Film Festival 2006 Stan Ostern

Made in 2005 by the three students in the department of Film Studies at University of Santa Barbara, this short film is an intimate portrait of Stan Osten, who survived the Holocaust in his native Poland by living in a sealed bunker with 35 other people for 2 years. He reflects upon his memories in the bunker, as well as expressing his sense of mission and purpose to communicate to youth the importance of tolerance.

How come this rat can go outside and see the fresh air, and the sky, and I’m trapped in here? What did I personally do? And I never got an answer. It’s just because I’m a Jew, but what did I ever do to anybody else? We were punished for no reason.

I like going to schools and telling them what intolerance and hate can do. That’s been my mission. You have to be tolerant of your fellow man, you don’t have to love them, just tolerate them. Or it leads to what happened to me.