Dara Bratt and Michelle Rose: Tattoos, The Evolution of Holocaust Remembrance
The real question isn't simply whether Judaism prohibits tattoos. We know the Torah speaks against them. Holocaust survivors imprisoned at Auschwitz II-Birkenau did not choose their tattooed numbers — they were an act of degradation and dehumanization. But what happens when descendants of Holocaust survivors choose to use that traditionally prohibited practice as an act of sacred remembrance? Is this a break with tradition, or an attempt to fulfill one of Judaism's greatest commandments: Zachor— to remember?
In this powerful episode of TO BE CONTINUED..., Rabbi Jeff Salkin sits down with award-winning documentary filmmaker Dara Bratt and third-generation Holocaust descendant Michelle Eckstein Rose to explore one of the most unexpected and moving expressions of Holocaust remembrance today: commemorative tattoos. Dara shares the story behind her acclaimed short documentary Inked: Our Stories Remarked, which follows children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors who have chosen to etch their family's Holocaust legacy onto their bodies. Michelle opens up with her grandmother Anita Eckstein's extraordinary story of survival in Nazi-occupied Poland, and the deeply personal tattoos she carries in her grandmother's and her great-grandfather's honor. Together, they challenge us to ask what it truly means to remember, to reclaim, and to pass a legacy forward, and whether something some consider religiously prohibitive can become an act of devotion. This is an episode about "ink", identity, resilience, and the evolving ways each generation carries the legacy of the Holocaust. It will spur conversations; it will stay with you long after you listen.
Michelle Rose is a third-generation descendant of four Holocaust survivors and a passionate community activist dedicated to Holocaust remembrance, education, and justice. Raised with the stories of her grandparents woven into the fabric of her identity, Michelle was particularly shaped by her grandmother Anita Eckstein, a prominent Holocaust educator and survivor who escaped Nazi persecution through extraordinary acts of courage and kindness from righteous gentiles. Michelle lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband and two young sons.
Dara Bratt is an award-winning director and film producer whose work has screened at prestigious festivals around the world, including Tribeca, SXSW, and the Abu Dhabi International Film Festival. Known for shining a light on extraordinary and unconventional stories, Dara was drawn to the powerful and little-known phenomenon of Holocaust commemorative tattoos after a conversation with a professor researching how tattoos can heal trauma. That curiosity led her to create Inked: Our Stories Remarked, a short documentary exploring how grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are etching family memory onto their bodies as acts of identity, resilience, and education. In June 2024, the film took first place in the Claims Conference Emerging Filmmaker Contest, chosen from 35 submissions across nine countries. Since its 2025 premiere, the film has screened at festivals and cultural institutions across North America. The film has received Best Female Director at the Istanbul Women Film Awards, Best Short Documentary at the New York Women Film Festival, and Best Historical Documentary at the Milan Indie Film Festival. It has also been featured in university classrooms at Loyola University New Orleans and Tulane University, where Bratt has guest lectured on Holocaust memory, identity, documentary storytelling, and intergenerational legacy.
TRANSCRIPT:
This episode is generously sponsored by Susan Singer in honor of her parents Yolanda and Siegmund Joseph, courageous Holocaust survivors from Czechoslovakia, who kept the memory of their lost families alive.
You've heard it your whole life. If you get a tattoo, you can't be buried in a Jewish cemetery. That might, or it might not, be true. Yes, of course, the prohibition is real. It's right there in the Book of Leviticus. It's unambiguous to not cut your bodies for the dead, or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord. But the cemetery thing -- in all likelihood -- it is probably a piece of communal folklore. It was a cautionary tale, most likely. The Jewish authorities invented it in order to keep Jews away from the needle and the ink. And yet, it hasn't exactly worked as a deterrent. It did for a while, but not in our time, tattoos have become something we could not have imagined a generation ago. The tattoo has become a fashion statement. and makes the body a canvas for identity.
But you see, for Holocaust survivors... tattoos were not a choice. They were a mark of degradation. People decided that Jews were not people, but rather commodities, and they etched those numbers into their flesh. But for some of their children and grandchildren, that same act, marking the body, has become something almost unrecognizable. It has become a way to remember, a way to reclaim, a way to carry stories that might otherwise disappear. So you might ask what happens when an ancient prohibition meets a modern hunger for memory? What does it mean when the very medium that Jewish law discourages becomes, for some descendants of survivors, a powerful and indelible act of bearing witness? It makes the body into a canvas of Jewish memory.
