[Leica] OT: my French family in film

[boklm at mars-attacks.org (nicolas vigier)]

Hi Nathan,

Very interesting story.

Do you know if there still some tickets selling for this avant-premiere ?

Nicolas

On Fri, 05 Mar 2010, Nathan Wajsman wrote:

> Around 1920 my granduncle Shmuel (Samuel) Wajsman emigrated from Lublin in 
> Poland to Paris in search of a better life. There, he and his wife did 
> indeed build a new life, under the name Weismann, courtesy a French 
> immigration official who had trouble with our Polish-Yiddish name. In 
> Paris, they had 3 children, two girls and a boy, the latter named Joseph 
> and born in 1931. 
> 
> In 1942 the Vichy government rounded up French Jews at the behest of the 
> Germans. Most ended up in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, including 
> Joseph's entire family. But not Joseph. He escaped the French holding camp 
> together with another boy. They made their way back to Paris only to find 
> empty apartments, and parted company there. Joseph eventually was whisked 
> off to a village in the Loire Valley where he was taken in by the 
> villagers and pretended to be just another French village boy. 
> 
> After the war, Joseph settled in Le Mans and became an apprentice in a 
> furniture shop. He later took over that shop and built a successful 
> business on that basis. For the first 10 years or so after 1945 he was 
> unaware that any part of his family in Poland had survived the war. He 
> assumed that everyone had met the same terrible fate as his parents and 
> sisters, and anyway he had never had any contact with his Polish family as 
> a child. Then, one day in 1957 or 58, my father "found" him. How it 
> happened is another story. But it did happen, and Joseph discovered that 
> he was not alone in the world as he thought. Since then he has been 
> incredibly devoted to the whole family. He attends all family gatherings 
> and major events, whether in Europe, the US or Israel. 
> 
> Since he retired, Joseph has devoted much of his life and energy to 
> telling the story to schools, civic groups etc. around France. He is 
> usually one of the people who gives a little speech at the annual 8th May 
> celebration in front of the prefecture in Le Mans. During the past couple 
> of years he has been collaborating with the director and screenwriter of a 
> feature film about his life:
> 
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1382725/
> 
> It may not be a Hollywood blockbuster, but it is a substantial film with 
> some well-known actors. For Joseph, who has strived so much to tell the 
> story, this is of major importance--this film will be seen by a 100 times 
> more people than he has reached so far with his message of "never again".
> 
> And now the big moment has arrived. The film will be released in the 
> Francophone world on Wednesday, and on Monday evening there is the 
> "official" avant-premiere organized by Gaumont on Champs-Elys?es. We will 
> be there together with our French family, to celebrate this big event on 
> our family's history.
> 
> Over the years, I have shown many pictures of Joseph here on the LUG, for 
> example:
> http://www.nathanfoto.com/paw/20.jpg
> http://www.nathanfoto.com/L2002_39_3.jpg
> http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws/uploads/2008/32alt2.jpg
> (the last one at the Holocaust memorial in Berlin in the summer of 2008)
> 
> This is all a long way of saying that I am off to Paris on 
> Saturday--besides the film, I want to take my daughter to the Louvre and I 
> want to visit the graves of two very different musical geniuses at the 
> P?re Lachaise cemetery, Chopin and Jim Morrison. And, if the weather 
> permits, to violate French laws and take some people pictures in the 
> Jardin du Luxembourg and other similar spots.
> 
> 
> Nathan
> 
> Nathan Wajsman
> Alicante, Spain
> http://www.frozenlight.eu
> http://www.greatpix.eu
> http://www.nathanfoto.com
> 
> Books: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/search?search=wajsman&x=0&y=0
> PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
> Blog: http://www.fotocycle.dk/blog
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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