Selfhelp Community Services, in association with Menemsha Films, presents

Witness Theater: The Film

We welcome you to take a look behind the scenes into a year-long therapeutic journey.

Witness Theater: The Film takes viewers behind the scenes of Witness Theater, Selfhelp’s inter-generational program which brings together Holocaust survivors served by Selfhelp Community Services and high school students with a goal to elicit, expose and memorialize the stories of the Holocaust. Through this program, students become witnesses to history and storytellers of the Holocaust. Viewers watch stories of loss, struggle and lives rebuilt and the healing power of inter-generational relationships.

In recent years we have witnessed an increase in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States, according to the ADL. At the same time, a Claims Conference study found that almost half of Americans cannot name a single concentration camp or ghetto, just one of many findings that point to a lack of Holocaust awareness and education in the US. These staggering realities come at a time when this last generation of Holocaust survivors, and first hand witnesses to history, are aging into their 80s and 90s. Witness Theater: The Film captures the inner message and profound impact of students bearing witness to the stories of the Holocaust.

This is why, with major support from UJA-Federation of NY, Selfhelp Community Services has been committed to sharing the stories of survivors through the Witness Theater program, and the program’s inner message and profound impact has been captured through the production of Witness Theater: The Film.  Filmmaker Oren Rudavsky, distributor Menemsha Films, and a number of individual and organizational supporters including UJA-Federation of NY, have joined in this feature length documentary that serves as a behind the scenes look at a nearly yearlong relationship between students and survivors.