Free Screening Of Ken Burns’s ‘Defying The Nazis: The Sharps’ War,’ Thursday
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On the brink of World War II, a Unitarian minister and his wife from Wellesley, Mass., left their children behind in the care of their parish and boldly committed to multiple life-threatening missions in Europe. Over two dangerous years they helped to save hundreds of imperiled political dissidents and Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi occupation across Europe.
At the Robert H. Jackson Center on Thursday, May 4, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Jamestown will present "Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War," Ken Burns's 90-minute film that tells this story of Waitstill and Martha Sharp. The event begins with refreshments at 6:30 p.m. The film will be shown at 7 p.m. Following the screening, Gregory Peterson, co-founder and board member of the Jackson Center, will lead a discussion.
The Jackson Center is located at 305 E. Fourth St., Jamestown.
In addition to his Emmy for Lifetime Achievement, Ken Burns's works have been nominated for two Oscars and won four Emmys. In a preview of "Defying the Nazis" he explained, "This is a story that woke me up. It touches on religious faith in the United States, on the evil of the holocaust and the monstrous Nazi regime.... and what's the responsibility of individual citizens. [The Sharps] figured out how to write in code, they figured out smuggling of human lives, they figured out how to get past Nazi guards. This is not stuff they teach you in divinity school."
Co-director and producer with Burns is Artemis Joukowsky, grandson of Waitstill and Martha Sharp. After his grandmother passed away, he went into her basement and discovered 14 boxes of documents, letters, photographs from the mission, as well as an unpublished memoir.
Along with compelling commentary from people they saved as well as holocaust scholars, the film draws from the couple's journals and letters, with Tom Hanks providing the voice of Waitstill Sharp. It is a suspenseful and intimate look into the lives of a husband and wife willing to risk their lives to save others.
The showing is free and open to the public. A donation will be collected in support of the Jackson Center.