Song of the Lodz Ghetto

Description

Klezmer super group Brave Old World’s haunting musical program of songs from the Lodz Ghetto is the framework on which producer/director David Kaufman has created his definitive new documentary on the Lodz Ghetto, once the second largest ghetto in Poland and the biggest slave labor production camp in WWII for Nazi army supplies. Combining chilling narrative, evocative music, and unforgettable photographs, this is one of the first major films to feature extensive interviews with survivors of the Holocaust from Lodz. The film focuses on the lives of two historical figures: the beloved and popular street-singer, Yankele Herszkowicz, whose remarkable songs lifted the spirits of the Jews of the ghetto when their lives were full of despair and whose own tragic life mirrored the fate of Polish Jewry; and the despotic, Nazi-appointed Jewish leader of the ghetto, Chaim Rumkowski. Herszkowicz, rebelling against Rumkowski’s control, walked a fine line in his defiance of the regime including ridiculing the ghetto master himself, for which he was jailed. Yet, the men shared a common bond: the need to retain their culture and uplift the spirits of the inhabitants. Each man chose his own path in the face of deportations to extermination camps and the looming destruction of the ghetto and its people.