Between the Walls - The Story of Aaron Weiss
Director: Zvika Nevo
Country: Ukraine
Year of production: 2018
Duration: 63 min
Subject:
  • Right to human dignity
  • Discrimination
  • Human rights
  • Right to liberty
  • Right to freedom of religion
  • Right to life
  • Right to freedom of movement
  • Minority rights
  • Totalitarian regimes
Audience:
  • Teachers
  • Institutions of the state penitentiary system of Ukraine
  • Students
  • Journalists
  • Pupils
  • Employees of penitentiary system
Until 1941, Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews lived peacefully in the town of Boryslav. When the German Nazis occupied Boryslav and began massacring Jews, the Weiss family set up a shelter between the walls of their house and a barn. In the shelter, which was just over a meter wide, one could only sit or lie down. One could speak only in a whisper. Under no circumstances was it allowed to leave the shelter, because the Nazis discovered that the Weisses were not in the ghetto and were not among those shot, so they were looking for them all over Boryslav. A Ukrainian neighbor, Mrs. Yulia, whose son Jacek served in the German police, fed the Weiss family of 3 adults and 4 children for many months. When it became unsafe to hide between the walls, another neighbor, a Polish woman, helped the family move to a "blind basement" in the foundation of the kindergarten. She asked the Weisses to take another Jew with them, whom she was hiding in her home. Eight Jews lived in the niche under the floor of the kindergarten until the liberation of Boryslav from the Nazis in August 1944. In the film, Aaron Weiss, who was 12 years old at the beginning of the Nazi occupation, tells how he and his brothers and sister lived in those hiding places, what games they invented for themselves, how they dug grooves in the clay to collect water for drinking, how they overcame fear and dreamed of revenge for their executed grandparents... This movie is about an ordinary Jewish family who found superhuman strength to live and believe in humanity in incredibly difficult conditions. This film is about their ordinary neighbors who found superhuman strength to save eight
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Stills
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