They will screen and discuss their film Oct. 18 at Temple Adat Shalom
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – A special screening and panel discussion of the post-Holocaust documentary The Stamp Thief is scheduled at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, at Temple Adat Shalom, 15905 Pomerado Road, in neighboring Poway.
After a Havdalah ceremony, Richard Stern, the temple’s vice president for adult education, will emcee the program about the search for a valuable stamp collection. It was believed to have been stolen from Jews transported to the concentration camps and buried in the basement of an apartment building in Legnica, a city of nearly 100,000 residents, approximately the size of Vista, California.
Hollywood screenwriter Gary Gilbert heard a story from David Weisberg about the missing stamp collection. Weisberg said it was told to his father, psychiatrist Paul Weisberg, by a firefighter patient whose wife was the daughter of an SS officer.
Intrigued, Gilbert did some early detective work, learning that the R.W. in case notes might have been Rudolf Wahlmann and that an old photo showing Wahlmann’s daughter dressed for the first day of elementary school was taken with the background of the building where the treasure might have been buried.
Satisfied there might be something to the story, Gilbert assembled a team to document the search for the stamp collection. He took a cue from the plot of the movie Argo, in which a Canadian film crew rescued six U.S. diplomats from Tehran, Iran, during the 1979-81 hostage crisis, using as their cover story that they were filming a science fiction drama. Gilbert decided to also film a fake movie, a love story, set in Poland, then still within the Iron Curtain, dominated by the Soviet Union.
The documentary about the search for the missing stamp collection had its moments of discoveries and disappointments – a suspenseful roller coaster ride of emotions.
Following Saturday night’s screening of the documentary, Stern will moderate a four-member panel featuring Gilbert; the film’s director Dan Sturman, a documentarian who worked on the 2003 Academy Award-winning Twin Towers; Art Berg, representing the Poway Stamp Club; and Sandra Scheller, curator of the traveling Remember Us The Holocaust exhibit, now being shown at the La Jolla branch of the San Diego Public Library.
In the documentary’s exploration of antisemitism in modern Poland, a phenomenon called “The Lucky Jew” involves art works showing individual Jews. These paintings and drawings are sold to superstitious Poles who believe that by hanging a Jewish portrait by their front door, their families can be good with money, just as they believe Jews are.
Scheller, who previewed the documentary, commented “I was surprised that ‘the Lucky Jew’ can still be purchased, though I hope that in owning this icon, people see it as a symbol of remembrance and hope rather than a relic of prejudice.”
Gilbert and Sturman said in a written statement that “the lessons of the Holocaust are being forgotten. We want to combat this dangerous amnesia by making a film that appeals to the broadest possible audience. And so we’ve crafted The Stamp Thief in the guise of a heist movie in order to tell a never-before-told story of the Holocaust in a uniquely dramatic and accessible way. … Our goal: to promote understanding and tolerance in a world that desperately needs it.”
Ticket cost is $18, with advance registration required. To register, scan the QR code above.
*
Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World