Leo Ullman survived the Holocaust in hiding with strangers as a toddler—in Amsterdam, the same city where Anne Frank and her family hid and were later discovered. His parents, who also went into hiding in a separate location, were told nothing about his caretakers or his location in order to help keep him safe. Only after the war did Leo realize that the loving couple who had raised him for years were not his biological parents. He later learned just how many of the Dutch families nearby knew about the young Jewish boy in hiding and chose to protect him.

Ullman came to the United States in 1947, served in the U.S. Marine Corps, and practiced law for more than 30 years. He also served as a Director of the Anne Frank Center USA for two decades and as its Chairman for 7 years.

At this program, Leo Ullman will share his memories, in conversation with Kyra Schuster, Lead Acquisitions Curator at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. On the Museum's staff since 1994, Schuster acquires new materials for the Museum's permanent collection and has worked on numerous special exhibitions, Museum publications, and online programs. This program is suitable for families with children ages 11 and above.

A tour of Anne Frank The Exhibition is available following the program. When you register for the program, a ticket link will be included in your confirmation email. Tickets to the exhibition are $25 for youth under 17 and $30 for adults. Attendance at the 6:00 pm program is required to purchase tickets to the exhibition. Tickets to the exhibition are limited so place your order as soon as possible if you would like to attend.

Part of the Center’s programming series Anne Frank in History and Memory in connection with Anne Frank The Exhibition.

Thank you to Ancestry, the Center for Jewish History’s Family History sponsor.

Join us for a screening of the classic film, Gentleman’s Agreement. Philip Green (Gregory Peck) is a highly respected writer who is recruited by a national magazine to write a series of articles on antisemitism in America. He's not enthusiastic about the series, mostly because he's not sure how to tackle the subject. Then it dawns on him: if he was to pretend that he was Jewish, he could then experience the degree of racism and prejudice that exists and write his story from that perspective. It takes little time for him to experience bigotry. His anger at the way he is treated also affects his relationship with Kathy Lacy (Dorothy McGuire), his publisher's niece and the person who suggested the series.

A conversation with Rachel Gordan, Avinoam Patt, Gregory Peck’s daughter, Cecilia Peck, and CJH President Gavriel Rosenfeld will follow the screening.

Part of the Center’s programming series Anne Frank in History and Memory in connection with Anne Frank The Exhibition.

Thank you to Ancestry, the Center for Jewish History’s Family History sponsor

About the Speakers
Rachel Gordan is the 2024-25 National Endowment for the Humanities Scholar in Residence at the Center for Jewish History and the Samuel "Bud" Shorstein fellow in American Jewish Culture at the University of Florida, where she teaches in the Department of Religion and the Center for Jewish Studies. Her first book, Postwar Stories: How Books Made Judaism American, was published by Oxford University Press in 2024.

Avinoam Patt is Rennert Director of the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at NYU. He previously held the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut, where he served as Director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. He is the author of multiple books on Jewish responses to the Holocaust, including Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (2009). He recently completed a book on the early postwar memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw: The Afterlife of the Revolt, 2021).

His newest book, Israel and the Holocaust, was published by Bloomsbury Press as part of its Perspectives on the Holocaust series in 2024.

Cecilia Peck is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker. She directed and executive produced the current Netflix documentary series “Escaping Twin Flames.” She also directed, co-wrote, and Executive Produced the four-part docuseries “SEDUCED: Inside the NXIVM Cult for STARZ, and the Netflix feature documentary “Brave Miss World.” Her work has a focus on women’s stories and trauma informed filmmaking. She directed and produced and the Academy Award shortlisted documentary “Shut Up & Sing,” and produced “A Conversation With Gregory Peck,” a personal portrait of her father’s life and career. As an actress, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for “The Portrait,” and played the leading role in “Torn Apart”, among others. She is a graduate of Princeton University and a recipient of a DART fellowship for Ethics in Documentary from the Columbia School of Journalism.

