Producer of KNOCKING posts at my guest list, Barbara Anderson replies (page 8)

AlanF

For the record, to date I've received no reply from Engardia.

AlanF

sf

Here is at least one of the people who were filmed for the project:

http://isurvived.org/Kempler-Survivor.html

alt

Joseph Kempler paused as he looked at a picture of a man so thin that his spine was showing through his stomach.

"This is about 60 pounds," Kempler said. "This is about what I weighed when I was freed from the concentration camps."

After spending three years in concentration camps, Kempler was less than 24 hours away from starvation the day the American troops liberated the prisoners.

"We were lying there dead pretty much," he said. "We couldn't move."

Kempler, 74, spoke to University of Nevada, Reno students while being filmed for a documentary by PBS .

The documentary, with the working title "Knocking," is an attempt to portray how Jehovah's Witnesses were persecuted during the Holocaust.

Kempler, who was raised Jewish, remembers seeing Jehovah's Witnesses in the camps. Years after the war, he decided to become a Jehovah's Witness himself.

Co-producer and co-director of the film, Joel Engardio, said Jehovah's Witnesses were among the first group of individuals to be persecuted by Adolf Hitler.

Even though they were a small group, Hitler found them very irritating because they were opposed to his stance. By 1935, the religion was banned and Jehovah's Witnesses who defied this were imprisoned in concentration camps, he said.

"They were the only voluntary prisoners of the Holocaust," Engardio said. "Since they were Aryan, the so-called 'master race', they were offered a declaration card to sign. If they pledged their allegiance to Hitler, they could be free to leave."

Kempler said he was amazed by the Jehovah's Witnesses he met in the camps because they all refused to sign anything that would free them.

"They could always take this way out," he said. "But they wouldn't."

After the war, Kempler met Jehovah's Witnesses again when he found his sister, his only relative who was still alive.

She had been saved by a family of Jehovah's Witnesses, he said, and hidden away from the Nazis for two years.

"Jehovah's Witnesses kept coming up in my life," he said.

Then in the mid 1950's, he converted to the religion when a group of Jehovah's Witnesses came knocking at his New York City apartment.

He remembered them from the camps. And he remembered them as being the people who kept his sister hidden away. So he let them in.

"When I met Jehovah's Witnesses I saw they were not damaged," he said. "They were still intact. How could they survive without the suffering and mental damage I had?"

"People can survive without shutting down and come back stronger than before," he said.

There was no emotion in Kempler's voice when he spoke about the concentration camps. He spoke of the cold nights without blankets and the long days of working in the snow without shoes. But never once did his eyes water or his voice waiver.

His feelings were hidden away so deep, he said, that he felt completely detached from the reality.

Even on the day he was liberated, he said he felt no joy because he was too numb.

"We were no longer humans," he said.

In the attempt to survive, many prisoners resorted to cannibalism by cutting the flesh off of dead bodies.

"Survivalism was more important," he said. "The only thing was to survive."

sf

Young artists on the verge
Shepard is working with co-director Joel Engardio on "Knocking," a documentary
about the Jehovah's Witnesses. "Everybody knows the Jehovah's Witnesses ...
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/ chronicle/archive/2002/08/25/PK222694.DTL - 29k - Cached - Similar pages :

A portion therein:

Shepard is working with co-director Joel Engardio on "Knocking," a documentary about the Jehovah's Witnesses. "Everybody knows the Jehovah's Witnesses because they've knocked on everybody's doors, but most people don't know their history. They've definitely been scorned and misrepresented in the media.
"They've gone before the U.S. Supreme Court 46 times on First Amendment- related cases and won 35 times." Another fact: Witnesses were incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and some who were released in 1938 confiscated diagrams proving the camps existed. Those diagrams were published in Watchtower magazine, but not taken seriously.

