St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) October 13, 2013
Fourteen-year-old Artemis Joukowsky had no idea the heroic role his family played during World War II until he began to interview his grandparents, Martha and Waitstill Sharp, for a homework assignment on moral courage. Flash forward a few decades, and the documentary based on their humble recounting of the story, Two Who Dared: The Sharps’ War, a film that was ten years in the making, is now being released through a grassroots effort at churches, synagogues and theaters across the country and worldwide. Find out more at http://www.twowhodared.com
Free and Open to the Public.
First Unitarian Church of St. Louis
5007 Waterman Boulevard, St. Louis
Saturday, October 19 at 7:00 pm
Film and Discussion sponsored by the Social Responsibility Committee, facilitated by Rosemary Johnson-Lawton and Rev. Perchlik.
For more information, please contact: (314) 863-8585.
Donations are being accepted at this screening to help support the film and its continued viewership, so please, pass the hat!
We are so grateful to the community at large and could not have gotten this far without our partnerships with Brown University, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (http://www.uusc.org/founders), Yad Vasham, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Anti-Defamation League, Simon Wiesenthal and our educational partner Facing History and Ourselves. Together we have developed a curriculum for teachers and students, which includes a 35 minute educational version of the film. To access the free curriculum visit the Facing History and Ourselves website at (http://twowhodared.facinghistory.org/).
About the Film
In February 1939, Waitstill Sharp, a young Unitarian minister from Boston, and his wife Martha left for Czechoslovakia on a refugee mission. The Unitarian church was already a step in front of the Nazis, having set up a secretive network of volunteers and agencies to secure the safe passage of both Jews and non-Jews out of Prague. The task became even more difficult when on March 15, 1939 the Nazis entered Prague. For the next five months, the Sharps continued their work undaunted by the presence of the Gestapo and the possibility that they would be arrested or killed. In August 1939, the couple left Prague and headed back to the United States, barely escaping arrest.
Only 10 months later, the Sharps returned to Europe on their second mission, setting up a refugee office in Lisbon, Portugal. Eventually, they made their way to Nazi-controlled France, to find ways to help refugees escape. In an elaborate plan, the Sharps helped a renowned German-Jewish author, Lion Feuchtwanger, and his wife escape to New York via Spain. Finally, in December 1940, after rescuing a plethora of people from the horrors of Nazi persecution, Waitstill and Martha Sharp returned to the United States. Following the war, Martha Sharp remained very active in efforts to assist the Jews around the world and the establishment of Israel.
Artemis Joukowsky, Director and grandson of the Sharps, is proud to present this remarkable story of courage, documenting the lives of Reverend Waitstill Sharp and his wife Martha. Told from their personal point of view, the film draws on their recorded interviews, letters and unpublished memoirs, and also includes interviews with children rescued and noted scholars.
TWO WHO DARED: THE SHARPS' WAR is a project of No Limits Media, Inc., a 501 (c) (3) organization. Founded in 2001, No Limits Media (NLM) is a multimedia development and production company dedicated to informing and entertaining the estimated 20% of the U.S. population that directly lives with a disability.
For more information, please visit the website: