Sundance award-winner puts a human face on the global refugee crisis by…
Elder Voices
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
ELDER VOICES is a meditation about the destructiveness of hatred and the power of love, as told by Japanese-Americans, European Jews and conscientious objectors (COs) who came of age during the perilous times of the Great Depression and WWII. For each of these individuals the challenges they confronted proved even more daunting either because of what they believed or simply who they were. Residing together in a retirement community, they continue to live the values and principles of tolerance and mutual respect that were forged in their youth-- when they were confronted with anti-Semitism, internment camps, and bigotry.
What historical lessons can young people learn from their elders? How can those lessons be applied today as we continue to strive to build a better, more just, and peaceful world? What counsel do these seniors have for young people today who shortly will be facing very difficult challenges of their own? Those watching will become immersed in a diverse and culturally enriching experience.
'We must listen to the voices of the people in this important film. If we listen, and hear, we will learn about our history and about our world today. If we listen, and learn, we will be able to create better tomorrows.' Wendy E. Chmielewski, George R. Cooley Curator, Swarthmore College Peace Collection
'This is an excellent film and so relevant for today! The theme of elder voices who survived the Nazi Holocaust and POW camps in WW2 and the Japanese Internment telling their unique, never before heard testimonies asking for our humanity today to learn to love and not hate resonated for me as a child survivor of the Holocaust. A fine film to show educationally for high school Social Studies classes. I highly recommend this.' Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff, survivor of The Nazi Holocaust, Director, Holocaust Studies Summer Institute, University of Miami, Co-author, Studying the Holocaust thru Film and Literature
'With an indelible cast of characters, Elder Voices showcases the experiences of a diverse group of courageous people who have survived hate and fascism in the past. The result is a necessary, humane documentary for our increasingly inhumane times.' Moustafa Bayoumi, Professor of English, CUNY - Brooklyn College, Author, How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror
'Notably, and unlike many other films, Elder Voices draws parallels between the Holocaust and the U.S. forced detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II. It uses firsthand narratives of men and women who lived through the actual events to not only memorialize their experiences, but also to help us understand how those experiences affected them and shaped their lives. This film will be helpful to anyone wishing to explore the connections between nationalism, hatred, violence, and wartime fear.' Rajika Shah, Deputy Director, Center for the Study of Law and Genocide, Loyola Marymount University
'Beautifully integrates current events with those of the past. The human face of struggle, survival, resistance, compassion, and hope. This film draws us in on deeply emotional and personal levels. A wake up call for our times. Unforgettable.' Ann Doubleday, Adult Services Librarian, Burnham Memorial Library
'Elder Voices is an important documentary film for anyone who has lived through trauma. It's also for those who wish to understand how trauma, and more importantly, trauma recovery, effects not only the victims, but their friends and family as well.' Jamie Wraight, Director, Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive, University of Michigan - Dearborn
'Every story is a gripping description of terrifying experiences...Seeds of hate are always ready to germinate, and we must be willing to actively weed our garden. Peace is our business.' Bob Edelson, Medford Leas Life
'Elder Voices is a documentary that can help educators...Sharing oral histories of trauma and their lives thereafter, elder crisis survivors show and teach us that long stories of resilience can grow from difficult and important short stories of people and groups who experience social injustice.' Michael Polgar, Associate Professor of Sociology, Social Sciences and Education, Pennsylvania State University, Author, Holocaust and Human Rights Education: Good Choices and Sociological Perspectives
'At a time when we are besieged by strident divisiveness and competing agendas, Elder Voices provides both welcome refuge and a wise warning...The film's warning - that a history unacknowledged and left unaddressed is bound to repeat itself - is balanced by the inspirational stories of these elders, who recount the small acts of bravery and moments of compassion and spiritual strength that helped them endure anti-Semitism, racism, unjustified incarceration, and the constant threat of death without losing hope that humankind would find a more peaceful and tolerant way of life for all.' Joanne Bernardi, Professor of Japanese Studies and Film and Media Studies, University of Rochester
