Lost City + A Great Big Secret

Post-screening discussion with A Great Big Secret director Yoav Potash on Jan. 19, and Lost City director Willy Lindwer and producer Emjay Rechsteiner at both screenings.

The horrifying history of the Holocaust is also one of horrific bureaucracy. To accomplish the Nazis’ barbarity, untold numbers of municipal organizations and government bureaus throughout Europe showed self-interest and cowardliness in the name of cooperation. As this new documentary by indefatigable Dutch filmmaker Willy Lindwer reveals, the Amsterdam Transit Authority, even in the years after World War II, profited from its agreement to deport Jews—soliciting payments from Germany for the public city trams that deported 48,000 Jews, including Anne Frank, to their deaths. Retracing the tragic journey of the tram and interviewing Holocaust survivors, Lindwer details the city’s collaboration and the local non-Jewish population’s willingness to look the other way, showing the historical stakes of complying with evil. And his film has had real-world results: because of Lindwer’s revelations, Amsterdam recently announced the placement of Holocaust memorials at train stations along the route.

Preceded by
A Great Big Secret
Yoav Potash, 2024, U.S., 13m
New York Premiere

In this lovingly crafted profile, Dutch-born Holocaust survivor and retired teacher Anita Magnus Frank narrates her story from childhood trauma to adult healing, when she finally opened up to the world as one of World War II’s “hidden children,” dramatized with a collage-like combination of interviews, archival footage, and animation.