We Remember: Songs of Survivors, a PBS documentary celebrating the lives of Holocaust survivors, will be screened at Mount Saint Mary College on Sunday, October 15 at 2:30 p.m.
It will be followed by a panel featuring some of the filmmakers and artists, as well as Tibor Spitz, a Holocaust survivor featured in the film. A post-event gathering outside the theatre, hosted by Jewish Family Service of Orange County, will focus on other forms of antibigotry and putting a halt to otherism.
The event, part of the college’s Samuel D. Affron Memorial Lecture Series, is free with a suggested donation of $10 to benefit Jewish Family Service. The Mount is located at 330 Powell Avenue, Newburgh, N.Y.
We Remember: Songs of Survivors follows four talented singer-songwriters who work for the community arts organization SageArts in the Hudson Valley. Through a program offered by Jewish Family Service of Orange County, they visited local Holocaust survivors to create original songs based on their conversations.
The film documents the relationships that developed and the songwriting process over many months, culminating in a live concert where the survivors and songwriters are celebrated by friends, family, and the community.
The Mount’s Aquinas Hall Theatre hosted this concert, “Holocaust Survivors: A Concert of Resilience and Hope,” in May of 2019.
The film, written and edited by Timothy Guetterman, focuses on in-depth interviews with four survivors: Friede Gorewitz, Rita Schwartz, Tibor Spitz, and Tommy Wald.
Spitz is scheduled to take part in the panel talk after the film screening. He was born in Slovakia in 1929. At 10 years old, he was kicked out of school and forced to wear a yellow star. When Slovakia was taken over, he and his family survived for 200 days hidden in a snowy forest.
The panel talk is also scheduled to feature Tim Miller and Ilene Cutler, We Remember producers; Colette Ruoff, founder and president of SageArts; Kelleigh McKenzie, a songwriter and performer who was part of the original Holocaust survivor song project; and Nicoletta Ronsini, codirector of Jewish Family Service of Orange County.
After the panel, visitors are invited to attend “Strength in Unity: Empowering Voices, Celebrating Resilience” in the atrium outside the Aquinas Hall Theatre. The event will feature artwork by students living in Orange County reflecting the theme “Survive and Thrive.” Organized by Janet Kass of Jewish Family Service, the event is a collaboration between Jewish Family Service, the Orange County Human Rights Commission, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Jewish Federation of Orange County, the Stop the Hate Campaign, and more.
Jerome S. Affron, a former Mount Saint Mary College trustee, established the Samuel D. Affron Memorial Lecture Series in honor of his father in 1982. A native of Kingston, Samuel D. Affron was deeply interested in education and served on the Board of Education in Beacon, N.Y. for many years. He was a man of many talents and interests. He pursued a variety of careers, including an automobile dealership, and served bravely in the armed forces during World War I.