'Compelling - what an amazing, inspiring and extraordinary group of people! As this remarkable film makes clear, their stories have much to teach us about our present moment, in which the frightening upsurge in nationalism, racism and xenophobia has created a veritable powder keg of hatred and intolerance.' Erin McGlothlin, Chair, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Associate Professor, German and Jewish Studies, Washington University in St. Louis, Author, Second-Generation Holocaust Literature: Legacies of Survival and Perpetration
'Elder Voices makes a compelling case for viewers today to speak out against present day injustices. We are introduced to a diverse community of senior citizens who, despite all their apparent differences, are united in their commitment to end war, genocide, unjust detention, and other forms of violence rooted in racism and other forms of discrimination. These wise elders ultimately articulate an interfaith vision of our shared humanity, and express the need for all of us to speak for those who are so easily cast aside because of their perceived differences.' Daniel Reynolds, Professor of Modern Languages, Chair of German Studies, Grinnell College, Author, Postcards from Auschwitz: Holocaust Tourism and the Meaning of Remembrance
'The people featured in Elder Voices have suffered persecution, oppression, and genocide, but they have not been broken...An inspiring and important story of the human spirit. This powerful short film would be ideal to generate community and classroom discussions about what we need to learn from our past and how each of us has a responsibility to stand up for what is right.' Renee Romano, Professor of History, Africana Studies and Comparative American Studies, Oberlin College
Citation
Main credits
Goodman, David (film director)
Goodman, David (film producer)
Goodman, David (screenwriter)
Mullally, Sharon (screenwriter)
Mullally, Sharon (editor of moving image work)
Tegnell, Ann (screenwriter)
Tegnell, Ann (editor of moving image work)
Other credits
Cinematography, Edwin Martinez, Daniel Traub; editors, Sharon Mullally, Ann Tegnell; music, Lillian Samdal.
Distributor subjects
Activism; Aging; American Studies; Anthropology; Citizenship and Civics; Civil Rights; Ethics; European Studies; Global Issues; History; Human Rights; Jewish Studies; Migration and Refugees; Political Science; Psychology; Race and Racism; Social Psychology; Sociology; War and PeaceKeywords
[00:00:00.50] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:00:06.95] - Yeah, he shot the pastor. He shot all the men in the church. Please come right away. But there's so many people dead, I think. Oh my god.
[00:00:16.48] (CROWD CHANTING)
[00:00:22.41] - (ALL CHANTING) White lives matter! White lives matter!
[00:00:25.62] - My parents were very anti-Jewish. I heard all the bad words. Kikes, wops, dagos. I heard all that as a kid in New York City.
[00:00:35.78] (GLASS SHATTERING)
[00:00:39.99] - You were a Jew, you were no good, and you were responsible for the worst in the world. You were scapegoated.
[00:00:47.25] (FLAMES CRACKLING)
[00:00:51.63] (CLAMORING)
[00:00:53.58] - Islam is evil! Christ is king!
[00:00:57.98] - People are always going to be against somebody they deem to be a threat. Especially if they're recognizable, like we were back in the '40s.
[00:01:13.91] - I lived through the Holocaust, and it shouldn't happen again.
[00:01:19.63] - Finding how to obtain peace without going out and killing somebody else.
[00:01:26.48] - We never learn.
[00:01:37.99] - When you see something wrong, it is your obligation to speak up about it and not let it go by. Every generation has to learn anew speaking out.
[00:02:09.78] (BIRDS CHIRPING)
[00:02:16.72] (GENTLE MUSIC)
[00:02:52.98] - We've been married 60 years last June.
[00:02:55.92] - I got interested in seeing more of her, and so I dated her some. My brother was already married, and he had married-- to my mother's point of view-- a woman in a kind of a strange cult called the Quakers. Then I married a Jew, and that was very hard to take. It turned out that my sister then married a Catholic. So it was rough for her whenever her kids got married.
[00:03:26.66] - My father was very much against it. But I think it basically was because he wasn't Jewish. That really was very hard for them to accept. But five years, and knowing him after we were married, my mother and he had the kind of relationship that neither one of them could do any wrong. It was a mutual admiration society.
