EASTERN europeAN JEWRY (A-Q)

Poignant Holocaust drama based on the true experiences of a Czech Jewish family in the late 1930’s, including a Kindertransport experience. When the film opens, the Silbersteins are a large and closely-knit family living an affluent life in the Czechoslovakian countryside. The family consists of five grown brothers and focuses most on two of them: Jakob Silberstein, a physician, and Jakob’s famous violinist brother, Sam. The story is told from the viewpoint of Jakob’s young son, David, a boy of around 10 who has had a happy and sheltered life. Jakob, the patriarch, dismisses reports of Hitler’s growing power and persecution of the Jews – even after Hitler has annexed part of Czechoslovakia. He is delighted to purchase a countryside villa (where the family vacations) from a fellow Jew for way under its market value – oblivious to the urgency with which the seller rids himself of it to immigrate to America. Jakob’s oldest daughter pleads with him to let her leave for Palestine with her fiancé – but Jakob forbids it. The family continues to ignore signs of impending danger until it is too late. Then Uncle Sam meets an English stockbroker named Nicholas Winton who describes to him a plan, called the Kindertransport, in which Czech Jewish children can be sent to safety in England. The family initially refuses this offer – until desperate, they contact Winton and decide to send David.

The framework of the film (its opening and closing) include real scenes from BBC television in which Nicholas Winton, in his 90’s, is reunited with some of the almost 700 children whose lives he saved. Most of these survivors did not learn until late in life the name of the man responsible for saving them, and the closing scene is especially heart rendering. The director’s mother was a survivor of the Kindertransport and this story is a fictionalized account of her recollections. Note: Similar to “The Garden of the Finzi Continis” (Italian) and “The Sky is Falling” (Italian), this film portrays affluent Jews so comfortable and confident in their lives that they ignore signs of impending danger from the Nazis. Pair this with Kindertransport documentaries “Into the Arms of Strangers” or “My Knees Were Jumping.”

In Czech with subtitles.  1 hr. 31 min.  AGE:  14 to Adult

781.7

ASHKENAZ: THE MUSIC OF THE JEWS FROM EASTERN EUROPE  (Jewish Music Heritage

Jew

Library, Vol. 3)  (1993)

Part of a series produced in Israel which attempts to develop a comprehensive documentary on Jewish music. Each volume introduces historical background and presents and discusses songs, lyrics and melodies of one particular group of Jews. This volume includes Yiddish folk songs, liturgical synagogue music, Klezmer melodies, and Yiddish theater tunes—all of which are the essential components of Ashkenazic music. This compilation of Jewish music from Eastern Europe shows how Ashkenazic music focuses on both the old world and the new, the sacred and the secular, and invokes joy as well as sadness. Vintage archival film footage of Jewish life in Eastern Europe before World War II provides a backdrop for many of the songs illustrating the environment which generated this music. Includes a Traditional wedding segment. Features Shmuel Atzmon, Anat Atzmon, Henya Atzmon, Lupo Berkowitz, Israel Treissman, Gregory Weiner, and Cantor Binyamin Munie.

28 min.  AGE: 12 to Adult

JHVC

947

At the Crossroads: Jews in Eastern Europe Today  (1989)

At

Before World War II more than four million Jews lived in Eastern Europe, outside of the Soviet Union. Today only a handful are left. At the Crossroads searches for clues to the quality of life among the small numbers of Jews who remain. The filmmakers interviewed people in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia about what it is like to be Jewish in Eastern Europe today. Yale Strom, a young American klezmer violinist who conducted many of the interviews, encountered musicians who continue to play Jewish music in performance. Their performances affirm the importance of music in defining Jewish identity. Also included is very moving footage of a concert in Budapest of American Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, performing for a large Hungarian audience.

59 min.  AGE: 14 to Adult

Extremely powerful film based on the true story of a Polish family who evade Nazi orders for all Jews to report when the German army invades. Instead, they dig a shelter and move underground – living in the country and sleeping under the earth. For the next two years, they move around and live both in underground and makeshift settings, stealing, borrowing and scrounging around for food and supplies. The family constantly faces danger from German soldiers, Nazi collaborators and illness. The film is a monument to the enduring power of family and love and the will to survive. Note: Rated R. Includes brief violence and scenes of sexual content.