Gavriel D. Rosenfeld is President of the Center for Jewish History and Professor of History at Fairfield University. His areas of specialization include the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, memory studies, and counterfactual history. He is the author of numerous books, including the co-edited volume (with Janet Ward) Fascism in America: Past and Present (Cambridge University Press, 2023), The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism from World War II to the Present (Cambridge University Press, 2019), and Hi Hitler! How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2015). He edits the blog The Counterfactual History Review and is an editor at the Journal of Holocaust Research.

Historian Raphael Gross, Director of the German Historical Museum and editor of a history of the worldwide reception of Anne Frank’s diaries, discusses the making of and response to a unique document in literary history. Neither a true diary that chronologically records the daily life and thoughts of its author, nor a work of fiction, the Diary of a Young Girl is an unfinished manuscript.

Adapted from diary entries in multiple stages by the young author herself – and posthumously by her father – it made Anne Frank into perhaps the most famous German- Jewish writer of the 20th century. Today, it is an unparalleled urtext of the Holocaust.

Against this background, the lecture will focus on the worldwide reception of the diary over almost eight decades. How was the edition of the text authorized by Otto Frank received in countries as diverse as Holland, Israel, the USA, Japan, Hungary, Spain, and the GDR? Which aspects of her notes were included? Which faded into the background? And what did the icon “Anne Frank” stand for in all these contexts?

This event will take place in person at the Center for Jewish History and will be followed by a reception. If you are unable to attend in person, the event will be recorded and uploaded to YouTube.

Part of the Center’s programming series Anne Frank in History and Memory in connection with Anne Frank The Exhibition. Purchase your tickets to the exhibition here.

About the Speaker
Raphael Gross is the President of the Foundation Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin.

Before assuming the role in 2017, he served as the Director of the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture and held the Chair of Jewish History and Culture at the University of Leipzig. Previously, he headed the Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt am Main, (2006-2015); the Fritz Bauer Institute, Frankfurt am Main, (2007-2015); and the Leo Baeck Institute, London, (2001-2015); as director.

Raphael Gross is a historian and the author and editor of numerous books on German-Jewish history and the Holocaust. Many of the exhibitions he initiated explore these and related topics.

In May 2023 Raphael Gross was mandated to evaluate the provenance research of the Foundation E. G. Bührle in Switzerland. He presented his report to the public in June 2024.

To understand Anne Frank’s family, identified widely as a Frankfurt family that fled to Amsterdam in the 1930s, one needs a more detailed study of Anne’s “annecestors” who lived throughout Germany in prior centuries. In this talk, Karen S. Franklin delves into this history. The shocking discovery of the fate of Anne’s forebears some 600 years before she was murdered casts her fate in the larger context of Jewish historical experience.

The talk takes place in conjunction with Anne Frank: The Exhibition at the Center for Jewish History.

This event will take place online. In case you are not able to attend the live meeting, the event will be recorded and posted on YouTube.

Karen S. Franklin is Director of Family Research at the Leo Baeck Institute, a position she has held for over 30 years. She has served as chair of the Council of American Jewish Museums, chair of ICMEMO, the Memorial Museums Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), president of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS), and as co-chair of the Board of Governors of JewishGen. In 2019 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award of IAJGS.

In 2012, she received a Service Citation from ICOM-US, the national committee of the ICOM, for her work in Nazi-era looted art restitution.

Come by and see the new Ancestry Research and Reflection Room at the Center for Jewish History’s Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute.  Dedicated to collecting, preserving and sharing the family histories of Jewish communities worldwide, the new space offers visitors the opportunity to explore millions of Holocaust-era records available on Ancestry and conduct research on their own family histories.

Come see unique letters sent by Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, to American officials pleading for permission to emigrate to the United States in 1941, as well as other, related documents.  Discovered by YIVO archivists in the Institute’s vast archival holdings in 2005 and unseen by the public for more than a decade, the letters provide a moving perspective on the desperate efforts of a Jewish refugee to save his family.

A revealing biography of Anne Frank, exploring both her life and the impact of her extraordinary diary.

