A character-driven documentary that includes footage of instruction by a Carroll Community College adjunct professor was shown for the first time in Baltimore this spring. The documentary is called See You Soon Again.
Producers Lukas Stepanik and Bernadette Wegenstein have created an international film that features Holocaust survivors Leo Bretholz and Bluma Shapiro interacting with students in and around Baltimore schools.

Carroll adjunct professor Tom Hockstra brings history alive in his classroom when he tells Bretholz's story. Carroll students have also been treated to visits from the Holocaust survivor. "Students are in awe of Leo. They enjoy the opportunity to interact with him and talk with a book author," said Hockstra. "It is a moment students will forever cherish."

Filmmakers captured the fascination students developed with this story during filming at Carroll in 2011. Stepanik is from Austria. He has produced twenty films. Wegenstein is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University. Wegenstein is also from Austria and a filmmaker too.

Bretholz, a resident of Pikesville, witnessed Hitler's annexation of Vienna, escaped from Nazi-occupied France, and jumped from a deportation train from Drancy to Auschwitz. He is the author of Leap Into Darkness, with Michael Olesker as co-author. Bretholz is also a beloved local and international lecturer.

It was the interaction between Bretholz and students who are generations younger that attracted the attention of the international filmmakers. Stepanik and Wegenstein filmed Hockstra's class on two separate days as part of a tour of area schools teaching about the Holocaust. Today's youth represent the third and sometimes fourth generations after the Holocaust.

As a personal friend of Bretholz, Hockstra never tires of hearing Bretholz's stories. He listens intently, his eyes transfixed on a real life example right out of the history books. Hockstra uses these stories to impress upon students that the worst reaction to a tragedy is to simply stand by and do nothing. Hockstra hopes he is grooming students not to stand by in the face of injustice in the future.

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