[00:03:52.44] (CAR ENGINE WHIRRING)
[00:03:54.88] (ACCORDION MUSIC)
[00:03:57.32] - I was born in Vienna, Austria, to an affluent family that lived in the same place where my father's business was, and my grandparents. My grandfather started a wholesale winery. My father got enamored with movies. And he went and bought himself a professional movie camera.
[00:04:32.68] That's me. Oh my god. That doesn't look like me, but it is me. That's me. That's what I looked like. I mean, I'm going to be 82. I said to myself, when I'm 80, I'm going to have to say I'm old. I cannot anymore say I am middle aged. I have to say I am old. That's a hard word.
[00:04:56.98] I wanted to spend the last years of my life with a sense of community. And that's what I sensed, that I could have that sense of belonging and being comfortable here. And I am.
[00:05:12.87] (ALARM BLARING)
[00:05:15.32] (CHEERING)
[00:05:21.45] (SPEAKING GERMAN)
[00:05:24.15] (OMINOUS MUSIC)
[00:05:35.17] - We knew conditions in Germany were bad. In fact, they'd gotten worse by the day. A young Jew in Paris had killed a German consul official, and as a result, the Germans instituted Kristallnacht, the night of the broken glass.
[00:06:25.54] The orders came down to the local level. For instance, in my hometown, we had a one-man police force. The man was a neighbor of ours. And he had orders to arrest every Jew between the ages of 16 and 65. Came to my home and knew my father wasn't 65 years old, but he said, "Look, I didn't see you, but Ernest, I'm sorry, you have to go along." So that's-- I was arrested.
[00:07:00.13] I spent about two nights in my local jail, and then they marched us off to a waiting train. Pushed us into the train. It was a regular passenger train.
[00:07:10.21] And that train took off. We had no idea where it was going to. And on the way, picked up more and more Jewish people. And eventually ended up at Weimar, which is just next to the Buchenwald concentration camp.
[00:07:22.14] (ENGINE CHUGGING)
[00:07:25.05] And we were there for quite some time in the clothes that we came in. We had nothing else. It was cold in November. We slept in bunks. We just huddled close together at night to keep from freezing. And we were fed once daily.
[00:07:40.81] Hygienic conditions were miserable. We all suffered. I met three of my cousins who were in camp at the same time with me. And of course, we all had the same problems. We all worried, how long are we going to be here? What was going to happen to us? Nobody knew.
[00:07:58.39] (CHEERING)
[00:07:59.83] (ANTHEM PLAYING)
[00:08:03.75] In 1933, when Hitler came to power, my father knew that his foreman wanted his business. He'd been walking around with a Nazi uniform already. So my father left the very first day and said, "I'll be back in a week." And my mother and I stayed. But a week later, obviously, he wasn't coming back, so my mother and I left Germany and went to France.
[00:08:33.95] The French didn't trust us, so we moved quite frequently until 1935, when we settled in Tours. This is a carte d'identité, which is an identification card. It's a false identity that was paid out for me by the Underground, and it has my false name and all kinds of dates. I spoke perfect French. I wore a little cross on my chain, and that was no problem at all.
[00:09:08.22] In 1940, we were in Tours. We're being bombed by the Germans. They also arrested all the women who were over 16. When they arrested my mother, I pleaded with them to take me, because the night before, we were being bombed, and I didn't want to stay all alone in the house. And I think one of the worst experiences I ever had was to go see my mother in prison and talk to her through the grill. I was a 15-year-old left all alone.
[00:09:42.57] A friend of mine who lived down the street, her family took me in. And then when the bombing continued we went 30 miles to Langeais, along the Loire River. And that's where we stayed during the bombing.
[00:10:02.47] (LIVELY ACCORDION MUSIC)
[00:10:07.74] - I had a governess who came when I was five. She had the biggest influence on my life, and her name was Marcelle Vini, and she taught me French. But I called her Madi. She really only took care of me from 5 to 10, over a very, very, very important part of my life. But she influenced the kind of person I became.
