One of the more evocative films about rescuers is The Invisibles (Claus Raefle, 2017, Germany), which skillfully weaves together survivor testimony with dramatic re-enactments to tell the stories of four young German Jews who survived in Berlin posing as "Aryans" until the end of WWII. The film's director recently told staff at the Visual Center how he had been accused of trying to "assuage German guilt" by portraying on the screen what was really quite exceptional — stories of German rescuers from all walks of life. However, Raefle replied to his detractors, what he was in fact attempting to do in the body of the film was to correct this misinterpretation: it was precisely the fact that these actions were the exception rather than the rule that showed him importance of stressing that there were good people, however far and few between, even at one of the darkest hours of humanity.
Another very popular film released in 2017 is the historical drama The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017, Niki Caro, USA), based on Diane Ackerman's eponymous novel, recounting the incredible story of Jan and Antonina Zabinski. Dr. Zabinski, a well-known intellectual and humanist, later an activist in the anti-Fascist Polish Underground, was the director of the Warsaw Zoo, which the Zabinskis turned into a refuge for Jews during the war. The couple received the title of Righteous among the Nations from Yad Vashem in 1965. Among the most powerful features of the film are the grim re-enactments of life under Nazi terror in the Warsaw ghetto, rarely pictured in dramatic films. In addition, the director portrays the Jews fleeing the Nazis with sensitivity, as empowered characters rather than helpless victims, and in this way they are able to develop deep relationships with each other and with their rescuers.
The Resistance Banker (2018, Joram Luersen, Holland), another historical drama, is inspired by wartime events in the life of banker Walraven van Hall, who financed the Dutch resistance during WWII after witnessing the egregious treatment of Jews and other Dutch citizens under Nazi occupation. The Resistance Banker is a well-paced and beautifully crafted thriller about decent people who dare to take matters into their own hands in order to promote the triumph of good over evil. The film garnered four "Golden Calves" (the Dutch Oscar), among them the prizes for Best Film and Best Actor, and was submitted for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 91st Academy Awards. The film has been picked up by Netflix.
Two recent films about rescuers that have not yet been released in Israel have already caught the eye of film critics. The Bird Catcher (2019, Ross Clarke, Norway) depicts the fated friendship of Esther, a young Jewish girl and Aksel, a boy about her age with cerebral palsy whose family are supporters of their Nazi occupiers. Shunned by his father and uncle because of his disability, Aksel finds common ground with someone he was taught to hate. “It’s not just a story about WWII, it’s a universal story, even more relevant today than any time the last 50 years,” said the film's director Ross Clarke.
“Around the world, some of the conditions [of WWII] are coming alive, unfortunately. It’s worth revisiting those stories. I hope people take something away.”
The 2018 Spanish film The Light of Hope (directed by Sílvia Quer) shares the remarkable tale of Elisabeth Eidenbenz, a Swiss nurse who helped save hundreds of pregnant women and their children fleeing the Spanish Civil War and World War II through her maternity hospital in the French municipality of Elne. Prof. Alejandro Baer, Stephen C. Feinstein Chair and Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, recently proclaimed:
"The kind of lessons from that time are worth remembering. There was so much evil — and light in the midst of evil… in figures like Eidenbenz, we see a common, incredible value. There’s so much to learn.”
Presenting these and similar films within a historical context is of the utmost importance. These stories need to be heard, and, at the same time, the public needs to be educated about how rare they are, which makes them all the more remarkable.
This article originally appeared in the "Yad Vashem Jerusalem Magazine," volume 90.
