`What matters is the mission'
Filmmaker documents heroic efforts
by Deborah Cymrot Community Editor
Sy Rotter never expected that a notice in the Washington Jewish Week would set him on a course leading to a second career. He was a businessman, owner of an international consulting firm. But in 1989 the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum was seeking people to serve as volunteer interviewers of survivors, whose stories would go into the archives of the yet-to-be-built institution, and he responded.
After undergoing training on how to draw out the stories with sensitivity, Rotter conducted his first interview, with Josef and Stefania Burzminski. Their story, he felt, should not be filed away in an archive. More people ought to know about Stefania, a devout Polish Catholic who, as a teen-ager living alone with her much younger sister, sheltered Josef and 12 other Jewish men, women and children for almost 2 1/2 years.
Josef Burzminski later told Rotter that he would like to go back to Poland. His wartime diary was hidden behind the kitchen wall of the house in which he had hidden. Rotter thought he might like to come along with a camcorder to record the Burzminskis' return. But, he quickly realized, that would not do justice to their story. What was needed, he concluded, was a professional film crew.
But Rotter had a difficult time generating interest in such a project. His first film was mostly self-financed. Even Dr. Jeshajahu Weinberg, founding director of the Holocaust Museum, was leery. In the end, though, he became one of Rotter's staunchest supporters.
Rotter, speaking to Washington Jewish Week in the same measured tones that can be heard in the seven documentaries he has since completed, explained why he thought his idea of publicizing rescuers was not more popular. ``The single most abiding reality,'' Rotter said, ``is that people prefer stereotypes over information that challenges and discomforts them.''
The overall record of the Poles toward the Jews cannot be whitewashed, he said, but without the aid of non-Jews _
individuals who provided a little help for a short time, individuals who knew about hidden Jews and never informed and individuals who undertook long-time rescue efforts _ many more Jews would have died.
Although Rotter had no training in filmmaking, he was experienced as a businessman in figuring out what he could do himself and where he needed experts. Before going to Poland, he hired a local crew and planned the structure of the shooting. The interviews, sometimes wrenching, took three days to complete. Afterward, he and a colleague with experience in television editing worked in the basement of the University of Maryland film lab, editing the film.
Reaction to ``The Other Side of Faith,'' completed in 1991, was positive. The film earned several awards; Rotter also received many letters, calls and personal responses. He began hearing many other stories demonstrating the moral and physical courage of gentile rescuers.
That same year Rotter formed the Documentaries International Film and Video Foundation (DIFVF), incorporated as a nonprofit organization. He is chairman of the board, also serving as writer, producer and director of films. He also writes curriculum guides to accompany films and leads discussions at their public showings.
Rotter continues to serve as president of his 20-year-old firm, T.S.E., Ltd., on a full-term basis, but takes time each year to make one new film. With limited family responsibilities _ he is the divorced father of four adult children _ the 67-year-old does much of the planning and post-filming work at his spacious Washington office. Thanks to improved editing techniques now available, he can play around with film footage during spare moments at work.
Filming trips usually takes about two weeks, and he often times them to take advantage of business and other travel. Rotter has learned, he said ``how to be extremely resourceful with funds, people, time _ nothing is wasted.''
One challenge, he said, is to focus on the scenes that allow you to tell a story quickly, in slightly less than a half-hour (although two films have run closer to an hour). This is an ideal length for television showings and for use in schools.
The films rarely probe ambiguities such as how people who shared some antisemitic stereotypes nevertheless protected individual Jews or the loss to Judaism of children who were raised as non-Jews, unaware of their heritage, even after the war. They avoid showing too much anguish, which could overwhelm young viewers. But they do capture common characteristics among rescuers _ an appreciation of the humanity of Jews and a feeling that they had no alternative but to do what was right.
``[ctr]Zegota _ A Time to Remember'' profiles a Polish effort, code-named ``Zegota'', to rescue Jews. ``A Time to Gather Stones Together'' follows a group of Jewish genealogists and Holocaust survivors to the area known in pre-war days as Galicia.
``Rescue in Scandinavia'' profiles Denmark's rescue of its Jewish population as well as efforts by Swedish businessman Raoul Wallenberg to save thousands of Hungarian Jews, but also tells less well-known stories of rescue in Finland and Norway. ``A Debt to Honor'' documents efforts to save Jews in Italy, where almost 80 percent of Jews living in Italy at the outbreak of the war survived with the help of Christian neighbors.
``A Day in the Life of Oni'' provides a look into an endangered 2,500-year-old Jewish community in the Caucasian Mountains of Georgia. ``It was Nothing _ It was Everything: Reflections of Rescuers of Greek Jews during the Holocaust'' is currently being completed. Rotter is also looking forward to doing a film on German rescuers.
Rotter said that the Holocaust Museum could do much more to encourage the telling of stories of Righteous Gentiles and of Jewish resistance _ both physical and moral. According to Rotter, effective leadership should entail outreach efforts at universities with film schools.
Since working on films about the saving of Jews, Rotter said he has been sensitized to the importance of saving Jewish communities. He would love to see filmmakers and historians traveling all over the world to document what is unique in different communities and what binds them together.
Rotter said he is not sure he will continue making films. He has, he explained, a ``sense of [his] own relative importance.'' What matters is the mission _ telling stories that show how the moral courage of individuals make a difference.
Ohev Sholom Talmud Torah Synagogue plans to present three of Rotter's films this month. On Sunday, Sept. 7 at 2 p.m., it will show ``Rescue in Scandinavia.'' On Sept. 28, it will screen ``A Debt to Honor'' and ``One Day in the Life of Oni.'' Ohev Sholom is located at 1600 Jonquil St., N.W., Washington. For information about the screenings, call (202) 882-7225. For information about arranging screenings or obtaining videos, call DIFVF at (202) 429-9320.
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