'Four Winters' Reveals Jewish Women's Armed Resistance to Nazis During World War II
(absolutely breathtaking)
‘Four Winters’ Reveals Jewish Women’s Armed Resistance to Nazis During World War II
9/6/2022 by Carrie N. Baker
In the stunning new documentary Four Winters https://fourwintersfilm.com/, award-winning filmmaker Julia Mintz shatters myths of Jewish passivity during World War II, highlighting stories of Jews who escaped to the forests of Eastern Europe, Ukraine and Belarus and banded together in partisan brigades to fight back against Nazis and their collaborators.
Partisan and photographer Faye Schulman. The film includes many of Schulman’s photographs from her time as a partisan.
Fleeing from cities and towns, some jumping from trains headed to concentration camps, over 25,000 Jewish partisans, many just teenagers, courageously fought back against the Nazi attacks, all while hiding for four years deep in the forests. “All I owned was my camera, leopard coat, rifle and a grenade in case I’m captured … the pillow was the rifle, the walls were the trees and the sky was the roof,” said partisan Faye Schulman. Mintz’s film interlaces compelling archival images and interviews with eight of the last surviving partisans—five women and three men—who share stories about their lives before, during and after the war.
Photograph of Jewish partisans in the forests of Eastern Europe during World War II. Photograph by Faye Schulman, back row, third from right.
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Julia Mintz is a writer, producer and director, who has worked on films shortlisted for the Academy Awards, premiered at Cannes, Sundance and TriBeCa, and winning Emmy, Peabody and festival awards. Four Winters has already won best documentary at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival.
Mintz focuses in particular on the stories of Jewish women’s resistance, which she says are often missing from mainstream histories.
“I wanted to include the stories that I never heard, that I didn’t get to read about as a young person when I learned about the Holocaust. They gave us Anne Frank, and we saw Auschwitz, and then we heard stories of righteous Gentiles. There were three options: Hide in an attic, hide in a wall with some righteous Gentiles or be herded on a train and murdered. That was my perception of what was possible. I needed for myself, and for my daughter frankly, another option, another story—the stories of resistance. This was something that I was really hungry for in terms of what we could pass forward.” As the writer, director and producer of Four Winters, Mintz was fully independent, which posed challenges for fundraising but also gave her the opportunity to delve deeply into questions she really cared about.
“Issues I believe are really important had been sidelined in the telling of many of the facets of Holocaust history, where women’s resistance stories were just not front and center,” said Mintz. “I had the privilege of asking the questions that I always wanted to ask. The men had to transform but the women had to transform to become something for which there was no reference. Jewish women were not part of the battles of history that they had been taught about. They learned to use a gun. They learned to adapt and become what they needed to be. I’m trying to give these women their rightful place in history.”
Julia Mintz and Faye Schulman during an interview for the film.
Mintz has included stories of how women navigated the war years as women, including their experiences of sexuality, abortion and motherhood. “The resiliency and self-determination, the courage, ingenuity and grit these women embodied—it’s our collective legacy. I hold them as my sheroes. I have learned from them that I am so much stronger, so much more resilient. My goal for the film is that people recognize the depth of their strength and that they can tap into that themselves during challenging and difficult times.” With the recent resurgence of extreme right-wing authoritarianism in the United States and abroad, these critical lessons come not a moment too soon. “These women are an inspiration for their willingness to fight back against fascism and bigotry and hate and oppression, and ultimately fight for their lives.”
https://msmagazine.com/2022/09/06/four-winters-film-review-julia-mintz-jewish-womens-resistance-nazis-world-war-ii/