In Spanish with subtitles.  1 hr. 40 min.  AGE:  17 to Adult

Award winning Czechoslovakian drama based on the true story of a couple in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia who agree to hide a young male Jewish neighbor in their home. Josef and Marie Cizek live in a small apartment and are experiencing marital tensions due to Josef’s sterility and to the political climate of the war. Their Jewish neighbors were deported to Theresienstadt but David, the teenage son, managed to escape and sought refuge with them. The situations becomes more complicated as the Cizeks must deal with frequent visits from Horst, an acquaintance of theirs who has always had a lecherous interest in Marie and is now a Nazi collaborator. When Marie rejects his advances, Horst tries to move a Nazi clerk into their home. To avoid a situation that would lead to David’s discovery and their ruin, Marie claims she is pregnant and needs the extra space. Josef and Marie’s solution to this dilemma demanded heroism and self-sacrifice. Rated PG-13 for some violence and sexual content.

In Czech with subtitles.  2 hrs. 2 min.  AGE:  14 to Adult

JHVC

F

East and West  (1923)

Eas

A silent comedy made in Vienna in 1923, East and West takes a satirical look at some of the stereotypes of the Jewish world shortly after World War l. It is the earliest existing film with Molly Picon, one of the most prominent actresses of Yiddish stage and film. Molly Brown, a young American woman, and her immigrant father, a wealthy businessman, are invited back to his Polish hometown for a family wedding. Molly finds her Old World relatives old-fashioned, while they are shocked by her modern, carefree ways. Molly's rebellious pranks are climaxed by a mock wedding, in which she unintentionally becomes married for real to a devout yeshiva student. The deed, it turns out, is not easily undone.

B&W. 1 hr. 25 min.  AGE: 14 to Adult

947

ECHOES THAT REMAIN  (1991)

Ech

A study of the pre-Holocaust shtetl in the former Jewish communities of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. Narrated by Martin Landau.

1 hr.  AGE: 13 to Adult

This touching documentary follows Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel on his journey to revisit Sighet, Romania, the village where he grew up prior to the Holocaust. Sighet was part of Hungary during World War II. Wiesel shares his remembrances with a few friends as he walks through the town and finds the house he lived in. The film alternates between footage of Sighet today and archival still shots of Jewish life before the war. Wiesel also takes viewers to Auschwitz/Birkenau, the site of the concentration camp in which he was imprisoned during the Holocaust. There he discusses his experiences in the camp and talks about liberation. Additional features include interviews with Rabbi Marvin Hier, Founder and Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Dr. Bernard Goldberg, Director of the American Jewish Cultural Studies Program at West Los Angeles College. William Hurt provides narration and reads excerpts from some of Wiesel’s books, including Night. Note: Teachers may wish to show this to classes who read Night.

1 hr. 48 min.  AGE:  14 to Adult

F

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF  (1971)

Gen

Tevye, a poor Jewish farmer in a small Ukrainian village at the turn of the century, must deal with his three marriageable daughters and fight to preserve his Jewish heritage against growing odds. This musical is based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem and stars Topol, Norma Crane and Molly Picon.

3 hrs.  AGE: 12 to Adult

940.53

FIGHTER (2000)

Documentary about the journey two Czech Holocaust survivors take back to Europe to retrace one man’s escape route from the Nazis through Yugoslavia and Italy. Jan Wiener (77) and Arnost Lustig (72) have been friends since meeting in the U.S. in 1978. During the war, Wiener fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, survived throughout Europe for six years and ended the war as a flyer for the royal Air Force in England. Wiener also spent 5 ½ years in a forced labor camp after the war. Arnost survived as a teenager in Nazi concentration camps including Auschwitz and Terezin. Both left Czechoslovakia in the 1970’s as exiles of the Communist regime.

