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A Jewish producer of ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ sees his family history in the Oscar-nominated Netflix film
(JTA) — The film producer Daniel Dreifuss has only one surviving photo of a distant relative: his grandfather’s cousin, who fought for Germany in World War I and died in combat two days before the war’s end.
He has a few more photos of his grandfather, who also wore the German uniform in WWI — only to be rounded up by the Nazis two decades later during Kristallnacht and thrown into a concentration camp, as even the Jews who had fought for their country were not safe from its campaign of race extermination.
Dreifuss, who was raised in Brazil after his surviving ancestors fled the war to Uruguay, held up these weathered black-and-white photos to his Zoom camera as he spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from his home in Los Angeles. One shows his grandfather’s cousin in his military uniform, the other shows his grandparents posing together, between the wars.
“Twenty years later, your country, that you just gave your health for and your cousin for and your family for, sends you to a camp,” he said. “It’s a lot of trauma to have to go through in one lifetime.”
These family stories echoed through Dreifuss’ mind when he first read the script for a proposed modern take on “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the classic 1928 novel about the German army’s hellish experiences during World War I. Nearly a century later, author Erich Maria Remarque’s descriptions of trench warfare and of the utter lack of heroism, valor or patriotism felt by its soldier protagonists resonated with Dreifuss.
“I said, ‘I know these people,’” he recalled. “Not because they are some distant relatives that I’ve heard of, but because I am the grandson of one of those kids who were in the film.”
Dreifuss’ parents met at a Jewish youth group in Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s. “My father was my mother’s madrich,” he recalled, using the Hebrew word for a youth group counselor. After they were later married, they moved to Israel partially to avoid Brazil’s military dictatorship and became left-wing political activists. They left Israel just before the Yom Kippur War and relocated to Scotland, where Dreifuss was born, before returning to Brazil to raise him.
Dreifuss had his bar mitzvah in the city of Belo Horizonte before later moving to Rio, which has a much larger Jewish community. “My family was never at all religious, but culturally Jewish,” he said, recalling Passover celebrations and gefilte fish recipes. He did not have many Jewish friends growing up, but his Brazilian friends were interested in Judaism and would attend his family’s Jewish events.
Daniel Dreifuss, a producer of Netflix’s “All Quiet on the Western Front,” holds up a photo of his grandfather Max Dreifuss from 1919, recovering from his German military service in WWI. Max was sent to a concentration camp once the Nazis took power. (Courtesy of Daniel Dreifuss)
This global upbringing is reflected in Dreifuss’ interest in international film. It took a decade for him to mount his remake of “All Quiet,” which was eventually set up with a German production company and released by Netflix this past fall amid another endless military conflict in Europe. No one, he said, wanted to fund a resolutely anti-war film that refused to glorify its combatants, a film that was “never a hero’s journey, not the story of someone who came, you know, beat 1,000 people with their bare hands, triumphs and looks down on top of a hill at the end with some sweeping score.”
But that journey has been validated by the film’s impressive Oscar total, which surprised industry observers. At the nomination ceremony last month, “All Quiet” received nine total nods, the second most of any film this year, including for best picture — which the novel’s original 1930 Hollywood adaptation, directed by Jewish filmmaker Lewis Milestone, won. (This year’s Academy Awards will be held March 12.)
Considering the Nazis had once led a campaign of book burning against the source material and terrorized German movie theaters that showed the original movie adaptation, accusing it of being a “Judenfilm,” Dreifuss sees the new film’s success as a historical victory, too. “I love that my name will be associated with a story that was deemed degenerate by that regime,” he said.
When he was first presented with an early draft of the new “All Quiet” script, in 2013, Dreifuss was coming off of the success of another international historical film he had produced. “No,” a 1980s-set Chilean political drama, starred Gael Garcia Bernal as an ad executive tasked with convincing his country to vote the dictator Augusto Pinochet out of office. The film netted Chile’s first-ever Oscar nomination for international feature film, although Dreifuss himself is not Chilean.
In researching “No,” Dreifuss said, the film’s team had trouble finding Chileans who would admit to having cast their real-life vote in Pinochet’s favor — even though 40% of the population did so. “We couldn’t find one single person who supported him,” he recalled. “At some point, years later, no one wanted to say, ‘I supported it, I voted, I was on that side.’” He saw a parallel to the history of geopolitics in the run-up to WWII, when many Western countries — including his family’s adopted homeland of Brazil — were initially sympathetic to the Nazis.
When Hollywood studios turned down the proposed remake of “All Quiet,” forcing Dreifuss to turn to European financing, he saw an opportunity to mount the first-ever German adaptation of the property, which would allow the film to open up a “historical perspective” on how the aftermath of WWI led to the rise of the Nazis and the Holocaust.
