By Franklin Gaylis and Sara E. Brown
SAJAC (South African Jewish American Community) was one of the first organizations to promote Michael Kretzmer’s documentary, J’Accuse! in 2022. This documentary film tells the story of the Lithuanian Holocaust. Approximately 220,000 Lithuanian Jews — 96.4 % of Lithuania’s Jewish population, the highest proportion in Europe — were annihilated in circumstances of unimaginable cruelty. Almost all the murders were carried out by Lithuanians, very often the victims’ neighbors. The documentary reveals the particularly horrific nature of the rape, dehumanization and torture that characterized the Lithuanian Holocaust. It also exposes the egregious and systematic way the Lithuanian government, via its infamous Genocide Centre, covers up the truth of the atrocities and tells lies to honor known mass murderers, such as Jonas Noreika who imprisoned, robbed, and slaughtered as many as 14,500 Jews.
The story is told through two heroic protagonists. One is Grant Gochin who was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa and whose family was annihilated by Noreika in the Plunge region of northern Lithuania. The other is the brave woman Silvia Foti, a Catholic raised in the Chicago Lithuanian community, whose grandfather was Jonas Noreika. Silvia has had the courage to go against her family, her community, her People and her country to tell the truth and has exposed her grandfather’s guilt in her expertly researched book “Storm in the Land of Rain.” Unapologetically and proudly, Silvia Foti is demanding that that the truth should finally be told in Lithuania and across the world.
Gochin has been bravely fighting the Lithuanian government for over 30 years. He has self-financed more than 30 legal actions against the Lithuanian Government and the Genocide Center. All his legal actions have been dismissed by the Lithuanian government and courts on narrow technical grounds: at no stage has the substance of his claims ever been considered.
With a very limited budget, Michael Kretzmer spent two years making this award-winning documentary, J’Accuse!. The film has won worldwide acclaim, winning more than 115 Best Film awards and selections at film festivals across the world. In spite of having absolutely no money for marketing, distribution and PR, the documentary has made an incredible impact on both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. It has played to sell-out audiences in America, Israel, South Africa, England, and Australia and in just eight months it has recalibrated and redefined the relationship between Lithuania and the Jewish People.
We will be privileged to show J’Accuse! at the JCC here in San Diego on November 5 and will have Michael, Silvia, and Grant in attendance to discuss the documentary as well as its astonishing impact and tremendous success.
Further, on November 7 at 8 p.m., Congregation Adat Yeshurun of La Jolla will host a panel discussion and presentation on the history behind the film.
Sara, representing the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and a few members of the San Diego Jewish Community including Pam Nathan, (SAJAC), Barbara Ostroff (San Diego Holocaust Memorial Committee), Jordan Fruchtman and Lauren Luedtke-Stafford (JCC), and I are developing a project with Michael Kretzmer to leverage J’Accuse! as a springboard to educate both Jews and non-Jews regarding the horrors of the Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Holocaust revisionism and antisemitism in general. Several local Jewish organizations including the AJC, United Jewish Federation (UJF) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are committed to supporting this project to educate communities and raise funds to support these efforts.
This initiative is timely. We are seeing an increase in antisemitic incidents in our community, including Nazi graffiti (using excreta) on UCSD campus, antisemitic flyers distributed in multiple neighborhoods, and a county HRC commissioner using his platform to issue antisemitic blood libel, publicly stating that synagogues teach congregants to murder Palestinians and very recently vandalism on the Adat Yeshurun Shul’s campus. The American Jewish Committee’s 2022 annual “State of Antisemitism in America” demonstrated a disturbing impact that the rising hatred of Jews has on America’s Jewish community. For too many American Jews, being Jewish no longer feels safe. 41% of American Jews reported feeling less secure, up 10% from the year before. And one in four (26%) American Jews reported being personally targeted by antisemitism.
We as a community need to stand up and confront antisemitism and combine our efforts with our local community in general. Education about the Holocaust but also the remarkable history of the Jewish People, our values, our history and our contributions as a community, is paramount in confronting the blatant lies of those who spew hate. Please join us on November 5th for the showing of J’Accuse!, meet Michael, Silvia and Grant, and help support our collective effort in confronting antisemitism. We all need to be involved to preserve a safe future for our children and the following generations!
Please register for the showing of J’Accuse! at the Lawrence Family JCC on November 5 using the following link: https://my.lfjcc.org/13276/13278 and please join our fundraising effort at: https://give.lfjcc.org/campaign/jaccuse-23-24/c502150
More information on Adat Yeshurun’s November 7 event will be forthcoming at https://www.adatyeshurun.org/