As of: February 28, 2024, 2:55 p.m
By: Peter Herrmann
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Presented the visitors with an informative evening: young, volunteer members of the Citizens for the Waldram-Föhrenwald bathhouse association as well as students from the Rainer-Maria-Rilke-Gymnasium in Icking.
© Sabine Hermsdorf-Hiss
Young “Badehäusler” and Ickingen high school students report on contemporary witness interviews – and an invitation to the residence of the Israeli President.
Wolfratshausen - Almost a year ago they traveled to Israel to meet with former residents of the former DP camp Föhrenwald and to film these contemporary witness interviews.
The young, volunteer members of the Citizens for the Waldram-Föhrenwald Bathhouse Association also invited students from the Rainer-Maria-Rilke-Gymnasium in Icking to the premiere of the documentary “(Dis)placed” on Sunday evening.
Two seminars there dealt with the fates of Holocaust survivors and displaced persons.
Badehaus Waldram-Föhrenwald: Thanks to young documentary filmmakers, “history gets a face”
“That gives me courage and hope.
“We don’t need to be worried about Germany,” said Badehaus chairwoman Dr.
Sybille Krafft was thrilled at the end of the evening.
Previously, Rhiannon Moutafis, André Mitschke and the brothers Jonathan and Joseph Coenen reported on their impressions during filming in Israel.
“We arrived there with a real film studio and redecorated our hosts’ apartments,” says Mitschke, looking back.
With the self-imposed workload of three interviews per day, there was sometimes even time pressure.
But there were also surprises, such as the short visit to the residence of Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu arranged by an interviewed Israeli.
In October, the outbreak of war with Hamas halted further filming.
Nevertheless, there was enough material for a documentary worth seeing, in which contemporary witness Lea Goren told her adventurous life story.
Her mother gave birth to her shortly before the end of the Second World War during a two-year escape near the Polish city of Chelm.
The family's odyssey then took them to the Föhrenwald camp.
There, little Lea almost betrayed her father to the military police because he had illegally sold cigarettes in his grocery store and hidden the packs under the mattress of her child's bed.
But the inspectors didn't understand the two-year-old's vaguely muttered Yiddish reference, so her parents went unpunished.
A new exhibition has been on display since Sunday in the Max Mannheimer Forum of the bathhouse at Kolpingplatz in Waldram.
© Sabine Hermsdorf-Hiss
War in Israel disrupts the filming schedule for Ickinger high school students
Shortly afterwards, the family failed to move to Palestine in 1947 because the British sent the passengers from the refugee ship “Exodus” back to Europe.
Only after the founding of the State of Israel did Lea Goren find her new home there in 1948 and now has four sons and four grandchildren.
You can read all the news from Wolfratshausen here.
“It was a bad time, but we got over it and are now moving on with life,” said the senior citizen at the end of the film.
For cameraman André Mitschke, meeting her was an important experience.
“History takes on a face when you talk to people,” he emphasized on Sunday in the final round of discussions.
The same thing happened to the students at the Rainer-Maria-Rilke-Gymnasium in Icking.
Because it was no longer possible for them to travel to Israel due to the war, they talked to the witnesses online.
For example, a seminar participant learned that Abraham Ben, now 76 years old from Föhrenwald, attended the same school in the Munich district of Giesing as the recently deceased football idol Franz Beckenbauer.
Bathhouse vice-chairman Jonathan Coenen encouraged the young Ickingers to get involved in memorial work in the bathhouse after they graduate from high school.
“We have a lot of seats available for you here,” he offered.
An exhibition that opened on Sunday evening and incorporated the findings of the new contemporary witness interviews can be seen in the Max Mannheimer Forum of the bathhouse at Kolpingplatz.
By the way: Everything from the region is also available in our regular Wolfratshausen-Geretsried newsletter.