In this innovative biography, Ruth Franklin explores the transformation of Anne Frank (1929–1945) from ordinary teenager to icon, shedding new light on the young woman whose diary of her years in hiding, now translated into more than seventy languages, is the most widely read work of literature to arise from the Holocaust.

Comprehensively researched but experimental in spirit, this book chronicles and interprets Anne’s life as a Jew in Amsterdam during World War II while also telling the story of the diary—its multiple drafts, its discovery, its reception, and its message for today’s world. Writing alongside Anne rather than over her, Franklin explores the day-to-day perils of the Holocaust in the Netherlands as well as Anne’s ultimate fate, restoring her humanity and agency in all their messiness, heroism, and complexity.

With antisemitism once again in the news, The Many Lives of Anne Frank takes a fresh and timely look at the debates around Anne’s life and work, including the controversial adaptations of the diary, Anne’s evolution as a fictional character, and the ways her story and image have been politically exploited. Franklin reveals how Anne has been understood and misunderstood, both as a person and as an idea, and opens up new avenues for interpreting her life and writing in today’s hyperpolarized world.

Ruth Franklin will be in conversation with author Jonathan Rosen. Book sales and signing and a reception will follow the program. Get a discount on the price of your ticket if you pre-order the book.

Thank you to Ancestry, the Center for Jewish History’s Family History sponsor for International Holocaust Remembrance Day programming.

Presented with Jewish Lives and Jewish Book Council

Part of the Center’s programming series Anne Frank in History and Memory in connection with Anne Frank The Exhibition. Purchase your tickets to the exhibition here.

Ruth Franklin is the author of A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction, a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, and of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Jonathan Rosen is the author, most recently, of The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions, which was named a top ten book of the year by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Slate and People Magazine, and was chosen by Barack Obama as one of his Favorite Books of 2023. The Best Minds was also a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. Rosen is also the author of the novels Eve’s Apple and Joy Comes in the Morning, and two additional non-fiction books: The Talmud and the Internet: A Journey Between Worlds and The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature. His essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He is a consulting editor at The Free Press.

In the documentary film UnBroken, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor embarks on an international quest to uncover answers about the plight of her mother and her six siblings who, as mere children, escaped Nazi Germany relying solely on their own youthful bravado and the kindness of German strangers.

UnBroken chronicles the seven Weber siblings who evaded certain capture and death, and ultimately escaped Nazi Germany following their mother’s incarceration and murder at Auschwitz. After being hidden in a laundry hut by a benevolent farmer, the children spent two years on their own in war-torn Germany. Emboldened by their father’s mandate that they ‘always stay together,’ the children used their own cunning and instincts to fight through hunger, loneliness, and fear, and survive bombings and attacks. Their journey culminates with a painful ultimatum, when, separated from their father, they are told that they must declare themselves orphans in order to escape to a new life in America. Unbeknownst to them, this salvation would become what would finally tear them apart, not to be reunited for another 40 years.

After the screening, join us for a panel discussion with the film’s director, producer, and writer Beth Lane and subject (Beth’s mother) Ginger Lane.

View the trailer here.

Thank you to Ancestry, the Center for Jewish History’s Family History sponsor for International Holocaust Remembrance Day programming.

Presented with The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme

Part of the Center’s programming series Anne Frank in History and Memory and film series Holocaust History on Film: Anne Frank and Beyond in connection with Anne Frank The Exhibition. Purchase your tickets to the exhibition here.

This screening is made possible by The Weber Family Arts Foundation.

Bestselling author Alice Hoffman delivers a stunning novel, aimed at a young adult audience, about one of contemporary history's most acclaimed figures, exploring the little-known details of Anne Frank's life before she went into hiding.

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl has captivated and inspired readers for decades. Published posthumously by her bereaved father, Anne's journal, written while she and her family were in hiding during World War II, has become one of the central texts of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, as well as a work of literary genius.

With the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the Frank family's life is turned inside out, blow by blow, restriction by restriction. Prejudice, loss, and terror run rampant, and Anne is forced to bear witness as ordinary people become monsters, and children and families are caught up in the inescapable tide of violence.

