Happy #Pride! Though I used to wonder if I’ve become my mother, I now realize it skipped a generation. The love of reinvention & rising from hardship to become your fantasy self was what my mother was about & in many ways is also the essence of my colorful @officialobscura As my mother tearfully remarked after watching the film #ParisIsBurning: “There’s nothing worse than feeling like you can’t be who you really are. “ Let’s celebrate all of who we are from the skin we’re in to the dreams we all dare to embody. #ProudMary #dontdreamitbeit 🧚🏼‍♀️ #LoveIsLove #ProudMom #YouthDrag 🦄 #identity #Stonewall50 🌈 #beseen #befearless #beunapologetic #beyourself #befabulous #worldpride2019 💛🧡💚
Happy #MothersDay to the #Gabersdorf girls (shown at one of their many reunions) who birthed us & regenerated a nation from the ashes. This film is very much a #motherdaughter odyssey but it’s not just mine. Here are some of the many mother’s, daughters, sons & granddaughters I’ve met along the way who have joined me in my quest to uncover & understand my & our mothers’ overlooked past. As you can see, these women embody the very essence of what #motherhood is about: #Resilience #hope #reinvention. Lastly, there’s my mother as a teen juxtaposed w/my daughter who resembles her so, but is also very much her own woman. Her grandma wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Here’s to all these women’s #maternal #love #strength, #stamina & #indomitable spirit. They didn’t just survive, they thrived. #2ndmothers #sistersfromanothermother #happymothersday❤️
Happy Birthday mom wherever & whoever you are - #PolishJewish girl, Nazi trafficked #teen #slave, #Holocaust #survivor, #Israeli #freedomfighter, #terrorist #femmefatale, #refugee, #mostwanted, #war #orphan, #teacher for new immigrant children in Israel’s many absorption centers, army #medic, #sniper, #spy #doubleagent, US student visa holder, #sixties bride, #mother .... A dizzying array of personae she played so brilliantly none of knew. We are all many things to many people but my mother turned it into an art form. To me, you were simply mommy. I miss you & your hot pink lipstick traces everyday. Love & lilacs 💜💗🎂💋
Happy #YomHaatzmaout #israelindependenceday & #liberationday for Europe #May9th the end of #WWII. The two dates coincide this year & were linked for my mom, but I never knew. She only spoke of being a #freedomfighter for #Israel. But it was her years of Nazi slavery in a remote Czech town that was home to 11 Nazi women’s camps that turned her into the fierce fighter for freedom & #Jewish self- determination. But most people only know of #Auschwitz & think the #Holocaust ended with its liberation. It didn’t. It lasted 5 more months for these women who suffered in oblivion, courageously prevailed & whose stories were untold. So three years ago today, on the 71st anniversary of liberation for my mom & all 5,000 #survivors of Nazi #womenslavelabor in #Trutnov, we unveiled a monument honoring these forgotten #holocaust #Sheroes. #Gabersdorf survivor Sara Bialas Tenenberg who we filmed on location, sang with her student & #Yiddish troubadour #karstentroyke. #oberalstadt survivor Gerda Frieberg flew in from Toronto w/her grandson to speak & DP @logtvfilms filmed her for us. I was thrilled to be joined by my son Leo @theleobevilacqua & Israeli cousin Yehuda, his son Ofer & wife Riana, a child of Czech survivors who recalled driving past the Trutnov factories, never imagining it was where my mom had suffered during the #Shoah. It’s time to put women back in the picture whether in #HolocaustHistory or #Israeli history & not in the usual tropes. Women were & are far more than #AnneFrank or #QueenEsther. These women lived, fought back and founded a nation from the ashes of #genocide. And they got together every May 9th! We & Israel wouldn’t be here if not for them. #AmYisraelChai #mothersofreinvention subscribe to my newsletter at myUndergroundMother.com #happybirthdayisrael
#YomHashoah #Terezin 2016 #NeverForget Please honor #HolocaustMemory by donating to our #truestory #documentary (link in profile) & sign up for our newsletter www.myundergroundmother.com to read about my search for my mother’s #hiddenpast & #untold #Holocaust #Herstory
