TO AUSCHWITZ and BACK: The Joe Engel Story

Jeri Jacquin

Currently on DVD from Ron Small, Anchor Media Group and the Holocaust Education Film Foundation is the amazing story TO AUSCHWITZ and BACK: The Joe Engel Story.

Joe Engel has an incredible story to tell in this documentary. He begins telling the story of his family in Zakroczym, Poland in 1927. They lived ten miles from the train station and his father used a team of horses to get anywhere. He learned early that being Jewish was a painful experience recalling when they were required to wear the yellow Star of David and others who were taken out and shot.

In the Warsaw Ghetto, the Nazi’s took all their belongings and they spent a two day train ride arriving in a demolished city. The war had taken its toll leaving them with no electricity or running water with 20-30 people to a room. Living in fear of the Gestapo, they also feared the Jewish police who were equally as cruel.

He tells about the loading of the trains with people from the Ghetto not knowing where they were going but knowing they didn’t return. Eventually, Joe was 14 when they came for him separating the entire family. The train he rode on arrived at Birkenau to see the ironwork sign ARBEIT MACHT FREI (If you work hard enough you might survive) and after having his head shaved and tattooed with a number, he learned that Joseph Mengle was there as well.

Thousands and thousands of Jews were dispersed throughout the camps and Joe was the third person in a four bunk bed. Living in the cold the got up at 5 a.m. for roll call and for breakfast a slice of bread and they were set to work. Coming home at days end everything was done in reverse.

One day soldiers came looking for volunteers to go to Auschwitz and believing that Birkenau was the worse place on earth, Joe agreed to go. He learned to lay bricks and eat a little better but he also saw people starving and dying before his eyes. If anyone was sick, the doctor would report them to the Germans.

Joe is horrified still that one man could have such control over the German people causing them to treat fellow human beings with such atrocity. He learned himself of that cruelty when he was punished for an infraction yet he survived.

In January of 1945, Joe was 17 and was forced on the Death March where trains were waiting to take them to Germany. The trains did not have any roofs and it was snowing so feeling he had nothing to lose, Joe escaped. Now he is learning survival of a different kind not know who to trust.

He meets a man who introduces him to the Resistance and he becomes a freedom fighter going on missions to bomb German police stations. The Liberation in 1945 by the Red Army, he ate well for the first time since he could remember. Returning home, Joe was hoping that everyone would return to their home town. In the months that followed, no one came home. He left for the American DP camps until they sent him to the United States. Finding family in the U.S., he ended up in South Carolina.

After the war, Joe discovers that his some of his family survived the Holocaust but they wanted to know how he survived! As a way to never forget, his nephew Dr. Michael Engel tattooed the number 84009 – the number Joe was given when he arrived at the concentration camp.

In Charleston, South Carolina there is a wall that is in memory of six million Jews who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Joe believes it is very important to not forget the past but remind ourselves so that it will never happen to anyone else in the future.

The Holocaust Education Film Foundation was established in 2018 and has built an international, interactive online community one Holocaust survivor at a time. Through full-length documentaries, distributed globally through numerous platforms, the online site and educational programs, the 501c3 foundation seeks to ensure that we never forget.

TO AUSCHWITZ AND BACK: The Joe Engel Story is a story told exactly as it happened to a very young man in 1927 Poland. Joe tells it with such memorable detail that I could not help but soak in every word he said. Even when talking about what he did in the resistance, Joe held my attention as if holding my chin with his own hands and looking into my eyes.

It is that presence that brings Joe’s story the ability to reach deep down and remind us that those who died are to be honored and those who lived should be listened to with every fiber of our being. Thank you Joe, thank you.

The desert will bloom with flowers. It will be very glad and shout with joy! (Isaiah 35:2) and in that – Joe blooms.

THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE is Dramatic on Bluray

Jeri Jacquin

Coming to Bluray and DVD on July 4^th and currently on Digital HD from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and director Niki Caro is a story hope from THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE.

