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April 13, 2001/Nisan 20, 5761, Vol. 53, No.28
Journey to the past
Documentary captures survivor's memories
LEISAH NAMM
Assistant Editor
Leo Lowy, right, stands in front of a cattle car near Beregova, Ukraine with son Richard Lowy.
Photo courtesy of Gary Lowy |
A son's curiosity about his father's history led to "Leo's Journey," a film documenting a Holocaust survivor as he revisits his childhood home and confronts memories of his past.
The idea for the film was born when Vancouver resident Leo Lowy's youngest son, Richard, expressed an interest about finding out more about his father's experiences during the Holocaust. Richard Lowy mentioned to friend Shel Piercy, of Infinity Films in Vancouver, that he was interested in accompanying his father to his childhood home in Beregszasz, Hungary (now Beregova, Ukraine), and to Auschwitz, the concentration camp where the elder Lowy was taken by the Nazis.
When Piercy learned the elder Lowy had survived not only the Holocaust but also the twin experiments conducted at Auschwitz by "The Angel of Death" Josef Mengele, Piercy convinced his friend to expand his original home-movie plan into a full-fledged film.
Piercy directed the film, combining Leo Lowy's journey with historical footage, interviews with noted historians, experts and two other twins who survived Mengele's experiments.
The filming of "Leo's Journey" corresponded with the 2000 March of the Living, an annual trip to commemorate Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) and Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israel Independence Day), when thousands of primarily Jewish teens from around the world gather in Poland, visit concentration camps, learn about the Holocaust and then continue on to Israel.
Leo Lowy, along with his wife, Jocy, and sons Gary, 47, of Phoenix; Stephen, 44, of Bangkok, Thailand; and Richard, 42, of Vancouver, set off for Frankfurt, Germany last May. Accompanied by a family doctor and production crew, they traveled to several European sites by bus, shuttling around cameras, lighting and related equipment.
"It was a very eye-opening experience to see where he grew up," says son Gary Lowy of Phoenix.
Retracing the journey
The original journey had begun one early spring morning in 1944, when the Lowy family of Beregszasz - Izsak, Margit and their children Bertha, Seren, Rozsi, Lenke, Leo and Miriam - heard pounding at their door. They opened the door, only to be instructed by Hungarian gendarmes that they had 10 minutes to pack a bag.
They were forced to march three miles to a brick factory.
Eleven days later, they were among hundreds of Jews loaded into cattle cars and taken to Auschwitz, where the family was split up. Bertha refused to give up her baby son to the Nazis; she, along with her parents, was killed.
Leo Lowy would be the only family member ever to return to the family's home. That emotional return is documented 56 years later in "Leo's Journey." As Leo walks through the house, which is now occupied, he relates memories about the house and his family to his wife and sons. Leo also visits the town's synagogue where he meets a man who had known his parents.
Before the war, 7,000-8,000 Jews lived in Beregszasz. About 70 survived the war, four of whom remain there today. Leo Lowy remains in touch with childhood friends Mickey Reisman of Scottsdale, and Reisman's brother, Karel, who lives in Beverly Hills, Calif., Lowy said in an interview during a March visit to Phoenix.
At Auschwitz, twins Leo and Miriam Lowy, 15, were placed in separate barracks to be used as subjects for genetic research on twins. According to The Crime Library Web site, many sets of twins, known as "Mengele's Children," were spared from beatings, forced labor and random selections in order to maintain their good health for the duration of live experiments. "Mengele was not motivated by humanitarian urges, but by his desire to keep his specimens healthy for experimentation," the Web site reports.
Mengele's tests included taking daily blood samples, injecting blood samples from one twin into another of a different blood type to record the reaction, injecting dye into twin subjects to see if he could change their eye color, performing surgical procedures without an anesthetic, and injecting the subjects with infectious agents to see how long it would take for them to succumb to various diseases.
According to one survivor's testimony as recorded in "Leo's Journey," the twins would sit naked for six to eight hours while their eyes, fingernails and other body parts were examined or measured. Twins were killed lying side-by-side and autopsied to check internal organs. If one twin died, the other was usually killed - so their bodies could be compared.
Of approximately 3,000 twins who passed through Mengele's labs, about 200 survived the war. When "Leo's Journey" was filmed, about 98 of these twins remained alive and are still curious about the experiments; many would like to find out with what they were injected to see if the experiments contributed to any of their health problems as adults, according to "Leo's Journey."
Following the war, Leo and Miriam Lowy never discussed their time at Auschwitz. "My twin sister was sick ever since she was liberated because of what happened to us," Lowy says. "She wasn't well enough to talk about it."
Although Miriam was reunited with her three surviving sisters in Auschwitz, the sisters died from dysentery a week after they were liberated, Lowy says.
Miriam, who died two years ago in Vancouver, never fully recovered from the trauma she had endured, Lowy says.
The 60-minute documentary, narrated by actor Christopher Plummer and produced by Infinity Films/Zachor Productions, has been shown in 13 cities in Europe since its premiere in Vancouver Nov. 30. Proceeds from the film go toward a March of the Living scholarship.
The film aired on Canada's History Television March 8 and 11 and plans include distribution by Alliance Atlantis to Jewish film festivals in the United States, Lowy says.
Lowy places great importance on remembering the Holocaust and passing on the information to future generations. To that end, he serves on the board of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Center, which offers lessons to elementary and high school students about the Holocaust directly from Holocaust survivors.
Lowy also helps plan Holocaust memorial services in Vancouver.
When Lowy returned to Vancouver after the filming, he went into the hospital after suffering a coronary attack.
"I was strong enough to cope while I was there," Lowy says. "I had my whole family with me and that helped. If it wasn't for the fact that my wife and three sons were with me, I wouldn't have been able to do it. ...Knowing that I have a family of my own, I have my own life right now to fight for - that helped."
Visit www.leosjourney.com for more information.
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