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SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
Z eke Winitsky was never supposed to travel to Berlin, let alone
shoot a short film there.

The Pennsylvania State University student and South
Philadelphia resident was planning to spend his summer semester in
Japan, but when the program was canceled due to COVID, Winitsky
decided to instead travel to Berlin, a city his Holocaust survivor
grandfather refused to visit after World War II.

“Before going, my grandfather, a survivor, was a little wary,”
Winitsky said. “We thought it was a good idea for me to go and travel.

... I have a lot of interesting feelings about it, but I honestly think I
didn’t really understand those things until I got there.”
Surrounded by memorials of the Shoah and feeling the pressure of
his grandfather’s survivor status to make the most of the semester as a
Jew in Germany, Winitsky, 21, felt he “had the ghost of the Holocaust
on my shoulder,” he said.

Winitsky’s tug-of-war desire to explore the city while also honoring
the legacy of the Holocaust resulted in a six-minute short film entitled
“Coming to Berlin.” The film, investigating the significance of public
memory of the Holocaust, won the grand prize at the Institute for the
International Education of Students Study Abroad Film Festival in
Chicago on Oct. 13.

“There’s pictures of my grandfather and references to my grand-
father in that film,” Winitsky said in his acceptance speech. “We
actually lost my grandfather two weeks ago, and he inspired me so
much in so many different ways specially to make this film. One piece
of advice that he always gave me, and I think I can relate to everyone
here, is that love is easier than hate, and I think that was a lot of the
10 NOVEMBER 10, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
conclusions I came to when making
this movie.”
“Coming to Berlin” mirrors the
internal dialogue Winitsky found
himself having over the summer
semester through the IES Abroad pro-
gram, a nonprofit offering internships
and study abroad programs for college
students. Attending Temple Beth Zion-Beth
Israel and growing up lighting the
Shabbat candles every night, Winitsky
was instilled with deep Jewish pride, but
as part of a generation more removed
from the Holocaust, he has had to find
his own ways to honor his family’s
Jewish history.

In the film, the audience sees two
Winitskys: one in a slouched Grateful
Dead baseball cap and beaten Reebok
sneakers, and the other in a white dress
shirt tucked into his trousers, a wide-
brimmed hat donning his head. The
modern-day Winitsky meets the ver-
sion of himself from a universe where
the Shoah never happened.

The two travel across the city, to the
Berlin Wall and the Memorial to the
Murdered Jews of Europe, debating the
impact of the structures and the best
way to mark or move forward from the
Holocaust. Winitsky’s complicated feelings toward
Holocaust memorials are reflected in his
greater philosophy around Jewish his-
tory, memory and film.

“I’m just more interested in Jewish
life than Jewish death,” he said. “And
seeing how many movies are so con-
cerned with Jewish death and the
minutiae of how they were killed and
the tragedy of how they’re killed — of
course, that’s important to remember.

But I think that there are times that
actually warrant us to look at what was
lost. What was there that was taken?”
Winitsky’s grandfather, known to
the family as “Jewish Forrest Gump,”
showed Winitsky a prime example of
a rich Jewish life. Born in Hungary,
the patriarch was taken to a labor
prison and later Bergen-Belsen con-
centration camp as a child but avoided
dying there because his well-educated
mother spoke German and served as
the de facto translator between the Nazi
guards and their Jewish prisoners.

After the war, the survivor went to
Israel with his mother and siblings but
was separated from his mother and sent
to an orphanage until he was old enough
to go to yeshiva. He later served as a para-
trooper in the Israel Defense Forces and
was a bodyguard to Moshe Dayan.

When he settled in Pittsburgh in the
later years of his life and became a jew-
eler, he survived the Tree of Life syna-
gogue shooting. He found it important
to speak to schoolchildren about his
experience surviving the Holocaust.

Beyond being an inspiration to his
grandson, Winitsky’s grandfather also
encouraged Winitsky to pursue film.

“My grandfather considered art to be
the highest of the high, the holiest of
professions,” Winitsky said.

Becoming an artist was a way to
make the biggest mark on society. Both
of Winitsky’s parents are artists, and as
Winitsky gains experience and influ-
ence as a filmmaker, he draws on the
Talmudic teaching that his grandfa-
ther believed in: “You could create
something from something, and that is
good. But it’s holier to create something
from nothing.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of IES Abroad
Zeke Winitsky