Champion Pictures - In Cinemas Now

WATERMARKS

Rated: PG (Mild Themes)
Genre: Documentary
Running Time: 81 minutes
Tag Line: A celebration of Life
Language: Hebrew, English, German
Subtitles: English

Watermarks is the story of the champion women swimmers of the Jewish sports club, Hakoah Vienna. Hakoah was founded in Vienna in 1909 in response to the notorious Aryan Paragraph, which forbade Austrian sports clubs from accepting Jewish athletes. In the 1930s Hakoah's best-known triumphs came from its women swimmers, who dominated national competitions in Austria. After the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, the Nazis shut down the club. The swimmers managed to flee the country before the war broke out, thanks to an escape operation organized by Hakoah's functionaries. Sixty Five years later, the director, Yoram Zilberman brings some of the swimmers, now in their eighties together again in Vienna, a journey that evokes memories of youth,and strengthens lifelong bonds.

Judith Deutsch was one of Hakoah's champions. By 1935 she held every Austrian middle and long distance freestyle record, her achievements emphasizing Hakoah's iron will to maintain sporting excellence in times of adversity for the Jewish community. In early 1936, Judith became the first Hakoah member to win the Golden Badge of honor, a prestige annually bestowed on Austria's top three athletes. Unfortunately, her status as national sporting hero was short-lived; within a year, she was permanently banned from competition and saw all her records erased from official books. These slights resulted directly from her courageous decision to refuse competing in the Nazi Berlin-held Olympic Games. Deutsch was not alone in her justified defiance: teammates Ruth Langer and Lucie Goldner joined her in the boycott.