I attended an event where the film Besa: The Promise was being played on Thursday 9/22/2016

This film was about a man named Normon Gershman who started his film journey by interviewing some people that were known to have had rescued Jews during the time of the Holocaust and World War Two.

Norman's interviewee was a man from Albania who's family was known for sheltering a jewish family during the Holocaust. His father allowed a small boy to live with them and take him essentially adopt him into the family. Once the family left, they had left being three books in the family's house in Albania. The promise made in the family is that thesis books were to be returned to the Jewish family one day in the future.

This takes Normon and his Jewish rescuer to Islam where they tracked down the young Jewish boy that once lived in Albania with his family. They met up with each other and talked about how he and his family were so thankful to be living with the rescuers at the time.

The meeting was very emotional, the Jewish boy, who was now an elder man, explained how he never liked to talk of what happened back during World War Two. He didn't even tell his own son the tragedy of this time period.

This spoke a thousand words to me, seeing the pain in his face as the subject of the Holocaust was drawn back to his memory. It was like he was coming out of dark place in his past.

When the Jewish rescuer produced the three books to the elder man, he looked confused at first. He then opened it and saw that the books belonged to his family and that they were really all that he had left of them. He let out a bunch of tears and apologized because he never cries.

The meeting was concluded with a long hug

This journey of returning the books was almost like closing the wounds of the past. The Rescuer felt that the books didn't belong there in Albania with him anymore. By returning them to the elder man, it almost like a symbol of his parents that are now gone. This made me think of how many Jewish survivors went through this for the rest of their lives, not knowing when to let go or how to stop thinking about the terrible things that happened. How even talking about it or thinking about it still brings tears to their eyes. This film really opened up to me and showed that people still go through this pain everyday. It makes me sad that we couldn't do more for them, to help them during this tragedy.