A

lfred Zydower is no stranger to 
coping with trauma, and movies 
seem to help. Having escaped Nazi 
Germany with his family shortly after 
Krystallnacht, the 91-year old Madison 
Heights resident has followed a winding 
road before settling into retirement here. 
Over the years, he’
s taken in an immense 
repertoire of more than 40,000 films — out-
pacing many a Netflix binger well before 

streaming was available. 
Speaking to the Jewish News on a balmy 
afternoon, he recalled an early fascination 
with movies before he’
d even seen one — a 
relationship that dates back to his child-
hood in Fürstenwalde, Germany, which 
was near the lakeside community of Bad 
Saarow. 
Known for its healing waters, Bad Saarow 
proved a popular summer spot for a lost 

generation of Jewish entertainers, who 
would often canoe into town. Celebrities 
like Max Schmeling (who fought Joe 
Louis twice throughout the ’
30s) and his 
wife, Jewish screen actress Anny Ondra, 
frequented the area — at a time where 
interfaith marriages like theirs seemed fairly 
common. 
As the godson of a local rabbi, Zydower 
was introduced to several such “big shots” 
and stars who attended Fürstenwalde’
s 
synagogue (Bad Saarow, itself, lacked one). 
Around the same period, the Zydowers 
had a family friend who played often in the 
theater and would bring him props to play 
with. Though he was only free to see a few 
movies in his childhood, both due to his 
age and because of increasing restrictions 
under Hitler, the ones he caught and the 
aura that surrounded them combined to 
make an impression. 

LIFE IN SHANGHAI
That all changed when he and his family 
fled to Shanghai, China, where he quickly 
became a regular moviegoer. At the time, he 
caught films like Black Friday (about the onset 
of the Great Depression), Snow White and 
Tarzan and the Green Goddess for about a dime 
a ticket. For Zydower, the experience of mov-
iegoing itself — the feeling of a theater or of 
a star onscreen before him — often seems 
to make as much or more of an impression 
than the particulars of a certain story. 
He rhapsodized from his backyard about 
seeing Here Come the Waves in 1946, star-
ring Bing Crosby and Betty Hutton, at the 
Cathay Theatre in Shanghai. The 1930s-era 
art deco movie palace boasted 12,000 seats 
but was largely empty — a space Zydower 
had mostly to himself.
Zydower displays in conversation a spe-
cial affinity for actresses, mourning Hutton’
s 
early death (“
she got a bit carried away in 
her life”) while expressing a longtime fond-
ness for Barbara Stanwyck.
Moviegoing for Zydower seems entwined 
deeply not just with the experience of see-
ing each work of art, but also has become 
wrapped up in the longer life films take on 
in memory — though he finds older films 
to be more durable. 
“Some of them, they stay with me for-

Arts&Life

movies

34 | OCTOBER 8 • 2020 

Movie Lover 
Extraordinaire

GEORGE ELKIND CONTRIBUTING WRITER

This Holocaust survivor has seen more 
than 40,000 fi
 lms … and counting.

GEORGE ELKIND

