By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – Sandy Scheller and filmmaker Olena Zernychenko have been collaborating on a movie about Scheller’s mother, Ruth Goldshmiedova Sax, a Holocaust survivor who died at age 90 at the end of last year. “Ruthie” Sax had been a popular speaker throughout San Diego County, whose willingness to share her life story and experiences in the Holocaust was greeted with numerous accolades, including an honorary doctorate from Southwestern College, star treatment at Comic-Con, being profiled at San Diego’s Jewish Art Festival, and being honored by the California Legislature. In addition to all that, Sax in her waning years was made an honorary Girl Scout and had a bat mitzvah.
The film brings together interviews with Sax, newsreels of the Holocaust, and footage from Sax’s encounters with a variety of audiences, particularly students in their classrooms. The film, similar to the memoir that Scheller wrote about her mother, is titled Try to Remember – Never Forget, which recounted Sax’s pre-war life in Czechoslovakia, as well as her internment at Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Oederan.
The train trip from her home in Czechoslovakia to Theresienstadt normally would have taken hours, but the Nazis stretched out the journey in a box car for three stifling, choking days. When she arrived at Theresienstadt, all of Sax’s clothes were taken from her and she was issued a prison uniform. Keeping clean was near impossible as prisoners did not have access to the showers.
On six different occasions at Auschwitz, Sax had to stand in front of Dr. Josef Mengele, who with a mere glance evaluated prisoners, sending some to the work barracks and others to the gas chambers. At night, after their work details were finished, Sax and the other women in her barracks used to imagine cooking the foods they had once loved. They would nostalgically trade recipes, and describe with longing the steps they would go through to prepare their favorite cuisine.
In Oederan, she was sent to a munitions factory, where she made bullets for the Nazi war machine. According to her reminiscences in the forthcoming movie, Sax secretly streaked the bullets so they wouldn’t shoot straight. Although she was trained to fix the bullet-making machine, she surreptitiously “messed it up again.”
After her liberation, she wrote to a childhood sweetheart, Kurt Sax, who had previously immigrated to the United States. He sent for her and they were married for 63 years up to the time of his death. The Sax family had lived in Chula Vista, where they were active in Jewish affairs. In the latter part of her life, Ruth Sax resided at Paradise Village in National City, where she found to her delight many other residents also were Jewish.
The movie is scheduled to have its premiere in conjunction with Yom HaShoah at 6 p.m., Sunday, April 28, at Tifereth Israel Synagogue, 6660 Cowles Mountain Boulevard, in the San Carlos neighborhood of San Diego. That Conservative synagogue had special meaning for Sax because it has long been the spiritual home of the New Life Club of Holocaust Survivors, of which she was an active member. The sponsoring Tifereth Israel Synagogue Men’s Club has arranged for a panel discussion, following the movie, which will include Lawrence Baron, a San Diego State University emeritus professor of European History.
Baron is an expert on Holocaust filmdom, having written Projecting the Holocaust into the Present, a book that analyzed how filmmakers treated the Holocaust over the years. That book was so well received that Baron received and accepted a request from Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, to lecture there. Following the discussion at Tifereth Israel Synagogue, desserts will be served. A $5 entrance fee covers both the film showing and the dessert.
Filmmaker Zernychenko immigrated from the Ukraine to Nevada, where she received a bachelor’s degree from the Art Institute of Las Vegas. Scheller, company manager for The Flying Cranes aerial ballet from Moscow, met her future collaborator when Zernychenko was making a film about sand artist Vira Syvorotkina, a member of the Cirque de Soleil. “We started working on the documentary two years ago,” Scheller told San Diego Jewish World. “We thought that Ruthie would live forever. Nothing was scripted and everything was so organic. I remember Olena sending me out of the room so she could get to know Ruthie.”
The filmmaker became an admirer of Sax, who remained optimistic right up to the end of her life, notwithstanding the fact that she was confined to a wheelchair. Scheller recalled, “If someone complained about something, Olena reminded them of Ruthie, a Holocaust survivor who loved life so much and made the most of everything she did.”
Try to Remember – Never Forget is enhanced by original music from composer and musician Ninel Novikova Kuybus.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com