The Hong Kong Holocaust & Tolerance Centre was pleased to support a number of Holocaust-themed films as part of the 22^nd Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival taking place 13-21 November 2021.

These public screenings took place in person at Asia Society Hong Kong Center at 9 Justice Drive, Admiralty. Please see the list below for film descriptions. It was a great delight to see many of you this year. We hope to see you again in HKJFF 2022. 

Supported Films 2021

Love It Was Not (Sunday, 14 November, 6:45pm)

Flamboyant and in the prime of her life, Helena Citron is taken to Auschwitz as a young woman and finds unlikely solace under the protection of Franz Wunsch, a high-ranking SS officer who falls in love with her and her magnetic singing voice. Risking certain execution if caught, their forbidden relationship went on until her liberation in 1945. When a letter arrives thirty years later from Wunsch’s wife, begging Helena to testify on Wunsch’s behalf, she is faced with an impossible decision. Will she help the man who brutalised so many lives, but saved hers?

Link to trailer here.

The Auschwitz Report (Monday, 15 November, 7:00pm)

The Auschwitz Report follows Freddy and Valér, two Slovakian Jewish men on their agonizing attempt to escape the concentration camp. Each day they watch, count, and document the number of prisoners delivered to the camp, as well as the daily death toll, in order compile a detailed report about the systematic genocide they witness at the camp. Starving and injured, the brave pair escape and forge ahead to deliver their proof of rampant genocide to leaders of the Red Cross. However, with Nazi propaganda and international liaisons still in place, their allies are reluctant to believe their account. A harrowing film based on true events that will leave audiences forever changed.

Link to trailer here.

Muranów (Sunday, 21 November, 5:45pm)

The flourishing area of Muranów in Warsaw was once a place of hardship and death – it housed the Warsaw ghetto. Today, it is a spacious green neighbourhood built out from the rubble of the war. The Polish residents claim that Jewish ghosts live in Muranów and wander the streets they once lived in. Some believe the ghosts are literal – while others regard them in metaphorical terms, serving as a reminder of the life, culture and traditions of the Jewish people who are buried beneath the ground.

Link to trailer here.

The Hong Kong Holocaust & Tolerance Centre was pleased to participate in the 24-Hour Virtual Global Vigil to mark the conclusion of Genocide Awareness Month. Over a 24 hour cycle, the vigil featured content from major organisations from around the world commemorating genocide, including HKHTC. On 29 April 2021, the global audience joined the live stream of our special one hour programme ‘Remembering Together: Chinese and Jewish Students Discuss Holocaust/Genocide Education’.

Mixing music and dialogue, this conversation between Jewish students in Hong Kong and Chinese undergraduates in Macao, addressed pressing questions on the need for Holocaust education and its use in raising awareness of genocidal atrocity in Asia. Bringing together students from different backgrounds to talk about the Holocaust and its place in wider genocide education, we hoped to find common ground for communal memory where both groups participate in each other’s understanding of shared humanity.

Thanks for joining us to conclude Genocide Awareness Month and unite to fight hate worldwide.

For HKHTC’s one-hour special programme, you can watch the video here.