Commemorate Kristallnacht with Screening of ‘Miracle at Moreaux’ on November 13

The third annual Philip J. Albert Memorial Kristallnacht Commemoration will feature a screening of the award-winning film Miracle at Moreaux, on Sunday, November 13, at 3 p.m. in the Gill Chapel on Rider’s Lawrenceville campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Miracle at Moreaux stars Loretta Swit as Sister Gabrielle, a nun living in World War II France who gives shelter to three Jewish children fleeing the Nazis after their guide is killed. The children arrive just as Sister Gabrielle’s school is staging a Nativity pageant, and the quick-thinking nun pretends the children are her students.

Once assumed into the school, the Jewish children initially are confronted by negative attitudes toward Jews by some of their Christian peers, but after teaching them about their religion, they win them over and earn their friendship. Miracle at Moreaux reaches its exciting climax when the Jewish and Catholic children don each other’s clothing during a school play, confusing the pursuing Nazis, and allowing the real Jewish children to flee towards the border and escape into Spain.

Based on the novel Twenty and Ten by Claire Hutchet Bishop, Miracle at Moreaux originally aired on PBS in 1986. It addresses the topic of racial hatred and offers a child’s perspective on the Holocaust, as the children at the school must face their own stereotypes and bigotry.

The screening will be followed by audience commentary and discussion.

The Kristallnacht Commemoration is presented by the Julius and Dorothy Koppelman Holocaust/Genocide Resource Center of Rider University. The event will include a greeting from Dr. Elizabeth Scheiber, associate director of the Koppelman Center and associate professor of Foreign Languages; and an introduction by Dr. Harvey Kornberg, director of the Koppelman Center and associate professor of Political Science.