Ver Vet Blaybn? Who Will Remain?

LIVE, IN-PERSON SCREENING @ AZJHS — Post Film Discussion* & Reception
Tuesday, February 11, 2025 at 7pm
This screening is co-sponsored by the Yiddish Book Center, Amherst, MA

*Discussion with Christa P. Whitney, filmmaker and oral history director at the Yiddish Book Center, and Susan Bronson, executive director of the Yiddish Book Center

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Ver Vet Blaybn?(Who Will Remain?) tells the story of Hadas Kalderon, Avrom Sutzkever’s granddaughter, as she attempts to better understand her grandfather. Kalderon, an Israeli actress, travels to Lithuania, using her grandfather’s diary to trace his early life in Vilna and his survival of the Holocaust. Sutzkever (1913–2010) was an acclaimed Yiddish poet—described by the New York Times as the “greatest poet of the Holocaust”—whose verse drew on his youth in Siberia and Vilna, his spiritual and material resistance during World War II, and his postwar life in Israel. Kalderon is determined to connect with what remains of the poet’s bygone world and accept the personal responsibility of preserving her grandfather’s literary legacy.

Woven into the documentary are family home videos, newly recorded interviews, and archival recordings, including Sutzkever’s testimony at the Nuremberg trials. Recitation of his poetry and personal reflections on resisting Nazi forces as a partisan fighter reveal how Sutzkever tried to make sense of the Holocaust and its aftermath. As Kalderon strives to reconstruct the stories told by her grandfather, the film examines the limits of language, geography, and time.

Documentary Film Series Ticket Costs:

• AZJHS Member Ticket: $5.00

• Non AZJHS Member Ticket: $10.00

• Tzedakah Giving Circle Member Ticket: $0.00

• Yiddish Book Center Member Ticket: $0.00

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POST FILM DISCUSSION

Tuesday, February 11, 2025
After the screening of the film

We are honored to invite and have Susan Bronson who has served as the Executive Director of the Yiddish Book Center and Christa P. Whitney, an oral historian and award-winning documentary filmmaker lead an “post film” discussion on February 11, 2025. All those who RSVP to the film, will have the opportunity to stay after the film and ask questions.

Susan Bronson has served as Executive Director of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA since 2010. Bronson will succeed Aaron Lansky, the Center's founder and President, upon his retirement in June 2025. She holds a Ph.D. in Russian History and Jewish History from the University of Michigan and has worked in non-profit culture and higher education for more than thirty years. She is the immediate past chair of the board of the Council of American Jewish Museums and serves on the board of 7000 Languages, a non-profit dedicated to supporting the preservation of indigenous languages.

Christa P. Whitney is an oral historian and award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on language, culture, and identity. Since 2010, she has traveled near and far in search of Yiddish stories as the director of the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project, a growing collection of more than 1,300 in-depth video interviews. Christa holds a BA from Smith College in Comparative Literature and Dance, and is currently pursuing a Masters in Business Administration with a focus on analytics at UMass’s Isenberg School of Management. Christa was named on the 2020 Forward 50 list of “people we needed in a year we definitely didn’t.”