sentiments in movies by leveraging threats and manipulation, ensuring that Hollywood studios complied with Nazi interests by eliminating negative portrayals of Germany and the Nazis from American films. Hollywood executives often complied with Gyssling’s demands, removing Jewish references and altering scripts.
EC: You also refer to the two plots to kill Jewish movie executives?
CJK: The very far right movement, and the anti-Semitic groups, organized those plots. Leon Lewis was amazing. Because he was one of the only ones at the time to believe that the Nazis were a threat right here in America, not only in Germany. He infiltrated the Nazis groups.
EC: Do you think Charlie Chaplin and Warner Bros. Studios stepped up to the plate?
CJK: Warner Bros put out the anti-Nazi film, “Confessions of a Nazi Spy” and Charlie Chaplain put out “The Great Dictator.” Warner Bros pulled out of Germany completely.
EC: Did you ever make any films about the anti-Nazi celebrities?
CJK: “The Hollywood Spies,” about the OSS, the former CIA. It trained actors and actress to become spies, such as Cary Grant, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, even Julia Child. All these people were spies during World War II and they could travel without any visa or any passport. They were invited into high society where there were high-ranking Nazis. They could spy on them and report to those in the US.
EC: Next project?
CJK: Our next documentary is about how Hollywood treated the nuclear threat from the 1950s until today. Basically, it’s from Godzilla to Oppenheimer.
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