OUT OF THE FIRE

"best of the festival" - Golden Sheaf Awards

Silver Award, Best Canadian Documentary - Hot Docs

Faye Schulman returns to her home town of Lenin; at the time, part of Poland, now in Belarus. It’s where Mrs. Schulman was living when Germany invaded and where, in 1942, she barely escaped death at the hands of the Nazis because of her talent with a camera.

The Nazis felt they could make use of her skills. Faye’s family were killed by the Nazis in a mass execution. Faye herself was imprisoned with the few other Jews who were spared in the local synagogue, but allowed out from time to time because there was a dark-room in the family home.

Ultimately she escaped – with her camera – and joined and fought with a group of Partisans in the nearby forests.

 She is now returning 55 years later to pray on-site for her lost family and to meet again her few surviving Partisan comrades.

BISHARI Film Productions Inc.2000© • 56 mins. 
World War II, Jewish Studies, The Holocaust

Faye Schulman, Jewish partisan, female Jewish partisan, war photographer, war nurse, partisans Belarus, Nazi atrocities, mass killings, mass grave, survivor, fighter, artist.  Bearing witness to history.  Jews did fight back.  Women in War.