Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe

1/19/2024

"I'm starting to hate politics, because it's becoming the opposite of justice, because it betrays the word with the slogan. To be an intellectual means to be just, to summon up an understanding for one's counterpart and adversaries." Stefan Zweig, a brilliant and poetic writer, was exiled from Germany because he was Jewish. He spent his exile trying to navigate the labyrinth between politics and justice. That journey crushed him. How ironic that, at the time I watch this film, the USA is on same cusp as that of 1930s Germany. On the verge of potentially electing an authoritarian racist egomaniac that will tear down the republic that has served the country for 200 years.