Summary: Your parents tell you that in order to survive, you have to hide your identity. You are a young, innocent child, yet you must assume a new name and immediately learn the sign of the cross. You cannot let anyone know you are a Jew or death is imminent. You must never mention who you are or where you came from and most importantly, you must “Never Forget To Lie.” Emmy award-winning filmmaker, Marian Marzynski, joined me to discuss his latest Frontline documentary, “Never Forget To Lie.” A visual autobiography, Marian shared a behind the scenes look into his life as a child during the holocaust and his newest, critically lauded film. During our interview we covered: Marian's goal in making this film be different than all other Holocaust films, and how he did it The universal impact of childhood trauma The benefits - and fears - that come when we look back at a traumatic past The secret of survivors A major element of a child's response to trauma Plus, I answered Paul's (from Minnesota) question asking, Is it normal to fluctuate between progress and square one when you're changing direction? About our guest: Marian Marzynski was born in Poland and survived the Holocaust as a Jewish child hidden by Christians. He has been making documentary films for over 50 years, first in Poland, where during the ’60s he was one of the pioneers of “cinema verite”, then in Denmark, and for the last 30 years in the United States. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1982 and won two Emmy Awards for his documentaries. He is a major contributor to such PBS series as The American Experience, NOVA and FRONTLINE. In FRONTLINE’s Never Forget to Lie, the most recent of Marzynski’s critically-lauded autobiographical films, the director explores, for the first time, his own wartime childhood and the experiences of other child survivors, teasing out their feelings about Poland, the Catholic Church, and the ramifications of identities forged under circumstances where survival began with the directive “never forget to lie.” Click here to watch the film.
