I was not aware that Steve Spielberg was a product of Cincinnati. It must be of a long gone Cincinnati, as I cannot look araound ony place here in the town I call home and see any great minds springing up. I hope I am just being cynical and things are better than they seem, but I fear that people like Spielberg are a rare thing in these communities.
Director-producers' three years as a child here shaped his work
Steven Spielberg spent only about three years in Cincinnati, but it left a big impression on him.
On "Spielberg on Spielberg," a 90-minute interview premiering Monday (8 p.m., TCM), the Oscar-winning director-producer, born here on Dec. 18, 1946, recalls how he learned his numbers in Cincinnati.
"My grandmother taught English to Hungarian Holocaust survivors when I was only 3 years old, living in Cincinnati," he says, in the film while commenting on "Schindler’s List," his 1993 film about the Holocaust, which won seven Oscars, including best picture.
"I learned my numbers based on all the numbers that they had tattooed on their arms (from the concentration camps). And I had one man that used to say, ‘That’s a 2. That’s a 5,’ " says Spielberg, showing how the man pointed to the figures on his arm.
Spielberg was born to Cincinnati natives Arnold Spielberg, a Hughes High School graduate studying electrical engineering at the University of Cincinnati, and Leah Posner Spielberg Adler, a Walnut Hills High School graduate.
They married in 1945, and lived on Lexington Avenue in Avondale. They moved to New Jersey after Arnold graduated from UC in 1949. They divorced in 1966; each lives in the Los Angeles area.
TEACHING ENGLISH
Leah’s mother, Jennie Posner, taught English in her home to Holocaust survivors preparing for their citizenship tests, around the corner on Glenwood Avenue, says Arnold Spielberg, 90, from his California home.
"Each class was about eight people. around the big dining room table. I can still see it today," says Leah Spielberg Adler, 87, who operates the Milky Way restaurant in Los Angeles.
"Steven was just running wild as a child in their home. We spent most of our time there," Leah says.
Arnold Spielberg says that he and Leah "would visit her parents on Saturday, the Sabbath, for lunch and prayers, after I returned from half-day classes on Saturday at UC. At other times, the Posners would wheel Steven in his buggy to their home, where he met the survivors."
For Fay Postolski Siegel of Blue Ash, word of Spielberg’s comments confirmed a story frequently told by her mother, Etta Postolski, who died in March.
"Oh my gosh, isn’t that something?" says Siegel, a Covington city tax auditor. "She would tell us the story many times about Steven Spielberg’s grandmother teaching her English. My parents lived in Avondale at the time, " says Siegel, a Covington city tax auditor.
A ‘MAGIC TRICK’
In the documentary, Spielberg tells of the "magic trick" done by one of his grandmother’s students. A man would bend his arm up and down, turning the 6 upside down.
"He said, ‘This is a 6. And now it’s a 9.’ I’ll never forget that," Spielberg says. "I was a little kid, 3 or 4 years old. I’ll never forget that."
In a 1993 interview, Spielberg says the inspiration to make "Schindler’s List" came from his mother.
"I was very ashamed when I was a child of being Jewish. And this film has kind of come along with me on this journey from shame to honor," he told CBS’ Connie Chung. "My mother said to me one day, she said, ‘I really want to be able to see a movie that you make someday that’s sort of about us, and about, you know, who we are.’ This is it. This is for her."
After the film, Spielberg created the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, which has filmed 52,000 interviews with Holocaust survivors.
"In that respect, ‘Schindler’s List’ is the most important film I’ve ever made, and the Shoah Foundation, outside my family, is the most important work I’ve done."
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