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Those in attendance during the film symposium included staff of the
Department of Teacher Training and Edith Spitz-Polak (third from left),
cousin of Bertram Polak |
In 2001, Dr. Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld, a professor
at Tilburg University in the southern Netherlands decided to renovate his
house, and being a historian by profession, began to look into the history of
its previous owners. To his amazement the house had previously belonged to the
Polak family, a Jewish Dutch family in Tilburg that was in the leather
business. Last Thursday, March 6, 2014 a symposium was held in the
International School for Holocaust Studies of Yad Vashem focusing on Jewish
life during the Holocaust through an exploration of Dutch film. The lectures
were part of an ongoing enrichment for staff of the Department of Teacher
Training who instruct Israeli educators how to teach about the Holocaust.
Following an introduction to the day’s events by Sarit Hoch-Markovitz, Director
of Teacher Training at the International School of Yad Vashem, a lecture was
given by Dr. Bijsterveld, who following his incredible personal discovery, made
a documentary about the Jewish Dutch Polak family who had built and lived in his house.
 |
| Dr. Bijsterveld during his lecture on the life and death of Bertram Polak |
Inspired by the story, Bijsterveld decided to
create a documentary film, Here Was Bertram about Bertram Polak, who
grew up in the house and was the sole member of his immediate family that was
murdered during the Holocaust. As the only boy in a family of four children
Bertram Polak enlisted, eventually becoming an officer in the Dutch army. When
the Nazis invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940 Bertram was called up to
fight the Germans before the Dutch surrendered four days later. During the
second day of fighting on May 11, Bertram’s family and his uncle’s family fled
to Amsterdam where they escaped 3 days later to England, with both families
eventually immigrating to the United States. Shortly after returning home to
Tilburg to resume working in his father’s business, as the Nazi occupation of
the Netherlands solidified the business was later taken over by a German
administrator who fired Bertram for being a Jew. Bertram planned to flee the
Netherlands with help from his father, first applying for a visa to Cuba and
then planning to escape to England by boat.
 |
Page of Testimony filled out for Bertram Polak by his
cousin in 1977 |
Bertram and the rest of those who sought refuge in
England were betrayed, arrested and Bertram was sent to Scheveningen prison.
From there he was taken to Amersfoort concentration camp before being sent to
Auschwitz-Birkenau and was murdered on August 17, 1942. During his lecture,
Bijsterveld explained that Bertram’s father, who had tried to help his son escape
the Nazi occupied Netherlands before his arrest, was living in the United
States by November, 1942 and upon hearing of the fate of the Jews in the camp
in which his son was incarcerated in, suffered from a heart attack and died. In
addition to the staff of the Department of Teacher Training, Bertram’s cousin,
Edith was also in attendance during the day symposium and even recounted some
of her family history while listening attentively to Bijsterveld’s
lecture. Following his search into the
life and death of Bertram, Bijsterveld also coordinated the installation of Stolpersteine,
German for ‘stumbling stone’, for Bertram which serves as a memorial on the
pavement right outside the Polak family home.
The film symposium concluded with a lecture given by
Eyal Boers, a documentary filmmaker and Head of the Film & Television Track
in the Communication Department at Ariel University, about the perception of
the Jew in Dutch cinema. Boers also showed a part of the documentary film he
directed, Classmates of Anne Frank as well as short clips of other films
from the Netherlands to show how the Shoah is portrayed in Dutch cinema.
Dr. Bijsterveld's documentary film Here Was Bertram (with English subtitles) can be viewed on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7nTpuCZJTE
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