http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=2257555&page=1
July 31, 2006 — The 81-year-old Holocaust survivor upon whose memoir Mel Gibson has based a TV miniseries says she had no idea Gibson was involved in the project, and that she found his alleged anti-Semitic comments hurtful but that they shouldn't be blown out of proportion.
"In this country, there is always the tendency of the press to exaggerate," says Flory Van Beek, a Dutch Jew who hid from the Nazis with the help of her Catholic boyfriend.
"Yes, I read about his supposed comments, and yes, it appears that he said very stupid and hurtful things," says Van Beek. "But as a Jew, I am much more concerned with what is going on in Israel, which is fighting for its very survival, and I wish that was more the focus of news coverage."
It's very misleading to call this a Mel Gibson project," Van Beek says. "His name is not on any of the documents that I signed, and I've had no contact with him."
Van Beek, who lives with her 94-year-old husband in Newport Beach, Calif., says she wasn't immediately aware that Gibson was involved with Con Artists when she sold the option to her book, but that it wouldn't have affected the deal to which she agreed.
"I wanted to keep alive the memory of the Holocaust and those who were lost," she says. "I just want the movie to accurately tell the story in my book." ..
Even if Gibson were inebriated when he made the alleged remarks, "it would be inappropriate for him to direct a film about the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Heir of the Simon Weisenthal Center in Los Angles.
But Van Beek said that Gibson has yet to say what direct role, if any, he'll play in the film. "I wish those who had no knowledge of what's going on would stop from jumping to conclusions," she says. "This film is still in its planning stages, and as of now, I don't believe he'll have any direct involvement."
ABC TV and companies involved in the miniseries did not return calls regarding the project, and a production schedule for the film has yet to be made public.