Winona Ryder, Antisemitism and the Holocaust
Screenshot from The Plot Against America , HBO
My first memory of Winona Ryder was in the film Little Women, an adaptation of one of my favourite childhood novels of the same name. Ryder played the feisty tom-boyish character, Jo, who bucked the conventions of the day when it came to expectations for women. Ryder had already made a mark by acting in films like Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, and has, since then, appeared in a string of movies. She has never been far from the news, having gone through a bad-girl phase, which included being arrested for shop-lifting, struggled with mental health and drug addiction, and had a few high profile relationships, such as her first with Johnny Depp, whom she met at the tender age of 17.
More recently Ryder’s Jewish background has been the focus of publicity. Daughter of authors Cynthia Palmer and Michael D. Horowitz, Ryder’s real name is Winona Laura Horowitz. Her godfather is psychedelic guru, Dr Timothy Leary. Her father’s family emigrated from Russia and Romania and many family members died in the concentration camps.
In a recent interview the actress told of overhearing stories about the camps and the fears those stories invoked. She worried that ‘someone would knock on the door and drag them off to be murdered’ and often slept in the doorway of her parent’s bedroom, terrified that they might somehow be taken away.
Ryder’s experience of antisemitism within the movie industry ranged from being passed over for a period piece, because she looked too Jewish to be caste in a ‘blue-blooded’ family, to, at other times, being told she was too pretty to be Jewish. A spat with actor Mel Gibson also resurfaced when Ryder revealed that he had once asked her if she was an ‘oven dodger’.
Screenshot from The Plot Against America, HBO
Ryder featured in the recently premiered HBO mini-series, The Plot against America. Based on the Philip Roth novel, this series presents a counterfactual history that imagines what might have happened to America’s Jews had the antisemitic aviation hero Charles Lindbergh become President in 1940. Ryder plays Evelyn Finkel who becomes the wife of a southern rabbi and avid Lindbergh supporter, Lionel Bengelsdorf. The rabbi rises to power within the party’s administration, whitewashes Lindburgh’s campaign and intentions, and uses his influence to persuade fellow Jews to put their trust in the Nazi-sympathising president.
The story is centered on a traditional, but not overly religious Jewish working-class family living in an urban Jewish enclave in Newark, New Jersey. The responses of the various characters to the rise of a popular antisemitic leader are explored; from the teenage boy who admires Lindberg’s wartime exploits, to the passionate street-wise father who sees through it all, and the protective, perceptive mother who manages the fraught and conflicting relationships in her extended family. It is compelling viewing that’s hard not to binge watch. The parallels with Jewish responses in 1930s Europe are obvious; those who lived in denial, those who appeased and those who understood.
In speaking of the message of the series, Ryder remarked that it was ‘uncannily relevant amid the rise of political hate-speak’.
“It’s a very personal story… If you are a grandchild or a child of European Jews, it’s hard not to be untouched by it… It’s also a taste of what we’re living in now and what we might possibly be heading into in the future...”
If you haven’t seen the mini-series, it is recommended viewing. It’s power, for those familiar with the events of the 30s and 40s, is that it is all too believable
