The Last Chapter
Cast & Crew
Benjamin Rothman
Theodore Bikel
Eastern Effects
Moishe Elbaum
Hirsch Glick
Jacob Hameiri
Film Details
Synopsis
An old Jew who has survived the Nazi Holocaust returns to his native Poland at the end of World War II to find his way of life destroyed and over 3 million of his people murdered. The surviving Jews quickly begin to rebuild their culture; synagogues and Jewish schools are rebuilt, matzoh factories bake for Passover, and Ida Kaminska starts her Yiddish theater. This rebuilding is brought to an end on 4 July 1946 when 42 Jews are slaughtered in the town of Kielce during a Polish pogrom. Most of the remaining Jews emigrate, thus ending 1,000 years of Jewish history in Poland. The film traces Jewish history back to the beginning of the Polish state in 966. In the town of Kazmierz on the Vistula, Jews become prominent sea captains, teachers, smiths, scholars, and even soldiers fighting for Polish independence. Warsaw, Bialystok, Krakow, and Vilna become centers of Jewish civilization, and by the 19th century two-thirds of the Jews in Poland live in the smaller shtetls (towns), wellsprings of creative force in Jewish life. Jewish culture in Poland flowers, influencing every aspect of Poland's development and providing the 20th century with great writers, such as Sholem Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, and Sholem Asch; nevertheless, Jews suffer pogroms and persecutions in Poland. During the German occupation of Poland, the Jews carry on despite their forced concentration in the Warsaw ghetto. In 1943 Hitler orders the destruction of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, in time for his birthday on April 20th, but the Jews rise up, and with only the crudest weapons they hold off the Germans for nearly a month, whereupon they are massacred and the ghetto destroyed. During this time the rest of the world, fully aware of the situation, refuses to criticize Hitler's act as morally outrageous or even to provide medical supplies. The film ends with a shot of the Warsaw ghetto memorial and a statement about the indestructibility of the human spirit.
Crew
Eastern Effects
Moishe Elbaum
Hirsch Glick
Jacob Hameiri
Vladimir Heifetz
Gene Jennings
Victor Johannes
Magno Sound
Ida Ronch
Benjamin Rothman
Lawrence Rothman
Eileen Shneiderman
S. L. Shneiderman
Sal Termini
Termini Film Editorial Services Inc.
Film Details
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Archival footage is employed, including clips from Film Polski, such as scenes from Kanal, q. v. Schneiderman photographed the aftermath of the Kielce massacre.
