Educational Media Reviews Online

Jewish Care (Montefiore Home) is Melbourne’s largest Jewish old-age center. Most of its residents are survivors of the Holocaust who made their way to Australia as refugees. This documentary follows the stories of three of its residents and their spouses: a Jewish Viennese man, Harold de Marigny, who made his way to London during WWII, only to be seen as the enemy and deported to Australia; a couple, Dora and Harry Gradzanowski, who lost their entire families and met after the war in a displacement camp in Milan; and a woman, Evelyne Westheimer, who suffers from physical and psychological problems after being born in a concentration camp. Photographs from the war are interspersed throughout. Especially poignant are the pictures of Evelyne in the concentration camp as a baby with her mother, and as a toddler together with other children.

Staff members at Montefiore describe the effects of institutionalization on people who were already confined once in their lives, and on their families, who feel guilty for not being able to care for them on their own any longer. This is especially true in the case of the 60 year-old woman born in a camp, who is facing potentially twenty to thirty more years of life at the center. Some Holocaust survivors blocked the war from their minds throughout their lives, only to reach an age now when their control and therefore inhibitions are gone, leaving them with haunting memories. Triggers exist all around in the form of elevators, shower rooms, and visitors with (now banned) dogs.

Long Shadows: Stories from a Jewish Home provides a good introduction to the subject of where some of the Holocaust survivors are now, and what their current struggles are. This film handles a difficult subject with grace, and manages to keep it uplifting through the choice of music and the narration of Harold de Marigny. The option of subtitles would have been helpful at times, given the variety of accents of the interviewees, but overall the technical quality is very good. This film is recommended for high school students through adults, and is of special interest to those studying the Holocaust and the concerns of the aging.