Amazing Documentary Tells Story of Polish Jewry
This amazing documentary is being screened in New York, but even the trailer is a must-see. An amazing past, resurrected before your eyes.
After 70 years, the saga of Polish Jewry will be featured in an exclusive debut screening of an original documentary, “Once Upon a Family,” at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Battery Park.
The film, produced by Project Witness, will be screened on Tuesday, July 14. The evening, hosted by a group of second-generation Holocaust survivors, begins with a buffet dinner reception at 5:30 p.m. The program follows at 7 and will include reunions between survivors and their liberators and remarks from the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau — the “miracle child of Buchenwald” — who symbolizes the destruction and rebuilding of a world that was. His remarks will be followed by the film premiere.
Representatives of hundreds of New York’s most prominent Jewish families, including elected officials, survivors, liberators, and their children, are expected to attend.
“This is not a dry historical narration; it is an experience that will take you back in time,” Project Witness’s director, Ruth Lichtenstein, said. “It’s about living daily life through the eyes of a Jewish family in Poland — the joy, the holidays, the education, the experiences of rich urban Jewish life — and then the sheer horror.”
Ms. Lichtenstein, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors and publisher of the daily newspaper Hamodia, has made Holocaust remembrance her life’s mission. Project Witness is the nonprofit New York-based Holocaust resource center she founded; it merges research and scholarship with media to provide materials for schools, communities, and lay readers.
Featuring live interviews from survivors conducted in Jewish communities in the United States, Israel, and Poland, “Once Upon a Family” is the latest in a series of documentaries from Project Witness covering little-known or grossly underrepresented facets of the Holocaust.
Seating is limited and pre-assigned. For information, call (718) 305-5244 or book online at premiere.projectwitness.org.
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