As I make the rounds of submitting, “The Stairs” to European film festivals, (We entered the Two Riversides Film and Art Festival of Warsaw, Poland and the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival [See their logos above] and we are thinking of entering the Berlin Film Festival). I am struck by the thought that a small portion of my father’s Holocaust story is going home; back to the lands of my father’s and my birth, back to the lands of our forefathers and back to the lands that almost decimated my family.
The Two Riversides Film Festival even mentions Jewish culture in there blog.
“Two Riversides Festival owes its uniqueness also to the two hosting towns. Kazimierz Dolny and Janowiec are considerable tourist attractions as the most beautifully situated little towns in Poland. They were established in 12th century what causes that they have unforgettable Medieval atmosphere. Before WWII they were important centers of Jewish culture.”
For the historians out their, here is what Wikipedia says about Jewish history in these villages:
A small Jewish community was present in the city from the time of Casimir III the Great in the 14th century. The king granted the Jews a writ of rights which caused the town to become a focal point for Jewish immigration. When John III Sobieski became King in 1674, he granted the Jews of Poland a respite from taxes. Sobieski also reconfirmed for the Jews all the rights they had been granted by previous kings. During his reign, the housing restrictions were abolished and the Jewish community began to flourish again.
In the 19th century, Yehezkel Taub, a disciple of the “Seer of Lublin”, founded the Hasidic dynasty of Kuzmir in the town.
Between the First and Second World Wars, the Jewish population was about 1,400, half the total population of the town. During the Holocaust era, a Judenrat was established in the town, where the Nazi Germans forced the town’s Jews to perform forced labor and to pave roads using tombstones from the local Jewish cemetery. After the Holocaust, a memorial wall was erected using the pieces that survived. In 1940, the Nazis established a ghetto, bringing all the Jews from the surrounding Puław.
A small Jewish community was present in the city from the time of Casimir III the Great in the 14th century. The king granted the Jews a writ of rights which caused the town to become a focal point for Jewish immigration. When John III Sobieski became King in 1674, he granted the Jews of Poland a respite from taxes. Sobieski also reconfirmed for the Jews all the rights they had been granted by previous kings. During his reign, the housing restrictions were abolished and the Jewish community began to flourish again.
In the 19th century, Yehezkel Taub, a disciple of the “Seer of Lublin”, founded the Hasidic dynasty of Kuzmir in the town.
Between the First and Second World Wars, the Jewish population was about 1,400, half the total population of the town. During the Holocaust era, a Judenrat was established in the town, where the Nazi Germans forced the town’s Jews to perform forced labor and to pave roads using tombstones from the local Jewish cemetery. After the Holocaust, a memorial wall was erected using the pieces that survived. In 1940, the Nazis established a ghetto, bringing all the Jews from the surrounding Puławy County to live in the ghetto. In 1942, the Jews that survived the starvation, disease and slave labor were taken to Belzec to be “exterminated”. At the end of 1942, the town was officially declared “free of Jews”.
My film is going to be viewed by a small number of Poles and Germans. These events will be happening 71 years after my dad was almost gassed to death at Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The film will be kindling thoughts of what happened in those camps in the minds of German and Polish film jurors and maybe theatre audiences.
I doubt that my father ever thought his Holocaust story would be watched in Berlin, or Warsaw or some small towns in eastern Poland or in Tel Aviv. I think he would be proud. I know I never did and I know I am.
