Memories of survivors - film "Holocaust: Threads of memory" demonstrated in Minsk

5 октября 2022
Two weeks are left before the bloody historical event, which happened 79 years ago. On October 21, 1943, the Nazis destroyed the Minsk ghetto. And that is the murder of about 22,000 prisoners of Jewish nationality. There were only a few survivors. Their memories formed the basis of a documentary film by journalist Paula Slier. The premiere took place today in Minsk. For the South African reporter from Russia Today the history of the Holocaust is also a personal drama. 

She has become the most powerful woman in business and government in Africa. Paula Slier has been a war reporter and news anchor for 20 years. Working with Russia Today, Paula has analyzed Israeli and Saudi negotiations in the war effort against Iran, shown live clashes between Arabs and Jews, and uncovered details of the Euro-African genocide in South Africa.

The very notion of genocide is her personal pain. Slier's documentary, 119 Unlived Lives, is not just a detached work, she personally opened the letters of her own people. Each of the fates touched her family directly. 

The journalist did not abandon the subject of the genocide of the Jews, but dug deeper. 

She raised a whole layer of documents about her family in Brest. And there she found the photo of her great-grandfather, the house where her relatives lived.

Shooting the documentary took just a week. From the information Paula possessed upon arriving in our country: her Belorussian grandmother was saved in the Republic of South Africa. 

Paula Slier, head of RT's Africa and Middle East bureau:

“I myself was very interested to see the places where my grandmother was from. She didn't talk about it. Didn't know the fate of her parents, her family. They were all wiped out in this land. It was important for me personally to know my own history.

The premiere was held today at the House of Moscow. Paula came to Belarus to attend the premiere, so she went straight from the plane to the presentation. This film is rather a warning for the future, than just a retelling of war events. 

Paula Slier, head of RT's Africa and Middle East Bureau:

“There are many contradictions in the world today. History is being rewritten. It's not for nothing that denazification has taken place in Ukraine. And I decided to meet with the ghetto prisoners and ask them how the events in the neighboring country affect their world view today, and what they think about and whether there is any danger of now. I realized - there is such a danger.”

"Threads of the Holocaust" can already be seen on Internet sites.