Lodz Film
Contents
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Adelson,
Alan and Kathryn Taverna.
Lodz
Ghetto. New York: Jewish Heritage Project, Inc., 1989.
LC Call No.: CGC 0636-0641 (ref
print)
Produced by Alan Adelson
and directed by Kathryn Taverna; script compiled and edited by Alan Adelson.
Jewish Heritage Project, Inc., 150 Franklin St., #1W, New York, NY 10003,
USA; 212-925-9067.
Description of motion picture:
12 reels of 12 on 6 (ca. 9270 ft.) : sd., black & white and color;
35 mm. ref print.
Notes: Preexisting material:
various textual materials; archival film footage; still photos. NM: compilation,
editing, narration, score, and some new footage. Executive producer, Stephen
Samuels; original score by Wendy Blackstone; still photo cinematography,
Gary Becker and Kathryn Taverna; cinematography, Jozef Piwkowski, Eugene
Squires; film edited by Kathryn Taverna; ghetto photographers, Mendel Grossman,
Henryk Ross; original color pictures of the ghetto provided by Erhard Löcker,
Löcker Verlag, Vienna; contemporary photos of ghetto district by Eva
Rubinstein; music editor, Kathryn Taverna; chief historical consultant,
Lucjan Dobroszycki. Voices: Jerzy Kosinski, Nicholas Kepros, Barbara Rosenblat,
David Warrilow, Gregory Gordon, Alan Adelson, Theodore Bikel. Release date
from New York times film reviews, 3/22/89. Chronicles
the Nazi persecution of the Jews of Lodz from German occupation beginning
on September 8, 1939 to liberation by the Russians on January 17, 1945.
Focuses on the forcible move of Jews into the ghetto, the harsh conditions
within, deportation to Auschwitz, and the survival of the few Jews who
remained behind and hid in the ghetto. Depicts the ghetto's Nazi-appointed
Jewish leader, Mordecai Hayim Rumkowski. Utilizes historical film footage
and still photographs, some contemporary footage, and narration from historical
diaries and monographs. Much of the historical material was made at great
risk and left deliberately by the doomed community members. From diaries
and monographs written in the Lodz ghetto by Oskar Rosenfeld, Oskar Singer,
David Sierakowiak, Jozef Klementynowski, Irene Liebman and others and from
The
Chronicle of the Lodz ghetto, edited by Lucjan Dobroszycki.
Bodek, Andrej,
Dariusz Jablonski and Arnold Mostowicz. Photographer.
Los
Angeles: Seventh Art Releasing, 1998.
Produced and directed by
Dariusz Jablonski; written by Andrej Bodek, Dariusz Jablonski and Arnold
Mostowicz; in Polish, German and Yiddish, with English subtitles; director
of photography, Tomasz Michalowski; edited by Milenia Fiedler; music by
Michal Lomc. Running time, 80 minutes. Not rated. With Arnold Mostowicz.
Notes: This documentary is
based on 400 Agfa color slides of the Lodz ghetto by Austrian born Nazi
Walter Genewein, chief accountant and top Nazi administrator of the ghetto.
After Genewein's death, the slides were sold to a used bookstore, where
they were recovered in 1987. They are now part of the collection of the
Jewish Museum in Frankfort, Germany. The film, which won the Prix Europa
1998, uses Genewein's notes to mark the disparity between what Genewein
observed and what the pictures reveal.
Seventh Art Releasing, 7551 Sunset
Blvd., Suite 104, Los Angeles, CA 90046. (323) 845-1455 tel. (323) 845-4717
fax, E-mail: seventhart@earthlink.net
Cohen,
Peter. The Story of Chaim Rumkowski
and the Jews of Lodz (motion picture and videorecording). New York:
The Cinema Guild, 1983.
LC Call No.: DS135.P62
POJ Filmproduction AB and
Swedish Television; producer, director, Peter Cohen; writer, Bo Kuritzen.
Description: 1 videocassette
(VHS) (55 min.) : sd., b&w. ; 1/2 in.
Notes: Intended audience:
Ages 12 through adult. Shows the efforts of German-appointed leader Chaim
Rumkowski to save the Jewish community during the Nazi occupation of Lodz,
Poland, in World War II. Documents Rumkowski's establishment of an entire
society, including schools, industries, and a postal system. Relates intimate
details of life in the last surviving Jewish ghetto in Poland.
Godard, Yossi. The
King and the Jester: a Soul Song to Ghetto Lodz. Israel Broadcast
Authority, 1999.
Description: Cast: Yisrael Damidov, Leonid Kanyevski, Didi Manosi
Production Company: Israel Broadcast Authority
Producer: Yossi Godard
Music: Avi Binyamin
Design and animation: Elad Dan
in Hebrew; Length: 50 minutes; in color
Notes: The history of the Lodz Ghetto is a controversial one, some see it as a
horrifying case of collaboration with the Nazis, others as a brave effort to survive the Holocaust. In an attempt to understand the story of the ghetto, the film
presents the story of two individuals on opposing sides. Chaim Rumkowski is the King, or rather head of the Jewish council, and a street singer named Yankele is the Jester. Yankele’s satirical and often humorous protest songs were recorded in the chronicles of the ghetto which were hidden in a well and discovered after the war. A unique film composed of a revolutionary combination of archival footage and photographs and footage of Lodz, and designed entirely with computer graphics and animation.
