The Last Flight of Petr Ginz: Screening of Documentary & Discussion

In 2003, before setting out on the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle, Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon sought to commemorate the Holocaust by taking aboard the ship the painting of a moonscape by Petr Ginz, a Prague teenager who died in Auschwitz. After the shuttle’s tragic explosion on February 1, 2003—what would have been Ginz’s seventy-fifth birthday—news reports of the teenage prodigy and his painting reached Prague, where a man made a startling discovery: he was in possession of Ginz’s wartime diary, which had been hidden away in his attic for decades. Soon thereafter, the diary made its way to Petr’s sister, who lived in Israel, and she saw to its publication throughout Europe, where the diary has become an international sensation.
When Sandy Dickson, the film’s co-director, came across The Diary of Petr Ginz while browsing in a bookshop in North Carolina, she was riveted by such candid accounts of incomprehensible prejudice and hatred. She knew Petr’s story would be the team’s next project.
The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941-1942 and documentary The Last Flight of Petr Ginz are available from your library to borrow!