When the film opens, Wiener talks about how his father taught him to box and defend himself when he was young. After the war broke out, Wiener was always a fighter – not a victim. This is one of the main reasons that his friend, Arnost Lustig, decided to write about Wiener’s story – and the reason the two men embarked on this journey back to Europe. Lustig comments that it is important to tell about a man who chose to be a fighter in a time when most people became indifferent bystanders. Most fascinating throughout the film is how the two men learn in depth about one another. In fact, by the film’s conclusion, Lustig says that they can no longer be friends – they are simply fundamentally too different. Note: The film is primarily in English, but parts are subtitled.

86 min.  AGE:  16 to Adult

940.54

GHETTO LIFE  (Witness to the Holocaust, Vol. 2)  (1980)

Wit

Part two of a seven-part series on the Holocaust in which interviews with survivors provide the narration for documentary footage and photographs. This segment documents events within the ghettos from 1940 to the deportation in 1942. Describes ghetto conditions, Jewish efforts to continue living, and the role of the Judenrat—the Jewish Council. Study guide available.

Approx. 20 min.  AGE: 12 to Adult

781.7

HASSIDUT: THE MUSIC OF THE HASSIDIC COMMUNITY  (Jewish Music Heritage

Jew

Library, Vol. 6)  (1994)

Part of a series produced in Israel which attempts to develop a comprehensive documentary on Jewish music. Each volume introduces historical background and presents and discusses songs, lyrics and melodies of one particular group of Jews. This volume emphasizes how music plays an important role in the daily life of the Hassidic community. Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav taught his students that one can pray not only through speech and words, but also through song. Filmed within the Hassidic community, we are treated to beautiful Hassidic melodies as sung in prayer, at celebrations and at many other significant events in the day-to-day life of Hassidic Jews. Includes scenes from a gathering in honor of a Bar Mitzva, a Purim scene and a segment from the wedding of the Belzer Rebbe’s son. Features Zvi Grinwald, Yehezkel Sofer, Josef Maraton, David Ben Ami, Rima Nemirovsky, Vladimir Shifrin, Peter Shifrin, Gregori Shifrin, Benjamin Hochman, and Timor Shifron. Note: As this video is about Hassidic music, and Hassidic men may not listen to a woman singing, all songs are sung by men.

28 min.  AGE: 12 to Adult

JHVC

943.8

Image Before My Eyes  (1980)

Ima

Before World War II, Poland was the largest and most important center of Jewish creativity, scholarship, and culture in the world. Jews had lived in Poland since the twelfth century, and in 1939 Poland's 3.5 million Jews comprised about one-tenth of the population. Image Before My Eyes depicts the full spectrum of Jewish life in Poland—from remote villages and small towns to major cities, from the traditionally pious to the ardently secular. It shows the great range of Jewish involvement in political and cultural movements such as bundism, Zionism, and anarchism, and in the creation and sustenance of educational and social institutions. Through interviews, photographs, and rare and remarkable film footage, the film pieces together a warm and evocative portrait of Jewish life in Poland between the wars.

1 hr. 30 min.  AGE: 13 to Adult

Werner Herzog film based on the incredible true story of Zishe, a Jewish strongman, who became a sensation in Berlin in the early 1930’s. When the film opens, Zishe is working for his father as a blacksmith apprentice in a Polish shtetl. After he defeats a strongman in a traveling circus, an agent spots him and finds Zishe a job in Berlin at a nightclub called “Palace of the Occult.” There Zishe works for Jan Hanussen, a slick psychic who courts Nazis and seeks power. Hanussan “aryanizes” Zishe by having him don a blonde wig and pose as Siegfried, Wagner’s hero. Zishe is ashamed of the act. In a very gutsy move, Zishe proclaims his true identity as a proud Jew – a Samson among Jews – to a room heavily populated with Nazis. The conclusion of the film portrays the continued rise of the Nazis, the downfall of Hanussen’s club, and Zishe’s return to the shtetl. A subplot involves Zishe’s love interest in Marta, the club pianist, who is abused by Hanussen. Note: A fascinating and beautifully photographed film which would have benefited from further editing. Herzog utilizes some interesting imagery and symbolism, as well as an unusual dream sequence. This film should provoke much discussion – for both its content and its layered meanings.

