THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 14, 1996 TAG: 9604130065
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
EVEN HER teacher threw stones.
In the wake of Kristallnacht, the infamous 1938 nationwide attack on German Jewish culture and businesses, Selma Frank recalls, rocks were tossed into her house all day long. Her teacher and schoolmates came along. Shortly after that, she left the country.
Frank, a Newport News resident, is one of several Holocaust survivors now living on the Peninsula. Many of them tell their stories in ``To Bear Witness: A Living Testimonial of the Holocaust,'' a documentary airing at 6 p.m. today and at 11:30 p.m. Monday on WHRO-TV (Channel 15).
The film allows some striking glimpses into life before, during and after the killings of millions of Jews and other ``undesirables.''
``Lookin' at the camp from outside, it looked like a college campus or something,'' said Warren Reed of Newport News, who was part of the liberation of the camps. ``It had ivied walls and shrubbery around it.'' Inside the walls were the bodies of ``37 people shot while we were waiting to move in.''
``I can remember being hungry for a year, if you can imagine that,'' said Maurice Levis of Hampton, a one-time prisoner of the Bergen-Belsen camp.
Such stories of incredible strength and will to live are a touchstone of ``To Bear Witness.'' After escaping form a Hungarian camp, Frank Shatz of Williamsburg stayed in a safehouse established by legendary anti-Nazi activist Raoul Wallenberg. A friend of Shatz's later managed to swim the rough currents of the Danube to freedom.
``There's a real need for this for two reasons,'' said Bob Thoms of Metro Video, the Richmond- and Williamsburg-based company behind ``Witness.'' ``A lot of these people are very old. For some of them, it was the first time that their daughters, cousins and families heard from their lips what happened. Also, it was made to educate schoolchildren and the community. These are people who, they may know a survivor or they may have gone to school with a son or daughter.'' The 70-minute film will be used as part of a semester-long Peninsula high-school course on the Holocaust.
Thoms said ``To Bear Witness'' was a labor of love for writer/producer Eric Futterman, formerly of Norfolk.
``He did a lot of research on the Holocaust for this. And he interviewed everybody you'll see on screen.
``We know this is gonna be something shown for years to come.''
As hoped, Thoms said, ``Witness'' has ``sparked an interest in the community'' about the events surrounding the tragedy. In an age when memory of the Holocaust might begin receding - or even be denied by latter-day Nazi sympathizers - it also issues strong words attesting to the truth.
``Believe me, it happened,'' says Lotte Goldstein of Newport News, who fled without her family. ``I am here. I'm an only child. Parents wouldn't send an only child away from home, would they?'' by CNB