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Otto von Habsburg, Saved by Sousa Mendes
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK • 8 PM VIENNA
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Otto von Habsburg, the last Crown Prince of Austria, was on Hitler’s enemy list. He and his family were rescued with visas from Aristides de Sousa Mendes. During the war he was a leading figure in the war against Hitler, and after the war he was one of the founders of the European Parliament.
Hans and Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Anti-Nazi Resistance Movement
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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Sophie Scholl was a German student and anti-Nazi political activist, co-founder of the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-Nazi leaflets throughout Germany with her brother, Hans Scholl. They dropped hundreds of these leaflets from a high gallery at the University of Munich down on crowds of students milling about below — arguably the only full-fledged public protest against Nazism to have occurred. Meet Holocaust historian and anthropologist Dr. Jud Newborn, the world’s leading authority on Hans and Sophie Scholl, who will inspire you and motivate you to speak truth to power. (more…)
Irene Gut Opdyke, a Woman of Valor
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK • 8 PM MUNICH
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Irene Gut Opdyke was a Polish nurse who risked her life in World War II by hiding Jews in a cellar beneath a German major’s villa — a story of courage that decades later would make her an internationally known speaker. She was declared a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1982. She recounted her story in two books: In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer and Into the Flames: The Life Story of a Righteous Gentile and later was the subject of the Broadway play Irena’s Vow. (more…)
The Border of Truth
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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Like so many children of survivors and refugees, author Victoria Redel grew up in the shadows of her parents’ different escapes from war. For a writer, such ambiguity is rich soil. Redel’s father left Europe with a visa authorized by the Holocaust rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes. From Lisbon he embarked on the Portuguese ship the Quanza and was among the 86 passengers retained on the ship in New York and then in Mexico to be sent back to Lisbon and then presumably to be repatriated into Nazi-occupied Belgium. The ship, after refueling with coal in Virginia, was saved by the remarkable efforts of Eleanor Roosevelt in outsmarting Secretary of State Cordell Hull. The Border of Truth is a fictionalized account of this dramatic story. (more…)
Rose Valland, the Art Spy
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK • 8 PM PARIS
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When the Nazis entered Paris, they stole artwork and other valuables from Jewish collectors, art dealers and ordinary families. The Jeu de Paume Museum became the main depot for the looted artwork. A young French curator named Rose Valland witnessed this massive spoliation, and she surreptitiously kept meticulous notes. Thanks to her action, thousands of these paintings were recovered after the war. She became one of the most decorated women in France but died a forgotten hero. (more…)
Shimon’s Returns
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK
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The documentary film produced by Slawomir Grunberg and co-directed with Katka Reszke tells the story of Shimon Redlich, a hidden child during the Holocaust who returns to places from his childhood in Poland and the Ukraine to thank his rescuers.
“We are all Jews here” — The Story of Roddie Edmonds
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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Footsteps of My Father, an award-winning film produced by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, presents the extraordinary story of Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, the only American soldier recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.
Shalom China
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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China has a long and storied Jewish history dating back to at least the eighth century. The Jews of Kaifeng, who disappeared through assimilation and intermarriage, are undergoing a resurgence with their descendants reclaiming their lost identities. There were also substantial communities, now lost, in Harbin and Shanghai. Many Austrian Jews also came to Shanghai seeking refuge from Nazi-occupied Europe, rescued by the Holocaust hero Feng Shan Ho, the “angel of Vienna.” Today, the Jewish population in China is approximately 2,500 people. Image: Page with names in Hebrew and Chinese from a Kaifeng Jewish prayer book, collection of the Klau Library in Cincinnati.
Not Idly By — Peter Bergson, America and the Holocaust
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK • 9 PM JERUSALEM
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Best Documentary, Toronto Jewish Film Festival
In Not Idly By, filmmaker Pierre Sauvage explores the American reaction to the mass murder of the Jews of Europe. Most Americans believe that we didn’t know about the Holocaust until after it was over. Many assume that we couldn’t have done anything even if we had known. Meet Peter Bergson! A Palestinian Jew who had come to the U.S. in 1940, this firebrand led what came to be known as the Bergson Group, whose protest campaigns helped shatter the silence surrounding the Holocaust. Prominently featured in the film are extended excerpts from the legendary 1943 production by Ben Hecht and Kurt Weill, We Will Never Die. In addition to Sauvage, our panel includes Dr. Rebecca Kook (daughter of Bergson), Dr. Rafael Medoff, and moderator Dr. Mordecai Paldiel.
Albert Einstein — Still a Revolutionary!
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK
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Albert Einstein, the most famous scientist of all time, was also the most famous refugee from Nazi-occupied Europe. An anti-war firebrand, Einstein also spoke out on issues ranging from women’s rights and racism to immigration and nuclear arms control. Using a wealth of rarely-seen archival footage, correspondence, and new and illuminating interviews, filmmaker Julia Newman makes the case that Einstein’s example of social and political activism is as important today as are his brilliant, ground-breaking theories.