Post-Holocaust Film To Be Discussed

The award-winning 1996 film “Under the Domim Tree” will be the focus of two sessions at this year’s annual meeting in San Francisco.

The film will be shown on Monday, May 19, at 7:30 p.m. at the Delancey Street Screening Room at 600 Embarcadero, a short walk from the Moscone Center. Discussion of the film will begin immediately after the screening and continue the next day at the workshop “Post-Genocide Psychological Trauma in Film,” which will be held from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in room 304 on the esplanade level of the Moscone Center. All annual meeting registrants and their guests are invited to attend both sessions.

The film deals with a group of orphaned teenagers residing in an Israeli kibbutz in the 1950s. During the day they are building a new Israel with the verve and idealism seen in youth. At night, however, they are tortured by memories of their experiences during the Holocaust. Their only solace is found under the domim tree. The film is based on the highly acclaimed autobiography of Gila Almagor, one of Israel’s leading actresses.

The discussion will be co-chaired by Harold J. Bursztajn, M.D., of Harvard Medical School and Maurice Preter, M.D., of the University of Mississippi Medical Center. They are both the sons of Holocaust survivors and have done much clinical work with and research on other child survivors.

This event is in part sponsored by the International Trauma Center, a private, nonprofit association. ▪