//literary & arts//
Spring 2018
The Barn: A Product of Hope
Judith Teboul
Four years ago, Rachel Kastner, BC ‘19, went with her high school class on a trip to Eastern Europe. Their goal was to explore the Jewish history of the region and to gain an appreciation for the utter devastation of the Holocaust. There, the group heard from a woman named Paulina, a gentile who saved the lives of several Jews during the Holocaust by hiding them in her family’s barn. Though the presentation was certainly remarkable for all of the students, for Kastner it was especially moving—Paulina had saved her grandfather, Karl Schapiro.
This emotional experience spurred Kastner to convince her grandfather to return with her to the region the following year so that he could reunite with Paulina. Although only 18 years old at the time, Kastner, along with producers Matthew Hiltzik and Nancy Spielberg and director Phil Berger, turned this experience into a documentary film that finally premiered in the fall 2017. The film’s strength lies in the story behind the scenes—and in what the documentary itself seeks to represent.
The Barn follows Kastner and Schapiro as they return to the remote Ukrainian town where he grew up and which has concealed his story in the decades since. Throughout this captivating documentary, one can sense the urgency that Kastner feels to preserve her grandfather’s story for generations to come.
The effort to record stories from the Holocaust for posterity is hardly new. We are all familiar with The Diary of Anne Frank, the haunting words of Victor Frankl, and the chilling words of Elie Wiesel. However, what makes The Barn unique is that it takes the viewer on a journey of memory and rediscovery as a survivor undergoes that very process himself. It is a journey that jumps from the present moment to the past and then back again. Although the town has moved on, the site of Schapiro’s survival—the barn—has remained frozen in time. Schapiro himself has also moved on; at 81, he has been living in America for almost seven decades and has three children and six grandchildren. And yet, when he returns to the site of so many memories, it is as though he is once again a child discovering something new. The shifting close-ups of Schapiro and Kastner take us on this journey between past and present: Schapiro’s face representing the past, Kastner’s the future.
That said, the camera does not violate the personal boundaries set by Schapiro himself. When he returns to the barn in which he hid for 18 months, the camera practices restraint and does not look inside. To do so would be to overstep lines, to enter a memory too private for anyone else to possibly understand. The film crew respects the privacy of the unbearable pain associated with this particular scene. Although Kastner’s face reveals visceral emotions at this point in the film, her grandfather does not cry. He absorbs his surroundings stoically, causing me to wonder whether the psychology associated with the Holocaust simply cannot compare with that of contemporary times. There seems to have been no time to feel, or at least to feel outwardly. To feel meant to fear.
Viewing The Barn made me recall the words of my own grandfather, Daniel Pajchert, when he discussed his own Holocaust survivor. Sitting in a small apartment in Puteaux, a suburb of Paris, I remember his wavering voice, “There was no time.” There was no time to follow the laws of Judaism. There was no time to keep the traditions. There was no time to learn. Life transformed into instinctive behavior. “There was no time.” There was only survival.
Much like Karl Schapiro, my grandfather survived the war due to the kindness of gentiles: he hid in a convent and received care from Catholic nuns. His older brother, Henri Pajchert, was less fortunate, deported to Auschwitz and killed in a gas chamber. All I know of my ancestor, Henri, is his name. Unlike Kastner, I never had the courage to ask my grandfather about his brother or his experience. Fortunately, I was able to find out more on the internet. With just the knowledge of his name, I was able to discover that Henri was deported to Auschwitz on Convoy 66 on January 20, 1944. This convoy delivered a total of 1,555 French Jewish children to Auschwitz. I found his date of birth and his last-known address in Saint-Amand-Montrond, France. And I found out that his name is inscribed on the Wall of Names at the Shoah Memorial in Paris. I desperately grasped onto these fragments so that I could remember him.
Even though my grandfather never spoke explicitly about his brother, he tried to preserve his memory through our family. My grandparents named my uncle Henri, in an effort to perpetuate his legacy and always remember him. Today, my uncle is a rabbi of the Chabad Lubavitch community in Ashkelon, Israel. Through his work, my uncle Henri does not only perpetuate the original Henri’s legacy, but also extends that of the Jewish faith as a whole.
Films like Kastner’s do more than preserve the memory of one survivor. Through this film, Kastner seeks to inspire other young adults—members of the last generation with access to living Holocaust survivors—to continue what she started. She wants other students, who comprise the next generation of storytellers and insurers of human rights, to follow her lead and to tell stories and create art that will extend these memories into the future. After watching Kastner’s film, I now feel inspired to discuss the past with my grandfather, to encourage him to travel with me to Poland, and to try to retrieve a piece of his history.