In the midst of impossible danger, Anne, audacious, creative, and fearless, discovers who she truly is. With wisdom far beyond her years, she will become a writer who will go on to change the world as we know it.

Critically acclaimed author Alice Hoffman weaves a lyrical and heart wrenching story of the way the world closes in on the Frank family from the moment the Nazis invade the Netherlands until they are forced into hiding, bringing Anne to bold, vivid life. When We Flew Away features archival content provided by the Anne Frank House, as well as information about Otto Frank's desperate bids to get his family to safety in America gathered from correspondence between Otto Frank and Nathan Straus, Jr. from the Straus Historical Society’s Archives. Based on extensive research and published in cooperation with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, When We Flew Away is an extraordinary and moving tour de force.

Alice Hoffman will be in conversation with her editor at Scholastic, Lisa Sandell. Book sales and signing will follow the program. Get a discount on the price of your ticket if you pre-order the book.

Part of the Center’s programming series Anne Frank in History and Memory in connection with Anne Frank The Exhibition. Purchase your tickets to the exhibition here.

Presented with Scholastic

Thank you to Ancestry, the Center for Jewish History’s Family History sponsor.

About the Speaker:
Alice Hoffman is the highly acclaimed author of over 30 novels for readers of all ages, including The Dovekeepers, The World That We Knew -- winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, The Marriage of Opposites, Practical Magic, Incantation, The Foretelling, and most recently, The Invisible Hour. Her previous novels for Scholastic Press are Aquamarine, which was made into a major motion picture, Indigo, Green Witch, and Green Angel, which Publishers Weekly, in a boxed, starred review, called "achingly lovely." She lives outside of Boston.

The Anne Frank Gift Shop was shortlisted for the 2024 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. The film, written and directed by Mickey Rapkin, premiered at L.A. Shorts in 2023 and won the Film Movement Award at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and a completion grant from JFI. Of the film, GQ magazine's Sarah Seltzer wrote: "Featuring darkly funny and ultimately moving turns by a strong cast including Ari Graynor and Chris Perfetti and comedian Mary Beth Barone as a stone-faced Gen Z influencer, The Anne Frank Gift Shop provides a poignant meta-commentary on our continually robust Anne Frank discourse. It’s a film that, per Sarah Paulson on Instagram, 'makes you laugh your face off AND FEEL things'." The film won the Audience Award in Philadelphia and has screened around the world at festivals including SCAD, the Cleveland International Film Festival, and the Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival.

A panel discussion and Q&A featuring writer/director Mickey Rapkin, Ari Graynor, and Avinoam Patt,moderated by the bestselling author of Grief Is for People, Sloane Crosley will follow the screening.

Part of the Center’s film series Holocaust History on Film: Anne Frank and Beyond in connection with Anne Frank The Exhibition. Purchase your tickets to the exhibition here.

Thank you to Ancestry, the Center for Jewish History’s Family History sponsor

About the Speakers
Sloane Crosley is the author of The New York Times bestselling books Grief Is for People, How Did You Get This Number, and I Was Told There’d Be Cake (a 2009 finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor). She is also the author of Look Alive Out There (a 2019 finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor) and the novels, Cult Classic and The Clasp, both of which she has adapted for film. Her work has been translated into ten languages. She has been a columnist for The Village Voice, Vanity Fair, Esquire, The Independent, Black Book, Departures and The New York Observer. A contributing editor at Vanity Fair, her work has appeared in various publications including The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue and The Guardian.

Ari Graynor most recently starred in the Ryan Murphy Netflix limited series Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story as defense attorney Leslie Abramson. Her other television credits include Winning Time, Mrs. America and Showtime’s I’m Dying Up Here. Her many film credits include The Disaster Artist, The Front Runner, For a Good Time Call, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Graynor has performed on and off-Broadway including in Anna Jordan’s Yen (Lucille Lortel nominee), The Performers, Relatively Speaking, The Little Dog Laughed, Brooklyn Boy, and Dog Sees God.

