THE DR. RALPH GUREVITCH
TIKKUN OLAM SCREENING
“Repairing the World”
THE LIGHT OF HOPE
This stirring Spanish drama is based on the inspiring true story of Elisabeth Eidenbenz, founder of the Mothers of Elne, a maternity home in the south of France on the Spanish border. In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, as thousands of refugees flee Franco’s regime in Spain and Vichy refugee camps, young Swiss volunteer Elisabeth Eidenbenz arrives in the south of France near Spain to aid those suffering from disease and malnutrition. Appalled by the dire conditions facing pregnant women, and children, Eidenbenz transforms an abandoned old villa into a birth clinic and safe haven for these young mothers, their newborn babies and small children. But when French authorities demand she turn over the Jewish refugees, Eidenbenz must make a decision that could endanger everyone in the maternity. By the end of the war, Elisabeth and her female staff had saved the lives of almost 600 infants. In 2002, Eidenbenz was honored by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations.