Holocaust & Genocide Education

The Cure For Hate (2023) via Kanopy
In the Jewish tradition, tshuvah means “return” and describes the return to God and our fellow human beings that is made possible through repentance for our wrongs. Tony McAleer is a former Skinhead and Holocaust denier who went on to become a founding member of the anti-hate activist group Life After Hate. Profoundly aware and deeply ashamed of the lineage of hate he’d once promoted, Tony had long-contemplated traveling to Auschwitz in the spirit of tshuvah - to bear witness to the inconceivable ravages of the Holocaust, and deepen his personal work against the rise of extremist politics.

My Dear Children (2018) via Kanopy
My Dear Children follows one woman’s quest to unravel a family mystery. Her journey reveals a heartbreaking and little-known humanitarian tragedy when anti-Jewish massacres swept Eastern Europe following WWI. Scholars today describe what happened as “the holocaust of its day.” The consequences of that earlier holocaust continue to reverberate through the generations and warn us of what could happen yet again.

#Fixit (2020) via Criterion On-Demand
#FixIt is an educational/advocacy documentary. It follows Isaac Gotfried, a Holocaust survivor who has dedicated his life to sharing his story with students of all ages. A hopeful message informs Isaac s unfolding story of pain, trauma, and loss. He urges his audience of students to perform Tikkun Olam - a Hebrew phrase that calls upon us to repair the world - in response to all forms of injustice, prejudice, and hatred they encounter in the world. Isaac thereby affirms the possibility that the world can be made a better place by acts of loving kindness. Indeed, Tikkun Olam embodies social change and activism.

The Riot at Christie Pits (2020) via Breakthrough Entertainment

Based on an award-winning book, The Riot of Christie Pits is a historical story as gripping and urgent as the nightly news. It sheds light on the dark past of a city that remains a beacon of hope to immigrants from around the world.

Shtetl (1996) via PBS Frontline
FRONTLINE travels back in time to a family shtetl, a small village, with producer Marian Marzynski. As a child, Marzynski escaped the Warsaw ghetto and was raised by Christians. The remarkable three-hour film tells the homecoming story of two elderly Polish-American Jews who return to their families’ shtetl, Bransk, Poland, where 2,500 Jews lived before most were sent to Treblinka’s gas chambers. These two Americans are aided in their journey by a Polish Gentile who has restored Bransk’s Jewish cemetery and researched the lives of the Jews who once lived there. The film follows these pilgrims as they face old neighbors — some who were betrayers, others who were saviors to the Jews of Bransk.