Avinoam Patt is Rennert Director of the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at NYU. He previously held the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut, where he served as Director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. He is the author of multiple books on Jewish responses to the Holocaust, including Finding Home and Homeland: Jewish Youth and Zionism in the Aftermath of the Holocaust (2009). He recently completed a book on the early postwar memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw: The Afterlife of the Revolt, 2021). His newest book, Israel and the Holocaust, was published by Bloomsbury Press as part of its Perspectives on the Holocaust series in 2024.

Mickey Rapkin made his directorial debut with The Anne Frank Gift Shop which was shortlisted for the 2024 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. He also wrote the film, a dark comedy about antisemitism starring Ari Graynor and Chris Perfetti. Rapkin is a screenwriter and journalist whose first book, Pitch Perfect—about the world of competitive a cappella singing groups—inspired the film franchise of the same name. Previously a senior editor at GQ, he has written for the New York Times, WSJ, Town & Country, and Esquire. 

Bau: Artist at War is a remarkable film based on the true love story of Joseph and Rebecca Bau, whose wedding took place in the Plaszow concentration camp during WWII, an event immortalized in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. Using his artistic skills and sense of humor in the camps, Joseph manages to stay alive and ultimately helps hundreds to escape. Years later, when called to be a key witness in the trial of the brutal Nazi officer who tortured him and killed his father, he is thrust back into vivid memories of the Holocaust. Emile Hirsch stars as Joseph Bau.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with writer/producer Deborah Smerecnik, director Sean McNamara, and Joseph Bau’s daughters Clila and Hadasa Bau, moderated by Daniel S. Mariaschin.

Watch the trailer here.

Presented with Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme and B’nai Brith International

Part of the Center’s film series Holocaust History on Film: Anne Frank and Beyond in connection with Anne Frank The Exhibition. Purchase your tickets to the exhibition here.

Thank you to Ancestry, the Center for Jewish History’s Family History sponsor

About the Speakers
Deborah Smerecnik spent 14 years developing and producing "Bau, Artist at War." Her production company has a slate of projects, in different stages of development, including "VOICES", a dystopian sci-fi television series, "Wake-Up", a feature highlighting the sex trafficking industry of Ventura County, California, and a mini-series centered around the diaries of Rebecca Bau. A graduate of Scripps College with a diverse professional background in finance, management, and restaurant ownership, Smerecnik was deeply inspired by the Bau family's story. This project has profoundly impacted her, instilling a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity to bring the Bau’s inspiring journey to life.

Clila Bau Cohen is a lecturer and performer. Hadasa Bau is an actress, singer, songwriter, lecturer and graphic artist. They both serve as managers of the Joseph Bau House, a museum focusing on the life and work of Joseph Bau.

Daniel S. Mariaschin is the CEO of B’nai B’rith International. As the organization’s top executive officer, he directs and supervises B’nai B’rith programs, activities and staff around the world. He is the spokesman for B’nai B’rith, interpreting its policies to a variety of audiences, including the U.S. Congress, world leaders, global diplomats and the media, with responsibility for coordinating the organization’s programs and policies on issues of concern to the Jewish community. In the United States and abroad, Mr. Mariaschin has met with scores of heads of state, prime ministers, foreign ministers, opposition leaders, religious leaders and influential members of the media, to advance human rights and to help protect the rights of Jewish communities worldwide as well as to promote better relations with the State of Israel.

Here Lived: The Stolpersteine Story won Best Documentary at the Santa Barbara Jewish Film Festival in 2024 and has been screened at many festivals around the world.

When conceptual artist Gunter Demnig first conceived the idea of laying Stolpersteine (literal translation: stumbling stones) for Roma, Sinti, and disabled victims of National Socialism (Nazis) in his native Germany, he never imagined his project would grow to become the world’s largest decentralized memorial.

The Stolpersteine he crafted are, in theory, quite simple: concrete blocks measuring 10x10cm, topped with polished brass plates that are hand stamped with the names and fates of victims of Hitler’s reign of terror. These handmade stones are laid into the pavement in front of the last voluntarily chosen residence of those murdered by the Nazis. The stones, requested by surviving family members, represent a deeply personal commemoration to those affected by the horrors of Nazi occupation. Today, Stolpersteine have been placed in 30 countries across Europe, and on May 23, 2023, 3 Generations filmed Gunter Demnig laying the 100,000th Stolperstein.

