Documentary Institute Holocaust film receives $200,000
When Col. Ilan Ramon, Israel’s first astronaut, climbed aboard the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, he carried a moonscape drawing by Petr Ginz, an artist and writer who perished as a teenager at Auschwitz.
To help the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications’ Documentary Institute make a film about Ginz, whose diary surfaced after the Columbia explosion, the Miami-based Jerome A. Yavitz Charitable Foundation has pledged $200,000.
“We hope the story of Petr Ginz will inspire children around the world,” said Sandra Dickson, co-director of the institute. “In the midst of the Holocaust, Petr showed how the human spirit can prevail. His writings and drawings are his legacy and his gift to the world.”
Foundation trustee Stephen Cypen, a 1965 UF graduate, will become executive producer of The Flight of Petr Ginz, which the institute plans to complete in two years.
“Steve Cypen is a great friend of UF,” said Churchill Roberts, co-director of the institute. “He’s given to the Jewish Studies program, to the restoration of Newell Hall, to Hillel of Gainesville. We couldn’t ask for a better fit.”
Cypen’s father, Irving Cypen, funds an endowed chair in the UF Levin College of Law and provides scholarships for freshman law students.
After a Prague resident discovered the diary in his attic, Ginz’s sister, Chava Pressburger, published it as a book, “The Diary of Petr Ginz.” Translated into 10 languages, it’s represented by the Swiss agency Liepman AG, which also represents the estate of Anne Frank.
The college is a national leader in the professional education of future journalists and other communications practitioners. Besides documentary filmmaking, it offers programs in advertising, print and broadcast journalism, public relations, and telecommunication production and operations, as well as graduate-level programs in science/health communication, media law, political communication and international communication.
Posted: June 4, 2008
Category: College News