German filmmaker Edward Berger, who also helmed several episodes of the espionage miniseries “Deutschland 83,” stepped into the director’s chair, and he also has a co-writing credit. German star Daniel Brühl, who has played many historical villains to the Jewish people in films ranging from “7 Days in Entebbe” to “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” took a key supporting role as the lead negotiator for the armistice agreements — the sole figure in the movie trying to find a peaceful resolution for his country. (The historical figure Brühl portrays, Matthias Erzberger, was vilified as a traitor by the German right and assassinated in 1921 by antisemitic nationalist radicals who were precursors to the Nazis.)
Though there are no explicitly Jewish characters in the film, Dreifuss believes it still speaks to the fate that would soon await Europe’s Jews.
“We know what followed in the decade in Germany,” he said. “So we could bring that to the film in subtle ways.”
He pointed to the armistice plotline that foreshadows how the Treaty of Versailles left Germany in a deeply disadvantaged position, creating an opportunity for Hitler’s brand of national populism. There are also scenes in which thoughtless German generals, driven by nationalistic fervor and wounded pride, send entire squadrons to their deaths mere minutes before the armistice is set to take effect. In one sequence, the film’s lead, the soldier Paul (Felix Kammerer), steals a goose from a French farming family of non-combatants and says: “It’s a hatred of the other, of not understanding, of being raised to have an enemy.”
Dreifuss is dipping into a different chapter of world Jewish history with his next project: a Showtime miniseries produced with the co-creators of the Israeli Netflix series “Fauda” that explores CIA operations in the Middle East and is partially set during the Lebanon War in which Israel had a heavy, and oft-criticized, military presence. The series will air this summer.
He has also been pitched a host of WWI and WWII-related projects in the wake of the success of “All Quiet.” But, he joked, “I would love for people to not only think of me as the war guy, or as the dictator guy.”
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Netanyahu Coalition Pushes Contentious Oct. 7 Attack Probe, Families Call for Justice
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participates in the state memorial ceremony for the fallen of the Iron Swords War on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem on Oct. 16, 2025. Photo: Alex Kolomoisky/POOL/Pool via REUTERS
Israel‘s parliament gave the initial go-ahead on Wednesday for a government-empowered inquiry into the surprise October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas terrorists on southern Israel rather than the expected independent investigation demanded by families of the victims.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted calls to establish a state commission to investigate Israel‘s failures in the run-up to its deadliest day and has taken no responsibility for the attack that sparked the two-year Gaza war.
His ruling coalition voted on Wednesday to advance a bill which grants parliament members the authority to pick panel members for an inquiry and gives Netanyahu’s cabinet the power to set its mandate.
Critics say the move circumvents Israel‘s 1968 Commissions of Inquiry Law, under which the president of the Supreme Court appoints an independent panel to investigate major state failures such as those which preceded the 1973 Yom Kippur war.
Survivors and relatives of those hurt in the Hamas attack have launched a campaign against the proposed probe, saying only a state commission can bring those accountable to justice.
“This is a day of disaster for us all,” said Eyal Eshel, who lost his daughter when Hamas militants overran the army base where she served. “Justice must be done and justice will be done,” he said at the Knesset, before the vote.
Surveys have shown wide public support for the establishment of a state commission into the country’s biggest security lapse in decades.
Netanyahu said on Monday that a panel appointed in line with the new bill, by elected officials from both the opposition and the coalition, would be independent and win broad public trust.
But Israel‘s opposition has already said it will not cooperate with what it describes as an attempt by Netanyahu’s coalition to cover up the truth rather than reveal it, arguing that the investigation would ultimately be controlled by Netanyahu and his coalition.
The new bill says that if the politicians fail to agree on the panel, its make-up will be decided by the head of parliament, who is allied with Netanyahu and is a member of his Likud party.
Jon Polin, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin was taken hostage and found slain by his captors with five other hostages in a Hamas tunnel in August 2024, said only a trusted commission could restore security and unite a nation still traumatized.
“I support a state commission, not to see anyone punished and not because it will bring back my only son, no. I support a state commission so that nothing like what happened to my son, can ever happen to your son, or your daughter, or your parents,” Polin said on Sunday at a news conference with other families.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was among dozens of hostages taken in the 2023 attack from the site of the Nova music festival.
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Christmas Celebrations Muted at Bondi as Australians Grieve After Deadly Shooting
People attend the ‘Light Over Darkness’ vigil honoring victims and survivors of a deadly mass shooting during a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on Dec. 14, in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hollie Adams
Christmas celebrations were muted at Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach on Thursday in the aftermath of a terror attack that killed 15 people there more than a week ago, as the community continued to grapple with the country’s deadliest mass shooting in nearly three decades.
