Tuesday, April 30, 7:30 pm – 10:15 pm
702 Hamilton, Columbia University
Please join Columbia University Central and Eastern European (CUCEE) Club for the screening of Saved by Deportation: An Unknown Odyssey of Polish Jews, an award-winning documentary film by Polish filmmakers Slawomir Grunberg and Robert Podgursky. The film will be presented by Columbia Senior Lecturer Anna Frajlich who will also moderate a post-screening discussion panel. During the discussion, the filmmakers will be joined by Alan Timberklake, Director of East Central European Center, Columbia University.
About the film:
In 1940, a year before the Nazis started deporting Jews to death camps, Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of approximately 200,000 Polish Jews from Russian-occupied Eastern Poland to forced labor settlements in the Soviet interior. As cruel as Stalin’s deportations were, ultimately they largely saved Jewish lives, for the deportees constituted the overwhelming majority of Polish Jews who escaped the Nazi Holocaust. Saved by Deportation not only tells this story, but it re-traces the path Asher and Shyfra Scharf traveled more than 60 years ago from Poland to Siberia to the former Soviet states of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. It is in those largely Muslim societies, in the cities of Kuhjand, Jeezax and Samarkand, that the film demonstrates a remarkable spirit as the Scharfs are welcomed by the locals who recall fondly the sojourn of Polish refugees in their midst. This little-known story of survival is both a harrowing adventure and an affirmation of human goodness during a time of great darkness.
Awards:
Washington Jewish Film Festival: The Audience Award for ‘the Best Documentary’
Jewish Film Festival, Warsaw, Poland: ‘The Best Presentation of Contemporary Jewish Life,’ An Award at 5th ‘Jewish Motifs’
Polish food will be served. The screening is sponsored by the Harriman Institute, and the East Central European Center at Columbia University.
The screening is free and open to the public. Due to the limited space please RSVP to Anna Nejedla at [email protected] by Sunday, April 26.
