Jews and Israel

Saul Friedländer was born in Prague to a family of German-speaking Jews. He grew up in France and experienced the German Occupation of 1940–1944. From 1942 until 1946, Friedländer was hidden in a Catholic boarding school in Montlucon, near Vichy. While in hiding, he converted to Roman Catholicism and later began preparing for the Catholic priesthood.[1] His parents attempted to flee to Switzerland, were arrested instead by Vichy French gendarmes, turned over to the Germans and were gassed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Not until 1946 did Friedländer learn the fate of his parents.

After 1946, Friedländer grew more consciously aware of his Jewish identity and became a Zionist. In 1948, Friedländer emigrated to Israel on the Irgun ship Altalena. After finishing high school, he served in the Israeli army. From 1953-55, he studied Political Science in Paris. Later, Friedländer served as secretary to Nachum Goldman then President of the Zionist Organization and the World Jewish Congress. In 1959, he became an assistant to Shimon Peres, then vice-minister of defense. Late in the 1980s, Friedländer moved politically further to the left and was active in the Peace Now group.

Ashley Dukes and Paul Kornfeld also wrote dramatic adaptations of the Feuchtwanger novel. Orson Welles made his stage debut (at the Gate Theatre, on October 13, 1931) in Dukes' adaptation, as Duke Karl Alexander of Württemberg. In 1934, Lothar Mendes directed a film adaptation of the novel.[5]:42–44

In Germany, Joseph Goebbels had Veit Harlan direct a violently anti-Semitic film to counter the philo-semitism of Feuchtwanger's novel and Mendes' adaption of it. The Harlan film violated almost everything about the novel's characters and sentiments. In the Harlan film, Süß rapes a Gentile German girl and tortures her father and fiance before being put to death for his crimes.