The Warsaw Zoo is owned by Antonia (Jessica Chastain) and Jan Zabinski (Johan Heldenbergh), a couple who have dedicated their lives to their love of animals. Along with their son Ryszard (Timothy Radford), their days are spent tending to the zoo.

Then comes the German invasion and bombs are dropped all over Warsaw, including the zoo. Sending animals everywhere, the Zabinski’s try to find and return them home. Lutz Heck (Daniel Bruhl) a zoologist, comes to Antonia and offers to take their prize animals to the zoo in Germany and return them when the war is over.

Knowing he is right, Antonia tells her husband Jan it is the right thing to do for the animals. What they don’t expect is the return of Lutz wearing the uniform of a German officer who immediately shoots animals left over. Immediately the Jewish population is rounded up and family friends are afraid. Antonia and Jan agree to take in Magda (Efrat Dor) knowing it could cost them everything.

Jan learns that there are ways to help other Jews and tells Antonia they must try. Coming up with a plan, they go to Lutz wanting to turn the zoo into a pig farm that will feed the German soldiers. Agreeing, Lutz also says he wants to continue his cross-breeding work which means unexpected visits to the zoo.

What Lutz doesn’t know is the real truth behind the pig farm. Jan and Antonia use food scraps from the ghetto where the Jews have been sent as a way to do their part for the resistance. They use the cellar of the zoo to become a way station for those they can save.

Antonia knows that she must keep Lutz’s focus on her if Jan and zoo employee Jerzyk (Michael McElhatton) are to help more and more before they are discovered.

Chastain as Antonia is a woman who loves her family, the animals and their zoo. Nothing gets in the way of helping the creatures she is charges with caring for. When the opportunity comes to help the people of war with her zoo, she may be afraid but knows it’s the right thing. Chastain is such a strong actress and this role fits her to perfection.

Bruhl as Lutz has the duality of a man who is dedicated to his zoology and serving in the German military. Finding solace at the zoo working with Antonia, there comes a moment when it all begins to unravel and his reaction is frightening. Bruhl has taken on so many different roles and in THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE, it is once again good versus evil within the character.

Heldenbergh as Jan immediately begins to find ways to help his Jewish neighbors. Getting deeper and deeper, the danger is right in front of him yet he continues. Seeing the horrors is sometimes more than he can stand which sends him even further into the resistance – such a strong performance.

Other cast include Iddo Goldberg as Maurycy Fraenkel, Martha Issova as Regina Kenigswein, Daniel Ratimorsky as Samuel Kenigswein, Arnost Goldflam as Dr. Janusz Korczak, Marian Mitas as Stefan, Waldemar Kobus as Dr. Ziegler, Slavko Sobin as Mr. Keller, Alena Mihulova as Marysia Aszer and Shira Haas as Urszula.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment has just added an amazing film to their library and making it available for us all to experience and re-experience in our own home theatres. There are films of every genre available from scary to drama to family films. For more of what they have to offer please visit www.uphe.com.

THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE is a story of humanity, love, resistance and doing what is right at all costs. The film is based on a book by Diane Ackerman  inspired by the unpublished diary of Antonia and Jan Zabinski. Published in 2007, it didn’t take long for The Zookeeper’s Wife to become number 13 on the New York Times best seller list.

Coming to film, THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE used no CGI but real animals including the lion baby cubs. Also, although the zoo was in Warsaw, the story was filmed in Prague. Both of these add elements to the film that are rich and stunning to a story that is so heartfelt and intense.

The Bluray/ DVD and Digital HD includes the Special Features of Deleted Scenes, The Making of THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE as filmmakers, cast, and crew discuss the challenges they encountered in making the film, including recreating the Warsaw Zoo; working with the animals; and doing justice to such an important story, The Zabinski Family – a closer look at the selfless family at the center of THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE including interviews with Teresa Sabinski and Ryszard Sabinski, the children of Antonia and Jan.

In the end – they gave all they had to save all they could!