Welcome to our podcast TO BE CONTINUED... Reflections on Growing Up with Holocaust Survivors. where we explore the intersections of memory, identity, and resilience. Our goal: to lift up the experiences of children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, and to ask, how do those memories form you? How did resilience create you as the person you are today, and what is the legacy that you will leave to those who come after you?
I am your host, Rabbi Jeff Salkin. Today, we're speaking with Dara Bratt, producer of the short documentary "Inked, Our Stories Remarked". And Michelle Eckstein Rose, a third generation descendant, whose own experience appears in the film. But before we start our discussion, let me tell you about our guests.
Dara Bratt is an award-winning director and film producer. Collectively, her films have screened all over the world, including the Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW, Canne, the Abu Dhabi International Film Festival, and more. She is the recipient of many awards and grants. In June 2024, out of 35 submissions from nine countries, Dara took the first place prize in the Claims Conference emerging filmmaker contest, which focused on films about the Shoah, for her proposed documentary, "Inked: Our Stories Remarked", which is the basis of our conversation today. Gregory Schneider is the executive vice president of the Claims Conference, and this is what he said, "Dara has not only created a film, but she sparked a conversation into a movement few knew about. A conversation that has quietly unfolded within families". Now, there may be some of you who don't know what the Claims Conference does, so let me tell you. They are an international nonprofit organization that secures material compensation for Holocaust survivors around the world, and also seeks the return of Jewish property that was stolen during the Holocaust.
Michelle Eckstein Rose is the granddaughter of four holocaust survivors. She is a passionate voice for remembrance, education, and justice. While all four of her grandparents embody resilience, it was her grandmother, Anita Helfgott Eckstein, who devoted her life to Holocaust education, and she inspired Michelle's own calling. Anita's dedication, her courage, her unwavering commitment to "Never Forget" became the foundation for Michelle's life's mission. which is to assure that we never repeat the past. Michelle is a community activist. She works tirelessly to combat antisemitism. She works to promote Holocaust education. She fosters understanding across generations. Michelle lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband and her two young boys.
Welcome to both of you. It's so great to have you here. Thank you so much for having me here. I am very excited.
Dara, "Inked: Our Stories Remarked" is such a perfect title for this film, and I have to tell you, I've watched this film. I have found it very moving. It's really a very important piece of work. I wish, I wish we could just make sure that everyone, who is concerned with Holocaust memory, gets to see it, 'cause this film is an exploration into a very complex phenomenon. Wherein children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are processing this intergenerational trauma by getting tribute tattoos. And so the documentary explores this decision. What does it mean to etch history onto the body? It's an act that invites us to confront essential questions about memory, Jewish identity, and self expression. The movie really, as I said, moved me. So let me ask you, what first inspired you to create this documentary? Was there a particular moment when you realized that this is a story that you needed to tell?
Well, first of all, thank you so much for the kind of words and for watching the film. I think, for myself, as a filmmaker, regardless of the film that I'm making, I'm always interested in ideas that are a little bit out there, like, shining a light on something a little out of the ordinary, and letting it sit with audiences, and letting them decide if it's extraordinary, or what they, what the takeaway is. And for me, this is one of those ideas. It was not something I knew about that much. Um, I have a friend who's a professor who was studying how tattoos heal trauma. And she was looking at the wide scope of what that encompasses, whether it was women tattooing their breasts after mastectomy, whether it's LQBTQ getting the pink triangle. It was reclaiming something that was traumatic and turning it into a story of positivity. One of the areas that she was focused on was commemorative Holocaust tattoos. And so that was my first introduction to the topic. At the same time, I saw that the Claims Conference was having their annual submissions for the grant, for a short document, documentary or narrative, that explored Holocaust education. And I thought, well, I'll apply, but this idea is so out there, I doubt they'll choose mine. Because I always have a little bit of the wild ideas. And so, first, I made it to the finals, and there was round two, and I had to speak about my project, to the jury, and then I found out that I won. So that's kind of how it came to fruition. And after that, it became this rabbit hole of just meeting people that would become the subjects in the film and learning so much more about it. And the whole story around it, the different points of view, which, as you know, I try to include in the film, which I'm sure we'll talk about.
