The only existing archival record of my Austrian Jewish great-grandmother’s execution is a half sentence on a page in an obscure genealogy that she shares with another victim. My mother was eleven years old when she became a witness to this execution. She died almost 20 years ago, but to this day I continue to wrestle with the trauma that haunted my mother’s life, that wound its way through her volumes of poetry, and that fueled the letters she exchanged with Eli Wiesel.

With The Archives, I want to honor the importance and undisputable truth of archives. I want the viewer to connect with the historical truth of the Holocaust and realize that these archives, whether collected by family archivists or dedicated institutional archivists, will be our only link to the lives that are gone. I am committed to making this film because it is in these hallowed spaces of stored history that future generations of searchers will find the truth that we must protect. I also hope to inspire future generations to search through boxes in dusty attics just in case the secret traces of a long-lost life lies hidden, waiting to be brought to the archives.