Bella Mischkinsky Memorial Lectures
Screening of “A POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES: A Tale of Two Siblings"
From Aviva Kempner, the director of Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg, The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, Rosenwald, The Spy Behind Home Plate and Imagining the Indian and the producer of Partisans of Vilna.
Date: October 28, 2024
Time: 7:00 p.m.
“One of the Best Films of the Year 2023” -The Washington Post
The CIESLA Foundation Presents
A pocketful of miracles: a tale of two siblings
An inspirational story of survival
The CIESLA Foundation presents "a pocketful of miracles: a tale of two siblings"
Associate produced by Emily Nesha Streim
Consulting producer Dr. Eva Fogelman
Testimonies provided by the archive of the USC SHOAH foundation
Composer John Keltonic
Co-written by Aviva Kempner and Lucia Fox-Shapiro
Edited by Lucia Fox-Shapiro
produced and directed by Aviva Kempner
The CIESLA Foundation
Digging up the Family’s Past: a Road to Reconciliation
Annual Bella Mischkinsky lecture by filmmaker Aviva Kempner
Date: October 29, 2024
Time: 12:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Location: Globe Hall, Germantown Campus (map)
About the Speaker
Aviva Kempner - Director and Producer
Aviva Kempner is a Washington, D.C.-based filmmaker, creates successful and critically
acclaimed documentaries about under-known Jewish heroes and social justice. In 2019,
she premiered her fifth commercially-released film, The Spy Behind Home Plate. Her other films include Rosenwald, a documentary about how Chicago businessman and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald
partnered with Booker T. Washington in establishing over 5,000 schools for African
Americans in the Jim Crow South; Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, about Gertrude Berg, who created the first television sitcom; and the Emmy-nominated
and Peabody-awarded The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, about the Hall of Famer who faced anti-Semitism during the ’30s. Both Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg and Hank Greenberg grossed over a million dollars at the box office and are highly ranked, along with
Rosenwald, on Rotten Tomatoes. She also produced the award-winning documentary Partisans of
Vilna, about Jews fighting the Nazis. Her most recent film, Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting, will be available on Apple iTunes and Amazon Prime on February 6, 2024. She is presently
completing a documentary on screenwriter and political activist Ben Hecht in 2024.
Kempner is also making Pissed Off, a documentary short exploring the struggles faced by female lawmakers in Congress
who advocated for potty parity in the United States Capitol.
About Bella Mischkinsky and the Annual Memorial Lecture Series
Bella, a Holocaust survivor, was born in September1922 in Lodz, Poland. She came
to the United States in 1946, moving later to Montgomery County, Maryland. She retired
to Clearwater, Florida to live near her sister Irene Glassberg, and other dear family
members.
Bella was active as a volunteer with the United States Holocaust Museum and with the
Montgomery College Alumni Association. Over the years, she developed deep ties to,
and lasting friendships with the College, our faculty and staff. Bella was also one
of our students. She and her husband Hank (Henry) Bermanis enrolled in Dr. Myrna
Goldenberg’s course, Literature of the Holocaust. She told Dr. Goldenberg that she
was taking to class to be sure that the class accurately portrayed the Holocaust.
Reassured by her experiences in class, she committed to a legacy of Holocaust scholarship
at MC. This series is supported by a generous gift from Bella’s estate.
Each year the Bella Mischkinsky Memorial Lecture brings a scholar, journalist, or
advocate to the College - to deepen our understanding about the history of the Holocaust—and
to help students make relevant connections across time, across disciplines and to
their own lives and actions.
The Frank Islam Athenaeum Symposia at Montgomery College
Bella Mischkinsky Memorial Lecture Speakers
Judith Cohen is a graduate of Harvard University in History and Literature and received her MA from Brandeis in Contemporary Jewish Studies. She originally came to the Holocaust Museum in 1995 to work on the exhibition “Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto” before moving to the Photo Archives where she later served as its director before becoming head of the Curatorial Acquisitions and Reference branch and chief acquisitions curator. She has curated web exhibits and written and co-authored articles on the Museum’s collection entitled “Memento Mori: Photographs from the Grave,” “Three Approaches to Exploring the Höcker Album,” ”Jewish Ghetto Photographers,” “The Mantello Rescue Mission,” “Roman Vishniac: A Different Kind of Holocaust Photographer” and “Virtual Tombstones: The Power of Holocaust Photography.” Following her retirement from the Museum in 2020, she worked as a part-time researcher for the museum’s permanent exhibition revitalization project focusing primarily on Jewish rescuers.
Holocaust survivor Dora Klayman will talk about her life in Croatia during World War II. She will discuss the particulars of the persecution of Jews by the Ustasa, the Croatian allies of Nazi Germany, which cost the lives of thousands, including many of her close family members. Dora will also recount the challenges she experienced after the war, and her path to become an educator.
Theodora Klayman was born Teodora Rahela Basch in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, on January 31, 1938. Her father, Salamon, owned and operated a small brush manufacturing plant. Her mother, Silva, a teacher, grew up in Ludbreg, a small town in northwest Croatia, where her father, Josef Leopold Deutsch, served as the community rabbi for more than 40 years.
In April 1941, while Theodora—whom the family called “Dorica”—was visiting her grandparents and extended family in Ludbreg, Nazi Germany invaded Yugoslavia. Croatia came under the control of the fascist Ustaša regime, which collaborated with the Nazis. By June, Teodora’s parents and infant brother, Zdravko, were arrested. Their housekeeper was able to get Zdravko released from jail and his mother’s family then took him to Ludbreg. Teodora and Zdravko’s father was deported to the Jasenovac concentration camp and their mother to Stara Gradiska, a subcamp of Jasenovac.
The recipient of degrees from the University of Maryland in French and in teaching English as a second language, Theodora taught in the Maryland public school system for 30 years. She has two children and has volunteered at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum since 1999.
November 5, 2019
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