This past Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, our eighth graders who are participating in the Names, Not Numbers (NNN) Project were involved in the filming of interviews of three Holocaust survivors. These interviews will be made into an NNN documentary which will be shown to the community at large sometime in May.
On Monday, the Chabad Center across from our main building graciously allowed Mr. Michael Puro, the NNN videographer, and our talmidim to create a professional set on their premises where the interviews would be filmed. Mr. Puro showed the talmidim how to use the equipment, since these very talmidim would not only take turns interviewing their survivors, but would be working behind the cameras as well.
On Tuesday afternoon, Rabbi Pacht shlita and Aminadav Bandari, Yaakov Farnan, Asher Isaacov, Shmuel Moskowitz, David Murdakhayev, Yehuda Rabinowitz, and Pinny Weiner greeted the first survivor to be interviewed – Mrs. Sonja Geismar. Mrs. Geismar was a very young child when Kristallnacht occurred. She spoke of how her family wound up on the ship, the St. Louis, and what happened as a result of no countries willing them entry.
On Wednesday morning, Rabbi Pacht and Yisroel Gottlieb, Rafi Herstein, Chaim Sholom Kramer, Yitzchak Machlis, and David Melamed greeted Mr. Arnold Newfield. Mr. Newfield shared with the talmidim how he was born in Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, was moved to a transit camp, and how through the strength of his mother and brothers survived the war.
Our third survivor, Professor Morris Engelson, was greeted by Rabbi Pacht and Sholom Feder, Benny Ganz, Pinhas Morgenstern, Efrayim Ohayon, Eliyahu Rafailov, and Tzvi Elimelech Wagner. In his interview, Professor Engelson described how events that occurred 20 years before World War II were the nisim that saved the lives of his parents, siblings, and himself during the war.
At the end of each interview, the talmidim presented the survivor with a letter of thanks for sharing his or her story and a gift of appreciation.
