A stirring movie by the German Oscar-winning director Pepe Danquart about a Jewish boy struggling to survive the Holocaust premiered in Warsaw on Wednesday. A German-French co-production featuring mostly Polish actors, "Run, Boy, Run" is the true story of 10-year-old Yoram Friedman who escaped the Warsaw ghetto in 1943 and -- hunted by the Nazis -- hid in the forest near the city. The boy fed on snails and mushrooms, braved snowstorms and hid in water to avoid Nazi sniffer dogs. He received the occasional help of farmers, but also faced indifference, hatred and betrayal. By posing as a Catholic named Jurek Staniak, he was able to find lodgings in exchange for farm work. His right hand was badly injured in an accident, but a surgeon refused to operate after discovering he was Jewish. Another surgeon treated him, but it was too late to save the hand from amputation. Talking to The Associated Press on the eve of the premiere, Friedman said he did not live in the past. "I don't go back to that. What happened, happened," he said. He said, however, that dreams about his ordeal still haunted him a decade ago. He remembers the words of his father -- quoted in the film -- before he sacrificed his life for him: "Conceal that you are Jewish but never forget that you are Jewish." Friedman believes the movie will reach many people around the globe with the message that "we must never forget that this really took place." He is now about 80 years old, uncertain if he was born in 1933 or 1934. Danquart, whose "Black Rider" won the 1994 Academy Award for Best Short Subject, told AP that the fact that a German directed a film, which premiered in Poland, about a Jewish boy in the Holocaust, is a "sign of the new time, of a Europe that has come together ... and that as people, as humans, we can talk about it." The stunning cinematography and incredible innocence of the protagonist, despite his unfathomable ordeal, make the film a pleasure to watch. "It's not really a Holocaust movie. It's more the adventure of a kid in the middle of the Holocaust," Danquart said. His goal was to impress young viewers with a perspective about the power of life. Friedman's entire family, save one sister, was murdered in the Holocaust. After the war, he was taken to a Jewish orphanage in Poland. Friedman studied mathematics and then moved to Israel in 1962, where he worked as a teacher for 40 years. This week he returned to Warsaw for the premiere with his wife, Sonia, his daughter Michal, his son Zvi, and some of his six grandchildren. Jews were some 10 percent of Poland's population of 35 million before the war, but comprised half of Poland's more than 6 million war victims. The premiere at Warsaw's Jewish History Museum will be attended by Danquart and the Israeli writer Uri Orlev, who first relayed Friedman's story in a book published in 2001. The movie will be released in theaters in Germany, the U.S., Israel and Japan, among other countries.
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German movie on boy's Holocaust survival premieres in Poland
"Run, Boy, Run" is the true story of Yoram Friedman, who at the age of 10 escaped the Warsaw ghetto and sought refuge in the woods where he fed on snails, braved snowstorms, hid in water to avoid Nazi sniffer dogs and lost a hand.