I really need to ask you, how and why do tattoos become such a powerful way for people to express the inheritance of these memories and these traumas?
Well, I think it's a couple things. Firstly, I'm very interested in storytelling and how we tell stories, and I think, you know, looking back in history, we've gone from oral storytelling to written storytelling. Younger generations are visual, they're more graphic. I mean, we literally text people in just emojis, and it makes sense. So I think tattoos are a natural progression of a graphic, more visual language. And I also think it's with time changing the narrative. You know, tattoos, especially ones that were forced on prisoners, reclaiming that, you know, having some time to look back on something, saying, you know what, I'm gonna change the narrative of this, instead of being a victim, I'm gonna be a survivor. I'm gonna use this; I'm going to show it proudly. And I'm gonna embody memory with this. So I think, for me, those were the things that interested me, that I wanted to explore more, how tattoos tell stories, how they carry legacy forward. And I also, like I said, when I first started, I was not aware that this was a thing, and I think post October 7th, I started getting all these friends, um, sending me, um, stories about people in Israel, tattooing themselves, like, "We Will Dance Again". Um, it didn't fit into the scope of what the short film was about, and I stayed in my lane of, like, we were talking about the Holocaust here. But I do think that tattoos have become more prevalent. as a way of reclaiming trauma into a story that is healing.
It's funny that you mention Israel, because the first Jews, whom I ever encountered, who had tattoos, were, in fact, Israelis.
So, Michelle, you're a third generation descendant, a 3G. And so, I'd like to ask you, what role did Holocaust memory play in your childhood and your family life? Tell us a little about your grandmother, Anita Eckstein, who I believe is the grandparent that you were closest to.
Um, okay. Let's dive into it. So, I never have a memory where I didn't know that I was the child, the grandchild of Holocaust survivors. There was never a moment where I didn't know who I was. All four of my grandparents were very vocal on what they endured, what they had been through, and what we were the product of. That being said, I don't necessarily say that my grandmother and I were the closest. She's just, God bless, the one around the longest. Um, but she is the one who was the most vocal about her Holocaust, um, story, and she's the one that fuels my reason for doing what I do. I believe that I picked up a torch that my soon to be 92-year-old grandmother has put down, but not turned off. Um, about my grandmother, so she was born in July of 1934, in Synowodzko Wyzne. She was an only child to Ethel and Fischel Helfgott. The first time she actually was in hiding was in the summer of 1941. There was a Ukrainian pogrom happening where she was, and her family's landlord said, "Come, and I will hide you in the hayloft, in the barn behind our house". His wife never knew about it. People came and went, and for two weeks, my grandmother hid and played hide and seek with her mom and dad for the first time in her life. That was when, um, she... heard the phrase, "This too shall pass", for the first time, um, and that is now actually one of the tattoos that I have on my body. After the pogrom was finished and she came out of hiding, that's when the anti-Jewish laws started happening in her town, and after a little while, they were deported as a family to the Scole ghetto. Once they were in the Scole ghetto, conditions were awful. She lived in a house with three bedrooms, with 18 other people. Um, wasn't very, uh, a good place to be. And in 1942, she was going to go to the market one day with her mother, and at the last second, her mother said, "It's a nice day out. Go play with your neighbor instead." And on her way to the market, her mother was picked up by truck and taken directly to Belzec, and that was the last we ever saw of her. Um, out of desperation, my great grandfather Fischel, he became friends with a local shopkeeper, a Catholic gentleman, um, and basically did the unthinkable, and said, "Can you help?" And this Catholic man, this righteous gentile, um, did the one thing that has left a ripple effect in my family line, and he decided to help. He smuggled my grandmother in a sack of potatoes, and then a buggy, um, a horse and buggy, took her out of the ghetto, into his home, where they gave her a new name, and a name with Catholic identity. She was there for about six months before she was denounced by a neighbor. Um, it was February. It was winter in Poland, and she was home with the niece of the Catholic savior Joseph, and this niece picked my eight-year-old grandmother up, and threw her out a second-floor window, and said, "Run". My eight-year-old grandmother, in the snow, no shoes, and just a nighty, ran into an outhouse where she hid until it was dark. While she was in hiding, the house was ransacked, as well as, she heard lots of gunshots. She found out that the house had been ransacked, and they didn't find anything, and the gunshots were other hidden Jews that they had found during that day in the town that had been murdered. At this point, Joseph and his family