60 years later, ‘The Sound of Music’ message about fleeing Nazis is just as powerful

(RNS) — When I was young, movie theaters were ornate palaces of popular culture that our family did not often visit. But, for “The Sound of Music,” we did. If I recall correctly, I even had to get a little dressed up for it.

The movie, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, debuted 60 years ago this month. As one of the most beloved movies of all time, it won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

I also became obsessed with the tale of young Maria, preparing to become a nun and working as a nanny for the children of an Austrian naval officer. She falls in love with him, and the family flees Austria in the wake of the 1938 Nazi invasion. 

What sparked my obsession with this movie as a 10-year-old? Not the music, though “Edelweiss” still has a special place in my heart. And not most of the story. Rather, it was the second part about the Anschluss, or the Nazi takeover of Austria. 

Rummaging around the attics of my childhood memory, I have been trying to remember when I first became aware of the Nazis, and by extension, the Holocaust. It might have been “The Sound of Music.”

It’s true that Liesl’s boyfriend, the delivery boy Rolf, became a Nazi soldier and ultimately betrayed the family. While in real life, Rolf probably would have stood trial at Nuremberg, the Nazis in the film seemed relatively harmless. Really, what did they want? Just for Captain Georg von Trapp, a veteran of the Austro-Hungarian Navy — and who in real life was that navy’s most successful submarine commander during World War I — to serve as an officer in the German navy.

Liesl and Rolf in a scene from “The Sound of Music.” (Image © Twentieth Century Fox)

It would take me a few more years to understand Nazi soldiers were not how “The Sound of Music” portrayed them. They were not those hapless, relatively harmless people whose cars were disabled when nuns pulled out the spark plugs.

And, over the years, I came to understand something else about “The Sound of Music.” There was something “Jew-ish” about it.

Some of the talent behind the play and the movie was Jewish. Its screenwriter, Ernest Lehman, was Jewish. Two Jews, Rodgers and Hammerstein, wrote the musical score, though Oscar Hammerstein II was raised Presbyterian. And when “The Sound of Music” originally appeared on Broadway, the very Jewish Theodore Bikel played Georg von Trapp.

“The Sound of Music” film poster. (Image © Twentieth Century Fox)

The story itself? Nothing Jewish. It was about an Austrian Catholic family. However, some have suggested their manager, Max, is coded Jewish (and some have said gay). Frankly, the whole “Max was Jewish” theory is a tad antisemitic, as it revolves around a music manager who seems overly concerned about his potential loss of revenue.

But for a story about an ex-nun candidate and her new family, there was something about this story of refugees from the Nazi regime that evoked the Jewish experience. Captain von Trapp was virulently anti-Nazi. But, more than that, “The Sound of Music” was about having to leave your land because of your beliefs, and because of your core identity.

They crossed the Alps, singing “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.” It was my introduction to the issue of refugees, and what it would mean to have to leave your country. For a while, I read everything my young mind could absorb about refugees. 

All these insights prompted me to come to the conclusion “The Sound of Music” was about patriotic Austrian Catholics fleeing the Nazis. And, in a veiled, disguised way, it was also about Jews fleeing the Nazis.

Why? Because when the movie came out in 1965, American popular culture had only barely begun to consider the Holocaust. Yes, there had been “The Diary of Anne Frank,” the 1959 film that avoided the horror. Yes, there had been the 1960 movie “Exodus,” which not only dealt with the subject without naming it, as the term “Holocaust” would not come into widespread use until much later, but also showed a scene of a survivor with PTSD. And, this September will mark the 60th anniversary of the television debut of “Hogan’s Heroes,” set in a POW camp, presenting Nazi officers as lovable buffoons and played by Jewish actors.

In a cultural setting where no one could really talk about the Holocaust — where we lacked the terminology to even do so — “The Sound of Music” was a way for America to begin to deal with that story. In hindsight, it was a way of telling a very Jewish story, albeit with Christian characters.

And in hindsight, “The Sound of Music” is about all refugees and people who have had to flee their homeland because of politics and oppression.

Julie Andrews, center, as Maria with the von Trapp children in a still from “The Sound of Music.” (Image © Twentieth Century Fox)

As you watch the movie again, frolicking with Maria and the kids in the Austrian Alps, think about what it means for our present reality in this country.

I will certainly watch Georg von Trapp getting choked up singing “Edelweiss,” and there will be a catch in my throat as well. But, I’ll also be considering whether America will be a place where darker-skinned, spiritual descendants of the von Trapps can continue to come.