Dear Fredy
New York Jewish Film Festival 2019
January 9 - 22, 2019
This documentary tells the story of Fredy Hirsch, a remarkable openly gay German Jew who fled to the Czech Republic when the Nuremberg Laws were passed, became head of the youth department in the Ghetto Terezin, and set up a daycare center in his final, tragic days in Auschwitz.
Introduction by Columbia University Film Professor Annette Insdorf
Fredy Hirsch was a German Jew and openly gay man in Nazi Germany. The Nuremberg Laws were passed when he was 19 years old, and he fled to the Czech Republic where he became a sports teacher in a Jewish youth club. Upon his deportation to Ghetto Terezin, he was appointed head of the youth department, teaching and working with over 4,000 children. In his final days at Auschwitz, he set up a daycare center, where he was much admired and his sexuality was fully public in the community. Dear Fredy excavates this remarkable story and seeks to reveal the mystery of his death, which happened on the eve of a revolt that never came to pass. New York Premiere
Preceded by
Lon
Nina Landau
Belgium, 2018, 7 min.
Dutch with English subtitles
The inner life of a Belgian Jewish set designer, whose survival in a Nazi transit camp was fueled by the power of the human imagination, is given animated form in this arresting and beautiful short.
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