Gabriela von Seltmann and Uwe von Seltmann's Oral History

Gabriela von Seltmann, Polish artist who explores issues of identity and memory, and Uwe von Seltmann, German author and journalist, were interviewed by Agnieszka Ilwicka on January 3, 2016 in Krakow, Poland. The two met ten years before the interview in a coffee house in Kazimierz, the Jewish quarter of Krakow. During their first conversation Uwe revealed that his grandfather served in the SS and Gabi that her grandfather had been murdered in Auschwitz. The two kept in touch after this initial meeting, began working together, and married soon thereafter. Uwe wrote books about each of their grandfathers based on their collaborative research, exploring matters of identity and family secrets along the way. Their next collaboration was a movie about Boris Dorfman, the writer, scholar, and social activist, titled "A Real Mentsh from Lemberg"; this was the first Yiddish language film from either of their countries in almost eighty years. Gabi had much more experience in filmmaking as she had worked as a makeup artist, special effects artist, and costume director, and she knew many people who worked in the film industry. Their films focus on identity and memory. Their current project is a film about Mordechai Gebertig, a Yiddish poet and songwriter who was shot by the Germans in the Krakow Ghetto. Gabi mentions several of his poems that "go so deeply inside" and dreamed of making people aware of his life and work. Finally, they are working on a musical theater piece about Zuzanna Ginczanka, a Russian Jewish poet who wrote in Polish; she was tortured and killed by the Germans in Krakow toward the end of the war. The von Seltmanns explain how to find information about their work on the internet and on Facebook. They are about to embark on their first trip to the United States to give a lecture in Boston and are available to do film screenings. They share that their philosophy is "Make love not war".