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| Saved By Deportation |
A new feature documentary from Slawomir Grunberg, whose
The Legacy of Jedwabne screened last year.
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 labour settlements in the Soviet interior. As cruel as Stalin's deportations were, ultimately they largely saved Jewish lives, for the surviving deportees constituted the overwhelming majority of the Polish Jews who escaped the Nazi Holocaust.
Saved by Deportation not only tells this story, it follows Asher and Shyfra Scharf, now elderly Chasidic Jews and former deportees, as they travel through Poland, Russia and Central Asia, revisiting their places of exile travelled more than 60 years ago. It is in some of these places that the film demonstrates a remarkable spirit as the Scharfs are welcomed by 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 times of great darkness. It is also a reminder of the path trodden by so many survivors who came to Australia after the war.
