Synopsis
On the first weekend of May, a commemorative event for Holocaust survivors takes place in Berlin. One Judenhaus, features a unique display due to a German journalist who discovered he lived in this historic building-Gervinusstrasse 20. The literal translation of Judehaus is Jew House. Descendants of former residents of the house will return to Berlin to tell the stories of their ancestors and to be in the spaces in which their ancestors lived.
The Judenhaus will serve as a living memorial for those who lived in the house. Each apartment will have a specific doorbell which when pressed will recite the story of the person/family that lived there. Most were deported to camps and perished. Some escaped.
The primary focus of the film, That Left Unspoken, will not be on the past per se, but on how it affects the present and the future. We will talk to those returning to see where their ancestors lived, often the last place they lived, as most did not survive the Holocaust. All have traveled very different paths; some of their relatives where able to flee and some remained in Berlin. Why do they return? To honor their lost relatives? A search for closure? Community? Healing?
The current residents of Gervinusstrasse 20 open up their homes, allowing those whose families had lived in their apartment to come into the space where their loved one(s) once lived. Why? What do they hope to realize by releasing the ghosts from their homes? How does this experience affect them?
The film will explore the after effects of a dark time in history through the microcosm of a seemingly bucolic house, whose surviving members of their families have spread far and wide. As we currently go through a dark time of war and refugees escaping their homeland, what do the tenants past and present of Gervinusstrasse 20 have to teach us? It is a story of resilience in the wake of unfathomable horror. How do future generations deal with and cleanse the traumas of their past, heal and move forward? How does their journey back to this Judenhaus from the many different lands provide lessons in resiliency, not just to the residents past and present of this house, but to all of us?
Participants | Descendants
Dan Messerschmidt lives in Berlin. He is the grandson of the Jewish builder of the house at Gervinusstrasse 20 – Kurt Messerschmidt. His grandfather, grandmother, his father’s first wife and several aunts and uncles were murdered in Auschwitz. His father Hans Peter Messerschmidt voluntarily accompanied his family to the concentration camp. He survived the Auschwitz-Monowitz, Buchenwald-Ohrdruff camps and the death marches and returned to Berlin in 1945.
Jehuda Kamnitzer lives in Sao Paolo / Brazil. He is the great-grandson of Anna Guttmann. Anna Guttmann was related to the house owner Kurt Messerschmidt through her daughter (her daughter had married his brother). Anna Guttmann moved into a three-room flat in the house in 1939, which she shared with two other Jewish women. Her daughter and son-in-law fled to Sao Paulo. Anna Guttmann’s attempt to also emigrate to Brazil, to her daughter, failed. Mrs Guttmann was deported to Riga in January 1942 and murdered.
Stephanie Gross lives in New York / USA. She is the great-granddaughter of Marie Kallmann. Mrs. Kallmann lived with Anna Guttmann (see above) in the widow’s flat on the third floor from 1939-1941. In autumn 1941, Marie Kallmann moved a few steps away to her sister Therese on Kurfürstendamm/Prager Platz. From there, Marie, together with her sister Therese and her brother-in-law Julius Hirsch, were deported on the first deportation train from Berlin to the Lodz Ghetto on 18 October 1941 and later murdered in Chelmno.
Eva Caemmerer lives in Berlin. She is the great-granddaughter of Dr. Moritz Steiner. The respected Charlottenburg doctor and veteran of the First World War had to give up his previous flat nearby in 1942 and moved into the house with his wife Elfriede. He took over the flat where Anna Guttmann and Marie Kallmann had previously lived. The Steiner couple was deported to Theresienstadt a few months later, in October 1942. Both died there a short time later.
Merilyn Moos lives in London. She is the daughter of Lotte Moos, née Jacoby. Her mother grew up in this house as a young girl with her two sisters and her parents, the Jacoby family. As an active Nazi opponent, Lotte emigrated to England via France in 1933. Her eldest sister Annemarie was murdered in the so-called euthanasia. The second oldest sister Kate fled to London. Her niece Ruth, who also lived with her grandparents as a little girl, escaped with a Kindertransport in 1939 and now lives in Wolverhampton. Merilyns Moos’ grandparents, Samuel and Luise Jacoby stayed behind in Berlin in 1939. Luise died in Berlin in 1941. Samuel Jacoby was deported to Theresienstadt in July 1942, where he died six months later.
