Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust
Sunday, November 9th
2:00pm ET
On Zoom
This is a unique opportunity to view the documentary Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust and join un on Zoom for a post viewing discussion with 3G Tzvi Daum and Kamila Klauzinska, featured in the film. Commemorating the filmmaker Menachem Daum, his son and dear friend reflect on the film’s purpose and how it’s affected them and others so many years later. Menachem had produced the documentary hoping it would contribute to halting the intergenerational transmission of hatred or prejudice. In Menachem’s words below, he shares what inspired the making of Hiding and Seeking.
“I am the son of Holocaust survivors from Poland and for most of my life accepted my parents’ view that all Poles were incorrigible antisemites. But my frequent travels to Poland over the past 30 years challenged this stereotype and made me realize that Poles, like all human beings, represent a complex combination of light and darkness. This is what motivated me to make my 2005 PBS film Hiding and Seeking in which I tell the story of Poles who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust.”
A link to view the film will be shared with all registrants ahead of the November 9th discussion. Please watch the film at your convenience and join us to discuss Menachem’s deeply moving work and honor a true trailblazer.
About the director and panelists featured in the documentary:
Menachem Daum (October 5, 1946 – January 7, 2024), a 2G, was the director of the film Hiding and Seeking. Born in a displaced persons camp in Germany to Holocaust survivors from Poland, Menachem was an acclaimed American Orthodox Jewish filmmaker whose documentary films challenged stereotypes Haredi Jews and non-Jews had of each other. Menachem was a humanist, driven to preserve memories of the past by linking them to the present. In his 2005 film, Hiding and Seeking, Menachem takes his two grown Haredi sons Tzvi and Akiva to Poland, in an attempt to leaven their scorn for non-Jews. They spend time exploring the hometown of Menachem’s parents with local Poles and then travel across Poland to seek out the family who risked their lives to hide his father-in-law and two brothers during WWII. Menachem had documented several stories of Poles who fight anti-Semitism by preserving and celebrating their country’s Jewish heritage. The “memory keepers” he befriended promote reconciliation by challenging the stereotypes Poles and Jews have often inherited of each other. To learn more about Menachem Daum and his work please visit Gone But Not Forgotten — Claims Conference Film Grants.
Tzvi Daum is a 3G, the eldest son of Menachem Daum. He and his younger brother Akiva are featured in the film Hiding and Seeking as they accompany their father on an unwelcomed journey to Poland with an unexpected outcome. Having lived in Israel during the filming of the documentary, Tzvi now lives in New Jersey. He taught at the Jewish Foundation School in Staten Island, NY for many years and is currently the Director of Curricular Initiatives at the Consortium of Jewish Day Schools (CoJDS) in Staten Island, NY. Carrying on his father’s legacy, Tzvi is spearheading a project to restore Jewish heritage in his maternal grandfather's town of Dzialoszyce, Poland. To learn more about the Dzialoszyce Jewish Heritage Restoration Project please visit dzheritage.org.
Kamila Klauzinska, one of the “memory keepers” Menachem befriended, is a genealogist and keeper of the cemetery in Zduńska Wola, Poland. She was born, raised and still resides in Zduńska Wola, the town where Menachem Daum’s parents lived prior to WWII. Meeting Menachem and his sons for the first time when they visited to film Hiding and Seeking, Kamila and Menachem formed a strong bond and deep friendship that would last over twenty years. Kamila helped Menachem reconnect with his family’s roots, bringing him much joy and creating a strong affinity for Poland. Kamila has a PhD from the Department of Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Prior to working on her doctorate, she earned a M.A. in Ethnology from the Faculty of Philosophy and History at the University of Łódź, Poland. Kamila has been a Visiting Scholar in several prominent institutions, including the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has been awarded multiple prestigious scholarships and awards. To learn more about Dr. Kamila Klauzinska’s work please visit her website at jewishrootsinpoland.pl.