World Wide Film Premiere: Two Who Dared

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In commemoration of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Brown University will host free public screenings of the documentary Two Who Dared: The Sharps’ War, on April 9 and April 16 at 7pm in the Watson Institute for International Studies at 111 Thayer Street. These screenings are part of a world-wide premiere occurring simultaneously at community churches, synagogues, theaters and schools.Two Who Dared: The Sharps’ War, tells the story of a Unitarian minister, Waitstill Sharp and his wife Martha, Pembroke class of 1926, who, just days prior to the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia, left their young children in Wellesley, Massachusetts to help save Jewish children being persecuted in Eastern Europe.

The film was directed by Artemis Joukowsky III (P’14, P’16), the Sharps’ grandson. Artemis explains, “As a 9th grader, I was given a homework assignment to interview someone of moral courage. When I asked my mother if she had any suggestions for a subject, to my shock she said, ‘Talk to your grandmother’! What I discovered in doing that assignment, and in many years to come, is that my grandmother and grandfather had a dramatic history that I had never heard before. This included underground espionage, working to rescue refugees and opposing the Nazi regime, in the service work that they had performed during World War II in Europe in 1939 and 1940.”

The documentary is told from the point of view of Martha and Waitstill, drawing on their recorded interviews, letters, and unpublished memoirs. A gift of the Sharp Archive to the Brown University Library is planned by the family. The film also includes interviews with noted scholars and survivors who were rescued as children.

The film will open in New England with a screening hosted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum at the Boston Public Library on March 13. Over 50 public screenings will follow April 7-18, 2013 at venues around the world, including Israel, France, London, Toronto, LA, and NYC. Brown University will stream a 30-minute educational version of the film online for 48 hours from April 19 at 5pm through April 22 at 8am at http://www.watsoninstitute.org/twowhodared.