Canadian premiere of WWII documentary comes to Redeemer

The Dutch Resistance and the Holocaust:

ANCASTER, Ontario – The award-winning U.S. documentary film, The Reckoning: Remembering the Dutch Resistance, will have its Canadian premiere showing on May 29 at Redeemer University College in Ancaster.

Redeemer has reached an agreement with the Grand Rapids, Michigan film company Storytelling Pictures to sponsor the Canadian premiere. The documentary was declared Best Documentary at the New York Film Festival earlier this year and has been shown in major centres across the United States.

The Reckoning recounts the experiences of six individuals whose lives were profoundly changed by the events in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation. Redeemer President Justin Cooper explains his college’s reason for involvement: “Part of our mission as an undergraduate university is to insure that important stories and events are discussed and analyzed, not only in our classrooms, but in the broader context of the community. This film honours the Dutch resistance to a brutal Nazi occupation, tells the story of Jewish resilience in the face of a systematic state policy of annihilation, and relates a story of religious faith. We count it as a privilege to sponsor the first Canadian screening.”

Hugh Cook, Redeemer emeritus professor of English and author of the novel The Homecoming Man, agreed with the relevancy of the film’s message. “It’s a story of ordinary people performing extraordinary acts of heroism and faith. They helped to preserve freedom, sometimes at great personal cost. The Reckoning brings to life a chapter in history that needs to be remembered by all.”

Helping bring the story to Canada will be Diet Eman and John Knight, two of the individuals featured in the film, as well as Storytelling Pictures president Corey Niemchick and John Evans, creative director. The Reckoning features Diet Eman’s story, also told in the book Things We Couldn’t Say, in an especially heart-wrenching presentation that will not be soon forgotten by Canadian audiences.