Audio / Video

This is a presentation by David Ellis for the 2022 IAJGS virtual conference. David Ellis IAJGS 2022

This presentation was given on 11/28/2021 for JGS Toronto, by Garri Regev.

https://youtu.be/6FlZJyJNf_U

Shirvent (Sivintos), Matuk (Matukai), Vilkomir (Ukmerge), Zagare (Zhagor) 1  (Lithuania)  (filmed in 1997)

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Ukmerge/Vilkomir Lithuania area, includes Pazhirnovo (from which the family name Pazernov derives) (See minute 9:15 through 12:45). The family came to Boston, USA in the late 1880s) and took the name FINN instead of Pazernov.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8rSQff1D1M&feature=youtu.be

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Zarasai (Novo Alexandrovsk), Lithuania town & Jewish Cemetery  -filmed in 1997

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Zagare, Lithuania Jewish Cemetery

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Zagare, Dameliai, Pasvatin, Linkova, Yanishkil, Birzh

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Telzh (Telsiai) Gravestones Cemetery

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Vilna Modern Jewish Cemetery, Ponar (Where Vilna Jews were murdered), Trakai - Karaite Museum

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Trakai (Karaites), Zhezhmar, Kaunas Archives, Records of the Building the Hausman Synagogue (The building which is the Kaunas Archives today)

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Ponevezh (Panevezys), Lithuania - 4  (filmed in 1997)

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Ponevezh - Jewish Tombstones Crushed to Make Wall next to the Gemara Synagogue,  Nevėžis River from which the Neviazhsky/Naviasky family took its name. Anikst  (filmed in 1997) 

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Ponevezh (Panevezys), Lithuania - Remains of the Jewish cemetery & Other Jewish buildings Part 1 (filmed in 1997)

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Ponevezh (Panevezys), Lithuania - Part 2  (filmed in 1997)

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Ponevezh (Panevezys), Lithuania - Part 3  (filmed in 1997)

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Gravestones from the Kovna (Kaunas) 19th century Jewish Green Hills  (Žaliakalnis) Cemetery  Jewish cemetery (Filmed in 1997)  (Part 1)

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997

Gravestones from the Kovna (Kaunas) 19th century Jewish Green Hills  (Žaliakalnis) Cemetery  Jewish cemetery (Filmed in 1997)  (Part 2)

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997

Kovna (Kaunas) City Jewish areas 19th century early and pre-Nazi 20th century Jewish area and buildings

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997

Kaunas Regional Archives which was the Hausman synagogue, Neviazher Neviazhsky Kloiz

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Ponevezh and Pasval Jewish Community Vital Records Index - Part 1

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Ponevezh and Pasval Jewish Community Vital Records Index - Part 2

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997.

Birzai (Cemetery  Reading Graves (0:00 - 5:40) and Panemunelis (Ponemunuk)  (8:30 - end) which is  Part 1 of Interview with a Woman b. 1906 who witnessed the murder of Rokishok (Rokiskes) Jews by the Lithuanian Nazis. Vinkshnin (a few miles from Birzh)  (5:40 - 8:30)

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997

Tape 1: First 3 minutes - road travel   Rest of Tape - Man from Brunava telling about Jews there in early 1900s  

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997 

Brunavitsik and surrounding area – where the Rhode & Sochen families come from

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997

Brunava Kukuchu  Krastini AltHeif (Veca Muisa) road  Southern Latvia border area - small hamlets where the Rode/Rhode & Sochen/Shohen (scenery from car)

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997

Panemuelis (Panemunuk) Part 2 of an interview with a woman who witnessed the murder of the Jews of Rokiskes,  Pasvalys (Pasval)  (Rhode & Nakan Families)

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997

Panemunelis (Panemunek) Part 1 , Lithuania - Jews  19th century - pre-Nazi 20th century  &  Lady  Who Witnessed the murder of the Jews in Rokiskes (Rokishok)   -  (filmed 1997) 

Courtesy of Harold Rhode's visit 1997

Richard Bloom Productions

Full 2012 version of the documentary The Litvak Connection. Much of it has changed and now includes interviews with Dr. Dovid Katz and Dr. Efraim Zuroff and a brief appearance by Joseph Melamed, all discussing the Holocaust related issues in Lithuania and especially the Lithuanian Government's campaign to delegitimize the Shoah as a unique historical event and their glorification of their collaborators as heroes in
order to sanitize the massive role of its citizens in the liquidation of Lithuanian Jewry.

