French-American journalist and filmmaker Leslie Benitah recently visited Cape Town to attend a family bar mitzvah. While here, she shared her documentary film, The Last Ones, at an event hosted by the SA Jewish Museum and the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre.
Leslie explains that her mission is to preserve the testimonies of Holocaust survivors before they are lost to time. “The project is deeply personal: as the granddaughter of four survivors,” she explains, “I grew up in Paris in a multilingual household where Yiddish, German and Polish reflected my grandparents’ past. Although they rarely spoke about their experiences during the Holocaust, their silence profoundly shaped my life.” As an adult, Leslie began researching her family history herself, travelling to Poland to piece together fragments of their stories. That search inspired her decision to document and share survivor testimonies so that their experiences would not disappear with them.
Recognizing that many survivors are now in their eighties and nineties, this work began nearly a decade ago and has been led by Leslie in the United States and Sophie Nahum in France, creator of the original French series Les Derniers. Together, they have recorded survivors’ stories in short, powerful videos. What began as an urgent effort to preserve first-hand accounts has since grown into a broader storytelling initiative that includes documentaries, educational resources and creative projects such as the book The Last Ones of Auschwitz. The initiative has already reached audiences around the world through classrooms, museums and online platforms.
According to Leslie, “My aim is not only to document history but to humanise it. By presenting personal testimonies, I hope to encourage empathy and understanding while ensuring that the lessons of the Holocaust remain relevant to future generations.” Through telling the stories of the survivors, denial of the Holocaust becomes much more difficult.
The project also explores new ways of engaging with memory, including a planned geolocated app that will allow users to encounter survivor stories connected to specific places.
Ultimately, Leslie sees The Last Ones as both an archive and a call to action. As the last generation of survivors passes away, the project seeks to preserve their voices as living testimonies that can be used by educators, researchers and the public in the future –helping to combat antisemitism, prejudice and historical amnesia while reinforcing the promise of ‘never again’.
The film is available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-_1gTKG8Q
FOR EDUCATORS: There are numerous resources available on the website: https://www.thelastones.education
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