Ever Grateful

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A film shot in Melbourne in which six Holocaust survivors express their gratitude to strangers whose acts of kindness saved their lives will be screened later this month at the city’s Jewish Holocaust Centre.

Ever Grateful was filmed in Melbourne and honours anonymous rescuers whose selflessness, at great risk, and whose humanity and sense of common decency contributed to the survival of Jews during the Holocaust.

Produced by Sophie Boord together with long-serving head of the JHC testimonies department, Philip Maisel, the documentary features the stories of six Holocaust survivors who settled in Melbourne and who owe their lives to their anonymous rescuers, an indebtedness that can never be repaid.

‘Seven decades have passed since the end of the Second World War’, said Maisel, who owes his survival to an inordinate act of bravery by someone unknown, ‘yet the passage of time has in no way diminished my heartfelt gratitude and that of countless other Holocaust survivors whose lives were saved by people during a time of abject evil.’

‘While the presentation features testimonies of Melbourne-based Holocaust survivors, there are doubtless thousands more such stories of acts of courage by people unknown who were almost singularly responsible for saving the lives of survivors of the Shoah’, he said.

‘Like those who have been honoured by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations’, they too need to be thanked and honoured’.

The documentary will serve to launch the JHC’s Gratitude Project – the establishment of a Gratitude Register to record as many stories of anonymous rescue as possible, and to enable Holocaust survivors still living in Melbourne to recount such precious life-saving moments.

The JHC hopes to capture these stories in short videos as well as written accounts.

‘We believe that creating the Gratitude Register will enable survivors to finally say thanks and inspire people to make a difference’, said JHC curator, Jayne Josem, who heads the project.

‘We urge other survivors to contribute their stories to the project’, she said.