It’s a curtain call nearly 20 years in the making.
Dutch filmmaker Philo Bregstein made his San Francisco Jewish Film Festival debut in 1986 with his film “In Search of Jewish Amsterdam.”
Throughout the years since, Bregstein remained friendly with former festival director Janis Plotkin. With the publication of his new book about Dutch Jewry, the time seemed right to invite him back.
Bregstein, 72, returns to San Francisco for an encore screening of “In Search of Jewish Amsterdam” on Wednesday, Nov. 17, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
This event not only celebrates Bregstein’s landmark 1975 documentary. It also marks the hardcover publication of “Remembering Jewish Amsterdam,” which includes the complete interviews Bregstein conducted with Dutch Holocaust survivors while making his movie.
The film “In Search of Jewish Amsterdam” delves into the relatively idyllic life Dutch Jews enjoyed for centuries leading up to the Holocaust. Eschewing stock footage and working with a shoestring budget, Bregstein interviewed dozens of aging Dutch Jews. Street hawkers, kosher bakers, musicians, doctors, even a boxing trainer, all describe in vivid detail their happy lives in prewar Amsterdam.
They are all deceased now, says Bregstein.
“We didn’t realize at the time that we made a unique collection,” he notes. “I was maybe the last one who recorded everything.”
Bregstein himself is the son of a Jewish father and a Christian mother. He was 8 when the war started, and his family spent those years hiding their Jewish connections. Most Dutch Jews did not survive the Holocaust. “My mother was courageous,” he says. “She and her family saved us.”
In the years after the war, though most survivors immigrated to America or Israel, some returned to Holland to resume their lives. Bregstein says he became obsessed with the history and fate of Dutch Jewry, which is why he set out to make his film.
Initially he was invited to create a film celebrating the 700th anniversary of the founding of Amsterdam. But only 30 years after liberation, he says, “the Holocaust was still present. There were still a lot of ruins.”
Rather than inquire about the wartime experiences of Dutch Jews, Bregstein instead delved into the past. “I interviewed survivors not about the war but about life before the war,” he says. “They started to tell me stories, and I just accumulated interviews. We plunged into this history. I felt I had to drink it all.”
In the film, he ended up using only about 5 percent of the interviews. Today all the material is archived in the Jewish Museum of Amsterdam.
While Dutch society has long enjoyed a reputation for tolerance, Bregstein has his doubts. The recent murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh at the hands of Islamic fanatics only underscores his concerns.
“Theo himself became very racist in his attacks towards Islam,” says Bregstein. “But he is now considered a hero in Holland. The danger is you have an escalating process going on. In the name of freedom and democracy we will kill freedom and democracy. We will destroy our own values.”
That’s why Bregstein still believes in the message of his film. Peace and social harmony, he says, are fragile things and could collapse at any time. “Holland has been this unique place. There was coexistence, where Jews were completely accepted. But it led to this terrible end. Dutch Jews felt too safe. They were not.”
“In Search of Jewish Amsterdam” screens 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 17, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, S.F. Tickets: $6-$7. Information: (415) 978-2787.
“Remembering Jewish Amsterdam” by Philo Bregstein and Salvador Bloemgarten ($30, Holmes & Meier, 245 pages).