Norma Broadwater
202-289-1200, ext. 106
nbroadwater@washington.goethe.org <mailto:nbroadwater@washington.goethe.org>
For Tomorrow/Ich hoff' auf morgen: The Story and Poetry of Hilda Stern Cohen
Film about Life of Poet and Holocaust Survivor Premieres March 14 and 15
(Washington, DC, March 1, 2010) - Newly completed film featuring the life of poet and Holocaust survivor Hilda Stern Cohen with
Baltimore storyteller Gail Rosen to premiere in special screenings March 14-15, 2010 under the auspices of the Baltimore Jewish Film
Festival.
For Tomorrow / Ich hoff' auf morgen: The Story and Poetry of Hilda Stern Cohen will premiere with special screenings at the Jewish
Community Center of Greater Baltimore on Sunday, March 14 and at the Goethe-Institut Washington on Monday, March 15. The film
features Baltimore's Gail Rosen and mezzo-soprano (and Rabbi) Elizabeth Bolton, who recount in story and song the uplifting
experience of German-born writer Hilda Stern Cohen, whose notebooks of poetry - composed in the ghetto of Lodz during the war years
and in a displaced persons camp in Austria after the war - only came to light after her death in Baltimore in 1997.
The story and the film follow the writer's life, as recounted to storyteller Gail Rosen in 1996, from her childhood in a small
German village through the horrors of the Holocaust to liberation and emigration to the United States, where she gave up her dream
of being a writer and dedicated her life to intense Jewish learning and teaching and to being a mother and grandmother. The new
production was shot on location in Germany, Poland, Austria, and the United States, and follows the writer's life story as told
before live audiences and in the streets of significant places in the writer's life.
Special features of the film include Elizabeth Bolton's performance of song settings of nine poems by Hilda Stern Cohen, as composed
by William Gilcher.
As a young woman in the Lodz ghetto, Hilda Stern was part of a remarkable group of writers and artists who met regularly with the
aim of producing their best creative work under the worst of circumstances. Writing in German, the language of the perpetrators,
Hilda Stern Cohen came to be recognized as one of the ghetto's literary elite, although she was only 21 when the war came to an end.
That a person of such talent abandoned her calling as a writer was an incalculable loss to world literature, but a sign of
immeasurable strength and determination for this young woman, who turned her face resolutely in a new direction.
After his wife's death, Dr. Werner V. Cohen discovered Hilda's faded notebooks, filled with poetry and other writings, and
transcribed the entire contents, thereby discovering word by word and page by page his beloved wife's life, feelings, and thought as
a young woman. Brought to the attention of Dr. William Gilcher at the Goethe-Institut Washington, Hilda Stern Cohen's complete works
were published in Germany in 2003 by the University of Giessen. Baltimore's Elborg Forster translated all the writing into English,
and a new volume of her work, including portions of the interviews with Gail Rosen, was published in 2008 by Dryad Press as Words
that Burn Within Me: Faith, Values, Survival.
For Tomorrow / Ich hoff' auf morgen
Under the auspices of the Baltimore Jewish Film Festival
Sunday, March 14, 2 pm
Jewish Community Center, 5700 Park Heights Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21215
THE SCREENING WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A LIVE PERFORMANCE
Tickets available in advance for $7.00 at the two JCC locations (or by email to cdavison@jcc.org)
For details: cdavison@jcc.org
Monday, March 15, 6:30 pm
Goethe-Institut Washington, 812 Seventh Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001
Tickets available through www.boxofficetickets.com/goethe or at the Goethe-Institut.
For Tomorrow / Ich hoff' auf morgen
A film by Eve Rennebarth, Gail Rosen, William Gilcher
90 minutes
with Gail Rosen, Storyteller, and Elizabeth Bolton, mezzo-soprano
Thomas Moore, piano; Anna Gilcher, flute
Music composed by William Gilcher
Camera and editing by Eve Rennebarth
Written by Gail Rosen
Produced by William Gilcher and Gail Rosen
In cooperation with Dr. Werner C. Cohen and the family of Hilda Stern Cohen
Made possible thanks to support from the Goethe-Institut Washington, the Friends of the Goethe-Insititut in Washington, DC, and many
friends of the project.
These screenings co-sponsored by the Foundation for Jewish Studies (Rockville, MD) and the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue (Washington,
DC)
More information:
From its location at 812 Seventh St. NW in the revitalized Downtown, the Goethe-Institut Washington (pronounced Ger-ta) reaches out
on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany by means of cultural programs, language courses, support to educators and up-to-date
information on Germany; it also coordinates German-related media projects for all of North America. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749-1832) is the broadly talented writer and thinker venerated by Germans much as Americans venerate Thomas Jefferson, his
contemporary.
###
Norma F. Broadwater
Cultural Programs and Public Relations
Goethe-Institut Washington
812 Seventh St. NW
Washington, DC 20001
tel. 202-289-1200, ext. 106
fax 202-289-3535
nbroadwater@washington.goethe.org <mailto:nbroadwater@washington.goethe.org>
www.goethe.de/washington <http://www.goethe.de/washington>
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