(article is
from the news section)
1/27/2004 - By JOHN WHITTAKER
The man whose films helped Robert H. Jackson prosecute top Nazi leaders considers
himself ''lucky and privileged'' to have played a role in the Nuremberg war
crimes trial.
A standing room-only audience listened Monday at the Robert H. Jackson Center
as Budd Schulberg, an Oscar-winning movie producer and screenwriter, detailed
his role in the collection of evidence for the Nazi war crime trial at Nuremberg.
When his films - the first to be used in a trial in what Schulberg says is,
''probably the most important trial of all time'' - were finally played finally
displayed in the courtroom, his work left grown men unable to look at the film
evidence of concentration camps throughout Germany.
''It's something that's hard to erase from your mind,'' Schulberg said. ''I
know I've gone on a bit too long, but this is something that has stayed with
me all my life.''
Such a life changing event almost didn't happen for the New York City native.
Schulberg's background in film led him to the Office of Strategic Services,
the predecessor for the current Central Intelligence Agency. It was with the
OSS that he heard William Joseph Donovan, OSS chief, ask how each OSS division
could help with prosecution of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg.
''I said maybe we can collect film and photographs that can be used at the trial,''
he said. ''Bill Donovan asked me, 'How soon do you think you can get that together.'
I had no idea what I was getting myself into.''
Because of potential defense counsel concern that film from the United States
might have been tampered with, Donovan and Jackson told Schulberg that any film
he used had to come from Germany. Every piece of film was reviewed by Donovan
and Ben Kaplan before it was included in the final version of the documentary.
''Donovan was advising us as to what might be evidence and what might not be,''
Schulberg said. ''We were working in the dark because we were working so fast.
It was an amazing thing that Jackson did because he was working absolutely from
scratch. Indictments had not gone out. We were trying to anticipate what he
might be asking.''
Two tips led Schulberg to piles of burning film that he described as an, ''indescribable
archive.'' Finally, a third tip led Schulberg to a fan of a Hollywood colleague
and access to miles of negatives of Nazi propaganda films.
Even then, it took a pair of trial postponements for Schulberg to finish a film
culled from nearly 355,000 feet of Nazi film reels. It was eventually trimmed
to 65,000 feet - or the length of six feature films.
Schulberg's film created an irrefutable horror of the concentration camps, something
the filmmaker says contributed to Jackson's overall goal of creating a model
for future war crimes tribunals. Schulberg credits Jackson with creating a legitimate
trial that gave defendants a chance to defend themselves with the most competent
counsel possible.
''I actually heard Justice Jackson make his opening address at the trial,''
Schulberg said. ''It is something that really should be heard over and over
again. It's more relevant than ever with what's been happening with the dictators
around the world in Serbia and Iraq about the idea of holding a trial - which
was not be what the Russians and wanted, which was to shoot them.''
While crediting Jackson's vision to use film as part of his prosecution effort,
Schulberg also credits Greg Peterson and other Robert H. Jackson Center officials
for creating a center to preserve the history and legacy of Justice Jackson.
''I want to thank you, Greg, for inviting me here and perpetuating the legacy
of Justice Jackson,'' Schulberg said. ''It's a tremendous thing that you're
doing. It's so important that people of the younger generation, so many years
removed from that time and feel that it never happened. There are even some
people around the world who say it's a Jewish plot and that it never happened.
Here we know that it did. We owe a great debt to Justice Jackson.''