American Filmmaker and Fulbright Scholar Minna Zielonka-Packer Presents Her Documentary “Back To Gombin”

28 May 2008

Minna Zielonka-Packer at the Auschwitz Jewish Center

Minna Zielonka-Packer presented her documentary “Back to Gombin” for audiences at the Galicja Museum, The Auschwitz Jewish Center and Jagiellonian University on May 27 and 28, 2008.  Minna Packer, a child of Holocaust survivors, chronicles the tragic history of the Jews of the town of Gombin (Gabin), a small town in central Poland and the birthplace of her father.  She is currently in Poland as a Fulbright scholar.  The documentary “Back to Gombin” features interviews with remaining survivors interwoven with illuminating, historic footage filmed in 1937 by Sam Rafel on his trip to Gombin as a chairman of the Gombin Relief Committee. Survivors’ testimony of the ghettos, the camps and methods of survival are juxtaposed with images from the prewar period of the Jews of Gombin celebrating and posing for the camera. These images are combined with candid interviews of the survivors’ children speaking about growing up with the shadow of what their survivor parents endured.
The tenacity and perseverance, which personified the Jewish survivor of Gombin, has been inherited by the second and third generation. In an effort to reclaim the lost history of their parents’ and ancestor’s lives, a group of descendants, a handful of American professionals from diverse walks of life, an Englishman and an Israeli genealogist have formed The Gombin Jewish Historical and Genealogical Society.  With no more than the dream of remembrance, the leaders of this group have created a project of healing.

Zielonka-Packer is based in Lodz, Poland in production on her current film, “The Lilliput”, a narrative 35mm feature length film from her script. The movie will be released for international audiences in 2009. 

See the website: http://www.thelilliputmovie.com