Return to Life! The Story of Lena’s 100 Children, November 5, 2023

The film My 100 Children tells the story of Lena Kuchler-Silberman, a Holocaust survivor and teacher in Poland who established an orphanage for 100 Jewish children in Zakopane, Poland in 1945 and later brought them to Israel. Lena was a surrogate mother to these children — she clothed them, fed them, listened to their stories and gave them hope again.

MEET THE PANEL

OSHRA SCHWARTZ REIM is an independent Israeli filmmaker and the director of the film My 100 Children about Lena Kuchler-Silberman. She is also a screenwriter (Tied Hands, The Komediant), and a film lecturer at the Open University and Tel Aviv University. She holds degrees from Haifa University and Tel Aviv University. She edited the film periodical Sratim and worked as a reporter and film critic in newspapers and magazines. She serves as a consultant on feature films and documentary projects for various film funding agencies and festivals in Israel.

DR. SHULAMIT REINHARZ is the Jacob Potofsky Professor Emerita of Sociology at Brandeis University. While at Brandeis, she created a graduate program in Women’s Studies as well as the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute for the study of the intersection between Jews and gender. She was born in Amsterdam and grew up in the United States with intermittent stays in Israel. She is the author or editor of sixteen books, including the forthcoming 100 Jewish Brides: Stories from Around the World and Hiding in Holland: A Memoir in Four Hands. She is a sought-after speaker and has participated in numerous programs of the Sousa Mendes Foundation.

DR. NOEMI PERELMAN MATTIS is a psychologist in private practice in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was a hidden child in Brussels during the Holocaust, while her parents Chaim and Fela Perelman founded and led the Jewish Resistance there. She earned a JD from the University of Brussels and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University. She specializes in the treatment of adult survivors of childhood trauma. She has been a member of the Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women and a Co-Chair of the Utah State Task Force on Ritual Abuse. Dr. Mattis lectures widely and gave an invited address at the international gathering in Jerusalem of the hidden children of Belgium. She will discuss the psychological aspects of Lena Kuchler-Silberman‘s action.

[suefairbrass]

Hi from New Zealand I have just finished watching this wonderful site. This is my fourth attempt to write this for it became very emotional for me .l am a jew/maori , yes there are a number of us in nz but many deny it. Even as a teenager I had a burden for the Jewish people and never felt maori even though I was encouraged by family be proud to be maori. It wasn't until I was around 30 that my mother told me about her Jewish side. I finally found out what my soul had be telling me. My mother never spoke about being Jewish in front of my father, I never really thought much about it because he had his own ideas of everything and nothing would change his mind. It wasn't until my mother died and we were planning her funeral service when the pastor brought up how proud my mother was of her maori heritage, I stated her finding her Jewish heritage meant a lot to her, when the pastor lefted l was so verbally abused by my father, a woman of 57 in tears being told my mother wasn't Jewish because she didn't have big lips and nose. FROM THAT DAY ON I STAND A PROUD JEW?