The triumphant story of one of the most extraordinary rescues in concentration camp history - and the women who pulled it off.
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We are so very excited and grateful that we reached our goal on our second Kickstarter! In just 21 days, we raised over $17,000, and today we are able to officially start post-production! We cannot wait to get to work on editing and look forward to sharing with you all soon.
$15,000 of the $17,116 that was donated will be matched by our challenge grant from the Rabbi Israel Miller Fund for Shoah Research, Education, and Documentation, which means we have $30,000 to spend on post-production. That will help us get the vast majority of the editing completed! The additional $2000 helps us cover fees for Kickstarter and for our fiscal sponsor, From the Heart Productions (which ensures your donation is tax-deductible.)
With 9 more days left in our Kickstarter campaign, we are going to keep raising money for our stretch goals. An additional $5000 will fund the shoot for our opening sequence, which we would love to be able to include in our trailer and distribution pitches. Any additional money beyond that will go towards other post-production expenses including color grading, original music, and animation.
From the bottom of our heart, we thank you for your generous donations. We are so grateful to everyone who has supported this film along the way. It’s truly touching that there are so many of you that care so deeply about the Rabbits and the women of Ravensbrück and want to help us tell their stories. We couldn’t do any of this without you.
Each April, around this time, a ceremony is held at Ravensbrück to commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of the camp, which is officially recognized as April 30, 1945: the day the Soviet Army arrived and liberated the last prisoners. Survivors and their families come to the site of the former camp, now a memorial and museum, to remember and reflect. They participate in religious ceremonies of all traditions. They sing songs in different languages and carry flags of over 30 countries. They light candles. They lay wreaths. And they throw roses into the beautiful lake just outside the camp walls.
It’s a moving and memorable display of mourning: hundreds of roses bobbing gently on top of the water. At the bottom of the lake lies the ashes of thousands of women who were murdered at the camp and cremated in the small crematorium that still stands just steps away from the water’s edge.
We were there last April thanks to many of you and your generous donations that helped fund our trip. We were able to film the ceremony and interviews with survivors and gather important archival material from the museum.
And just a few weeks ago, we were able to film an interview with Arthur Bleiwas, the last living member of an American military unit of less than 100 men who against incredible odds, penetrated German lines and managed to convince over 275,000 German soldiers and SS to surrender their arms and dismantle their tanks. It was Arthur and his unit that disrupted the Ravensbrück death march and those of its satellite camps, thus doing their part in helping to save the “Rabbits” of Ravensbrück.
Sadly, Arthur passed away just days after our interview. Were it not for your donations, we would not have been able to make the trip. Because of you, we have preserved Arthur’s story and can share it with the world.
So many of the Ravensbrück survivors we interviewed told us their stories for that very reason: to share the truth and the tragedy, the horror and the hope with future generations. It’s a question we’ve asked every interviewee, “What would you tell current and future generations? What advice would you give them?”
Now, as we are beginning post-production, we once again need your help to make it happen. It’s an incredible privilege to document these stories, and we could not do it without your support.
We are thrilled to have already raised more than half of the money we need! You all are amazing. If you’ve already given, thank you! If you’ve been thinking about giving, now is the time! Your dollar will be matched by our grant! And please continue to share our film and the story of the Rabbits with everyone you know.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1146728477/saving-the-rabbits-of-ravensbruck-a-documentary-po
#rememberravensbruck
We are so very excited that our documentary, Saving the Rabbits of Ravensbrück, is the recipient of a $15,000 challenge grant from the Rabbi Israel Miller Fund for Shoah Research, Education, and Documentation. Each dollar donated to our film up to $15,000 will be matched by this grant, giving us a total of $30,000 for post-production so that we can finally begin editing the film. With your help, we can begin to pull together all the wonderful interviews and footage that we’ve filmed and let these women tell us the amazing story of the “Rabbits” of Ravensbrück and the courageous women of the resistance during WWII.
For those of you who contributed to the project to help us cover the costs to film these interviews, please know how very grateful we are for you! Your support helped us receive this grant – and has put us in the position to be able to complete the film. I hope you’ll consider supporting us again through our new Kickstarter campaign and help get us to the finish line.
The first 15 people who donate $500 or more will receive a signed copy of Lost Roses, Martha Hall Kelly’s prequel to her NYT best seller, Lilac Girls, which was just released on April 9. The first 15 people who donate $100 or more will receive a box of notecards featuring some of the beautiful photographs taken of Poland, Germany, and France during our trip to interview Ravensbrück survivors last spring.
Please continue to share our film and our new Kickstarter campaign with your friends and family. Thank you so much for your continued support!
You can find and follow our new campaign here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1146728477/saving-the-rabbits-of-ravensbruck-a-documentary-po