Yom HaShoah Memorial Service and Film Program: Sabotage (Dir. Noa Aharoni, 61 min.)
Wednesday, April 23 at 7:00 P.M.
Free and open to the public, but advance registration is required: https://www.falmouthjewish.org/event/yom-hashoah-memorial-service/
Everyone is invited to participate in a memorial service Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, to honor those who were killed by and those who resisted the Nazis and their collaborators. Following the service, watch the documentary film Sabotage, the story of the women’s underground operation in Auschwitz-Birkenau that ended tragically in the public hanging of four young women. This hour-long film is about feminine heroism, sacrifice, and hope.
About Sabotage (Directed by Noa Aharoni, Israel, 61 min.)
January 1945, less than two weeks before the evacuation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, four forced laborers women, Estusia Wajcblum, Rosa Robota, Ella Gartner, and Regina Safirstein were hanged in public, accused of sabotaging the Nazi war machine.
Under the horrific inferno of Auschwitz, Anna Wajcblum Heilman, Estusia’s sister and the youngest member of the women’s resistance underground writes a diary, describing how over thirty Jewish women, forced laborers of the “Union” munition factory, took part in a dangerous smuggling operation, stealing small portions of gunpowder from the factory and passing it from one to another until it gets to the Sonderkommando men, planning a large-scale rebellion.
On October 7th 1944, the rebellion spontaneously erupted and prisoners lit up crematorium no 4. In the SS investigation, some gunpowder from the “Union” was found and suspicions against the women workers were raised. In the dark basements of Auschwitz, the SS brutally tortured Estusia, Regina, Rosa, and Ella to obtain information about the revolt.
The four took sole blame for the entire underground activity to protect their friends and sisters and were publicly hanged.
Through the eyes of Anna Wajcblum Heilman, Sabotage tells the day-to-day routine of the camp which consists also of many little moments of camaraderie and friendship between young women shaped under harsh circumstances.
Read the director's statement here:
When I ask myself what attracted me to the making of the film "Sabotage", my answer is unequivocal. The female perspective on the Holocaust, or if you will, the heroism of women in the Holocaust. The story of the women and their rebellion has been forgotten from the pages of history, in this film I seek to continue the process they had begun so long ago, to give these women faces and names, and to talk about their courage. This film brings their story to memory and consciousness, thereby correcting the historical injustice.
Another challenge that I wanted to crack is a cinematic challenge. I want to talk about a plot that took place 75 years ago, with contemporary and interesting aesthetic and cinematic tools. I am a director of both feature films and documentaries and the combination of them in my opinion, in this film, is the secret that will bring the viewer to the emotional place I am looking for in my films.