The Hong Kong Holocaust & Tolerance Centre was pleased to support a number of Holocaust-themed films as part of the 20th Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival taking place 2-10 November 2019.

In addition to school screenings, this year’s public screenings all took place at Asia Society Hong Kong Center at 9 Justice Drive, Admiralty. Please see the list below for film descriptions.

Supported Films 2019

Avenging Evil (3 November – 6:15 PM) 

A documentary featuring a seldom-told, thought-provoking story of revenge. Six million Jews are dead, but by 1946, just a handful of Nazis face trial. Most of the guilty will never face justice. For many of Hitler’s victims, this is not enough. Based on previously unheard recordings and exclusive interviews with those involved—all of whom are over 90—this film tells the story of a secret organization of Holocaust survivors who decide to take matters into their own hands. Assembled by the warrior-poet Abba Kovner, their aim is “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.”

Who Will Write Our History (4 November – 7:00 PM)

In November 1940, days after the Nazis sealed 450,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, a secret band of journalists, scholars and community leaders decided to fight back. Led by historian Emanuel Ringelblum and known by the code name Oyneg Shabes, this clandestine group vowed to defeat Nazi lies and propaganda not with guns or fists but with pen and paper. Now, for the first time, their story is told as a feature documentary. Who Will Write Our History mixes the writings of the Oyneg Shabes archive with new interviews, rarely seen footage and stunning dramatizations to transport us inside the Ghetto and the lives of these courageous resistance fighters.

Bye Bye Germany (7 November – 7:00 PM)

Frankfurt, 1946. David Bermann and his friends have survived the Holocaust, escaped the Nazi regime and are now dreaming of leaving for America. But how will they get the money in these tough post-war times? The smooth-talking businessman focuses on what the Germans now need most: fine bed linens nicely wrapped in amusing stories! The six talented entertainers go from home to home, praising German housewives with chutzpah. Business flourishes and a bright new future can be seen in the horizon. But questions about Bermann’s past catch up with him. Why does he have two passports? What about his visit to Hitler’s mountain retreat? Could he have collaborated with the Nazis?

This special workshop was held on 26 October 2019 to coincide with HKHTC’s ‘Stars Without a Heaven: Children in the Holocaust’ exhibition at the City University of Hong Kong.

For further information, please contact lb@cityu.edu.hk

In October and November 2019, The Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre presented an acclaimed international exhibition — Stars Without a Heaven: Children in the Holocaust — a special project organized along with the City University of Hong Kong and in cooperation with Yad Vashem.

The ‘Stars Without a Heaven’ Exhibition took place at the Woo Foo Foundation Gallery of the City University of Hong Kong’s Run Run Shaw Library, along with the exhibition’s opening ceremony and talk.

The Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre presented a special lecture titled “Who Will Write our History?: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto” last week at the Hong Kong International Book Fair – a major event attended by roughly one million people annually. We are delighted that the talk attracted a diverse, standing room only crowd, emphasizing the value and importance of HKHTC’s core message of tolerance and non-discrimination.

The lecture was presented by HKHTC’s Executive Director Simon K. Li in Cantonese, enabling us to connect with hundreds of local community members, including many who learned about the Holocaust for the first time as a result of this event. Focus was on Samuel Kassow’s book Who Will Write our History?, which documents a secret archive created by historian Emanuel Ringelblum in the Warsaw Ghetto. During Ringelbaum’s internment, he established a scholarly organization to record the experiences of the ghetto’s inhabitants.

In Spring 2019, HKHTC, the University of Hong Kong and Yad Vashem presented the “Spot of Light: Women in the Holocaust” exhibition at both St. Paul’s Co-educational College in Central and the St. Paul’s Convent School in Causeway Bay. There were also opening lectures delivered by HKHTC board member and HKU professor Dr Roland Vogt.

Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, is observed every year. It is a day of commemoration of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust as a result of actions carried out by Nazi Germany. On 2 May 2019, HKHTC was honored to host the annual Yom Hashoah ceremony, which was held at the Jewish Community Centre, in remembrance of the millions of Jewish lives that perished in the Holocaust. Religious and lay leaders, representatives from many consulates, students, and members of the community paused both to reflect on the horrors of the Holocaust and recommit to engaging with its history and mandate.

On 27 April 2019, the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre, Facing History and Ourselves and Asia Society organized a one-day workshop which aimed to prepare teachers to interweave a literary analysis of Elie Wiesel’s powerful and poignant memoir with an exploration of the relevant historical context underlying Wiesel’s experience. The workshop explored the central questions: How is our identity shaped and reshaped by the circumstances we encounter? How do tragedy and trauma influence an individual’s identity and choices?

Thanks so much for joining our teachers training workshop with Facing History and Ourselves at Asia Society last weekend. It was wonderful to have a full house.

On 3 March 2019, the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre was delighted to co-organise the screening and discussion event ‘Bye Bye Germany’ at Broadway Cinematheque:

Bye Bye Germany –
Screening and Discussion with Simon K. Li, HKHTC Executive Director

Chinese and English captions will be available.  電影提供中、英文字幕。
The post-screening discussion will be conducted in Cantonese.  座談會以廣東話進行。

About the speaker:
Simon K. Li is the Executive Director of the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre. An award-winning former journalist in Canada, he was a Senior Lecturer and Visiting Educator at the Amsterdam-based Anne Frank House.

More about the film:
https://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/Bye-Bye-Germany-an-engaging-tale-of-Jews-12875292.php