Phila. couple's heroism is saluted in film at Jewish festival

He is 80 years old now, but Paul Beller still remembers his interrupted childhood in Vienna. He remembers the good times, when his father and grandfather owned a plywood business and he went to school with the other neighborhood children.

And then everything changed in 1938, when the Nazis marched into his city.

"They took the business away from my father and I wasn't allowed to go to school with non-Jewish children," said Beller, a retired federal employee who now lives in Monroe Township, Gloucester County.

Beller was one of the lucky ones: He was part of a kindertransport, an escape from Europe arranged by Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, a Philadelphia lawyer and his wife who lived on Cypress Street in the Fitler Square area with their two children. The story of that bold exodus is the subject of To Save a Life, a film that will be shown Saturday night in a sneak preview as part of the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival's New Filmmakers Weekend Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Beller will be in the audience - he is one of the surviving "children" featured in the movie created by writer/editor Steven Pressman of San Francisco, who is being honored in the festival's Local Theme category for the work. Pressman's wife is a granddaughter of the Krauses, which fueled his interest in pursuing the story.

Olivia Antsis, director of the Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival, hailed the Pressman film as noteworthy for "telling a fascinating local story that is little known, even to Philadelphians."

Also scheduled to attend the festival is 82-year-old Kurt Herman of Willow Grove, another of the transport children whose recollections of that 1939 odyssey are captured in the film.

"Life was wonderful - and then it wasn't wonderful at all," said Herman, who remembers when his non-Jewish former friends began bullying and harassing him. "I couldn't figure out why the Jewish kids were sent to a separate school, and why our home was raided."

Herman also remembers Kristallnacht, the terrible night in November 1938 when Jews and their businesses, homes, and synagogues were attacked and burned in Nazi Germany and parts of Austria, including Vienna.

"That," Herman said, "you don't forget."

Both Beller and Herman share their remembrances of the dehumanization of Jewish people and the systematic removal of their rights in To Save a Life. They explain in the film how their parents, terrified about the future, gratefully handed their children over to the Krauses, who at great personal risk launched a dramatic rescue of 50 children - 25 girls and 25 boys ages 5 to 14.

Selected from among 600 who sought asylum, the youngsters had been psychologically tested to evaluate their independence and coping skills. Their parents bravely sent them off with strangers to a new country to save them when they themselves could not leave. They were instructed not to even wave goodbye at the train station, to prevent an emotional eruption.

According to Joel Rosenberg, national president of Brith Sholom, a Jewish service organization founded in 1905 and still headquartered in Philadelphia, the effort was largely supported and financed by the group.

After the 50 children sailed into New York in June 1939, they were immediately taken to Camp Sholom, near Collegeville, for a carefree summer. They were then placed in foster homes. Both Beller and Herman ultimately were reunited with their parents, although many other relatives perished in the Holocaust.

To Save a Life. 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St. $12.

The Rabbi's Cat. Shown in 3D, 3 p.m. Sunday, Rave Cinemas, 40th and Walnut Streets. $10.

Paul Goodman Changed My Life. 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Prince Music Theater. $10.

Reuniting the Rubins. 7 p.m. Monday, Prince Music Theater. $10.

Information: www.pjff.org or 215-545-4400.

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