Ukraine: Documentary, July 28

Left Odessa last night after four days of filming and four nights of partying.

Odessa started off badly. My main reason for going was to film the new mass grave they found last month. More than 11,000 Jews had been executed and buried there, only discovered when workers were digging to lay wires. My contact with the Jewish center here said I could get in with a team that was going daily to the grave to examine it. He said that last week when I bought the ticket, but the day before, when I called to see if we were going the day I got off the train (I was arriving at 6 AM), he said just to come down, meet him at 10: 30 and we would talk about it.

I met him. He said work had already finished, but gave me information about how to get there. It was outside a village. There was only one bus there per day, 4.5 hours. Once there, I would need to find someone to take me in for the night. I called the contact there he gave me. She told me there wasn't much to see, but that I was welcome to come. The bones had been reburied, leaving only a dirt and sand patch. Was that worth spending two days going out to?

I talked to my contact. Aren't there photos, videos? Sure. Who has them? He's not sure.

***

Another frustration was a lack of a place to stay. I was crashing the first night with a Peace Corps Volunteer, but he was leaving the next day. I knew three other Ukrainians in Odessa (had dated two of them) and they knew I was coming down. Surely someone would have a place for me to sleep. I called. Two were leaving town that day, one rented a room from a woman and was not allowed to have guests. Hmm. Should have planned this all better. But then said Peace Corps volunteer introduced me to four other volunteers in Odessa on vacation. Together, we rented an apartment. Craziness ensued.

***

The next day I had a follow-up interview with a holocaust surivor that I had interviewed the previous day. He took me out to the spot where his family had been murdered, along with 10,000 other Jews. He, a boy at the time, had escaped in the melee. He was one of three holocaust survivors I interviewed in Odessa, all of their stories heartbreaking. One had a friend whose mother had saved her daughter by putting her back to the firing squad and holding her daughter in front of her. She fell into the pit dead, but the daughter was unharmed. When the daughter--whose name was Sofika--crawled out of the pit, she came face to face with a German soldier left to guard the pit. He pointed his gun at her, then lowered it, letting her leave. She came to a house and the woman there took her in, told her to forget she was a Jew and then raised her. Sofika--who did not look Jewish--changed her name to Dasha, grew up, married a Ukrainian and had two children, who never learned their Jewish heritage. When the woman I interviewed ran into her long after the war, Sofika/Dasha begged her to keep her heritage secret. It was only until after the fall of the Soviet Union and Sofika/Dasha felt it was okay to talk about.

***

With getting to the grave a bust, I decided to explore the other incident I thought would be worth filming:

Odessa had about 700 graves at the Jewish cemetary defaced withswastikas in May. I was told that they'd been cleaned and it wasn'tworth going out there, but I decided to see if I could at least speakto someone. I introduced myself to the caretaker and he said hedidn't want to talk about it, on camera or at all, and, no, there wasno one else I could talk to. He was being a bit of a dick, actually.So we stand there for a few minutes, me debating my options (none) andhe asks if I smoke. I say I do, thinking he's asking to have acigarette with me and maybe I'll massage this into him talking. Heasks if I have matches. Oh. I don't.

He complains he's askedeveryone coming into the cemetary for two hours and no one has, hencehim not smoking. I leave. It's on the outside of the city, but afterabout ten minutes of walking I find a kiosk, buy a pack of Malborosand two lighters and head back.I hand him a lighter and we both sit down on a bench. I smoke one I just bought, taking the smoke into my mouth without inhaling yet (BillClinton was right, it can be done) until we're both down to thefilter. We do this without speaking, and then he says "What do youwant to know?"

By now I have learned to not ask a single question or, in fact, letanyone speak until the camera is out. People have the tendency tojust start talking, camera or no, and when they start it's usually themost important stuff. So I take out the camera. He doesn't want tobe on camera. So I point it to the distance figuring I'll get shotsof his hands or whatever. He says it can record his voice, but thecamera has to be in the bag. So I hook up a shotgun mic, it's cordnow trailing into the bag, which he confirms is closed. Then hestarts talking. It's not top secret shit, either, just what he foundand how long it took them to clean it off and he's kind of annoyed athaving to do the work, and there's also a tinge that he doesn't likethe Jews either. Not that they deserved it, but that he's got toclean up graves because of something going on between them and theskinheads.So we wrap it up and I'm wondering what I'm going to do with just avoice. Overlay images of the defaced graves? Who do I get thosefrom?

I had already asked about them, but no one seemed to know who would have them. The caretaker--Sergei--seemed to think it was a waste of time to filmthe graves at this point, but I needed some kind of imagery. After mehassling him, he pointed to which area they were in. And I wasfucking jaw-dropped when I got there. Grave after fucking grave stillhad the swastikas on them. Some had been scrubbed to where there was only a ghost of them, some just had the red paint in between carvedletters, where scrubbing was too much effort, but a number seemed tohave not been cleaned at all. Within fifteen minutes I had shot atleast 40 graves with recognizable swastikas on them, all the worsebecause many of the graves had pictures of the deceased carved intothem, so there's a swastika right over their faces. One--of aswastika right over the face of this 8 year-old boy, was heartbreaking. Most of the graves had fencing around them, a traditionhere, so it meant the people who did it climbed over 700 differentfences to paint that many graves. Fucking A.

And the fact that anattempt had been made to clean them meant that they'll remain that wayuntil the paint is finally weathered off. You could probably come inten years and still see them.

Despite that, Odessa is quite anti-antisemitic. What few antisemiticgraffiti I saw was crossed out with ANTIFA painted below (which standsfor anitfasism) and I saw far more ANIFA graffiti, including stenciledspray paints of a silloutte tossing a swastika in a trash can andwriting like "death to fasisim" and "die Nazi scum". I also saw farmore anti-NATO graffiti and hammer and sickles, meaning Odessa'sconcerns are quite different from say, Zhytomyr and Lviv, which iswhere hard-core Nationalism is on the rise.In the end, I lucked out with Sergei. Another guy, Pavel, was therewhen I returned from the graves, carving a headstone set up on two sawhorses. That was visually interesting, so I asked to film it, and heagreed, provided I didn't show his face. He had helped clean thegraffiti on the graves as well, telling me about it with the camerapointed at the headstone. Sergei came over after a while and jokedwith Pavel, me making sure to keep the camera pointed down and not really seeing where it was pointed but hoping to catch anything goodthey might say on the mic. I looked at the footage later, though, andit's about three minutes of Sergei's hands on the shiny granite, halfhis body reflected but not is face. It was the perfect "anonymous"image to go with his voice and I didn't even mean for it to happen.

***

I spent three days hassling everyone I could meet about getting photos or videos of the mass graves or the cemetary defacement. The secretary at the Jewish Cultural Center took to glaring at me the second I walked in. I hated to be a problem to anyone, but at the same time if you don't push in this country, it doesn't happen.

Finally I got a hold of the press guy for the Synagogue. I met him at his office. He had deleted those photos, he told me. What? Well, maybe this other guy had them on his computer, but he was in Israel. Maybe my frustration leaked through, because he asked me to wait and went to make some calls. I really felt low. All the way down here, burning money that's not coming back anytime soon, to not get any useable evidence of this grave. The Holocaust testimonials and the footage from the cemetary was great, but I had pinned a lot of hope on this mass grave. I hoped to bookend the film with the grave's discovery. It made the film timely, that more than 60 years later, we were still finding graves from this relatively unknown part of the Holocaust.

The press guy comes back with a piece of paper with a code on it. Had he seriously just called this guy in Israel? He punches the code into this other guy's computer and is soon rooting through photos. He finds them and transfers them to my ipod. Then he says "maybe you could use this," and holds up a DVD. He pops it into the computer and it's RAW FOOTAGE of the graves the day they were found, including INTERVIEWS WITH THE PEOPLE WHO FOUND THEM. "You can take this and copy it if you want," he said, my eyes bugging out of my head. "Who shot this?" I asked. "Who do I need to ask for permission to use it?" "Oh, it's ours," he said, "we bought it off of a television station." "Can I get written permission from you to use this in my film?" "Yeah, I'll just get the rabbi to do it when he gets back."

I practically ran down the street to find an internet cafe and had them copy the disk. I had them check it twice before I gave it back and still occassionally find myself patting it in my backpack.

The next day, the press guy, who I still want to kiss as I type this (in a very hetero-masculine way), said he found where to get photos of the defaced headstones. He couldn't get them before I left, but he promised he'd put them on disk and give them to the volunteer in Odessa, who can mail them to me. And when the rabbi gets back he'll see about getting permission.

It was like a three day knot unwound from my body. I spent my last five hours in Odessa on a beach with another volunteer, playing beach volleyball, swimming in the Black Sea, listening to music pumped out from a PA system (interrupted repeatedly by offers of a free SIM card from the mobile company sponsoring the music) and oggling the many beautiful sights (Ukrainians don't have much problem with sunbathing topless).