Police patrolled across the beachfront in Bondi, a traditional Christmas destination, as hundreds of people, many wearing Santa hats, gathered on the sands.
“I think it’s tragic, and I think everybody respects and is very sad for what happened, and I think people here are out on the beach, because it’s like a celebration but everybody has got it in their memories and everybody is respectful of what happened,” British tourist Mark Conroy told Reuters.
“Everyone is feeling for the family and friends who are going through the worst possible thing you could imagine.”
The gun attack on December 14 at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration has prompted calls for stricter gun laws and tougher action against antisemitism, while public gathering rules in Sydney have been tightened under new laws passed on Wednesday.
Beachgoers were seen taking photos next to a Christmas tree while some posed with lifeguards, although windy weather conditions appeared to thin crowds.
“It’s not the best conditions for Christmas Day today, it’s a bit choppy. … so not ideal, but people are still here,” Surf Life Saving Patrol Captain Thomas Hough said.
Flags flew at half mast outside the heritage-listed Bondi Pavilion building near the site of the attack, which police say was allegedly carried out by a father and son, inspired by the militant group Islamic State.
In Melbourne, a car with a “Happy Chanukah!” sign was set alight on Christmas Day in the city’s southeast, with no injuries reported, Australian media reported.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, facing mounting criticism from opponents who argue his government has not done enough to curb a rise in antisemitism, called the firebombing of the car “just beyond comprehension.”
“What sort of evil ideology and thoughts at a time like this would motivate someone?,” Albanese told reporters on Thursday.
Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023, there have been attacks against synagogues, Jewish buildings and cars in Australia.
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‘Poles Watching Can Be Proud’: Director Defends Holocaust Film 10-Years in the Making Sparking Backlash in Poland
Pelagia Radecka, featured in “Among Neighbors.” Photo: Courtesy of 8 Above
A documentary that addresses the historic and well-documented murder of hundreds of Holocaust survivors by local Poles in the aftermath of World War II has stirred political controversy within the Eastern European country, but its director told The Algemeiner the film mentions a lot that Poles can be proud of.
“There are stories within the film that Poles can look at and be proud of how those individuals acted during and since World War II,” said Yoav Potash, the Jewish award-winning writer, producer and director of “Among Neighbors.”
“And there are also stories that may make people feel like it’s a shame, that some Poles behaved the way they did,” he added. “And that’s an appropriate and mature response. To look at the history of your own nation and say, ‘Wow, some of us really failed in our decency and humanity.’”
Potash’s documentary “Among Neighbors” focuses on a handful of particular stories in the small town of Gniewoszów, in north-central Poland, where Jews were murdered by their Polish Catholic neighbors months after the war ended – neighbors whom they once lived peacefully with for centuries before World War II. The film uses hand-drawn animation as well as first-hand testimonies and interviews with Holocaust survivors, locals and World War II experts in Poland to tell the stories of Jews who were liberated at the end of the Holocaust only to be then murdered by local Poles when returning home.
At the heart of the film is Yaacov Goldstein, one of the last living Holocaust survivors from Gniewoszów, and Pelagia Radecka, a local Polish eyewitness who saw Jews murdered in Gniewoszów by her Polish neighbors, six months after the Nazis were defeated. Radecka has fond memories of her Jewish neighbors and at the age of 85, she remains scarred by their murders, and efforts by the murderers and politicians to silence her. She holds on to the hope that she will find the Jewish boy who is the surviving child of two of the victims murdered by local Poles. Goldstein talks in the film about his wartime experiences and the brutal conditions he was forced to endure to survive the Holocaust, which include hiding for two years in a storage compartment so small he could not straighten his legs and escaping execution by a Nazi firing squad because of “a miracle.”
Several elders from Gniewoszów were interviewed for “Among Neighbors” and all but two have since died. The film features their final testimony.
It took Potash 10 years to make “Among Neighbors,” the filmmaker from California told The Algemeiner. He said he was basically “flying under the radar” filming the project in Poland when the country passed a law in 2018 criminalizing any claims that the Polish nation or state was complicit in the Holocaust. The controversial legislation, making it illegal to accuse Poland of colluding with the Nazis, was championed by the ruling nationalist Law and Justice party. The country has a long-standing history of promoting the narrative that Poles were only victims in Nazi-occupied Poland. In November, Polish Member of Parliament Grzegorz Braun declared “Poland is for the Poles” and that Jews “have their own countries” during a speech outside the site of the former Auschwitz concentration camp.
