By Cailin Acosta
LA JOLLA, California – Avenue of the Giants shown Monday morning at the San Diego International Jewish Film Festival describes the unlikely friendship of Herbet Heller and teenager Abbey. The drama is directed by Finn Taylor.
Heller meets Abbey at a recovery center for adiction and mental health in Marin County, California. Abbey is asked to interview Heller to tell his story.
Heller begins by telling Abbey about his happy childhood in Prague and how in his teenage years he was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp with his family. He learned while in the camp that his older brother and father were killed and assumed his mother was gone as well. Heller spent three years in Auschwitz and managed to escape and stay hidden in a neighbor’s attic until the war ended. He was later reunited with his mother. He had not shared his story for 60 years and even his family and children do not know what happened to him. He shows Abbey his mangled tattoo as evidence of how he hid his identity to survive.
Abbey struggled with her own trauma by learning her best friend was having relationships with her father. They both took a handful of pills chased with a bottle of liquor. Abbey woke up but her best friend died in the forest of Redwoods. Just like Heller, Abbey did not have the strength to open up about this traumatic experience.
They both had their brushes with death, and they found a connection.
This movie is based on true events of Herbert Heller’s life, he died in 2021 at age 92 in Marin County where the Avenue of the Giants is in the Redwood Forest in California.
As our Holocaust survivors are aging and dying. It is important to listen and for those stories to continue to be told as a reminder and to not forget.
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Cailin Acosta is the assistant editor of the San Diego Jewish World.