Persistence of the Past

2019, 10 minutes

The Past is a short film about an elderly Jewish woman who, after surviving the Nazi regime, and experiencing an act of modern day anti-semitism knows no accommodation can ever be made.

As an elderly Jewish lady, Ruth, observes an act of modern day anti-Semitism, she then goes back in her mind to her own childhood in Germany, and the events that prompted her parents to send her on the kindertransport to England to escape Nazi Germany. The fluorescent yellow swastika sprayed on the road of the North London street outside her home, is only too reminiscent of the black and red swastika flag that flew opposite their house when she grew up. The argument that her son and granddaughter have over whether her family should proudly display their menorah – the symbol of their Jewish identity – is also only too redolent of the debate that has gone on for generations.

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