A New TV Series about the High School Trips to Poland

Memory Forest, directed by Roman Shumunov, is a new prizewinning TV series, made for Israel TV Kan. The series tells the story of a journey to Poland of a group of Israeli high school students. 

The story is about 2 sets of friends – Shani and Lilush from Carmiel and Kobi and Omri from Herzliyah.  There is plenty of flirting between the girls and boys, and it seems that Shani is having trouble connecting to the subject matter and Omri seems to be a real jerk at the beginning.  But things even out, as we get to know them, and as their anxieties become clear.  Episode #1 is about Warsaw. Episode #2 takes place at Treblinka. Episode no. 3 is at Lublin and episode no. 4 is in the forest. 

I sit on the committee of the Film and Media Collaborative (made up of representatives of three funds: Gesher, Maimonides, and AviChai) which funded this series.  Honestly, we were all a bit apprehensive that the program might turn out to be too much of a teaching unit and also a bit formulaic.  I was thrilled to have a chance to preview the entire series this week and it was great!  The script, the acting, the historical teaching moments all were superb and I am proud to have been a small part of this project!

This series offers a mix between telling the story of the Shoah, on the one hand, and the experience as seen through the eyes of the young people, on the other.  There are many moving scenes, including the one at Treblinka, where we learn about the 17,000 stones in memory of the children and adults who were murdered there – every single day.  There is the nationalistic argument as seen through the expression of one boy who reacts with anger, saying that having ceremonies isn’t the only way to commemorate.  There are the moments when they are trying desperately to understand the meaning of the trip, the meaning of being survivors, the importance of how this trip reflects on their Jewishness, all so that the victims will not have died in vain.  There is the teenage girl who doesn’t want to spend any money in Poland because everyone there is anti-semitic but she is surprised to learn that Rivka, their accompanying survivor, wants to go take advantage of the shopping. We watch as these young people grow and slowly begin to understand so much about their own place within this story of memory.

Memory Forest is a TV series made up of 4 episodes, each approximately 30 minutes.