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'My Father's War' Premiere & Talk

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This event is sold out! However, it is still possible to reserve a spot on the waiting list by sending an e-mail to netherlands@humanityinaction.org. We will then notify you when a spot becomes available.

The 5th of May marks a significant date for our past and present Dutch society. Every year on Liberation Day, we celebrate our valuable, not self-evident, freedom. On this special day, Humanity in Action is pleased to announce the Dutch premiere of ‘My Father’s War’.

My Father’s War animates the experiences of Peter Hein and his son David. As a Jewish toddler in the Netherlands in the 1940s, Peter was separated from his parents and whisked from hiding place to hiding place to escape deportation. Peter and his parents somehow survived, one day at a time, even as capture and death surrounded them. Narrated by both Peter and David, the film depicts an intergenerational conversation, reverberating across the decades.

My Father’s War is the third part of Humanity in Action’s animated documentary trilogy Traces: Portraits of Resistance, Survival and Resolve.

The premiere of My Father’s War will take place on May 5, 2022 from 19:00 until 20:30 at LAB111 in Amsterdam. The movie is in English with Dutch subtitles and the talk afterwards will be in English. This event is part of the Theater Na de Dam program.

>> Reserve your seat here

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Program of the evening
18:30 Cinema open
19:00 Opening word
19:05 Film screening
19:30 Talk “Intergenerational conversations and untold stories”
20:15 Q&A questions from the audience
20:30 Closing and drink

After the film
The film will be followed by a panel discussion with the film’s protagonists Peter Hein and Humanity in Action Senior Fellow David Hein, as well as author and New York Times journalist Nina Siegal, and activist and Landecker Fellow Jelle Zijlstra. The program is moderated by Raissa Biekman.

MyFathersWar_Panel

Moderator
Raissa Biekman is a policy officer for the D66 parliamentary fraction in the House of Representatives of the States General. As a policy officer, she is responsible for the portfolios of Internal Affairs, Drugs Policy and Kingdom Relations. As a political scientist, she specialises in human rights, sustainable development and international cooperation. As an administrative scientist, she focuses on inclusion and representation within public administration. Besides her work as a policy officer, she is a freelance chairman, moderator and political analyst.

Guests
Peter Hein was an associate professor in obstetrics and gynecology until his retirement. Since then he has been a guest speaker, writer and sculptor. As a Jewish child he was hidden in the Netherlands during World War II, as were his parents. He wrote the books The sixth year about his own hiding and the first year after the liberation and The hiding, on the dramatic hiding of his parents.

David Hein is the Head of the Defense Office of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC), an international court in The Hague tasked with adjudicating cases concerning international crimes committed in Kosovo before, during and after the war there. Previously he worked as legal officer at the War Crimes Chambers in Sarajevo, about this and about growing up in the shadow of his father’s Peter trauma, he wrote the novel A war to call my own. David is a Senior Fellow of Humanity in Action.

Nina Siegal is an author and New York Times journalist, who has written three novels and is currently working on a nonfiction book about World War II diaries.  In 2021, Nina was one of the winners of the Whiting Foundation Creative Nonfiction Grant for her forthcoming book, The Diary Keepers.

Jelle Zijlstra is an activist and community organizer working for Greenpeace the Netherlands. Trained as a theater director, Jelle has worked on numerous theater projects. Jelle recently put most of his theater work on hold to be at the frontline of the climate crisis. His Jewish and Queer identity is deeply connected to his activism, and he is one of the co-founders of Oy Vey Acts, a collective of Jewish activists that work on several issues related to being Jewish in a Dutch post-Holocaust context. Jelle is currently a Landecker Fellow of Humanity in Action.

My Father's War- Official Trailer

Traces: Portraits of Resistance, Survival and Resolve

My Father’s War is part of Humanity in Action's animated documentary trilogy ‘Traces: Portraits of Resistance, Survival and Resolve’. The trilogy was co-produced by Humanity in Action’s Executive Director Judith Goldstein and Irene Braam, and includes the films Voices in the Void, Two Trees in Jerusalem and My Father's War.

My Father's War has been selected as Best Animation Film at the Cannes Shorts Film Festival 2021. On April 11, 2022, it had its World Premiere at the esteemed American Documentary and Animation Film Festival.