Endorsements
The project has been endorsed by a number of organizations and institutions. Below are excerpts from three of them.
NHPBS has reviewed the proposal and materials for Esther Topaz: Sculpting a Life and found it to meet our mission. After years of documenting Esther Topaz’s life, you have reached the final phase of production. The narrative is incredibly well crafted. The story is relevant for all those living today who may have little understanding of the role that France played in the Holocaust, that children born within the harsh realities of the camps often survived with little memory of the experience, yet spent their lives processing the trauma. It is a powerful narrative that could easily be offered for national distribution.
We are writing with great interest ad enthusiasm to express our suport for the docudementary project Sculpting a Life which chronicles the remarkable life of Canadian artist Esther Tichauer Topaz.
Born in the Gurs internment camp and having miraculously survived the Holocaust, Esther Topaz went on to build an extraordinary life that reflects her resilience and talent. We are proud to include one of her works in our collection alognside a deeply moving oral testimony highlighting the breadth of her artistry.
As you know, only in the 1980s and 1990s did scholars and politicians begin to more widely acknowledge the role that France played in the persecution of Jews and other victims of the German occupation. Marrus and Paxton’s book Vichy France and the Jews (1981) challenged many long-standing narratives about France’s role during the Holocaust, especially the nation’s overemphasis on the role of resisters who tried to undermine Nazi Germany. And, in 1995, then-President Jaques Chirac’s public apology for France’s role in rounding up Jews for. deportation deepened the sense of national reckoning with this history.
However, despite these shifts, there remains a dearth of films and other broadly accessible sources to educate global audiences about the complexities of this history. As someone who is teaching a course at Keene State College in spring 2025 on ”The Holocaust and France,” I myself have struggled to find well-researched films—especially for English-speaking audiences—to integrate into my undergraduate-level course.
We are living in a time when questions of truth and accountability in regard to the Holocaust are of utmost iimportance. Your film has the potential to spark much-needed conversation about th role of France in teh Holocauset and will be of use for both schlarly and non-scholarly audiences. your project also aligns with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s ”Guidelines for Teaching about the Holocaust,” especially in terms of contextualizing the history and translating statistics into people. The story of Esther Topaz is also deeeply compelling — and her work as an artist also opens up exciting possibilities for interdisciplinary engagement with the film.