2 hrs. 15 min.  AGE:  17 to Adult

Set in a 1930’s Polish shtetl, this unique film follows two young friends during turbulent times. Abraham, a Jewish boy, is friends with Ivan, an older Christian boy who apprentices with Abraham’s family. Abraham’s grandfather, Nachman, manages the affairs of a prince who owns the land their village is built on. It is Nachman’s job to collect money from all of the tenants on the land, most of them Polish Christians. When the prince decides to sell his land, it is Nachman who feels the brunt of the peasants’ anger and blame. Anti-Semitism rises, and Nachman forbids his grandson to see Ivan anymore. As a reaction, Abraham and Ivan decide to run away. Abraham’s teenage sister, Rahel, also flees the town with Aaron, the young Jewish communist she loves. Together, the pair searches for the two boys. Filmed deliberately in black and white, the film recreates the world of the Polish shtetl and its inhabitants without romanticizing it. Viewers are drawn into this world from the past; populated by Jews, Polish peasants and occasional Gypsies. One can sense the shadow of the approaching Holocaust as tensions between the different ethnic groups grow.

1 hr. 45 min.  AGE:  17 to Adult

940.53

JAKOB THE LIAR (1999)

Actor Robin Williams stars in this American version of the classic Holocaust novel by Jurek Becker. Williams plays Jakob, a poor Jewish café owner in a Polish ghetto. Jakob overhears news of the approaching Soviet military forces from a radio in Nazi quarters. Soon rumor spreads throughout the ghetto that Jakob himself owns a radio, and hope soars among the ghetto dwellers. To keep optimism alive, Jakob plays along with the façade, inventing encouraging news while fearing that the Nazis will search and punish him for the nonexistent radio. Note: This Holocaust film combines humor with the darker aspects of Jewish ghetto life - but to less of an extent than the film “Life is Beautiful.” The 1974 German version of this film is a stronger, more successful adaptation. Rated PG-13.

2 hrs.  AGE:  13 to Adult

940.1

JEWISH COMMUNITIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES  (1994)

Jew

This video contains three short films produced in 1990 by Beth Hatefutsoth, the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv. The first segment is about the Babylonian Jewish community, for Babylonia became an important spiritual center for Jews after the destruction of the Second Temple. The second covers Spanish Jewry, including important personalities and cultures from the Golden Age of Spain. The third segment looks at the Jews of Ashkenaz, including cities such as Speyer, Worms, Mainz and Paris. The video examines the rise and fall of each of these great centers of Jewish learning. Note: Presentation is rather dry. Teachers should preview prior to classroom use.

30 min. (Three 10 min. segments.)  AGE: 13 to Adult

943.8

JEWS OF POLAND: FIVE CITIES (Bialystok, Lvov, Krakow, Vilna and Warsaw)

Jew

(1988)

These five Polish cities were filmed in 1938-39 by filmmakers Yitzhak and Shaul Goskind in an attempt to record Jewish life in Poland. The films have been restored and made available by the Spielberg Jewish Film Archive. New English narration was provided by Beth Hatefutsoth, replacing the original Yiddish. There are actually five separate short films here, each titled, which are combined into one video. Viewers gain a real sense of Jewish life in Poland before the war—the synagogues, marketplaces, shops and living quarters. One of the last visual records of these Jewish communities.

B&W. 50 min.  AGE: 12 to Adult

943.8

THE LAST CHAPTER: THE SAGA OF ONE THOUSAND YEARS OF JEWISH LIFE IN

Las

POLAND  (n.d.)

This award-winning film begins after World War II, documenting the destruction of Polish Jewry as survivors return to view what is left. It then retraces the 1,000 year existence of Polish Jewry through actual footage of Jewish life in 20th century Poland and the relics of its earlier history. Narrated by Theodore Bikel. Note: This has been called the definitive film on Eastern European Jewry as well as a leading film on the Holocaust. Good coverage of shtetl life and scenes of the Warsaw Ghetto.