[00:10:34.14] She also saved my life in a couple of different instances. She was Catholic, and when Hitler came into Vienna in March of 1938, I was in first grade.
[00:10:47.43] (DRAMATIC MUSIC)
[00:10:48.89] (CHANTING)
[00:10:54.72] My father understood what was happening, and within pretty short order, he got Madi to say that she would take my two brothers and me to Italy. He sent us off to Trieste.
[00:11:09.03] Madi told me I have to pretend to be Catholic and learn all the catechisms and all that, and just do my best. And I understood that that's what I had to do. And I learned, at the age of seven, to be a very convincing liar. I can lie with the best of them. Most of the time, I tell the truth. But if things are very important to be lied about, I can do it.
[00:11:45.86] And then Madi had to get us into schools. And she went to see the Mother Superior. And this Mother Superior asked me whether I could wear a cross, and never tell anybody I was Jewish, and never tell anything about where I came from, and just be like all the other children in second grade. And I said, yes, I could do that. And I did do that.
[00:12:10.94] I went to school there from September till Christmas time, and it was the nicest place I was ever in. My name was Giovanna, and nobody knew I wasn't Italian. At Christmas time, they had an awards assembly, and I got the award for the best student in the class. And it was really what-- aside from having my first baby and passing the bar exam, I think those were the three happiest occasions of my life.
[00:12:46.39] My father, in the meantime, spent about six weeks or eight weeks in Dachau, which was a concentration camp. And my mother got my father out of Dachau by remembering a good Nazi customer of his. And he helped her with the Gestapo, and for which I think he got a car, or a bar of gold.
[00:13:09.95] - I was born in Berlin in 1926. My mother was not married, and she gave me away very soon. I was between one and a half and two years old. I started out in a foster home. The woman was very strict. We had very little to eat.
[00:13:39.86] Then I came into this family that had no children, and actually, they wanted to adopt me. But fortunately, my mother did not want that. Now, I say I was lucky. I really was lucky.
[00:13:58.74] I forgave my mother for everything she did. I always felt she didn't have the money, and she couldn't keep me, and I never found any reason to blame her.
[00:14:11.07] My father was Jewish. He wasn't supposed to cohabitate with a Christian woman, and certainly not have an illegitimate child. I know that he was picked up early-- I think in '38-- to be sent to a concentration camp because of me.
[00:14:33.60] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:14:37.37] I was 12 years old when I left Germany and came to Holland. We were taken to the train, and believe it or not, I cried my eyes out. I don't know what I felt I was losing. I wasn't losing a damn thing. But somehow, it felt, what I had, I knew. What was coming, I did not know.
[00:15:01.42] (SOLEMN MUSIC)
[00:15:03.76] - Those were the days when the Germans still let people get out of the country. My parents contacted a friend of mine who was in this country and told them, "Look, Ernest sits in concentration camp, and the only way he can get out is if you find somebody who will sponsor him to come to another country." And this fellow talked to the people he was rooming with, and they said, "We'll sponsor him." Complete strangers to me, people that saved my life.
[00:15:34.06] I was called in April '39 to the American consulate in Stuttgart, and after a very thorough physical and mental exam, I was given a visa. And I was lucky enough to get out.
[00:15:51.54] My father took me to the railroad station in Cologne, and with tears in his eyes, there's only one thing he told me. "Don't do anything I'd have to be ashamed of." And I've tried to use that as a guide in my life. And I hope I wouldn't have disappointed him.
[00:16:39.66] I didn't see my parents again. My father had five sisters that were still living at the time. They were all murdered. I don't know how many cousins, about five or six more cousins that didn't make it. As far as family's concerned, I would say certainly 15 or more-- murdered for no reason whatsoever except from being Jewish.
[00:17:28.12] - When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, our West Coast became a potential combat zone. Living in that zone were more than 100,000 persons of Japanese ancestry. We know that some among them were potentially dangerous.
[00:17:44.42] - To beat the Japanese, we have got to understand them thoroughly. They are as different from ourselves as any people on this planet. The real difference is in their minds.
[00:18:00.94] - FDR pulled us out of the Depression, and the whole country looked to him for leadership. If he thought it was all right, that's OK with them.
[00:18:11.41] There were people, groups, that had something to gain by getting the Japanese out of the state. Take their land, their businesses.
[00:18:28.74] This is a sample of the kind of posters that were put on the sides of buildings and on telephone poles to alert people when and how they were going to be evacuated. It tells you where to report, to be picked up by an army bus, and it tells you what you have to bring.
[00:18:55.40] We could only take with us what we could carry in our two hands. Everything else had to be either sold or put in government storage.
[00:19:06.51] I did this painting of our dog Tipi. That was my greatest loss. At 18, you don't have much in the way of possessions to lose, but Tipi was my dog. I've never had another dog since then.
[00:19:22.16] (SOLEMN PIANO MUSIC)
[00:19:25.96] They picked up community leaders first, especially the Issei, the Japanese immigrant population. They came with the FBI and local police, and they took my father's employer, who's the owner of this thriving nursery. He was a leader in the Oakland Buddhist temple, so he was one of the first taken like a prisoner of war. His family didn't know what had happened to him until much later.
[00:20:03.87] The initial evacuation was handled by the military about May of 1942. Most of the people from the San Francisco Bay Area were sent first to Tanforan, the race track that was converted to living quarters for Japanese-Americans.
[00:20:26.31] These are pencil sketches that I did while we were in Tanforan. There were five of us. We were given one light bulb, bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling, one cot for each person with blankets. And it was strictly for sleeping. We had to go to the grandstand for our meals in shifts.
[00:20:50.28] (SOLEMN PIANO)
[00:21:10.02] This is a view from Tanforan looking south. South or north, I forget which. But notice the sign, "enjoy Acme beer." 'Course, alcohol beverages were not allowed in the camp, so it must have been tantalizing to people like my father, who loved his beer.
[00:21:31.89] Around September, we were put on trains. Think it took about two days. And they put us in the desert camps, the 10 relocation centers, as they called them. We were put in Utah.
[00:21:46.28] - Their evacuation did not imply individual disloyalty, but was ordered to reduce a military hazard at a time when danger of invasion was great. 2/3 of the evacuees are American citizens by right of birth. The rest are their Japanese-born parents and grandparents. They are not prisoners. They are not internees. They are merely dislocated people-- the unwounded casualties of war.
[00:22:14.35] - The residential area was surrounded by barbed wire, and there were guard towers manned 24/7.
[00:22:22.97] (SOLEMN MUSIC)
[00:22:37.34] - 10 men to a ship-- the combat team. 10 men blending together like a good jazz band. Pilot and co-pilot, bombardier, navigator, engineer, radio man, photographer, gunner.
[00:22:55.91] - What you see here are two pictures when I'm flying in the waist of a B-17. My wings. Purple Heart is over here. There's an Air Medal with two clusters. There's a Prisoner of War Medal in here, given both by the United States and by the State of New Jersey. I was 17 going on 18.
[00:23:23.79] Just got out of high-- matter of fact, I hadn't even graduated from high school when, with all the patriotism, I wanted to be in the Air Force. And I was trained and sent to Denver, made a gunner. I joined a crew, a wonderful nine other men on a B-17, and we went to Europe to fight a war.
[00:23:48.55] Well, when we got over there, it was a lot of excitement. Here I was doing the thing I wanted to do. But let me tell you, as the missions went on-- 1, 2, 3, up to 18-- two things happened. One, they got scarier. Two, you didn't want to go out anymore. You always worry, are you going to come back?
[00:24:12.46] The last mission, a pilot got us together. A directive had come down from Air Force headquarters that the bombing now would be cities, not military targets anymore. So we were going to kill people, not get rid of targets. And I said, "I'm not going to fly a mission to kill people. Now, you other guys on the crew can make a decision, do you want to do this or not?" And we talked about it. Came back to him and said, "Bill, we would approve what you just said." And that was a big step, because that meant court martial for our whole crew.
