Burns turns lens on couple who defied Nazis

KEENE, N.H. — When Ken Burns screened clips of his latest documentary at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a fearful woman approached him and asked, “Is this going to happen to us again?”

The documentary, “Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War,” tells the story of a Wellesley, Mass., couple who rescued refugees and dissidents in Europe before and after the start of World War II. It aired on PBS on Tuesday, the day Democratic President Barack Obama and other world leaders host a summit aimed at securing new commitments to support today’s refugees.

The parallels to today weren’t lost on Burns, who co-directed the film with the couple’s grandson Artemis Joukowsky.

“It’s about sacrifice, and it’s about cost,” Burns said. “We live in a very narcissistic age, and people don’t make those gestures, or at least we live in a media culture that does not isolate and focus on people who make these kinds of selfless gestures without the PR attached to it.”

He added: “And it’s about resonance, because we now find ourselves in a refugee crisis in the world that is only second to the second World War, and we’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do and what kind of people we are. Are we going to be guided by fear and demagoguery, or are we going to be guided by compassion, love and sacrifice?”

The film explores the lives of Unitarian minister Waitstill Sharp and his wife, Martha Sharp, who were asked by church leaders in 1939 to travel to Czechoslovakia to help people trying to escape Nazi persecution. The Sharps left their two young children at home, expecting to return in a few months. Instead, their mission lasted almost two years and involved harrowing encounters with Nazi police.

Together, the Sharps saved about 130 scientists, journalists, doctors and children. Several of those children, now grown, poignantly describe their experiences in the film.

Joukowsky said it was “almost a therapeutic process” for them to tell their stories.

Joukowsky grew up knowing little about his grandparents, who had divorced and remarried by the time he was born. It wasn’t until after his grandmother’s death in 1999 that he learned their remarkable story, in large part through the work of researchers connected to Keene State College.

The chair of Keene State’s department of Holocaust and genocide studies, Paul Vincent, said he shares Burns’ hope the film will be viewed with an eye toward current events.