News
... My name is Joel Engardio with the national ACLU. Josh Freker of Action Wisconsin
suggested I contact you. ... Thank you for your assistance. Joel Engardio. ...
www.lgbtcenters.org/news/news_item.asp?NewsID=1808 - 42k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages

HIV & AIDS - Ignoring the Flames
Of course, there's the typical goody-two-shoes style of SF Weekly, where Joel
Engardio, before he has even reported what ACT UP SF is saying, smothers the ...
www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/cfflames.htm - 14k - Cached - Similar pages

Tom Shepard

Tom Shepard:. Scout's Honor. Producer's Web Site: www.scouts-honor.com. Tom Shepard produced and directed Scout's Honor, an ITVS-funded documentary about ...
www.newday.com/filmmakers/Tom_Shepard.html - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

Contact: Tom Shepard

Contact Tom Shepard. Please complete the form and push the "Send Message" button to send an email to the filmmaker. We will not save or share your email ...
www.newday.com/contact_filmmaker.lasso?fm=cIQ@c!JG - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

Shepard is currently co-directing and producing a documentary in association with the Independent Television Service (ITVS) about Jehovah's Witnesses and their contributions to medicine and civil liberties

Has anyone contacted Mr. Shepard?

sKally

sf

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2001/scoutshonor/thefilmmaker.html

A more recent photo:

Tom Shepard co-produced and edited CAMP LAVENDER HILL, an award-winning documentary about the first summer camp in the U.S. for children with gay and lesbian parents. It aired on public television, Free Speech Television, and CNN's International Insight, and has won a number of awards including the National Educational Media Network Apple. Previously, Shepard worked as an editor at National Public Radio for Linda Wertheimer and PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. At NPR, he co-produced LISTENING TO AMERICA, an audio documentary on the history of public radio in America. He graduated from Stanford University where he majored in biology and film.

"For me, the path to becoming a documentary filmmaker began in journalism. For several years, I worked in public television and radio as writer, researcher, and editor.

In the United States, daily journalism serves as a fourth branch of government and, if practiced responsibly, provides an essential resource for public discourse. Oftentimes, however, the confines of a one-page newspaper story or a three-minute television segment prevent stories from being told comprehensively or emotionally.

In long-form documentary, a director can spend the time to invest his or her audiences into the film's characters and the story lines they traverse. The very devices that Hollywood uses to construct feature films, that is, three act story structures, character development, and conflict/resolution devices, can also be implemented in the documentary. As a craftsperson, I am drawn to documentary for these reasons. As a social activist, I am drawn to documentary as a vehicle for social change.

While daily journalism can report facts and events, it is not often able to change deeply held attitudes or beliefs, especially ones regarding volatile issues such as sexual orientation, race, or class. I make films to challenge beliefs and give voice to those in society whose experiences have been overlooked, misrepresented or vilified. If viewers can identify and empathize with characters on screen as they are drawn into a story, there is a greater likelihood that misperceptions, stereotypes, and ignorance can give way to deeper understanding and compassion.

As democracy becomes ever more predicated on understanding cultural differences, I see documentary film as a powerful tool to bridge misunderstandings, create forums for thoughtful dialogue and, ultimately, diminish the walls that divide us as a nation."

outnfree

Nice work, skally!

Shepherd looks worth contacting as well. Thanks for the heads up!

outnfree

AndersonsInfo

I sent Tom Sheperd a protest e-mail at the end of June. However, I have not received a reply from him.

Shepherd's e-mail addy: [email protected]

An XJW in Scotland received a reply from Joel Engardio, Sheperd's KNOCKING producer partner, stating that KNOCKING has received over 4,000 e-mails protesting the content of the documentary.

Now, if only we can send as many e-mails to PBS and ITVS in protest!!!

Barbara

sf

~bump~

Gerard

though the Bethel organization in Brooklyn, Patterson and Wallkill, New York has been cooperative with the producers of this film. It is important to know that this project is independently produced for public television, using public funds.

Bastards.

sf

~knocking...thread to top~

ozziepost

Great stuff!

Keep up the good work.

Producer of KNOCKING posts at my guest list, Barbara Anderson replies

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