Life is good.

Ukraine: Documenary, July 22

The film finally has a working title:

Black Earth: the Holocaust and Antisemitism in Ukraine

"Black Earth", of course, refers to Ukraine's famed black earth, but possibly people won't know that. I like the associations with the sins and the mass graves, but I can also see someone thinking it's about African-Americans.

Interviewed the director of the Zhytomyr branch of MAUP, theuniversity that puts out the antisemitic lietrature. It was a he, now it's a she. I don't know why he was suddenly replaced, but at least she was willing to talk. We talked aboutMAUP having its accredidation pulled, but when I moved onto theliterature, she said she never actually read the stuff THAT THEYDISTRIBUTE AT THEIR SCHOOL.

Interviewed the cop who is responsible for the rabbi attack case. Hedidn't want to talk on camera, but the camera was on my shoulder andpointing off at an angle, so I switched it on anyway. He doesn'tthink they'll catch the guys who did it, but said they were steppingup patrols near the synagogue.I interviewed the rabbi who had been attacked the next morning. Allthe Jews have been cautious about saying anything bad about theauthorities on camera, but he was so livid that he was tearing intotheir lack of effort and their constant denial that any attacks areantisemitic vs. acts of hooliganism. The problem: Daniel didn't havethe camera switched on. I had turned it on during set-up because hewas working on his computer and I figured I could use it for cutshots, but when I had the mic ready and was starting the interview, Imust have instinctively hit the record but (no memory of doing this,but it's what must have happened) because next thing I know the camerais powering down from being left idling too long and when I switch itback on I notice only a minute of tape has rolled (the minute from set
that, but I missed his initial outburst about the cops. Grr.

He andI are still supposed to have a lengthy sit down interview about a broad number of topics, so maybe I can get him to say it again. Went to Kyiv yesterday and was taken on a personal 3 hour tour of Babyn Yar by the head of the Judaica institute. She talked so much it took up 2.5 hours of tape and ran my battery into the ground. I thought it would be much briefer and left my back-up battery in Zhytomyr (I had forgotten to charge it the night before anyway) and as I watched the battery tick down I started to go to manual on everything, including the focus, to save power. Thing is, she standing still. We're walking all over Babyn Yar and I'm shooting handheld, monitoring sound, keeping focus, trying to understand her Russian and trying not to fall on all the rocks and branches (it's a big ravine). I was mentally exhausted by the end, but got a lot of good information. More to the point, she gave me permission to dig throughtheir archives. She says they have a number of photos from the war, which I should be able to scan myself. This is good, because the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC wants $15 for EACH PHOTO that they give me on disk. Fuck that.

I'm also getting slightly raped by the archives here in Zhytomyr. FINALLY, after a whole lot of wrangling, I got access to the archives and it's a treasure trove. Page after hand-written page of tesitmonies and findings that the Soviets compiled on any bit of paper they could find (some of it is on the back of German maps), documenting what had happened in Zhytomyr and Berdichev during the war and then locking it all away. It even looks visually good: this thick folder of aging paper, and the writing is in various colors: blue, purple, red, black, with notes in the margins.

Problem is, I have yet to get permission tophotograph it (technically I should not be allowed to at all, but I'mholding out hope), and I couldn't even photocopy it because--had thephotocopier not been broken anyway--I need permission from thedirector for each PAGE copied, and when I do get that permission, eachone will cost me 7 UAH ($1.40) (so much for me planning on copyingeverything to have a small archive of my own). Marina and I jokingly concoted a plan for taking turns in the bathroomphotographing them with a digital camera, but we're not so stupid as to actually try it.

Still, that moment was a long time coming. I'd seen parts of thetexts already: there are microfiche copies of some of it in Yad Vashemand the Garrards (the authors who wrote the Bones of Berdichev)reference them in their book, but even they haven't seen the actualcopies, and there I was, with them in my hands, sitting at a desk andflipping through them. I didn't even want to give them back becausesome paranoid part of me worried that the next time I came back I'dhave lost permission to see them or that they'd have dissapeared.It's hard to explain how important these pieces of paper are to me.They aren't even typed Soviet reports or anything. It's thehandwriting from 60 years ago of a handful of NKVD officers goingaround saying "what happened here? what happened here?", andscrawling it down. It's as raw a first-hand account as we're going toget, completely untainted by the passage of time (as survivor'smemories are), although, of course, taininted by the politics of theday...

