The Story of Hope of Armed Resistance Member Sarah Goldberg

For its fourth Public History Meeting, CegeSoma, in collaboration with the Cinematek, invited audiences to a screening of Patricia Niedzwiecki’s film The Story of Hope of Armed Resistance Member Sarah Goldberg (the sixth film in the memorial collection Holes in Memory) and to a discussion with the director.

Sarah Goldberg was born in Warta (Pologne) on the 1st of January 1921 and passed away in Brussels in 2003. As an early Jewish Resistance fighter and survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, she delivers a moving and strong historical testimony through this movie. As a committed teenager, she joins the campaigns in support of the International Brigades in 1936. In 1941, she works for the Soviet military intelligence network Red Orchestra for a couple of months, while officially being employed as a secretary at a hat retailer in Brussels. She learns to operate a radio transmitter, to send coded messages and becomes a messenger within the network. Next, she is 'enrolled' in the 1st Jewish company of the Mobile Corps of the Armed Partisans that was under the direct command of the Independence Front and carried out surveillance of traitors and collaborators. In June 1943, she is arrested at her home after having been betrayed. She is deported. After having suffered the worst imaginable pains, she is liberated in April 1945 by the Red Army. After the war, she dedicates her life to testifying about what she experienced and to fighting all forms of racism so that future generations may 'never forget'.

With great sensitivity, discretion, and a remarkable ability to listen, Patricia Niedzwiecki guides us through the documentary in the footsteps of an extraordinary woman with an exceptional, unconventional life journey.