ARCHIVE MATERIAL, L-4630 VHS-PAL HEB, L-4767 VHS-PAL HEB
See:
Israel Film Archive - Jerusalem Cinematheque, http://www.jer-cin.org.il/defaulte.htm
Hamermesh, Mira. Loving the
Dead. Poland, 1991. Documentary film.
Description: Acclaimed documentary
filmmaker Mira Hamermesh records her personal voyage around Poland to rediscover her
past and on the way examines how present-day Poles remember the Jews and how
they are affected by the artifacts they have left behind. For years, she
avoided confronting her early years in the Lodz ghetto. The
film takes us into her world of memories, showing us her nightmares and the
little details of ghetto life that she still finds present in the remains of
the ghetto. Later
in the film, she visits Auschwitz, where her father was sent. Loving
the Dead has a second side to it
though. It looks at the slow but snowballing interest in Poland's Jewish past.
Some of this is an interest in the secular Jewish culture; other interest is
directed at the religion. Although, they are all coming to terms with loving
the dead, Hamermesh herself is concerned with two very specific dead people,
whereas the others are exploring a culture, a religion and a way of life which
died in Poland.
Mamele
(Little Mother), Poland,
1938.
Directors: Joseph
Green and Konrad Tom
Music: Abraham Ellstein,
Ivo Wesby
Cast: Molly Picon, Edmund
Zayenda, Max Bozyk, Gerturde Bullman, Simche Fostel, Ola Shlifko, Menashe
Oppenheim, Karol Latowicz, Max Perelman, Ruth Turkow, Lew Szryftzecer,
Max Bryn
Description: 100 minutes
B&W Yiddish with new additional English subtitles
Notes: Mamele is a
musical comedy that embraces the entire gamut of interwar Jewish life in
Lodz in all its diversity, with tenements and unemployed Jews, nightclubs
and gangsters, and religious Jews celebrating Succoth. But the film belongs
to Molly Picon who romps undaunted through her dutiful daughter role, saving
siblings, keeping the family intact, singing and acting her way through
the stages of a woman's life from childhood to old age. Picon stars as
Khavtshi, a young woman who promises her dying mother that she will take
care of her family. She's so busy cooking, cleaning and matchmaking for
her brothers and sisters that she barely has any time for herself, until
she discovers the violinist across the courtyard! The musical score also
includes Picon's trademark theme song, "Abi Gezunt."
Podemski,
Esther. House of the World.
New York: First Run/Icarus Films,
1999
Description: videcassette
(54 min.): color
Notes: Tracing the history
of an old family photograph, the filmmaker, Esther Podemski, travels to
Poland with a group of her parents' contemporaries. Fifty years after surviving
the Holocaust, the elders return to their hometown, Poddebice, to conduct
a memorial service in the Jewish graveyard. They find an empty field, marked
by a lone tablet, the only testament to the history of this place to survive
the wartime desecration. In the nearby city of Lodz, we meet Layb Pradskier,
custodian of the immense, crumbling Jewish cemetery. Here we discover that
all that remains of the once several hundred thousand strong Jewish population
of Lodz is a handful of aging Holocaust survivors. A montage of historical
images, snapshots, and archival music, together with new location footage,
House
of the World moves between personal accounts of Jewish Poland and historic
events.
First Run/Icarus Films,153 Waverly
Place, New York, NY 10014
Phone: (212) 727-1711 Fax: (212)
989-7649
E-Mail: info@frif.com,
Internet:
http://www.frif.com/new99/housewor.html
Public Broadcasting Service. Zamir:
Jewish Voices Return to Poland. 2000
Producer: Zamir Film Project in association
with WGBH Boston. Producer: Eric Stange. Format: CC STEREO
Description: In 1899, in the city of
Lodz, Poland, a Jewish choral ensemble was formed. For four decades, HaZamir
flourished until the Holocaust nearly silenced it forever. One hundred years
later, in the summer of 1999, the spirit of HaZamir was rekindled when the
42-member Zamir (Hebrew for "nightingale") Chorale of Boston made a
commemorative tour of Eastern Europe to perform in the very places where the
HaZamir movement began. Zamir: Jewish Voices Return to Poland is
a documentary of this compelling journey and the choir’s attempt to restore
the spirit of HaZamir. Viewers follow the group of American Jews on a musical
and personal pilgrimage through Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Prague and Vienna, as
well as Auschwitz and Terezin, sharing moments of joy, sadness and discovery.
