JUNE 17 • 2021 | 45

COURTESY OF KEITH FAMIE

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that it does not happen again.
A documentary filmmaker 
in Metro Detroit, Keith Famie, 
is taking inspiring action to 
boost that Holocaust educa-
tion. Since last July, Famie and 
his Visionalist Entertainment 
Productions team have been 
in production on a PBS doc-
umentary film about the 
Holocaust, starring the young-
er generation and directed 
toward the younger generation.
Just weeks before COVID-19 
was declared a pandemic in 
the United States, Keith Famie 
attended a speech by Holocaust 
survivor Edith Maniker at the 
Holocaust Memorial Center 
(HMC) in Farmington Hills. 
Maniker was giving the speech 
to high school students.
Listening to Maniker’s 
speech, Famie wondered to 
himself if the speech really 
stuck with the students. 
“It wasn’t the messenger, she 
was powerful and the story was 
important,” Famie said. “But 
she’s 80-something, and they’re 
17, 19 years old. Did they really 
get it? I thought there’s got to 
be a better way, or a new way, 
of telling the Holocaust story 
that’s going to engage a young-
er generation, a non-Jewish 
younger generation.”
The wheels were then set in 
motion. Famie devised an idea 
— finding peers of the younger 
generation to tell the Holocaust 
story, with those peers needing 
to come into the project green 
with very little knowledge of 
the Holocaust, and not to be 
Jewish. Another component 
important to Famie was that 
the peers would have a talent 
of some sort, one they could 
use to inspire others to tell the 
story in some way. 
“I wanted to find the right 
individuals that I felt had the 
sensitivity and empathy about 
them already,” Famie said. 
Famie spent a month-and-a-
half interviewing individuals, 
before finding his two Shoah 

Ambassadors: Hailey Callahan 
of Rochester, a then 22-year-
old artist/sculpturist and grad-
uate from Detroit-based College 
of Creative Studies (CCS), and 
Curtis Bates, a singer-songwrit-
er from Detroit. 
Callahan’s artistic medium 
inspired her to recreate a train 
car out of stained glass to tell 
the story of how the trains 
were used to transport Jews to 
German death camps. 
Bates’ musical medium 

inspired him to write two rap 
songs in the film which will 
help illustrate general themes 
of the Holocaust and, at the 
same time, generate interest 
with the younger generation.

FILMING BEGINS
Famie began filming by step-
ping into Callahan and Bates’ 
life, creating a backstory of 
who they are and what they do. 
Filming was done with Bates 
in a studio and in the streets 
of Detroit singing, and filming 
was done with Callahan at CCS, 
doing some creative sculpture. 

An opportunity was also set 
up for Callahan and Bates to 
interview the five Holocaust 
survivors who were chosen 
with help from the HMC: 
Maniker, Irene Miller, Mania 
Salinger, Fred Lessing and 
Rene Lichtman.
More filming was completed 
with Callahan as she started 
down the path of what she 
wanted to create, and with 
Bates as he started to work on 
his songs. 

Another couple of days were 
spent filming at the HMC with 
Professor Howard Lupovitch 
from Wayne State University, 
who specializes in Judaic histo-
ry, along with an extensive tour 
of the museum with Callahan 
and Bates talking about and 
asking questions about the 
Holocaust.
Filming was also done with 
Callahan and Bates visiting 
the homes of the Holocaust 
survivors.
Filming for the unveiling 
of Callahan’s train car took 
place at the HMC on May 20. 

Famie invited local cantors to 
sing hymns and prayers during 
the unveiling, along with a 
violinist, to make it even more 
special. 
“Hailey chose to make 
that,” Famie said. “I said to 
Hailey, ‘You get inspired and 
let’s just see where this takes 
us,’ and that’s what she came 
up with. I don’t think there’s 
ever been anything like that 
created in history, and it’s just 
very powerful.” 

Famie recognizes the filming 
of the scene as the closing of 
Callahan’s experience, and the 
handing off of her experience 
to her generation.
All of this filming took 
place during the COVID-19 
pandemic, which affected and 
transformed the execution of 
the filming in many ways.
“It was a curse and a bless-
ing, all in one,” Famie said. 
“We had planned to film at 
Auschwitz, and we were sup-
posed to travel to Poland, and 
all of that stuff went in the 
can. The whole project, pretty 

Violinist Nathan 
Bieber plays his 
instrument during 
the filming of the 
Holocaust memorial 
film for PBS.

