Bearing Witness: The Voices of Our Survivors, a film by Heather Elliott-Famularo, records the collective stories of six Holocaust survivors: Rolf Hess (Germany) witnessed Kristallnacht, was deported to a relocation camp, separated from his family, and was rescued and hidden in a French orphanage. Al Negrin (Greece) fought in the resistance before being sent to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Philip Markowicz and Aron Wajskol (Poland) survived the Lodz Ghetto, only to be shuffled between numerous forced labor camps, ending the war on death marches. William Leons (Netherlands) spent nearly two years alone in an attic room as a hidden child, and Clara Rona (Hungary) was torn from her family and sent to many work camps before escaping a death march just days before the end of the war.
A collaboration with the Jewish community of Toledo, Ohio, Bearing Witness fosters dialog between the survivors and today’s youth, cultivating personal awareness and one’s responsibility to understand history in order for future generations to prevent the atrocities of the Holocaust from happening again. Through our survivors’ individual stories, the Holocaust’s collective history is shared. Through the survivors’ personal memories and messages of hope, we are inspired by the human will to survive.
This is the trailer for the 57-minute film.
For more info: bearingwitnesstoledo.com
