|
Special Screening in Observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day
Presented in collaboration with
the Consulate General of Israel in New York.
Tsipi Reibenbach, Israel, 1993; 113m
“I want to introduce to you Yitshak, 80 years old, and his wife Fruma, 72
years old. They are my parents. They are Holocaust survivors. They live in
Israel. Wanting to understand them, I traveled to the places where they were
born and were denied their freedom. They did not wish to accompany me. A
journey to Poland, Czechoslovakia and Austria led me to the conclusion that
there is nothing for me there. I understood that if there is any chance of
understanding or feeling anything, I have to look within the people who are
still alive….
My father was willing to cooperate. He tells about survival in
the ghetto, the labor camps and in the death camps—Auschwitz-Birkenau and
Mauthausen…. My mother neither wanted to nor was able to talk. Because
telling is a privilege which the dead did not have. Under the film’s
influence, she opens up and tells of the hunger and humiliation in the
slave-labor camp, of her family that remained at home and was no more. This
is a story told through the small gestures of the daily routine of the life
of a retired couple: preparing their food, their meals. Eating with their
grandchildren. Leaving their daughter a memoir.”-—Tsipi Reibenbach
|