For more information: www.richardbloomproductions.com

{Japan, Kazumo Co., 1992, 115 minutes, Color. Japanese with English subtitles. ISBN: 1-56082-144-2. Video released in 1995 by Ergo Media, Teaneck, NJ.} Producers: Tetsuo Suzuki (Fuji TV), Naonori Kawamura and Toshio Ozawa. Director: Katsumi Ohyama. Original story by Yukiko Sugihara.

This is the story of a of a man (Chiune Sugihara, Japan’s consul-general in Lithuania in 1940) who sacrificed his own bright career to write the precious visas (estimated at 1,600) that saved an estimated 2,000 to 6,000 lives in the Holocaust.

No online streaming is currently available.  For more information, click on: https://search.worldcat.org/es/title/visas-that-saved-lives/oclc/34892406

This video can be ordered from Film Australia Sales, PO Box 46, Lindfield NSW 2070, Australia, or mmullen@filmaust.com.au.  It is not currently available for streaming.

{Australia: Film Australia National Interest Program, in association with ROBE Productions and SBS Independent, with the assistance of the New South Wales Film and Television Office, Producer/Director/Writer: Rod Freedman; Co-Producer: Emile Sherman; Cinematographer: Nicholas Sherman; Principal Photography in Lithuania (June 1997) and Australia (July 1999); 52:20 minutes long, in colour with so

Uncle Chatzkel portrays the patient triumph of one man’s dignity and intellect over genocide, oppression and personal adversity. Chatzkel Lemchen has lived through the Russian revolution, two world wars, a communist regime and the transition of Lithuania from Soviet republic to an independent state. During the Holocaust his parents and children, along with many of their fellow Jewish citizens, were killed by the Nazis and their Lithuanian supporters. He and his wife were sent to separate concentration camps in Germany. Chatzkel survived through his skills as a linguist and lexicographer, and his dictionaries helped preserve the Lithuanian language during the Soviet era. At 93, he still lived and worked in Vilnius, Lithuania, providing a bridge between Lithuanian, Russian and Yiddish cultures. Regarded as a national treasure, Chatzkel displays the strength of a survivor, the insight of an intellectual and the humour of a wise man. Born in 1904 in the small town of Papile to Rocha and Avraham Yaakov Lemchen, Chatzkel Lemchen was the youngest of seven children. During World War I, the frontline came dangerously close to Papile, forcing his family to flee across several countries, eventually settling in Penza, Russia, where they lived for seven years under the new Communist regime. At the age of 17, Chatzkel and his family returned home to find it in ruins and settled in nearby Zagare. It was at University Jonas that Chatzkel became an assistant to Professor Janos Jablonskis, widely recognised as the “Father of the Modern Lithuanian Language.” His talent as a linguist and scholar was evident early in his ‘apprenticeship’ to Jablonskis and he went on to become a highly respected teacher and translator. In the late 1920s, Chatzkel met and married Ela ‘Lena’ Wohlson, a fellow teacher. Together they raised two sons, Azarye and Victor, and moved to the city of Kaunas (Kovno in Yiddish). In 1939, Lithuania became another Soviet republic under the non-aggression treaty between Russia and Germany. However, when the latter invaded and occupied Lithuania in 1941, Chatzkel and his family were imprisoned in the Kaunas (Kovno) Ghetto and later transported to separate concentration camps in Germany. The Holocaust claimed the lives of his parents and his sons, and on release from Dachau at the end of World War II, Chatzkel returned home to hear that his wife was seriously ill in a German hospital. After they reunited, he nursed her back to health and from that day until this, even after his wife’s death in 1979, he has lived in Vilnius working as a linguist and lexicographer. Update: "I am sorry to tell you the sad news that Uncle Chatzkel died on Sunday, November 11, 2001. Born on April 21, 1904, he had reached the age of 97, extraordinary for a man who had endured so much," wrote his great-nephew Rod Freedman. (rfreedman@filmaust.com.au), who produced, directed, and wrote the video about Uncle Chatzkelis Lemchenas.

