Post by artraveler on Sept 8, 2020 8:45:29 GMT -8
Who Will Write Our History?
This is a war story, one in which almost all of one side died. It is also a story of how one man with a vision of the future, Emanuel Ringelblum, defeated the enemy with a pen. The movie is based on a book by the same title by Samuel Kassow. It is the true story of the Warsaw ghetto during World War Two. We see through film, mostly filmed by Germans how the Jewish population of Poland, almost three million people were systematically rounded up and slaughtered in the death camps. How the Warsaw ghetto was created, policed and when the time was right emptied. If anything, the violence was subdued but discerning viewers understand that resettlement means death.
Ringelblum created a secret archive to document the actions of the Germans. His was not the only one, but it is the most renowned and comprehensive. At one time he had a staff of over 60 writers working for Oyneg Shabes. Throughout 1942 and 1943 the number slowly reduced to just a few. Of the nearly 500,000 people packed into a few blocks only a few survived the Shoah and only one man who lived knew the location of the archive.
The film centers on the story of Rachael Auerbach. One of Ringelblum’s writers who escaped the ghetto and returned after the war when part of the archive was found. The movie hangs, in large part, on her experience and contributions. The archive itself has everything from the flippant to the profound. The goal was not to create a set of noble icons, but how ordinary people, under adverse conditions, lived and died. Ringelblum’s greatest fear was that Polish Jews would be forgotten by history.
During the ghetto time there was a Yiddish theater, symphony orchestra, schools from kindergarten to advanced university. Doctors, lawyers, ballerinas, bakers and plumbers were trained. Also trained, but not mentioned in the movie was a small group of Jewish warriors to oppose the Nazi. When the ghetto was nearly empty, less than 80,000 people the revolt began as the Soviet army sat outside Warsaw and watched the slaughter. In this story no one’s hands are clean. When the Germans were done there was not an intact building in the ghetto. Bombs and fire had turned this section of Warsaw into a wasteland. It was a miracle to find even apart of the archive.
This is a movie that should be shown every time a history of the Second World War in Europe is taught. Parts of it will make you laugh, but more of it will make you angry. Righteous anger is how you should feel. It is available as a rental at Amazon Prime.
This is a war story, one in which almost all of one side died. It is also a story of how one man with a vision of the future, Emanuel Ringelblum, defeated the enemy with a pen. The movie is based on a book by the same title by Samuel Kassow. It is the true story of the Warsaw ghetto during World War Two. We see through film, mostly filmed by Germans how the Jewish population of Poland, almost three million people were systematically rounded up and slaughtered in the death camps. How the Warsaw ghetto was created, policed and when the time was right emptied. If anything, the violence was subdued but discerning viewers understand that resettlement means death.
Ringelblum created a secret archive to document the actions of the Germans. His was not the only one, but it is the most renowned and comprehensive. At one time he had a staff of over 60 writers working for Oyneg Shabes. Throughout 1942 and 1943 the number slowly reduced to just a few. Of the nearly 500,000 people packed into a few blocks only a few survived the Shoah and only one man who lived knew the location of the archive.
The film centers on the story of Rachael Auerbach. One of Ringelblum’s writers who escaped the ghetto and returned after the war when part of the archive was found. The movie hangs, in large part, on her experience and contributions. The archive itself has everything from the flippant to the profound. The goal was not to create a set of noble icons, but how ordinary people, under adverse conditions, lived and died. Ringelblum’s greatest fear was that Polish Jews would be forgotten by history.
During the ghetto time there was a Yiddish theater, symphony orchestra, schools from kindergarten to advanced university. Doctors, lawyers, ballerinas, bakers and plumbers were trained. Also trained, but not mentioned in the movie was a small group of Jewish warriors to oppose the Nazi. When the ghetto was nearly empty, less than 80,000 people the revolt began as the Soviet army sat outside Warsaw and watched the slaughter. In this story no one’s hands are clean. When the Germans were done there was not an intact building in the ghetto. Bombs and fire had turned this section of Warsaw into a wasteland. It was a miracle to find even apart of the archive.
This is a movie that should be shown every time a history of the Second World War in Europe is taught. Parts of it will make you laugh, but more of it will make you angry. Righteous anger is how you should feel. It is available as a rental at Amazon Prime.