The greatest sources of Holocaust history are the testimonies of survivors through their memories, their writings, their memoirs, and documentary films. You won’t want to miss this beautifully constructed film entitled The Presence of Their Absence streaming on paid Amazon Prime.
Growing up with and around Holocaust Survivors. Donna Kanter, the two-time Emmy award-winning director, and producer of the film, always wondered what Survivors thought after their liberation as they went through the process of emigration and rebuilding their post-war lives?
- What expressed or unexpressed behaviors did they pass down to their post-war Holocaust children who perhaps without their knowledge or understanding inherited their trauma?
- How did these children fill in the blanks if their parents could not or would not speak to them about their Shoah experiences?
- Could these children even handle the truth?
- Or were they inundated with harrowing images and left on their own to manage?
In Los Angeles, California, Fred Zaidman’s (the main character of the film) mother, Renate, spoke often of her Shoah pain but without divulging the details and full facts. Fred’s father, Wolf, virtually shut down and never spoke about the war or any of his personal experiences. Fred remembers that both of his parents had painful nightmares and screaming fits that could be heard in the middle of the night. Fred knew that his mother also suffered from the deep blackness of depression, often spending her days crying unendingly.
Fred throughout his life also suffered from the contradiction of too much emotional information to having too little if any clues about his ancestry or his past. As a result, for years Fred suffered from a deep sense of loss and a longing to belong that disassociated him from his present.
I rarely interject my personal story into my reviews but watching this striking and deeply personal documentary film, I was literally transported to being right alongside Fred on his journey. While engrossed in the film, I saw in Fred and his brother my own generational survivor story. Like Fred, I morphed into someone highly motivated to learn more. This film “had me at hello” and I trust it will for you as well.
My Survivor parents never spoke to my sister or me about their Shoah experiences. However, I cannot remember either of my parents breaking down over their horrid memories. I sense from speaking directly to Fred, in doing my research for this article, my parents were in many ways the opposite of his. They were always focused on their future, a beacon of hope and their successes, and above all the happiness of their children.
But nonetheless my parents’ “Shoah silence was deafening” and it deeply affected me. In ways at first that were unknown to me … what or how or why was I feeling the way I was feeling? At certain times in my life, I didn’t know that I was experiencing generational survivor trauma. Trauma setbacks that at first, I didn’t know how to recover from. And it was during those short or long periods, that “generational survivor trauma” hit me like a massive rolling boulder, landing squarely on my shoulder with such force… I was debilitated.
I just didn’t know or wasn’t prepared to even understand what was happening to me. How was I to manage blackness, a deepening hole which seemed to swallow me whole for periods of time throughout my life?
Curious…? Is this also resonating with you as well….? If so…keep reading…
Fred Zaidman, the lead in The Presence of Their Absence, speaks about his own “deep hole.” How he is now striving to honor the memory of his grandparents who were murdered by the Nazis in the Shoah. On his own, he embarks on an undefined journey to discover what had happened to his family in Poland during the Holocaust. His primary goal, to find one single photo of his grandparents. He wanted to memorialize their lives which up to this point had been only incoherent memories distilled by the two brothers from the lonely words passed down by their parents.
Fred emphasizes that “he is destined to find and prove that his grandparents actually existed in this world.” With only the will to push his own limits, Fred begins to construct his family tree. His initial findings slowly lead him to meet Donna Kanter. Once connected their creative partnership begins to tell Fred’s unique story in the film.
And through his quest to discover his past and its many hidden details, Fred also searches for his own identity. In doing so, Fred is forced to draw upon all of his life experiences to assist in transcending and contemplating the larger Shoah catastrophe –Fred transports us all on this journey. His “Will To Love”.
Director Donna Kanter follows Fred on this journey during which he meets genealogists, historians, and a cadre of Polish government officials with the singular goal to piece together his own ancestry. His journey takes him to Poland, Israel, Germany, and finally to Atlanta, where he receives an amazing gift of the spirit, pluck, tenacity, and a “roll up one’s sleeves offer of help” from an unlikely source – a Baptist minister.
Kanter puts the viewer right next to Zaidman as we all travel with him and feel what he feels. We get caught up in his joy of research discovery, but we also feel the devastating lows when we visit unkept overgrown weed-infested Polish Jewish cemeteries and see Swastika graffiti spray-painted on some of the Jewish headstones.
“To judge the future viability of a religion; historians often point to how well their dead are treated”.
Fred and Kanter visit a number of cemeteries where his and other ancestors might be buried. And of course, they visit death camps where members of Fred’s family had been documented to have been murdered .
Like Fred, many of us to are on a similar journey. To learn more, to reclaim our past, to discover what we don’t know about our parent’s Shoah experiences. For many of us, and just like Fred’s situation, our parent’s “silence was deafening.”
For this film review, I would like to share another story. I have met both Fred and Donna and they are just as they appear on the screen. Warm, compassionate, and loving individuals. In fact, if Fred in his own quiet style doesn’t motivate you to take action then frankly, I don’t know what will.
Warning: You will see chilling Nazi graffiti reeling its ugly and cowardly head culminating in sacred headstone defacement. And you’ll experience the 180-degree positive emotion when you see Steven Reece and Fred working together to clear towering weeds from several of these Polish cemeteries along with other Polish volunteers.
NOW I WANT TO ASK YOU…why shouldn’t every Synagogue, Jewish School, JCC, and Jewish Federation sponsor a Polish Cemetery? There are some 1,200 Polish cemeteries (yes, 1,200) in various states of disrepair. And the maintenance of these hallowed grounds is a generational issue.
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Jeffery Giesener, former CEO of SourceMob, has both public and private company experience. Today, retired and enjoying life in San Diego, he’s a freelance writer who has a passion for both cinema and baking his Mom’s (Of Blessed Memory) European recipes.
Republished from San Diego Jewish World