Hope floats through the years

Yaron Zilberman’s wonderful, heartwarming “Watermarks” covers a lot of territory -- spanning the 20th century and visiting many countries -- but it’s the emotional terrain that counts, as Zilberman locates a group of champion swimmers and persuades six of them to return to swim together once again in a magnificent indoor pool in Vienna for the first time in 65 years. All are women now in their 80s; all were members of the Hakoah, renowned Viennese sports club -- and all had to flee after Hitler annexed Austria. Hakoah, which means the strength” in Hebrew, was founded in 1909 because Jews were forbidden to belong to Gentile sports clubs.

In soccer and tennis as well as water sports, Hakoah nourished many of Europe’s top athletes, countering the stereotype of Jews as sedentary academics and professionals. In the 1920s stunning Hedy Beinenfeld (1906-76) became a top model as well as a champion swimmer who married Hakoah’s swimming coach, Zsigo Wertheimer (1897-1965). The Wertheimers, who emigrated to the U.S., are fondly remembered by the swimmers Zilberman met for his film.

And what a delightful group they are -- sharp, witty, chic survivors who forged new lives and successful careers in new countries. Among them are tart, lively Ann Marie Pisker, who emigrated to England; the warm, gracious sisters Hanni Deutsch Lux and Judith Deutsch Haspel, next-door neighbors in Israel; the beautiful Elisheva Susz, a renowned, still active Israeli child psychologist who studied under Anna Freud; Greta Stanton, a retired New Jersey social services professor; and Anni Lampl of Los Angeles, a dynamo with many activities, undeterred by her loss of sight.

All the women and their families escaped the Holocaust, mainly through the efforts of Hakoah officials. Haspel, too frail to make the journey to Vienna, was to represent Austria in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but she and two other Jewish athletes refused to participate.

Subsequently, she was banned from the sport and had all her swimming achievements erased from Austria’s record books, and when invited to return to Austria in 1995 to have her awards and medals officially returned to her, she insisted that the ceremony be held in Israel.

Although the women’s return to Vienna, which welcomed them warmly, seems to have been a positive experience, it was inevitably bittersweet, as happy memories mixed with memories of the fear, danger and hatred in Austria in the late ‘30s, as anti-Semitism escalated.

One evening in Vienna the women gather at a cabaret, where a performer sings a selection of vintage songs, daringly including “The Buchenwald March,” a concentration camp work song composed by prisoners Herman Leopoldi, a renowned Viennese cabaret pianist and songwriter, and Fritz (Beda) Lohner, Franz Lehar’s lyricist and the first president of Hakoah. (Lohner would become one of Hakoah’s 39 Holocaust victims among a membership of several thousand.)

A husband of one the swimmers remarks that to sing such a song is “going too far,” but Greta Stanton counters that it’s important to remember the difficult times while recalling the good ones.

*

‘Watermarks’

MPAA rating: Unrated

Times guidelines: Mature themes

A Kino International release of a co-production of ARTE (Germany/France) and ORF (Austria) in association with HBO/Cinemax. Writer-director Yaron Zilberman. Producers Yonatan Israel, Zilberman. Executive producers Paul Rozenberg, Ami Ben-Zion, Majdeh Danial, Shlomo Israel. Cinematographer Tom Hurwitz. Editors Yuvak Shar and Ruben Korenfeld. Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.

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