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the 1986 Jewish Film Festival in San
Francisco, also were shown at the Ann
Arbor lecture. The film celebrates pre-
Ann Arbor
war Jewish lives, including the Jewish
msterdam was an unusual
boxers who led the resistance against
haven for Jews from the 17th
the Nazis and the artists and professors
century until just before World who enriched Jewish and Dutch lives.
War II. During those centuries, Jews
Bregstein interviewed 80 survivors for
integrated into Dutch society, but also
his film, not knowing at the time how
felt able to retain their Jewish identity.
important the interviews were. All his
The impending war ended this tolerant subjects since have died and although
relationship, said Philo Bregstein, 72, a only 5 percent of these interviews appear
Dutch author and filmmaker who gave in his film, all their stories are archived
the ninth De Vries-Vanderkooy
in the Jewish Museum of Amsterdam.
Memorial Lecture at the University of
"Philo is a prolific writer, but also an
Michigan in Ann Arbor last month.
award-winning filmmaker — he's espe-
"Dutch Jews felt too safe, and that
cially well known in Europe for his doc-
may have been their downfall," he told
umentary films on filmmaker Pier Paolo
the more than 80 people in the audience. Pasolini and especially [conductor] Otto
The highest percentage of Jews
Klemperer," said Ton Broos, U-M's
killed during the war in Western
director of Dutch and Flemish studies,
Europe was in Holland. An estimated
who invited Bregstein to be writer in
100,000, or 75 percent
residence at the university in
of the country's Jews,
1982-83. That
died, he said. "That's a
experience inspired
terrible end."
Bregstein's recent
It's a myth repeated
novel The Sabbatical,
long after the war that
2004.
the Jews were treated
Bregstein didn't
well in the
start out to explore
Netherlands, he said
Jewish Amsterdam,
in a phone interview.
but it was the result
Yet, pre-Holocaust
of a request to make a
Dutch Jews felt safe
film celebrating the
and assimilated easi-
700th anniversary of
ly, making substan-
the founding of
tial contributions to
Amsterdam, Broos
Dutch society,
said. The survivors he
accordino- b to
interviewed for the film
Bregstein. They
shed
light on many
` h tt e h : 17/ 4 7
, :21
played an impor-
unknown aspects of
tant role as dia-
pre-war Amsterdam he
mond workers and had an enor-
went on to explore.
mous influence as the founders of
A native non-Jewish Dutch speaker,
[labor] unions and of the socialist
Broos said he didn't realize that many
party in the Netherlands."
words that are part of Amsterdam's
Many of these socialists, after the
dialect come from Yiddish, like inazel,
Holocaust, went on to Israel. Only
meshwe and A4okumn, which is a
20,000 Jews currently live in
Yiddish word for Amsterdam, mean-
ing the "Jerusalem of the West."
Amsterdam, down from 140,000
before the war.
Bregstein's talk in Ann Arbor coincid- Discovering His Family
ed with his United States book tour of
Bregstein, his Jewish father and
the English translation of Remembering Christian mother survived the
Jezvish Amsterdam, which he co-wrote
Holocaust thanks to his mother's fami-
with historian and Holocaust survivor
ly, who hid their Jewish identity.
Dr. Salvador Bloemgarten in 1975.
"My father, whose family was from
Scenes from Bregstein's film In Search Lithuania, was a completely assimilat-
of Jewish Amsterdam, which debuted at
ed Jew," Bregstein said. "He taught

SHARON LUCKERMAN
StaffWriter

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