Cheap There Once Was a Town (Video) (There Once Was a Town, Edward Asner) Price
CHEAP-PRICE.NET ’s Cheap Price
$20.96
Here at Cheap-price.net we have There Once Was a Town at a terrific price. The real-time price may actually be cheaper — click “Buy Now” above to check the live price at Amazon.com.
| ACTORS: | There Once Was a Town, Edward Asner |
| CATEGORY: | Video |
| THEATRICAL RELEASE DATE: | 01 January, 2000 |
| MANUFACTURER: | Home Vision Entertainment |
| MPAA RATING: | NR (Not Rated) |
| FEATURES: | Color, Closed-captioned, NTSC |
| TYPE: | Documentary |
| MEDIA: | VHS Tape |
| # OF MEDIA: | 1 |
| UPC: | 037429153635 |
Related Products
Customer Reviews of There Once Was a Town
Heart-rending survivor's documentary I saw this on PBS last night and was literally moved to tears. For those to whom the Holocaust is little more than a list of names in past history, this documentary will give faces to the persecution of the Jews in a way that is not soon forgotten. It's the very personal story of a group of survivors of the Eishyshok massacre (Poland, 1939) and their descendants, who return to the village 55 years later.
The leader of the expedition, Yaffa Eliach, is also a survivor of Eishyshok, and is best known as the author of "Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust," a collection of true stories that I have been recommending ever since it came out in the mid-80's. In fact, it was this book that led me to watch the PBS film, because I recognized the name of Zvi Michaelowsky (now Hebraicized into "Michaeli"), who is featured in both the Hasidic Tales book and this video. As a storyteller, I have told Zvi's story many times from the version in Yaffa's book, and was honored to see and hear him tell it in his own words in this film.
Zvi survived the massacre because his father pushed him into the mass grave seconds before the volley of shots. Terrified but unhurt, he played dead until the shooting was over, then climbed out from under the bodies and escaped. One cannot help but be moved by his emotional account of this horrific event, as he stands at the very site where the massacre took place, and relates how one of the Polish villagers told him after the massacre, "Jew, go back to the grave!"
Although many of the stories are tragic, there are happy moments in the video, too. Such as finding the Polish girl -- now an old woman -- who helped hide Jews on a nearby farm and brought Zvi's lunch to him every day during that time. Her genuine goodness outshines the outright denial of other Eishyshok villagers, who deny to Yaffa Eliach's face that any Poles ever killed Jews, even though she herself saw her mother murdered -- and could point out the exact place where it happened.
The reactions of the children and grandchildren of the survivors are also moving, as they are brought face to face with their family history. They come away with a strong sense of both the good and the evil in the world, of where their grandparents came from, and the heritage that survives through them into the future. All in all, this is an excellent documentary that would be a very good tool for teaching about the Holocaust. See also "There once was a World," the companion book to the film, about the 900-year history of Jews in Eishyshok.