Documentary reveals extraordinary heroism from ordinary couple

The documentary film “50 Children: The Rescue of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus” tells the remarkable story of a seemingly unremarkable couple from Philadelphia who, in 1939, traveled to Nazi Austria and overcame both German and American bureaucratic obstacles to save 50 Jewish children from almost certain death in the Holocaust.

The story of the late Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus was virtually unknown until their granddaughter Liz showed her husband, Steven Pressman, a journal written by her grandmother years earlier. A veteran journalist who specialized in law and legal matters, Pressman was inspired to exhaustively research, write, produce and direct “50 Children,” which premiered on HBO in the spring of 2013.

On Sunday, Oct. 18 at the Elaine Wolf Theatre, Pressman will discuss his wife’s grandparents and the film he created about their heroic actions at the Fred Marcus Memorial Holocaust Lecture, part of MACC’s JAAMM Festival at the JCC. The Emmy-nominated film, narrated by Alan Alda, will be shown prior to Pressman’s lecture.

In a telephone interview last week with the Intermountain Jewish News from his home in San Francisco, where he has lived for 26 years, Pressman, a Los Angeles native, discussed how the Krauses’ story affected him personally, the process by which he used cinema to chronicle their story and the lessons their example has for the world today.

He also displayed emotional courage in discussing the death in August of his wife Liz, who appears in “50 Children,” after a years-long battle with breast cancer, and how her passing has affected the way he regards the film he created about her grandparents.

IJN: Please describe the process by which you learned of the story of Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus.

Pressman: “It’s kind of embarrassing when I think back to that time. Liz and I met in San Francisco in the summer of 2000. We each had been married before so this was the second time around for each of us. We got married in the fall of 2001.

“Somewhere around that time Liz said there was something she wanted to show me. She showed me this manuscript that was kind of gathered together in a folder, all typed out. It was something that her grandmother, Eleanor Kraus, had written that spelled out this entire story. Nobody knows exactly when Eleanor wrote that, but at some point she sat down, luckily for all of us, and wrote out what she and her husband Gil had done to rescue these children.

“My first thought was that I was reading a novel or something like that. I didn’t fully grasp the true significance of what I was reading. Even when Liz said, ‘No, this is really what my grandparents did,’ I didn’t fully grasp the true historical significance of this story.

“So it just kind of got shoved to the side for a number of years. It was not until several years later, five or six years ago, when I was looking for a new project, something to do, that I went back to that manuscript. It wasn’t until then, when I really had the time to focus on it, that it hit me. Liz and I talked about it a great deal more and that’s when it dawned on me that it was this incredible story that had never, ever, been told publicly at all. There were even some members of Liz’s own family who knew next to nothing about this story.

“So I’m a little embarrassed to say that I had this great scoop, eight or nine years earlier, and I never paid much attention to it.

“Even when I realized I was talking about this unlikely couple having done what they did, what I didn’t know . . . is that as far as anybody could tell, what they did represents the single largest single group of children who came as a group into the US throughout the entirety of the Holocaust.

“There were lots of adults and children who were saved during the Holocaust but in terms of 50 unaccompanied children sent off by their parents, this appears to have been the largest single group.

“Once I realized that, that elevated the historical significance of this story, and the unlikeliness of this story, to an even greater level. At that point I knew that I had to tell the story.”

You use the word “unlikely” to describe them. Could you elaborate on that?

“I use that word advisedly. I never knew Gil and Eleanor Kraus and now I feel like I know these people as well as anybody could, although in many ways they have remained enigmas.

“But they were unlikely heroes. These were very secular Jews, a Jewish couple who were not immersed in synagogue or religious life. Gil was a fairly successful business lawyer and his wife was very attractive, not really a socialite but in that general category. She liked to entertain, liked dinner parties, liked to dress well.

“In other words, not the kind of people you would expect to have done what they did — leave their own children behind, go into Nazi Germany and do all these things. Nothing they had done up to that point in their lives led to the remote possibility that they would do something like this.”

You must have had to do a significant amount of historical and documentary research to fill out the story beyond Mrs. Kraus’ written account.

“Absolutely. As valuable a source document as Eleanor’s manuscript was, that really was only the blueprint. I made the decision early on that I was not going to accept as gospel truth everything — or anything — she said. By the time I started working on the documentary film, in the early part of 2010, members of the family had brought the manuscript to the attention of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. I quickly connected with them as well and they also, astonishingly, had never heard of this story.

“Much more than me, they’re the scholars in this area. They were absolutely delighted to hear about it but they certainly weren’t going to accept it as accurate simply because somebody had given them this manuscript. So they did their own research and quickly confirmed that basically everything that Eleanor had said was true. I was able to piggyback off some of the research that the Holocaust Museum had already done at this point, as well as [use] my own research.

