Every Face Has a Name

In late April of 1945, as World War II drew to a close, the Swedish Red Cross arranged for nearly 2,000 concentration camp survivors to be sent to the relative safety of Malmo, Sweden. News photographers were on hand to capture their arrival as they pulled into port. Almost 70 years later, Magnus Gerrten (Harbour of Hope, SFJFF 2012) embarked on a quest to match as many names as possible to the faces caught on film. In Every Face Has a Name Gerrten meets with survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, members of the Norwegian and French Resistance, grown men who arrived in Malmo as swaddled infants, and an American woman arrested in Italy by the Germans on the assumption that she was a spy. The shock of seeing themselves, friends and loved ones on film is palpable. While staring at the footage they are temporarily transported back to the brutality of life in the camps and the euphoria of liberation. Gerrten skillfully juxtaposes the found footage of 70 years ago with contemporary news footage chronicling the plight of refugees fleeing violence in North Africa. Gerrten reminds us that war is still with us and that compassion demands we extend aid when we can. The question is, will we? —Mark Valentine