knew they couldn't keep Anita, keep my grandma anymore, out of their own safety. So Joseph actually brought my grandmother back to my great-grandfather the same way she was brought in -- in the sack of potatoes, in the horse and buggy, back to the slave labor camp, where my great-grandfather now was. Um, the town of Scole had been liquidated from about 2,000 people to 20. And my great-grandfather was one of those 20. Now, being as it was a slave labor camp, there was nowhere to hide my grandmother. Um, out of fear of her being found. They had a little bunker, the police, house, if you will, and had an armoire in it, and my grandmother spent seven weeks, day and night, in the armoire, locked away out of fear of being found, while her dad went to work. Um, it was awful conditions. There were dead bodies some days thrown into the room. She never knew if her dad was going to come back or not. It wasn't the place that an eight-year-old should be for that length of time. Again, knowing that this wasn't the way to do it, um, my great-grandfather reached back out to Joseph and said, "Please, help me again, find something different", and Joseph managed to get a local parish priest to fake some birth certificates, and my grandmother's identity now became Anna Jerowska. Um, and then my grandmother and her father said their final goodbyes. And it was during their final goodbye, my great-grandfather said to my grandma "You must be good, you must be independent, and you must always remember who you are. And, um, "Always Remember Who You Are" is my second tattoo, and that commemorates, um, the Holocaust for me. So she lived, my grandmother lives with this priest. Um, she learned, relearned schooling. She learned Catholicism, but she always kept her promise to her father that, you know, I am a Jewish girl. I will survive. I will do everything. Um, when she was finally liberated, once the war ended, she was reunited with Joseph's family, where she finally learned the fate of her father, who, unfortunately, um, when he was done working for the Germans, they shot him. She did have a happy reunition with my Aunt Sally, who herself has her own story. She was saved by Oskar Schindler. And together, the two of them started the next phase of life. They moved around Poland for a bit, finding other family members. Um, and then moved to Paris, where my great aunt met a man, um, who also survived with his two-year-old daughter, and now my grandma finally had a family. She had, more or less, two acting parents and a sister. Um, they left Europe, they came to Canada. She was 14 years old, with very little education, started schooling here. At about 17 or 18, she met my grandfather. She married Frank. Together, they had three kids. All together, they have eight grandchildren, plus spouses, and all together, we all have 11 great grandchildren to give to my grandma. Um, she is a Holocaust, until she was unable to, she was a Holocaust educator, she went on the March for Living 20 times. She's a very prominent survivor here in our Toronto community. And her legacy, at the end of the day, isn't just her story. It's all of us.
Dara, we heard about Michelle's tattoos. and both of which carry very powerful messages. Can you tell us about some of the other 3G, third generation tattoos that the film would show to us?
Yeah, so when I started the research to find their generations, descendants, and I knew I wanted to focus on the grandchildren. It seemed like it was the grandchildren who were more open to tattooing, I think, with a little bit more time. Um, it's easier for them to kind of, kind of, um, interpret the stories and bring them to life more than, like, 2Gs. So, I focus on 3Gs, and initially, I was looking for commemorative Holocaust tattoos, that's subjects who have the numbers, the Auschwitz numbers, re-tattooed on their arms. And what I realized, and what I try and share with audiences, because I realized not everybody knows this, but there were only a couple concentration camps that were tattooing their prisoners. People just think, oh, that's what they did. And it is what they did, and it's still an insane amount of numbers, because we know the numbers, millions, who went through the camps. But because not everyone has a tattoo, even including the Holocaust survivor featured in my film, I wanted to open up the door a little bit more to interpretation. Obviously, Michelle's stories are so powerful, and those tattoos are so meaningful that they are part of the conversation. Um, and I think in the film, those are the main ones that we see that are not the numbers. There are two brothers who have numbers tattooed. Their sister is included. Hers are not numbers, but she is covered in Jewish stars, um, evil eye. Like, all the symbols of Judaism. And also, our first subject, she has chai -- which is life, on her arm, and that was, for her, a way to carry her... to see the chai, to see the life, and to remember her zadie. Um, there is one of the brothers who has the numbers, and then he got a second tattoo, which I film on camera. It's the Hebrew lettering for "Am Yisrael Chai". I am with the people...with Israel. Um, and we filmed that on camera, and that was his second commemorative Holocaust. It's not exactly Holocaust specific, but it was inspired because he wanted to be, like, "Here I am as a proud Jew".
