A series of films by Yevgeny Yamburg “Pedagogical Lessons of the Holocaust” presented in Moscow

The presentation of the series of documentaries “Pedagogical Lessons of the Holocaust” by Yevgeny Yamburg took place at the Elena Kamburova Theater of Music and Poetry. The event was timed to coincide with the day of the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto on 19 April. Alla Gerber, writer and human rights activist, co-chairman of the Holocaust NPC, Alla Gerber, press attache of the Israeli Embassy in Russia, Remi Teplitsky, head of the Moscow State University department, psychologist Alexander Asmolov, animator Yuri Norshtein, film director Vladimir Alenikov and other famous people attended the screening and warmly thanked the authors of the film. .

The leitmotif of Yamburg’s films – the preservation of honor and human dignity in the darkest times – became valuable for all those present.

One of the series is entirely devoted to the feat of the Karachays – a small Caucasian people, whose representatives saved the Jews during the Nazi occupation. “What will happen to them will also happen to us,” the head of the family, Shamil Chotchaev, said then. And risking not only their own lives, but the safety of 11 children, the family adopted three Jewish girls. Many Karachays did the same, they took children under guardianship and tried to protect adults as well. Not a single Jew was handed over to the punishers from any village.

Then, by the decision of the Soviet authorities, the Karachais, along with other peoples of the Caucasus, were deported from their native places and were able to return to their homeland “only after the death of the main persecutors: Stalin and Beria” …

Today, the feat of the Chotchaev family is depicted on the Wall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Israel. Yevgeny Yamburg said that in July of this year, a memorial to the work of Georgy Frangulyan will be erected at the sites of these tragic events in Karachay-Cherkessia.

The presentation featured two films from a new cycle shot by Yevgeny Yamburg together with Alexander Adamsky’s “Educators” channel. The main difference from other works about the same Holocaust is that they were filmed specifically for schoolchildren and teachers. “For how many years, more than 35, we have been talking about the Holocaust,” said Alla Gerber. “But this job has everything for children.”

Indeed, the “documentary” was filmed on such a nerve that in some places it is difficult to resist tears. “It is difficult to formulate, the excitement overrides,” Yelena Kamburova emotionally commented on the premiere.

Through music, photos and video sequences, which today especially “comes” to children, the film very clearly demonstrates how easily even nice intelligent people, intellectuals can sink into fascism. For example, the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hess, was an exemplary husband and family man, the father of five children. He met his future wife in the Migratory Birds organization, an analogue of scouts and pioneers in pre-war Germany. Boys and girls gathered to lead a pure country life away from the filth of the city. It was they who later formed the backbone of the SS …

“There are now 8 films in the documentary cycle “Pedagogical Lessons of the Holocaust,” Evgeny Yamburg told MK. – And there will be 10, I hope. And this is extremely important today, because we need to do everything against hatred. Against the division of people. This is a mega project that I also hope we can bring to schools. To show the generations entering into life how even in the most cannibalistic conditions people retain their humanity. To make sure that children do not become executioners is the main thing now.

The discussion of the films after the screening was filled with genuine pain of memories, the true wisdom of the Jewish people and humor. The wonderful Alla Gerber summarized that the preservation of human dignity is the main value and moral support at all times. Alexander Asmolov agreed with her, adding that fakes today arise and take root in thought in many areas, including historical ones, with amazing ease.

Remi Teplitsky, press attache of the Israeli Embassy in Russia, said that studying and preserving the memory of the Holocaust is still a difficult, difficult task. But it would be much worse if the Holocaust was forgotten, no one would be interested in it.

Teplitsky was especially touched by the plot from the film about the Zionist Germans – the descendants of prominent figures of the Reich, who left for Israel as a penance. “Do you know what they do there – they work at a factory that makes gas masks,” Yamburg said. “To never have gas ovens again.” And the story about the grandson of the same Hess, who in the synagogue asks for forgiveness for the atrocities of his grandfather. “You are not to blame for anything,” the rabbi says. True – children and grandchildren cannot be held responsible for what they did not do, peoples cannot hate each other …

“In particular, I believe that young people, who in each generation begin to live, as it were, anew, are capable of taking a high moral position,” Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was quoted by Yamburg. Let the cycle of films “Pedagogical Lessons of the Holocaust” serve this very purpose – not to penetrate the children’s minds of bacilli of hatred, nationalism, humiliation of human dignity.