Against the backdrop of a war in Europe, the perpetual plague of anti-Semitism and racism around the world, and the upcoming 80th anniversary of the Nazi’s defeat, this extraordinary tale of resilience, remembrance, and community deeply resonates with our contemporary moment. Here Lived is a timely and profoundly moving testament to the enduring power of human compassion and solidarity.

The screening will be introduced by Netherlands Ambassador to the United Nations Lise Gregoire-van Haaren and followed by a panel discussion with producer and director Jane Wells, historian Emile Schrijver, and producer Ulrika Citron. The conversation will be moderated by Tracey Petersen, Manager: The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme.

Distributed by Menemsha Films. Watch the trailer here.

Presented with Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme

Part of the Center’s film series Holocaust History on Film: Anne Frank and Beyond in connection with Anne Frank The Exhibition. Purchase your tickets to the exhibition here.

Thank you to Ancestry, the Center for Jewish History’s Family History sponsor

About the Speakers
Ulrika Citron, Producer, is the grandchild of Dutch Holocaust victims and the daughter of a hidden child. She was born and raised in Sweden, but has lived and worked in the USA for the last 30 years. In the film, Ulrika journeys to the Netherlands to honor her family and reclaim her Jewish identity.

Lise Gregoire-van Haaren is Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United Nations in New York. Prior to this position, from August 2019 to August 2024, she was Director responsible for European Union affairs at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as deputy Director-General for European Cooperation. From 2016 to 2019 she was (the first female) Ambassador - Deputy Permanent Representative - of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United Nations in New York and one of the two Ambassadors representing the Kingdom in the UN Security Council (2018).

Before joining the Permanent Mission in New York, Ms. Gregoire-van Haaren was Head of the Political Affairs department in the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague, a post she held since 2013. Prior to that, from 2009 to 2013, she was Counsellor (Antici) at the Permanent Representation of the Netherlands to the European Union in Brussels.

Emile Schrijver is the General Director of The Jewish Cultural Quarter and professor of Jewish Book History at the University of Amsterdam. A world-renowned expert on Jewish history, he explains the horrors faced by Jewish people during the Nazi occupation, as well as his role in the initiative to place 733 stones in his hometown of Haarlem.

Jane Wells, an Emmy-Award nominated filmmaker and activist, is the director and producer of HERE LIVED. Over fifteen years, Wells has produced groundbreaking documentaries chronicling a diverse range of social issues. TRICKED is an unflinching examination of sex trafficking in the United States; The Devil Came on Horseback chronicles the genocide in Darfur. Most recently, HERE LIVED focuses on the families impacted by the Nazis during World War II and the generational trauma that atrocity precipitates. In HERE LIVED, Wells and her team capture the story of the world’s largest decentralized memorial, explore the unknown history of the Netherlands’ hidden children, and give a platform to the relatives of Nazi victims and key figures in the Stolpersteine project to reflect on the meaning of the memorial and its role as a source of healing and reconciliation. As the daughter of Sidney Bernstein, who was responsible for documenting the liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps for the Allies in World War II, Jane knows the power film has to shape history and empower survivors. This history led her to build her own legacy as a filmmaker focused on telling the stories of survivors of crimes against humanity. Over more than 15 years, Wells has produced 50 short films and documentaries. Her projects have been featured in international film festivals, such as Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca Film Festival, NY Jewish Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Thessaloniki International Film Festival, and Human Rights Watch Film Festival. The films have been recognized by distinguished media outlets, such as the New York Times, the Huffington Post, CNN, and the BBC, among others. Wells wholeheartedly immerses herself in all of her projects. Actively participating in every stage of each production, she ensures her presence on the ground. However, what she holds dearest is the enduring relationships she has fostered with the individuals featured in her films. It is their stories that inspire her and drive her team to continue with their mission and work.