This emotional experience spurred Kastner to convince her grandfather to return with her to the region the following year so that he could reunite with Paulina. Although only 18 years old at the time, Kastner, along with producers Matthew Hiltzik and Nancy Spielberg and director Phil Berger, turned this experience into a documentary film that finally premiered in the fall 2017. The film’s strength lies in the story behind the scenes—and in what the documentary itself seeks to represent.
The Barn follows Kastner and Schapiro as they return to the remote Ukrainian town where he grew up and which has concealed his story in the decades since. Throughout this captivating documentary, one can sense the urgency that Kastner feels to preserve her grandfather’s story for generations to come.
The effort to record stories from the Holocaust for posterity is hardly new. We are all familiar with The Diary of Anne Frank, the haunting words of Victor Frankl, and the chilling words of Elie Wiesel. However, what makes The Barn unique is that it takes the viewer on a journey of memory and rediscovery as a survivor undergoes that very process himself. It is a journey that jumps from the present moment to the past and then back again. Although the town has moved on, the site of Schapiro’s survival—the barn—has remained frozen in time. Schapiro himself has also moved on; at 81, he has been living in America for almost seven decades and has three children and six grandchildren. And yet, when he returns to the site of so many memories, it is as though he is once again a child discovering something new. The shifting close-ups of Schapiro and Kastner take us on this journey between past and present: Schapiro’s face representing the past, Kastner’s the future.
That said, the camera does not violate the personal boundaries set by Schapiro himself. When he returns to the barn in which he hid for 18 months, the camera practices restraint and does not look inside. To do so would be to overstep lines, to enter a memory too private for anyone else to possibly understand. The film crew respects the privacy of the unbearable pain associated with this particular scene. Although Kastner’s face reveals visceral emotions at this point in the film, her grandfather does not cry. He absorbs his surroundings stoically, causing me to wonder whether the psychology associated with the Holocaust simply cannot compare with that of contemporary times. There seems to have been no time to feel, or at least to feel outwardly. To feel meant to fear.
Viewing The Barn made me recall the words of my own grandfather, Daniel Pajchert, when he discussed his own Holocaust survivor. Sitting in a small apartment in Puteaux, a suburb of Paris, I remember his wavering voice, “There was no time.” There was no time to follow the laws of Judaism. There was no time to keep the traditions. There was no time to learn. Life transformed into instinctive behavior. “There was no time.” There was only survival.
Much like Karl Schapiro, my grandfather survived the war due to the kindness of gentiles: he hid in a convent and received care from Catholic nuns. His older brother, Henri Pajchert, was less fortunate, deported to Auschwitz and killed in a gas chamber. All I know of my ancestor, Henri, is his name. Unlike Kastner, I never had the courage to ask my grandfather about his brother or his experience. Fortunately, I was able to find out more on the internet. With just the knowledge of his name, I was able to discover that Henri was deported to Auschwitz on Convoy 66 on January 20, 1944. This convoy delivered a total of 1,555 French Jewish children to Auschwitz. I found his date of birth and his last-known address in Saint-Amand-Montrond, France. And I found out that his name is inscribed on the Wall of Names at the Shoah Memorial in Paris. I desperately grasped onto these fragments so that I could remember him.
Even though my grandfather never spoke explicitly about his brother, he tried to preserve his memory through our family. My grandparents named my uncle Henri, in an effort to perpetuate his legacy and always remember him. Today, my uncle is a rabbi of the Chabad Lubavitch community in Ashkelon, Israel. Through his work, my uncle Henri does not only perpetuate the original Henri’s legacy, but also extends that of the Jewish faith as a whole.
Films like Kastner’s do more than preserve the memory of one survivor. Through this film, Kastner seeks to inspire other young adults—members of the last generation with access to living Holocaust survivors—to continue what she started. She wants other students, who comprise the next generation of storytellers and insurers of human rights, to follow her lead and to tell stories and create art that will extend these memories into the future. After watching Kastner’s film, I now feel inspired to discuss the past with my grandfather, to encourage him to travel with me to Poland, and to try to retrieve a piece of his history.
//JUDITH TEBOUL is a sophomore in Columbia College. She can be reached at [email protected]. Photo courtesy of Rachel Kastner.