The next film in the 2018 Sandra and Mendel Rosenberg Sunday Afternoon Film Series will be Bogdan’s Journey, screening at 1:00 pm on March 25 in the Holocaust Museum & Learning Center Theater at 12 Millstone Campus Drive.
In a story that begins with murder and ends with reconciliation, one man persuades the people of Kielce, Poland to confront the truth about the darkest moment in their past: Kielce was the site of Europe’s last Jewish pogrom. In 1946, 40 Holocaust survivors seeking shelter in a downtown building were murdered by townspeople. Communist authorities suppressed the story, leaving the town deeply embittered. Conflict over the pogrom was still a festering wound when Bogdan Bialek, a Catholic Pole, moved to Kielce in the late 1970s. He was shocked by the poisoned atmosphere of his new town. Trained as a psychologist, he has made it his life’s work both to persuade people to embrace their past and to reconnect the city with the international Jewish community.
Introductory remarks and post screening discussion facilitated by Pier Marton, presently the “Unlearning Specialist” at the School of No Media. Besides Yad Vashem, he has lectured on his artwork at the Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie Museum and the Walker Art Center. He has taught at several major US universities. Marton’s father, photographer Ervin Marton, was in the French Résistance. Please check out Pier Marton’s interview with one of the co-directors, Lawrence Loewinger, at PierMarton.info/Bogdans-Journey-A-Brief-Interview-With-Larry-Loewinger.
Films in this Sunday series are free and open to the public, although reservations are required. For further information, call 314-442-3711 or email AGoldfeder@JFedSTL.org or visit HMLC.org/Rosenberg-Film-Series. The 2018 Sunday Afternoon Film Series is generously sponsored by Sandra and Mendel Rosenberg.