Subjects: General

The dramatic story of Mr. Abraham Ascher and Professor David Cohen, the leaders of the Jewish community of Amsterdam. They became the heads of the Jewish Council in 1941 and also an instrument in the hands of the Nazis and their murderous policy in deporting the Dutch Jews. It is the story of the two men who were given the responsibility for running the Jewish Council of Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation. They set up a government – a state within a state – to handle all Jewish affairs, including supplying the Nazis with lists of people to be transported to the concentration camps. One of the most dramatic stories of the Holocaust.

Stuart Eizenstat, Undersecretary of State of the United States during the Clinton administration, initiated a wide-ranging investigation into the role of the neutral countries during the Second World War. His first ‘Eizenstat Report’, that was published in May 1997 accused Switzerland of having assisted in prolonging the war by its serving as a banker for the Nazi regime. This report caused worldwide upheaval on the role of Switzerland as a neutral country. This film tells the spectacular story of the Nazi Gold Reports.

In this documentary, the sole surviving member of the Jewish High Command looks back on the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, a unique event in Jewish as well as non-Jewish history: the first time the Jews took up arms against the Nazis. In 1943 the remaining 50,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto realized that there was no hope that any of them would survive the holocaust. Dr. Marek Edelman, who never left Poland, is now a cardiologist in Lodz where in the 1980s he played a leading role in the then underground trade union Solidarity. Filmed and interviewed on location in Warsaw and Lodz, Marek Edelman gives an insider’s account of the dramatic events that unfolded in 1943. The documentary contains unique historical footage.

The first feature-length documentary about Israel’s Prime Minister, murdered in 1995. His widow, Leah Rabin, tells of war and peace, duty and family, the life of Yitzhak Rabin and the story of Israel. The film was shot on location in the Middle East and the United States, and includes unique archival material. It is an intimate portrait of an impressive leader, profiled by the people who knew him best, those who loved him and those who fought him, with exclusive appearances by Leah Rabin, Yasser Arafat, Simon Peres, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, General Uzi Narkis and many others.

This documentary tells the fascinating story of Hasidism and Jewish mysticism in Israel. Unique film footage of a mystical world unknown to most of us is shown in “D’vekut”. Through very special personal contacts the filmmaker succeeded, for the first time ever, to film Israel’s Hasidic communities. Today’s Hasidic world is among the fastest growing mystical societies in the world.

A shocking documentary about the heroism of a handful of eyewitnesses who brought the first devastating reports about the Nazi atrocities in the concentration camps to the West, only to find a cold shoulder, indifference, and even obstruction in London and Washington. The film contains gripping interviews with the famous Jan Karski (his last) and Gerhart Riegner.

“Anna’s Silent Struggle” tells the moving story of Anna, today an 82-year-old woman and how she managed to survive this death camp despite her handicap. For the hearing, Auschwitz is characterized as a place of horrible sounds; shouted commands, screaming, shooting, and cries of torture. For the deaf, the terror was silent. “Anna’s Silent Struggle” is the first film documenting the dramatic story of a forgotten group that was able to survive, despite their tremendous handicap. The film was shot on locations in Holland, Belgium and Poland.

Tells the compelling history of the State of Israel through the eyes of Israel’s octogenarian President who has been forging Israel’s destiny since its founding in 1948. Willy Lindwer conducted an exclusive interview with Mr. Peres on the eve of the celebration of Israel’s 60th Independence Day in which Peres revealed many previously untold tales of his life and career. Lindwer also interviewed Peres’ daughter Zvia in a rare appearance and close friend Al Schwimmer, who helped bring vital weapons to Israel in its early years and later built Israel’s world-class aircraft industry. Lindwer spoke with Peres’ confidant and biographer, Michael Bar-Zohar, with Peres’ political enemy Benjamin Netanyahu, and with the senior Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat.

Based on the book “In Memoriam” by Guus Luijters, the gripping film ttells the story of 9 anonymous Dutch children who were deported from the Netherlands and murdered. Former non-Jewish classmates, neighborhood children and friends, tell about their murdered Jewish boyfriend and girlfriend. These are small childhood memories, that tell about a bow in the hair of a girl, a frog in a well, or the big brown eyes of a baby. Former Dutch cabinet Minister Frits Korthals Altes remembers his classmate Riekje Teixeira de Mattos; she was 13-years old when she was killed in Auschwitz. Dutch actress Nelly Frijda remembers the baby Edje van Sijes whom she was babysitting at the beginning of the occupation. Edje was four years old when he was murdered in Sobibor. Photographer Eddy Posthuma de Boer talks about the twins brothers Harold and Paul Duizend. He waved ‘goodbye’ to them at the Olympia Square in Amsterdam, as they sat in tram-line 24 when they made their one way trip were to Westerbork and Auschwitz. Writer-journalist Henk ten Berge, who lived in the province city of Alkmaar, tells about his friend Peter Israels, and the ‘story of the frog’. After all Jews of Alkmaar were rounded up, he never saw him again. Nothing is known about the eleven-year-old Sientje Abram, who lived in Rapenburgerstraat in Amsterdam, except the fact that she was killed in Auschwitz. No photo, no memory. Guus Luijters has made a reconstruction and tells in the film about her, based on the summary of data on her short life in the old Jewish quarter of Amsterdam.

Jerusalem: City of History
3000 Years of Jerusalem’s history, told by families who are deeply rooted in the city. These Jewish, Christian and Moslem families share their knowledge and express their own special feelings for the city of peace that remains a city of conflict.