There is a tension between seeing these tattoos as acts of memory, and the fact that others might see them as controversial or taboo. How does the film navigate those tensions?
I mean, I think that's, for me, one of the most interesting things is starting a conversation. Um, as a filmmaker, it's not an exciting film if I'm just making a commercial, uh, public service announcement. Hey, everybody, like, this is great. Get a tattoo. And I'm not a 60 Minutes expose. Everybody, this is wrong. And so for me, I really wanted to highlight the conversation around it, the different perspectives, the different sides. I mean, even amongst the subjects featured on camera, other than the fact that they are the grandchildren, excluding the rabbi and the academic, you know, voices of credibility, They're very diverse. They're diverse in terms of, um, political, religious, sexual orientation. They run the gamut, and what brings them to the table and getting a tattoo, their stories are all slightly different. Um, and for me, it was also important to include the voices, you know, Marnie's sister Jody said, is not for it. She says there's other ways to carry education forward. Pinchas, the Holocaust survivor featured, does not support it. For him, it's very traumatic. And I wanted to include all of those opinions. I think... what I hope for is that it sparks a conversation. I don't need audiences to leave saying, "Oh, I get it. I'm for it, or, no, I don't like that". I just wanted to resonate and linger, and hopefully start more conversations. And just bring awareness to the fact that this is something.
So, Michelle, how did your grandma react to your tattoo?
So my first tattoo I actually got had nothing to do with the Holocaust. I grew up with my grandmother, saying you should never tattoo yourself -- "Please don't, please don't". Um, and as the grandchildren, we all kind of looked at each other, always saying, "You know, we want something, but we have to respect"... um, and my first tattoo has nothing to do with the Holocaust, it was actually a horse in honor of my grandfather, my grandpa Frank, Anita's husband, who passed away when I was 18. And my justification for that was, well, it's not just a random butterfly. It's in honor of grandpa. And then that's spawned my thinking towards what I wanted next. I knew the saying, "Always Remember Who You Are". It's always been part of my vernacular. It's something that has been ingrained in all of us grandchildren and my grandma's children, since we were kids. And I knew that was going to be a tattoo that was going to be on my body. And one day, I just did it, and I showed her, and she said, "That's nice". And that was kind of her reaction. It wasn't upset, it wasn't pleasure. It wasn't joy or anger. It was just, "that's very nice". And then, unfortunately, after that, her mental, her mental state had declined a little more, and we could never really get into it. Um, but I think, I think, I hope that she knows that I have good intentions, um, and that it's something that has built me. Um, she is not cognitively aware of my other tattoo of the, saying that says "This Too Shall Pass". Um, but again, that is something, actually, a couple of my other cousins also have it tattooed on their body, um, because this is such a prominent statement from our upbringing and helped to shape who we are. So I wish I could say more about my grandmother's emotions, but I don't have that. That being said, I did speak to a good friend of mine who's a Holocaust survivor from Toronto. And he said to me that my tattoos don't represent what my family lost, but they represent what they survived, what my family survived. And that that is something that can't be taken away from me, and that's my memory to bring forward. So I like to think that at least I have a blessing of some sort, from another survivor.
Do you see your tattoos as acts of memory, education, identity, a combination of the three?
All three. My, my, "This Too Shall Pass" in Hebrew is on my wrist, so it is almost always visible, and it does for a conversation. My "Always Remember Who You Are" is on my ribcage. That is a little more personal. And that is a story I'd share only when I want to. But I do think it is part of me. It's who I share. It's my identity. I love when people ask questions and want to know why I have it, or what's the meaning behind it, and when I tell people, fortunately, I end up with tears like Dara. But I think that's special, and that really... embodies what my grandmother wanted, which was just to educate, and share the stories over and over again.
If I interpret "This Too Shall Pass", I remember a traditional interpretation, which is that we tend to think that that is about the experience of bad things, and that those bad things will pass, and good things will happen. The opposite is also true, that we're living in the good, and that will pass, and bad things will happen, which is really an enduring lesson of Jewish history.
