The Team

DEBORAH F BLUM Co-Director, Producer, Researcher

An artist, educator and art gallery director, Deborah Blum began researching her family history after teaching overseas as a Waldorf teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School Mbagathi Nairobi for several years. She became fascinated with her ancestor, Carl Laemmle, when she went to Universal Studios, and when she learned he saved Jews from the Holocaust, she set out to make a documentary.

Deborah was born in Germany and grew up in Santa Monica, where she enjoyed the film education she received watching foreign and indie films at Laemmle Theaters, a chain of art house movie theaters, founded in 1938 by her grandfather and his brother.

Ms. Blum studied art, history and English literature at Brown University, and photography and painting at Rhode Island School of Design. She earned a B.A in English from UCLA, and then Waldorf teacher certification at the Waldorf Institute of Southern California. She taught English and art at Waldorf schools in Los Angeles, New York and Africa.

A documentary photography project on Dominican refugees in Providence was part of her early documentary work. She continued to photograph when traveling and to incorporate these photographs into her artwork. She now runs 7811 Gallery with her partner, Warren Blum, in Los Angeles and enjoys hiking in the Hollywood Hills.

WARREN I BLUM Co-director, Producer, Music

A composer, filmmaker, sound technician, editor and storyteller, Warren is a West Hollywood native, a graduate of Sonoma State College and Loyola Law School Suma Cum Laud. He had a sole law practice and was an accommodator for 1031 Exchanges. He has made several short films and scored several others, including Donald and Dot Clock Found Dead in Their Home, which premiered at Dances With Films in 2002.

He lives in West Hollywood with Deborah and their cat Moonlight.

SANDY EINSTEIN

Associate Producer

A retired promoter of the rock bands Journey, Mr. Big and Europe, Sandy Einstein has been instrumental in creating awareness of Carl Laemmle's humanitarian rescue efforts during the Nazi Era. Sandy's father, Hermann Einstein, received an affidavit from Carl Laemmle and arrived in the U.S. in 1938.

Sandy worked tirelessly with writers and journalists to publish articles chronicling Carl Laemmle's rescue efforts; articles have appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian magazine, Tablet magazine, the Jewish Journal, and the Daily Express.

Sandy donated his father's letters to The Carl Laemmle Present Exhibit in Stuttgart in 2016 and continues to keep track of Carl Laemmle's presence worldwide.

Sandy at home in Walnut Creek, California.

DR. MICHAEL BERENBAUM

Historical Consultant

Michael Berenbaum is an American scholar, professor, rabbi, writer, and filmmaker, who specializes in the study of the Holocaust. He served as Deputy Director of the President's Commission on the Holocaust, Project Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Director of the USHMM's Holocaust Research Institute.

Dr. Berenbaum played a leading role in the creation of the USHMM and the content of its permanent exhibition. He served as president of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, and and currently is Director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust, located at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, California.

He co-produced One Survivor Remembers: The Gerda Weissmann Klein Story, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short in 1996, and an Emmy Award. He was the chief historical consultant for Last Days, which also won an Academy Award. Berenbaum was historical consultant for History Channel's The Holocaust and was executive producer of Swimming in Auschwitz and a consultant for Defiance and Uprising, among other Holocaust-related films and documentaries.

Berenbaum is the founding partner of Berenbaum Jacobs Associates, a firm designing Museums, Special Exhibitions, Memorials and Educational Centers.