Three Stories of Galicia
Film and discussion
Tuesday, May 3, 2011 3:00 PM EDT
Johnson Center Cinema
Directors Olha Onyshko and Sarah Farhat introduce their film Three Stories of Galicia, a documentary about three lives and fates in multi-ethnic Galicia, a land divided by Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. Professor Steven A. Barnes will lead a discussion after the film.
Free and open to the public.
About the Film
A Jewish man whose family chose to save the life of its worst enemy. A Ukrainian woman who endured the theft of her children to save her country. A Polish priest who risked everything to end the sectarian hatred that tore at his parish. They all came from a land where the Second World War never ended and where children grow up with the burden of fighting the battles of their grandparents. The land was called Galicia. The people who lived there were Jews, Ukrainians and Poles. When the Second World War erupted, Galicia was caught in the ruthless struggle between Hitler’s Third Reich and Stalin’s Red Army. In their quest to rule the world, those two empires made use of the ethnic jealousies between Ukrainians, Jews and Poles, and fueled some of modern history’s worst ethnic conflicts. But in the midst of evil, where trust had lost its meaning and human life had no value, there were those who were willing to risk what little they had left to do what was right instead of what wa s easy. In the epic settings of the events that changed the course of modern history, THREE STORIES OF GALICIA reveals the intimate stories of three courageous individuals who took it upon themselves to preserve the dignity of the human spirit.
Hosted by Center for Eurasian Studies.
