Many survivors of the Holocaust regard it as the defining experience of there
lives. For Petaluma filmmaker Bernard Offen, it also is the primary impetus
for his creativity.
‘I want to work on joyful stories, but even in joyful stories I touch on the
Holocaust’, said Offen.
So far, the stories of his most personal anguish have provided him with
inspiration for three documentaries.
In his first film, The Work, Offen recreates his childhood in the
concentration camps of Plaszow and Auschwitz. By revisiting his earliest
memories, he was rewarded with more than art. He also gained peace of mind.
‘I realized long ago that I couldn´t change what happened to me, so I have to
change myself’, he said in an interview. ‘This has been the hardest work I
have ever had to do. That is why I titled my first film The Work.’
For the second film, The Three Brothers he and his two older brothers, the
only survivors of a family of 57 from Krakow, Poland, describe their Holocaust
experiences- some for the first time. Offen learned during the filming, for
instance, that his second eldest brother, Nathan, escaped from an execution
pit.
Offen is now at work on Jacob the Shoemaker, a chronicle of the heroism of his
simple, Orthodox, father during the Holocaust.
‘Six million Jews is an abstraction, a statistic too mind-boggling to
comprehend, but by refocusing on one man, it becomes more accessible’, said
the 62-year-old filmmaker. ‘You can expand the story of one man to 100 or 1000
and so on.
‘With the face of one human being, my father, I can make those connections
with the viewer.’
Before the war, Jacob made his living as a peddler. He later became an
apprentice shoemaker so he could marry Offen´s mother. Through his trade,
Jacob was able to sustain his family for a longer period in the camps. It also
enabled him to engage in simple acts of resistance that helped undermine a
highly sophisticated oppressor.
The Nazis put him to work making boots. Surreptitiously, Jacob sliced deep
gashes behind boot heels. As soon as a soldier stepped into water, his feet
got soaked and his performance on the battlefield was compromised due to the
cold, soggy distraction. Had he been caught, Jacob would have had to pay for
his acts of sabotage with his life.
Ultimately, Jacob the shoemaker paid for being Jewish. At Auschwitz-Birkenau,
Bernard and Jacob were separated during a selection. The son went one way; the
father another- to the gas chamber.
Today, in addition to his creative work, Offen participates in organized,
cross-country walks throughout the world. As a member of the Global Walkers,
his aim is to help educate people about the Holocaust and environmental
collapse and to share the promise of peace.
Offen made such a journey last year, walking between Krakow and Auschwitz; he
lectured at universities along the way, screened his films, and guided tours
through the remains of the Jewish ghetto where he was reared.
‘I really got to see how devastated the environment had become’, said Offen, a
former Michigan businessman. ‘You can´t see that from a car. You can only see
it by talking to others and observing.’
Offen has just returned from a summer visit to Paris and Poland, where he
lectured and showed his films.
His stay in Poland involved a month-long teaching stint in Jewish studies,
while his trip to Paris was taken in conjunction with the Clarity Confusion
Association, a Bay Area non-profit educational group that sponsors seminars to
foster healthful family relationships.
The group’s founder is Claire Nuer, a French Jew and hidden child during the
Holocaust. Offen learned of Nuer´s work from a Bulletin article and his
participation in her seminars brought the two together; they have since come
to realize that Offen was likely acquainted with her father in the camps.
The recent trip to Europe provided the two with a chance to further explore
that connection and avenues of education as well as cope with their loss.
‘Claire, her family and the Clarity Confusion staff and I drove from Paris to
Poland to see the former Krakow ghetto, my birthplace, and the camps I was in,
Plaszow and Auschwitz,’ Offen said. ‘It was once again a difficult but healing
experience for me to have a group walking with me and witnessing with me in
the places of my family’s suffering.’