“Among Neighbors” made its world premiere at the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival last year, where it won the festival’s Special Award. Poland’s national public broadcaster TVP aired the film in November and its television premiere garnered well over 100,000 viewers, according to Potash. “Among Neighbors” is still available for viewers in Poland on TVP’s streaming platform.
But on Nov. 16, six days after “Among Neighbors” aired and began streaming in Poland, senior Polish officials and right-wing media outlets condemned both the film and TVP. Agnieszka Jędrzak, undersecretary to Polish President Karol Nawrocki, called the film “anti-Polish historical manipulation” in a post on X. The National Broadcasting Council of Poland (KRRiT) has since launched an investigation into TVP, which is ongoing. So far TVP is standing by its broadcast of the film and has not removed “Among Neighbors” from its streaming platform.
Speaking to The Algemeiner, Potash insisted that “Among Neighbors” is “not an anti-Polish film.”
“I think there is plenty in the film for Poles to look at and be proud of,” he explained. “And that would include the story of the man who forged papers for Jews in Gniewoszów and saved the lives of at least nine people by giving them false papers that could make them appear to be not Jewish, so they can flee Poland and get to safety. In addition to including this story in the film, we contacted Yad Vashem and told them we had someone to add to the Righteous Among the Nations. And we made that happen. In 2018, he was inducted posthumously. We felt like this individual deserves that special honor.”
Potash added that Polish viewers can also be proud of Radecka “because she showed a lot of courage overcoming overwhelming pressure from the murderers, and later the politicians, who tried to silence her.” He criticized “extreme nationalists” in Poland who are “only concerned with the fact that this film also pokes some very large holes in a narrow and oversimplified view that some in Poland have of themselves and their national identity, especially how it relates to World War II.”
The filmmaker said he was not the least bit surprised about the political backlash that the film has received in Poland, considering the “very divided and politically charged atmosphere in Poland, especially around their World War II history.”
“There is a popular national myth in Poland that during World War II, Poles were only heroes or victims. Nothing else,” he said. “I think for many years, children and adults in Poland have largely been taught and fed this myth … Even today, roughly half the country is still clinging to a fantasy version of history that denies the extent to which Poles were complicit in either pointing out to Nazis where Jews were hiding or doing much worse, such as is revealed in my film, which is that some Poles continued to kill Jews even after the war was over, the Nazis were defeated and gone.”
“The reality is that when World War II was over, Holocaust survivors came back to their shtetls [a small Jewish town or village] seeking out others who may have survived, wondering, ‘Can we regroup here? Is it even possible to restart our lives in the towns that we loved and where we’ve lived our entire lives?’ And these murders that took place across Poland told them, ‘Absolutely not. You are not welcome. You cannot restart, you cannot continue life in the shtetl.’”
“Among Neighbors” is currently playing in select US theaters and film festivals. It won the Audience Award at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, three awards from the Teaneck International Film Festival, and the Jewish Film Institute’s Envision Award. Still, Potash told The Algemeiner that the film has received negative reactions from some streaming platforms and major film festivals. He shared a story of a major streamer that told him the documentary was not “broad enough” for their platform.
“To be not ‘broad enough’ sounds like a nicer way of saying ‘too Jewish,’” Potash said. “I worked really hard to try to make this film as universal as possible. And I think the themes of can we confront out history honestly, even the parts that are difficult, that applies across the board to just about every country and society in the world. Unfortunately, releasing this film during this post-Oct. 7 [2023] environment that been really, really challenging. A lot of major festivals and streamers don’t want to get near content that’s seen as ‘too Jewish.’”
While TVP remains under investigation by the National Broadcasting Council of Poland for airing “Among Neighbors,” Potash encourages Poles to see the documentary for themselves and make their own judgements about the film.
“Don’t believe all the out of context ranting about the film that’s coming from political extremists and historical revisionists in Poland,” he explained. “I think it’s important for people to see this film because it gets into the real complexities of how history actually unfolded. It resists the simple narrative of: ‘We were heroes, and these were the villains, and these were the victims.’ It wasn’t always so black and white; so simple. The real stories that came out of this situation were quite complex. And those simplistic narratives don’t always fit.”
The USC Shoah Foundation — founded in 1994 by Steven Spielberg with the goal of recording, preserving, and sharing testimonies related to the Holocaust — has partnered with the JFCS Holocaust Center to create an educational curriculum so “Among Neighbors” can be used in classrooms as part of Holocaust education. A portion of revenue generated by the film benefits the JFCS Holocaust Center.
Watch the trailer for “Among Neighbors” below.