“We die twice, once when we leave the earth and once when we are forgotten.” – 

Herman Taube, Holocaust survivor, Jewish historian, writer, poet and a friend of my grandfather, Itzhak.

After the birth of my daughter, I became haunted by familiar dreams and memories, but not my own. They were fragments of stories of my grandfather Itzhak – a holocaust survivor – a poet who spoke in difficult but personal idioms of a horrid past, one that is now affecting my present.

Two decades ago I shot a long-form, long-buried video interview with him. I’ve decided to dig up the tapes and share them with my grandfather’s dearest friend, writer Herman Taube. For years, I would sit and listen to the two converse, using their oral and written words to keep memories alive. Always amazed at their ability to communicate a deep traumatic experience to somebody who’s never been there, stories that felt more fantasy than reality. The twilight years were not kind to Itzhak, as depression took over, and night-terrors and tears for loved one lost became a regular occurrence. Seeing it with my own eyes, I wanted to decipher the chasm between his deep hidden memory vs. his common visible memory, a shrouded terrible past vs. an apparent docile present. I began to feel as if his past of horrors, fears, and sadness were now in me. 

This revelation began a decade-long physical, emotional and creative journey. One, which innocently began with grainy video, family-stories and sound bites. Leading me to reflect upon my own trauma and place in the world. I found myself drawn to storytellers who communicate and deal with their own personal pain via creativity. With the Shoah as our common epicenter, I followed the strands. Ironically, out of endless encounters, interviews and travels, I chose five local micro-stories that I feel best illustrate the ripple of trauma through a macro-human experience. These characters give me a sense of empowerment and belonging, as I hope the viewer will experience as well.

Like a stone thrown in a pond, trauma, violently shattering the surface of a calm life. What emanates from one spot, infinitely ripples, to end in the most unexpected of places.