Filmmaker discusses rescue efforts during Holocaust
Nov. 3, 2000
KALAMAZOO -- Pierre Sauvage, an Emmy award-winning filmmaker and child survivor of the Holocaust, will discuss the efforts made to save people from the Holocaust when he visits Western Michigan University Wednesday, Nov. 15.
Sauvage, best known for his highly acclaimed feature documentary "Weapons of the Spirit," will speak about "The Holocaust: Americans Who Cared" at 7 p.m. at the Campus Cinema in the Little Theatre.
Sponsored by the Michael K. and Shirley Bach Endowment for the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society and the Lee Honors College, the presentation is free and open to the public.
Sauvage, one of 5,000 Jews who were harbored and saved from the Nazis by the people of Le Chambon, France, has focused much of his life's work telling the stories of those who dared to rescue Jews and others from the atrocities of the Holocaust.
He will discuss his latest documentary, "And Crown Thy Good: Varian Fry in Marseille," which highlights the rescue work done by U.S. writer Varian Fry and other Americans in Marseilles, France, after that country fell to the Nazis. Fry was instrumental in leading efforts to save 2,000 artists, writers, musicians and political dissidents, including painter Marc Chagall, sculptor Jacques Lipschitz and philosopher Hannah Arendt.
Sauvage is the founder of the Chambon Foundation, an educational foundation committed to documentary exploration of the Holocaust, with a special emphasis on the necessary and challenging lessons of hope that are intertwined with the Holocaust's unavoidable lessons of despair.
For more information, contact the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society at (616) 387-4397.
Media contact: Marie Lee, 616 387-8400, marie.lee@wmich.edu