Yes, it's quite cyclical, and I actually bought my "This Too Shall Pass" just after my second son was born, knowing that, you know, the part that is... was hard happened, but the part that's hard is about to come, too. Um, and it, it's that what you just said, it's, it's very cyclical in life too, it's the balance.
And, Dara, we've often spoken on this podcast about the necessary balance between the trauma that we inherit and the resilience that we inherit. I'm wondering. Where did you see the resilience emerging in the stories that you collected and featured?
I mean, I think they're all resilient. I think I pretty much only featured the resilience. Um, you know, I feel like that every subject in this film was someone who said, I don't want to be remembered for, you know, as a victim, I'll be remembered as a survivor, or wanted to take the history of their grandparents. And, again, change the narrative that it's not gonna be... what you're saying a way of, like, remember what you gain, not what you lost. So I think these subjects, by taking, by saying, opening the door in a conversation, by not closing it, by not just saying, okay, forget the past, let's move on. But here it is, here it is on my arm. Or as one of my subjects says, if you're looking for a Jew, here I am, like, you know, and he's maybe a little more confrontational, but even Marnie, one of my subjects, who's a cancer survivor, who was going through really bad tongue cancer treatment, and she got that tattoo and said, "If my bubs could survive what she went through, I'm gonna look at this tattoo every day and not give up", just when she was thinking, I may not get through this treatment. And so I really do think that they found the strength of their grandparents to not only carry their legacies forward, but to find their own internal strength, resilience, as a person.
It's almost as if, if I may interpret it, that, the Holocaust was a gashing wound inflicted on the body of the Jewish people, and these are acts of memory that are etched into the bodies of individual Jews who carry those memories.
I mean, as you said earlier, it's a literal etching on the skin. It is one form of keeping education, you know, and legacy carried forward. And I think it's a bold choice. It's a courageous choice. Um, and I really respected my subjects for like sharing their stories on camera.
If survivors were listening to this conversation, and this is a question really, I'm directing at both of you, Dara and Michelle, what do you hope they would understand about the generations that have followed them?
I'll say one thing, it's before we screen this film, which I only shared with all the subjects at the screening, the first one was in Toronto in November. Um, and none of them had seen the film. I had shared it earlier with Pinchas because he's a 92- year-old survivor, and I was not going to make him wait. Having watched the film, you know that he's not a fan of tattoos. I share the film, and he loved it. He was so excited and asked if he could share it with his family. And I wasn't sure how he'd respond, because he's someone who so clearly has a point of view, that is not for the tattooing, and he really felt that though he hadn't changed his opinion, he respected the choice. And so I think it was interesting, and I also mentioned that he very much talks about storytelling, and he saw that tattoos are away of telling a story. He still would not necessarily go out and promote it. But he was, he was okay with the film and I, and there, I've been screening at film festivals. The reactions are not always for tattoos, but I think people just get it a little bit more or it resonates a little bit more. Um, we, you're asking about Holocaust survivors, but in Toronto, on our panel, we had a rabbi who was, leads a little bit more Conservative than the rabbi featured in my film, and I wasn't sure what his perspective would be. And he said that he was seeing more tattooing amongst his congregants, and he actually said that we have to be very careful what we tell other people what to do with their bodies. And that he was becoming more accepting of it. So I think it's, and I don't want to speak for other people, but the responses that I'm seeing and the feedback I'm seeing is that, it's either more prevalent, or people are processing it and being a little bit more open-minded.
And, Michelle, what do you think?
I think. Sorry.
Just repeating, if a survivor, were listening, what would you hope they would understand about the generations that have come after them?
I think it's important for them to know that we've seen you. We hear you, we heard you, and we've got you. You know, we heard your warnings, and we're seeing it now. Um, we heard the lessons, we're re-giving them to our children now. The memory, unfortunately, whether the survivors are still with us or not, it's not passive, it's work, it's a daily choice. And we need the stories, the survivors to remember that their stories didn't end there. It continues with each ripple, with each generation, and I would love to see every story told by another gen, by the next generation. Whether you're the descendant or not. We need our survivors to understand that we got you. We're not trying to make a mockery. We're not trying to insult you. We're not trying to hurt you. In each of our own ways, whether it's with words of wisdom given to my grandmother, or putting numbers on your body, or just putting a magen david. We are doing what we should have done for you had we been there eighty years ago.
