Mania Salinger
is seen in the
film waving
at the British
soldiers
liberating
Bergen-Belsen.
Liberation!
Local woman finds herself in film.
Bobbie Lewis
Contributing Editor
ing an "atrocity film" would be unwise.
Footage from the original film was used
at the Nuremberg and Luneburg trials
t's not the way any woman would
of Nazi officers in 1945 and in a short
propaganda film, Death Mills, made by
want to make her screen debut.
American Billy Wilder.
Mania Salinger of West Bloomfield
was 21 when the Bergen-Belsen concen-
Salinger recalls how she became one of
tration camp was liberated on April 15,
the first to greet the camp's liberators.
"I was sick; I had an infection in my
1945. She and a few of the other women
still able to walk ran to the gate to greet
arm — if you look carefully at the photo
the British soldiers.
you can see my arm is swollen — and
The moment was captured by a British a fever; she said. "When I woke up that
army cameraman as part of an effort to
morning I was hot, so I went to get water.
document the closing days of World War
I looked at the guard tower and I saw
II. There's Mania front and center, with a
there were no Germans there. I looked
big smile, waving.
at another tower; no Germans. I started
On Jan. 26, Salinger and her family
screaming and just ran to the fence":
watched that bit of film, now part of
Salinger said it's always difficult to see
a documentary, Night Will Fall. It was
photos and films of the concentration
recently shown by HBO in the United
camps. What most upset her about Night
States and by other broadcasters around
Will Fall were scenes showing the mass
the world, and is available on HBO and
burial of the dead in enormous pits. The
Xfmity On Demand.
liberating soldiers had to do this quickly,
The film tells the story of another
so they dragged and carried the bodies
documentary, blandly titled German
without ceremony — "like throwing
Concentration Camps Factual Survey,
them in the garbage," Salinger said.
commissioned by the British
Another Detroiter may also
Ministry of Information to
have been in the original film.
record the Allied military vic-
Viola "Rivka" Klein, now of
tory in Europe.
Palm Springs, Calif., was 18 and
Night Will Fall includes a
very ill with typhus when the
recent interview with Salinger,
British liberated Bergen-Belsen.
who said she knew the camp
She remembers being filmed
had been liberated when she
in the infirmary and as she was
noticed there were no German Mania S alinger evacuated by stretcher.
guards in the watch tower.
"My mom told me Anne Frank
For the original project, producer
was in her barrack:' said Fran Klein
Sidney Bernstein recruited an impressive
Parker of West Bloomfield. She said Anne
team, including director Alfred Hitchcock was the only one infected with typhus
and script writer Richard Grossman, who who fought to live, and my mother
later became a Labour cabinet minister.
helped feed het" Because only about 12
They used hundreds of reels of film sent
minutes of the original footage were used
by British, American and Soviet camera-
in the new film, Parker wasn't sure if her
men, both soldiers and civilian news-
mother was in it. "There were so many
men, documenting the harrowing scenes
people, and it went by so fast; she said.
that greeted troops when they liberated
The original documentary has been
11 camps, including Bergen-Belsen,
completed by scholars at Britain's
Auschwitz and Dachau.
Imperial War Museum. It was shown
The original film project was shelved
at the London Film Festival in October
for 70 years. Some speculate that the
and at the Museum of Tolerance in Los
British didn't want to alienate the
Angeles and the Holocaust Memorial
Germans, whom they needed as allies in
Center in San Antonio in late January,
the Cold War against the Soviet Union.
but there are no plans to screen it more
Others feel the film was too sensitive to widely.
show at a time when Britain was resist-
The title for the film-about-the-
ing Zionists agitating for a Jewish state in
film comes from the end of Richard
British-mandate Palestine.
Grossman's script: "Unless the world
No reason for scrapping the project
learns the lesson these pictures teach,
was given except for a memo from the
night will fall. But, by God's grace, we
British Foreign Office that said screen-
who live will learn:'
I
❑
10 February 12 • 2015
Alan Rosen
Inventive Calendars
Author's talk to focus on how
Holocaust Jews marked time.
Yaffa Klugerman
Special to the Jewish News
I
magine Jewish life without a Jewish
calendar. Suppose, for a minute, that
we had no idea when to celebrate
holidays and observe fasts. When would
we blow the shofar? When would we
light the menorah? When would we eat
matzah?
That, says Holocaust scholar Alan
Rosen, was the problem faced by Jews in
ghettos, camps and in hiding during the
Holocaust.
How did Jews develop ways to track
time? Rosen's upcoming talk, "Killing
Time, Saving Time: Calendars and the
Holocaust," answers this question and
uncovers the innovative methods Jews
used. The Feb. 17 lecture is sponsored
by the Jean & Samuel Frankel Center for
Judaic Studies.
The author or editor of 10 books,
Rosen became interested in timekeeping
during the Holocaust after interview-
ing victims who said they placed a high
value on keeping track of the sacred days
of the Jewish calendar.
He conducted research using Jewish
calendars from public and personal
archives from that time, and discovered
that people were very resourceful with
the ways in which they determined the
proper dates for Jewish observance.
He says people kept handwritten cal-
endars, some kept track of the moon, and
one woman tied knots in her skirt daily
to know when Shabbat would arrive.
"Almost no one has given attention
to wartime calendars and the amazing
aspects of wartime life they reveal; he
said. "So I've had to assemble my own
inventory of these calendars"
Keeping calendars during the
Holocaust, says Anita Norich, U-M's
Tikva Frymer-Kensky Collegiate
Professor, sheds light on how people
tried to sustain tradition and some
modicum of control during unbearably
chaotic times.
"People ground themselves in the
calendar:' said Norich, who arranged
Rosen's visit. "What happens to your
sense of time under such traumatic con-
ditions? How do you keep track of per-
sonal and religious dates? Why does it
matter? These are some of the questions
that will be addressed:'
Rosen was born and raised in Los
Angeles and now lives in Jerusalem. He
was educated in Boston under the direc-
tion of Elie Wiesel. Rosen has held fel-
lowships and taught at numerous presti-
gious institutions, most recently serving
as the Wilkenfeld Scholar in Holocaust
Education in Sydney, Australia. He also
lectures regularly on Holocaust literature
at Yad Vashem's International School for
Holocaust Studies and other Holocaust
study centers.
Ultimately, Rosen says, his research on
the Holocaust sheds light on remarkable
perseverance.
"I am particularly drawn to how
Jewish victims brought meaning to their
experience, stage by stage, as it unfold-
or he said. "It is crucial to learn about
strategies of continuity in the midst of
tremendous upheaval."
❑
Alan Rosen's lecture, "Killing Time, Saving
Time: Calendars and the Holocaust," will
be held at 4 p.m. Feb. 17 at 202 S. Thayer
St., Room 2022, in Ann Arbor. The event
is free and open to the public. Yaffa
Klugerman is a program associate at the
Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at the
University of Michigan.