[Cz-L] Call for Survivors thanks to Popovici!

This is a message to all Bukovina survivors of the Holocaust thanks to Traian Popovici!

I need your stories for a film and a book about when and how your families got the permits from Popovici. The film and the book will have a powerful title: TWENTY TWO THOUSAND SAINTS! Out of the profits of the film and book we will contribute to the cemetery fund to keep it maintained for as many years as feasible. I have also committed to the chairman of Yad Vashem to provide it with a percentage of the profits of the film.

Having left Cz before the war, I first heard of Popovici only after I joined our group. That was when a plan developed to create a plaque for him. My initial reaction was, “He deserves more than a plaque. He deserves a statue.” And then I added, “He deserves a film.”
 
This was nearly two years ago. I began to collect all the data available on Popovici and found a potential co-producer in Romania. For me it is paramount to have an overseas co-producer because it is the only way I can access Canadian film funds and still be allowed to use non-Canadian talent and film in foreign lands.

When I mentioned my planned project on Popovici to the head of co-productions at Telefilm Canada, the Canadian government agency that administers the funds, I received a most enthusiastic response. As my would-be co-producer and I began talks, word came from Telefilm Canada, that there had been a problem in Romania’s counterpart to Telefilm and that we were not to initiate any co-productions with Romania. So I put the Popovici plans on the back burner and busied myself with other projects.

For the sake of perspective, you need to know that Holocaust films are a greater risk than many other film genres. Schindler did well because it had Spielberg directing and it got tons of publicity before it even got into development. But on average, Holocaust themes do poorly at the box office, perhaps for the simple and same reason that many Holocaust survivors cannot talk about the horrors they experienced. Audiences prefer films that will make them laugh or become excited with fantasy which is impersonal. Films about the Holocaust are, of course, upsetting.

Another problem to face in a film about Popovici is Popovici himself. He was a decent man, an average man who rose to heroic deeds when confronted by great injustice. But he didn’t do exciting stuff that cameras and audiences love. He didn’t steal a tank to mow down Nazi troops and he didn’t blow up the Iron Guard’s headquarters. My worry in structuring a film about his life was how to avoid boring audiences until the end when he defies authorities by issuing so many extra permits.

I have now found another potential co-producer; an Englishman headquartered in Vienna and I think I have figured out a way to develop an effective film on a minuscule budget, even with a star such as Dustin Hoffman. For a project such as this one Dustin can be expected to forsake his normal fee for commercial films, which runs in the multi-millions. If he is not available there are others of his stature in the industry who will be appropriate.

The story will be that of an expatriate Czernowitzer in his eighties who comes back for the unveiling of a statue of Popovici. He brings along a grandson and when the youngster asks questions, he tells him his own story and how Popovici saved the lives of his family.

At the unveiling he meets other ex-Czernowitzers who also came for the unveiling and who are also survivors or offspring of survivors. They catch up with each other and tell each other their stories.
Whenever I have read accounts of experiences of some of our members I found myself just as focused and interested as I might have been if these had been dramatized on a screen. Hardy, Anny, Hedwig, and others have sent in brief accounts of their experiences that I found just as compelling as dramatizations and these will be even more arresting when told by great character actors in dramatic close-ups on a theatre screen.

Their talk will explore the goodness in people like Popovici. There have always been good guys around in the worst of times. There were abolitionists in the days of slavery who risked their lives as much as non-Jews who hid Jewish families during the Holocaust. There were people of character during the Inquisition and during various revolutions. The “Righteous Among the Nations” as recorded by Yad Vashem were found in 44 countries. There were even Muslims who saved Jewish lives.

Our protagonist decides on the spur of the moment to take his grandson to Jerusalem to see Yad Vashem which has over 22,000 stories of good guys whom they honored as they did Popovici as Righteous Among the Nations.

The film ends as our protagonist is overcome by these stories. He makes an impromptu speech to a group of visitors to Yad Vashem. He ends his speech by concluding that as long as humanity will produce such heroic people of character and decency - “Menschen” - civilization will survive no matter how many Hitlers the world concurrently produces.

Many of you may have been too young to remember how exactly your families got the permits that kept you from deportation to Transnistria but I would still like to hear from you with whatever general information you may recall.

We must have members in the Cz group who live in all parts of the world, perhaps children of survivors thanks to Popovici. Some of you might feel up to actually delivering your own stories on camera. The overall feeling of the film will strive to have the look of a documentary. After all, it will be based on truth.

All our members don’t read these messages every day so if you know of other members who should be apprised, please contact them.
Thanks in advance for your responses and efforts.

Alles Gutes,

Andy Halmay

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Received on 2011-01-12 11:50:42