Holocaust survivor tells story of ‘journey’

Fanny Ben-Ami learned how to be a survivor early in life, after she was forced at age 13 to flee a boarding school in Nazi-occupied France.

Her harrowing experience is the subject of a French movie, “Fanny’s Journey,” which opens in South Florida on Friday.

Ben-Ami, who is now 86 and lives in Tel Aviv, is visiting schools and movie theaters in South Florida to share her experience. With the help of a Hebrew translator, she spoke Wednesday to history students at Monarch High in Coconut Creek.

“It’s not very often that you get to speak to a Holocaust survivor,” said history teacher Joseph Coyle. “A lot of these kids aren’t familiar with 9/11 or things that happened in the past. The more they can understand, the more knowledgeable and worldly they’ll be.”

“Fanny’s Journey” takes place in 1943, after the Germans arrested BenAmi’s father. Ben-Ami and her two younger sisters were sent to a boarding school in a part of France considered neutral and safe.

But it didn’t stay safe for long, as the French government assisted the Nazis.

Ben-Ami, her sisters and others from the boarding school were forced to make multiple escapes, including to Italy and Switzerland.

“The filmmakers did a phenomenal job of capturing the French sentiment and the way the French betrayed the people of their own nationality,” BenAmi said.

She told the students it was anger that motivated her to keep fighting for her life.

The students learned to keep a lowprofile because “we knew if we were caught, we would be going to a place for which we would not return,” she said.

While Ben-Ami and her sisters survived, their parents were ultimately killed.

Although the film depicts the suspense and fear, there’s also moments

of levity and optimism, she said.

“Children are children. They will always keep a certain hope in their hearts. They want to find the innocence and the comic moments,” she said.

And she said it’s children who give her hope about such problems as the refugee crisis in Syria and the atrocities there.

“We know what it’s like when you sit back and don’t take a stand,” she said. “But it’s important for you guys to speak up about what’s happening in places that may seem far away, but where history is repeating itself.”

Ben-Ami is scheduled to speak to students at several other South Florida schools Thursday and Friday. She will also participate in several Q&A sessions at Movies of Delray on Saturday and Movies of Lake Worth on Sunday.

For a complete schedule of appearances and movie times and locations, go to menemshafilms.com/fannys-journey.

The movie is in French with English subtitles.

CARLINE JEAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Holocaust survivor Fanny Ben-Ami, 86, speaks to students at Monarch High in Coconut Creek with translator Tamar Milshtein. Her story is depicted in the film “Fanny’s Journey.”