Full-length performances by the choir, taped in old-world churches, Jewish
cemeteries and town halls, merge with travelogue, interview and archival
footage to chronicle this modern-day journey, as well as the journey of
HaZamir. What gives the music and film
poignancy is the evocative archival footage and photos that bring to life the
streets, parks and concert halls that once rang with Jewish music, while
interviews with survivors recall the remarkable cultural history of which the
HaZamir movement was an integral part. For both Jews and non-Jews, the
program’s powerful mix of interviews, music and spiritual voyaging provides
an eye-opening account of Jewish life then and now. Presented in three acts,
Zamir Chorale’s story is told by the founder and artistic director, Joshua
Jacobson, and through the first-person testimonies of chorale members. The
first act, "Going Back," transports viewers back to a time
when "the streets of Lodz rang out with the sound of Jewish voices raised
in song." The section begins with "Hava Nagila," joyfully and
spontaneously sung in the courtyard of the building where the original HaZamir
Chorale rehearsed 60 years ago. Woven throughout this segment are testimonies
from survivors who sang with the Lodz HaZamir in the 1930s, and archival
footage and photos that vividly bring the period to life. In "Facing the
Holocaust," the singers confront head-on the legacy of the
Holocaust in services held by the chorale at Auschwitz and Birkenau, and
demonstrate the resilience of the human spirit and the transforming power of
music. This second act includes the harrowing story of "Tsen Brider,"
a choral piece composed in the camps and one of the most evocative pieces of
music to come out of the Holocaust. The final act, "Sharing Our
Spirit," captures the sense of camaraderie shared among the
members of the chorale and their audiences. Public
Broadcasting Service, Inc.
Ravett,
Abraham. Everything’s
For You. USA, 1989, 58 minutes,
color/B&W (16mm/video)
Yiddish and English
Filmmaker Abraham Ravett attempts to reconcile issues in his
life as the child of a Holocaust survivor in this experimental non-narrative
film. Ravett reflects upon his relationships with his family, from his
now-deceased father (who survived both the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz) to his
own young children. He utilizes family photographs and footage, archival
footage from the Ghetto Fighters’ House in Israel, cel animation by Emily
Hubley, and computer graphics, to create a film about memory, death, and what
critic Bruce Jenkins calls “the power of the photographic image and sound to
resurrect the past.”
Ravett,
Abraham. In Memory. USA,
1993, 13 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
In this non-narrative short, footage of life from the Lodz
Ghetto is juxtaposed against the chanting of “Kel Maleh Rachamim,” a plea
to G-d to let the souls of those “slaughtered and burned” find peace.
Images include winter street scenes, women drawing water from a well, men
breaking up ice, a Nazi roundup and a mass hanging. The message of this
tribute to members of Ravett’s family (and to all those who perished under
Nazi occupation) is “may their memory endure.”
Wajda, Andrzej.
Ziemia
Obiecana (The Promised Land). Poland, 1975.
Director: Anrzej
Wajda
Description: 176 mins;
color; Polish, English subtitles.
Cast: Daniel Olbrychski,
Andrzej Seweryn, Wojciech Pszoniak.
Notes: Academy Award Nomination
Best Foreign Film 1976. An exceptional film by a famous director. It depicts
the industrial development in 19th century Lodz and the combined influences
of the Germans, Russians and Jews. Three industrialists representing different
ethnic groups in Poland, a Pole (Olbrychski), a German (Seweryn) and a
Jew (Pszoniak), build a textile factory in Lodz at the turn of the century.
They encounter problems with the overworked, underpaid workers. Saga based
on a novel by Nobel Prize winner Wladyslaw Reymont, vividly depicts a society
on the edge of change.
Waletzky,
Josh and Susan Lazarus.
Image Before
My Eyes. New York: Almi Home Video, 1985. in cooperation with
YIVO Institute for Jewish
Research; producers: Josh Waletzky, Susan Lazarus;
director, Josh Waletzky
LC Call No.: DS135.P6 (videorecording)
Description: 1 videocassette
(90 min.): sd., col. ; 1/2 in.
Notes: Made in 1980. Ages
15 through adult. Presents a photographic history of Jewish life in Poland
in the 1920s and 1930s. Includes historic footage and stills and voice-over
recollections as visuals document Polish Jews' patriotism in World War
I, the postwar surge in anti-Semitism, the vitality of the Yiddish theater,
the political activism of Jewish youth in the 1930s, the disastrous determination
of most of Poland's Jews to weather the Nazi storm, and Germany's invasion
in 1939.
The Eternal Jew. Nazi
propaganda film, 1940.
Summary: A visit to the Lodz ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland,
recorded by German cameramen, with the näive cooperation of the Jewish
community, is combined with rare archival footage, clips from international
newsreels, and excerpts from related cultural films to portray the World's Jews
as swindlers and parasites. This pseudo-logical, uncomfortably realistic, and
genuinely frightening documentary interprets Jewish life and history from the
viewpoint of traditional European anti-Semitism and Nazi ideology. 062 Min.
VIDEO 1940
*Most library locations
were obtained by searching Worldcat
(in May 1999), which contains records of any type of material cataloged
by OCLC member libraries.
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