From Here To Kovno
From Here To Kovno
For Upper West Side Documentary Filmmaker, Search for Grandfather’s House Leads to Family Revelations.
Susan Josephs susan@jewishweek.org
Staff Writer, The Jewish Week
{This article was first published December 12, 2000, in THE JEWISH WEEK
and appears here with permission.}
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As a child growing up in Syracuse, Eileen Douglas faithdouglas@earthlink.net lived for the
moments she could climb into her grandfather’s lap and find the pennies he brought,
special for her. A kosher butcher, her grandfather faithfully visited his grandchildren
every day after work. On Friday night, his grandchildren would go to his house for Shabbos
dinner. Though Douglas adored her grandfather, she knew very little about his upbringing in Kovno, Lithuania. "I thought we weren’t allowed to talk about it, that if you did, you would hurt the family," she recalls. Some 25 years after her grandfather died, Douglas paid a visit to her childhood home and stumbled upon a series of forgotten family photographs. "These were people I’d never seen before. They dressed well, like they were from a city," recalls Douglas, who imagined her ancestors as "shtetl peasants. I was shocked. … They shattered my identity. How could it be that I did not know my own story?" It would be another 15 years before Douglas found herself knee-deep in passenger ship records, census counts and "The Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto" as she searched for family roots. Finally, as a woman in her 50s, Douglas learned how her grandfather escaped conscription into the czar’s army by fleeing to America. Two years later, his brother Max followed. She discovered how other relatives got herded into the Kovno Ghetto and how her great-grandmother Chaya had the good fortune to die of natural causes. |
A broadcast journalist who spent her life telling the stories of
other people, Douglas decided to apply years of professional expertise to her own personal
history. The resulting documentary, My Grandfather’s House,
records a family saga that many Jews will find familiar yet manages to remain fresh
and poignant.
"It’s a compellingly made, tightly woven story,"
says Ken Sherman, the director of film and media at Makor, who has viewed the documentary.
"It’s not an unfamiliar story but it has an emotional kick."
Currently under consideration at PBS, My
Grandfather’s House had been initially screened as part of the
prestigious "No Borders" section of the Independent Feature Film Market. Still a
work-in-progress, the film, written and narrated by Douglas, unfolds like a personal diary
as it chronicles the events that lead to the filmmaker’s trip to Kovno, where
accompanied by her adult daughter, she searches for the home where her grandfather lived.
"I leave New York, not even sure I have the right address. I don’t know what
possesses me," her voice narrates as the viewer watches her first cry in a taxi on
the way to the airport and later, at the grave of her great-grandmother in Kovno.
Kneeling in a lush, green cemetery, bearing stones that relatives
gave her to place on this ancestral grave, Douglas finally knows where her grandfather
comes from and "where I come from. More importantly, I know who you loved …
I’m not in the dark anymore."
In the Upper West Side office she shares with her business
partner Ron Steinman, the now-54-year-old Douglas, a youthful looking, contemplative woman
with large, soulful eyes, attempts to address the issue of possession. "I’m a
reporter, I don’t like mysteries," she first says. Then, she delves further into
the question of motivation. "My grandfather died suddenly when I was 12 and I never
got to say goodbye. He was the first death I experienced. Afterwards, I saw our family
shrink."
The detective work involved in making the film put Douglas
in touch with over 30 family members in North America, Russia and Israel that she either
never met or had not heard from in years. "I went looking for a house but instead
wound up with all these relatives," observes Douglas, whose grandfather’s house
had been torn down. "That’s the most important thing, that I’ve got my
family back, both living and dead."
Rachel Zients, Douglas’ 29-year-old daughter who lives
in Los Angeles, admits that while she "was not the easiest person to travel
with" to Eastern Europe, she never thought twice when her mother asked if she would
accompany her to Kovno. "For some reason, my mother needed to go there and wherever
she goes, I go," she says. "My mother was widowed at a young age and we spent so
much time equating family with just the two of us. It’s so ironic that we have family
all over the world now."
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The 66-year-old
Steinman, a veteran news producer for NBC
and ABC who co-produced My Grandfather’s House, views his
partner’s quest as "reversing the breaking of the glass, of restoring a family
to one piece. At first, I didn’t believe in the project," he says. "I
didn’t know much about my own family but it wasn’t an issue for me. But then
Eileen started feeding me all this archival material and I saw a subtext. I also saw how
passionate she was about her own story and I thought, ‘if you have these things going
for you, then you can’t miss.’ " After working together on several projects for ABC-TV’s Lifetime Magazine, Douglas and Steinman decided to form their own production company and shoot documentaries that would focus on personal histories and character studies. "I’ve done enough global stories in my life," says Steinman. Working with Douglas on My Grandfather’s House has inspired Steinman to interview his 91-year-old mother about his own family. "Before, I had never cared to ask how my mother’s father had fled Odessa," he says. "Now, I’m learning things I never knew and my mother is opening up." |
For Steinman, who grew up in the 1950s among relatives "who
did not talk," making the documentary has led to a similar discovery of "aunts
and cousins with wonderful stories to tell. It has also made me feel so proud to be
Jewish," he says. "As a kid, I never experienced overt anti-Semitism but my
family’s way was not to let people know we were Jewish until it seemed OK to do
so."
Finances permitting, Douglas and Steinman hope to complete the
film by April. "My ultimate fantasy is to have a family reunion where the relatives
from Russia, Israel and America are all in one place and we all watch the film
together," says Douglas. For now, "I feel exceedingly fulfilled. There are no
more unanswered questions or unresolved good-byes. There’s a closure I’m
grateful to have."
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