[00:24:49.93] The next day, a mission was planned, and it was to a military target, and we went on it. We were shot down. We had 270 holes in the aircraft. Two engines were out. I was the armorer. I was in charge of all the bombs and guns on the aircraft. Well, we hadn't dropped any of our bombs. We had six 1,000-pound bombs, and we're going to have to mechanically open up the bomb bay because all the electrical equipment is gone.
[00:25:21.63] I was badly wounded in one leg. I crawled back into the bomb bay to open up the shackles on every one of these while they held on to me. The wind whipping, and my leg bleeding, and I got all six bombs out. None of them went off. And our pilot said, 'I'm going to try to set the aircraft down here.' And where he set the aircraft down, if you look on a map, the town is called Sonthofen.
[00:25:50.79] Immediately, the Wehrmacht came, and they surrounded the aircraft. We were all put in prison, and then we started a sojourn of the next three, four months from prison camp to prison camp. We were marched through cities. We were marched through town. We came out of Nuremberg, snow falling. This is February now, 1945. Nothing-- buildings totally destroyed.
[00:26:16.50] And men and women lining up-- mostly women, men were all gone-- and they had two spigots for water. One for washing, one for drinking. And the lines go on and on and on. And these people had nothing else to do but just wait there to get water to survive. This was the enemy we're fighting.
[00:26:36.33] You would see them on trains carrying little valises. Why? Because they had no place to live anymore. They were like nomads. They were going from village to city to city 'cause we were just bombing, bombing, bombing to destroy them. And you live through this, and it was a horror.
[00:26:57.15] (SOLEMN PIANO MUSIC)
[00:27:19.38] I was a prisoner of war from February 25, 1945 till, oh, I'd say it was May 6, May 7 when we were sent back to France, 1945.
[00:27:45.36] - There was nothing I could do for my parents anymore. And knowing how badly the Germans had treated all of us, I just felt somebody had a reason to fight. And if anybody did, it was I more so than most of the people that were born in this country. And I was glad to volunteer, and much as I hate war, I was glad to be in that one and was able to do some of the things that possibly saved American lives.
[00:28:14.04] I was made a member of a prisoner of war interrogation team. I got myself attached to a unit of the first division at the time that was advancing towards my hometown. I got into my parental home. Didn't look anymore the way I pictured it. In the attic, a bunch of partitions had been put up in raw wood. And only after the war did I find out that in late 1941, several months before they were deported, all the Jews in my hometown had been evicted from their homes, herded into my parental home, and kept there under miserable horrible conditions until they finally were deported in March of 1942.
[00:29:06.66] I was wounded the day President Roosevelt died, which was 12th of April, 1945. Doctors told me, "Before you're fully recovered and get to be as well as you can hope to be, it'll take at least five years." So by that time, most of the German-speaking personnel had left the service, and there was a need for German-speaking personnel in Europe, and I got called back to collect documents that would help the war crimes trials that were going on in Nuremberg.
[00:29:39.02] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:29:41.41] - I was drafted in February of 1942 as a CO, which was a 4E classification in the Draft Act. I knew that if anything in the way of a war ever came along, that I would take the position of a conscientious objector. My mother, my father, and my second youngest brother thought I was a dingbat. Thought I was nuts and crazy. They did not have any good words to say about COs.
[00:30:15.14] I was drafted to go to North Carolina to fight forest fires and to build a national park on the Blue Ridge Skyway. But I felt that I wanted to be doing something more with people, so I volunteered to go to Byberry in Philadelphia-- Philadelphia State Hospital. I was working in a mental institution. It ended up that I was there for three and a half years.
[00:30:40.56] - I heard about this program here at Byberry, and so I applied. It also offered a chance to learn a little bit about mental health, but I didn't learn very much about mental health. They were giving some hydrotherapy to overactive patients. We would put ice in a bathtub and soak up a bunch of sheets. And then we would wrap these overactive guys in these wet, cold sheets. Their body heat would gradually warm it up, and it would take so much, they would be docile.