Ukraine: Documentary, July 17

Two things happened that made me decide to stay until September: One, the rabbi of Zhytomyr was attacked. Again. Secondly, a company I worked with last summer on my climbing camp has greatly expanded themselves and now own a television channel and set themselves up a production studio. They have a documentary. They need someone to do the English translation and hock it in America. I need post-production work. They're not going to do it for free, but at a discount of what is already obscenely cheap compared to America.

This is a massive risk because when I go back, the teaching year will have started and there may be no slots. I might find a job, I might be waiting tables until next fall. But I now have enough faith in what I've filmed so far to think that this movie will sell. I never thought that before: it was a personal project. But I've gotten enough great footage--not just good, but great--that I feel I can make a powerful film with what I have, let alone some of the interviews I have been promised, which migh kick it up another notch (sorry to be vague, but unless I have something, I don't like talking about it).

On other news, A woman in Chicago who works for a company that doesDNA testing for Jews looking to find which graves hold their relativesheard about my project (from an attendee of a presentation I gave inTucson in March on the Holocaust in Ukraine; how random is that?). Ifilled her in on the status of the documentary and, finding that I wasself-funding it, she offered to find my some funding from hercontacts. She asked for a dollar figure and I have no idea how muchto ask for. I could finish the film for $2,000; I could finish it for$50,000 or more, depending. I have been afraid to crunch numbers because I didn't really want to think of how difficult it might actually be to finish the film when it comes to post. But I've now started doing all the research to put the final budget together.

Somone finally came through with finding me some skinheads. Twogroups, one in Kyiv and one in Zhytomyr have been informed I want to talk to themand they are willing. The Zhytomyr group had already heard of me:apparently word has already gotten around that the American constantlyseen with a tripod strapped to his back is doing a film onantisemitism. I've also got a lead on an antisemtic group in Poltavathat holds regular meetings and wouldn't that be a hell of a thing tofilm...

Also, I found a perfect song for the film, by a Ukrainian group calledBoombox. It's called Kviti v Volocia ("Flowers in the hair " inUkrainian), but it's not so much the lyrics (about a couple who promise to be together forever, but the boy is called away to work overseas) as themood of the whole song. It's this slow, haunting melody on accousticguitar, punctuated occasionally with brief turntable scratching. Somesoft singing by the (male) lead singer in Ukrainian, then it kicks inwith a slow break drum beat, the guitar continuing and soon the guy iswailing over all it it. As soon as I heard it I was seeing the imageslaid over it of graffiti, broken gravestones, broken windows andsnippets of Ukrainians bashing on Jews (which, I've found have beenprogressively easier to get; Mariana I have been "bombing" inZhytomyr, Kiev and surrounding villages. She walks up, microphone inhand, me with and already turned on camera and starts asking aboutJews. Caught off guard they start talking and it's all unvarnished.Asking permission, we have found, gets us nowhere, and since it'sobvious the microphone is connected to a camera pointing straight atthem, it's not like they don't know what's going on). I had beenwanting to get a more modern, sad, but still obviously Ukrainian song. i think I've found it.At first, I thought I'd put together a "music video" for the film tothe song and toss it on YouTube, which the fundraiser in Chicago hassuggested I do to help her show people what I have so far. I figuredI'd never get the rights to the song for use in a distributed film asBoombox is a nationally known group here. But I mentioned wanting touse that song to a friend of mine last night. She reminded me of aguy who works at a Zhytomyr radio station that is friends with herbrother, who also works there (I met all of them about a year ago atan event put on by the station). He's friends with the members ofBoombox, who happen to live in Rivne, near where Jon used to live.Apparently they'd be cool with something like that and would probablywelcome the American exposure, she said. She's going to try to get mea meeting with them. And I have also become aquainted with a coupleof PR people working in Kyiv who are now bothering their mediacontacts about getting me footage that the news has shot for variousstories (finding the graves, the Torah scrolls being confiscated, MAUPloosing their accredidation, etc.).So, a lot of potential, but I'm not holding my breath. Still, I havefound telling every person I meet about the film means that usefulstuff gets back to me. Now we just have to see what comes through.Extending to September, though, was a good idea. Otherwise I'd be inan insane time crunch and if I've relearned anything, it's that stuffcan happen, it just takes a lot of time. Especially in Ukraine.

