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Jan Karski — Humanitarian Hero
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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Jan Karski was a member of the Polish underground during World War II whose mission was to inform the Allied powers of Nazi crimes against the Jews of Europe in order to stop the Holocaust. Karski infiltrated the Warsaw Ghetto and a Nazi Transit Camp and carried his dreadful eyewitness report of the atrocities to Britain and the United States, hoping that it would shake the conscience of the powerful leaders or – as he would later call them – the Lords of Humanity. For his extraordinary efforts Karski was named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
A New Look at Oskar and Emilie Schindler
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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Dr. Mordecai Paldiel oversaw the granting of the title of Righteous Among the Nations to Oskar and Emilie Schindler in 1993. See a documentary film on the Schindler story. Then learn behind-the-scenes stories from our distinguished panel, including Dr. Paldiel, Schindler’s biographer Dr. David Crowe, and Marie P. Knecht, the daughter of survivors of Schindler’s famous list.
Safe Haven in the Philippines
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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In the 1930s, when nations of the world were closing their doors to refugee Jews fleeing the growing horror of Hitler’s Germany, one small island nation in the Pacific, the Philippines, chose to do what others would not — save those lives. This rescue, orchestrated and empowered through President Manuel Quezon, gave the refugees a new welcoming homeland as the Filipino people opened their hearts and accepted them within the fabric of Philippine society. Today a monument to this rescue action stands in Rishon Le Zion, Israel.
From Swastika to Jim Crow — Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges in the American South
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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The film-and-discussion program tells the little known story of German Jewish professors who, expelled from their homeland by the Nazis, found new lives and careers at all-black colleges and universities in the segregated American South. While most of these pairings between Jewish refugees and black colleges began as marriages of convenience, very often they blossomed into love matches that lasted a lifetime.
Boatlift
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK
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On the 21st anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, the Sousa Mendes Foundation pauses to remember the nearly 3,000 Americans who lost their lives, and also to acknowledge the inspiring bravery shown by first responders and everyday citizens on that tragic day. One of the most notable acts of valor was the maritime evacuation of Lower Manhattan – the largest water evacuation in American history – in which 500,000 people were transported to safety by hundreds of vessels that answered a call from the U.S. Coast Guard to converge on New York Harbor to aid in the evacuation. This extraordinary rescue was memorialized in a short documentary film Boatlift, narrated by Tom Hanks, that tells the story of the largest sea evacuation since Dunkirk in June 1940. This short film will be sent to all of our subscribers on the morning of Sunday, September 11, 2022. Then tune in at 2 PM ET for a discussion of the two greatest boatlifts in history.
The Vatican and the Holocaust
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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Many people are aware of the failure of Pope Pius XII to speak out against Nazi Germany’s persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust. But few people know that his predecessor, Pope Pius XI, had prepared an address to the world’s Catholics on this very topic in collaboration with an American Jesuit priest and human rights activist, John LaFarge Jr. But Pope Pius XI suddenly died the night before the scheduled speech, and the existence of the planned Encyclical was then suppressed by the Vatican. A fascinating and tragic story of “What if?”
The U.S. and the Holocaust
4 PM LOS ANGELES • 7 PM NEW YORK
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The U.S. and the Holocaust is a three-part, six-hour PBS series directed by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein, that examines America’s response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Americans consider themselves a “nation of immigrants,” but as the catastrophe of the Holocaust unfolded in Europe, the United States proved unwilling to open its doors to more than a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge. Through riveting firsthand testimony of witnesses and survivors who as children endured persecution, violence and flight as their families tried to escape Hitler, this series delves deeply into the tragic human consequences of public indifference, bureaucratic red tape and restrictive quota laws in America. Did the nation fail to live up to its ideals? This is a history to be reckoned with.
Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During World War II
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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During the Second World War, some tens of thousands of Jewish children were saved from almost certain death by non-Jewish neighbors, friends, or even — in many cases — total strangers. These rescuers, men and women of uncommon decency, did everything from bringing Jewish children into their families under false identities to securing hiding places in closets, attics, or hastily-dug bunkers. What happened between these children, their parents, and their rescuers is the focus of Aviva Slesin‘s groundbreaking film, Secret Lives.
Disobedience: The Sousa Mendes Story
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK • 7 PM LISBON
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Please join us for a film-and-discussion program featuring the award-winning docudrama Disobedience: The Sousa Mendes Story by Joel Santoni and starring Bernard Le Coq as the Holocaust rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes.
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No Place on Earth
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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An extraordinary story! In 1942, 38 men, women and children slid down a cold, muddy hole in the ground, seeking refuge from the war above in a pitch-black underground world where no human had gone before. These five Ukrainian Jewish families created their own society where young men bravely ventured into the harrowing night to collect food, supplies and chop firewood. The girls and women never left, surviving underground longer than anyone in recorded history. Held together by an iron-willed matriarch, after 511 days, the cave dwellers, ages 2 to 76, emerged at war’s end in tattered clothes, blinded by a sun some children forgot existed. Despite all odds, they had survived. (more…)