As If It Were Yesterday
Growing Up
•
1h 24m
Directed by Myriam Abramovicz and Esther Hoffenberg • Documentary • 1980 • 84 minutes
Belgium, 1940. Amidst escalating terror and raids on Jewish residents by the occupying Nazi forces, a resistance movement emerges to shelter Jewish children from deportation and extermination. Myriam Abramowicz and Esther Hoffenberg’s 1982 documentary As if it Were Yesterday centers on a series of candid interviews with the members of the Belgian Resistance who organized the rescue of over 4,000 children, as well the children themselves—now grown, yet still marked by their experience under occupation.
The members of the Belgian Resistance—teachers, homemakers, social workers—explain how they were compelled to take action. Whether from a sense of personal morality, mutual obligation, or resistance to fascism, they give a powerful account of how acts of heroism emerge from horrific circumstances. Surviving children detail their own experience, where protection from the Nazis came at the cost of isolation and the sacrifice of a normal childhood. Both an essential document of the Belgian resistance to Nazi occupation and an exploration of how people are driven to acts of solidarity and courage, As if it Were Yesterday is a moving tribute to the spirit of resistance.
Up Next in Growing Up
-
Pony Boys
Directed by Eric Stange • Documentary • 2022 • 22 minutes
Summer, 1967. Two Massachusetts boys – 9 and 11 — are desperate to visit Expo ’67 in Montreal — the largest World’s Fair ever. But their parents can’t take them. Then Mom comes up with the solution: hitch their pet Shetland pony King to a...
-
Kisses
Directed by Lance Daly • Drama • With Shane Curry, Kelly O'Neill • 2010 • 78 minutes
On the fringes of Dublin two kids, Kylie and Dylan, live in a suburban housing estate devoid of life, colour and the prospect of escape. Kylie lives with five other siblings and her overworked mother. Next door,...
-
Attila Marcel
Directed by Sylvain Chomet • Drama • With Guillaume Gouix, Anne Le Ny • 2013 • 104 minutes
Paul, thirty or so, lives in a Paris apartment with his aunts, two old aristocrats who have raised him since he was two and who dream of seeing him become a virtuoso pianist. His life is made up of the sam...
