ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ October 2000 ! 777 newsCollege & Research Libraries Filmmaking 101 Florida Atlantic University Libraries help produce a documentary by W illiam M iller B ecom ing involved w ith the m aking o f a docum entary film is not standard o p e r­ ating procedure for an academ ic library, b w h en an independent filmmaker approached m e about producing such a film, the project w as too com pelling to ignore, even though it re q u ire d a d a u n tin g a m o u n t o f p riv a te fundraising. Filmmaker Al Barry had a lifelong o b ses­ sion w ith the w o o d en synagogues of Eastern Europe. Before W orld War II there were more th a n 1,000 o f th em d o tt in g the m aps of Po­ land, C z e c h o ­ slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, an d R ussia— sm all, w o o d e n sy n a­ gogues built by lo cal artisan s, A pre-war glass negative pho serving as the Polaniec, Lithuania. c e n te r o f reli­ gious and social life for the little rural vil­ lages (shtetls), w hich w ere pop u lated mostly by Jews. D id th e y s till e xist? Urban synagogues w ere built o f stone or brick, but these unassum ing structures w ere built entirely of w o o d in a distinct architec­ tural style an d decorated inside w ith folk art, ut signs of the zodiac, and religious iconogra­ phy. They stood for h u ndreds o f years, serv­ ing the needs o f their congregants, until the advent o f the Nazis, w h o burnt o r otherw ise destroyed most of them, along with those who w o rsh ip p ed in them. Barry's longtime dream was to travel to East­ ern Europe to find out if any of these struc­ tures w ere still intact, and, if s o , to film th e m in s id e and out. He was im­ pelled by the assumption that if any did still exist, they must have been close to collapse, so to o f a wooden synagogue ir he w an ted to find them and document them before they disappeared altogether. As an inde­ pendent, Barry lacked the resources to pursue this project on his own, so he turned to Florida Atlantic University (FAU) for institutional sup­ port. O ur library, w ith the largest collection of Judaica in the area, has a public outreach About th e author W illiam M ille r is director o f the Florida A tla n tic University Libraries, e-mail: m iller@fau.edu 778 / C&RL News ■ October 2000 program, which has given us the recognition to make us a natural choice for someone with such a project. Barry, a retired photograpner tor Life magazine, had already given us a collection of museum-quality models, which he had built over a 25-year period, and there was no one in America more knowledgeable about these structures than he, so we had confidence that he was capable of carrying out this project. However, no one really knew what he and the film crew would find if they went to Europe. He did have access to a cache of pre-war photographs of these structures (hid- den from the Nazis and available to us for reproduction), so we had good records of what the buildings had looked like. But what did they look like now? Accepting the challenge After the war, with Eastern Europe closed to West­ ern eyes, these wooden structures were largely forgotten, and it was assumed that all had been destroyed. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, how­ ever, a team from Hebrew University, travel- ing through Lithuania, found several of these wooden synagogues still intact, though falling apart and neglected; the team had been un- able to enter any of the structures, so no one knew what the insides contained. B arry co n v in ced me that so m e o n e needed to step up to Support this project, and FAU accepted the challenge. We ap- This local resident of Rozalimas, Lithuania, helps the Florida A tlantic University film crew get into wooden synagogue by cutting a lock to which no one can find a key. proached our major donors, and one cou p le was so intrigued with the project that they pledged $100,000 to- wards its completion— not enough to cover all costs, but enough to give us the confidence that we could proceed, raising smaller amounts as we went along. The library’s development officer played a key role in enabling this project to go forward, as did the university’s learning resources and public relations staff. We engaged the award-winning videographer team of Kathy and Carl Hersh, who had done documentaries for a PBS and the commercial networks. The Hershes traveled to Lithuania and Latvia with Barry, filming the six wooden synagogues that we knew existed, and dis- covering and documenting four additional ones while they were there. The buildings that remain are all in very rural locations, and survive only because they were so re- mote that they were initially ignored, and were then put to other uses. One question we had was how the local population would view the project. Because many people live in homes or on land which ere “appropriated” from their original Jew- ish residents during the war, and previous isitors to small towns in Eastern Europe had found the locals fearful that the visitors’ in- tent was to recover lost property, we won- dered if the local inhabitants would obstruct our team’s work. However, just the opposite occurred; the local residents were eager to help, and with their assistance, Barry was able to enter all of the structures and film their interiors and exteriors. What w as inside Of course, our real hope was that we would find substantial reminders of these buildings’ riginal purposes still intact when we gained access to the interiors. The reality was quite different, however. Barry and his team found he Situation desolate. The wooden syna­ ogues were not just rotting on the outside, hey were also ruined within, filled with de- bris and dead animals, and with all traces of heir past quite obliterated. What the Nazis had started, the Russians had finished, using hese structures as pig bams, movie theaters, w v o t g t t t C&RL News ■ October 2000 / 770 o automobile garages, and equipment facto­ ries. All evidence of re­ ligious use was gone, except for one Jewish star built in above the window frame of one structure, and a small scrap of a wall poster in Yiddish in another. Neglect and the effects of the next few winters will put an end to all of these buildings. The Lithuanian and Latvian g o v ern m e n ts h av e designated several of these buildings as his­ toric, but have no fu n d s to re p a ir or maintain them. O n e in te re s tin g The in terio r of a w p a rt o f th e film Rozalimas, Lithuania. records Barry’s discus­ sions with Lithuanian and Latvian officials in charge of the historic preservation of these synagogues; Barry had filmed more structures than they even knew existed. Finishing touches When Barry and the Hershes returned, they wrote the script and added to their original footage of the synagogues some pre-war film and photos of the same structures, both in­ side and outside; architectural plans; and a variety of background materials, including the discussions with local governmental officials and background information provided by our academic consultant, Henry Abramson, of FAU’s Judaic Studies department. The film features recollections by several former inhabitants of these small towns who now live in the United States. We had adver­ tised in local papers and in publications geared to holocaust survivors for people with recollections of having worshipped in these structures, and we were stunned to have people come forward not just with recollec­ tions, but also with photographs and, in one case, film footage, which we were able to incorporate. We com missioned an original musical score for the film and were fortunate to con­ vince Theodore Bikel to do the narration— not only in English, but also in separate Hebrew and Yiddish versions. His sono­ ro u s v o ic e ad d s much to the presen­ tation. H av in g c o m ­ p le te d the film in English, with the nar­ ration and music syn­ c h ro n iz e d to th e video, it turned out to be an e n o rm o u s challenge to resyn­ c h ro n iz e w ith the Hebrew and Yiddish narrations, given the d iffe ren ce s in th e time—either longer or shorter—it takes to oden syn agogue in say things in different languages. The technical as­ pects of completing the three versions took much longer than we had anticipated, giving us quite an appreciation for the complexities of filmmaking. The result is a 48-minule docu­ mentary, which has already won 3 awards and is selling quite nicely. Most importantly, however, we were in­ strumental in establishing an historical record of these synagogues before the last of them rots away, and this film will exist as docu­ mentation of a whole world that has just about vanished. Ironically, projects are now afoot to build full-scale replicas of these structures both in Berkeley, California, and in Amherst, Massa­ chusetts, so the buildings will live on in new incarnations. ■ Order your copy The film, “Lost Wooden Synagogues,” can be p urchased in VHS format for $29.95. Send a check, m ade payable to the “FAU Foundation Library Account,” to Florida Atlantic University Libraries, P.O. Box 3092, Boca Raton, FL 33431­ 0092. Specify English, H ebrew, or Yid­ dish version. 780 / C&RL News ■ October 2000