Just devastated by the horrific murder of such an #esheschayil #womanofvalor May her memory be a blessing. She took a bullet for a man, her rabbi, & was gunned down as she was about to say #Kaddish for her late mother as we do on the last day of Pesach. Now we’re left saying Kaddish for her. #PowayStrong #hatehasnohomehere #lorigilbertkayeisaheroine #Antisemitism is real and it’s on the rise & we must renounce & reject the #haterinchief w/every fiber of our being because he’s the one arming legions of Nazis in America by pandering to the NRA & #Holocaust denying groups, 2 of which are in #Poway & #SanDiego. So instead of thoughts, take action. #DumpTrump Call out the amoral #GOP who give him & his legions of hate cover. The #AltRight is killing Jews from #pittsburgh to #Poway. #nomorehate
What does this Holocaust diary have to do w/Passover & my search? Everything. Read my story, subscribe to my newsletter at myundergroundmother.com & have a #LiberatedPassover! #FreedomFromSlavery #LDorVaDor #humantrafficking #InEveryGeneration #Exodus #womenslavelabor #HolocaustHerStory
Thank you #Chappaqua, my new friend & #WestchesterJewish #women’s powerhouse @wohlgregsongoblue80 for inviting me & my #sisterinarms #copilot @micolrieger to speak last night & show a new clip. Thanks to Grace @insidepress for suggesting me! What an engaged group & empowering #FromSlaveryToFreedom night!. Thanks to @ujafedny for sponsoring the event & @metcouncil for your amazing advocacy work for #survivors of the #Holocaust & current #sextrafficking With #Passover around the corner here’s to #liberation of all women & to sharing their narratives of slavery & trafficking in ancient Egypt, Eastern Europe, Ellis Island, during the #Holocaust & in contemporary times so we also can celebrate deliverance from those shackles & live to our full potential as #FreeWomen! Thanks also to @peterrosenbaum58 for your gorgeous rebranding & @halilefrat for editing. It was the 1st time I saw the new clip on a big screen & it looked really good. #LiberateWomen #HerStory #womenslavelabor #humantrafficking #survivor #believesurvivors #womensvoicesmatter
When I was in college I saw “#Vagabond” (“Sans Toit ni Loi,” or “Without a roof or rules” in French). It lived up to its name. Here was a film about a teenage drifter who lives by her own rules & faces devastating consequences, the steps leading up to her murder flickering through as series of flashbacks as we try to trace who, what, where, when and how. It’s haunting and raw and real & Mona, played by Sandrine Bonaire, is unapologetic as a female protagonist who doesn’t adhere to any tropes, owns her radical choices the way she owns her sexual desire - with agency - shown without the usual fetishized cliches, from a woman’s point of view. How revolutionary- even today. Despite Mona’s tragic end- or in this case beginning- she never appears as a victim. That’s thanks to the film’s writer, director & producer, Agnes Varda, who came up with such a fiercely free-spirited vision of a woman, she created a blueprint for future filmmakers, including this one. I find myself thinking about Mona and “ Vagabond” a lot lately as I weave a narrative of women who also survived on the margins and whose narratives were deemed secondary, women who may have been victims of Nazi brutality and sexist historical oversight, but who were never victims. Rest in power fierce one #AgnesVarda. (Did I mention #Varda is my middle name, after my grandmother Raizel/Rose 🌹?) #FilmGoddess #FrenchNewWave #FeministFilmmaker #WomanDirector #RuleBreaker #Trailblazer #CinemaGiant #verite #ReelWomen #Visionary
#Westchester, NJ, Ct & NY friends: Please join me Wed 4/3 - next week! I’ll show a new clip & talk about my search for my mom’s missing past, untold Holocaust #HERstory #humantrafficking #womenslavelabor #genderandgenocide & why #womensvoices were & are vital to #survival. Thanks to @wohlgregsongoblue80 #ChappPAC @ujafedny call for tickets or copy & paste this link: https://m.bpt.me/event/4097036 See you there.