Heartland Film Festival: Above the Drowning Sea

For tickets and show times, please click here.

I've read many stories about the plight of the Jewish people as Adolf Hitler took hold and began his terrible reign across Europe in the 1930s, but one I had never heard of was the story of a Chinese consul who defied the Nazi regime and issued visas for more than 20,000 Jewish individuals.

With the Nazi walls closing in on them, and seeing the atrocities first hand, the Jews in Vienna knew they had to find a safe haven to save themselves.. The trouble was as leaders from around the globe gathered together in July of 1938 to discuss the refugee problem, no one was willing to welcome the refugees into their country.

“Above the Drowning Sea” tells their story. Stories of individuals and families who, sensing that the worst was yet to come, besieged embassy after embassy searching for a way out only to be turned away. They couldn't leave without a visa and no one would issue them a visa to enter their country – with the exception of one individual - Ho Feng Shan, the consul from China. This man made their dream of escape a reality.

With visas in hand and not much more, the refugees hit the high seas to make the trek to Shanghai. Once there the Jews began to establish themselves in the city attempting to make the best of their situation. But things weren't much better for the Chinese especially after the attack on Pearl Harbor. After the attack, Japan began their occupation of Shanghai, spreading terror much like the Nazis the Jews had fled in Vienna. They were two peoples that were worlds apart culturally, but shared a common goal – survival.

“Above the Drowning Sea” is told through interviews by the people who lived it, the Jewish refugees who fled their home and the Chinese people who welcomed them. The stories are beyond powerful. Not just the stories of the Jews as they fought to secure their ticket out of Nazi occupied Vienna, then their struggles after arriving in Shanghai but also the Chinese people in Shanghai who risked persecution from the Japanese.

One of the most heartbreaking stories is told by William Eisner, who fled Vienna with his family at age six. He recounts a time after this family arrived when another refugee stoped him and his family and wanted to look at him because he reminded him of his son whom he left behind in Vienna. He says the man waited for them each Sunday just to see him, crying as the haunting memory of leaving his son behind consumed him.

Even though the documentary deals with one of most horrific times in history, it also in incredible inspirational with all the individuals in the documentary taking their challenges and not letting them stop them from living a life their families fought so hard to keep intact. A wonderful documentary that is as inspiring as it is heartbreaking.