This video can be ordered through Chaim Mechanic (chaimmac@aol.com)

There is a link to a YouTube version of this video at "Ponivez Revisited"

{Hoffman Visual Communication: Patchogue, NY ; Brooklyn, 1998, English Narration accompanied with Music, Produced and Directed by Chaim Mechanic. Photographed by Irving Wiener, a former Ponivez resident in 1932, and Harold Rhode in 1997. About 30 minutes, in Black and White.}

The older original movie footage on this video, which is owned by Rabbi Moshe Wiener, was photographed by his grandfather in 1932. This video contains film of Ponivez, the Old Cemetery (before the Russian destruction) with shots of the graves of Reb Itzle and the Ponivez Rav, as well as pictures of the famous Ponivez Rav, Rabbi Kahanaman, teaching the students of his Yeshiva Kolel. There are pictures of modern Ponivez, with many of the same places, taken by Harold Rhode when he was there in 1997.

{A&E Television Networks: The History Channel, 1997, 100 minutes, Color. English. ISBN: 0-7670-0710-7. Producer/Director/Writer: Herbert Krosney. Writer/Narrator: Sir Martin Gilbert. Distributed in US by New Video Group, 126 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10011}

More information is available on WorldCat.org, though the film is not currently available for streaming:  WorldCat listing.

Before the World War II, 35,000 Jews lived in Kovno, Lithuania. In a story familiar throughout Europe, few escaped the Holocaust. But, despite their great suffering, the courageous people of Kovno risked their lives to record their fate in thousands of photographs and documents. Many of these artifacts survived the war, and they form the most complete record of any Jewish community's experience during the Holocaust. 'Kovno Ghetto' pieces to gather the stories of the Jews of Kovno from the first stirrings of war to the annihilation of the ghetto just days before the city's liberation. And for the first time, 18 survivors of Kovno -- including photographer Zvi Kadushin, whose images are the heart of Kovno's moving legacy -- tell their harrowing stories of survival and loss.

{Israel Educational Television, 1989, 52 minutes, Color. English. ISBN: 1-56082-157-4. Producer: Izzy Avron. Writer/Director: Zvi Godel. Historical Consultant: Prof. Dov Levin. Camera: Gila Brand. Video released in 1996 by Ergo Media, Teaneck, NJ.}

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh38SNR2-34

Rare archival footage from previously restricted Russian military museums sheds new light on the story of the Jewish underground, the resistance fighters and partisans who fought the German army while hiding in the forests of Eastern Europe in WWII. We travel deep into the forests to learn the story, to see the Jewish underground’s weapons caches, their hiding places, as well as their escape routes. We follow the labyrinth of sewage canals beneath Vilna through which underground fighters made their escape from the Ghetto. We visit the Ninth Fort, in Kovno, which served as a center for mass murder. Here, the film re-enacts the daring escape of sixty Jewish prisoners from the heavily defended fort.

{sponsored by Yeshiva Ahavas Torah Baranovich: Jerusalem, 1999, 1 VHS cassette; 55 minutes, Library of Congress Call Number: DS 135 L5 Y5 1999}

Spielberg Jewish Film Archive Jewish Life in Wilno 

Warsaw, Poland: Sektor Films, 1939, 10 minutes, B&W. Yiddish. Producer: Yitzhak Goskind. Text and Narration: Asher Lerner. Photography: V. Kazimierczak. Restored as a video with new English subtitles in 1989 by The National Center for Jewish Film, Waltham, Mass.}

This rare film document captures the spirit of Jewish life in pre-WWII Vilna. Lively narration and music accompany film sequences of people engaged in the rituals and realities of daily existence – at work, at play, in the synagogue and in school. Vilna’s famous landmarks – the Strashun Library, Shnipeshiker cemetery, YIVO Institute – are among the film’s highlights. In 1938 and 1939, Shaul and Yitzhak Goskind produced six short travelogues abut urban Jewish communities in Poland: 'A Day in Warsaw,' 'Jewish Life in Bialystok,' 'Jewish Life in Cracow,' 'Jewish Life in Lodz,' 'Jewish Life in Lvov,' 'Jewish Life in Vilna.' No copy of the Lodz film has been found.

