Film maker revisits Uncle Chatzkel
Sydney film maker Rod Freedman’s has visited Zagare in Lithuania…the town in which his movie”Uncle Chatzkel” (1999) told the story of how its Jews were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. He will talk about his visit on ABC Radio later this month.
The memorial plaque
Rabbi Dovid Katz, Rod Freedman, and Valdas Balciunas, watch Rose Zwi
In July this year, Freedman was present with Australian author Rose Zwi (Last Walk in Naryshkin Park) at a reconciliation event when a young Lithuanian initiated a memorial in the town square of Zagare where 3000 Jews were rounded up and shot in 1941. It is writeen, Yiddish, English and Lithuanian.
David Bird’s Nazi Dreamtime (2012) documents the Australian enthusiasts for Hitler’s Germany, including a zealous belief that the world and Australia in particular would be better free of Jews.
Eccentric mystics, such as AR Mills and aesthetic believers like architect William Hardy Wilson were among them.
The program, coinciding with the anniversary of Kristallnacht, will be presented by Rachael Kohn on Radio National’s “The Spirit of Things” on November 11 and 13.
Reconciliation with whom? Murdered Jews conversing with living Lithuanians? All these small towns in Lithuania only have dead Jews in mass graves. There are no more living Jews in the small towns of Lithuania. These happy go lucky liberals who fled the horrors of South African black rule to the safe haven of Australia have no business speaking for the murder Jews, who were murdered by their Lithuanian neighbours, who then stole whatever was not nailed down and much more from the murdered Jews. So, how can dead Jews reconciliate with the Lithuanians who murdered them, their children and grandchildren? Much better questions for these liberal Jews which need to be answered:
Why is the display of the swastika legal in Lithuania?
Why is Hitler’s birthday celebrated in Lithuania?
Why does Lithuania routinely honor the murderers of Jews, even after their death, with state honors on a regularly including the reburial of the Prime Minister of the short lived 1941 Provisional Government whose remains were transfer from the US for a state burial six months ago? Note that this war criminal fled to the US after changing his name and lived almost 20 years as a free man while he was responsible for leading to the murder of over 200,000 Jews.
Why hasn’t one Lithuanian murderer of Jews received a prison sentence by Lithuania?
Why are elderly Jews who fought against the Germans and their Lithuanian allies during the war being harassed by Lithuanian police for alleged “war crimes?”
Why is there no mandatory Holocaust classes in Lithuanian schools?
Why don’t the Lithuanians return to the Jewish community real and personal property which they stole?
Why does the Lithuanian Foreign Minister allowed to make open anti-Semitic comments?
Regarding Mr. Freedman – your movie on your uncle was excellent. But several years ago, your uncle’s grave was vandalised? Did the police arrest these criminals and if yes, what was the punishment given by the Lithuanian judges?
I suggest you contact the ABC
Is it possible to obtain a copy of the film “Uncle Chatzkel” in digital format? I have never seen it although I have been offered VHS copies. I cannot access these.
Thanks, Susan Gerichter (family LENTIN, Vorna, Lithuania)