V (1983)

Leonardo Cimino: Abraham Bernstein

Photos 

Quotes 

• Ruby Engels : Abraham, don't get so wound up. Nothing's going to happen. Not to you or your family. They're not doctors or biologists or even scientists. You're not involved. Anyway, it's going to pass.

  Abraham Bernstein : That's what I said in 1938... back in Berlin.

  Ruby Engels : But this is different.

  Abraham Bernstein : [glances at his grandson wearing a Visitor Friends uniform]  Is it?

• [Abraham is hiding the Maxwell family in the pool house] 

  Stanley Bernstein : I really don't believe you brought them here.

  Abraham Bernstein : They have nowhere to go. Their house is being watched now.

  Stanley Bernstein : And so is ours! By Daniel! Tell them that we're sorry...

  Abraham Bernstein : Stanley, you don't understand. They have to stay. They need a place to hide!

  Stanley Bernstein : And why is that?

  Abraham Bernstein : Because the father is a scientist.

  Stanley Bernstein : And therefore suspect! And a fugitive, I take it, which would make them doubly dangerous.

  Abraham Bernstein : They have to stay.

  Stanley Bernstein : And I'm telling you to get them out, before I...

  Abraham Bernstein : I won't.

  Stanley Bernstein : Then I will!

  Abraham Bernstein : [shouts]  No, you won't! We had to put you in a suitcase. In a suitcase! You were eight months old. That's how we smuggled you out.

  Stanley Bernstein : I know the story!

  Abraham Bernstein : No, you don't! You don't. Your mother, auv shalom... your mother didn't have a heart attack in the boxcar. She made it with me, to the camp. I can still see her, standing naked in the freezing cold. Her beautiful black hair was gone. They'd shaved her head. I can still see her waving to me, as they marched her off with the others to the showers - the showers with no water. Perhaps, if somebody had given us a place to hide... don't you see, Stanley? They have to stay. Or else, we haven't learned a thing!

• [a group of children is defacing a Visitor propaganda poster with red spray paint] 

  Abraham Bernstein : No! If you're going to do it, do it right. I'll show you.

  [he guides the hand of a child to spray a letter "V" over the poster] 

  Abraham Bernstein : You understand? For Victory! Go tell your friends!