Schiff, a globally renowned collator of Holocaust survivors' testimonies and the founder of Jewish Futures and JRoots, began his search for the 51 boys after an interview with Manchester-based survivor Yaakov Yosef Weiss in 2006.
"He said to me, ‘during one of the selections at Auschwitz, I was sent to the gas chamber,’” Schiff said. “And he went in, and he said people were screaming, crying, praying, making confessions, and the door was closed. Then suddenly there was a big commotion, and there was another selection from within the gas chamber.
“Of course, I was incredulous. I had never heard of a story like this,” says the rabbi.
Over time he located five more of the surviving boys – by then, elderly men – around the globe and interviewed them for the same reason does all Holocaust survivors: to preserve their stories for future generations.
'Miracle', published by Penguin Random House. (Jacob Gersh Photography)[Missing Credit]
The film Undeniable, directed by Jonathan Kalmus through JRoots, combines the six survivors’ filmed testimonies with historic commentary by the Holocaust scholar Professor Robert Van Pelt, formerly an expert witness for the defence in the 1996 David Irving v Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt trial. Van Pelt’s forensic expertise on the Auschwitz architecture corroborates the eyewitness testimonies of the survivors and, based on the camp's blueprints, helped the production team rebuild Crematorium 5 using CGI.
The visual elements of the film, compared to the book, help create a more visceral experience not only of the conditions the men endured at Auschwitz, but of the men themselves. Undeniable producer Debra Sobel, a former BBC television producer and trustee of Jewish Futures, says the “emotive” quality of the film comes from the six survivors at its heart.
“When you meet these men on camera, they really transport you back there,” says producer Debra Sobel and trustee of Jewish Futures. “You get a sense of the trauma they experienced, the hell that they endured, but then the complete miracle of what happened next.”
Film and Book production team - from L to R: Ari Kayser, Assistant Producer, Jonathan Kalmus, Director & Editor, Michael Calvin, Co-author, Neil Blair of The Blair Partnership, Rabbi Naftali Schiff, Co-author and Executive Producer, Debra Sobel, Producer. (Jacob Gersh Photography)[Missing Credit]
The paired release of the book and film is part of what Schiff sees as a necessary full-coverage approach to Holocaust education in the modern age. Where books may fail to hold attention spans, films may succeed; Undeniable was screened to sixth form classes at a number of Jewish schools last month, and the team has sponsored the distribution of Miracle to children of the same age.
"We're at a crucial point in history, and I think it's massively important for young people to tap into these messages in as real a way as possible,” says Rabbi Schiff. “Ongoing Holocaust education mustn't be in a static museum. It is a living history.”
The rabbi saw firsthand what it means to honour the memory of the past when he attended the Stamford Hill wedding of the last living gas chamber survivor’s grandson last month.
"The 98-year-old gentleman was beaming, surrounded by his huge Chasidic family on the dance floor, and he was waving his white stick in the air as if it was a sword of triumph,” says Schiff. “If you're present at a simchah like that, and you know the journey of this man, you feel a confidence and a certainty in the survival of the Jewish people.”
