Kiev, Ukraine — “If we want to ensure Jewish continuity, we must return to our roots,” Stephen Spielberg told an audience of 2,000 as he made his debut in his ancestral home for the screening of his “Spell Your Name” documentary.

Ukraine’s President, Viktor Yuschenko, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and heads of Parliament turned out to preview the film.

Directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Bukovsky and produced by Spielberg, the documentary tells the story of Ukrainian Jewish survivors of Nazi atrocities, their rescuers, and even the young film assistants as they were affected by their work. The film is based on 52,000 interviews archived in the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, a Los Angeles-based organization founded by Spielberg.

The producer of numerous films, most famously “Schindler’s List,” Spielberg is passionate about educating future generations about the Holocaust horrors and history.

“Hearing the stories of Holocaust survivors around the world will change the world, and it already has,” he said. The grandson of Ukrainian Jews admitted that he was ambivalent about his Jewish identity as a child growing up in Arizona. But later as a father, he realized that he needs to assert his Jewish identity so that his children remain Jewish.

“In all my 17 years here,” commented Chabad Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki, director of Dnieperpetrovsk’s Jewish educational and social services programs, “I never heard a speaker make such a deep impression on our community.”

Spielberg joined Rabbi Kaminezki with his co-producer, Victor Pinchuk, patron of the foundation serving 160 Ukrainian Jewish communities, for an elegant kosher dinner, where Spielberg was heartened to learn of the current Jewish renaissance of Jewish educational, social and religious activity.

Ukraine just marked the 65th anniversary of the infamous Babi Yar massacre, prelude to Nazi atrocities that killed 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews. Within 48 hours of the Nazi occupation of Kiev, 33,700 Ukrainian Jews were shot to death at the edge of a deep ravine.

Today, 200,000 Jews live in Ukraine.

Captions:

Philanthropist Victor Mikaelovich Pinchuk
Rabbi Shmuel and Chani Kaminetsky, Chief rabbi of Dnieperpetrovsk, His honor Prime Minister Victor Yanukovich