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January 10, 2006
Preview: Voices of Diversity - Esther and
Li Head Out On A Holocaust Education Trip and Create A Documentary
Once again, the work on the website continues spinning a web of
wonderful new contacts. My awesome dentist, Dr.
Rajiv Arya, one of the truly enlightened human beings (we discuss
world philosophy while he drills on my molars....), told me last
year about this trip he went on a few years ago. He explained that
it was a Holocaust education trip and that the entire 2-week journey
was documented by two young women from Toronto in a documentary
entitled "Those Who Lie Beneath".
Well, no doubt, I had to meet these two creative and ambitious young
women. Connecting with Esther Garfin and Li Yeh has been in the
making for quite a few months since they are both busy professionals
in the television industry in their respective fields of law and
business affairs. This Holocaust education and anti-discrimination
trip literally fell into their lap unexpectedly in early 2002. At
that time, both worked at the same TV production company (although
on the non-TV production side of things), and they got the idea
to do a documentary on this very unique journey.
With little pre-production on this project, they essentially grabbed
a camera person and went off to explore some key sites related to
the Holocaust in Germany and Poland. Interestingly, Esther's background
is Jewish and one set of grandparents was originally from Poland
so Esther has a rather personal connection to the Holocaust. Li,
on the other hand, is of Asian descent, and simply wanted to learn
more about this particular era in history. To make it even more
interesting, the camera person is a young Canadian woman of German
heritage who also narrates the documentary. She describes her own
personal journey of confronting her fore-father's past.
With a diverse group of 12 other travellers Esther and Li explored
various historic sites in Berlin, and the concentration camp of
Ravensbrück in Germany. Then they headed east on a train (the
historical irony of this choice of transportation is not to be missed)
to Poland to visit Warsaw, Lodz and Cracow. They visited the extermination
camps of Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz. In their words, the
harshness progressed the further the trip went on. Esther even had
a chance to visit her grandparents' birth town of Kielce, Poland.
What really fascinates me is that this documentary is intended
for a diverse audience of people from different ethnic groups and
religious affiliations. Even the choice of having the documentary
narrated by a young woman of German descent underscores this cross-cultural
angle.
"Those Who Lie Beneath" demonstrates that the Holocaust
is a tragedy and lesson of pan-human proportions, transcending all
faiths, generations and cultures. Ultimately, the documentary reinforces
that although some people may have grown tired of hearing about
the Holocaust, it continues to hold critical lessons for all of
us as hate can exist in any community at any given time.
In the upcoming interview, Esther and Li will talk to us about
their personal experiences on this trip, the interesting subthemes
in this diverse travel group, the learning experiences and challenges
involved in creating this documentary and the insights they gained
from this journey.
Related Articles:
Here is the completed
interview with Esther and Li
My own reflections
60 years after WWII and my very personal connection to this era
Susanne Schleyer: A German artist/photographer
confronts German history
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