[00:31:25.56] - All of us COs started a letter-writing campaign to the papers to make the public aware of the conditions. And it began to get a little interest.
[00:31:34.94] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:31:48.99] The Secretary of State came to Byberry one day for an inspection. And it was interesting that the violence was greatly reduced. So we did have a little effect there.
[00:32:04.99] - These mental institutions were just a place for people who didn't fit in. Well, some of them were schizophrenic. They had dreams and voices. But for the most part it was low income, a lot of minorities that were there who just didn't have any other place to go. It was man's inhumanity to man.
[00:32:39.27] - And then we also started a program to publish this book, "The Attendant." It was a monthly to train potential attendees-- things to do in situations, how to treat people, and so on and so on. Went on for a long time. But it was an initiative to have better qualified people working in mental institutions.
[00:33:13.10] (LIGHT MUSIC)
[00:33:18.47] - We were taken to at home in Amsterdam. I stayed there for two and a half years, and I loved it. But the Germans came and sent us to this internment camp in Holland. And once you got there, the chances were that you were put on a train and on to Germany.
[00:33:45.38] For some reason, somebody heard about me being half Jewish and said, "That's ridiculous. You shouldn't be here." The Quakers had said, I guess, to the Germans that they would take care of children who were left behind when the families were sent to the camps. Why don't I accept the fact that I'm lucky? It's hard to.
[00:34:17.01] (SOMBER PIANO MUSIC)
[00:34:26.40] - When the Germans were losing, they just opened the doors to the concentration camps. And my parents, who had been arrested by the French, they just walked out. But I had no idea where they were. My father was always very good at foreseeing some of these situations and had always said, if we get separated, one point where we can meet is my uncle's farm. The mayor of the community accepted us as refugees.
[00:35:16.74] - They came to Trieste at Christmas time. And they said, "Now we're going to go to Palestine." And I said, "Couldn't we stay here?" I wanted to live there in that convent. And she said, "No, you cannot live there." So we had to leave. And we took a boat to Palestine.
[00:35:36.06] (LIGHT SUNNY MUSIC)
[00:35:39.32] When we first got to Tel Aviv, I remember vividly walking in the street and saying, "I can say that I'm Jewish." And it was such a wonderful feeling of safety. And I didn't want to leave it.
[00:35:59.42] (MOURNFUL MUSIC)
[00:36:11.75] - So when I came back, my leg wounds had healed, everything outside had healed. But inside, I was just-- I was a mess. And so as I got older, went back to work, got married, children, went back to school, became a podiatrist, opened up my practice.
[00:36:32.29] But my wife Marjorie would say my night terrors became worse and worse and worse. There's always somebody coming in the room, standing right over the bed, and I'm fighting him off.
[00:36:46.21] And Marjorie said to me, "George, you got to do something about this. You get up and I'm black and blue in the morning." And so one day, she was going to work. I took myself to the VA, all myself. And I walked in the door, and the guy said, well, "Who are you?" I said, "I'm a veteran of the Second World War." "Oh, big deal."
[00:37:07.57] But I said, "I'm also a POW." He said, "Where the hell have you been?" He says, "You guys from World War II went home, went back to school and work, and you're supposed to forget about it. Nothing happened to you. Well, you're coming in the door like crazy now because all of that stress, all of that post-traumatic stress, has been sitting there fuming and bubbling all these years."
[00:37:32.17] And I saw what I was going through, and that led me to say, in 2000, I'm going back to Germany with my wife to relive every place I've been. I wanted to stand in that field where the plane went down, just be alone, to remind myself of those living and dead that couldn't be there anymore. And just my time of reflection.
[00:38:11.97] (TRAIN RATTLING)
[00:38:18.47] The camps closed. We tried to forget about what happened to us. I understand a lot of the Holocaust victims felt the same way. They didn't talk about it to their children.
[00:38:30.34] It was the next generation who took the lead in pressing for a commission to investigate what happened. And they came up with this report that said there was no military necessity. It was politics that caused it.
