Image Before My Eyes (1981)

Director:

Joshua Waletzky

Writers:

Jerome Badanes (writer)
Lucjan Dobroszycki (book)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

Using historical footage, still photographs, and live interviews, the filmmaker tells the story of Jewish life in Poland between the two World Wars...

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film | Based On Book

Runtime:

Canada:88 min | USA:90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Yivo Institute for Jewish Research

Excellent historical documentary on the Jewish people of Poland.

This is an excellent historical - visual and aural - documentary of the Jewish people of eastern Europe, but primarily Poland, during the years between World Wars I and II. The film captures the village and city lives of the Polish Jews during this time, their families, culture, languages (Yiddish, Hebrew, etc.), politics, hardships, accomplishments, dreams, and desires. It represents a portion of European (and international) history of 3.5 million people of which only 250 thousand (seven percent) survived Hitler's Germany. The film is supplemented throughout with interviews with several men and women who lived as children during this period. They share their memories, songs, language, and assessments of their Jewish lives, families, relatives, and communities. The film also illustrates not only their allegiance to their Jewish faith but, at the same time, in many cases their strong, patriotic feelings and loyalty to their country whether it be Poland, Russia, Germany, or Austria.