‘Letters from Brno’ Screening, Producer Talk at NMU

Northern Michigan University will host a film screening of “Letters from Brno,” an award-winning documentary that relays a powerful, heart-wrenching story of parental love and unspeakable sacrifice during the Holocaust. The showing is at 5 p.m. Monday, Oct. 7, in Mead Auditorium (2701 Science Building). The film’s writer and producer, Karen Kruger, will participate in a discussion afterward.

In a 45-year search for clues to her mother’s past, a woman uncovers the tragic fate of her grandparents from the eyewitness accounts of their letters written during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. The film’s awards include best documentary at the Prague International Film Festival and best feature documentary at the Brno Film Festival.

In December 1976, during a college break, Kruger learned that her mother, Erika Stefanie Turkl (Neumann) was Jewish. This discovery marked the beginning of Kruger’s insatiable curiosity about her mother’s family history and the start of a 45-year journey to uncover her mother’s past.

In the summer of 2019, Kruger traveled to Brno and Prague, Czechoslovakia, and to Cornwall, England to finally take the necessary time to research her mother’s past.  She spent three months working in archives, meeting with experts from the Jewish Museum of Prague and traveling to Terezin and Boskovice, Alexovice and other towns. She traced her mother’s 1939 journey from her Brno to England via Kinder transports of 669 Czechoslovakian Jewish children arranged by British stockbroker Nicholas Winton.

When Kruger returned in the Fall of 2019, she knew that she needed to work full-time on the project. She decided to retire from her school administrator’s position and dedicate her time, effort and finances to researching the family history.

Jeffery Gary, a documentary filmmaker, learned of Kruger’s project and offered to interview/film her to record her recent research trip “while it was still fresh in her mind.” During the first two sessions of filming, Jeffery realized that the story of Kruger’s mother’s family had all the components of a documentary film and he suggested that she consider telling the story on film first instead of writing a book—which she had originally planned to do.