Educational Media Reviews Online

Fading Traces: Postscripts from a Landscape of Memory presents absorbing testimonies of survivors who witnessed the horrific reign of Nazi terror in western Ukraine, once home to the largest Jewish community in existence. With vivid detail, the camera provides stark contemporary images of various towns such as L'viv, Brody, Drohobcz, Czernowitz, Talcyn, Medshivdose, and Berdicev. It captures the vestiges of a civilization once thriving with the bounty of Jewish culture and the trades of everyday life. Today, lucky survivors cling to the world of their forefathers and their religious fervor. Excellent background information provides geographical and historical context. Those interviewed describe their miraculous tales of survival and their eye witness accounts of mass execution and persecution where more than 3,000 Jews disappeared within the first few days of German occupation. They rewalk the steps, fields, and rivers where atrocities took place. Their lined and haunted faces, songs, and detailed memories provide the real landscape for this program on annihilation and loss. Subtitles are used well to translate the various spoken tongues.

Creators of this program wisely chose to incorporate readings from authors David Kahane, Rose Auslander, Isaak Babel, as well as Martin Buber and Baal Shem Tov, who both magnificently describe Jewish Ukranian life both before the Nazis. Felix Landau, Chief of the Gestapo, reads from his war diary describing his role in shooting Jews. Unmoved, he describes how Jews had to dig their own graves.

This documentary is crafted with great intelligence, sensitivity, and care. The excellent music soundtrack includes Klezmer and other regional music. Like the photographs of our own grandparents, this videotape must be cherished and preserved for generations to come.

Fading Traces: Postscripts from a Landscape of Memory is recommended for secondary and college classes on Holocaust Studies, Judaic Studies, World War II, Russian History, and Yiddish Culture. It would also serve well in educational centers for senior citizens as an adjunct to history classes, though it will be very painful for many to view. It is highly recommended.