Holocaust Documentary Films in Leavey Library (DVDs): Hungary

Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
"Tells the life story of Hungarian-born poet and Holocaust heroine Hannah Senesh, who was only 22 when she parachuted into Nazi-occupied Europe as part of a rescue mission to save the Jews of Hungary. Dramatizations, interviews, photographs, newsreel footage, letters, and diary entries are used to illuminate Senesh's early years, her immigration to Palestine, her involvement in the perilous rescue mission, and her capture and eventual execution in Hungary."

Killing Kasztner: The Trials and Assassination of Israel Kasztner
"Hero or traitor? Rezso Kasztner, known as the Jewish Schindler, negotiated face to face with Adolf Eichmann, rescuing 1700 Jews on a train to Switzerland, and may have saved tens of thousands more lives. Yet Kasztner was condemned as a traitor in his adopted country of Israel; accused as a collaborator in a trial and verdict that divided a nation and forever stamped him as the 'man who sold his soul to the devil.' It was a verdict overturned by Israel's Supreme Court but too late for Kasztner. He was ultimately assassinated by Jewish right wing extremists in Tel Aviv in 1957."

The Last Days
"Traces the experiences of five Hungarian Holocaust survivors who fell victim to Hitler's brutal war against the Jews during the final days of World War II, and later returned from the United States to their hometowns and ghettos and the concentration camps in which they were imprisoned."

There Was Once… = Egyszer volt…
"This film is about a Catholic high school teacher [Gyöngyi Magó] in Kalocsa, Hungary who while doing research in local history discovers the lost Jewish community that once thrived there. She shares her research with her students, teaching tolerance, fighting prejudice. She organized a memorial for this lost community, which was attended by the Mayor, the Archbishop, several survivors and second and third generations. At the same time the neo-Nazi party of Hungary held a demonstration and a young girl visiting from New York was hit by a sling shot while attending a memorial service at the newly restored Jewish cemetery." - IMDB