Holocaust survivor Ben Lesser makes a few remarks about Ann Raskin’s documentary, which features Lesser’s harrowing story, during a private screening at King David Memorial Chapel Thursday April 25, 2024.
Sunday, April 28, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Ben Lesser and his cousin were jammed into a cattle car with 80 other Jewish prisoners to be transported to the Dachau concentration camp in southern Germany.
Loaves of bread were thrown into the car by Nazi soldiers and fought over by the prisoners to last what became a four-week journey.
By the time the train arrived at the camp, only four of the 80 prisoners were alive, including Lesser and his cousin. Lesser survived the Holocaust — Nazi Germany’s deliberate murder of approximately 6 million European Jews — and has spent his life educating younger generations about what happened, so that history isn’t repeated.
Lesser’s harrowing survival in the concentration camps are part of the documentary, “Commit to a Life That Has Meaning — A Life That Matters, Inspired by Holocaust Survivor, Ben Lesser.” It was screened Thursday at the King David Memorial Chapel in Las Vegas.
The screening brought several in the crowd to tears, and received a standing ovation at the end. Lesser, humble as ever, said he appreciated the recognition.
“You gave me so much honor, I don’t know if I’m worth it,” Lesser, 95, said to the crowd after the movie’s screening.
A small congregation of locals gathered to bear witness to two struggles: a Holocaust survivor’s struggle to remain alive in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, and the small film crew doing whatever it can to help him share his story.
The film, a five-year project for producer Ann Raskin and her team, focuses not just on Lesser’s survival through the Holocaust, but his dedication to educate the public about his experiences.
The screening was provided so Lesser, his family and a few local residents could watch the completed film. Lesser has called Southern Nevada home the past 30 years.
“For us to present it to Ben, our hearts are filled,” Raskin said at the screening.
Raskin met Lesser during her time as a teacher, when she would invite him to talk about his experiences to students to help them better understand the Holocaust.
Raskin knew she wanted to spread his story in a more meaningful way and utilized a law in Utah allowing residents over age 62 to take college courses for $25. She studied film.
In her first few classes, she met fellow students who would eventually become the film crew for the movie. At 71, Raskin was much older than her colleagues, but said they welcomed with open arms her and her vision to share Lesser’s story.
“She is the rock on this thing, I love her and I love her passion,” project cinematographer Alek Jordan said. “She’s exactly what this entire thing needed.”
Capturing Lesser’s story in documentary form was no easy feat for the team. Production was marred by constant barriers: a failed fundraising campaign, tire blowouts and countless hours of footage to comb through. Almost the entirety of the film’s budget was from at the crew’s expense, many of whom are college students.
But the team, guided by Raskin, pulled from the very subject they sought to cover for motivation — if Lesser could get through the horrors of the Holocaust, they would do whatever it took to share his story with the world.
The film’s editor and codirector, Lane Palmer, said one of the biggest challenges was choosing which parts of Lesser’s story to highlight. Cutting years of anecdotes and interviews down to the film’s 70-minute runtime was a constant balancing act.
“To narrow that down to the best? It’s taken years of work,” Palmer said of 20 hours of footage the crew recorded of Lesser.
Providence and the Yiddish word “beshert,” which means destiny, are the words Raskin said described how she felt completing the film. Raskin began the project with a storyboard she laid out of Lesser’s story, and said through all the difficulties of filming and editing, the final product eventually fell into place.
“I just feel that it was inevitable that this happened, and the way that it happened, every word fit perfectly,” Raskin said.
Before the private screening, attendees were invited to walk through King David Chapel’s Holocaust Memorial Plaza, which was completed in 2022 and recently received an expansion. The Plaza features educational plaques about the Holocaust, including a history of the period and information about some of the largest concentration camps at the time.
During the documentary, Lesser spoke in great detail about his survival at four different concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest concentration camp during the Holocaust.
Lesser recounted watching his family being separated and his torture at the hands of Nazi soldiers for their amusement. But Lesser also zeroed in on his survival instincts, marking the key choices he made during the horrors he experienced that helped him survive the brutality of Nazi Germany.
“There were at least a dozen miracles during the Holocaust years, life-threatening choices, and I survived them,” Lesser said at one point in the film. “And somehow I was able to make the right choice.”
One choice was lying about his age to soldiers. He said he was 18 — not his true age of 15 — meaning he would be sent to a work camp rather than being killed.
Lesser’s trauma at the camps was not the film’s sole focus.
After his liberation by American troops in 1945, Lesser moved to the United States at 18, with no family and little understanding of English. But he found work and started a family with his wife Jean. They were married 72 years before her death in 2023. For Lesser, he said that along with sharing his story, what was important was to live a life with meaning.
Lesser began speaking at schools to educate students on the Holocaust and stressing that message to them.
Several other local Jewish leaders and members of the Nevada community were featured in the documentary to detail why Holocaust education is important.
During the screening, Lesser underscored the importance of sharing his story and the history of the Holocaust now more than ever. A report from the Anti-Defamation League in February found that 25% of Jewish people in the U.S. have been the target of antisemitism in the past year, and that antisemitic incidents in Nevada have increased.
“The world seems to be forgetting just plain slaughter,” Lesser said.
Raskin said she wants to continue to tell the important stories of Holocaust survivors through different mediums, including writing a play to show to schools. Raskin and the film crew are now looking for distributors for the film to help share it with a wider audience but are also considering submitting it for film festivals.
“It’s not just about the facts of the Holocaust, but what we can learn from the Holocaust,” Raskin said.
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