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Resources for Children of Holocaust Survivors |
| Film/Video |
editor's note: (1) Commentary on obtaining videos. (2)Is your film or video missing from this list? please email me with the information! Thanks! -J
A young American 2nd gen tells about her search for information. Can be obtained from the Anti-Defamation League 22-D Hollywood Avenue Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ 07423 (800) 343-5540
Directed by Asher Tlalim (1994)
Angst looks at the lives of three Jewish comedians (Deb Filler, Sandy Gutman, and Moshe Waldoks) whose parents are concentration camp survivors, focusing on the effect of this familial legacy upon their lives and their particular brands of humor. Director: Judy Menczel, Australia, (1993)
An Israeli film about the impact of the Holocaust on the lives of second generation survivors.
Video interviews and discussions with survivors and the Second Generation, interspersed with psychological explanations by professionals
Etsuko Kizawa's one-hour video documentary that examines the aftereffects of the Holocaust on her Jewish American family.
Eighteen children of Holocaust survivors meet children of German Nazis. Previously broadcast by B.B.C., A&E, The History Channel, in Australia, Candada, England, France, Holland, Israel, Turkey, the US. Timewatch, B.B.C. (London), produced by Catrine Clay (1993)
The filmmaker's father, Yitshak (80 years old), and mother, Fruma (72), are Holocaust survivors living in Israel. This film portrays their lives in retirement burdened by the shadows of memory. Unlike Yitshak, who talks of his survival in the death camps, Fruma refuses to talk until, under the film's influence, she breaks 50 years of silence at the end to speak of her own family's humiliation. This story is told through the small gestures of the daily routine of the couple's lives preparing food and eating with their grandchildren.
This film documents the journey as a father and son visit the sites of the father’s childhood as well as Auschwitz. Interspersed are stand-up comedy routines by the son- a comic by profession- in which he is brutally frank about the emotional turmoil of a second generation Holocaust survivor. (2002)
This film explores the impact of the Holocaust on a generation of Jews and Germans born after the war. Many are children of survivors. Interviews with German children and grand children are included.
Documents the friendship between Samson Munn (the son of two concentration camp survivors) and Dirk Kuhl (the son of the Gestapo commandant of Braunschweig). Previously broadcast in Austria and Germany. Provobis (Berlin), produced by Michael Richter. (1998)
Tammy Gold's video about Emily, the child of Holocaust survivors, and Gitta, who grew up in Germany thinking of herself as innocent and not responsible for her parents' generation's actions during the war. Almost as soon as it begins, however, their relationship threatens to be torn apart by the histories and memories they do and do not share.
More information at "Emily And Gitta"
As a child, Ruby Schwarz suffered under the weight of her father’s emotional baggage. Her Dad always blamed his own failure as a parent on the fact that his parents were Holocaust survivors. Now aged 20 she finds her Grandfather Ben, who had disappeared 10 years before. This coincides with Ruby’s discovery of an abandoned violin, which she retrieves from the trash outside the home of a recently deceased Holocaust survivor. (2002)
Videomaker b.h.Yael creates a personal history by dismantling myths of ethnicity, gender, and religion. Traveling to Israel, Yael finds her Holocaust survivor father and questions the power of family legacies.
Video interviews between the Second Generation and their parents, siblings and peers.
Directed by Tsipi Reibenbach (1996)
An exploration of the relationship between objective history and personal memory, House of the World examines the Holocaust through the eyes of survivors and their descendants. By Esther Podemski
Explores the attempts of some 2nd gen to come to terms with the Holocaust. Available from Phoenix Films and Video, Inc. 2349 Chaffe Place St. Louis, MO 63146 (314) 569-0211
Focuses on Jerri Zbiral, the daughter of a survivor of the Nazi destruction of the Catholic village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia. By Jacky Comforty, Alan Teller, Jerri Zbiral.
Non-Jewish German filmmakers Jens Meurer and Carsten Hueck journeyed to Israel to find out what became of the Jews their ancestors forced out. By Jens Meurer and Carsten Hueck (1997)
Video of five adults whose parents survived the Holocaust and the terrors of the camps discuss the effect that their parents' experiences had on their own lives. Can be obtained through Films Inc. 5547 N. Ravenswood Ave. Chicago, IL 60640 (800) 323-4222
The story of a Jew confronting an atrocity committed before he was born, and about coping with an overpowering parental legacy. By Steve Brand (1984)
Twenty years after the liberation of prisoners from the death camps in Germany, the National Film Board accompanied a survivor and his son on a pilgrimage to the sites.
Film about the 2nd gen of parents of the Kindertransport by Melissa Hacker and narrated by Joanne Woodward.
Examination of three children of Holocaust survivors. Previously broadcast by B.B.C, A&E, The History Channel, in Holland, Israel and the U.S. Timewatch, B.B.C. (London), produced by Catrine Clay (1995) Can be obtained through Film Inc. 5547 N. Ravenswood Ave. Chicago, IL 60640 (800) 323-4222
The film takes us on two journeys: the first is to Vienna, where director Preminger's father returns to his childhood home to share stories of his youth during the Nazi occupation. On the second journey, we follow Preminger's father as a young immigrant in Palestine where he became a member of the first "Knesset," joined the Palestine Communist Party, and later resigned to establish the Hebrew Communist Party. Directed by Aner Preminger (1995) Hebrew with English subtitles
A film by Sharya Blumenthal about second generation who grew up in Vineland, NJ. Also includes third-gen reflections.
Deb Filler stars in this adaptation of her autobiographical off-Broadway solo show about her life as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Directed by Francine Zuckerman (1996) New Zealand
This video follows a group of Jewish youths from the United States, other western countries, adn Israel on their journey to ghetto and death camp sites in Poland.
Pier Marton's video about issues of identity for the European Children of Holocaust Survivors. Presented as part of the installation JEW, circulating throughout the country. Pier Marton works with desktop video and graphics, installation, performance and sound. His pieces revolve around issues of violence, ethnicity, and spirituality
Chronicles the daily life of some Jewish kids in a Poland in the prime of its communist power. By Szymon Zaleski and Marilyn Watelet (1997)
Ten people participate in a psychological group marathon session in Jerusalem- all had been born to Holocaust survivors.
Description: A 14-minute documentary about a Chicago psychologist who managed to have a German family (Pastor Julius Seebass and his wife and children) awarded the Yad Vashem "Righteous Among the Nations" title for saving her father's life in April 1945. The recognition represents the culmination of a long, difficult personal and professional journey for Mona Sue Weissmark, psychology professor and author of "Justice Matters:Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II" (Oxford University Press). The documentary produced by Johanna Holzhaeur aired nationwide on WDR German television (1.channel in Germany).
The film has recently been distributed to schools and churches throughout Germany.
Oxford University Press's blog on the film and book to foster dialogue.
About Anath, an Israeli studying in Germany, from where her parents fled in 1939, and Fuad, a West Bank Palestinian who now makes his home in Munich. The third character is Bergmann, who asks if he, as a German, can criticize Israel without being an anti-Semite. By Wolfgang Bergmann (1985)
Filmmaker Claudia von Alemann embarks on a journey to uncover her family's painful history and erroneous relationship with the Third Reich. By Claudia von Alemann (2000)
Journey of Eric and his family to Poland for his bar mitzvah and a holocaust-devastated Jewish community reflects on its past, present and future. By Oren Rudavsky (1986)
This documentary video features the testemony of survivors and the children of the survivors. Can be obtained through the Anti-Defamation League 22-D Hollywood Avenue Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ 07423 (800) 343-
The filmmaker confronts her German father and Jewish mother about the devastating secrets and painful silence about the past as she struggles to reconcile her dual identity as both a German and a Jew. By Heidi Schmidt Emberling
Alternating between telling his father's story, the present futile search for documentary proof of it, and a critical reading of the images that did survive the Ghetto, "Tango of Slaves" raises questions about our ability to transmit historical memories to future generations. Directed by Ilan Ziv (1984)
Three generations of Germans and Israelis try to come to terms with each other and themselves. Can be obtained through The Cinema Guild 1697 Broadway, Ste 802 New York, NY 10019 (212) 246-5522
Suddenly confronted by devastation of a different kind, the filmmaker must finally ask her father to tell the story he has carried so long in silence. By Eva Ilona Brzeski
Filmmaker travelled to Poland to explore the ordeal her mother and sixteen family members experienced when hiding in the attic. By Debbie Goodstein. (1988)
Portrait of the filmmaker's family's experience. Elida Schogt 1999
Based on a novel by Lilly Perry Amitai, Blind Man's Bluff takes a bittersweet look at the life of a young Israeli woman. Trying to distance herself from her survivor parents and ex-boyfriend, pianist Micki Stav moves out of her parents' house in search of her own identity. Directed by Aner Preminger. Israel (1993)
A secret group of Jewish activists locate and murder the doctors and soldiers who tortured their relations in a notorious extermination camp.
Also Known As: Experiment, The (1980) (Europe: English title: video box title) Holocaust 2 (1980) (Australia: video box title) Holocaust 2: The Memories, Delirium and the Vendetta, Part Two (1980) (Australia: video title)
Directed by Angelo Pannacciò (1980)
Set in Antwerp, Belgium in the early 1970’s, this is the story of Chaja, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, who has difficulty coming to terms with her own Jewish identity. Starring Isabella Rosselini, Maximilian Schell, Marianne Sagerbresht, Chaim Topol, Laura Fraser and Jeroen Krabbe.
The family’s matriarch is a survivor who believes that her grandchildren marrying non-Jews represents Hitler's victory.
At 26, the filmmaker learned that his mother had previously been married and lost her family at Auschwitz, including his half-sister, Toncia, who was killed when she was 6 years old. Half Sister is a cinematic amalgam of memory and imagination, inspired by Ravett's conception of a life that would have been. Directed by Abraham Ravett (1985)
Filmmaker attempts to reconcile issues in his life as the child of a Holocaust survivor in this experimental non-narrative film. Directed by Abraham Ravett (1989)
