"The Last Flight of Petr Ginz” was screened in New York
The documentary tells the story of Petr Ginz, a child from Prague who perished during the Holocaust. The film opens a window into Petr’s life through his artwork, novels, short stories and magazine articles, and the journey he made from child to young adult, from innocence to the painful awareness of inhumanity. By age14, he had written five novels and a diary about the Nazi occupation of Prague. By age 16, he had produced 120 drawings and paintings, edited an underground magazine in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, and written numerous short stories. Petr Ginz was was murdered in Auschwitz in 1944.
What makes Petr’s story so relevant, contemporary and unusual, is the fact that he drew and painted what he saw and imagined. In the midst of death and chaos, he calmly, objectively, and at times humorously, related the horrors of his everyday existence.
Much of Petr’s story was unknown until the 2003 Columbia space shuttle tragedy. Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, a member of the mission, had carried with him Petr’s drawing, “Moon Landscape”. The publicity surrounding the flight and its explosion led to the discovery of Petr’s diary and additional artwork and short stories in a Prague attic.
Speakers
- Nathan O. Hatch, President, Wake Forest University
- Jill Tiefenthaler, Provost, Wake Forest University
- Maher Nasser, Director, Outreach Division, United Nations Department of Public Information
- Jill Tiefenthaler, Introduction of Family
- Tamar Zemach-Marom, Petr Ginz’s niece,Message from Family
- Jill Tiefenthaler, Introduction of Film