Ukraine: Documentary, Jul 3

Life has picked up considerably. Spent two days interviewing warsurvivors and some of the stories are really heartbreaking, althoughfew are related to the Holocaust (even though the survivors areJewish, they survived because they fled as the Germans advanced; theirmemories are of living in Tajikistan or Kazakstan or Siberia until theend of the war).

One woman I met with today, though, was Ukrainianand hid Jews during the war. I know of a Fulbright Scholar in Lvivwho is also going to tell me about her main subject of research: apriest who hid dozens of Jewish children during the war. So at leastI am going to balance some positive with the negative of theHolocaust.

And in other positive news, the more I interview various people, themore interesting commanalities come to light. For example, I havethree different Ukrainian girls on camera saying that Jews make thebest husbands and they'd love to marry one. I also have six or morepeople, including the antisemites, saying that Jews are extremelysmart and three people saying that's why there's distrust and dislikeof them. Jews being an educated group is not an amazingly newstereotype, but how much it's mentioned here, I realized that togenerations of non-educated Ukrainian farmers, that would stand outparticularly. Also, I have a few Jews (possibly too proudly for theirown good) also saying how smart and talented Jews are compared to therest of the world. I honestly would have thought of "jealousy ofeducation" as being a laughable excuse for antisemitism at best but ithas come up so frequently that Ihave to consider it as a possiblemotivation.

I'm about a week and a half into shooting and I have about 8 hours offootage, about a 1/3 of it useable and some of it very beautiful. I'malso learning that I have a lot more to learn about how to do thiswell, especially with limited equipment and only myself or on occasionmy friend Marina as crew. Take today, which turned out well but wasfrustrating at the time. The lesson: how difficult it can be to getgood sound out of someone you're interviewing on the fly because youcan't interrupt them to get a mic onto them. I had a camera that hadthat handled: it could handle a camera-mounted shotgun mic and awireless lavalier mic on two channels. I accidently broke that camerathe day I was supposed to fly to New York. Insurance should becovering it (keep fingers crossed), but I'm using the back-up camerawhich doesn't have the mounts or inputs, so either I have a handheldmic, the on camera mic (which sucks) or a lavalier mic.

Today: I'minterviewing the caretaker of the Jewish Cemetary in Zhytomyr, whichhas a lot of broken gravestones from skinheads defacing the place, buthe's not keen on doing an interview at first (I have learned inUkraine that asking for an interview will get you a "no". Turning thecamera on and starting to ask questions seems to be the best way togo) so getting the lavalier on him is not going to work. Marina isholding the shotgun mic near enough to him and we're getting greataudio but then he gets excited about showing us (everyone seems torelax after the first few minutes and then they get into it) and takesoff and starts pointing things out and is now out of mic range. Soshe's running after him to clip the lavalier on him but doesn't get itswitched on and he doesn't seem to get that the transmitter should beon his belt, so he's waving it around while he talks. She finallygets it on, but meanwhile I'm switching the inputs between the twomics and loose a good good chunk of everything he has just said.

Oy.Still, got enough to get the gist: skinheads breaking tombstones, copsdoing nothing, cut to still shots of broken tombstones. Done.

Another point of pride: the director of the Zhytomyr branch of MAUP,the private Ukrainian university that is infamous for printing anddistributing antisemetic literature in Kyiv, didn't want to talk to usabout it and said to talk to the main people in Kyiv. But on Friday,and you should enjoy this, the Ministry of Education pulled MAUP'saccredidation. Their reasons were for technical violations, not dueto the hate material, but everyone knows that is why (the authorotieshave been trying to get them to stop printing the antisemiticliterature for months now; see, there is hope!). So I cornered himin his office today and he said that it was all for PR and that theschool would continue as normal. I asked for an interview on this newdevelopment and he declined. Then I refused to leave his office andhe was late for a meeting so, flustered, he promised me one next week. Possibly he didn't mean it, but I then went and talked to hissecretary and I'll get her to schedule it. He did promise, afterall...

Going to another city tomorrow that was the site of the first plannedmassacre of Jews during the Holocaust (23,000) and then will be goingto Odessa tomorrow night or the next day to shoot some footage of thenew mass graves they discovered there.

I declined the New York job because I wouldn't be back in time,but then they said I could still have it provided I got to New Yorkbefore August 20th. Since that is very doable, I accepted. I'm notsure why: it will mean a flustered move and housing search, shittywinter weather and longer working hours and that will all cut intoediting the film.