Note: as of June 2024, these videos appear to no longer be available.

For further information on ordering any of the videos in this series, which all have English sound tracks, contact Dr. Aleksandrs Feigmanis: Grestes 2-12, Riga, LV-1021, Latvia; tel. (371) 7246-893; e

(1998/1999, Feigmanis, color, 45 minutes)

Each of the videos in this series features local Jewish sites and highlights, including the synagogue (or the place where it once was), the cemetery, the cheder if it remains, as well as Jews who are still living in that locality. This video focuses on Jurbarkas, Kaunas/Kovno, Siauliai, Pokrojis, Birzai.

Note: as of June 2024, these videos appear to no longer be available.

For further information on ordering any of the videos in this series, which all have English sound tracks, contact Dr. Aleksandrs Feigmanis: Grestes 2-12, Riga, LV-1021, Latvia; tel. (371) 7246-893; e

Each of the videos in this series features local Jewish sites and highlights, including the synagogue (or the place where it once was), the cemetery, the cheder if it remains, as well as Jews who are still living in that locality. This film about the Latvian Jewish community features clips from documentaries from 1920-1945 (1996 remade version produced in Riga by the Museum and Documentation Center for Jews in Latvia, written and produced by Margers Vestermanis, camera: Rodrigo Ricards, 11 minutes) This is an emotional video with music, but no special text nor subtitles, which depicts: the burning of the synagogue in 1941 in Riga, the beating of Jews on Riga streets in 1941, the shooting of Jews in Libau/Liepaja in 1941, and the trial of over chief of SS Jekkelm in 1946.

Note: as of June 2024, these videos appear to no longer be available.

For further information on ordering any of the videos in this series, which all have English sound tracks, contact Dr. Aleksandrs Feigmanis: Grestes 2-12, Riga, LV-1021, Latvia; tel. (371) 7246-893; e

(1998/1999, Feigmanis, color, 45 minutes)

Each of the videos in this series features local Jewish sites and highlights, including the synagogue (or the place where it once was), the cemetery, the cheder if it remains, as well as Jews who are still living in that locality. This video focuses on Riga, Windau, Ludza, and Vilnius/Vilno.

Note: as of June 2024, these videos appear to no longer be available.

For further information on ordering any of the videos in this series, which all have English sound tracks, contact Dr. Aleksandrs Feigmanis: Grestes 2-12, Riga, LV-1021, Latvia; tel. (371) 7246-893; e

(1998/1999, Feigmanis, color, 45 minutes)

Each of the videos in this series features local Jewish sites and highlights, including the synagogue (or the place where it once was), the cemetery, the cheder if it remains, as well as Jews who are still living in that locality. This video focuses on Kaunas, Saulenai, Siauliai, Joniskis, Taurage, Vainutas, Silute, Telsiai, Mazheiki, Leckava, and Bauska.

Note: as of June 2024, these videos appear to no longer be available.

For further information on ordering any of the videos in this series, which all have English sound tracks, contact Dr. Aleksandrs Feigmanis: Grestes 2-12, Riga, LV-1021, Latvia; tel. (371) 7246-893; e

(1998/1999, Feigmanis, color, 30 minutes)

Each of the videos in this series features local Jewish sites and highlights, including the synagogue (or the place where it once was), the cemetery, the cheder if it remains, as well as Jews who are still living in that locality.

http://www.chaifm.com

Radio station 101.9 ChaiFM in Johannesburg, SA has a weekly program on Sundays from 16h30-18h00 (local time) hosted by Eli Goldstein called: The Yiddish Thing-Life in the Shtetl. The program can be heard via audio streaming, at www.chaifm.com from anywhere in the world by anyone who has an Internet connection. Previous

2009, Chai Radio, www.chaifm.com

On Sunday, May 17th, Howard Margol, LitvakSIG Board member was featured on the program The Yiddish Thing-Life in the Shtetl in a live interview. He mainly discussed genealogical research in the Lithuanian archives and the LitvakSIG All Lithuania database.