999: The Forgotten Girls

Synopsis

999: The Forgotten Girls chronicles the untold story of 999 Slovak girls betrayed by their government. These unmarried, mostly teenage girls were promised that if they volunteered for “work” they would be fulfilling their patriotic duty. Instead, in the spring of 1942, Slovakia became the first Axis partner to “relocate” Jewish residents. Under the cloak of deceit, the innocent girls bid farewell to their families and were deported via a one-way ticket to Auschwitz. Those who survived endured more than three years of persecution in death camps. Meet the last living survivors of the First Transport and learn their story.

About the Director

Heather Dune Macadam

Heather Dune Macadam has spent 20 years researching and interviewing families, witnesses, and survivors of the first official transport to Auschwitz. Her internationally acclaimed book 999 (2020) has been translated into 18 languages and was a Pen Finalist in 2021.

Macadam’s first book Rena’s Promise, co-written with Holocaust survivor #1716 Rena Kornreich Gelissen is required reading in history classes around the world. In 2011, Macadam founded Rena’s Promise Foundation, in the hopes of helping create a more ecumenical world unhindered by prejudice, racism, or hatred.

Macadam’s work discovering lost girls and young women of the Holocaust has been recognized by Yad Vashem in the UK. the National Museum of Jewish History in Slovakia, and the Memorial Museum of Auschwitz in Poland. A former professor, she has taught journalism, and creative nonfiction for over 20 years. This is her directorial debut.

Artistic Statement

Holocaust history is largely male dominated. Men’s stories in the camps far outweigh women’s and that is for several reasons, but mainly most of the girls from the first transport didn’t finish high school and had neither the understanding nor education to contextualize their experiences. They also felt a great deal of shame and therefore compartmentalized their years in Auschwitz. When I met Rena Kornreich (#1716) in 1992, I knew nothing about this transport, and I was shocked to discover that no one else did either. We collaborated on her memoir Rena’s Promise, but at the time I had no idea if there were any other survivors from the first transport.

In 2012, I packed my camera and traveled to Slovakia for the 70th Anniversary of the first transport and began a VLOG on my YouTube Channel. Slovakia was having countrywide commemorative ceremonies to honor the girls and suddenly, I was a star. I met historians, journalists, the Prime Minister and President of Slovakia and the Israeli Ambassador. Overnight, the kindle edition of Rena’s Promise went viral and became a #1 best seller on Amazon.

Then something else happened! The family of Adela Gross’s found me. I had written about Adela in Rena’s Promise and for 70 years they had never known what happened to her. I did. And I began to wonder; how many other stories were out there? I posted a form on my website; families of survivors and non-survivors began contacting me. With the help of the USC Shoah Foundation and Auschwitz Museum I began gathering a list of names of girls on the first transport. Then I discovered the entire list in the archives at Yad Vashem in Israel. I had that list typed into a database and began to analyze the data from survivors’ testimonies and archives. This information continues to change as families send names and information to me. It is an extraordinary document.

In 2017, on the 75th Anniversary of the first transport, I offered to take a group of survivor’s children with me to Slovakia and Auschwitz. Just before I left, I learned that 92-year-old Edith Grosman #1970 would be at the ceremony in Poprad. I called Edith and she agreed to an interview. Since then, Edith and I spent more than three years working on the book and this documentary. Until she passed away in 2021, she was an invaluable resource, capable of answering questions no one ever thought to ask about the girls of the first transport, adding information to the list, filling in blanks to this history that has never before been revealed and forming the narrative spine of this film.

This is a historic #MeToo story that I have dedicated my life to because these girls’ and young women deserve their place in Holocaust and women’s history. I am so passionate about this film and the importance of bringing justice to these girls, who have been overlooked by history, that I have invested much of my own resources into its completion. Now, 10 years after later, there is a critically acclaimed book based on my research (translated into nearly 20 languages) and we are in post-production on the film

Festivals, Screenings, & Awards

Hamptons Doc Festival

Miami Jewish Film Festival

Austin Jewish Film Festival