Chris Weitz: Inspired by my father the refugee

The director of 'American Pie' reveals how his German-Jewish roots influenced his new film.

By Stephen Applebaum, July 29, 2011

...In ["A Better Life"], a crisis forces Luis to see for the first time what his father has given up and how he will never again experience his homeland and culture in the same way. This is essentially an "accelerated" version of something that Weitz went through. Except that in his case, it was not until after his father, John, died in 2002, says the director, "that I really began to understand the aspects of history and his background that had haunted him."

Born Hans Werner Weitz in Berlin in 1923, John was the son of a wealthy textile manufacturer. He was awarded the Iron Cross after being wounded on the Eastern Front in the First World War,

In 1933, when the Nazis came to power, he was packed off by his parents to be educated in England, at The Hall Preparatory School in Hampstead, and then St. Paul's School, and, finally, Oxford University. When war broke out, he was interned temporarily in a camp near Liverpool.

His parents accepted in the meantime that there was no future for them in Germany, and escaped to America as refugees. When their son joined them, "there was nothing", Weitz sighs, the family business having been "sold for a pittance" in the rush to leave. "There is a country house in East Berlin that has been going through a legal process for 15 years, since the Wall came down. But it will probably never be returned to the family," he says.

At least America gave John a way to "strike back" at the Nazi regime. He joined the army, and because he spoke fluent German and looked aryan, he was recruited for undercover work by the OSS -- the precursor to the CIA - and became one of the first people to enter Dachau after its liberation. "He told me a story that I will never forget," says Weitz. "He talked about seeing the gas chambers and this little glass window so that the operator could see that the people had died, and described seeing taped under that glass window a picture of the gas chamber operator's daughter. That image, I think, affected the rest of his life."

Though he went on to become a highly successful fashion designer and author in America, Weitz's father never forgot where he came from or what had happened. "The story of his later years was really the story of his trying to come to grips with his German heritage," says his son. "He did believe in Germany; he did believe in it as a country. He had dealings with German resistance members, and that, I think, saved the country for him in his mind."

Read the rest at the JC