For Kids
During WWII in Amsterdam, Carla Peperzak was a Jewish teenager (who grew up with Anne and Margot Frank) who obtained a non-Jewish ID and risked her life to hide fellow Jews during the Holocaust. Joining the Dutch underground, she fought the war by forging IDs helping many to escape. Today as 102 year-old Spokane resident, Peperzak speaks to classes, schools, and organizations about her experiences during WWII and the importance of building respect for one another so that what she went through can never again happen.
Since 2022, producer Kristine F. Hoover and filmmaker Clement Lye have been interviewing and following Carla’s journey. The result was a locally made, feature length documentary that caught fire. Since January 2025, Carla the Rescuer has screened in 32 states and 7 countries outside the United States. It has drawn the attention of the Anne Frank Center USA, which held a special screening for their entire mailing list. This led the Center to plant a sapling from Anne Frank’s Chestnut tree in Spokane to honor Carla’s tireless work. Carla the Rescuer won the Best Picture Audience Award at the Spokane Jewish Film Festival and for the first time, they were able to feature a film about a local heroine made by a local filmmaker to two sold out screenings.
The filmmakers have already screened the film for more than 1000 students. Locally, they have screened the film for 400 students at University High School. Spokane International Academy also held a screening for their 6th graders. In late September 2024, over 200 students from Coeur d’Alene school districts watched the film at the Kroc Center where Carla herself held a Q&A over Zoom with the students. The line of students with questions stretched to the back of the theater.
The feedback they received from students and teachers at each event was overwhelming.
One educator wrote: “Unanimously, (teachers) thought Carla’s story was gripping and an excellent companion piece for students learning about the Holocaust, especially the many groups that read Anne Frank’s diary each year…(Teachers) also echoed the sentiment that a 45-minute version comprised principally of Carla, her family, and the school scenes would cement this film as an educational tool.”
With SAGA support, the filmmakers will edit down the feature length documentary, Carla the Rescuer, to a length more manageable for a 1-hr classroom period while simultaneously developing accompanying artifacts and materials including maps, Carla’s ID’s, photographs, and tools that the Dutch resistance used to subvert Nazi occupiers. SAGA will also assist in packaging the educational tool (with and without lesson plans) so it is ready for middle school and high school teachers in Washington and Idaho. The finished materials will be marketed through existing partnerships such as the Holocaust Center for Humanity, Gonzaga University, Anne Frank Center USA, Film Pittsburgh’s Teen Screen and other organizations.