B&W. 1 hr. 30 min.  AGE: 13 to Adult

940.53

THE LAST DAYS  (1998)

Las

Outstanding Academy Award-winning documentary which examines the plight of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. Five Hungarian Jewish survivors—a grandmother, a teacher, a businessman, an artist and a U.S. Congressman—travel to Hungary and the ghettos and concentration camps in which they were imprisoned, recounting their experiences during the war. The film chronologically details the deportation, imprisonment, forced labor and mass murder of Jews—alternating between historical footage and the comments and recollections of these five individuals. The survivors interviewed also stress their debt to Raoul Wallenberg, whose fake Swedish passports saved many lives. The film includes an interview with Dr. Hans Munch, a former Nazi doctor at Auschwitz who was acquitted after the war. The documentary stresses the speed and barbarity with which the Nazis deported and killed Jews at the end of the war—to the point that they focused their materials and manpower towards exterminating Jews rather than extending the war. Note: Includes explicit narrative and graphic footage. The first hour deals with the deportation and camps; the last half hour covers liberation and after, including interviews with U.S. veterans who liberated the camps.

1 hr. 27 min.  AGE: 14 to Adult

781.7

THE LAST KLEZMER: LEOPOLD KOZLOWSKI: HIS LIFE AND MUSIC(1994)

Las

Documentary that looks at the life of Leopold Kozlowski, a 69-year-old Klezmer musician who trained in Poland before World War II. The film follows Kozlowski as he returns, for the first time in 50 years, to Peremyshlyany, the Polish village where he was raised. Interspersed throughout the documentary are excerpts of Klezmer music as Kozlowski meets and performs with a variety of singers and musicians. Kozlowski also is reunited with a fellow survivor he hasn’t seen for 50 years.

In English, Polish, Yiddish and Russian with subtitles.1 hr. 44 min.  AGE: 12 to Adult

F

LE GOLEM: THE LEGEND OF PRAGUE  (1933)

Le

French film set in medieval Prague, when the Jewish community is being threatened and victimized by a cruel Emperor and his followers. According to legend, in the year 1560, Rabbi Judah Loew (the Maharal of Prague) created a golem—a giant man made from clay. Using Kabbalah (Jewish mystical practices), Rabbi Loew brought the golem to life to save the Jews of Prague from destruction. This film takes place a generation later, when Rabbi Loew’s successor and his community are again faced with destruction. The golem must be revived to save the Jewish community’s leaders from execution. Note: This video was made from an older film which was not in prime condition. It is sometimes difficult to follow and will appeal most to devotees of historical Jewish film.

In French with subtitles. B&W. 1 hr. 36 min.  AGE: 13 to Adult

F

A LETTER TO MOTHER (A Brivele der Mamen)  (1938)

Let

One of the last Yiddish films to come out of Poland before the Nazi invasion, this drama shows the disintegration of a Jewish family due to poverty, stress and World War I. Its central character, Dobrish (played by Lucy Gehrman), is a strong Jewish mother who works hard to keep her unemployed husband and three children close—and close to tradition. The film is set both in the Ukraine and in New York—as part of the family has already immigrated to America. Although the film takes place during World War I, its themes of loss and deterioration of the family structure mirror difficulties facing European Jews in 1939. Directed by Joseph Green.

In Yiddish with subtitles. 1 hr. 40 min.  AGE: 13 to Adult

940.53

MY MOTHER’S COURAGE (1995)

Powerful dramatization based on the true story of a Jewish housewife who was arrested by the Hungarian police in 1944. The film is based on the autobiographical play and novel by Hungarian author George Tabori, about events in the life of his mother. Pauline Collins gives a stellar performance as Elsa Tabori, a good natured and likable Hungarian woman who is arrested while shopping and is forced onto a train with thousands of other Jews for deportation. When Elsa realizes the truth of her situation, she takes a courageous stand which results in saving her life. The film includes both humor and satire, and some very dark scenes. Directed by Michael Verhoeven (director of The Nasty Girl and The White Rose). Note: Tabori appears in the film as the narrator, himself. 

In German with subtitles. 1 hr. 28 min.  AGE:  17 to Adult