“Most importantly, I immediately began trying to find many of the rescued children which nobody had done. Luckily, many of them were still alive. These were young kids at the time. By the time I started on the project the youngest one was in their late 70s. Many of them were well into their 80s. Fortunately I was able to find some of them and interview a number of them . . . and even though the focus of the film was always going to be on Gil and Eleanor and what they were doing, the rescued children added a whole other dimension to the story that is not reflected really at all in Eleanor’s manuscript.

“So with the research that I was able to do myself and with the help of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and finding other primary source documents at the US State Department that referred to this mission, slowly I was able to put together the full puzzle about this mission.”

What is here for people to learn? What lessons can be taught by the Krauses’ example?

“The most basic lesson in all this, which is as powerful today as it was during the Holocaust, is that ordinary people always have at least the potential to do extraordinary things. Gil and Eleanor were ordinary in the sense that they didn’t have any special connections. Gil didn’t have special access to information from the State Department. He just was somebody who was ultimately motivated to do the right thing.

“For me, the story of what Gil and Eleanor did, in saving 50 children (and also many of their family members who were able to leave once the children were here) is a powerful reminder that all of us as ordinary people have at least the potential to do incredible things if we just set our minds to do it.

“Think about it. That resonates today when the headlines have been filled for the last couple of years with heartbreaking stories of refugees and would-be immigrants from all corners of the earth. A year ago we had tens of thousands of children trying to get into this country, being sent off by their parents in Central America who were desperate to send their kids into this country. And now in the last couple of months we’re seeing every day this flow of refugees into Europe, from Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

“It’s the same today as it was in the 30s. Nations are often very reluctant to let folks in. It often takes brave, courageous individuals who stand up and say, ‘We need to do the right thing.’

“That’s what Gil and Eleanor did when their own country, when this country was putting more roadblocks in the way than what the Nazis were doing. To me that’s the ultimate perverse irony of this story.”

If it were possible, through whatever means, for you to actually communicate with the Krauses today, what would you say to them?

“Other than the obvious — to tell them how greatly I admire them and what a courageous thing it was they did — I think I would ask them what ultimately was it that motivated them to do what they did.

“I have to say that as much as I know about this mission from beginning to end, because there is a paper trail and I now have the research and the documents to confirm the incredible obstacles that they had to overcome, the question that I’m still not able to fully answer is why.

“Why they did it when so many other people were just sitting back. What were they thinking? What was going through their minds?

“I know a little bit about this from Eleanor’s own writing. She does describe the sense of fear when they set foot into Nazi Germany but that’s not really what I’m looking for. I want to know what prompted Gil at the very outset to immediately say, ‘I’m going to do this.’

“Why? Why? What was it? I would hope that whatever answer I would get from Gil or Eleanor it would be something that might potentially inspire somebody today to say, ‘If they can do it, I can do it.’

“My wife Liz knew her grandparents very well later in life and she was aware throughout her life of what they had done, although she didn’t know the details. They never really talked about themselves and unfortunately she never really talked to them about it.

“So they remain mysterious in the way that a lot of rescuers are. I’ve learned a little bit about the psychology of people who rescued folks during the Holocaust. A common thread is they rarely talk about what they did. They didn’t want to draw attention to themselves. That’s not why they were doing this, so it becomes very difficult years later to answer the question ‘why.’

“That question ‘why’ still remains a mystery and maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe there are some questions that can never be fully answered.”

After your wife passed away this past summer, has the film become a way for you to provide a tribute or memorial to her?

“To state the obvious, this was not my intention going in. At the outset, Liz said, ‘Look, Steve, I’m handing you over this story of my grandparents, but it’s your film, you’re telling the story.’ There’s no way this film ever would have been made without her because she’s the one who handed over this story to me.

“I always thought of this film not as a tribute to her, of course, but as a long-delayed tribute to her grandparents and the legacy that they created. And now, with Liz just now passing away, it is not so much a tribute to her but my way of thanking her and remembering her. I say this with incredibly mixed emotions. Talking about this with you is the first time I’ve talked about this with anybody.

“Now when I watch the film, there’s a vibrant Liz on the screen talking about her grandparents. I see my wife, in her beauty and in her intelligence and her wit, living and sharing this story, knowing that she’s no longer here to share it with me.

“I’m fumbling around here, but yes, for me now, it is a deeply personal way of staying connected with Liz, as well as sharing the story.”

Reservations are necessary to attend Steve Pressman’s talk and the screening of “50 Children,” Oct. 18, at the JCC. Information: 303-316-6360.

Chris Leppek may be reached at IJNEWS@aol.com.

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