Annual Kessler film: “Who Will Write Our History?

“In November 1940, days after the Nazis sealed 450,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, a secret band of journalists, scholars and community leaders decided to fight back. Led by historian Emanuel Ringelblum and known by the code name Oyneg Shabes, this clandestine group vowed to defeat Nazi lies and propaganda not with guns or fists but with pen and paper. Now, for the first time, their story is told as a feature documentary.

Written, produced and directed by Roberta Grossman and executive produced by Nancy Spielberg, Who Will Write Our History mixes the writings of the Oyneg Shabes archive with new interviews, rarely seen footage and stunning dramatizations to transport us inside the Ghetto and the lives of these courageous resistance fighters. They defied their murderous enemy with the ultimate weapon – the truth – and risked everything so that their archive would survive the war, even if they did not.”

Professor Amy Simon will be introducing the film and leading a discussion of it afterwards.

Presented by:

The Michael and Elaine Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel

Co-sponsors

Department of Religious Studies

College of Arts & Letters

James Madison College

Department of History

Center for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies

Residential College in the Arts and Humanities