LINA AMATO - THE STORY OF A HOLOCAUST SURVİVOR
Event
- When:
- Sun, 12. January 2020, 15:00
- Category:
- Agenda
Description
The film-maker, Johnathan Andrews’s documentary, The Story of Holocaust Survivor Lina Amato, made in association with the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Turkish Embassy in Pretoria, will be on display in our museum on 12.01.2020.
The story, told by Amato, now 81, with background from Richard Freedman, director of the SA Holocaust Foundation, and comments by the Turkish ambassador to South Africa, Elif Çomolu Ülgen, honours Selahattin Ülkümen, Turkey’s consul on Greece’s Rhodes Island during the war.
Ülkümen is credited with saving 43 Jews living on the island, including the Amato family, by issuing them with Turkish passports. Another 1783 Jews living on the island – including Amato’s childhood friends – were taken to Athens and then on to the last rail transport of the war, destined for Auschwitz.
In the film, Amato clutches her red Turkish passport – a symbol of her freedom – and says how she regrets she never had the chance to meet Ülkümen to thank him.
Andrews hopes his film will bring home to people that “what we had in history, in some respects, still prevails today”, evident in “tensions in many areas of society all over the world”.
