Our Children (, Unzere kinder; , also called It Will Never Happen Again) is a 1946 semi-documentary Yiddish-language film created in communist Poland. It was directed by Natan Gross and , based on the script by Rachel Auerbach and Binem Heller.Marc Caplan, "Too Soon? Yiddish Humour and the Holocaust in Postwar Poland", In: Laughter After: Humor and the Holocaust, 2020, p.47 It uses a frame story of the interactions of Jewish orphans who survived the Holocaust with popular Polish comic duo Shimon Dzigan and Israel Shumacher.Ira Konigsberg, "Our Children and the Limits of Cinema: Early Jewish Responses to the Holocaust", Film Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 1 (1998), pp. 7-19, אונדזערע קינדער" (הילדים שלנו) - במאים: נתן גרוס ושאול גוסקינד", a review at Yad Vashem
Plot A group of Jewish orphans who survived the Holocaust are on a trip from their orphanage to attend a show by Dzigan and Shumacher, who staged a comic skit named "Singers of the Ghetto", as two beggars singing and dancing for food. Disagreeing with the portrayal of ghetto life, they heckle the show. Later, they invite the comics to their orphanage so that they can tell them the true story. The comics accept the invitation and present their best shows. At night, they overhear children telling each other stories of their life. The next day, they suggest to the children that they present their own plays.Ute Wölfel, "The ‘lost child’ as figure of trauma and recovery in early post-war cinema: Fred Zinnemann’s The Search (1948) and Natan Gross’ Unzere Kinder (1948)", Studies in European Cinema, Vol. 18, 2021, Issue 2, 159-175,
Cast One of the child survivors starring in the film is Shimon Redlich.Summer Symposium on the Holocaust Screens 1948 Film Unzere Kinder Followed by Discussion with Child Survivor and Cast Member Shimon Redlich live from Israel
Production It was one of the first films about the Holocaust, particularly on dealing with the issue of "correct" representation of post-Holocaust trauma.Daphne Dolinko, טראומה וייצוגיה בקולנוע האידי בפולין, 1949-1924 Trauma and its representation in Yiddish cinema in Poland, 1924-1949] Marc Caplan of Johns Hopkins University describes the film genre as "mixing satire, idyl, Holocaust testimony, and expressions of defiant hope". Described as "semi-documentary", much of the film is fictional, including children's Holocaust reminiscences.Ian Biddle, "Music, Sound, and Affect in Yiddish-Language Holocaust Cinema: The Posttraumatic Community in Natan Gross's Unzere kinder (1948)", Music and the Moving Image, 2018, 11(3):40, (draft online) After the premiere, the film was banned in Poland."Tadeusz Lubelski: Kino żydowskie w Polsce. Michał Waszyński i inni"
An English-language dubbing was released in 1951 under the title It Will Never Happen Again. The original nitrate print was lost, but later found in 1979, and the film was restored by 1991, with English subtitles added."Our Children / Unzere Kinder", National Center for Jewish Film
References
Further reading J. Hoberman, Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds, pp.330,331
External links
From the film: Dzigan and Schumacher presenting a skit from Sholem Aleichem's Kasrilevke brent (Kasrilevke is Burning) at the orphanage