In November 1940, days after the Nazis sealed 450,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, a secret band of journalists, scholars and community leaders decided to fight back.
Led by historian Emanuel Ringelblum and known by the code name Oyneg Shabes, this clandestine group vowed to defeat Nazi lies and propaganda not with guns or fists but with pen and paper.
Now, for the first time, their story is told as a feature documentary.
Written, produced and directed by Roberta Grossman, based upon the book "Who Will Write Our History?" by Samuel D. Kassow, and executive produced by Nancy Spielberg, "Who Will Write Our History" mixes the writings of the Oyneg Shabes archive with new interviews, rarely seen footage and stunning dramatizations (shot on location in Lodz and Warsaw, Poland) to transport us inside the Ghetto and the lives of these courageous resistance fighters.
They defied their murderous enemy with the ultimate weapon – the truth – and risked everything so that their archive would survive the war, even if they did not.
Featuring the voices of three-time Academy Award nominee Joan Allen and Academy Award winner Adrian Brody, the film honors the Oyneg Shabes members’ determination in creating the most important cache of eyewitness accounts to survive the war.
It follows their moments of hope, as well as their despair, desperation and anger, sometimes at their fellow Jews as much as their Nazi captors.
It captures their humor, longing, hunger and their determination to retain their humanity in the face of unspeakable hardships.
And ultimately, through their voices, actions and real-time experiences, "Who Will Write Our History" vanquishes those who distort and dehumanize the “Other” in favor of those who stand up, fight back and, as one Oyneg Shabes member writes,“scream the truth to the world.”
WHO WILL WRITE OUR HISTORY
In Theaters January 18, 2019
