82 Names: Syria, Please Don’t Forget Us
director: Maziar Bahari ⏐ cinematographer: kamran dolat ⏐ editor: Aurora vögeli
USHMM, Off-Centre Productions ⏐ Documentary, 65min. US/UK, 2018
The documentary film 82 Names: Syria, Please Don’t Forget Us traces Mansour Omari, a survivor of torture and imprisonment in Syria, through his quest for memory and justice. When Mansour was released from prison, he smuggled out scraps of cloth sewn within the shirt he was wearing. The names of his cellmates are written on them with an ink made from blood and rust.
The film follows Mansour as he seeks to rebuild his life in exile. As the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington prepares to display the cloths, Mansour visits sites in Germany that memorialize the victims of the Holocaust and reflects on the Holocaust, how to bring attention to the brutal regime he escaped—and how to counter extremist ideology in the future.
The IHRA Committee on Holocaust, Genocide and Crimes against Humanity recommends this documentary, a co-production of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Iranian film director Maziar Bahari, as an educational resource.