Sally Rothholz lives in Berlin. He is the son of Alexander Rothholz and his wife Sonja, who moved into the Jacoby family flat in 1942. Alexander Rothholz worked as a painter and was close friends with his work colleague, the young bricklayer Hans Peter Messerschmidt. Messerschmidt sent him illegal messages to Berlin from the concentration camp Auschwitz / Monowitz. The Rothholz family was protected by the fact that Sonja Rothholz was a Christian. Alexander Rothholz was active in the illegal Jewish resistance and, among other things, hid his brother, who had gone into hiding, in the flat for a few days. The family survived legally in Berlin and participated actively in the reconstruction of the Jewish community after the end of the war.
Jack Weil lives in Amsterdam / Netherlands. He is the son of Ruth Reich. His mother lived on the ground floor as a child with her brother Manfred and her parents, Benno and Herta Reich. The family was good friends with the Messerschmidts. Although the Reich family was fully integrated into German culture, Benno, the father, did not have a German passport. He had been brought to Berlin as a baby by his parents from Galicia. Benno, Herta and Manfred therefore became victims of the so-called “Polenaktion” in 1938. They were deported to No Man’s Land behind the Polish border before the November pogrom. Later they had to live in the Krakow ghetto. Their trail was lost there. Only daughter Ruth was able to emigrate to her husband in Amsterdam in time. But even there, Nazi persecution caught up with them. Ruth survived the Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen camps and settled in Holland after the war.
Key Personnel
GARY SHARFIN- Director/Producer
Gary began his editing career launching Donna Karan with an award-winning fashion video. He went on to start his own post production/production company, Private Idaho, where he edited ad campaigns for clients including Budweiser, Burger King and Samsung. He has edited and produced feature films shown at Sundance, Cannes (Denise Calls Up, which won Honorable Mention for the Camera d’Or) and Tribeca Film Festival’s Drive In Series. Sharfin edited multi camera shows for HBO (including Snaps featuring Tracy Morgan and Mike Epps, for which he also directed the opening). He also directed a series of one hour jazz programs shot in Brazil, Tokyo and New York (featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Larry Coryell, Randy Brecker among others) as well as TV commercials and music videos.
He is currently developing and producing documentaries and feature films through his new company, Line 5 Media. His documentaries as producer/editor include Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend (about one of baseball’s first female head groundskeepers) First Run Features’ Into The Fire: American Women in the Spanish Civil War (which aired on PBS as well as internationally and won the Audience Award at the Seattle Film Festival) and Still a Revolutionary: Albert Einstein also released through First Run Features and currently streaming on Apple TV and Amazon. He is currently finishing a Native American feature film, The Heart Stays.
CAROL CIANCUTTI – Producer
Carol is a producer, director and development executive, dedicated to creating socially relevant projects through various mediums. Throughout her career, she has led the full production process of creative and informational productions. From producing commercials internationally for brands such as Puma, Wrigley, and Nivea – to producing full length documentaries about women’s health issues, Carol has a long track record of seeing projects through from concept to completion. Currently, she is working on a series of films surrounding men’s engagement in the effort to stop violence against women.
The film production company she founded, Amaranth Productions, has several documentary and TV projects in development and production. Her documentary, Absolutely Safe, examines the popularity and safety of breast implants. This film has been featured on major news platforms. It has been regularly screened in university classrooms and has become part of many women’s studies curriculums. Carol is a speaker on breast implant safety and informed consent, and has appeared at many universities such Harvard University, Oberlin College and the University of Chicago.
Her leadership and project management skills led to her serve as the National Education Association liaison to the White House. She recently directed and designed experiential leadership workshops for corporate and non-profit clients. While living in Nairobi, Kenya, she served as a consultant for UNICEF and founded the Kenya School of Performing Arts.
CLAUDUA RAUCH – Director of Photography
Claudua is as a freelance camerawoman living in Berlin. Born in South Africa and raised in the Hessian countryside, after graduating from high school she first studied theatre, film and television, philosophy and Spanish at the Ruhr University in Bochum. It quickly drew her into practice, resulting in a year’s internship in the camera department at a production company in Bochum. She then worked as a freelance camera assistant on several travel films. She has directed several documentary films taking her across the world. She speaks German, English and Spanish and loves to travel.
