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Don’t miss the Boston premiere of a riveting new documentary about the 999 Slovakian Jewish girls who were aboard the first official transport to Auschwitz.
This documentary chronicles the untold story of 999 mostly teenage girls betrayed by their government. Told that by volunteering for “work” they would fulfill their patriotic duty, these innocent young women willingly bid their families farewell. Under the cloak of deceit, they were transported on a one-way ticket to Auschwitz. The few who survived endured more than three years in the death camp. In the film you’ll meet the last living survivors of the First Jewish Transport and learn their story.
Our screening will include a talkback and performance with writer/director Heather McDune Macadam and the Czech/Slovak musician team which composed the film’s score.
In partnership with Boston Jewish Film and generously sponsored by Natty and Carl Hoffman.
Heather Dune Macadam has spent over 20 years researching and interviewing families, witnesses, and survivors of the first official transport to Auschwitz. Her Internationally acclaimed book 999 (published in 2020) has been translated into18 languages and was a Pen Finalist in 2021.
Macadam’s first book Rena’s Promise, co-written with Holocaust survivor #1716 Rena Kornreich Gelissen, is required reading in history classes around the world. In 2011, Macadam founded Rena’s Promise Foundation, in the hopes of helping create a more ecumenical world unhindered by prejudice, racism, or hatred.
Macadam’s work discovering lost girls and young women from the Holocaust has been recognized by Yad Vashem in the UK, the National Museum of Jewish History in Slovakia, and the Memorial Museum of Auschwitz in Poland. A former professor, she has taught journalism, and creative nonfiction for over 20 years.This is her directorial debut.
Mária Volárová and Ivan Kudrna are a Czech and Slovak team whose original score for 999 is inspired by Sephardic and Slovaki folk music traditions.
Maria studied church music at the J.L. Bella Conservatory and choir conducting at the AcademyofArts in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. She worked as a teacher at the J.L.Bella Conservatory as well as at several art schools.Since 2019, she has been the director of the Municipal Cultural Center in Nové Mesto nad Váhom, where she lives with her family. She is the director of the Festival of Jewish Culture and actively participates in the organization of the CINEDU Film Festival for Children and Youth and the international competition of the Biennale Cartoons Humor and Satire Novomestskýosteň, as well as other art projects.
Ivan studied music at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory in Prague. Since 2000, he has been a member of the renowned music orchestra in Pilsen and a founding member of Mi Martef— "the first cosmopolitan liberal klezmer band" that has been updating songs from the predominantly Ashkenazi region of Europe and Russia for contemporary audiences.
This is Maria and Ivan’s first film score.