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A powerful screening and talkback in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day featuring author and creator Heather Dune Macadam.
This documentary chronicles the untold story of 999 mostly teenage girls betrayed by their government. Told that by volunteering for “work” they would fulfill their patriotic duty, these innocent young women willingly bid their families farewell. Under the cloak of deceit, they were transported on a one-way ticket to Auschwitz. The few who survived endured more than three years in the death camp. Meet the last living survivors of the First Jewish Transport and learn their story. Based on the international bestseller 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz (translated into 19 languages).
The untold story of some of WW2's most hidden figures and the heartbreaking tragedy that unites them all. Readers of Born Survivors and A Train Near Magdeburg will devour the tragic tale of the first 999 women in Auschwitz concentration camp. This is the hauntingly resonant true story that everyone should know.
On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women--many of them teenagers--were sent to Auschwitz. Their government paid 500 Reich Marks (about $200) apiece for the Nazis to take them as slave labor. Of those 999 innocent deportees, only a few would survive.
The facts of the first official Jewish transport to Auschwitz are little known, yet profoundly relevant today. These were not resistance fighters or prisoners of war. There were no men among them. Sent to almost certain death, the young women were powerless and insignificant not only because they were Jewish--but also because they were female. Now acclaimed author Heather Dune Macadam reveals their poignant stories, drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, and consulting with historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees to create an important addition to Holocaust literature and women's history. Check out 999 with your library card.
Heather Dune Macadam has spent over 20 years researching and interviewing families, witnesses, and survivors of the first official transport to Auschwitz. Her internationally acclaimed book 999 (published in 2020) has been translated into 19 languages and was a PEN Finalist in 2021. Macadam’s work discovering lost girls and young women of the Holocaust has been recognized by Yad Vashem in the UK, the National Museum of Jewish History in Slovakia, and the Memorial Museum of Auschwitz in Poland. A former professor, she has taught journalism, and creative nonfiction for over 20 years. This is her directorial debut.
This event is made possible in part by the generous support of the DC Public Library Foundation as well as the community support of the Edlavitch Jewish Community Center of Washington, D.C.
The DC Public Library Foundation partners with the DC Public Library to enhance Washington, D.C.’s public libraries, bringing private philanthropy together with government support to ensure that our libraries deliver the highest quality of service to the District’s residents. With the help of many generous people, the Foundation provides educational programs for children and youth, workforce development training, cultural events, and collection enhancements for D.C.’s libraries.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Film | Author Talk |