And if there's one message that you would want listeners, our listeners, and those who see the film, to take away from that film, what do you hope it is?
So, I know Dara is gonna, like, my mic-drop moment, 'cause I did this on our panel, but to basically quote my great-grandfather and add my own little spin on it, you know, "we have to be good, be independent, and always remember who we are as a Jewish people". You know, we have to be good. We have to stand up for what's right, for even when it's hard, especially when it's hard. We need to be independent, and that goes for everybody. Enough with the herd mentality. We need to think for ourselves and think for what's right. And at the end of the day, we need to always remember who we are right here. And never be shamed into fighting that. That's my advice for the future.
And Dara?
Well, I can talk to the film specifically, but or I can say that, as a filmmaker, I'm such a big proponent of storytelling. I think it's so important to have a voice, and share our experiences, and not everyone will agree with them, and that is the point. The more conversations we have, the more education we have, the more we expand our communities and understand each other. And that's what I try and do, that's what I try to do with this film, which is to shine a light on something a little out of the ordinary and let it resonate with audiences. And I hope that's the takeaway.
In listening to you both, and processing what you have presented to us, and confessing that this is really new material to me. I've been a rabbi for more than four decades. I've been teaching the Holocaust and the Shoah incessantly during that time, and have always been tattoo resistant, as it were. You have actually, both of you, really opened a window for my soul into how this works. And I think that the best we can hope for is that this will open people's minds and souls. I do not expect that there will be a run on tattoo shops, uh, in the near future. And no more than has already occurred. But what you've done is you've taken something once, thought, profane. And you've made it holy. And that's a very big Jewish task, and we really are indebted to you. Second thing I want to say is, I remember the first several times that I put on tefillin, and after I removed the leather straps from my arm, the imprint of the straps remained on my arm for several hours, and the feeling of having the straps on my arm, and around my head, lasted, I think, for the rest of the day, and so what these tattoos are, are, in fact, permanent, visual, modern acts of tefillin. They are those things that stay on our body long after we would have thought that it might have faded. My words of wisdom, but let's talk as we say in Yiddish and Hebrew tachlis, let's get down to brass tacks. Everyone's gonna want to see this film. So how can they see it?
Right now, it is still on the festival circuit. I'm waiting to hear back from a few festivals, and we had two screenings in New York recently, and I am also trying to get some education distribution. I've been bringing it into high schools, now sharing it with non-Jewish audiences. at Loyola University, New Orleans, which was an amazing experience. I'm hoping to do that more as well, to go into schools, to get it online. So you can follow me on Instagram, @DaraBratt, or go to my website. I'll have updates there, which is darabratt.com. And yes, trying to get it out there more.
Especially for non-Jewish audiences, and especially what we're experiencing today in America, I gotta believe that in certain demographic groups, just the whole idea of the tattoo is a bridge to a population that we might not have reached before.
For sure, for sure. I mean, I was a little scared sometimes going to some of those university classrooms, um, a lot of teens, a lot of tattoos, uh, a lot of process. But, you know, it was really, there was a bridge, and the feedback was amazing, and I think it opened minds about Holocaust education, and also, um, started a lot, sparked a lot of conversation.
It really is a conversation opener. It, it, you know, it is what we read in the Haggadah, that when you're dealing with a child who knows not what to ask, you gotta open the conversation, you gotta broach the subject.
Today's conversation reminds us that every generation needs to find its own way to remember. Now, that can happen through stories, it can happen through rituals, it can happen through education. It can happen through travel and journeys through advocacy, and it can even happen through a tattoo. But no matter how we do this, the goal is always the same. We want to honor those who came before us, and we want to ensure that no one ever forgets their experiences during the Holocaust. And so it is our prayer, and our hope that we will be able to honor the past by the way we live in the present, and the way that we will live in the future. And then we will honor the past through the stories we pass on to those future generations. The visual, the stories, the hearing, to make sure, Michelle, as you so lovingly put it, that survivors know that they are seen and heard, and this story is not done. This story is still being written. It is TO BE CONTINUED...
Thank you so much to Dara Bratt, and Michelle Eckstein Rose, for joining us and for teaching us new ways to honor our survivors. This episode is production of The 2G- 3G Project, produced and edited by Eli Hershko, and co-directed by our podcast founder, Sheryl Hoffman. Once again, I'm your host, Rabbi Jeff Salkin.
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