[00:38:50.41] The number of Japanese-Americans who were convicted of spying or acting against the interests of the United States was zero. None. Absolutely none.
[00:39:09.95] - I belong to an organization. It's a POW chapter here in southern New Jersey. It's a small group. We've diminished over the years. And the most common thing, we all were neglected. Nobody cares about us.
[00:39:23.91] I spent a lot of time at the VA at their mental health unit. See these young men-- Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq. See what we have done to these young men. They're coming for their drugs. They're coming because emotionally they can't make it. See how they're swept away. And you out here, the population, don't understand what we're doing to these people.
[00:39:59.22] And I tell this to groups I speak to, and you see what the horrors of war do to young people-- Wonderful young people, men and women.
[00:40:09.88] - Today, we hear some politicians talk about what has to be done to certain countries and whatnot. And it seems to me that they would talk differently if they themselves were wearing a uniform. The only thing that I can think of doing is, being a Holocaust survivor-- and there are fewer of us every day-- is to go out and speak wherever I can speak about the Holocaust, because I feel that getting it from somebody who's still alive is a lot better than the book which they can put aside and simply forget about very quickly.
[00:40:47.32] - I'm an idealist, and I'm a romanticist. And I'm still active. Matter of fact, the first Saturday of every month right here in Medford, we have a vigil over at Medford Meeting House opposing war.
[00:41:02.17] - Every now and then, I get a call from the Veterans Association. "George, would you come down to the local high school on Veteran's Day and speak to our social study groups, senior high school groups?" And I explain to them what I went through. I had no idea what peace meant when I was 17 years old. Learning how to become-- and I use the word "killer." Learning how to be a killer is going to change your life.
[00:41:34.80] (GUNFIRE)
[00:41:41.21] - Our country is getting more militaristic every day.
[00:41:44.03] (GUNFIRE)
[00:41:48.12] We need to be made aware that we don't have to be that way.
[00:41:53.19] (CLAMORING)
[00:42:01.87] - It's not going to be easy. It's difficult. But it can happen.
[00:42:07.92] Finding how to obtain peace without going out and killing somebody else.
[00:42:36.48] (CHANTING IN ARABIC))
[00:42:47.78] - (CHUCKLES) You're warm.
[00:42:49.67] - Most of the people around this table have experienced some kind of prejudice or mistreatment as a result of ethnicity or religious points of view.
[00:43:02.72] - This discrimination didn't happen to only Muslims. Same thing with Italian-Americans. It was same thing with the Irish. It happened to Jewish when they came to this country. It's a human nature that unknown thing always scares.
[00:43:15.52] (YELLING)
[00:43:25.48] (CHANTING IN ARABIC)
[00:43:37.69] - This mosque started after 9/11, you know? But the major people who helped to build this mosque were non-Muslims. Lori, she's a Buddhist. Father Wallace is a Christian. Alan Respler is a Jew. Most of the people who are non-Muslim, they stood up.
[00:44:00.88] - I really appreciate what was done here in the mosque, and what you have done here, and to bring and say to people, "There are reasons to be together."
[00:44:12.92] - One person can make a difference. And it is very important, if you hear or see something that is wrong, that you do not turn the other way, but you say, "I disagree with what you just said." My mother was very upset when I protested the war in Vietnam and I signed petitions, and I marched. And she said, "Please don't sign anything." And I said to her, "What happened to you and your husband? You never signed anything. You never spoke, and nor did anybody else. It was all going to go away, but it didn't go away. And if it's not going to go away, you might as well have signed your name and taken a stand."
[00:45:03.32] (TENSE MUSIC)
[00:45:09.36] I am very committed to not permit things to go on that you know are wrong.
[00:45:37.98] (CLAMORING)
[00:45:55.38] (MUSIC PLAYING)
[00:46:13.08] (WOMEN VOCALIZING)
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 49 minutes
Date: 2020
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Grade: 7 - 9, 10 - 12, College, Adult
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
Interactive Transcript: Available
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