Jewish Community Center to show documentary on Holocaust refugees

The Lawrence Jewish Community Congregation will host a screening of an internationally recognized documentary about Jewish Holocaust survivors and refugees with an introduction by the film’s director April 26.

The documentary, “REFUGE: Stories of the Selfhelp Home,” details a Chicago community of German-Jewish refugees during World War II. The six Holocaust survivors featured in the film speak about the losses they endured, their life-and-death decisions and the creation of the Selfhelp home, which was founded by those fleeing Germany after the Kristallnacht, a series of coordinated attacks against Jews that occurred before the onset of the war.

During the past 75 years, Selfhelp, now a larger independent living organization, has provided shelter and support to more than 1,000 victims of Nazi persecution.

The film screening will begin at 8 p.m. April 26 at the Lawrence Jewish Community Center, 917 Highland Drive. It is free and open to the public.

The director, Ethan Bensinger, will give an introduction before showing the hour-long documentary. Bensinger is the son of German-Jewish refugees who fled the Nazi regime in the 1930s and moved to Chicago in 1955.