Five Cities

In 1938 and 1939, Shaul and Yitzhak Goskind of Warsaw-based Sektor Films produced six short films about urban Jewish communities in Poland. One, about Łódź, is lost. The other five-on Bialystok, Cracow, Lwow, Vilna, and Warsaw-have survived and are now called "Five Cities." These low-budget 35mm films were made for Landsmanshaften groups in America for fundraising purposes. On the eve of war, the Goskinds sent the films to Joseph Seiden, the prolific director in New York who distributed Yiddish newsreels and feature films in the US and Europe. Yiddish titles. English title, "Jewish Life in Bialystok." Pan, overview of city of Bialystok. Street scenes illustrating city as an industrial and cultural center with buildings, shops, and pedestrians. Images of downtown shops and buses, market day with peasants and horses. 03:04:10 Scenes of the Jewish community, children, elderly, street scenes, schools and synagogues. 03:05:31 Tile-roofed home of Dr. Zamenhof, creator of Esperanto. Sholem Aleichem Library, signs in Yiddish. INTs, factory, smokestacks, power looms and textile workers. Nursery. TOZ sanatorium. 03:08:40 Community-run summer camp reflecting the diversity of the city's 200-year-old Jewish community. Children in swimsuits, eating, lying around. CU, girl eating bialy. Memorable images of a spacious park where young adults relax and children play. EXT, palatial building with sculpted gardens. "The End"