'Ripples' Focuses On New Wave of Holocaust Education

On November 10th, 2010, The Second Generation.... Ripples from the Holocaust, premiered at the Simon Wiesenthal Tolerance Center in New York City.

The film was meant for a target audience of high school and college students, but anybody who wishes to purchase a copy of the film needs only to appear at the next screening.

            The film was created by RVCC's Director of Cultural Outreach, Peppy Margolis, who served as the executive producer,  directed and edited by Henry Hillard, and shot, under the guidance of Hillard, by RVCC film students, whom Hillard was priorly acquainted with, being a film professor at RVCC.

The film runs for approximately 30 minutes, containing interviews (mostly), real life historical footage described by Hillard as “Graphic” and a reenactment played by a 20 year old RVCC student. Unlike most holocaust education documentaries, The Second Generation....Ripples from the Holocaust focuses on just what the title suggests, rather than the holocaust itself.

Hillard explains that "Second generation are classified as those children born to survivors after the war". If you are "second generation", it means that your parents were holocaust survivors. Hillard also adds that "There hasn't been a film about the Second Generation that we were aware of, which was one of the reasons we wanted to do it .... It's new."

Executive Producer of the film, Peppy Margolis, is classified as second generation holocaust survivors as her parents, allegedly, were holocaust survivors. " Peppy has tremendous historical and personal knowledge" Hillard comments, "One of the goals that Peppy had for this piece was not only to have a voice for the second generation, but… one of the messages in this film, and this is important to her, important to the film itself, is that there are genocides going on still. Like Darfur, for instance."   

The film was shown once at RVCC before its premiere at the Simon Wiesenthal Tolerance Center in New York City and was screened two times at RVCC after the premiere. Further plans for distribution are in effect. Hillard claims that Peppy is being contacted by a Boston museum about a screening there.    

-Anthony Karlis