Asbury’s journalism department unveiled its documentary, “Don’t Forget Us,” A walk through the Holocaust, to a packed Luce Auditorium in the Colaborative Learning Center on Oct. 26.
Reactions among the 300 in attendance, many of whom were students, ranged from solemn to overwhelmed. One student said, “I couldn’t help trying to hold back tears as I watched the screen.” Others wept quietly throughout the 42 minute film.
“You grow up with this distance towards these historical events. You never really capture them in a way that’s lasting,” said Madi Anderson, who was part of the film crew and narrated the documentary. “And it’s very fleeting, the way that your mind processes it. And I think I think it’s so important one, to work through what the Holocaust means as a societal and historical event. But I also think there are so many profound emotions that you need to work through yourself that this kind of instigates in your mind.”
Journalism professor Rich Manieri and Dr. Paul Nesselroade travelled with the students in May to Germany and Poland and toured several concentration camp sites, including Auschwitz, where more than a million people, mostly Jews, were murdered. Nesselroade has been taking students to tour the sites since 2014. This year, Manieri and five media/journalism students – seniors Gracie Turner, Lucy Bryson, Madison Anderson, Michael McClellan and junior Maddie Heineman – joined Nesselroade and his students on what is called the “Human Dignity Tour.”
In a panel discussion following the film, each team member shared their reflections of the trip.
“We hear stories in our history books, but we can never grasp the true depth,” Heineman said. “We hear parts of a larger issue, and we lose the faces behind it. We saw those faces, we saw the conditions, and we heard more stories of horror we could never imagine. You don’t walk away from a trip like that the same, and you sure don’t forget them.”
Bryson, a photographer and videographer, said she felt stunned by the beauty of a place where one would expect nothing but gloom. “No doubt it was a terrible place, but there were so many beautiful shots that we were able to get,” she said. “I was almost disgusted by the fact that it was as beautiful as it was.”
Turner, director and editor of the documentary, recalled the heat during filming and how she had to carry loads of equipment throughout the long days. Yet, when she sat down in a field in the back of Auschwitz during an eight-hour tour, and took a break, there was a peace she couldn’t describe.
“I wasn’t expecting it to be that beautiful,” said Turner. “ I was going in with the idea that it was going to be really sad, and we were sitting out there, and I just felt at peace, and I felt like I shouldn’t feel at peace.”
McClellan, a videographer on the project, said seeing the items left behind, such as piles of prisoners’ shoes, significantly impacted him. “Like we have shoes,” he said. “We walk all the time, and just the fact that they had to give them off and just not have it and go without it. And just to watch it there, knowing that they never got to step foot in their shoes again, is something that stayed with me long into the summer.”
As for the future of the documentary, the team plans to enroll it in film festivals before releasing it.
