Former Tolerance Channel Projects

The following long-form documentary projects were created for The Tolerance Channel and are freely available for download.

A Loss of Innocents

Synopsis: On April 21st, 1945, 20 children were hanged in the basement of an abandoned school in Hamburg, Germany. Victims of imprisonment, exploitation and medical experimentation, these children were murdered by Nazi captors at Neuengamme concentration camp. Their guards and killers were attempting to erase the memory of the children in an attempt to hide the Nazi’s vicious crimes. If not for the investigations conducted years later by journalists and family members, these stories may have been lost to history.

Produced and directed by multiple award-winning filmmakers, Sam Nahem and David Hahn, through funding from the Tolerance Channel.

Beyond the Fence: Memories of Buchenwald

Synopsis: This Emmy-award winning documentary examines the liberation of Buchenwald through the eyes of its survivors and those soldiers who helped to liberate them.  Leon Bass, a 19-year-old black soldier, was among the first to enter Buchenwald. He enlisted in the army to fight for his country, but the US Army’s policy of segregation denied him the rights he was fighting to protect. Mr. Bass was an angry, young, Black soldier when he entered Buchenwald.  Among the thousands of inmates was Robbie Waisman, a 14-year-old Polish Jew, who later discovered that his entire family had been murdered by the Nazi’s.

Later in life, Robbie Waisman and Leon Bass met again and fostered a lasting friendship that endures to this day. Narrated by Clarke Peters, of the HBO drama series, ’The Wire’, and ’Treme’, Beyond the Fence focuses on the shared history of persecution and suffering that Robbie and Leon experienced — in essence, the reality that each could have found himself on either side of that barbed wire fence surrounding Buchenwald.

A Survivor's Journey

Synopsis: This multiple award-winning documentary chronicles Holocaust survivor, Murray Ebner, and his family as they return to Poland to revisit his childhood home. Dredging up haunting memories, the Ebner family walk the grounds of the Jewish ghetto and concentration camps where he was held prisoner for two years.

Looking Into the Face of Evil

Synopsis: Recognized for Gold Medals by the New York Film Festival, CINE, the Columbus International Film Festival and others, Looking Into the Face of Evil examines the lessons of the Holocaust through the eyes of three survivors. This documentary, unlike others on the subject, offers a time line of events leading up to and through the Holocaust. Testimony from three Holocaust survivors is woven through a chronology of historical events that recount the horrors of Nazi Germany. Narrated by acclaimed actor, Ed Asner.