Surviving Skokie

Surviving Skokie is an intensely personal documentary by former Skokie resident Eli Adler about the provocative events of the 1970s, their aftermath, his family's horrific experience of the Shoah and a journey with his father to confront long-suppressed memories.Curiously, the neo-Nazi villain of the story, Frank Collin, is, like Adler, the son of a Holocaust survivor.

Rejecting his father, Collin became a virulent anti-Semite, but his right to demonstrate in Skokie is nevertheless defended by the American Civil Liberties Union.  The ever-venomous Collin tells his lead counsel, a Jewish lawyer, "Don't think just because you are representing me free of charge that when we take over this country you won't be the first one to go to a gas chamber."

Putting an end to their years of silence, the survivors peak out so that their painful stories cannot be forgotten. A powerful story of a community's battle against the voices and gestures of hate, of a quiet village and its once turbulent history.  Both a universal and personal tale of a quest through which a man and his father rediscover their pasts.