In partnership with the Maine Jewish Film Festival, UMaine Judaic Studies is delighted to present Resistance: They Fought Back, which tells the largely unknown and incredibly courageous story of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust.
We cordially invite you to the Maine premiere of this award-winning documentary film on the University of Maine campus. Following the screening, there will be a panel discussion with producer and co-director Paula S. Apell and Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine Education Coordinator Erica Nadelhaft and a reception with light refreshments.
While the Germans documented many aspects of their war against the Jews, they obliterated all mentions of Jewish resistance. Now, the powerful vision of Emmy Award-winning director/producer Paula S. Apsell, her co-director Kirk Wolfinger, and writer Owen Palmquist shows us how strongly and shrewdly Jews did indeed fight back.
This important documentary was born when Ms. Apsell visited with Holocaust scholar and archeologist Richard Freund from Christopher Newport University. When she asked why so many heroic attempts at Jewish resistance were unknown to the general public, Professor Freund replied, “Because you haven’t made the film yet.”
Now it is made…and Ms. Aspell’s film is a vital new addition to the archive of remembrance.
We all know about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. But too few–even among us–know how widespread the Jewish resistance to Nazi barbarism was.
Instead, it is too often believed that “Jews went to their deaths like sheep to the slaughter.” Quite the opposite: there were uprisings in ghettos large and small, rebellions in death camps, and thousands of Jews fought Nazis in the forests. Everywhere in Eastern Europe, Jews waged campaigns of resistance.
Resistance: They Fought Back, filmed in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Israel, and the U.S., provides a much-needed corrective to the myth of Jewish passivity.
To review the trailer, click here.
We invite you to join us for this most meaningful film. This free event will take place at the University of Maine in Orono. Seating is limited, so please register today for your free ticket(s) by clicking here.
